GREENFIELD — Smith was likely highly focused and possibly aggressive due to the effects of crack cocaine on Oct. 5, 2016 — the same night she allegedly beat a 77-year-old woman in a wheelchair.
That’s what the final witness for the prosecution said before the prosecution rested its double homicide case against Smith on Thursday, the fifth day of testimony in the Superior Court trial being held at the Franklin County Justice Center.
Smith, 29, of Athol, is accused of murdering Thomas Harty, 95, and fatally wounding Harty’s paraplegic wife, Joanna Fisher, after breaking into the couple’s home at 581 East River St. in Orange. Smith’s co-defendant, Joshua Hart, 25, of Athol, has already been found guilty in the attack. Smith has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The jury is expected to begin its deliberations today, following the defense’s case and closing arguments from both sides.
To explain Smith’s alleged aggressive behavior, Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Bucci called a psychiatrist to the stand to tell the jury how crack cocaine affects people, in some cases making them violent.
“It increases energy, it increases focus and attention,” said Dr. Alison Fife. “It can make people aggressive, but not always.”
Fife, a forensic psychiatrist who has practiced for several decades, said crack cocaine is the “most powerful stimulant” and its effects would override most other substances. Smith had allegedly also taken gabapentin, which can cause sedation.
Smith, by her own admission, was withdrawing from heroin at the time of the home invasion. Fife said heroin withdrawal can affect one’s emotions.
In addition to providing her insight into the effects of drug usage, Fife also revealed to the 14-person jury that she listened to, and analyzed, Smith’s interviews with police, during which Smith confessed to her role in the attack.
According to Fife, Smith was coherent and logical in the interviews.
Smith’s defense attorney, Mary Anne Stamm, had previously argued that Smith’s confessions were invalid because Smith was ill at the time and therefore could not properly process information. Judge John Agostini denied the motion to disallow playing the interviews during the trial.
“I observed her speech was organized,” Fife said.
The prosecution rested its case following a string of witnesses, which included Fife, Massachusetts State Police, Virginia police, a medical examiner, a K-9 handler and Smith’s mother.
The witnesses detailed their involvement in investigating the murders, which the state alleges occurred because Smith and Hart wanted to “overpower” the elderly couple and steal their car to flee Massachusetts.
Smith and Hart had been arrested two days before the home invasion for motor vehicle theft. Smith, a heroin addict, and Hart, who had warrants for his arrest from his home state of Pennsylvania, allegedly wanted to escape the consequences of those arrests, which might have been court-ordered inpatient drug addiction treatment and jail time, respectively.
They were captured on surveillance cameras using the victims’ Toyota Matrix and in department stores around the same time the victims’ credit cards were fraudulently used. A police bloodhound also tracked Smith’s scent from her grandmother’s house to the victims’ home.
When Smith and Hart were arrested as fugitives from justice in Virginia, they each gave two confessions to the Rockbridge County (Va.) Sheriff’s Department and Massachusetts State Police, which had tracked cell phone tower signals.
Stamm elected to delay her opening statement until the prosecution had rested its case. She told the jury that evidence in the trial had confirmed many of the prosecution’s allegations.
“The evidence in this trial has been that Joshua Hart and Brittany Smith entered that home at 581 East River St. in Orange on Oct. 5 2016, and that Thomas Harty was killed and that Joanna Fisher was attacked,” Stamm said.
However, Stamm said the allegations of murder against Smith have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and the jury must obey the law and find her not guilty.
“We know that there was no DNA found at that house,” said Stamm, who pointed out much of the physical evidence presented has damned Hart, not Smith.
“The physical evidence presented in this trial doesn’t give very much information about who attacked Joanna Fisher,” she added.
Fisher died about a month after the attack from complications related to her injuries, and had told her daughter that her attacker was female.
But Stamm called clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Sherry to the stand, who said Smith “could not have had the intent” to commit murder on the evening in question.
Sherry interviewed Smith 14 times following her arrest, conducting tests on her to determine her intellect and the nature of her psyche.
Sherry concluded Smith has below average intelligence, substance abuse disorder and borderline personality disorder, which has impaired Smith’s relationships and caused her depression.
When Stamm prompted Sherry to explain Smith’s frame of mind on the night of the attack, her questions were met by several objections from Bucci, all of which were sustained.
“(My) opinion was that she was withdrawing from her main drug, which was heroin, and she was trying to cover the …” Sherry said, but was not allowed to finish his explanation after Bucci’s objection.
Hart is facing two mandatory minimum sentences of life imprisonment without parole for the two first degree murder charges. He is expected to be sentenced on May 10.