- I'm craig melvin, and this is
"dateline: Secrets uncovered."
- The plot was hatched.
This dreadful plot.
- I mean, it's like a movie script,
It's family rivalries, and betrayal, and murder.
- It was so horrific.
What were the last hours on earth like for her?
- It lurks here on this
Storied family estate,
A mystery as tangled and gnarled
As the trees that reach for the sky.
- It eats at me,
I can't sleep most of the time.
- A crime like a storm.
Everyone could see it coming.
- Everybody in the town has their suspicions.
- She was missing, the matriarch with
A grip on her powerful family's fortune.
Did someone have a powerful motive to do her harm?
- I saw bruises on bonnie's arms
Like somebody had grabbed her.
- She looked at him and said, "you tried to kill me."
- Who was behind this?
A search in the dark.
- Right there. - That's all right,
It's all right. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- A secret in the family and a jailhouse interview
To make your jaw drop.
- You said you wished she were dead,
And then later, she became dead.
- This is a twisted tale deep in the heart of texas.
- People who are desperate will do desperate things.
♪♪
- Hello, and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
In their small texas town, the harkey name
Was synonymous with success.
Bonnie harkey was the forming family's matriarch,
And her attendance at Sunday morning church services
Was as regular as harvest season.
But one Sunday, something very irregular
Was happening at the harkey homestead,
And it had many wondering
If a not-so-secret family feud
Had reached its boiling point.
Here's josh mankiewicz with "queen of the county."
- In this country, we've always loved
Stories about power, money,
And the struggle to get our hands on both.
"dallas" was the saga of a proud texas family,
Rich and ruthless.
The story you're about to hear is like that,
Maybe less glitz and less glamor.
But then, j.R. Ewing was never as coldhearted
As some of the people you're about to meet.
This epic tale of greed and betrayal
Is set not in dallas, but in san saba.
A tiny town in the texas hill country,
And it stars a family that learned
How to make money grow on trees.
Pecan trees.
At the heart of the matter,
A feud fueled by a lust for land,
Stoked by a battle of generations.
And front and center,
The life and times of the matriarch,
Bonnie harkey, who controlled a family fortune
A century in the making.
- Well, I always say she was queen of the county
Because she was--
She really was a big fish in a small pond.
- This is teresa cook, bonnie harkey's niece.
- They were well off and,
Um, they were property owners.
- And by local standards, very wealthy?
- By local standards, sure.
- They were so prominent, in fact,
That the harkey name is carved on monuments,
Painted on road signs in san saba.
- I'm the sixth generation in my family
Here in the county.
- Dwight harkey says all the harkeys descended from
Two brothers who came to the hill country in the 1850s.
- Well, there was two boys
That came, and they were cavalry scouts.
And they found this country, and nobody lived here.
- A proud family history to be sure,
But on March 25th, 2012,
A new and bloody chapter was added.
- I remember that Sunday morning because of
What happened the rest of the day.
- The events that would forever fix that day
In the reverend sam crosby's memory,
Centered on 85-year-old bonnie harkey,
An active member of the first baptist church of san saba.
- You could set your watch by
Bonnie harkey coming to church?
- You could. - She'd be right here?
- She'd be right here, right.
And even after, she had to have 24-hour care.
Her caretaker would bring her.
- The trouble began a few hours after church,
Out at the harkey place a few miles west of town.
It was about 5:30 when the san saba sheriff's department
Dispatcher received this call from a young boy.
Turns out, the 11-year-old's mother was karen johnson,
Bonnie harkey's caretaker.
Within minutes, the san saba sheriff's department
Head deputy is on the way.
In a rural area where locals listen closely
To police scanners, some worry deputies
Might be chasing some dangerous desperado.
The harkey place was a local landmark,
And john wilkerson,
A san saba sheriff's deputy in 2012,
Was among the first investigators to arrive.
- When I walked in, of course, uh,
Karen johnson's body was laying face down
In the doorway, which raised some suspicion.
- Sign of a struggle?
- There really wasn't any clear signs of struggle.
There was some questionable, uh,
Issues that were at play. - Like what?
- The fact that she was dead right by the front door,
That just didn't make a whole lot of sense.
The fact that I found a broken fingernail
On her hand.
- Karen johnson's son, the boy who'd called 911,
Told investigators he'd been playing a video game
In a spare bedroom all afternoon
And had not heard or seen anything unusual.
Strange, but what also concerned the lawman
Was the fact that bonnie harkey
Was not there.
So, you're thinkin' bonnie harkey is out there somewhere,
Maybe in the orchards?
- That was the thought with, uh-- with sheriff brown.
- Bonnie had serious health problems.
She was frail, suffered from dementia.
In short, she had to be found, and fast.
- Sheriff brown had called in prison dogs,
He had the dps helicopter out.
- She can't have gone very far.
- Correct, that's-that's what our thoughts were.
- By nightfall, word of bonnie harkey's
Disappearance had spread far and wide.
Her stepson, bruce harkey, who had been visiting
His brother in fort worth that weekend,
Called the sheriff's office wanting to know some details.
Even bonnie's niece, teresa in memphis,
Heard the news within a few hours of that first 911 call.
- My mother and I always speak on Sunday nights,
And, um, she had called me and said,
"bonnie's missing."
And, um...
We both kind of went, "oh, no!"
- Teresa cook may have been hundreds of miles from
Where searchers were looking for bonnie harkey,
But she says she knew right away her aunt's disappearance
Was connected to the decades-long battle
Over the remains of the harkey fortune.
Not home invasion?
- No, her family.
- The search for the missing matriarch.
- I saw bruises on bonnie's arms
Like somebody had grabbed her.
- And somebody sure seemed to know something.
- When you hear that that calls come in,
You're thinkin', oh, this is-- what?
- Well, uh, I was definitely concerned.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- If the harkey's of san saba
Were ever made into a television drama,
It would be chock-full of character actors.
There'd be a gentleman farmer,
A pair of impatient heirs-in-waiting,
A ne'er-do-well grandson,
His enabling girlfriend,
And the rock of the family would be
A white-haired matriarch named bonnie harkey.
- She had book clubs, she was red hat society,
She was just constantly, you know, socializing.
- There were roughly 200 acres
To the harkey spread
With valuable water rides along the san saba river,
A rambling farmhouse,
And nearly 3,000 pecan trees.
- When people hear the harkey name in that
Part of the country, what do they think?
- I mean, the harkeys were the somebodies in town.
And, you know, I know bonnie enjoyed that.
- And maybe that was just the way she pictured it
Back in 1963 when bonnie
Met and married riley harkey.
At the time, riley was a recently divorced father
With two boys, bonnie a single mom
With a teenage daughter of her own.
- It was a coup, you know?
It was a coup, especially for a-a single mother
Who was really looking at having to either find a husband
Or-or work for the rest of her life.
In the early 60s,
It was tough to be a divorcee,
It was tough to be a single mother.
- Now, nearly 50 years later,
The queen of the county was missing.
Searchers were still out in the orchards
Looking for bonnie harkey when a resident
Who'd been listening to the police scanner
Called with a vital clue.
The caller said she knew that bonnie harkey's
28-year-old grandson, carl, had visited her
That very afternoon.
Who's carl pressley?
- Carl pressley is the adopted
Grandson of bonnie harkey.
Bonnie harkey had a daughter, connie.
Connie adopted carl pressley at a very young age.
- When you hear that that call's come in,
You're thinkin', oh, this is, what?
- Well, uh, I was definitely concerned.
- Why so much concern over a grandson's visit
To his elderly grandmother?
That's a tangled tale, really,
That begins with the way carl pressley came
To join the harkey clan in the first place.
- Connie said that she adopted him
From a homeless woman--
A homeless couple that were living in a car.
- From a homeless couple?
- Yeah, and that they couldn't take care of him,
And so they were willing to give him up for adoption.
That's what I know.
- Teresa says there was always something
A little bit off about carl,
Something that tended to make other people uncomfortable.
- It was very odd and very sad at the same time,
As he seemed to be a very lonely, needy child.
Very clingy child.
And nobody really seemed to want him to cling to them.
- But teresa says, there was nothing
Bonnie wouldn't do for carl.
- She'd buy carl a truck, and he'd wreck the truck,
And then she'd buy him another one.
And, um, he'd get a job, he'd lose a job.
She'd house him, um,
He was stealing pecans from
The-the harvest and selling them.
I mean, she was constantly bailing him out
Of one situation or another.
You know, giving him money.
- In spite of that, carl, who had a harder shell
Than anything that came out of these trees,
Was known to be verbally abusive to his grandmother
If he didn't get what he wanted.
Teresa says that once when she dropped by
To visit bonnie, she had an unsettling
Encounter with carl, who was also there.
- Everything I said he'd argue against.
He just fought with me, fought with me,
It was like he couldn't get along with anybody.
And I saw bruises on bonnie's arms,
Like somebody had grabbed her.
A-and little old ladies bruise so easily
That I said to my mother on the phone, I said,
"I would not be surprised if carl
Pushed her down the basement stairs."
- Given that history, it was understandable,
Then, that investigators ears perked up
Once they learned that the last person
To have seen bonnie harkey
The day she went missing was carl pressley.
- We were pretty sure that if we were able to find carl,
We were gonna be able to find bonnie harkey.
- According to the tipster,
Carl was with his girlfriend, lillian king.
They were riding in her car.
Soon, just about every lawman in texas
Was on the lookout for that 2004 mustang,
But in the meantime,
Deputy wilkerson says the san saba sheriff
Took a more personal approach.
- He's trying to call his cellphone,
He's sending him multiple text messages.
- You have carl's number because of his
Numerous brushes with law enforcement.
- Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
- Wouldn't it be great if police could just
Text suspects and get them to come in?
But the world doesn't work like that.
Except, perhaps, in san saba.
Just after midnight, carl pressley responded.
He was in normangee, texas, he told the sheriff,
Where he and his girlfriend lived in a trailer
At an rv campground.
Though normangee is more than 3 hours from san saba,
Carl promised the sheriff he would be back by daybreak.
- I think, maybe about the time my eyeballs closed,
Um, my phone rang.
It was 'bout-'bout 7:00 in the morning.
And dispatch told me that carl pressley
Had showed up to the sheriff's office,
And sheriff brown needed me up there asap.
- And so, with little or no sleep,
Deputy wilkerson says he headed back to the office
And a face-to-face encounter with the man
Most likely to know where bonnie harkey was.
- A devoted caretaker dead
And the family matriarch missing.
Now, another life in danger?
- He had three knives on him,
So I had to do what he said.
- And the dark secret down by the creek.
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Here's the thing about lawmen in rural texas:
They don't have all the gadgets and gizmos
That come with working in a big city.
- It's a different world.
Uh, you're workin' with limited budgets.
- So, you have to improvise?
- Y-yes, yes, you have to improvise.
- And that's what san saba deputy john wilkerson did
When carl pressley, the chief suspect
In the disappearance of bonnie harkey
And the death of her caretaker
Came in for questioning.
Wilkerson used the video recorder
Embedded in his car.
And that's your interrogation?
- And that's my interrogation.
Right there in the sally port.
[coughing]
- He was not under arrest,
But carl pressley wore prison stripes
For his interview because investigators had
Taken his clothes so they can run tests on them.
- I'm not makin' any accusations at this point,
I'm just trying to-to get him locked down
In-into his original story.
- From the beginning, carl pressley admitted
He and his girlfriend lillian king had gone out
To his grandmother's house for a visit that Sunday.
- During the interview, he started to,
Uh, you know, try to pretend like
He couldn't remember certain things.
- Eventually, carl's memory improved.
He remembered how he took his grandmother
Out of the house to protect her
From some tough guys he owed money to.
- The story is, is he-- t-to protect his grandmother,
He picks her up in the evening and drives her
To rainey crossing-- raney's crossing
And drops her off in the-- in the bushes.
- An 85-year-old woman? - Correct, yeah.
- Wilkerson wasn't buying,
But officers did search that location.
Then carl told another story.
He said he'd taken bonnie back to
His trailer home in normangee.
- He misses his grandmother
And-and he wanted to see her.
Uh, which again, didn't make a whole lot of sense.
- That was because investigators
Knew nothing to suggest that
Carl pressley had ever missed anyone
During his 28 years on planet earth.
In short order, texas rangers and local lawman
Near normangee were combing carl's trailer
And the surrounding campground for clues.
But they found nothing,
Until carl was flown to normangee.
- Hang on a second.
- Bonnie harkey was dead,
Her body lying in a creekbed near carl's trailer,
Buried beneath a pile of sticks and leaves.
- So, carl admits that
He pushed her on the back of her head.
Um, holding her face underwater
Until she no longer moved.
- It was the same story lillian king
Had already given to lawmen back in san saba.
She'd been there, she said,
When the caretaker was killed.
And she'd stood idly by
While carl killed his grandmother.
But in lillian's telling of the story,
She could very well have been carl pressley's
Third murder victim that day.
- He had three knives on him.
Three.
You know, so I had to do what he said.
- What had driven carl pressley to kill
One of the few people on earth
Who had ever loved him?
That was a question to which
No one could supply an answer.
She doted on carl? - She did dote on him.
No one could quite understand why.
- And I'll bet she couldn't in the last
Four or five hours of her life.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Investigators didn't know why carl pressley
Killed his grandmother,
But they were pretty sure there was
More to this murder than met the eye.
And that there could be clues
In the harkey family history.
- A million-dollar inheritance,
A neighbor from hollywood,
And a harkey with a handful of ex-wives.
- He's just a solid jerk.
- Just constant drama!
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin.
Carl pressley's dark secrets were pouring out.
In a stunning confession,
He admitted to murdering his grandmother,
Bonnie harkey, and led authorities
To the creek where he left her body.
But investigators would soon learn that carl was not
The only member of the family who wanted bonnie gone.
Once again, here's josh mankiewicz with
"queen of the county."
- The matriarch of a prominent,
Pecan-growing family had been brutally murdered
By a member of that family.
But why?
The more investigators pondered that,
The more they came to believe the answer
Might be found in a long-running family feud.
- The first time I met the harkey family,
I was bailiffing in court
Because we were short-handed.
And I got to sit through, uh, a little hearing
Where the harkey's were trying to-to
Gain control of the property,
And you could tell it was a very heated situation.
Uh, very heated.
- That pot had been at a slow-boil
Ever since that day in 1963 when
Bonnie harkey became stepmother to her
Husband riley's two boys,
Bruce and john.
- Bruce and johnny just didn't like bonnie.
They didn't like her at all.
And so, almost from the beginning,
It was acrimonious.
- What form did that acrimony take?
- Bruce and johnny were just rude to bonnie,
Openly insulting her.
- And riley put up with that--? - Let it go.
He just let it go.
- A lot of blended families have rough starts,
But this newly grafted branch
Of the harkey family tree never had a chance.
- And I don't think riley made
A real effort with his boys to say,
"this is a wonderful woman, I want you to grow to love her
"like I love her," I think he just said,
"here you go."
- Riley seems to have been
Better with pecans than people.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Soon enough, john was off to college
And bruce was shuttled off
To live with his mother in nevada for a while.
That left only bonnie's teenage daughter, connie,
At home.
- Riley never adopted connie,
She was an afterthought, she was just never brought
Into the family.
- This is sounding less like "the brady bunch"
And more like the ewings, every day.
- Oh, uh, you know,
Just ewings without the-the culture.
You know, it was really, um, just constant drama.
- The boys took different career paths.
John became a businessman.
Bruce had a number of different jobs.
At various times, he was a cop in reno,
A medicaid fraud investigator
For the texas attorney general's office.
And, a nursing home administrator.
Along the way, he married and divorced eight--
Count them, eight women.
Still, as the years rolled by,
The brothers' feelings for bonnie seemed to fester.
There were a lot of reasons for that,
But maybe the biggest one was a will their father riley
Had drawn up shortly before he died in 1997.
- Riley's will specifically said that, um,
Bonnie could live on that property
As long as she was alive.
And then, when she died, the land would go to the boys.
And then, there was a small, uh, inheritance for connie,
And if connie died, then there would be
A trust for carl.
But, the majority of the inheritance went to,
Uh, bruce and johnny.
- Though the property alone
Was worth more than $1,000,000,
For the harkey brothers, it wasn't worth a dime
Because they could neither farm it
Nor sell it until bonnie died.
Bruce especially seemed to chafe at the thought of that.
- He said he was the, uh,
Poorest millionaire in san saba county.
- Local pecan merchant, shawn oliver,
Says bruce harkey was down and out in late 2007
When he resettled in san saba
After being away for many years.
- He had no income coming in
And every time he drove by that property,
All he could see was the millions that--
What he thought was millions that he was missing out on.
- By then,
Bonnie harkey was becoming increasingly frail.
Her dementia made her vulnerable to phone scams,
She was unable to manage her daily affairs.
So, her daughter connie became her guardian.
After connie died in 2011, bruce harkey thought
Carl pressley should be bonnie's guardian.
When a judge tried to appoint someone else,
Bruce and john challenged that in court.
- Bonnie asked the judge if she could speak,
And the judge said yes.
And she said, "I don't want them to be my guardians,
I'm a-afraid of them."
- Her stepsons? - Yeah.
- That had to be about the last thing
Bruce and john wanted to hear.
- It delayed any inheritance, certainly.
- A lawyer named darryl spinx was chosen
To manage her business and financial affairs.
Bonnie's longtime friend, betty ann johnson,
Was asked to make sure bonnie's daily needs were met.
It was betty ann who'd hired karen johnson, no relation,
The in-home caretaker who was killed
The day bonnie was kidnapped.
You felt safe with karen taking care of bonnie.
- I did.
What bruce wanted me to do was to put her in the nursing home.
- He told you that? - Yes, and I said,
"as long as we can have help 24/7,
"she's not going anywhere."
- Bonnie's financial guardian, darryl spinx,
Said he also butted heads with bruce harkey.
- The best way I can explain bruce harkey
Is greedy and, for lack of a better word,
Just a jerk.
He's just a solid jerk.
- According to spinx,
Bruce not only accused him of mismanaging the harkey estate,
But also tried to bully him into accepting
The sale of a chunk of land to their neighbor,
The actor tommy lee jones, for half a million dollars.
It was good for bruce, but spinx says not for bonnie.
So, he killed it.
- He wanted bonnie to get virtually nothing,
I know it was less than $50,000
In what he wanted-wanted her to get.
- And the rest of the money
Was, uh, would have gone to bruce?
- The rest of it would have gone
To bruce and john, yes.
- And so, you said to bruce,
"I'm not for this."
- And that sent him in orbit.
I mean, he just became irate and cussed me out and said,
"I'm gonna do everything I can to-to get at you--"
- Investigators were getting a pretty good taste
Of the river of bad blood that ran through the harkey family.
Bonnie harkey's grandson, carl pressley,
And his girlfriend, lillian king,
Were in the county jail.
And now, men with badges
Decided to take a harder look at bruce harkey.
- We good now?
- We had some questions for bruce harkey, too!
- You didn't put carl up to it?
- Would you really hire
"forrest gump" to commit murder?
- "forrest gump?"
Then, this jailhouse interview was like
A box of chocolates.
We didn't know what we were going to get!
- Because you said you wished
She were dead, and then later, she became dead.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- The final decision to kill bonnie harkey
Was made on a Friday, two days before the murder.
As carl pressley laid it out for investigators,
His uncle bruce was broke and couldn't wait any longer
For his inheritance.
[indistinct auctioneering]
- Texans are generally thought to be pretty hard-nosed
When it comes to business. But carl pressley?
Hm, not so much.
- They argued for a little bit,
According to carl. They argued about the price.
Bruce wanted-- he was adamant he was gonna pay him $500,
And carl was adamant he only needed to pay him $250.
- In the end, carl says,
Bruce agreed to pay him $100 down
And another $150 once the job was down.
- We find out he stopped by his bank
And made a withdrawal for $200,
Which was great because that's date and timestamped,
And now I've got you on video.
Then he leaves there, and about 30 minutes later
He shows back up in front of lillian king's house.
And carl runs out the door, uh,
To-to collect the $100 down, uh, from-from bruce harkey.
- The idea that bruce harkey was in cahoots with carl pressley
Seemed odd to some. - Evidently,
Bruce detested the fact that carl would refer to bruce
As uncle bruce, but yet carl was always seemingly
S-seeking approval and acceptance from bruce.
- Jack schumacher,
One of the investigators on the case,
Believes bruce may have used that bit of psychology
To his advantage
When he decided it was long past time
For bonnie harkey to meet her maker.
- And so, when bruce says, "hey, I want you in
"on my murder plot..."
What, happiest day of carl's life?
[sighing]
- Ya know, could be that carl thought
He was finally gonna receive that acceptance
He'd been seekin'. - A theory, perhaps.
But then, investigators also knew that bruce harkey
Had never made any secret about how he felt
About his stepmother, bonnie.
- Excuse my, uh, language,
But this is exactly what he said.
He said, "that old (bleep)
"doesn't have the decency to die."
- Investigators didn't know
If bruce paid carl, or just manipulated him
Into killing bonnie harkey.
But they were sure he was involved.
So, two days after carl led investigators to bonnie's body,
Bruce harkey was arrested and charged with murder.
When lawmen came to question bruce in jail,
He did not mince words.
According to bruce,
Carl pressley had his own motives
For killing bonnie harkey.
That's because a year earlier,
Carl had sold his future interest of the harkey estate
To the harkey brothers
For a fraction of what it was worth.
But here's the thing: The brothers only gave him
A fraction of the money they owed him!
Bruce says he told carl
The brothers would pay him the rest,
Around $55,000, once they inherited the orchards.
This is how bruce says carl responded.
- According to bruce, the money he gave carl
Shortly before bonnie's death was gas money, nothing more.
Then, bruce harkey turned the tables on the lawmen,
And asked them a question that would become central
To his defense.
- When we spoke with bruce harkey
Through a thick pane of glass,
He insisted he was an innocent man.
- I had nothing to do with it.
- You didn't put carl up to it?
- Absolutely not, sir, no.
That's exactly the first question my attorney asked me,
He said, "would you--" he said, "I have to ask you,
"would you really hire forrest gump
To commit murder?"
I said, "I wouldn't hire anybody to commit murder."
- So, your argument is contrary to what carl told investigators,
He did this all on his own?
- I don't know that he did it all on his own,
I know that there's at least two people involved in it,
And that would be carl and lillian, his girlfriend!
Other than that, I'm not gonna attest to anything
Because I don't know!
- How many times in your life
Did you say you wished bonnie harkey were dead?
- Oh, I don't know. Several?
- I mean-- - I can't give you a number.
- That's one of the reasons
You're in here.
- I understand that, okay?
- Because you said you wished
She were dead, and then later she became dead.
- But I didn't have anything to do with it.
You can't wish someone dead, and then have it happen
And then get blamed for it.
It's not against the law to have wishes,
It's not against the law to make comments.
- Maybe not,
But when bruce harkey's murder trial rolled around,
He would have to answer for all of them and more.
- I will simply say that,
That's a devastating bit of evidence.
- The past comes back to haunt bruce harkey
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back.
Carl pressley told police his grandmother's murder
Was a family affair
That his uncle bruce hired him to get rid of the woman
Standing between him and his inheritance.
Investigators said the motive was clear,
Bruce stood to gain his share of the valuable harkey land
When the deed was done.
But this family drama still had
A couple more twists in store.
Here's josh mankiewicz with the conclusion of
"queen of the county."
- In the years after bonnie harkey
Took her place along the other harkeys
In the san saba cemetery,
Life in the texas hill country got back to normal.
Most people could only speculate
About what really happened
On the day bonnie harkey and her caretaker,
Karen johnson, were killed.
But jack schumacher says he knows.
- This is where karen johnson
Was laying when she was murdered,
Right here in this doorway. - How was she killed?
- Choked, smothered,
Just bulldogged down by carl.
- Jack schumacher says he knows that
Because carl pressley told him
How it all went down that weekend.
He also knows that bruce harkey wanted everyone in san saba
To know that he was going out of town.
Jack vaughn, a local businessman,
Says he had only a nodding acquaintance with bruce harkey,
And yet...
- Bruce started telling me how the--
He was gonna be out of town all weekend long.
Stressed that, all weekend long.
From-- "I'm leavin' town early on Saturday morning,
I won't be back in 'til late Sunday night.
It might even be Monday before I make it back in,
'cause I'm gonna be gone all weekend long!"
- By the time bruce harkey
Went on trial in April of 2014, his nephew,
Carl pressley had confessed to his part in killing
Bonnie harkey and her caretaker.
And carl's girlfriend, lillian king,
Had admitted her involvement.
With the two of them set to testify
Against bruce harkey
In exchange for lighter sentences.
Prosecutor sunny mcafee felt confident
That he had a solid case against bruce.
- The facts of the crime were
So horrendous that, uh,
I didn't think-- once the jury believed
That he was a party to the crime
They'd have any difficulty at all finding him guilty.
- Lillian told the jury
She had heard bruce harkey and carl pressley
Talk about killing bonnie harkey many times.
And she told us, she didn't learn the plot had actually
Been set in motion until the Friday before the murder.
That's when lillian says
She overheard a phone conversation
Between bruce harkey and carl pressley.
- Because after he got off the phone
With bruce, he looked at me and said that
Bruce was gonna pay him to kill his grandmother.
- Lillian testified
That while bonnie and her caretaker
Were in church that Sunday morning,
Carl slipped into the house and hid.
Once bonnie returned home, lillian says,
Carl sent her a text,
Telling her to come distract karen johnson
While he smothered his grandmother.
- So, I rang the doorbell because the door was open,
But the storm door was closed.
Um, ms. Johnson came and answered the door.
I was in the process of stepping in and closing
The storm door when I see this flash.
- Inside the house-- - coming from the den.
- So, coming up behind ms. Johnson?
- Yes.
Yes, and I saw that it was carl,
And he was yelling at me to close the door, get in here,
Go in there with his grandmother.
- Once karen johnson was dead,
Lillian says, carl lead bonnie to her bedroom,
Where she says carl asked her to pray.
- I see the pillow,
And then while they're praying,
He starts pushing her down on his bed.
She fought him, she did.
But the doorbell rang, and it scared carl.
So, he jumped up
And he told me to go look and see who it was.
- Lillian says that whoever it was
Left after about five minutes.
It was then, lillian told the jury,
That carl decided to drive his grandmother
To normangee.
In your mind, was it clear that she knew that carl
Was trying to kill her, then? - Yes.
- What'd she say?
- She looked at him and said,
"you tried to kill me."
- And carl said, "no, grandma.
"I wasn't doing that."
- Lillian says the last time
She saw bonnie harkey alive was later that night,
When she says, she say carl leading bonnie to her death.
- I went to the bathroom again
And, uh, when I was coming out, I saw him and her,
Uh, walking into the trees.
- You knew what was coming.
How'd you let that happen?
- It's hard for me.
I mean, you know, if he did it to her,
He's gonna do it to me, too.
- The prosecutor knew a jury
Would not vote to convict bruce harkey
On the testimony of lillian king and carl pressley alone.
So, he used bruce harkey's own words against him.
- He talked about how
He couldn't get his land until she was dead,
And that he just doesn't have the decency to die.
And he said all of these
In the weeks leading up to the murder.
- Richard davis was bruce harkey's attorney.
He told the jury, carl pressley wanted to kill bonnie harkey
Because he wanted the inheritance
And needed no prompting from his uncle.
Davis reminded jurors
How many times carl had changed his story
Before telling police bruce was part of the plot.
- My theory is it's all carl,
And that was essentially our testimony.
And, uh, the testimony of carl in the trial makes it clear
That this guy was, uh, an erratic personality.
He gave numerous different descriptions
Of what the events were.
How he did it, why he did it, and it was, uh--
- And originally, that he didn't do it.
- Well, right.
"I didn't do it, I did do it, and if I did do it,
"it was because of this."
- And finally, he names bruce.
- Exactly.
- Sort of at the point where
Prosecutors and police are starting to talk
About the death penalty.
- And my question, I-in any case
Where there's a statement from a witness
Who has a lot to lose, what's the most-likely
To be, uh, the truth?
- Jurors might question carl pressley's credibility,
But the prosecutor had a bombshell in his arsenal.
Turns out, this was not bruce harkey's first rodeo.
Mcafee told the jurors that ten years earlier,
Bruce had done prison time
For his role in another murder plot.
An unsuccessful one that targeted one
Of his many ex-wives.
- I think that there's a lot of things
That are extremely similar in it.
Uh, and the main one is that he gets somebody else to do
What he wants done, and he does it through influence.
- I will simply say that,
That's a devastating bit of evidence.
- Yeah, 'cause that makes me think, well,
They probably got the right guy.
- And just hypothetically speaking,
Let's say the case is purely circumstantial
And looks kind of bad,
And then there's proof in front of the jury that says,
"and by the way, he did it before."
That makes all the other evidence
Seem much more important.
- If you're a prosecutor-- - that's great stuff.
That's the end of the story, whether it should be
Or shouldn't.
- It took the jury only one hour
To reach a guilty verdict.
Bruce harkey received a life sentence,
As did carl pressley.
Lillian king was sentenced to 45 years
For her role in the murders.
- I'm not a violent person, I'm not.
And I loved ms. Harkey like she was my own grandmother.
- And yet?
- I know, I keep kicking myself...
You know, hoping I can do something different,
But it's not gonna change.
You know, it eats at me.
I'm-- I can't sleep most of the time.
- As for the estate
Bruce harkey had so fervently hoped to inherit,
That seems to be gone with the texas wind.
In the wake of bonnie's death,
The orchards faded and there were no longer any harkeys
Living in the harkey home.
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin, thank you for watching.