Dark Downeast - The Murders of Mark Harnish & Theresa Marcoux (Massachusetts)

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

It was one of the most confounding unsolved crimes that the town of West Springfield, Massachusetts, had ever seen. Two young people, shot and killed in their car without any conceivable motive. This seemingly random double murder remained unsolved for over 40 years…Until police received a new tip that finally unraveled the entire mystery and led them to the door of a suspected killer.View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/markharnishtheresamarcoux Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case  

It was one of the most confounding unsolved crimes that the town of West Springfield, Massachusetts had ever seen. Two young people shot and killed in their car without any conceivable motive. This seemingly random double murder remained unsolved for over 40 years, until police received a new tip that finally unraveled the entire mystery and led them to the door of a suspected killer. I'm Kylie Lowe and this is the case of Mark Harnish and Teresa Marku on Dark Down East. It was just after 9.30 a.m. on November 19, 1978, and patrolman Earl Camp was driving down Route 5 in West Springfield, Massachusetts, when he passed the rest stop between the memorial and north end bridges. As he glanced over at the parking spots, he noticed something

concerning. According to reporting by Kelly Christman for the morning union, parked there in the lot was a beat up pickup truck. The officer had seen the same truck earlier that morning and it hadn't moved, but seeing it again, he realized that a window was shattered. Getting out of his cruiser and approaching the vehicle, the officer saw what appeared to be blood pooling beneath the truck and a trail of it leading towards the edge of the parking lot.

At that moment, he dreaded what he might find inside the truck's passenger compartment, but a tentative peek inside revealed it was empty, except for even more blood. for even more blood. The officer followed the trail in the parking lot away from the truck for about 15 feet, past a blood-smeared guardrail, and down over an embankment, past a concrete retaining wall. That's when he found them. Two people, their lifeless bodies,

laying face down on the riverbank, about five feet apart from one another. It appeared they'd suffered multiple gunshot wounds to their heads. Patrolman Camp called for additional units to respond to the location and soon the rest stop was taped off as the scene of a double homicide. The victims were later identified as 20-year-old Mark Harnish and 18-year-old Teresa Marku. Mark and Teresa had both attended East Longmeadow High School, about

15 minutes away from the city of West Springfield. At the time of his death, Mark was employed by Shaker Foreign Car Repair as a mechanic, and Teresa worked in the pet section at Brightwood Hardware, both in their East Longmeadow hometown. Teresa had moved out of her parents' house when she turned 17, and reports say that both Mark and Teresa had been living out of Mark's 1967 Green Dodge pickup truck. They usually parked it around spots in East Long Meadow when they weren't staying over at friends places. The truck itself was in pretty rough condition. You can see a photo of it at darkdowneast.com. Carol Sullivan and

Frank Faulkner report for the Republican that the driver's side door was tied shut and the passenger door was missing a door handle on the inside. It's believed that Mark and Teresa had to get in and out of the truck by climbing through the window on the passenger side. The truck also had a bumper sticker affixed to the tailgate. It read, staying alive is no accident. As the investigation began to unfold that November morning in 1978 and continued over the course of what would become a 40-plus year case, investigators from West Springfield as well as East Longmeadow and the Massachusetts State Police

worked in tandem to figure out what went down on that patch of pavement running parallel between Route 5 and the Connecticut River. West Springfield and Massachusetts State Police investigators documented the scene and photographed Mark's pickup truck. The floorboards inside the passenger cab were blood soaked, so much so that blood could be seen leaking out and forming a pool on the ground below, which is what the patrolman had witnessed when he first checked the truck. In addition to the broken driver's side window that the patrolman had seen, the passenger window was rolled down and the passenger door was blood stained. The guardrail near where their bodies were found was dented and also

bloodied. According to reporting by George Latanzio for the Morning Union, the blood trail from the truck to the location over the cement retaining wall led investigators to believe that they'd been dragged from the cab of the empty pickup truck and over the guardrail where they now lay. Autopsy examinations determined that the victims had been shot at point blank range. According to reporting by Stephanie Barry for the Republican, Teresa was shot within 12 inches twice. Based on visible gunpowder stippling on his face, Mark was also shot at close range at least three times.

Spent ammunition recovered from their bodies as as well as at the scene, appeared to have been fired from a large-caliber handgun, possibly a.38 caliber. The rest stop where Mark and Therese's bodies were found wasn't a usual hangout for them, but it was known as a so-called lover's lane. Reports say that police routinely kicked people out of there for loitering, but a former student who was familiar with the area said after about 10 p.m. each night,

police didn't really bother anyone who might be there. Mark and Teresa's friends told police that they last saw the couple leaving a party together around 1230 a.m., which would have been early Sunday, the same day they were believed to have been murdered. Other people which would have been early Sunday the same day they were believed to have been murdered. Other people who were in and out of the rest area between 330 and 630 a.m. reported to investigators that they didn't hear any gunshots during that time and they weren't sure if the truck's

window was already broken. However a witness who lived nearby told police that they heard multiple gunshots sometime around 4 a.m. Based on those witness accounts and the last time the victims were last known to be alive, the time of their deaths was estimated to be sometime between 1 a.m. and 9 a.m. on the day they were found. In the coming days, police scoured trash cans, motels, culverts, and roadside ditches in search of discarded evidence, be it bloodied clothing or a weapon that might connect back

to Mark and Teresa's murders. If they found anything, it wasn't a metaphorical or actual smoking gun. No case-closing evidence that put an end to the fear that it infiltrated the West Springfield and East Longmeadow communities. However, investigators were able to recover at least two bullets for ballistic examination. Some sources say as many as five bullets were recovered. As police waited on the ballistics results, they workshopped possible scenarios with the evidence they had before them. The killer or killers may have shot

through the driver's side window into the cab of the truck and then pulled Mark and Teresa's bodies through the passenger window, carrying them down over a guardrail and leaving them on the Connecticut riverbank. That would explain the broken window, the bloodstain patterns and other clues at the scene, but it didn't explain why.

The motive for this double murder confounded police. They didn't find any money on Mark or Teresa, but they couldn't confidently say if robbery was a factor. The medical examiner found no sign of sexual assault and Mark and Teresa were found fully clothed in jeans, shirts, and jackets. According to a UPI report published in the Daily Item, there was no evidence of drugs in their systems, though there was an insignificant amount of pot found in the cab of the truck, small enough that police didn't believe drugs or drug trafficking played a role in the shooting. After speaking with friends of Mark and Teresa, police also ruled out the possibility that

this murder was romantically motivated, like a love triangle turned deadly or some sort of jealousy-fueled attack like that. Police were looking into reports that Mark may have been in an argument or fight of some kind with some area teens over the previous month, but the more people police talked to, the more nebulous these theories became. These were nice, quiet individuals who didn't have any enemies to speak of who were making their way in the world the best they could. It remained a real, terrifying possibility that this was a case of wrong place, wrong time. A completely senseless and motive-less thrill kill.

Within days of the initial discovery, police disclosed a major finding. Processing the truck for evidence had produced what officials referred to at the time as a very good set of fingerprints found in blood on the passenger side vent window. Now investigators were checking those prints against family and friends of the victims to rule out anyone who would have otherwise had access to the truck. Fingerprints have long been part of forensic science and crime scene investigation,

but the 1970s was a turning point in how prints were analyzed and compared to samples, whether they were patent, plastic, or latent. The FBI began using an early iteration of the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System — APHIS for short — which essentially digitized fingerprint cards, but manual comparison was still primary practice and a necessary, albeit painstaking and labor-intensive process. So finding a print at the scene was a big deal, yes, but it was also just the start of that investigative avenue.

There had to be a known sample of a suspect for the print to really mean anything. In the meantime, police appealed to the public for any information about the killings and released photos of Mark and Teresa hoping their faces might register with a witness who maybe didn't even realize they were holding the key to the case. But a week and a half later, the leads that came in didn't develop into any arrests. George Latanzio and Christine Constantinos report for the Morning Union that detectives working on Mark and Teresa's case contacted authorities in New Haven, Connecticut after reports of a man who was shot and killed

while sitting in the front seat of his car the same day that Mark and Teresa were murdered. The lead didn't go anywhere though. The cases appeared to be independent of one another. The thought that Mark and Teresa could have simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time left the community reeling. The parking spots at the rest stop, typically full for hours overnight as passing motorists stopped for a break or teenagers snuck away for some privacy, were empty. Friends and family of Mark and Teresa mourned as they were laid to rest amidst the ongoing investigation.

In mid-December, the results of the ballistics testing were finally made public. Detective Captain Richard Kulig announced that the murder weapon was determined to be a.38 Colt or similar pistol. However, later on, authorities were not as specific about the firearm beyond confirming it was capable of firing 38 caliber ammunition. Whatever it was, the killer fired all five shots from the same gun. The investigation stretched into the new year

and well beyond the Massachusetts state border. By the end of January, 1979, police had traveled to Pennsylvania and New Jersey and upstate New York, running down tips and information they'd received from reported informants. By April of 1979, the fingerprints found in the truck had been compared to a few possible suspects but none matched. The comparison continued as months wore on and tips dwindled. At one point, police checked out a story from a local man who said he'd tell police who killed Mark and Teresa if they'd offer him leniency in his own sentencing for an unrelated

felony case. Turns out, he didn't actually know who the killer was, and his claims were entirely false. That wouldn't be the last time investigators encountered exaggerated or fabricated stories while investigating what became known as the rest stop murders. The following summer, one such story had police traveling out of state to speak with a convicted killer who was claiming responsibility for numerous crimes across the United States. According to an Associated Press report in the Courier News, in 1954, 25-year-old Joseph J. Fisher confessed to police that he beat 16-year-old Harry Powell III with a slab of rock in Branchbrook Park in

Newark, New Jersey after the teenager said something that made him mad. He later entered a plea of no defense for the killing and was handed a life sentence for the murder. This wasn't Joseph's first run-in with the law. In 1949, before his murder conviction, Joseph was arrested for beating and robbing a soldier for $5 in Branchbrook Park, the same location where he'd later kill Harry. For that offense, he was sent to what was then known as Bordentown Reformatory, a detention facility for young offenders for an indeterminate sentence.

Even before that, Joseph had a history of violence and had spent long stints in institutions. His diagnosis was referred to by 1950s era reporting as, quote, a psychopath subject to violent outbursts, end quote. He was also diagnosed with dementia precox, a term that is no longer used. Bruce Bailey reports for the Star Ledger that in Joseph's instance, his condition consisted of losing interest in people and things, rapid decline in coherence, speech and abilities, and an inability to participate in daily life. Each time Joseph was released from the hospital or prison,

his family expressed their deep fear and concern for the danger he posed to others and to himself. While serving his life sentence in a New Jersey prison for Harry's murder, Joseph met 78-year-old Claudine Eggers through a pen pal program. An Associated Press report published in the Boston Globe indicates that despite their age difference, Joseph was 50 years old at the time, the pair developed a connection

through their letters that evolved into a relationship and then marriage. Claudine and Joseph tied the knot when he was paroled in 1978. He served 25 years of his life sentence. Their relationship was punctuated by Joseph's frequent absences. Claudine's children tried to talk to their mother about her new husband's past and his unexplained disappearances and tried to dissuade her from giving him large sums of money, but she was reportedly devoted to Joseph, no matter what crimes he was convicted of committing. However, that devotion faded after Joseph left

in January of 1979 and was gone for almost six months. Claudine decided to file for an annulment and it was believed to be finalized when in July of 1979, state police found Claudine's body at the home she once shared with Joseph in Dutchess County, New York. She'd been stabbed multiple times. Joseph turned himself in the next day, confessing to the murder of Claudine and telling police

he was tired of running, and the killing of his former wife wasn't the only death he had on his conscience. Joseph said he wanted to get it off his chest, and then rattled off the locations of at least 19 other murders he claimed he committed in the year after he was granted parole and even before that. He claimed responsibility for the murders of victims in New Jersey and New York, around New England, in Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and as far as California, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Oregon.

Joseph's apparent confession sent police across the United States digging into their file cabinets for unsolved homicides that fit his stories. And they did find some cases with similarities, but Joseph wasn't the most reliable source. As investigators in numerous jurisdictions failed to find any real connection between Joseph and their unsolved cases, many doubted that he truly committed the killings that he said he did. But still, at least in the unsolved case of Mark Harnish and Teresa Marku, police weren't willing to leave a lead unchecked.

In mid-August 1979, a West Springfield detective visited Joseph Fisher at the prison where he was being held in Poughkeepsie, New York for an interview. At the time, police wouldn't confirm what they were talking to Joseph about, but after an extensive conversation with the confessed killer, it was doubted that he had any real knowledge of or connection to Mark and Theresa's deaths. Despite that doubt, police still sent Joseph's prints for comparison to the print lifted from Mark's truck. The result of that match isn't clear, but we do know that Joseph was never charged with any crimes in his lifetime relating to Mark and Teresa's murders. As for the case of Claudine Eggers,

Joseph was ultimately found guilty of her murder, even after changing his story at trial. He was sentenced once again to 25 years to life in prison. Over the years, Joseph's claims multiplied, and in some sources, the number climbed to over 100 murders. But as for other crimes he claimed responsibility for and was actually connected to, Joseph was charged with the beating death of 38-year-old Betty Jo Gibson in Moore, Oklahoma in May

of 1979. He was actually already a suspect in that case, and a warrant was issued before he turned himself in for Claudine's murder, so we can't really say his stream of confessions after killing Claudine directly resulted in those charges. Joseph pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death for Betty Jo's murder, but he had to serve out his time in New York for Claudine Egger's murder first. He died in prison before that ever happened. A few months after the West Springfield detective talked to Joseph Fisher, the one-year anniversary of Mark and Teresa's murders came and went without any significant updates.

Their names began to fade from the news, and the case file began collecting dust. Though infrequent tips may have come in throughout the next few years, the seemingly random killings were left unsolved, just waiting for new information that would change the course of the entire case. Joseph Fisher was not the only person who claimed responsibility for Mark and Teresa's deaths during the years that the case sat unsolved.

According to an award-winning two-part story written by Jack Flynn, published in the Republican newspaper in 1981, after a three-year investigation into the double homicide, the case had a few things going for it. The fingerprint, a possible robbery motive, and at least one suspect. This one suspect was a man who police had learned was visiting the West Springfield area from Buffalo, New York around the time Mark and Teresa were killed. This man had allegedly confessed to a cellmate that he had robbed and killed two kids in West Springfield in 1978. The location, year, and details, however scarce, seemed to line up with Mark and

Therese's case. So police jumped on the lead. The man submitted to a polygraph examination, but reportedly passed. The suspect's prints were also checked against those found on the truck, but it wasn't a match. There remained a possibility that the polygraph was faulty and the print on the truck could have been that of an accomplice, but either way, no arrest came from this supposed jailhouse admission. After three years and counting, police weren't shying away from any investigative method that might further develop the case. In November of 1981, they returned to the rest stop, this time with a sidekick. She walked along the guardrail and took in the scene. After 20 minutes, she scrawled a strand of words into a notebook.

Yellowish brown. Jacket. Dark. Quarrel or discussion. Triangle. Person. Blue shirt. Friend.

Moved. Missing links. Water. Whether the words meant anything to the case or aligned with information police had already uncovered, it's really not clear. Investigators were still left making educated guesses as to the mind of the killer and what went down in that rest stop parking lot. Detective Sergeant Ellen White had theorized in 1981 that someone approached the truck

in a plot to steal it. But because the driver's side door was tied shut, Mark and Teresa couldn't get out, and so the would-be car thief shot at them. After the killer dragged their bodies out, they may have decided the truck wasn't worth stealing given its run-down condition, and so the killer took off. Amidst the unconventional tactics and hypothesizing based on the limited evidence, police also kept revisiting the latent print found on Mark's truck window. Comparisons had ruled out Mark and Teresa themselves, as well as many family members,

friends, and acquaintances. Even some would be suspects. Over the years, that print was manually compared to upwards of 70,000 known fingerprint cards without identifying a match. It was even entered into the Massachusetts Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or APHIS, when it became available and still nothing. Nothing for over 40 years, a long, long time to wait. But time would prove to be exactly what this case needed. Time is what changed the mind of a witness

who finally decided to unburden themselves of information they'd kept concealed. Information that pointed police to a new suspect who'd left one small but critical piece of evidence at the scene of the murders. The news came just a few days shy of the 46th anniversary of their murders. The Hamden County District Attorney Anthony Galluni joined West Springfield and Massachusetts state police officials, as well as surviving family members of Mark

Harnish and Teresa Marcoux, to announce that after almost half a century, they'd identified and arrested a suspect in the unsolved double murder case. It all started with an interview with a witness in October of 2024. The witness is referred to only as witness number two in a report by state police trooper Thomas Sullivan of the unresolved cases unit.

This unnamed individual agreed to speak with the trooper. And during that conversation disclosed that they had information they were ready to share about the murders, something they'd known for a long time and had wrestled with in the back of their minds. Witness number two said that a friend had told them the name of the person responsible for killing Mark and Teresa. The conversation happened many years ago and the friend had since died.

They gave the officer a name, Timmy Jolie. As of October 2024, Timmy, or Timothy Scott Jolie, was living in Clearwater, Florida. But as investigators would soon learn, he lived in the Springfield area in 1978. They also learned that Timothy Jolie was a registered gun owner in November of 1978. He'd purchased a Colt handgun about a month before Mark and Teresa were shot and killed. According to Emily Sweeney's reporting for the Republican, working off the tip, Trooper Sullivan contacted Springfield Police Lieutenant Daniel Rayner to request a fingerprint card for the suspect.

It turned out that Timothy had applied for a cab driver's license in Springfield in 2000. That application required fingerprinting, but those fingerprints are kept in a separate database than criminal fingerprint cards. Meaning, Timothy's prints had never been compared to the latent print pulled from Mark's truck vent window before. Investigators in 2024 called in two experts

with extensive experience in fingerprint analysis, comparison, evaluation, and verification to compare the fingerprints on file for Timothy and the latent print lifted from the scene. Both of the fingerprint experts agreed. The fingerprint on the window matched Timothy Jolie's left thumb. An arrest warrant was issued on October 29th, 2024, and the next day, October 30th, police arrested 71-year-old Timothy Scott Jolie at his home in Clearwater, Florida. He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Who is Timothy Scott Jolie, the person accused of this almost 50-year-old double murder? That's a question still to be answered. There's no obvious motive for him to kill these two individuals, at least not one that investigators have publicly disclosed even after his arrest. The accused killer doesn't have a notable criminal record. A person by the same name and approximate age was arrested and charged with operating

under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a property damage accident in Wilberham, Massachusetts in March of 1984. A few months later, in May of 1984, a 30-year-old Timothy S. Jolie was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol again, after he and another driver, who also faced DUI charges, crashed into each other head-on. The drivers were both severely injured in the accident. That's about all I could find. He moved to Florida maybe sometime in the 80s, but was apparently back in Massachusetts

to apply for the cab driver's license around the year 2000. But there's not much else out there about this guy. We don't know yet if Timothy knew Mark and Teresa, or if this was a random thrill kill as investigators theorized back in 1978. We don't know if he would have otherwise been on the case radar if witness number two hadn't come forward last year. And to be clear, we don't know if he's truly responsible at this juncture, only that his left thumbprint appears to be at the scene of the crime. Timothy waved extradition and was transported back to Massachusetts for arraignment in early December 2024. He entered a not guilty plea and was ordered held without bail. On January

2, 2025, Timothy Jolie appeared in Springfield District Court for a brief pre-trial conference. Claire Overton reports for WWLP 22 News that Timothy's defense attorney and the prosecution agreed on upcoming court dates, including a probable cause hearing to examine the evidence, namely, the fingerprint match that led to his identification. That hearing will take place the second week of January 2025. Court records and case file documents related to this case have been impounded, so more details will be revealed as this case makes its way through the judicial system. I'll keep you updated as everything develops,

because as you well know, an arrest is only the first of many hurdles on the journey to justice in a longstanding unsolved homicide. Timothy Jolie is innocent until proven guilty, and we all must wait to see if the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the person responsible for the senseless and violent killing

of two young people more than 40 years ago. At the time she was killed, Teresa had been working at the pet counter in Brightwood Hardware Store for only two and a half months, but she made a strong impression with both the customers and the owner, Maurice. According to reporting by Joanne Moriarty for the morning union, Maurice said he knew he was going to hire Teresa the second she walked in. She'd been so friendly and playful with his dog, and he could tell she loved animals as she hugged the pup.

There was something special about Teresa, he said. When the arrest of Timothy Jolie was announced via the Hamden District Attorney's Facebook page, the thread was flooded with comments from those who knew Mark and Teresa. Many called Teresa by the nickname Terry. One woman told me that she and Terry were in the same 4-H square dancing group. She said they spent time together at parties and dances, going to the drive-ins and hanging out at parks in the summertime. She remembered Terry as a fun and witty young woman who got along with everyone in the group and was always,

always laughing. Mark was a quiet, carefree guy who loved cars, and he was pretty good when it came to tinkering with them them too. A friend of his remembered how Mark worked on his father's Mustang back in the day. He was known to pick up gigs like that, anything to keep moving forward and build his life. No matter how challenging things may have gotten for Mark, those who remember him say he had a smile on his face. He stayed optimistic and honest, even when he was down on his luck. Mark and Teresa's parents passed away

before the suspect was arrested for the murder of their children. Mark's brother died just weeks prior to the announcement that someone was in custody. The not knowing weighed on their family for decades. Mark's mother, Diane, told the Republican newspaper in 1981, It would be easier to take if we only knew why. But I'm convinced that God will settle this someday.

That's what I tell myself. Teresa's father Edward said in the same article, There was no rhyme, no reason to it. That's what makes it so frustrating. All you can do is hope that some day justice will be done, end quote. The someday that Mark and Teresa's families have longed for could soon be on the horizon.

The rest stop off route five, where Mark and Teresa's lives were violently ended, no longer exists. The pavement was torn up, the turnoff closed, and grass made a slow but steady return to the patch of land that saw everything that day. But even in the constant thrum of traffic passing by that reclaimed roadside riverbank, their memory will not be drowned out. There may be no shrine or marker to honor what happened there. No offerings of flowers on a roadside pull-off.

Still, long after the yellow tape was pulled away and the headlines gave way to other news and tragedies, Mark and Teresa's deaths remain an open wound that will not be forgotten. A wound that now, more than ever in the last 40 plus years, could finally see an antidote of justice. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com.

Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audio Check. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?