By DAVID McLELLAN
Recorder Staff
GREENFIELD — Looking down at the floor, Brittany Smith heard the medical examiner who performed Joanna Fisher’s autopsy talk about the victim’s wounds.
“She never made it back to baseline,” said Dr. Andrew W. Sexton, describing Fisher’s health after she was brutally attacked in her home about a month before passing away.
Smith is standing trial for fatally wounding Fisher, 77, and murdering her husband, Thomas Harty, 95, on Oct. 5, 2016.
The prosecution alleges that Smith, 29, and her boyfriend, Joshua Hart, 25, both of Athol, crept into the elderly couple’s house in Orange to rob them.
They then allegedly killed Harty and beat and stabbed Fisher, who was in a wheelchair due to partial paralysis from a spinal stroke. Fisher was found on the floor of the 581 East River St. home the next morning when a Catholic Charities nurse arrived for a scheduled visit.
Sexton, who performed autopsies on both victims’ bodies, said the attack led to the deterioration of Fisher’s health and ultimately her death. Fisher’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease also worsened, Sexton said.
“My opinion is that she had an exacerbation of her COPD due to the deconditioning of her body,” Sexton said.
“What did you rule (the cause of death)? asked Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Bucci at the Franklin County Justice Center, Greenfield, Wednesday.
“A homicide,” Sexton told the jury and Judge John Agostini.
Smith has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Hart, however, has already been found guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree, each of which carries a life sentence without parole.
But in Smith’s audio-taped interview with police, played for the jury on Tuesday, she admitted to her role in the attack, which the prosecution has termed a “joint venture” between Hart and Smith.
Smith said she beat Fisher, hit her in the head and attempted to stab her while high on crack cocaine.
Hart describes Smith
In Hart’s recorded confessions — a portion of one was played for the jury Wednesday — he attempted to minimize Smith’s role in the attack, but finally admitted Smith beat Fisher when police told him Smith had already confessed.
“No one was kind of the mastermind behind it?” Massachusetts State Police Trooper Stephen Bushay can be heard asking Hart. “You were on the same page?”
“Mhm,” Hart said.
Hart also described the attack on Fisher, and said he stabbed her after Smith attempted to — Smith said in her interview she didn’t have the strength to break the victim’s skin.
“She (Fisher) kept saying, ‘Save me. Save me. I didn’t see you,’” Hart said.
The prosecution alleges that Smith and Hart had been arrested for stealing Smith’s great-grandmother’s car to buy heroin on Oct. 3, 2016, two days before the home invasion.
Panicking, the two allegedly decided to choose victims they could “overpower” and steal their car, fleeing the state to escape any possible consequences of their arrests. Smith, a heroin addict, and Hart, who had warrants for his arrest from Pennsylvania, might have faced court-ordered drug rehabilitation and jail time, respectively.
While traveling as fugitives in the victims’ Toyota Matrix — stopping frequently to use the victims’ credit cards — Smith checked her Facebook and called her mother, Hart said.
“She was freaking out because everyone (on Facebook) was saying, ‘You’re a murderer,’” Hart said.
“I’m the more logical, she’s more emotional,” he added.
Smith and Hart were eventually arrested in Rockbridge County, Va., having been tracked by Massachusetts State Police. The Rockbridge County Sheriff’s Department closed in on them at a local Walmart after an employee recognized Hart from a wanted picture.
The defense, led by Attorney Mary Ann Stamm, has yet to make its case, and is expected to make an opening statement and begin calling witnesses Thursday.
Agostini said the 14-person jury — four men and 10 women — will likely begin its deliberations on Friday after closing arguments from both parties.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-72-0261, ext. 268.