Deptford Mom Gets 22 Years in Son's Killing

A Deptford mother of two who killed her 6-year-old son and attempted to kill herself afterward was sentenced Thursday to 22 years in state prison for the 2007 attack.

Martina Harding, 45, who lived in the Oak Valley section of the township at the time, will have to serve 85 percent of the sentence–18 years, 8 months and 15 days–before she's eligible for parole. Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. called the aggravated manslaughter plea deal a reasonable sentence for an “extremely tragic” incident.

The fatal attack came just three days before Christmas in 2007. As her 9-year-old daughter watched, Harding slashed her son's throat and cut her own neck in the living room of their home on Dartmouth Drive. Jarod Harding was rushed to Underwood-Memorial Hospital, just a few miles up Mantua Pike, but died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Her husband, Christian, and their daughter were not harmed in the attack.

At her plea hearing in September, Harding said she had been depressed for some time prior to the attack, had attempted suicide and was suicidal the day of her son’s killing.

Trial Chief Mary Pyffer of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said differing opinions on Martina Harding's mental state and the difficulties in having family members testify were factors in making the plea deal instead of going to trial.

“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 Pyffer.

At the 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.”

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