The grisly crime shocked the rural community of Harkeyville named for the pecan-farming family in San Saba County, about 100 miles northwest of Austin. (The official cause of death was aspiration asphyxiation.) During a good year, the Harkey Pecan Farm outside San Saba, the self-proclaimed Pecan Capital of the World, can produce about $100,000 worth of pecans. He tried to have me killed. Bonnie, too, was grief-stricken. Nothin. They were mean, said close friend, Myrna Najar. They were so greedy.. When Bonnie Harkey, the 85-year-old matriarch of a prominent San Saba family, was brutally murdered in 2012, her death spelled the end of a legendary pecan dynasty. Emily McCullar is a senior editor covering pop culture, news, and Texas history. It became the county seat in 1856. Why hadnt Bruce and Carl just waited? There was plenty of space for her to do so: the orchard closest to the house stretched almost to the river. Bonnie quit her job at the telephone company, and she and Connie moved into the Harkey house. He is the living epitome of evil.. But the marriage couldnt weather their sorrow, and by January they had divorced. A day earlier, San Saba residents had attended a funeral service for Karen; now they crowded into First Baptist for Bonnies. Who is Sherlocks Sponsor Alfredo on Elementary? If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Proud of his planning, Riley trumpeted what he had done around town. Dateline NBC will air a report on the Harkey family on April 23 at 10pm. Bruce Harkey, 62, was convicted Tuesday of the murder-for-hire plot that led to the 2012 deaths of his stepmother, Bonnie Harkey, and her housekeeper, Karen Johnson. For almost three years after her death, the house remained exactly as Bonnie left it. He explained their animosity. How much are pecans selling for in louisiana? The paramedics who arrived five minutes later quickly determined she was dead. He paused, then gave a heavy sigh. Of his two grandsons, in fact, O.B. She also wrote large checks to foreign telephone scammers. We report on vital issues from politics to education and are the indispensable authority on the Texas scene, covering everything from music to cultural events with insightful recommendations. I do drive slowly more times than I should because I would not want to hurt anyone. Then, in 2007, hed looked west, buying the 209-acre strip of farmland adjacent to Harkey Pecan Farms, where he grew wheat and grazed his horses. Thats when hed settled on Carl. Bonnie Harkey's . There was a payment made to Carl Pressley and of course there were some arrangements to be made that further payment would be made to Carl Pressley for killing Bonnie Harkey, said Wilkerson. He did odd jobs, helped out around the farm, and went into town to buy groceries for Bonnie, who had started to grow feeble. He was always saying, Bonnie killed my son, she needs to suffer the way my son did, he told me. The Harkey family owns hundreds of acres of walnut farmland in Central Texas. He called KXAN from behind bars in the Taylor County jail, where he awaits trial. House District: 103 Senate District: 42 County District: Board Of Commissioners District 5 School Board District: School Board Dist 5. Where is Harkeyville Texas? But they werent real tears.. But that didnt mean he was responsible for her murder. And I wont do that. He just had a meltdown. Bruce isdenying all allegations from prison although he does have a history of being accused of solicitation of murder. Bruce had taken in two of Jennifers granddaughters, and his money from the wheat field sale was going rapidly. The boys misbehavior got to be so unpalatable to Bonnies relatives that they stopped coming out to San Saba for holiday dinners. It was the kind of horrific end no one could have imagined for the demure Harkey matriarch. FULL EPISODE: Queen of the County Hipster-friendly tv practitioner. When shed tell a story, hed interrupt and say, No, thats not the way it goes, recalled Bonnies sister. During the interrogation, Price asked Carl a question. But today, there are no Harkeys left on the farm. I needed to shift the risk to the lessee.). According to local news station KXAN, One Sunday, while Bonnie was at church, her grandson Carl Pressley broke into her home and waited for his grandmother to return. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. (It was eating me alive, I just couldnt do it anymore, she said.) He rekindled a romance with a high school girlfriend, Jennifer Karnes, whom he persuaded to move to Lubbock and marry him, but she grew unbearably homesick and their union lasted only three months. Mesa, Az. Entre communaut active de 450 000 Malters en Europe, leve de fonds . If I waste my time and energy hating the people that have claimed I did, Im takin away time from loving my wife and my children. (They have been breeding for perfection and believe now they have a strain that gives Turkeydom about everything that is to be desired in a turkey, theNewsgushed in 1932.) She, like the three hundred other assembled mourners, was still reeling from the shock of her friends violent end. I was in the backseat, and I leaned forward and said, So, do we call you Mom now or what? he said. Lillian, meanwhile, kept Bonnie occupied in the wood-paneled living room, their conversation and the TV muffling the sounds of Karens struggle. Read our feature on the case from January. Her husband, Riley had passed away, and she relied on a caretaker, Karen Johnson, for help around the house and getting around town.. According to local news station KXAN, "One Sunday, while Bonnie was at church, her grandson Carl. At Bonnies invitation, the young family stayed out on the farm for several days as they got the hang of new parenthood. San Saba County Sheriff Stephen Boyd, who attended the same church as Bonnie Harkey, said the verdict was just a relief for San Saba County in general.. There are no secrets around here, and if there is a secret, someone will make up a story to fill in the gaps, explained Boyd. The best result we found for your search is Bonnie Heakins Harkey age 60s in Charlotte, NC in the Sardis Woods neighborhood. Finally, when their daughter was four, Kami worked up the courage to walk out. The Harkeys had that reputationthat there was always some trouble brewing after Riley died. Riley, meanwhile, focused on the familys holdings outdoors, tending as always to his pecan trees. By 1956, Leonard Bend Pecan Farm had 3,300 acres of orchards on the peninsula and had become the largest contiguous walnut orchard in Texas and the second largest in the United States. Do you need 2 pecan trees to produce nuts? Shelled walnuts are available in halves, chunks and halves of topping (native nut). Every time I went, she said, Please do not let them take my home away from me, Betty Ann, recalled her friend. As Price would later put it, Carl has not been accused of being very intelligent.). An autopsy would reveal that she had been hit over the head and drowned in the shallow water. But he said theyd gone to the San Saba Rivera lie that caused Lillian to break down and spill the real details as soon as Price tried to cross-check the story. San Saba County Local columnist Lindy Lieban Schulz voiced the collective unease. Bonnie Harkey had left 94 acres in her will to Pressley, who then sold that interest to Bruce Harkey and his brother for about $70,000, prosecutor Sonny McAfee said. 1. . She never said anything about it, but I could tell by the way she acted.. (In one, Carl, around eight years old, sits next to Santa in a red cap, while Bonnie sits on Santas lap in a Christmas sweater.) Invisible to a farmer, the devastating fungus would stealthily invade through the roots, withering the leaves in an instant and killing the tree seemingly overnight. How many pounds of unshelled pecans make a pound of shelled pecans? Kosciusko, MS. Bonnie Harkey, 85 was reported missing on March 26, 2012, after the body of her housekeeper was found at the pecan matriarchs home. Bruce was Bonnies step-son. What is the average price of pecans per pound? Searchers tramped past a barn, an old metal shack, through the high grass of the riverbank, and along Tommy Lee Joness fence line, where horses grazed sedately on the other side. Family members have fought a long battle in court over who would inherit those lands after the death of Bonnie Harkey. John and Bruce reached out, and after some negotiation through an intermediary, Jones put down a $541,822.50 offer on the orchard. Bruce claimed hed been framed in the federal case, but many around town distrusted him, suspecting something was amiss in the Harkey family. He would say stuff like, Well, they just need to die so that I can have the farm, recalled Kami. Scanner chatter is a rich source of gossip in this tiny Central Texas city of 3,099, and ears perked up that Sunday as paramedics and law enforcement officers rushed four miles west of town to Harkeyville, where a 1927 red-brick house sat among three hundred acres of pecan orchards. Rileys wife, Joan, had recently walked out on him and their twoboys after a troubledmarriage, packingup her Ford stationwagon and hightailing it to the desert of Nevada. Hed planned to smother Bonnie with a pillow at naptime and then sneak out, but when Karen spotted him as she answered the door, he panicked, tackling her in a bear hug and throwing her to the floor, where he suffocated her beneath his body weight. The care of the orchard was very important to him, remembered Millicans wife, Kristen, who grew up across from one of Rileys groves. View 11 photos $759,263 4 Beds 5 Baths 1442 sqft. Carl had dropped out of high school after eleventh grade and gone to work in the oil fields around Midland; following his return, hed married a local woman named Melissa Pafford, in 2003, when he was 19. Though pecan trees can grow with little to no help, they are famously temperamental when it comes to producing high-quality nuts, and Riley made himself an expertlearning how to graft buds onto a seedling, trim back branches, and fertilize with zinc. Leave them blank to get signed up. He grew controlling in his marriage, abusing Kami verbally and then, after she gave birth to their daughter in 1998, physically. No, I never did like her, never did get along with her, he acknowledged. Allen, I just got a phone call from my wife saying thatshejust got a phone call about you coming to arrest me, my brother, and her. Facebook gives people the power to. A portrait of Bonnie used in her obituary. Bruce pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, and at his sentencing, his lawyer tried to argue that he had simply been all talk. How many years will a pecan tree produce? I try to be careful when driving. In September 2011, Bonnie was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which the doctor explained could take her life at any moment. McAfee said he thought jurors were swayed by testimony from several witnesses who said Bruce Harkey had told them that he would be out of town one weekend. These nuts have a praline-flavored coating, making them a crunchy, but no less sweet, alternative to the thick, chewy praline burger. A search team, which included volunteers on ATVs, local firefighters, sheriffs deputies, and a bloodhound named J.J. from the nearby state prison, soon fanned out across the property. (He did. The caretaker and Bonnie later came home., As a signal, Pressleys girlfriend rang the doorbell, knowing Johnson would answer, police said. Those close to Bonnie say she was afraid of Bruce and other family members. They'd made a fortune in pecans, but a double murder would expose a vicious power struggle. Theyd take a mouthful of food and spit it out, or theyd talk about her, giggle all the time, act rude. But on their walks, O.B. There arent any Harkeys left.. Shortly thereafter, I went to see him at the Byrd Unit, in Huntsville. They still handpicked all their pecans way up into the eighties and nineties. She was very good to everybody she knew too good to these people who took advantage of her, said Donna Bush., According to police, one Sunday back in the early spring while Bonnie was at church, her adopted grandson, Carl Pressley, sneaked into her home. Today pecans are central to the economy of San Saba, which produces up to five million pounds a year and claims to be the Pecan Capital of the World (a title contested by Albany, Georgia, and Chandler, Oklahoma). April 24, 2015 I drove to San Saba in late summer. Her body was eventually discovered 200 miles east, in a rural area in Leon County. Meanwhile, KXAN has found that it is not the first time Bruce Harkey has been accused of soliciting murder. We uncovered a 2003 case in which there is evidence he tried to have his ex-wife killed. KXAN located Harkeys ex-wife, whom we are identifying only as Kami. She has been in hiding with their child since before her marriage ended.. So, Bruce Harkey asked Pressley to kill everybody at the house, McAfee said. Im ninety-nine percent sure that Carl Pressleys involved., Deputies spent the next few hours trying to track down Carl and Lillian, requesting a DPS Silver Alert for Bonnie and a statewide search for Carls Mustang. And although he was still driftingby 1994, when he switched jobs to become a nursing home administrator, he was on wife number sevenhe nevertheless held out hope that his father would hand over the farms operations. Anything in this world that was wrong in Bruces life, he blamed Bonnie.). Why are pecans more expensive than almonds? When Bonnie Harkey, the 85-year-old matriarch of a prominent San Saba family, was brutally murdered in 2012, her death spelled the end of a legendary pecan dynasty.