GREENFIELD — A scheduling conference for 43-year-old Taaniel Herberger-Brown, a Greenfield man accused of murdering Christopher Hairston, of Pittsfield, has been set for Oct. 15 as the state continues to review forensic evidence and Herberger-Brown’s defense attorney awaits the results of a psychiatric evaluation.
Herberger-Brown appeared in Franklin County Superior Court alongside his attorney Nicholas Horgan Wednesday afternoon after 16 months of incarceration in the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction since his arrest in April 2024.
Herberger-Brown was arrested on a murder charge at Albany International Airport in New York on April 23 after reports of a foul odor brought police to his former apartment at 92 Chapman St. in Greenfield the day before. Upon arrival, Greenfield Police Officer Brent Griffin discovered a decomposing body, later identified as Hairston, in a storage bin.
“There is some additional forensic work being done at the State Police Crime Laboratory. Some of it’s been provided already to the defense, but there’s a second round of DNA testing that’s underway,” First Assistant District Attorney Steve Gagne said to Judge Jeremy Bucci on Wednesday. “We’re not in a position to certify that discovery is complete.”
In response, Horgan told Bucci that while his client’s psychiatric evaluation has made “pretty good progress,” it would take some more time before the defense could provide a completed report to the commonwealth.
Horgan said he also is looking at a “potential motion to dismiss” the case and requested a scheduling hearing for early October, which Gagne did not contest.
“Our psychiatric evaluation has made pretty good progress. In a couple more months, maybe three months, we’ll have a report that I can turn over to the commonwealth,” Horgan said. “We’re asking for the first or second week in October.”
The results of Herberger-Brown’s grand jury indictment in July 2024, which First Assistant Clerk Magistrate Benjamin Simanski read aloud before Judge Bertha Josephson in November, suggest Hairston died in February 2024.
“The grand jurors for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, under oath, presented Taaniel Herberger-Brown, of Greenfield in the county of Franklin, on or about Feb. 29, 2024, at Greenfield in the county of Franklin, did assault and beat Christopher Hairston with the intent to murder him, and by such assault and beating, did kill and murder, the said Christopher Hairston,” Simanski read.
In addition to the murder charge, Herberger-Brown also pleaded not guilty in November to two counts of malicious destruction of property, three counts of assault and battery, two counts of kidnapping and a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm as an armed career criminal.
According to the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, the assault and battery and kidnapping charges relate to a different victim and an incident that occurred inside Herberger-Brown’s apartment in February. The malicious destruction charges relate to damage that he allegedly caused inside his apartment and a laundry room in March and April.
While being investigated by Greenfield Police and Massachusetts State Police, Herberger-Brown allegedly told officers that a man, who he believed to be on drugs, had broken into his apartment and engaged in a physical altercation with him. Toward the end of the altercation, Herberger-Brown told police that the victim’s “heart stopped,” according to a police report written by State Trooper Blakely Pottinger.
The report also states that Herberger-Brown initially told officers that he was “in and out of hospitals” and “had not been at the [Chapman Street] apartment for several months.” Herberger-Brown, the police report states, allegedly told police he went to Albany International Airport with plans to visit his mother outside of the country.
Horgan declined to comment on the case Wednesday.
