239 - The Murder of John Harden
Trace Evidence
Steven Pacheco
4.7 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2024
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On a warm spring night in March of 1975, thirty-two year old John Harden completed an emergency call for a client and returned home. Less than an hour later, he'd be shot dead in his driveway.
After finishing his shower, John glanced out the window and saw his work truck engulfed in flames. Running outside to try and snuff out the blaze, his killer got his opening and fired a single blast from his gun. John fell to the pavement and died from his wounds less than twenty minutes later.
Investigators would later determine that the fire had been purposefully set to lure the father of five outside and into the kill zone. They recovered the murder weapon, though they could never identify it or the owner. As years wore on, the case grew increasingly cold.
In October of 1991 an episode of Unsolved Mysteries revitalized interest in the yet solved homicide. Not by focusing on the murder and investigating the case, but by chasing alleged ghosts around the house in which John had been killed.
Was John Harden the victim of a random act of violence, had he been targeted by someone he knew and trusted or was his murder arranged by local union members who grew furious watching John take contracts they felt belonged to them.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When 32-year-old John Hardin and his wife Vicky made the trip south from Jacksonville to the quaint community |
| 0:15.2 | of Claremont, they could have never imagined it would be their first steps towards a bloody |
| 0:19.8 | and violent end. |
| 0:21.9 | On a warm spring night in 1975, John spotted his work truck catching |
| 0:26.5 | fire in the driveway and ran outside to put it out. The fire, purposefully |
| 0:31.8 | set, was little more than a ruse designed to draw the father of five into the open. |
| 0:37.0 | Moments later, a shot rang out, and John fell dead in his driveway, the victim of a single shotgun blast. |
| 0:45.3 | Investigators working the case quickly determined that the killer, who had also cut the phone |
| 0:50.0 | lines to the home, had laying in weight in the bushes that night seeking his perfect opportunity. |
| 0:56.7 | The next morning they recovered the murder weapon, an old and beaten up 20-gauge shotgun that was untraceable. |
| 1:04.5 | An odd weapon for an assassination they thought, and if only they could find the owner, they |
| 1:09.3 | might uncover the truth. |
| 1:11.7 | For nearly 50 years, the case has remained unsolved and John Harden has been swept up into the |
| 1:17.8 | memoryless files of history. |
| 1:20.3 | Bizarrely it wouldn't be a break in the case or a confession that would bring John's name |
| 1:25.2 | back into the headlines but instead rumors and stories spreading throughout the city of |
| 1:30.8 | a haunted house and the murder victim who sought his own justice |
| 1:34.8 | from beyond the grave. Sadly, the true terror of the last moments of John's life is often |
| 1:41.2 | ignored in place of tales of phantom apparitions and haunted happenings. |
| 1:46.7 | The truth of what happened that night, who was responsible, and why John was killed |
| 1:51.8 | has never been determined, |
| 1:53.4 | and while his case is certainly haunting, |
... |
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