Victims Mark Harnish and Theresa Marcoux. Credit: Hampden DA
The guiding principle of the Hampden District Attorney’s Office (Mass.) is to relentlessly pursue justice for the citizens of Hampden County, particularly those who are impacted by crime. This pursuit of justice is never easy, and it sometimes takes a long and circuitous route. After almost 46 years, an arrest has been made in the homicides of 18-year-old Theresa Marcoux and 20-year-old Mark Harnish.
On Nov. 19, 1978, the bodies of Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish were found just off Route 5 in West Springfield. Marcoux had attended East Longmeadow High School and was described as someone who loved to laugh and always had a smile on her face. Before her death, Marcoux was working at a local hardware store as a clerk in their pet department. Harnish had also attended East Longmeadow High School. He was known as a quiet, polite young man who had been working at a car repair shop in town. Tragically, their young lives were cut far too short by a horrendous act of violence.
On November 19, 1978, at approximately 9:30 a.m., an officer of the West Springfield Police Department was on patrol when he observed a 1967 green Dodge pickup truck parked in a roadway rest area on Route 5/Riverdale Street. The officer saw that the driver's side window of the truck was damaged and noticed blood in and around the vehicle. The officer then discovered the remains of two individuals, one female and one male, just over a nearby guardrail. Each victim appeared to have sustained gunshot wounds.
The victims were identified as Theresa A. Marcoux, and Mark L. Harnish. Both were last seen alive on the morning of November 19, at approximately 12:30, leaving a party hosted by friends. The pickup truck was owned by Harnish.
Additional first responders were called, including detectives from the West Springfield Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police. The forthcoming investigation saw painstaking efforts to document and photograph the scene, with physical and biological evidence collected by investigators. The rest area was thoroughly searched for evidence, yet no firearm was recovered.
Investigators concluded that Marcoux and Harnish had been shot while in the passenger compartment of the pickup truck and their bodies were moved to the area where their remains were later discovered. Autopsies determined that the cause of death for each victim was multiple gunshot wounds. The medical examiner opined that their time of death was during the early morning hours of November 19. A witness who lived in the area also reported hearing multiple gunshots at approximately 4:00 a.m.
Spent projectiles were recovered from the victims’ remains and the passenger area of the pickup truck. Ballistics examination concluded that the recovered projectiles were all fired from the same unknown firearm which was capable of firing 38-caliber ammunition.
When investigators processed the pickup truck, they located a latent print in what appeared to be blood on the passenger-side vent window. Marcoux and Harnish were eliminated as a possible source of this latent print. Over the years as the investigation continued, this latent print was entered into the Massachusetts Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), and was also manually compared with approximately 70,000 known fingerprint cards. As of October 2024, there was no match.
Despite the continual efforts of investigators over the past few decades, and the concerted efforts of the Hampden District Attorney’s Office in the last several years, the case was not any closer to any conclusions. However, in just the last month, information was received from an individual who provided investigators with the name of Timothy Scott Joley and information as to Joely’s purported involvement with the deaths of Marcoux and Harnish.
Two law enforcement investigators, with extensive experience in fingerprint analysis, comparison, evaluation and verification were enlisted. They were provided with Joely’s fingerprint identification card and compared the previously unknown latent print recovered from the passenger vent window of Harnish’s pickup truck. Each investigator determined that the fingerprint originated from Timothy Joely’s left thumb. Investigators have also learned that Joely was a licensed gun owner in November 1978, and that he purchased a Colt handgun approximately one month before the murders of Marcoux and Harnish.
Based upon these very recent developments, investigators sought a complaint and arrest warrant charging Timothy Scott Joely, age 71, of Clearwater, Florida, with the murders of Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish in 1978. A two-count murder complaint and arrest warrant for Joely was issued by the Springfield District Court on Oct. 29, 2024.
On October 30, Joley was arrested at his residence in Clearwater, Florida and was held, without bond, at the Pinellas County Jail. On November 5, Joely appeared before a Circuit Judge in Pinellas County, Florida and waived extradition. Joley will be returned to Massachusetts in the coming weeks to face these charges.
Republished courtesy of The Hampden DA