Overview
- A Kentucky jury found Napa resident Thomas O’Donnell guilty of murdering Michael Harding in a multi-state murder-for-hire case, and the court began the penalty phase.
- Prosecutors showed texts that lured Harding to a vacant Burkesville house for supposed HVAC work, with FBI data placing the prepaid phone that sent the messages near O’Donnell’s phone.
- Investigators said O’Donnell’s laptop twice searched the home’s address from a hotel an hour away, and surveillance video captured his car and Harding’s truck headed toward the scene.
- The defense argued there is no record of a payment from Harding’s estranged wife, former CHP Capt. Julie Harding, to O’Donnell, no forensic tie to a weapon, and that location data cannot prove who held the phones.
- Julie Harding died by suicide in Tennessee the day after O’Donnell’s 2022 arrest, and jurors saw her notes and heard former colleagues describe erratic behavior in the months before the killing.