A Kentucky jury came down hard on a Napa Valley man hired by a former California Highway Patrol captain to kill her husband in a twisted murder-for-hire plot – even after the killer’s distraught children begged for mercy. Cumberland County jurors on Monday recommended the most severe penalty they could, life in prison, for Thomas O’Donnell, in the killing of Michael Harding, the estranged husband of CHP captain Julie Harding. O’Donnell faces life in prison. Cumberland County Sheriff's Office O’Donnell was convicted of murder by that same jury last Friday. The jurors could have recommended a sentence ranging anywhere from 20 to 50 years in prison, or life in prison, KCRA 3 reported. It took the jury only about 30 minutes to unanimously agree on a life sentence for the stunned 64-year-old, who was placed in handcuffs and led out of the courtroom after the jurors issued their shocking decree. Harding allegedly hired O’Donnell to kill her estranged husband.…