HAVERHILL — Forty-year-old Sean LaRose of Haverhill will be 65 before he is eligible to apply for parole after being convicted last week of second-degree murder in the death of Joseph Smith of Lawrence in 2017.
During a sentencing hearing on Wednesday in Salem Superior Court, Judge Thomas Drechsler sentenced LaRose to life in prison with eligibility to seek parole in 25 years.
LaRose was found guilty on Oct. 31 of second-degree murder in the death of Smith, 33, of 30 Robinson Court, Lawrence. Police said LaRose shot Smith on the afternoon of Feb. 9, 2017, in the front, first-floor entrance of a three-story apartment building at 25 Portland St., Haverhill, then fled the scene.
LaRose was also found guilty of discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling and possession of a firearm without a license, for which he will serve time concurrent with the murder conviction. The charge of larceny of a motor vehicle that was also brought against him was dismissed prior to the start of the trial, according to the Essex District Attorney’s Office.
During the hour-and-a-half long sentencing hearing, Assistant District Attorney Maria Markos asked the judge to not allow LaRose to be eligible to seek parole until he serves 25 years in prison.
“Look at the facts,” Markos said, indicating that according to the police report LaRose fired five bullets at Smith, with three of them striking Smith, including one in Smith’s chest that severed his spine.
“The defendant’s behavior after the fact as he stood over a dying man’s body and asking how it felt, showing absolutely no remorse,” she said.
Markos called LaRose a “lifelong criminal” with convictions in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Florida, where he still has an active warrant for his arrest.
“This man has absolutely no regard for the laws of a civilized community,” she said.
Smith’s sister, Desiree Smith, 39, of Haverhill told the judge that LaRose handed down a life sentence to her family.
She said that when she was notified of the shooting, she raced to the apartment building and saw her brother on the hallway floor. Since that time, she said, her life has been a nightmare.
“Since then I suffer from PTSD, night tremors and depression and my oldest (child) was hospitalized for a while,” she said. “My mother died in July of a massive heart attack and also from a broken heart.”
Defense lawyer Stanley Norkunas of Lowell appeared to try to re-litigate the case by dipping back into facets of the trial suggesting Smith brought the gun to the apartment building where he was shot and that LaRose would not have had enough money to buy a gun on the street.
Drechsler responded saying he saw no evidence during the trial of anyone else having possessed a firearm other than LaRose.
Norkunas also tried to sway the judge by saying LaRose is bi-polar and that at the time of the shooting he suffered from depression and that he had turned to using crack cocaine.
“At the time he considered himself homeless,” Norkunas said, adding that in the weeks leading up to the incident LaRose had overdosed on drugs twice and that he’d spent five days in a psychiatric ward.
Dreshsler said he had been giving a lot of thought to why the shooting happened and concluded that LaRose’s motivation was to rob Smith.
“An argument over a $25 drug transaction is hard to comprehend,” the judge said. “To shoot somebody three times, twice in the body and once in the leg…”
The judge added that either shot in the chest would have been fatal, as was the bullet that struck an artery in one of Smith’s legs.
“That was also effectively a fatal shot,” the judge said.
Referring to LaRose’s criminal history, Drechsler called it “not a positive one,” and noted LaRose had been convicted of robbery and firearm offenses in Florida, and that in Massachusetts alone he’d faced a dozen arraignments on various charges including multiple cases of larceny, possession of drugs, receiving stolen property, and assault and battery. He added that while LaRose was serving time in jail he got into serious altercations.
“His conduct in jail speaks to someone who is violent and participating in a violent attack on an inmate for which he was convicted,” the judge said of LaRose. “The defendant, with malice, caused Mr. Smith’s death.”
LaRose had been held without bail since his arrest in 2017, according to the Essex District Attorney’s Office.
In a report filed in Haverhill District Court, police said LaRose often bought drugs from Smith, and the men were friends who sometimes got angry with each other.
According to a police report, when officers arrived at the Portland Street apartment building on Feb. 9, just before 5 p.m., Smith was lying in the hallway of the building, just inside the door. Police said Smith’s shirt was open, exposing his chest, and that it appeared there were two bullet wounds to his chest.
Police said they immediately identified the victim as Smith, who they said had a criminal history and was known to police, investigators said.
Hours later, the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section, K-9, and STOP team found LaRose hiding in a trailer in Amesbury and arrested him.