someone who robbed a family of its shining young star. in april 2016, a louisiana district court denied greg harris's petition for a new trial. dennis murphy: so it's been years now, lessie. do you miss her? oh, i miss her so much. everything-- i miss it all. dennis murphy (voiceover): baton rouge, the river rolls on, but without that fiery young lawyer who'd come so far, so fast. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. [theme music]

>> 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. >> a crime like a storm everyone could see it coming. >> everybody in the town has their suspicions. >> she was missing. the matriarch with the grip on her powerful family's african american. did somebody have a powerful form to do her harm. >> she looked at him and said

you tried to kill me. >> who was behind this? a search in the dark. >> right there. >> a secret in the family. and a jailhouse interview to make your jaw drop. >> you said you wished she were dead and later she became dead. >> this is a twisted tale deep in the heart of texas. >> people who are desperate will do desperate things. ate t >> though tiny in size, it's huge in the pecan growing business. even called the pecan capital of the world. the name harkey was synonymous with pecan harvesting. when the matriarch of the family went missing it sent shock waves through the

community. where was bonnie harkey? here's the queen of the county. >> in this country we always love 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 glamour. but then jr 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. 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 fortunate a century in the making. >> i always say she was queen of the county. 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. >> 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. >> there was two boys that came and they were recovery scouts. 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 can 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. >> 911, what's your emergency? >> 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. >> turns out the 11-year-old's

mother was karen johnson, bonnie harkey's caretaker. >> you 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. >> within minutes the san saba sheriff's department had deputies on the way. >> i'm going to bonnie harkey's right. >> yes, sir. do you have an eta? >> five minutes. >> in a rural area where locals listen closely to police scanners, some worried deputies might be chasing some dangerous desperado. >> is there somebody loose? i was sitting up there near miss harkey's place. >> the harkey place was a local landmark. a san saba sheriff's deputy in 2012 was among the first

investigators to arrive. >> karen johnson's body was laying face down in the doorway which raised some suspicion. >> sign of a struggle? >> wasn't any clear signs of struggle. there was some questionable issues at play. >> like what? >> the fact she was dead right by the front door. that just didn't make a whole lot of sense. the fact 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 law man 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 a thought 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 called in prison dogs. >> she can't have gone very far. >> correct. that's what our thoughts were. >> by night fall, word of bonnie harkey's disappearance had spread far and wide. her stepson bruce harkey who'd been visiting his brother in fort 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? >> he said they found some lady dead and bonnie was missing and something about having a road blocked off and everything. >> even bonnie's niece in memphis heard the news within a few hours of that first 911 call. >> my mother and i always speak on sunday nights. she had called me and said bonnie's missing. and 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 fortunate. >> not home invasion. >> no. her family. >> coming up. 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. >> i might have some information about where bonnie harkey is. >> i was definitely concerned. >> when dateline continues. ne killing 99.9% of viruses and bacteria in the air. scent can't sanitize. lysol can. some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking allstate first. you drive in today? of course not, there's no parking. like you know to check the sign first, before parking. do you hear it? i feel like i do hear it.

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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 their do well grandson. his enabling girlfriend. and the rock of the family would be a white-haired matriarch named bonnie harkey. >> she had book club. she was red hat society. she just constantly, you know, socializing. >> there were roughly 200 acres to the harkey spread. with valuable water rights along the san saba river. a rambling farmhouse. and nearly 3000 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. >> 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. 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. >> 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 be listening to the police scanner called with a vital clue. >> i know things are crazy going on right now, but i might

have some information about where bonnie harkey is. >> 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. >> who is carl pressley? >> the adopted grandson of bonnie harkey. bonnie harkey had a daughter connie. connie adopted carl pressley at a young age. >> you're thinking this is, what? >> well, 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. and that they couldn't take care of him 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 is he seemed to be a very lonely, needy child. very clingy child. and nobody really seemed to want him to cling to him. >> 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. heath 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. 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 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's 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. >> 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 if we were able to find carl we were going to find bonnie harkey. >> according to the tipster, 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. >> soon just about every lawman in texas was on the lookout for that 2004 mustang. but in the mean time, deputy wilkerson says the san saba sheriff took a more personal approach. >> trying to call a cell phone. sending multiple text messages. >> you have carl's number because of his numerous brushes with law enforcement. >> absolutely. >> wouldn't it be great if police could text suspects and get them to come in? the world doesn't work like that, except perhaps in san saba. just after midnight carl pressley responded. he was in norman texas where normangee. carl promised the sheriff he would be back by daybreak. >> i think maybe about the time eyeballs closed my phone rang.

about 7:00 in the morning. and dispatch told me carl pressley had showed up to the sheriff's office and sheriff brown needed me up there asap. >> so with little or no sleep, deputy wilkerson 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? coming up,. >> he had three knives on him. i had to do what he said. >> when dateline continues. ne

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here's a thing about law men in rural texas. they don't have all the gadgets and gizmos that come with working in a big city. >> you're working with limited budgets. >> you have to improvise. 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. >> you recording? >> that's your interrogation. >> that's my interrogation. >> my name is john wilkerson.

sheriffs office here. >> 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. >> 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. >> you remember how long you stayed there? >> i really don't. >> during the interview he started to pretend like he couldn't remember certain things. >> eventually carl's memory improve. 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 to protect his grandmother he picks her up in the evening and drives her to reinies crossing and drops her off in the bushes. >> an 85-year-old woman?

>> correct. >> 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. >> 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. >> where did you put her up there? >> combing carl's trailer an the surrounding campground for clues. 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. >> it's hard, sir. >> right there. right there. >> all right. all right hypothesis all right. carl, carl, carl. it's all right. all right, carl. it's all right, carl. come on, carl. >> i didn't mean to. i didn't mean to. i didn't mean to. i didn't mean to. i didn't mean to. >> bonnie harkey was dead. her body lying in a creek bed near carl's trailer. buried beneath a pile of sticks and leaves. >> so carl admits he pushed her on the back of her head holding her face underwater until she no longer moved. >> it was the same story lillian king had already given

to law men back in san saba. she'd been there, she said, when the caretaker was killed. 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. >> coming up, a million dollar inheritance. a neighbor from hollywood and a harkey with a handful of exwe'ves. >> he's just a solid jerk. >> just constant drama. >> when dateline continues. ne this is better. that's better. dupixent is an add on treatment for specific types of moderate to severe asthma. it works with your asthma medicine to help improve lung function. dupixent is not for sudden breathing problems. it's proven to help prevent asthma attacks. and doesn't that make things better? dupixent can cause allergic reactions that can be severe. tell your doctor right away if you have rash, chest pain, worsening shortness of breath, tingling or numbness in your limbs. tell your doctor about new or worsening joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines including steroids without talking to your doctor. when you can get more out of your lungs, you can do more with less asthma. isn't that better?

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hi, i'm richard lui with a news update. predicting donald trump has won arizona reclaiming the slate for rat -- the state for republicans in what is a total sweep of all swing states by the president-elect this election. the womens march group rallied in washington, d.c. saturday in response to the reelection of former president trump. the group is planning a larger peoples march the weekend before trump's inauguration. for now back to dateline. o dat

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 harkeys were trying to gain control of the property and you could tell it was a very heated situation. 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 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. >> 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 brunch and more like the ewings. >> just without the culture,

you know. it was really 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 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. >> 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. >> local pecan merchant 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 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 boniness 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 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 daryl was chosen to manage her business and financial affairs. bonnie's long time 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 kidnaps. >> you felt safe with karen

taking care of bonnie. >> i did. what bruce wanted me to do was put her in the nursing home. >> he told you that. >> i said as long as we can have help 24/7 she's not going anywhere. >> bonnie's financial guardian daryl says he also butted heads with bruce harkey. >> best way i can explain bruce harkey is greedy and for lack of a better words just a jerk. he's just a solid jerk. >> 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 not for bonnie. so he killed it. >> he wanted bonnie to get virtually nothing. i know it was less than $50,000 is what he wanted her to get. >> the rest of the money would have gone to bruce? >> 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 going to do everything i can 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. coming up, 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? >> then this jailhouse interview was like a box of chocolates. we didn't know what we were going to get. >> you said you wished she were dead and later she became dead. >> when dateline continues. lin

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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. >> he set me down on the bed and says, we got to get rid of bonnie. we got to get rid of her quick. we're running out of money. >> texans are generally thought

to be pretty hard-nosed when it comes to business. but carl pressley? not so much. >> bruce says, i'll give you $500 if this happens right now, this weekend. if bonnie dies. i said you're broke, man. and i threw a number out there like 250. he said no, no, no. >> they argued for a little bit according to carl. they argued about the price. bruce was going to pay him $5000 and carl was adamant he only needed to pay him $250. >> in the end bruce agreed to pay him $100 down and another $150 once the job was done. >> find out he stopped by his bank and made a withdrawal for $200. which was great because that's date time stamped and now i got you on video. 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 to collect the $100 down 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. carl was always seemingly seeking approval and acceptance from bruce. >> jack shaw macer, 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 i want you in on my murder plot, what? happiest day of carl's life? >> you know, carl thought he was going to receive that acceptance he'd been seeking. >> 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 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 law men came to question bruce in jail, he did not mince words. >> bonnie was a poor livable wretch of a human being. she didn't have two working brain cells working together any more. i didn't go out there and say somebody needs to kill her. i said she needs to go. she just needs to go. >> 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. >> how long after my grandmother's death do i get the money. carl t has to go through probate first. that could take years. i don't know. >> 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 law men and asked them a question that would become central to his defense. >> why would i plan on bonnie's demise or offer to pay somebody to do what numb nuts did when

i'm thinking this is just around the corner anyway? why, guys? >> 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 you didn't put carl up to it? >> absolutely not, sir. that's the first question my attorney asked me. would you really hire forrest gump to commit murder? 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. i know there was at least two people involved in it and that would be carl and lily his girlfriend. other than that, i'm not going to attest to anything because i don't know. >> how many times in your life did you say you wished bonnie harkey were dead? >> 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. >> 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 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. >> coming up. >> i would simply say that that's devastating bit of evidence. >> the past comes back to haunt bruce harkey. when dateline continues. when dateline continues. leadin. destroying stains, neutralizing odors, and preventing re-marking. love the love, resolve the mess. some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking allstate first. you drive in today? of course not, there's no parking. like you know to check the sign first, before parking.

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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. >> lillian told the jury she'd heard bruce harkey and carl pressley talk about killing bonnie harkey many times. 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. >> after he got off the phone with bruce he looked at me and said bruce is going to 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. the door was open but the storm door was closed. ms. johnson came and answered nd 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. >> coming up behind ms. johnson. >> yes. yes. and i saw that it was carl. and he iwas yelling at me to close the door, get in here, gon in there with his grandmother. >> once karen johnson was dead, lillian says, carl led bonnie to her bedroom where she says carl asked her to pray. >> i see the pillow. the doorbell rang. and it scared carl. he jumped up and he told me to

go look and see who it it was. >> 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 say you tried to kill me. he 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 saw carl leading bonnie to her death. >> i went to the bathroom again and when i was coming out i saw him and her walking into the trees. >> you knew what was coming. how'd you let that happen? >> it's hard for me. you know if he did it to her he's going to do it to me too. >> the prosecutor knew a jury

would not vote to convict bruce harkey on the testimony of lillian and carl alone. 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. 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 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. 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 what the events

were. how he did it. why he did it. >> and originally that he didn't do it. >> right. i didn't do it, i did do it and if i did do it was because of this. >> 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 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? >> jurors might question carl pressley's credibility. but the prosecutor had a bomb shell in his arsenal. turns out this was not bruce harkey's first rodeo. 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 devastating bit of evidence. >> that makes me think well they probably got the right guy. >> just hypothetically speakingh let's say the case is circumstantial and looks bad and then ndthere's proof in fro 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 ina violent person. i'm not. and i loved somiss harkey like she was my own grandmother. >> and yet. >> i know.

i keep kicking myself. hoping i can do something different. but it's not going to change. 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. hark.