‘Drawing the line’: witness says no remorse by accused led him to police

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — It took eight years to bring Michael Harding II to the witness stand to testify in his own murder trial.

Harding is accused of shooting and killing 17-year-old Dontay White, on May 18, 2016 around 11:15 p.m. as he, White and two others sat in a 2006 Maroon Chevy Malibu.

Harding, 16 and a Snider High School student at the time, is accused of shooting Jerrad Newman, 21, permanently injuring him, and killing White, a fellow Snider student studying electricity at the Anthis Career Center. He died of a gunshot to the neck. Newman’s girlfriend, Antonia Arambula, in the front passenger seat, was allegedly threatened with a gun, but not injured.

On the stand during his murder trial in Allen Superior Court on Thursday, Harding said he got into the car with his own silver Beretta to buy Xanax. He said he got nervous when he saw Newman pass something back to Dontay on the left side of the car. There was a struggle and a gun went off.

Then, Harding said he got out of the car with two guns and took off without the 30 pills he was going to buy for about $180.

Harding said he got concerned that people blamed him on Facebook for the crimes.

But his testimony didn’t match witnesses’ testimony at all.

Two brothers, one of whom was accused of shooting White and Newman, according to court testimony, said Harding told them about the shooting right after it occurred.

Neither brother knew White and neither knew that someone had fingered the older brother, they testified Thursday.

The younger brother said they were both playing basketball when Harding told him about the deadly drug deal.

“He said he shot him when he tried to buy some drugs off him,” the brother said.

It took a while for T.J., a friend of Harding’s father, to put two and two together.

T.J.  now 67, got to know Michael Harding Sr. when he got rides from him occasionally. The Hardings and T.J. lived in the same apartment complex, Maysville Landing, off Maysville Road, not too far from where the shooting occurred on Brickshire Parkway.

T.J. recalled a “bunch of police cars” the night White was killed but he “didn’t know at that time what was going on.”

But after a conversation with Harding Sr. during a 25-minute ride in 2018, there was enough said that he started searching Facebook. He found Dontay’s name.

Concerned, he called the manager at Lee’s Famous Chicken on State Street where White had been employed and worked the night he was killed. T.J. was put in contact with Kandell White, Dontay’s mother, who then contacted Fort Wayne Police Department homicide detective Scott Tegtmeyer., the lead detective on the case.

Meanwhile, T.J. had developed quite a close relationship with Harding and thought of him “as a nice young man.”  Harding worked for T.J., who had a pressure washing business, on a fairly solid basis, he said.

When Harding senior passed away in 2021, T.J. admitted to the younger Harding that he was aware of the situation.

“I kind of figured you did,” T.J. said Harding told him. Someone else did the shooting, Harding claimed, but didn’t say who the shooter was.

“It was a planned robbery from the get go.” T.J. counseled him to “turn that person in.”

It wasn’t until Harding told him he had no remorse for the shooting that T.J. said “he lost respect for him. Once he answered that question, it just changed everything.”

Last year, he contacted law enforcement with the statement: “There was a young man who was shot and killed.”

“There are some places where we have to draw the line. It’d been weighing on me. I have to live with myself,” T.J. said.

Making the case stronger, an FBI special agent, testified Friday that Harding’s phone co-located at the crime scene.

Friday morning, the state represented by Chief Deputy Tom Chaille and Chief Counsel Tesa Helge and Harding by defense attorneys, Christopher Phillips and Jerad Marks will give their closing statements. Allen Superior Court Judge David Zent is presiding.

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