It didnt help that Bonnie was showing signs of dementia. Investigators say the motive behind Bruce Harkeys solicitation of Bonnie Harkeys murder was greed. That weekend turned out to be when the murders happened. March 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? Lillian had dropped him off at the house while Bonnie was at church; hed climbed in through a window and hidden downstairs, smoking meth while he awaited her return. Get rid of Bonnie this weekend, Carl said Bruce told him. One thing theyd disagreed on was the day-to-day operations of the farm; Bruce wanted Spinks to pay him a salary to manage the orchards, but Spinks leased the property to Winston Millican. The fear was that Bonnie had tripped in the orchard or somehow fallen into the river. had ceded oversight to Riley in his thirties, moving out of the red-brick house and into town. King, 26, has confessed to murder for the death of Johnson and faces up to 45 years in prison. He is the living epitome of evil.. He was released in December 2007, and after a brief stint in an Austin halfway house,Bruce returned to San Saba for good. Several of the older ones had died. He tried to have me killed. Who is the leading producer in pecans in the united states? You get rid of that kid or Im going back to Waco, he claims she told Riley. Hipster-friendly tv practitioner. Assist all periodontal surgeries, perform all post-operative follow-up appointments, assist patients . He traced the winning nuts to a tree he dubbed the Mother Pecan, then began growing his own through novel pollination and grafting techniques, earning himself the nickname the Johnny Appleseed of pecans. His efforts made the trees commercially viable, and Risien became the nuts biggest booster, mailing samples to Queen Victoria and Alfred Lord Tennyson. Who is the biggest pecan producer in the world? How much is a full grown pecan tree worth? They ate out all the time, they got into online gaming, explained Wilkerson, who obtained Bruces bank records during his investigation. Those close to Bonnie say she was afraid of Bruce and other family members. Her ex-husband, a traveling salesman, had left her for another woman, and Bonnie had moved from Ocee to the city with their daughter, fourteen-year-old Connie. 2:26. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Family members have fought a long battle in court over who would inherit those lands after the death of Bonnie Harkey. In a good year, the three orchards brought in more than $100,000, so Bonnie remained comfortably in the house, paying longtime foreman Gaspar Carachero to maintain the farm. I dont want nothin to do with it. Nobody else did that after the seventies., Perhaps it was Rileys work ethic and stature that first caught the attention of Bonnie Sawyer Compton. Just before daybreak, Carl and Lillian arrived at the San Saba County jail, a compact limestone building that is the oldest continuously operating jail in the U.S. The Harkey family was well known in their small Texas town. A copy of the Baptist magazineOn Missionsat on the table beside her. The orchards were in such horrible condition, because Bonnie and Connie didnt know how to run a farm or what to do with pecan trees, Jennifer told me. This was all Harkey before, the whole area, he told me, stretching his hand out. Theyre either dead or in jail., Even before her killing on March 25, it was clear Bonnie Harkey was slowing down. When shed tell a story, hed interrupt and say, No, thats not the way it goes, recalled Bonnies sister. A day earlier, San Saba residents had attended a funeral service for Karen; now they crowded into First Baptist for Bonnies. House District: 103 Senate District: 42 County District: Board Of Commissioners District 5 School Board District: School Board Dist 5. It bothered Bonnie that we didnt have any money growing up, recalled her sister, Wilma Cook. A few hours after Carls confession, news reached Bruce that the investigation was tightening around him. Professional coffee lover. Top 3 Results for Bonnie Harkey. According to local news station KXAN, "One Sunday, while Bonnie was at church, her grandson Carl. Who is Bonnie Harkey? Soon a court had appointed Spinks as the permanent guardian of Bonnies estate and her longtime friend Betty Ann as the guardian of her person. The caretaker and Bonnie later came home., As a signal, Pressleys girlfriend rang the doorbell, knowing Johnson would answer, police said. John joined with Bruce in court to try to remove Connie as guardian; they failed, but then Connie died suddenly, in March 2011 at age 62, after a bout with pneumonia. He was already resentful of decisions Spinks had been makingthis was the last straw. The investigation into the murder of Bonnie Harkey and her caretaker broadens as lawmen look for a motive in the family's history. Carl also had a temper, one so volatile that First Baptist Church barred him from the premises after he showed up at Bible study one Wednesday to demand money from Bonnie. SAN SABA, Texas (KXAN) - At 85, Bonnie Harkey was loved by her neighbors in San Saba County and affectionately known as the Pecan Queen because of the sprawling and fertile farm of nut-bearing trees that had been in her family for years. In one anecdote he liked to tell, she made her feelings clear one afternoon when the family was in her new desert rose Thunderbird. One of Dwight's cousins moved to San Saba, attended The Father House, and went to the Christian Women's . Bonnie Heakins Harkey is on Facebook. These nuts have a praline-flavored coating, making them a crunchy, but no less sweet, alternative to the thick, chewy praline burger. The question reverberated across living rooms, cafes, and hair salons around San Saba. Bruce Harkey, 59, said in interviews with The . He started to warn me at least once a week, that if I ever tried to run , Bruce Harkeys federal detention order (contains profane, Travis County arrest report from 2003 (contains profane language). No, I never did like her, never did get along with her, he acknowledged. Press ESC to cancel. We support the Constitution, Smaller Govt, and Individual Liberty. It didnt matter that Carl had signed away his rightsBonnie still had a life estate in the property. Harkey was charged after authorities discovered he had paid $500 to 29-year-old Carl Wade Pressley, Bonnie Harkeys adoptive grandson, to make her gone this weekend. Harkey promised Pressley and his common-law wife, Lillian King, another $55,000 once Bonnie Harkey was dead. 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. If Riley represented security, Bonnie, for her part, embodied the kind of feminine presence that was missing from the Harkey household. Trending on Oxygen. For almost three years after her death, the house remained exactly as Bonnie left it. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. 1:20 Cold Justice Kelly Siegler Meets with . They thought the whole county should still revolve around them. by 2Paragraphs in Culture | April 23, 2015. I do drive slowly more times than I should because I would not want to hurt anyone. Bruce called me in the mornings, in the evenings, on the weekends. He knew the house well; since the early sixties, generations of San Sabans had attended the church suppers and cookouts hosted there by Bonnie Harkey, the familys matriarch. Tonight @DatelineNBC reports on the death of Bonnie Harkey, the matriarch of a prominent San Saba pecan farming family. Oops, this content can't be loadedbecause you're having connectivity problems, By Associated Press - Wednesday, April 30, 2014. This idea consumed him. Preview. Though the couple had a daughter and a son, they ended up separating, and Carl started dating Lillian King, with whom he had another daughter, in 2008. Recounting the scary incident, Bonnie shared that she and her . Portraits of several generations of Harkeys, including white-haired matriarch Bonnie Harkey. (Bruce initially offered $500, but Carl, knowing his financial situation, offered to do it for $50 less. The gravestone for Bruces firstborn, Eric Harkey, in the San Saba City Cemetery. One major source of tension was their blended family. 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. Investigators focus on one of Bonnie's stepsons, Bruce Harkey, as the mastermind behind the plot to kill Bonnie Harkey. Wearing his thin, light-blue coveralls, Riley dispensed tips on everything from soil drainage and fertilization techniques to how many grazing sheep to allow in the groves and how to stave off pecan scab, a type of fungus that looks like a horticultural syphilis. April 24, 2015. They walked to a nearby ravine and down the embankment to a small stream. His ex-wife, his eighth wife Kami, said Brucetried to have her killed, too. 10,853 followers. Bruce Harkey, they say, felt pressure from years of past-due child support. Bruce, meanwhile, was shuttled back and forth a few times to live with his mother in Nevada (one move, when he was fourteen, was announced in theNews & Starwith the headline Bruce Goes West). For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. They still handpicked all their pecans way up into the eighties and nineties. Carl said his uncle Bruce Harkey paid him to do it. Proper noun a rione in Rome, Italy, named after the local basilica. We must not let death steal the memories of her joy in life! Pastor Crosby exhorted the crowd. On April 1, 1970, a month before her due date, Judi gave birth to the next Harkey: a seven-pound, two-ounce boy named Eric. He would go along and dig up an ant bed, and he would sprinkle them, and we would go to the next tree, Bruce recalled. He willed it to Connie, while the other two groves were to go to John and Bruce, so that all three kids would have their own orchards someday. The Harkey family owns hundreds of acres of walnut farmland in Central Texas. I could get the money and go to Belize.) It was also evident that, based on his six years on the Reno police force, Bruce knew the importance of a solid alibi, and he appeared to have carefully crafted his. Whether the causewas resentment or desperation, Bruces life began to unspool soon afterward. And I wont do that. Harkey was, recalled family friend Donna Bush, one of the sweetest ladies I ever knew.. (He did. Over the years, he had started to wonder whether Eric might have lived if Bonnie hadnt been the one watching him. She might have lived two years, or maybe fivebut where ishenow? said Les Dawson, referring to Bruce and his future behind bars. For Bruce, however, the farm remained a source of tension. If you asked him what time it was, hed tell you how to build a watch, said Steve Boyd, a former Texas Ranger who succeeded Allen Brown as sheriff in 2013. His silver hair was closely shorn, per regulations, and he wore wire-frame glasses and flimsy terry-cloth slippers. A DPS helicopter dispatched from Waco made slow circles overhead, scanning the ground with heat-imaging cameras. How many years does it take for a pecan tree to bear? One afternoon, he showed up at Oliver Pecan Company an hour before closing time to ask for a job.
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