Bonnie Harkey: San Saba Pecan Murder Plot and Convictions

Bonnie Harkey, the 85-year-old matriarch of a prominent San Saba, Texas pecan-farming family, was murdered on March 25, 2012, along with her 50-year-old caretaker Karen Johnson, in a murder-for-hire plot that prosecutors said was driven by greed over the family’s orchards. Bonnie’s grandson Carl Wade Pressley carried out the killings. Her stepson Bruce Harkey arranged them. Both men are serving life without parole, and Pressley’s girlfriend, Lillian King, is serving 45 years.¹

A Fight Over Pecan Land

Bonnie’s husband, Riley Harkey, died of bone cancer in July 1997. His will left the three family orchards to his children, John, Bruce, and Connie, but gave Bonnie a life estate on all the family property, meaning she had the right to live on and benefit from the land as long as she lived. By 1991, Riley’s three groves had generated more than $100,000 in annual profit in good years.²

Bruce resented the arrangement. He once told a wife that the family members ahead of him in line “just need to die so that I can have the farm.”²

As Bonnie’s health declined, with dementia and an aortic aneurysm, local attorney Darrel Spinks was appointed by a court as permanent guardian of her estate. During the guardianship proceedings, Bonnie told a judge she was afraid of her stepsons and did not want them serving as her guardians.³

The breaking point came in 2011. Bruce and his brother John lined up a buyer for the 94-acre Prichard Orchard: actor Tommy Lee Jones, a San Saba native, who offered $541,822.50, reportedly because he wanted the water rights. In May 2011, the brothers persuaded Carl Pressley to sell them his future inheritance in the orchard for $75,000, well below its value of more than $500,000.² Because of Bonnie’s life estate, though, the sale needed her guardian’s approval. Spinks reviewed the deal, concluded it wasn’t beneficial to Bonnie, and refused to sign. He argued Bonnie should receive roughly $240,000 from any sale rather than the $44,000 the brothers offered for her interest.¹

Spinks also decided to lease the orchard to an outside operator rather than keep paying Bruce a salary to manage it. Bruce was effectively fired from the farm he had worked for decades.²

Bonnie knew what was happening around her. In a letter she wrote: “I do have family who want the property I live on and I have heard many times they want to get rid of me.”²

Bruce Harkey’s Earlier Plot

The 2012 killings were not Bruce’s first time arranging violence against a family member. Before the murders, he served five years in federal prison after a sting operation recorded him discussing a plot to kill his ex-wife, Kami. Investigators found he had asked a co-worker to obliterate serial numbers on firearms and had discussed poisoning Kami’s steering wheel. He was released from federal prison in December 2007.²

What Happened on March 25, 2012

Prosecutors said Bruce hired Pressley and Pressley’s girlfriend, Lillian King, to kill Bonnie, offering $500 upfront and $55,000 after her death. His instruction at trial was described as blunt: “make her gone this weekend” and “kill everybody” at the house.¹

While Bonnie and Karen Johnson were at church that Sunday morning, Pressley broke into the Harkey home off U.S. Highway 190 West near Harkeyville. When the women returned, King rang the doorbell as a signal. Karen answered and found Pressley inside. He panicked, tackled her, and suffocated her beneath his body weight. The only sign of a struggle was a broken fingernail on her right hand. Karen’s son, playing video games in another room, discovered her body face down on a doormat just inside the front door and called 911.²

Pressley then led Bonnie from the house under the pretense of taking her to see a fishing hole. With King driving, they traveled roughly 178 miles east to an RV campground near Hilltop Lakes in Leon County, where Pressley owned a trailer. He led her to a ravine, struck her on the head, and drowned her in a shallow creek. A preliminary autopsy from the Southwestern Institute for Forensic Sciences concluded Bonnie died of “homicidal violence comprising blunt force head injuries and probable asphyxia including drowning.” Water in her lungs showed she was still breathing when she was placed in the creek.⁴

How the Case Was Solved

When officers arrived at the Harkey home that afternoon, they found Karen Johnson’s body but no sign of Bonnie. A ground search with volunteers, deputies, a bloodhound, and a Department of Public Safety helicopter from Waco found nothing, and investigators soon concluded Bonnie had left in a vehicle.²

A tip led authorities to Pressley and King at the Leon County campground. Pressley confessed on camera, with the interrogation recorded by a patrol car’s dashboard camera because the San Saba County Sheriff’s Department had no dedicated interview room. He then led investigators to Bonnie’s body, which was recovered roughly 27 hours after the first 911 call, on the evening of March 26. Bruce Harkey was arrested two days later, on March 28.⁴

Karen Johnson

Karen Gail Johnson, Bonnie’s 50-year-old caretaker, was a nurse originally from Virginia. At a memorial service led by Pastor Tom Brand she was remembered as a devoted Christian, mother, sister, and daughter. Her son, variously reported as eleven or twelve years old, found her body in the entryway of the Harkey home. After the service he returned to Virginia with his grandmother, Gloria Johnson, of Charlottesville.⁵

Convictions and Sentences

Carl Wade Pressley, 29 at the time of his arrest, pleaded guilty to the capital murders of Bonnie Harkey and Karen Johnson and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. As part of his plea deal, he testified against Bruce Harkey, laying out the $500-upfront, $55,000-after arrangement.¹

Lillian King, 26 at the time of the murders, admitted her role to investigators. She testified she rang the doorbell to distract Karen Johnson and was present when Bonnie was killed at the creek, saying she cooperated with Pressley because he carried knives and she feared for her life. She took a plea agreement in exchange for her testimony against Bruce and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for murder.⁶ Both Pressley and King were formally sentenced on May 15, 2014.⁷

Bruce Harkey’s capital murder trial was moved from San Saba County to Burnet County and lasted seven days. On April 29, 2014, a jury found him guilty of capital murder for the death of his stepmother. Prosecutors leaned on the testimony of Pressley and King and on witnesses who said Bruce had told them he would be out of town the weekend of the killings. Burnet County District Attorney Sonny McAfee told reporters the case was “all about greed,” adding that when Bruce “couldn’t get the blessing of his stepmother’s guardian to sell it, he decided to kill for it.”¹

Defense attorney Richard Davis argued there was no physical evidence tying Bruce to the killings and attacked the credibility of Pressley and King, who had clear incentives to cooperate. Davis said after the verdict that he intended to appeal. Bruce received an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole. San Saba County Sheriff Stephen Boyd called the verdict “just a relief for San Saba County in general.”⁸

1
Austin American-Statesman. Bruce Harkey Convicted in Murder-for-Hire Plot Over Family Pecan Farm
2
Texas Monthly. A Tree Is Known by Its Fruit
3
Archive.org. Dateline NBC – Queen of the County
4
Delaware Online. Third Arrest Made in San Saba Double Murder
5
Oak Ridger. Karen Gail Johnson Remembered
6
HappyScribe (Dateline NBC Transcript). Dateline NBC – Queen of the County
7
Austin American-Statesman. Couple Sentenced in Murder Plot
8
Austin American-Statesman. Bruce Harkey Convicted of Murder-for-Hire Plot in Pecan Farming Family