GREENFIELD — The bloodhound is a man-tracking machine.
Phillipston Police Officer William Chapman, a K-9 handler, testified Friday that he and his police bloodhound tracked Brittany Smith’s scent trail from her grandmother’s house to the 581 East River St., Orange, home of Thomas Harty, 95, and his wife Joanna Fisher, 77.
Smith, like Joshua Hart, is charged with murdering Harty and fatally wounding Fisher before stealing the couple’s vehicle, to which she has pleaded not guilty.
Smith’s mother, Nicole Smith, testified she saw Smith at the grandmother’s home for dinner on Oct. 5, 2016, the night of the murder. Chapman said Smith’s grandmother and mother cooperated with police when he arrived at Smith’s grandmother’s home on Oct. 6.
They provided him with a pink top Smith had worn recently. Smith and Hart were already suspects at this point because of surveillance images showing the two at a Walmart around the same time Harty’s stolen credit card had been tried, and rejected, in an attempt to purchase items.
Chapman’s bloodhound was allowed to sniff the pink top in order to learn Smith’s scent, and tracked that scent from her grandmother’s home at King James Court to East River Street, a parking lot off of East River Street and, ultimately, to 581 East River St.
“(The bloodhound) got just by the house, stopped, put its head up, turned,” Chapman recalled.
The testimony came on the second day of Hart’s case — Smith will be tried after Hart.
While Chapman did not use his bloodhound to track Hart’s scent, the prosecution argues Hart was with Smith during the home invasion. Amy Dahl, whose mother’s husband, Danny Hart, is Hart’s grandfather, testified that she saw Hart with Smith that day.
Furthermore, Dennis Brooks, Smith’s uncle, testified she saw someone who he believed to be Smith walking toward the Orange Airport — which is adjacent to Harty and Fisher’s home — on the night of Oct. 5 with someone who he believed to be male.
Chapman detailed the bloodhound’s efficiency in tracking compared to German Shepherds, which are better at sniffing for drugs and explosives.
“When it comes to the bloodhound, they are used for a very specific purpose and that’s only man-trailing,” Chapman said.
Chapman said the bloodhound’s olfactory system has developed genetically to give the animal a highly detailed sense of smell. The sense of smell is so honed, he said, that the animal will ignore older scent trails — Smith likely had many scent trails leaving her grandmother’s home.
“The bloodhound works to follow the freshest scent,” Chapman said.
In cross-examination, Chapman admitted to the defense team that he only followed the scent trail to Harty’s and Fisher’s driveway, not into the house, and reiterated that the bloodhound was only following Smith’s scent.