In September 2011, Bonnie was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which the doctor explained could take her life at any moment. EDHEC Alumni | LinkedIn Why hadnt Bruce and Carl just waited? The fourteen-day-old infant was buried in the city cemetery the next day; two of Bruces wedding ushers were among the pallbearers, and Riley helped Bruce pick out the gray granite headstone. But when Brown arrived at the house, hefound a puzzling scene. Texas Monthly - Pecans, greed, & murder. Tonight | Facebook Bonnies caretaker, a fifty-year-old redhead named Karen Johnson, was sprawled facedown just inside the front door, atop the floral doormat. Professional coffee lover. Bruce said he wanted me to get rid of her and take herhell put money in my bank account., According to Carl, Bruce had come to see him on Friday to propose a deal. The investigation into the murder of Bonnie Harkey and her caretaker broadens as lawmen look for a motive in the familys history.April 24, 2015. This labor-intensive process takes time and costs money. 1. Dog the Bounty Hunter's Daughter Bonnie Chapman's House Burns Down - TMZ He gave the co-worker three gunstwo old Chinese military rifles and one semiautomatic .22asking him to obliterate the serial numbers; he also talked about rubbing poison on Kamis steering wheel. The foyer where Karen Johnson was found dead. No, I never did like her, never did get along with her, he acknowledged. He and Lillian were out in Normangee, four hours east of San Saba, staying at a campground. Bruce Harkey, 59, said in interviews with The . There were weevils and caterpillars and webworms. The matriarch of the family, Bonnie Harkey aka The Pecan Queen, was murdered. I still have the scar where my brother kicked me. Her closed casket sat in the sanctuary alongside photos of her with Riley and Miss Kitty. It became the county seat in 1856. Wild pecan trees, Carya illinoinensis, haveflourished throughout the South for millennia, and thousands grow along the rivers of Central Texas; when the explorer lvar Nez Cabeza de Vaca was held captive by Indians on the Guadalupe in 1532, he christened it the river of nuts. But human cultivation of pecans in Texas began in San Saba in 1874, with the arrival of Edmund E. Risien. Is there a shortage of pecans in the united states? The way it looked, making sure it was well manicured. Yet while their life appeared to be in perfect order, Bonnie and Rileys marriage was not always a happy one. Bonnie let the baby die because he was a threat to her, because he was the firstborn male heir to Harkey Farms, he told me. 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. Sheriff Allen Brown was already out on patrol when the 911 call came in. Who owns the Harkey pecan Farm? - Rattleinnaustin.com And I wont do that. After Connie had her mothers drivers license revoked, in 2009, Bonnies condition only worsened. We didnt know he had stolen them, said Shawn Oliver. It also uncovered a dark tale of family, greed, and hate. 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). Who is the biggest pecan producer in the world? Bonnie Harkey was. Carl started crying at this point, Lillian later recalled. Luxury Houses for Sale in Mouvaux, Hauts De France, France Carl would show up with a pickup full of pecans, and we bought them. Entre communaut active de 450 000 Malters en Europe, leve de fonds . Bruce claimed hed been framed in the federal case, but many around town distrusted him, suspecting something was amiss in the Harkey family. After talking the matter over with her pastor, Bonnie finally agreed. A change of venue brought the high-profile trial to Burnet County. Bruce Harkey convicted in murder-for-hire plot over family pecan farm The three kids did not take well to one another, and John and Bruce treated their stepmother unkindly from the outset. Read More. They brought their own refrigerator, microwave, and coffeemaker and remarried the next fall. Thats when hed settled on Carl. *With an incidental appearance by Tommy Lee Jones. While his grandmother was still alive, Pressley sold the rights to his share for about $70,000 to Bruce Harkey and his brother, the district attorney said. He sat right on that chair by the door and talked about it one day for a long time, about how he had it all fixed and there wouldnt be any problems, Oliver told me recently. House District: 103 Senate District: 42 County District: Board Of Commissioners District 5 School Board District: School Board Dist 5. Our world has changed, and many people in it have become motivated by greed and grown up with a sense of entitlement, she wrote in theNews & Staron April 5. Six months earlier, she had been diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm, and it was only a matter of time, everyone knew, before it claimed her. Portraits of several generations of Harkeys, including white-haired matriarch Bonnie Harkey. Except there was one wrinkle. 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. During the interrogation, Price asked Carl a question. Search Begins for Missing Bonnie Harkey Police recall that Karen Johnson's death seemed unusual when they arrived at the scene -- and they were very concerned that Bonnie Harkey, who had dementia and health issues, was missing from the home. 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. Top: The foyer where Karen Johnson was found dead. They walked to a nearby ravine and down the embankment to a small stream. Two hours later, a blubbering Carl finally admitted hed killed Bonnie and left her body in a creek near the RV. That summer the couple left San Saba and moved to Lubbock,where, like his siblings, Bruce enrolled at Texas Tech. I cant tell you how many hundreds of miles my grandfather and I walked in that Harkeyville Orchard, said Bruce recently. 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. He dropped out of college and moved west, driving trucks in California and holding odd jobs before finding work in Nevada as an officer in the Reno Police Department in 1978. 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. Davis said he plans to appeal the verdict. 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. She was the closest thing to a mother I ever had, he said, choking back tears. Shelled walnuts are available in halves, chunks and halves of topping (native nut). Some of those secrets still haunt some of the people involved., Just outside of San Saba sits the small town of Harkeyville, named for the Harkey family and its generations of pecan farming. 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. Where was Bonnie? They thought the whole county should still revolve around them. Jump to: Biography Memories Family Tree Followers Connie Harkey's Biography (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.) The judge disagreed, sending Bruce to federal prison for five years. At the trial, held in Burnet, Bonnies relatives and a handful of San Sabans watched as Bruce sat coolly through the proceedings, convinced there was nothing hed be found guilty of. 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. Bruce was Bonnies step-son. Theyd take a mouthful of food and spit it out, or theyd talk about her, giggle all the time, act rude. Dog the Bounty Hunter's Daughter Suffers Devastating Loss She is a white female registered to vote in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Who owns the largest pecan orchard in the world? The investigation into the murder of Bonnie Harkey and her caretaker broadens as lawmen look for a motive in the family's history. One time she wrote about sports. A local lawyer by the name of Dick Miller stepped in on Bonnies behalf, asking his law partner, Darrel Spinks, to get involved. Bonnie Harkey was reported missing on March 26, 2012, after Johnsons body was found at Harkeys home. The Johnsons and the Harkeys became great friends, going out to dinner and traveling to gospel concerts in Marble Falls and Burnet. How many years does it take for a pecan tree to produce pecans? He was just incessant. He told me, Im the brokest millionaire in San Saba County, because he had the property he couldnt touch., Bruces financial problems were real: he had filed for bankruptcy in 1998 to discharge $176,256 worth of debts, and he owed more than $100,000 in back child support to Kami. Bonnie, who had been watching Eric, rushed him to the hospital, but by the time she got there, the baby was dead. I drove to San Saba in late summer. To comfort her, the sheriff handed her a cup of water, and her lawyer whispered, You are making out better than anyone else in this, by far. She received 45 years. Trending on Oxygen. They'd made a fortune in pecans, but a double murder would expose a vicious power struggle. His ex-wife, his eighth wife Kami, said Brucetried to have her killed, too. Read More. 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. He got married and divorced two more timesa daughter was born in 1982and then returned to Texas, where in 1987 he snagged a plum position in the Texas attorney generals office investigating Medicaid fraud and nursing home abuse. Because of that, Bonnie did pretty much everything she could to alienate me. He was convinced she had caused Erics death. 2012-2023, 2paragraphs Productions, LLC. A few hours after Carls confession, news reached Bruce that the investigation was tightening around him. Who is the leading producer in pecans in the united states? The caretaker and Bonnie later came home., As a signal, Pressleys girlfriend rang the doorbell, knowing Johnson would answer, police said. Proper noun a rione in Rome, Italy, named after the local basilica. All I wanna do is get this cleared up and go home. He remains hopeful that his case will be overturned on appeal. Despite the chaos, Bonnie remained lucid about some things. Find contact info for Bonnie Sharkey - phone number, address, email. View 19 photos $1,262,694 When Bonnie and Karen got home, he texted Lillian, who was to come back and ring the doorbell, serving as a distraction while he tiptoed into Bonnies bedroom. The sergeant did his best to reassure him: Your grandmothers forgiven you for everything else.. With no money from Tommy Lee Jones and no authority to care for the orchards, Bruce was left to pine for his stake in Harkey Pecan Farms from a distance. The home that sits amidst a 300-acre pecan farm, alongside actor Tommy Lee Jones' colossal cattle ranch property. After a brief courtship, the two were married at Wacos Highland Baptist Church that April, one month after his divorce was finalized. How many years does it take for a pecan tree to bear? Clydene Oliver, the proprietor of Oliver Pecan Company, remembers when Riley, who often sold nuts to her family in bulk, dropped by her storefront on West Wallace Street. In an interview, Harkey said he is innocent and that his nephew is a liar. She agreed, and after sitting together at the foot of the bed, Carl lunged toward her with a pillow. I do drive slowly more times than I should because I would not want to hurt anyone. One major source of tension was their blended family. An old holiday photo of Bonnie and her grandson Carl Pressley. Bonnie Harkey - Address & Phone Number | Whitepages 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. Leave them blank to get signed up. When I arrived at the historical marker for Harkeyville, I stopped the car. Finally, at two in the morning, after repeatedly calling Carls cellphone, Sheriff Brown reached Carl himself. Who is Bonnie Harkey? (He did. The matriarch of the family, Bonnie Harkey aka The Pecan Queen, was murdered. Dateline NBC will air a report on the Harkey family on April 23 at 10pm. Davis said Bruce Harkey a former Reno police officer and investigator for the Texas Attorney Generals Office often went out of town on the weekends so it was not unusual that he was away when the killings happened. 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. At her hearing, Lillian, her pale blond hair held back by a white scrunchie, sobbed uncontrollably. FULL EPISODE: Queen of the County It was almost more than Bruce could bear. Who now owns the harkey pecan farm? - wholesalepecans.net He sped down U.S. 190 in his white truck, passing neatly tended rows of pecan trees and the cattle auction barn, then crossed the San Saba River and rumbled down the caliche road to the two-story house. The jury deliberated for about an hour Tuesday, and Bruce Harkey received an automatic sentence of life in prison. Riley would tell her something wasnt right, and she would say it was, and theyd get in a big fuss over it.. Luxury Houses for Sale in Roncq, Hauts De France, France 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. She never said anything about it, but I could tell by the way she acted.. As volunteers combed the property, chief deputy Bill Price returned to the sheriffs office to work the phones. Local columnist Lindy Lieban Schulz voiced the collective unease. Betty Ann had provided a long pink dress for Bonnie to be buried in. Back in San Saba, meanwhile, Bonnie and Riley had become grandparents again. Im gonna be out of town. That weekend turned out to be when the murders happened. A day earlier, San Saba residents had attended a funeral service for Karen; now they crowded into First Baptist for Bonnies. Surgical assistant in periodontal practice. What's the difference between praline pecan and butter pecan? Their pecan farm became a multi-million dollar business. 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.
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