Ex-CHP captain acted ‘erratic’ before alleged murder-for-hire plot against husband, court hears

A former California Highway Police captain who allegedly had a hitman kill her husband behaved erratically and thinned out before her partner’s murder.

Retired sergeant Brian Wittmer, testifying at the trial of alleged Napa hitman Thomas O’Donnell, said Wednesday in a Kentucky court Capt. Julie Harding acted differently towards the end of their 3.5 years as co-workers.

He said Harding lost weight, acted erratically and shared more about her personal life, according to KCRA.

Wittmer said she told him she was dating someone from Napa and made accusations against her husband Michael Harding.

Wittmer believed Julie was insincere when she called him, screaming that she had found her husband dead.

“When I hung up the phone, I thought she wanted me to remember this moment in time,” Wittmer said. Then-Assistant Chief Doug Lyons said he got a similar call.

“It was 35 minutes of rambling, and I didn’t even know Julie. So, that was the strange part. I never met her,” Lyons said.

He said the call convinced him that she might be a suspect in her husband’s murder.

Julie committed suicide in Tennessee, shooting herself, a day after O’Donnell was arrested by local authorities at Sacramento International Airport in connection with her husband’s death, KCRA 3 reported.

Her death came after she was arrested on Dec. 8, 2022 on criminal trespassing charges stemming from a series of complaints filed against her in October, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said.

According to documents shared with The Post by the Murfreesboro Police Department, Harding was accused of harassing the woman who took custody of her dog after her husband, Michael Harding, was reported missing in September 2022.

She wrote a few suicide notes before her death, which were shown to the jury.

One blamed her husband. “I lived a good life until a year ago. Mike you win. You got what wanted. Me in a coffin,” she wrote.

Another said in part, “Don’t know how to start this but with the only thing I can. I love you all. I will not put though a trial regardless of the outcome.”

Her notes ended with a wish for her dogs.

“I can take no more. Please love my dogs as I do,” she ended.

Investigators said phone data is what eventually led them to O’Donnell as the pair’s calls had shown up in Julie’s phone records.

“There was this number that she was calling and talking to almost every single day, sometimes more than once a day,” Det. B.J. Burton with the Kentucky State Police said.

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