Judge Locks Up Hitman Hired by California Cop to Kill Her Husband

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:02]Commonwealth versus Thomas McDonald versus Thomas O'Donnell. Excuse me. 22 CR 00103. Are you Thomas O'Donnell?

[00:00:34]>> Yes, sir.

[00:00:35]>> Born in 1961.

[00:00:37]>> Last four digits of your social security number 6773.

[00:00:41]>> Yes.

[00:00:42]>> We have exparte motion that will be heard later. Is that correct?

[00:00:46]>> Yes, sir.

[00:00:47]>> And then there is a motion to release property.

[00:00:54]A vehicle come the Commonwealth moves the court to enter an order.

[00:01:11]Well, I'm fix DY truck and gives a serial number to call. Now, who is call?

[00:01:29]Is this the victim's truck that we're talking about?

[00:01:31]>> I understand there's an order that Okay, >> I will I will sign order. I just want to make sure Paul will air or >> is that correct? Is that correct?

[00:01:44]>> So, the comm has agreed to release the truck all time. Is that correct? Enter the order. Next matter has to do with sentencing. Uh Mr. O'Donnell, if you had an opportunity to review the pre-sency as reported by probation parole, is it substantially correct?

[00:02:03]>> Yes. Is there any reason this gentleman should not be sentenced today?

[00:02:07]>> No, you're honor.

[00:02:08]>> You have any statement?

[00:02:09]>> No, your honor, >> Mr. Odonald Odonald you're tried by a jury here in Cumberland County and a lengthy trial. You were afforded every opportunity in a valid defense, expert witnesses, that sort of thing.

[00:02:29]But the juries found you guilty of murder and sent you lot.

[00:02:34]I've carefully reviewed this case.

[00:02:37]read all the statements, reviewed all of the information that was there. I was particularly touched by the victim's statements, the relatives.

[00:02:51]The deceased victim's mother made a very poignant statement.

[00:02:57]I don't know whether I assume she's still alive. She had very serious kidney cancer and lost her son, lost a caretaker, had to suffer through two years or so since since you committed this crime.

[00:03:17]With the doubt she expressed, as the daughter did, the son testified in this case, what effect your terrible, horrendous actions had on that family. Your actions have had a terrible impact on this community. Uh this community is not a violent community. Uh we have very few murders that are committed here. Uh you never stepped up and accepted responsibility for your actions. And I looked at you very carefully even when there was description of the state of the victim's body how he was decomposed after you left him over there having shot him twice in the head twice in the body his body decomposed the autopsy when they would open I won't even go into the details but the autopsy would be something that these jurors or anyone who saw this case and this family could never get out of everything. And then I look at your record, a very sparse record of any criminal activity. And I wonder how you got this situation. You spent days in this trial and with your very able counsel trying to discredit witnesses who are going to locate two cell phones here that they could track from California to Texas uh to here over to the scene. They gave evidence how you stayed in a hotel down in Cookville and looked at exactly address where this murder was. Your DNA was found in the in the vehicle and after all this sort of thing toward the end you tried to create a situation where you were there. I don't know why you wasted everybody's time and effort going through all this for challenge this forensic evidence when you going to your your folks going to say that. And I will tell you something else, council.

[00:05:12]You know, I thought long and hard about your closing argument in this case where you put forth your theory of the case without any evidence whatsoever. So it it existed out of the whole cloth.

[00:05:26]So this I practice law for 45 years.

[00:05:30]This is one of the most coldblooded, heinous acts that I've ever seen anybody committed. I don't know how with the background I saw from you, you had your mind to do this. I I'll never understand how you could, you know, come up with this plot, use the burner phones to make the appointments, go over there and call a guy that's just trying to make a living. Call him over there thinking he was going to get a job and just coldheartedly murder him and leave him there to decompose. So maybe you'll have time to accept your actions while you're there, but I'm going to sentence you to life in prison. And I'll just tell you that I think that that is is most deserved. And if this had been a death penalty case, you know, I I would have been surprised whatever whatsoever that you would have been sentenced to death in the elected chair. So you're in the custody of the Department of Correction to serve the rest of your natural life in penitentiary. Thank you.

[00:06:31]Your honor, I do have an order to appoint to allow them to proceed in politics on his appeal by >> submitted.

[00:06:45]>> You can take him out. I'd like to speak attorney.

[00:06:49]Mr. You come up here as far as concern theory about people.

[00:07:16]I was a defense lawyer myself for a long time. I think y'all are carefully considered that I've been weighing back and forth where I'll report your actions to the bar association because you just can't do that and you know so I I'm doing some prayerful consideration up to that your opening statement was if these things but you could decide later in a case that you're not going to introduce evidence you you run the risk of someone at that juncture saying she said that this But how can you justify coming up with a theory of the case that there's no evidence whatsoever?

[00:07:53]That's some that's a rhetorical question. I don't know the answer, but I want y'all to consider what you're doing and I want you to communicate with me what your position is on that.