▶ Watch Video: The Mansion Above Dale Hollow Lake
The lake country straddling the Kentucky-Tennessee border has a quiet, majestic beauty. But in September 2022, that vast landscape seemed to have swallowed up Mike Harding, a California transplant who disappeared without a trace.
JULIE HARDING (phone call): Hi Captain, this is Julie Harding with the California Highway Patrol …
Mike’s wife Julie Harding, a captain with the California Highway Patrol, began to place urgent phone calls to the Kentucky State Police from her home in Sacramento.
JULIE HARDING (phone call): I can’t get any information. And I just, I need your help with this … My concern right now … is where he is. Is he OK? … and what’s the status of this investigation?
The calls led her to a sheriff she knew — Brandon Boone of Clay County, Tennessee, whose office was spearheading the missing person’s case. But the answers were few and far between and Boone says Julie Harding grew frustrated.
Sheriff Brandon Boone: She got very angry with a couple of — of my people, uh, because we wouldn’t disclose certain information to her …
Within days, Julie was there in person on Sheriff Boone’s doorstep.
JULIE HARDING (bodycam): Hi.
SHERIFF BRANDON BOONE: How are ya?
JULIE HARDING: I’m good, how are you? Well …
In a moment recorded on a body camera, she immediately apologized for being rude.
JULIE HARDING (bodycam): Let me first apologize. My tone was inappropriate I was very irritated, umm, and I should have been more calm. My assumptions, umm, and my emotions in this, umm, killed my reasonableness so I apologize for how we spoke the other day.
OFFICER: Yes ma’am.
JULIE HARDING: OK. So, from now on, I, I hope it’s calm. I hope it’s cooperative. Umm, because all I want is Mike to come back in and go … I was in wherever fishing.
Boone sent her to a sheriff in Kentucky who had taken over the investigation.
SHERIFF BRANDON BOONE (bodycam): Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office has called us. They need you there.
JULIE HARDING: OK.
SHERIFF BRANDON BOONE: That’s all I can tell you.
JULIE HARDING: OK.
A grisly discovery
Just hours earlier, David Hammersley and his family were house hunting in nearby Burkesville, Kentucky. They went room to room at a vacant, three-building property — unaware of what lay ahead.
David Hammersley: … the rest of the party had gone to this building here …
Hammersley wandered into the garage and was surprised that there was a large pickup truck parked inside.
Peter Van Sant: The rest of the family has moved on to this cottage. What do you hear from the garage?
David Hammersley: Well, as they’re attempting to open the door, I hear this awful screech and, “Oh, it’s — it’s terrible. There’s something dead over here!”
Hammersley says his family figured some sort of animal must have wandered in and never got out. David walked over and stopped just inside the cottage’s front door.
David Hammersley: It was over 100 degrees at the time, I believe … and I was just attacked, if you will, by flies. … And the odor was just so overpowering.
What he then saw was far worse.
David Hammersley: I saw a man on the floor, his arm outstretched … obviously, dead from gunshot wounds … (sighs) Ah, sorry. … his life is gone under violent circumstances and just left there. It — it — it was devastating.
The dead body was Mike Harding, says prosecutor Ann Marie Gordon Anderson.
Ann Marie Gordon Anderson: It seemed like he had probably been there for a week, from September 19th [to] the 26th.
The Cumberland County Sheriff immediately called in the Kentucky State Police. Detective BJ Burton was assigned to lead the investigation. He learned that Mike Harding had been shot four times, twice in the torso and twice in the head.
Detective BJ Burton: It kind of looks like somebody that wants to be a professional hit man — but is not quite there.
Burton said the killer removed evidence from the scene, including the murder weapon and three shell casings. But the assassin left behind one distinctive shell casing; investigators determined it was from a Hornady Critical Defense bullet.
Back in Sacramento, Mike’s son Steven Harding, from Mike’s first marriage, was told his father had been murdered.
Peter Van Sant: And can you put into words the horror of this news for you?
Steven Harding: There’s really no words for it other than your best friend is gone (crying).
For Steven’s older sister Heather Cavalieri, also from Mike Harding’s first marriage, news of their father’s murder came from a friend.
Heather Cavalieri: I didn’t want to believe it, you know. I loved my dad … So, all of it’s just hard … it’s been hard. It’s been really hard.
At the crime scene, investigators were trying to figure out why Mike was at this seemingly random location. His cellphone was about to shed some light.
Detective BJ Burton: Once you start looking through the text messages and phone calls … it becomes very obvious early on that he was lured to the house.
The phone revealed texts from a realtor named James Fraser. He asked Mike — who owned an HVAC business — to check out the house.
Detective BJ Burton: He thought he was going there for … what he thought was a heating and air service call. … You see the text messages when Michael Harding is on his way there …
Around 4 p.m., Mike Harding texts James Fraser that he is “35 minutes out.” Fraser texts, “No worries.” Mike asks, “Is that good for you?” and Fraser tells him “Yes.” The final exchange Mike texts, “See ya soon.” Fraser replies “Perfect.”
While those texts gave investigators a solid timeline, the investigation hit a roadblock early on: they could not find a realtor named James Fraser.
Detective BJ Burton: So, it was probably just a made up name.
But they did have some potential leads. When investigators later contacted the phone company of the number used to text Mike Harding, they discovered that number came from a prepaid cellphone used only to arrange Mike’s murder.
Detective BJ Burton: It was pretty evident early on that this is a burner phone. …
Peter Van Sant: And for those who don’t know, what is a burner phone?
Detective BJ Burton: Somebody … goes and buys a burner phone, they’ll put in like John Doe, any town USA just they … think it’s untraceable at which to some degree it is.
And remember that pickup Hammersley saw in the garage? Burton said it was Mike Harding’s.
Detective BJ Burton: My thought is … whoever murdered him and then pulled the truck in the garage, there’s a very good chance that their DNA may also be in the truck.
Burton tried to call Mike’s wife, Julie, but she didn’t pick up. Burton had been told she was heading his way — to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, so he waited there to give her the bad news face to face.
The local legend of the “cursed” mansion
Steven Harding: When you see your hero get taken from you … you know you’re not untouchable …
After delivering the devastating news about Mike Harding’s death to his children, Detective Burton was desperate to reach Mike’s wife Julie, who indicated she was on her way to a local sheriff’s office.
Det. BJ Burton: Myself and another detective waited there for some period of time. … She never showed up.
A few days later, Burton located her at a neighbor’s house in Celina.
Detective BJ Burton: I introduced myself to her, uh, you know, try to talk to her. …
She referred all questions to her lawyer, which Burton thought was unusual for someone in law enforcement and the spouse of a murder victim.
Detective BJ Burton: She didn’t want to talk to me …
Burton and his team began investigating the Harding’s personal lives. They learned the two met online in 2018. Julie, 44, and Mike, 48, had both been through divorces. They married in 2019 and within months, Burton says they bought that spectacular house in Celina where they planned to live after retirement.
Julie’s close friend, Kathy Rourke says Julie was over the moon in love with Mike.
Kathy Rourke: She thought she had something that she — she wanted more than anything else … A man to come home to, a man to hug her, to comfort her, to make her feel like a woman.
Kathy Rourke: … she was so proud to be married, she was so proud …
When she turned 50, Julie would be eligible to retire from the California Highway Patrol — an iconic agency known around the world.
Kathy Rourke: Wearing her uniform was the greatest joy in her life.
Detective BJ Burton: I think early on in their marriage … the decision was made … Mike would go ahead and move to the lake house in Celina, Tennessee, so he could get his HVAC service repair business started there.
Julie planned to join Mike full time when she retired. But she was a frequent visitor, and the couple made the house a home, complete with Julie’s dog Chippy the Chihuahua and Mike’s boxer Charlie.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: The one thing that would always put a smile on Captain Julie Harding’s face were her dogs.
Julie and Mike Harding became friendly with the locals — including Sheriff Brandon Boone.
Sheriff Brandon Boone: … uh, very nice couple, talked about couldn’t wait to retire to get here full time.
Peter Van Sant: She seemed like a pleasant woman when you met her?
Sheriff Brandon Boone: Yes, she did. Very pleasant … They seemed like a, a wonderful couple together
Mike Harding’s children understood how their father felt about Julie but thought he was making a mistake.
Heather Cavalieri: I feel like he was blinded by love. He truly loved her … So, I thought he found his dream girl. But to me personally, I just, I didn’t like her.
Cavalieri says Julie Harding was arrogant and made her feel uncomfortable.
Peter Van Sant: Did the two of you ever go out and visit, uh, at the house in Tennessee?
Heather Cavalieri: No, I didn’t think that I would be welcome there.
Steven and Heather said they stayed away from the mansion, as did many locals. The house, Boone says, had a reputation for being cursed.
Sheriff Brandon Boone: There was a divorce that happened here that, that got pretty nasty. … We’ve had calls in the past of uh, gunshots that happened here that later ended up being a murder right in Burkesville. Uh, the gentleman who lived here shot the person up there.
Peter Van Sant: Now, is it true that a realtor actually brought some sort of spiritual person out here to try to purge the evil spirits from the house?
Sheriff Brandon Boone: Yes, that’s what the realtor advised me and told me — that he had, he had brought a guy here to uh, get the spirits to go away.
Peter Van Sant: And you’re serious?
Sheriff Brandon Boone: I’m serious.
And then there’s the legend of Dale Hollow Lake, which was created when the Army Corps of Engineers flooded a small town that became known as “the town that drowned.” Even today, the eerie foundations of the long-ago town are visible when the lake is low.
But Mike and Julie Harding ignored all the country rumors. And their long-distance marriage seemed to work.
Preston Cleary: Mike seemed pretty happy. He always bragged on her, how smart she was … he really cared about her. He’d do anything for her.
Sergeant Brian Wittmer worked side by side with Captain Julie Harding for several years.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: They looked like a very cute couple.
But Wittmer said sometime in 2022 he noticed a change in Julie.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: So for the first several years … I had never seen her consume any alcohol.
But then she began drinking.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: … she was going to Napa Valley and having drinks, having wine, going to — to vineyards on weekend trips.
Wittmer said it was almost like someone flipped a switch.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: … she was … hyper. Uh, she would talk a lot. She, um, was anxious.
Mike Harding’s friend Preston says that Mike also noticed the stark change in Julie’s behavior.
Preston Cleary: Mike was mad because she didn’t want to spend time with him …
Mike Harding revealed to Preston that he believed Julie Harding was cheating on him.
Peter Van Sant: Did Mike suspect there was another man in Julie’s life?
Preston Cleary: He, he did.
Mike Harding had noticed lingerie purchases in their Amazon account.
Preston Cleary: And she … had no plan to be here to see him.
Those Amazon purchases, coupled with Julie Harding’s drinking and the way she avoided spending time with Mike Harding, bruised his ego, Cleary says. But the biggest blow came when Julie told Mike she wanted to postpone her retirement for five years.
Preston Cleary: It was at that moment I seen a shift in their relationship and Mike … he had a different outlook toward her. … He was just crushed that she would choose to work five more years … he’s just like, this is, this isn’t going to work out.
Preston says Julie Harding filed for divorce in May 2022.
Preston Cleary: He was blinded. …he really, really loved her.
Sheriff Boone says the emotional turmoil took its toll on Mike Harding, who sensed Julie saw him as her enemy.
Peter Van Sant: Did you notice a change in Mike’s attitude? Did you notice kind of a paranoia?
Sheriff Brandon Boone: Oh, absolutely.
Mike Harding told Boone that someone had broken into his house one night while he was sleeping and he reported one of his guns had been stolen. After that, he made it a habit of wrapping chains with a padlock around his patio doors.
Sheriff Brandon Boone: And after seeing the locks and the chains around the door, you really think, whoa, you know, he was, he was afraid of something.
At the same time, Julie told friends and colleagues that she was afraid of Mike and feared he was engaged in some dangerous activities.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: She said that Mike … was potentially dealing ghost guns, drugs … was taking money from her bank accounts.
Mike Harding feared his wife, say family and friends
In May 2022, soon after Julie Harding filed for a divorce, Mike Harding told friends and family that he feared for his safety.
Steven Harding: There was solid steel chains wrapped around my dad’s front door and as well as his back doors … he would do that so that no one would come in while he was sleeping. Or if it was Julie, the dogs aren’t going to bark if you know the person.
Peter Van Sant: And so you’re telling me that your father feared Julie?
Steven Harding: Yes.
Prosecutor Jesse Stockton.
Jesse Stockton: …he told his friends that … If he ever was murdered or disappeared or something nefarious happened to him, that they needed to make sure somebody looked at Julie Harding.
Mike Harding’s friend, Preston Cleary, knew Mike also was worried about his savings, and he gave Mike some advice about the pending divorce.
Preston Cleary: … whoever gets to the bank first, you know, that’s their money. So, Mike, if you want to be fair, you go take half the money out of the bank. He goes, “no.” … He goes, “I’m going to do this in court.”
Around the same time, Sgt. Brian Wittmer says Julie Harding called him to announce that she was going to raid the family funds.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: She said that she was driving from Sacramento to Tennessee and she was going to withdraw money from her bank accounts before Mike Harding did.
At that point, Julie Harding was telling friends that Mike was involved with illegal weapons and narcotics.
Peter Van Sant: Did she think about turning in her own husband if he’s selling ghost guns and dealing drugs, for goodness sakes?
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: Well, that’s what you would expect from somebody … with her rank and her knowledge. And she would tell me that she had a friend working out in Tennessee law enforcement … that was potentially looking into things.
Peter Van Sant: Were you ever able to confirm that?
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: I was not.
Authorities say there is no evidence Mike Harding sold drugs or ghost guns or was involved in any other type of criminal activity.
Heather Cavalieri: I want people to know that he was a good man, he loved his family and he loved life. Any other narrative you hear is not the real narrative … We want the truth to be told, and that’s why we’re here.
Not long after telling Cleary he was not going to transfer any money out of the couple’s bank accounts, Mike Harding got a call from the bank.
Preston Cleary: The bank … had told him, “Julie Harding was just here, and she cleared out almost all your savings in your accounts” …
Julie Harding reportedly withdrew around $360,000 from various bank accounts, according to what Mike Harding told his divorce attorney. Julie’s friend Kathy Rourke says at least part of that money belonged to Julie.
Kathy Rourke: She didn’t need his permission.
Peter Van Sant: So she’s taking that money to do what with it?
Kathy Rourke: Bring it back here to California … She gave most of the money to her mom ’til she figured out what she was gonna do.
But Mike Harding’s son Steven says a lot of that money belonged to his father.
Steven Harding: My dad was a very smart, well-educated man. He was very good with stocks. … He was very good with his finances.
Peter Van Sant: In the days prior to his disappearing, he’d heard all this bad news. Money had been taken … There’s no reconciliation coming his way … How did that change him? …
Preston Cleary: It destroyed uh, the friend that I had … there was no more fishing for Mike … Mike was strictly business, trying to rebuild his life and get back to where he was.
And Mike Harding would rely on his HVAC business to rebuild his life — which is why friends say he responded so quickly to the call from the mysterious “James Fraser” asking him for a repair estimate at that empty house in Burkesville, Kentucky. Investigators strongly suspected there was a connection between Fraser and Julie Harding.
Det. BJ Burton: It was obvious that really the only main conflict he had going on in his life was this contentious divorce involving property and money with — with Julie Harding.
Peter Van Sant: In other words, if somebody had a motive, it was her.
Det. BJ Burton: Correct. Yes.
Burton says investigators soon learned that Julie Harding was in California at the time of Mike’s murder, but they suspected her just the same.
Det. BJ Burton: She contacted three different people involved in law enforcement during this time frame. And every one of them that she talked to … walked away with a feeling of suspicion that she was involved.
Lacking any cooperation from Julie Harding, Sheriff Boone, warrant in hand, led his armed deputies into the Harding mansion where Julie was staying after Mike’s death.
The deputies went room to room looking for clues.
No one was home, but the deputies found yellow Post-it notes that investigators say were handwritten by Julie Harding when Mike Harding was still alive. They read: “0 $ Here,” “0 $ here either,” and “Whatcha lookin 4?”
Detective BJ Burton: So there’s these little sticky notes when we did the search warrant down there that would say something like “no money here.” “Nope, no money here.”
Peter Van Sant: Taunting him.
Det. BJ Burton: Yeah, taunting.
Investigators began executing additional warrants — specifically for the call log of Julie Harding’s cellphone in the months before Mike’s murder. That’s when something caught Burton’s eye.
Det. BJ Burton: It jumps out that she’s calling this one number, that they’re talking almost every single day.
Peter Van Sant: … there were 194 calls made between her number and this other number, correct?
Det. BJ Burton: Yes, yes.
Peter Van Sant: That’s a lot of calls.
Det. BJ Burton: Yes.
Investigators traced that number to a man named Thomas O’Donnell, a former car salesman from Houston, Texas. He had recently relocated to the wine country of Napa, California — a place Julie Harding was known to visit.
Did Julie Harding hire a hit man to kill her husband?
After investigators discovered Julie Harding was talking incessantly to a man named Thomas O’Donnell, they explored that connection and learned the two likely met on a dating website that catered to self-described millionaires.
Prosecutor Jesse Stockton: … they had, uh, an extensive and significant relationship. Whether it was romantic or not, I cannot say, but they communicated with each other by phone for months …
For prosecutors Jesse Stockton and Ann Marie Gordon Anderson, the math did not add up. Two months of constant calls — 194 of them — stopped cold only days before Mike Harding was murdered.
Ann Marie Gordon Anderson: I think based on that … can probably speculate that there — there may have been some type of conversation … about what was going to happen.
Peter Van Sant: A conspiracy in other words.
Ann Marie Gordon Anderson: Conspiracy.
Investigators already knew the texts used to lure Mike Harding to his death came from a burner phone. They pulled the phone’s locational data from its service provider.
Detective BJ Burton: And the first thing you notice is … the phone is first turned on when it’s … in the Houston, Texas … area.
Houston, Texas—Thomas O’Donnell’s hometown. To investigators, that was too coincidental to be a coincidence.
Jesse Stockton: I don’t think Mister O’Donnell got out here by accident. … The only connection that he had to Michael Harding was through Julie Harding.
Investigators developed a theory that Julie Harding had paid Thomas O’Donnell to kill Mike Harding. And they thought it likely that O’Donnell was the fictional “James Fraser” who had lured Mike to that empty house. The next step in their investigation was securing the call log from O’Donnell’s personal cellphone.
Det. BJ Burton: When you start looking at the locational data from his personal phone and comparing it to the locational data with the burner phone, it — it matches up perfectly.
The FBI created maps that showed O’Donnell’s phone and the burner phone.
Ann Marie Gordon Anderson: … the red on the screen, it is the burner phone, that’s what it’s showing. Anything that you see that’s black, that is Thomas O’Donnell’s personal cellphone.
Investigators noted that the two phones were traveling in lockstep through the south in the weeks before Mike Harding’s murder.
Peter Van Sant: We know the burner phone is involved in the murder.
Ann Marie Gordon Anderson: That’s … it’s only purpose.
Background checks showed that, years earlier, O’Donnell had been arrested for stalking a girlfriend. He eventually received probation. But what really struck Detective Burton was how “irresponsible” O’Donnell was with money. He was no millionaire; O’Donnell appeared to be a man desperate for cash, Burton said.
Det. BJ Burton: It seems like his whole life, like he’s always just looking for the … next big thing that’s going to make him be able to afford the lifestyle that he wants to — to lead …
And Julie Harding, who admitted raiding the couple’s bank accounts, was loaded with cash after withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the couple’s bank accounts.
Peter Van Sant: Authorities think she took out that cash so she could pay Thomas O’Donnell to murder Michael.
Kathy Rourke: Absolutely not. That’s the most ludicrous thing. That’s what kills me about this whole story …
Peter Van Sant: Were you ever able to make a connection from all this cash that she took out and any sort of payment for Thomas O’Donnell?
Det. BJ Burton: No … it’s impossible to track. I mean if someone walks up and hands you a stack of cash … it’s untraceable …
But it wasn’t only money that Julie was after. Investigators say she wasn’t leaving Tennessee without Mike’s beloved dog Charlie.
Heather Cavalieri: I think she deemed Charlie hers. But that wasn’t her dog, that was my dad’s dog …
Police say Julie Harding was determined to get the dog back from a friend of Mike’s who’d been caring for Charlie since Mike went missing.
Steven Harding: … she knew I wanted the dog after we knew that my dad was dead.
But Julie Harding wasn’t in the giving mood, Mike Harding’s children say. Some two weeks after Mike’s body was found, Julie simply took Charlie for herself. She is captured on a Ring doorbell camera, boldly opening the front door and stealing Charlie from the friend who was taking care of him. Steven says he never saw Charlie again.
Steven Harding: I would have taken that dog in a heartbeat. I just, I feel like it would be better under my hands because I — I am my father. … I — I would have loved it like my dad did. I would protect it.
The friend who cared for the dog wanted to press charges against Julie Harding, but at that point, Burton says the focus was on processing evidence from the murder scene.
Prosecutor Jesse Stockton: … people from the Kentucky State Police lab come to the scene … and then they take a lot of swabs from Michael Harding’s truck because they also believe that whoever killed him moved his truck.
Peter Van Sant: Are they able to get a – a usable DNA sample?
Jesse Stockton: Yes …
That sample was found to be consistent with Thomas O’Donnell’s DNA.
Det. BJ Burton: So, we got to a point where there was just so much overwhelming locational data coupled with other evidence … where we felt like we had enough to make an arrest …
In early December 2022, two months after Mike Harding’s murder, investigators learned that O’Donnell was going to be at the Sacramento airport.
Det. BJ Burton: … most people aren’t going to fly or travel without having their phone on them. So, the thought was … we can catch him in the airport … we can also seize his phones at the same time.
Police searched O’Donnell’s truck and say they found one of Mike Harding’s guns. It was the same gun that had been stolen from Mike’s house. Also in the truck was a box of Hornady Critical Defense bullets, the same type of ammunition used in the murder.
Burton says there was not enough evidence to charge Julie Harding with murder but on the same day of O’Donnell’s arrest, Julie’s dognapping of Charlie came back to bite her. She was arrested and charged with criminal trespass.
Burton was hoping either Julie Harding or O’Donnell would flip on the other, but neither did. O’Donnell was held on the murder charges, while Julie was released on her own recognizance. The next day, Dec. 9, 2022, Julie’s superiors at the California Highway Patrol called her in Tennessee to inform her that her status as a peace officer was revoked.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: She’s a normal citizen at that point.
Peter Van Sant: Does she have to turn in her badge and her gun?
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: Yes, she would have –
Peter Van Sant: She’s disarmed.
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: Correct.
Peter Van Sant: Once she got released, did she give you a call?
Sgt. Brian Wittmer: I did not hear from Captain Julie Harding that evening.
Kathy Rourke: I think she was losing control … I think that anybody that wants to stand in her shoes needs to go and let themselves be booked into jail as a woman and go through what she went through. That broke her in two.
Julie Harding, the once proud captain of her own fate, was alone with her own thoughts in her supposedly cursed home overlooking Dale Hollow Lake.
An eerie fog descends on the supposed “cursed” mansion
It’s the morning of Dec. 10, 2022. An armed deputy, wearing a body camera, makes his way toward the Harding house—shrouded in an eerie fog—searching for a potential killer.
DEPUTY (bodycam): Are you the mailman?
DAVID OGLETREE: I am.
Just minutes before, mail carrier David Ogletree and another man had made a tragic discovery — what looked like a body at the base of that distant tree. They called 911.
911 OPERATOR: What’s going on honey?
DAVID OGLETREE: OK, this, this is David Ogletree, I’m the mailman up here and we may have a body laying up here.
911 OPERATOR: OK … We’ll get you someone up there in just a second OK.
Peter Van Sant: Hey David.
David Ogletree: Hello, how are you?
Peter Van Sant: Peter Van Sant, “48 Hours” CBS News. Nice to meet you.
David Ogletree: Nice to meet you.
What Ogletree saw that day is burned into his memory.
David Ogletree: She was, she was laying right up here beside this tree here face down.
Blood can be seen around the woman’s body.
DEPUTY (bodycam): Until uh, we get her turned over and see if there’s a gun, this could be a murder.
Sheriff Boone arrived at the scene. When investigators rolled the body over, they saw that it was Julie Harding. Her right hand was gripping a gun. An investigator concluded she took her own life.
Investigators also saw a bag next to Julie. Inside, note to Mike, stained in blood, which read:
“I lived a good life until a year ago. Mike, you win! You got what you wanted, me in a coffin…”
Det. BJ Burton: It was just bizarre … almost like she was obsessed with somehow trying to get back at Michael Harding or —I don’t know, didn’t really understand it.
But Burton had a theory, and it involved Thomas O’Donnell.
Det. BJ Burton: She knows her co-conspirator has been arrested. … She’s been suspended in California Highway Patrol … she saw the writing on the wall, what the future looked like, and wasn’t going to stick around for it.
But what role did Julie Harding play in her husband’s death? Investigators hoped they’d learn something when Thomas O’Donnell agreed to talk.
DETECTIVE BJ BURTON (police interview): So let — let me ask you this. When or how — when did you first meet Julie or how do you know Julie?
THOMAS O’DONNELL: I don’t know, Julie.
DETECTIVE BJ BURTON: Julie Harding?
THOMAS O’DONNELL: Doesn’t ring a bell.
After 20 uneventful minutes, O’Donnell requested an attorney, immediately terminating the interview. Seven days later, he was indicted by a grand jury.
O’Donnell pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. Three years later, on April 27, 2026, he went on trial at the Cumberland County Justice Center in Burkesville, Kentucky for killing Mike Harding.
PROSECUTOR ANN MARIE GORDON ANDERSON (in court): This case is about the murder of Michael Harding.
PROSECUTOR ANN MARIE GORDON ANDERSON (in court): According to Julie Harding’s phone records, between July 1st and September the 8th, of ’22, there were over 100 phone calls between her and the defendant, Thomas O’Donnell.
Gordon Anderson said Julie and O’Donnell used those calls to meticulously plan Mike’s murder. Why? Julie realized she’d likely lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in a divorce, said Detective Burton.
Peter Van Sant: One possible solution for Julie in this financial war is to do what?
Det. BJ Burton: Get rid of him.
Prosecutors believe O’Donnell posed as a realtor to get a key to gain access to the property in Kentucky. They told jurors the data from the burner phone puts him at the scene of the crime. And believe it or not, O’Donnell’s attorneys agreed O’Donnell, they said, was at the scene of the crime. It was a new admission that caught the prosecutors off guard.
Remember, after his arrest, O’Donnell told investigators he did not know Julie. Now, his lawyers said he not only knew Julie, O’Donnell worked with her to lure Mike to that house in Kentucky, but he never pulled the trigger.
Prosecutor Ann Marie Gordon Anderson: I was really shocked … they point-blank just said he was at the scene, he opened the door, but he let someone else in.
That “someone else,” says defense attorney Sara Zeurcher was the real killer. The defense claimed a neighbor saw two men at the property the day Mike was murdered.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY SARA ZEURCHER (in court): A neighbor told police exactly what he saw on September the 19th. Two men at the scene.
Investigators could find no evidence to back up the neighbor’s account. The defense also criticized the investigation itself and pointed out its shortcomings. The burner phone prosecutors talked about was never recovered. Neither was the murder weapon. And there was no evidence that Julie paid O’Donnell to kill her husband.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY SARA ZEURCHER (in court): If this case were a mystery novel … you’ll never hear the final chapter that explains what actually happened because the Commonwealth doesn’t know.
After five days of testimony, O’Donnell decided not to testify. The jury needed just two hours to reach a verdict.
JUDGE DAVID WILLIAMS (in court): We, the jury, agree by a unanimous vote that defendant Thomas O’Donnell is guilty of the offense of murder.
Jesse Stockton: … for the family, they finally got justice for their father … all I can do is take satisfaction that the proper thing was done.
Julie Harding’s close friend, Kathy Rourke, says Julie played no role in the murder of Mike Harding.
Kathy Rourke: If you knew her, you would know that she would never do anything cowardly or anything illegal, let alone try to kill this guy.
Steven Harding: She was the true monster of all of this … she was the one that executed every move, other than physically pulling the trigger on my father.
Heather Cavalieri: My dad was the victim in this case, not Julie.
Steven Harding and Heather Cavalieri said the victory at trial, while satisfying, will never temper their sense of eternal loss.
Steven Harding: He died before my 30th birthday and 29 years isn’t enough. I mean, people think 29 years is a lot, but it’s not …
Heather Cavalieri: I was close with my dad for a long time. … Just not having a dad, you know, someone to call, like he was a jokester, you know. He was fun with my kids. (crying) … It’s hard not having him here.
Thomas O’Donnell was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Produced by Paul LaRosa. Jordan Kinsey and Cindy Cesare are the development producers. Nancy Bautista is the associate producer. Wini Dini, Eric Modena and Greg Kaplan are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
