Deptford woman sentenced in son's murder

PRESS RELEASE
November 3, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO

Martina Harding (DOB 12/13/65), was sentenced today to 22 years in New Jersey state prison after pleading guilty Sept. 26 to first-degree aggravated manslaughter in a 2007 fatal knife attack on her six-year-old son in the family’s 727 Dartmouth Road home in Deptford Township NJ.

Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. said the negotiated plea recommended by Trial Chief Mary Pyffer of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office was a reasonable resolution to an “extremely tragic” incident. Harding will serve 85 percent of the sentence- 18 years, 8 months and 15 days- before she is considered for parole. Upon release, she will be subject to five years of parole supervision.

As part of the plea agreement, Harding withdrew the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, previously filed with the court.

In the Dec. 22 incident, six year-old Jarod Harding’s throat was slashed and he died shortly after he was transported to Underwood-Memorial Hospital in Woodbury NJ. The attack in the living room of the home, using a kitchen knife, was witnessed by Harding’s nine-year-old daughter. She and Martina Harding’s husband, Christian, were not injured, but the defendant inflicted a cut to her own neck as well.

At sentencing, Christian Harding read a statement, asking for both mercy that would allow his daughter to some day see her mother outside of prison, and for justice on behalf of Jarod Harding, whose death, he said, came at the hands of “the person who had given him life.”

Martina Harding also addressed the court briefly, saying she lives with the memory of her actions Dec. 22 “every day.”

Avoiding a trial in which eyewitness testimony would have been required by the daughter, who has been adopted by relatives and is now living in another state, was a key consideration in plea negotiations in the case. Differing psychiatric opinions
on Harding’s mental state at the time of the slaying was another determinative factor in resolving the case.

“Asking Martina Harding’s daughter, who continues to have affection for her mother, to recite before a courtroom of strangers one of the most traumatic events a child could experience, weighed heavily in our thinking about how to prosecute this defendant,” said Trial Chief Pyffer.

Harding, who initially was placed in the Ann Klein Center, a state psychiatric hospital, is currently being held in a county women’s detention facility in default of $500,000 bail. She was credited in her sentencing for the 1,412 days she has been in custody.

At her Sept. 26 plea hearing, Harding was questioned by one of her attorneys, Fred Last. She acknowledged that in December 2007 she had been depressed for some time, had attempted suicide and was suicidal the day the of her son’s killing. She agreed with Last’s suggestion that she felt “it would be better off if the children came with you” and that she had acted to “carry that out” with Jarod, by cutting him with a knife.

Questioned by Pyffer, Harding agreed that she was clear-thinking the day of her plea despite taking several medications for pain and depression. She also said she was satisfied with her representation by experienced attorneys Last and Jeffrey Wintner over the past four years. Harding agreed with Pyffer’s characterization that, even though she did not intend to kill him, by inflicting two 1 ½ inch deep cuts to her son’s neck, “you were pretty sure-almost certain- that he would pass.” Her statement conformed with the manslaughter charge of “recklessly” causing death “under circumstances that manifest extreme indifference to the value of life” and Judge Marshall accepted the plea.