A Napa Valley man employed by a former California Freeway Patrol captain to kill her husband has been discovered responsible as textual content messages revealed particulars of the murder-for-hire plot.
A Cumberland County courthouse in Kentucky discovered Thomas O’Donnell responsible Friday of killing Michael Harding, the estranged husband of Julie Harding.
Prosecutors say she employed O’Donnell, who she had steered to colleagues she was relationship, to hold out the slaying amid a contentious divorce, KCRA 3 reported.
The jury deliberated for less than about two hours after closing arguments.
“There’s no proof another person killed him,” Prosecutor Jesse Stockton mentioned as he rested his case earlier than the 12-member jury.
“All this proof factors to this newbie hitman from California. Do your responsibility. Discover him responsible of homicide.”
The fast verdict got here after days of testimony from dozens of witnesses, together with an FBI agent who walked jurors by means of 2022 textual content messages exhibiting how Harding was lured to a secluded dwelling underneath the guise of an HVAC restore.
Rutherford County Sheriff’s Workplace
“At 4:10 p.m., Michael Harding texts the pay as you go cellphone, ‘35 minutes out,’” Particular Agent Elizabeth Wheeler testified. She mentioned somebody replied, “No worries.”
Michael then responded, “Is that good for you?”
The consumer of the pay as you go cellphone replied, “Sure.”
“See ya quickly,” Michael texted.
“Good,” got here the response at 4:16 p.m.
FBI knowledge confirmed the pay as you go cellphone traveled alongside O’Donnell’s private cellphone, together with three journeys to Celina, Tennessee, the place Michael lived.
Two days earlier than the homicide, O’Donnell’s cellphone was close to Julie’s Sacramento dwelling similtaneously hers.
Prosecutors argued that is when she employed him. On the day of the killing, Julie Harding’s cellphone was in Sacramento, whereas O’Donnell’s cellphone and the pay as you go cellphone had been close to the crime scene in Kentucky, the place Harding was shot at a vacant dwelling on Sept. 19, 2022.
Prosecutors additionally pointed to DNA and ammunition proof, although investigators by no means recovered the homicide weapon, the pay as you go cellphone, or a key fob linked to the case.
The protection argued that cellphone knowledge solely reveals system places —not who was utilizing them —and famous there was no direct proof of fee.
Attorneys claimed O’Donnell was concerned in a plan however didn’t intend for Harding to be killed, suggesting a 3rd, unknown man might have carried out the capturing.
“Julie got here up with a plan involving one other man and Tom,” mentioned protection lawyer Sara Zeurcher. “Tom was concerned with this plan however didn’t intend for this consequence to occur. There was no proof he had any concept that Michael Harding can be murdered.”
The protection additionally pointed to Julie as the one one who might have identified the total fact. She died by suicide months after the killing.
The homicide occurred on Sept. 19, 2022, at a vacant dwelling on Glasgow Street in Burkesville, Kentucky. O’Donnell, 64, now faces 20 years to life in jail and he will probably be sentenced on Monday.
