the plot was hatched. this dreadful plot. >> it's like a movie script. it's family rivalries, 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. >> i think she's dead. >> it eats at me. i can't sleep most of the time. >> a crime like a storm everyone could see it coming. >> everybody in 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. >> rightthere. >> all right. >> 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. >> i'm lester holt, and this “dateline” is a twisted tale deep in the heart of texas. >> people who are desperate will do desperate things. >> tonight josh mankiewicz with "queen of the county." >> reporter: in this country, we have 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.

>> how the hell did she end up marrying him? >> reporter: the story you're about to hear is like that. maybe less glitz and less glamour. but then, j.r. ewing was never as cold hearted 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 the 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

really was a big fish in a small pond. >> reporter: this is teresa cook, bonnie harkey's niece. >> they were well off, and they were property owners. >> reporter: and by local standards very wealthy. >> by local standards, sure. >> reporter: they were so prominent, in fact, that the harkey name is carved on monuments and painted on road signs in san saba. >> i'm the sixth generation in my family here in the county. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: a proud family history, to be sure. but on march 25, 2012, a new and bloody chapter was added. >> i remember that sunday morning because of what happened the rest of the day. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: she'd be right here. >> she'd be right here. right. and even after she had to have 24-hour care, a caretaker would bring her. >> reporter: the trouble began a few hours after church out at the harkey place a few miles west of town. >> 911, what's your emergency? >> reporter: it was about 5:30 when the san saba sheriff's department dispatcher received this call from a young boy. >> i found my mom on the floor. um, she -- i think she's dead. i'm at the harkey residence. >> translator: turns out, the 11-year-old's mother was karen johnson, bonnie harkey's caretaker. >> and you don't know the address out there? >> no, ma'am. i'm just really, really worried. >> what phone are you using? >> um, i'm using bonnie's house phone.

i can't find bonnie anywhere. >> reporter: within minutes, the san saba sheriff's department had deputies on the way. >> all right. i'm going to bonnie harkey's, right, out on 190 west? >> yes, sir. do you have an eta? >> five minutes. >> reporter: in a rural area where locals listen closely to police scanners, some worried deputies might be chasing some dangerous desperado. >> is there somebody loose that i should be -- >> oh, no, no, no. >> okay. i just was wondering because they're all sitting up there near ms. harkey's place. >> reporter: 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, karen johnson's body was lying face down in the doorway, which raised some suspicion. >> reporter: sign of a struggle? >> there really wasn't any clear signs of struggle. there was some questionable issues that were at play. >> reporter: like what? >> the fact that she was, you know, 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. >> reporter: karen johnson's son, the boy who had called 911 told investigators that he had 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 lawmen was the fact that bonnie harkey was not there. so you're thinking bonnie harkey is out there somewhere maybe in the orchards? >> that was the thought with sheriff brown. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: she couldn't have gone very far? >> correct, and that's what our thoughts were. >> reporter: by nightfall, word of bonnie harkey's disappearance had spread far and wide. her stepson bruce harkey, who'd been visiting his brother in

ft. worth that weekend, called the sheriff's office wanting to know some details. >> this is bruce harkey. i'm getting some awful strange phone calls, and i'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on. >> what are these calls in reference to or -- >> she said they found some lady dead and bonnie was missing, and something about allen having the road blocked off and everything. >> reporter: 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 she had called me and said bonnie's missing. and we both kind of went, oh, no. >> reporter: 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.

when we come back -- the search for the missing matriarch. >> i saw bruises on bonnie's arms. like someone had grabbed her. >> somebody sure seemed to know something. >> i might have some information about where bonnie harkey is. >> i was definitely concerned. your kids get used to sweaty odors in their room. they think it smells fine, but you smell this... eliminate all the odors you've gone noseblind to with febreze fabric refresher. mmmm... so you and your guests can breathe happy. you get used to pet odors in your car. you think it smells fine, but your passengers smell this... eliminate odors you've gone noseblind to for up to 30 days with the febreze car vent clip... wow. smells good in here. so you and your passengers can breathe happy. ♪ discover new magnum double peanut butter. made with a perfect balance of peanut butter ice cream peanut buttery sauce and belgian chocolate. discover magnum chocolate pleasure.

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if the harkeys 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. >> reporter: there were roughly 200 acres to the harkey spread. with valuable water rights 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? >> the harkeys were the somebodies in town. and you know, i know bonnie enjoyed that. >> reporter: and maybe that was

just the way she'd 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 teenaged daughter of her own. >> that was a coup. you know, it was a coup. especially for a single mother who was really looking at having to either find a husband 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. >> reporter: 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. >> i know things are crazy with everything going on right now, but i might have some information about where bonnie harkey is. >> reporter: the caller said she knew that bonnie harkey's 28-year-old grandson carl had visited her that very afternoon. >> i'm 99% sure carl pressley's

involved. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: when you hear that that call's come in you're thinking, oh, this is what? >> well, i was definitely concerned. >> reporter: 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. they were living in a car. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: teresa says there was always something 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 him. >> translator: 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 he'd get a job. he'd lose a job. she'd house him. he was stealing pecans from the harvest and selling them. i mean, she was constantly bailing him out of one situation or another, you know, giving him money. >> reporter: 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. 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. >> reporter: 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 last day she went missing was carl pressley. >> we were pretty sure that if we were able to find carl, we were going to be able to find bonnie harkey. >> reporter: according to the tipsters, carl was with his girlfriend lillian king. they were riding in her car. >> do you have any information on her vehicle? >> all i know is she's driving a 2004 mustang. >> reporter: 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 cell phone. he's sending him multiple text messages. >> reporter: you have carl's number because of his numerous brushes with law enforcement? >> oh, absolutely. absolutely. >> reporter: 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 three hours from san saba, carl promised the sheriff he would be back by daybreak. >> i think maybe about the time my eyeballs closed my phone rang. it was about 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. >> reporter: 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. coming up -- another life in danger? >> he had three knives on him. so i had to do what he said. >> and a dark secret down by the creek. >> all right.

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. you're working with limited budgets. >> reporter: so you have to improvise? >> yes, you have to improvise. >> reporter: 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. >> we're ready. is he recording? >> reporter: and that's your interrogation? >> and that's my interrogation right there in the sally port. my name's john wilkerson. i'm sheriff's office here. this is mr. chief deputy bill price, okay? >> reporter: he was not under arrest, but carl pressley wore prison stripes for his interview because investigators had taken his clothes so they could run tests on them. >> i'm not making any accusations at this point. i'm just trying to get him locked down into his original story. >> reporter: 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. >> do you remember how long you stayed there? >> no sir, i really don't. >> during the interview he started to you know try to pretend like he couldn't remember certain things. >> reporter: 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 he, to protect his grandmother, he picks her up in the evening and drives her to rainey's crossing and drops her off in the bushes. >> reporter: an 85-year-old woman? >> correct, yeah. >> reporter: 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 he wanted to see her, which again didn't make a whole lot of sense. >> reporter: that was because investigators knew nothing to suggest that carl pressley had ever missed anyone during his 28 years on planet earth. >> we're trying to figure out where is your grandmother at? look at me. where is she at? >> i think she's up there. >> okay, where up there? >> in normangee. >> where did you put her up there? >> or hilltop lake.

>> reporter: in short order, texas rangers and local lawmen near normangee were combing carl's trailer and the surrounding campground for clues. but they found nothing until carl was flown to normangee. >> i told her i wanted to show her a fishing hole down by the creek, and we went down there and stuff happened. >> tell me what kind of stuff happened, carl. >> it's hard, sir. >> is that going to be her? >> right there, right there. >> it's all right, carl. whoa, whoa, whoa. >> i didn't mean to. i didn't mean to. >> hang on a second. >> i didn't mean to. i didn't mean to. >> reporter: bonnie harkey was dead. her body was lying in a creek bed 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 holding her face underwater until she no longer moved. >> reporter: 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 stood idly by while carl killed his grandmother. but in lillian's telling of the story, she could have very well 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. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: and i'll bet she couldn't in the last four or

five hours of her life. >> yeah, yeah. >> reporter: 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. coming up -- a million dollar inheritance. a neighbor from hollywood. and a harkey with a handful of ex-wives. >> he's just a solid jerk. >> it was really just constant drama. >> police were about to get to the heart of the bonnie harkey murder. katy perry quite contrary, how do your lashes grow? soft and full like a flower, that's the power of covergirl's full lash bloom mascara finally! volume that's not stiff or spiky. a bloom brush and soft mousse formula for a fresh kind of volume. soft full lashes bloom and grow, like soft pretty petals all in a row. full lash bloom mascara

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because it lasts longer in 99% of devices. 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 shorthanded. and i got to sit through a little hearing where the hark es were trying to gain control of the property. and you could tell it was a very heated situation, very heated. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: what form did that acrimony take? >> bruce and johnny were just rude to bonnie. openly insulting her. >> reporter: and riley put up with that? >> let it go. he just let it go. >> reporter: a lot of blended families have rough starts, but

this newly grafted branch of the harkey family tree never had a chance. >> 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. >> reporter: riley seems to have been better with pecans than people. >> yeah, yeah. >> reporter: 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 teenaged daughter connie at home. >> riley never adopted connie. she was an afterthought. she was never brought into the family. >> reporter: this is sounds less like the brady bunch and more like the ewings every day. >> you know, just the ewings without the culture. you know, it was really just constant drama. >> reporter: 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 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 inheritance for connie. and if connie died then there would be a trust for carl. but the majority of the

inheritance went to bruce and johnny. >> reporter: though the property alone was worth more than a million dollars, 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 poorest millionaire in san saba county. >> reporter: 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 -- what he thought was millions that he was missing out on. >> reporter: 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 the to be my guardians. i'm afraid of them. >> reporter: her stepsons. >> yes. >> reporter: that had to be about the last thing bruce and john wanted to hear. >> it delayed any inheritance, certainly. >> reporter: a lawyer named darrel spinks 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 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. >> reporter: he told you that? >> yes. and i said as long as we can have help 24/7 which she is able to pay and we can take care of her i said she's not going anywhere. >> reporter: bonnie's financial guardian, darrel spinks, says 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. >> reporter: according to spinks, bruce not 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 spinks says not for bonnie. so he killed it. >> he wanted bonnie to get virtually nothing. i know it was less than $50,000 what he wanted her to get. >> reporter: and the rest of the money for the sale would have gone to bruce? >> yes. >> and that sent him in orbit. i mean, he just became irate and cussed me out and said, "i'm

going to do everything i can to get at it. >> reporter: investigators were getting a pretty good taste of the river of bad blood that ran through the harkey family. bonnie harkey's grandson, carl pressely and his girlfriend lillian king, were in the county jail. and now men with badges decided to take a harder look at bruce harkey. coming up -- >> reporter: are we good now? >> we had some questions for bruce harkey too. >> reporter: 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 woks of chocolates -- we didn't know what we were going to get. >> reporter: because you said you wished she were dead and then later she became dead.

start the interview with a firm handshake.

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>> bruce says i'll give you $500 if this happens right now, this weekend, if bonnie dies. >> if bonnie dies. >> and i said you're a broke man. and i threw a number out there like 250. he said no no no. >> they argued a little bit about the price. bruce was adamant he was going to pay 500 and carl was adamant he only had to pay him 250. >> reporter: in the end, carl says, bruce agreed to pay him $100 down and $150 once the job was done. >> find out he stopped by his bank and made a withdrawal for $200 which is great because that's date time stamped and now i got you on video. then he leaves there and 30 minutes later he shows back up in front of lillian king's house and carl runs out the door to collect the 100 dollar down from

bruce harkey. >> reporter: 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 seeking approval and acceptance from bruce. >> reporter: 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. so when bruce says hey, i want you in on my murder plot what happiest day of carl's life? >> you know, could be that carl thought that he was finally going to receive that acceptance he'd been seeking. >> reporter: a theory? perhaps. but then investigators also knew that bruce harkey had never made any secret of how he felt about his stepmother, bonnie. >> excuse my language, but this

is exactly what he said. he said that old bitch doesn't have the decency to die. >> reporter: 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. >> bonnie was poor miserable wretch of a human being. okay? she didn't have two brain cells to rub together anymore. i didn't go out there and say somebody needs to kill her. i said she needs to go. she just needs to go. >> reporter: 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 in 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. >> well how long after my grandmother's death do i get that money? carl it has to go through probate first. hell, that could take years. i don't know. >> reporter: according to bruce, the money that 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. why would he want to kill a sick old woman who already seemed to have one foot in the grave? >> why would i plan on bonnie's demise or offer to pay somebody

to do what numnuts did when i'm thinking this is just around the corner anyway? why, man? >> reporter: when we spoke with bruce harkey through a thick pane of glass, he insisted that he was an innocent man. >> i had nothing to do with it. >> reporter: you didn't put carl up to it? >> absolutely not sir, no. that's exactly like the first question my attorney asked me. 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. >> reporter: 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 there was at least two people involved in it, and that would be carl and lilly, his girlfriend. other than that, i'm not going to attest to anything because i don't know. >> reporter: how many times in your life did you say you wished bonnie harkey were dead? >> i don't know. several. >> reporter: i mean --

>> i can't give you a number. >> reporter: that's one of the reasons you're in here. >> i understand that. okay. >> reporter: 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 have it happen and then get blamed for it. it's not against the law to have wish. it's not against the law to make comments. >> reporter: maybe not, but when bruce harkey's murder trial rolled around, he would have to answer for all of them and more. coming up -- >> i will simply say that's a devastating bit of evidence. >> the past comes back to haunt bruce harkey and a question haunts lillian king. could she have saved bonnie? >> i can't sleep most of the time. it eats at me.

in the years after bonnie harkey took her place alongside 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 shumaker says he knows. >> this is where karen johnson was laying. she was murdered right here in this doorway. >> reporter: how was she killed? >> choked, smothered, just bulldogged down by carl. >> reporter: 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 business man, says he had only a nodding acquaintance with bruce harkey -- and yet -- >> bruce started telling me how that he was going to be out of town all weekend long. stressed that all weekend long. i'm leaving town early saturday morning. i won't be back till late sunday night. it might even be monday before i make it back in because i'm going to be gone all weekend long. >> reporter: 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 sonny mcafee felt confident that he had a solid case against bruce. >> the facts of the crime were so horrendous that i didn't think once the jury believed that he was a party to the crime, that they'd have any difficulty at all finding him guilty. >> reporter: lillian told the jury she had heard bruce harkey and carl pressley talk about killing bonnie harkey many times. but 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 going to pay him to kill his grandmother. >> reporter: 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. >> i so rang the doorbell because the door was open but the storm door was closed. 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 opinion. >> reporter: inside the house? >> coming from the den. >> reporter: so coming up behind ms. johnson? >> yes, yes. and i saw that it was carl saying -- he was yelling at me to close the door. get in here and go in there with his grandmother. >> reporter: once karen johnson was dead lillian says carl led connie 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 onto 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. >> reporter: lillian says, 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. >> reporter: what did she say? >> she looked at him and said, you tried to kill me. carl was like no, grandma, i wasn't doing that >> reporter: lillian says the last time she saw bonnie harkey alive was later that night when she says she saw carl leading bonnie to her death. >> i went to bathroom again. and i was coming out, i saw him and her walking into the trees. >> reporter: you knew what was

coming. how did you let that happen? >> it's hard for me. but you know if he did it to her, he's going to do it to me, too. >> reporter: 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 she just doesn't have the decency to die. and he said all of these in the weeks leading up to the murder. >> reporter: 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 the testimony of carl in the trial makes it clear that this

guy was an erratic personality. he gave numerous different descriptions of what the events were. how he did it. why he did it. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: and finally he names bruce? >> exactly. >> reporter: sort of at the point where prosecutors and police are starting to talk about the death penalty. >> and my question in any case where there's a statement from a witness who has a lot to lose, what's the most likely to be the truth? >> reporter: the 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 there's a lot of things that are extremely similar in it. 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. >> reporter: yeah because 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. >> reporter: if you're a prosecutor -- >> that's great stuff. that's the end of the story. whether it should be or shouldn't. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: and yet? >> i know. i keep kicking myself. you know. hoping i can do something different. but it's not going to change. it eats at me. i can't sleep most of the time. >> reporter: as for the estate, bruce harkey had so fervently hoped to inherit, that seems to be gone with the texas wind. these days the orchards are fading and there are no longer any harkeys living in the harkey home. now it's just a matter of time before the realtors and the lawyers take what's left.

that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. this sunday america on alert. security heightened across the country this holiday weekend. we're going to have a special report on why isis is proving so difficult to defeat. witnesses say isis militants have recently begun to lay land mines and fortify their positions. also, the race for 2016. my interview with ted cruz. the senator from texas on immigration, his personal temperament, and the supreme court. >> it is the justices who have politicized the court. plus, the trump effect. >> i understand everybody loves what i'm doing in terms of the border because we have to stop the illegals from coming in. >> is donald trump hurting not just his own business brand but the republican party's chances of winning the white house? and this independence day