BURKESVILLE, Ky. (Court TV) — A man faces a potential death sentence in Kentucky if he’s convicted of killing the husband of a captain in the California Highway Patrol.
Thomas O’Donnell is charged with the murder of Michael Harding. (KXTV)
Thomas O’Donnell has pleaded not guilty to the death of Michael Harding, who was found shot to death at a vacant home in 2022.
At the time of his death, Michael Harding was estranged from his wife, Julie Harding, who worked as a captain with the California Highway Patrol. The couple, who had married in 2019, had homes in California and Tennessee. At the time of his death, Michael Harding was living in Tennessee, where he had an HVAC business, while Julie Harding was living in Sacramento, California. In documents filed ahead of the trial signaling their intent to seek the death penalty, prosecutors said that O’Donnell was hired by Julie Harding to kill her husband.
In their opening statements on Monday, prosecutors said that Michael Harding was last seen on Sept. 19, 2022, after he received a call from someone claiming they needed HVAC services. One week later, his body was found inside a home by a realtor who had come to show the property to clients. Investigators quickly determined that the same phone number that called Michael Harding to ask him to come to the property had also called the property’s listing agent, claiming to be a realtor, to get access to the property through a lockbox. The victim was shot twice in the head and twice in the body.
Prosecutors said that in the days before Michael Harding’s death, Julie Harding withdrew more than $102,000 from the couple’s joint accounts. Investigators later found “notes at Michael Harding’s residence reading ‘no money here’ in an apparently attempt to taunt the victim.”
Cellphone data allegedly ties O’Donnell to the phone used to lure the victim to his death. The same phone also pinged in the area of Julie Harding’s Sacramento home both before and after the shooting, prosecutors said in court documents reviewed by Court TV. On Dec. 8, O’Donnell was arrested while en route to Texas; his sister called CHP asking for help because she knew of his association with Julie Harding.
When officers searched Julie Harding’s office, they found a Valentine’s and a birthday card from “Rob,” a name O’Donnell was known to use. Phone records revealed 194 phone contacts between Julie Harding and O’Donnell from July to Sept. 8, 2022. Phone contact between the two ceased 11 days before the murder.
Two days later, on Dec. 10, 2022, Julie Harding was found dead at her Tennessee home after an apparent suicide.
In opening statements, O’Donnell’s defense attorney said that the case is about “level of responsibility,” and told the jury that there will be no proof that his client was the person who shot Michael Harding. O’Donnell’s defense pointed to Julie Harding, describing a “bitter, escalating divorce,” and suggested that she reached out to several different men for help with her divorce.
