Napa man convicted in murder case involving former CHP captain

NBC Bay Area reports that a Napa man, Thomas O'Donnell, was convicted Friday by a Kentucky jury of murder in a murder-for-hire plot spanning three states. Prosecutors alleged that former CHP captain Julie Harding hired O'Donnell to kill her husband Michael, whom O'Donnell allegedly lured to an empty home in Kentucky in 2022; Harding died by suicide months after the murder. The article is bylined to NBC Bay Area staff (no individual journalist named) and presents the conviction factually with minimal elaboration—it lacks named prosecutors, jurors, or legal representatives quoted directly, and provides no detail about trial evidence or arguments. Independent coverage from KCRA and Fox News corroborates the conviction details and adds substantive context about Harding's colleagues testifying to her behavioral decline before the alleged plot, providing the deeper investigative reporting absent from this NBC piece. Watch for O'Donnell's sentencing Monday, which may reveal additional details about the conspiracy and motive.