sunday night. it might even be monday before i make it back in. he said, i m going to be gone all weekend long. reporter: by the time bruce harkey went on trial in april of 2014, his nephew carl pressley had confessed to his part in killing bonnie harkey and her caretaker. and carl s girlfriend, lillian king, had admitted her involvement. with the two of them set to testify against bruce harkey in exchange for lighter sentences, prosecutor sonny mcafee felt confident that he had a solid case against bruce. the facts of the crime were so horrendous that i didn t think once the jury believed that he was a party to the crime that they d have any difficulty at all finding him guilty. reporter: lillian told the jury that she had heard bruce harkey and carl pressley talk about killing bonnie harkey many times. but she told us she didn t learn the plot had actually been set in motion until the friday before the murder. that s when lillian says she
bruce harkey was down and out in late 2007 when he resettled in san saba after being away for many years. he had no income coming in. and he every time he drove by that property, all he could see was the millions that what he thought was millions that he was missing out on. reporter: by then, bonnie harkey was becoming increasingly frail. her dementia had made her vulnerable to phone scams. she was unable to manage her daily affairs, so her daughter connie became her guardian. after connie died in 2011, bruce harkey thought carl pressley should be bonnie s guardian. when a judge tried to appoint someone else, bruce and john challenged that in court. bonnie asked the judge if she could speak. and the judge said yes. and she said, i don t want them to be my guardians. i m her her afraid of them. her stepsons. reporter: that had to be about the last thing bruce and john wanted to hear.
it delayed any inheritance, certainly. reporter: a lawyer named darrel spinks was chosen to manage her business and financial affairs. bonnie s long time friend betty ann johnson was asked to make sure bonnie s daily needs were met. it was betty ann who d hired karen johnson, the in-home caretaker who was killed the day bonnie was kidnapped. you felt safe with karen takin care of bonnie. i did. reporter: what bruce wanted me to do was to put her in the nursing home. reporter: he told you that. yes. and i said, as long as we can have help 24/7, she s not going anywhere. reporter: bonnie s financial guardian, darrel spinks, says he also butted heads with bruce harkey. the best way i can explain bruce harkey is greedy and, for lack of a better word, just a jerk. he s just a solid jerk. reporter: according to spinks, bruce not only accused him of mismanaging the harkey estate, but also tried to bully him into accepting the sale of a
heated situation. very heated. reporter: that pot had been at a slow boil ever since that day in 1963 when bonnie harkey became stepmother to her husband riley s two boys, bruce and john. bruce and johnny just didn t like bonnie. they didn t like her at all. and so almost from the beginning it was acrimonious. reporter: what form did that acrimony take? bruce and johnny were just rude to bonnie. openly insulting her. reporter: and riley put up with that? let it go. he just let it go. reporter: a lot of blended families have rough starts. but this newly grafted branch of the harkey family tree never had a chance. i don t think riley made a real effort with his boys to say, this is a wonderful woman. i want you to grow to love her like i love her. i think he just said, here you go. reporter: riley seems to have been better with pecans than people. yeah. yeah. reporter: soon enough, john
his advantage when he decided it was long past time for bonnie harkey to meet her maker. so when bruce say, hey, i want you in on my murder plot, what? happiest day of carl s life? you know, could be that carl thought that he was finally gonna receive that acceptance he d been seekin . reporter: a theory? perhaps. but then investigators also knew that bruce harkey had never made any secret of how he felt about his stepmother, bonnie. excuse my language, but this is exactly what he said. he said, that old bitch doesn t have the decency to die. reporter: investigators didn t know if bruce paid carl or just manipulated him into killing bonnie harkey. but they were sure he was involved. so two days after carl led investigators to bonnie s body, bruce harkey was arrested and charged with murder. when lawmen came to question bruce in jail the he did not mince words.