A family fleeing Florida's hurricanes stumbled onto a murder scene while looking at real estate in Kentucky, a discovery that eventually unraveled a plot involving a divorce, a burner phone and a California Highway Patrol captain. The case is featured in "The Mansion Above Dale Hollow Lake," a new episode of "48 Hours" streaming on Paramount+.
David Hammersley and his family were touring homes on Sept. 26, 2022, when their realtor brought them to a rural two-acre property in Burkesville, a town known as the fishing capital of Kentucky. The lot held a main house, a detached garage and a cottage. "The house was immaculate. No furnishings in it. You can eat off the floor," Hammersley told correspondent Peter Van Sant.
As the group walked toward the cottage at the far end of the property, a powerful stench stopped them. Hammersley assumed it was something like a dead raccoon. He and his father-in-law went to look and found a man lying on the floor. "I saw a man on the floor, his arm outstretched, obviously dead, from gunshot wounds," Hammersley said. They called authorities right away.
The victim was identified as Mike Harding, who had moved from California and lived across the state line in Tennessee. He had been missing for more than a week. An autopsy showed he had been shot four times, twice in the head and twice in the torso.
Investigators found Harding's phone at the scene. Kentucky State Police lead investigator BJ Burton said the messages and call records made it clear early on that the victim had been lured to the house. Harding, an HVAC technician, had been contacted by someone using the name James Fraser, supposedly a realtor, who asked for a repair service. The number came from a prepaid phone. "It was pretty evident early on that this is a burner phone," Burton said.
Detectives also learned Harding was in a contentious divorce from his wife, Julie Harding, a captain with the California Highway Patrol. He lived in Tennessee while she lived in California. Friends and family told authorities he was afraid of her. His daughter, Heather Cavalieri, said her father "truly loved her," but added that she personally did not like Julie Harding.
Julie Harding's call log showed about 194 calls in the months before the killing with Thomas O'Donnell, a former car salesman who was living in Napa, California, and had ties to Houston. Investigators determined the prepaid phone and O'Donnell's phone were together a few weeks before Harding's death, and that the burner was first turned on in the Houston area. "The only connection that he had to Michael Harding was through Julie Harding," Burton said.
O'Donnell was arrested on Dec. 8, 2022, two months after the body was found. Two days later, Julie Harding was found dead at the Tennessee home where her husband had been living. An investigator determined she died by suicide.
Burton believes Julie Harding feared losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the divorce and conspired with O'Donnell to have her estranged husband killed. O'Donnell pleaded not guilty. Three years after his arrest, a Kentucky jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
