House hunter discovers body in vacant home

Florida resident David Hammersley and his family were fleeing from the hurricanes that plagued Florida and decided to tour homes in Kentucky. While house hunting on Sept. 26, 2022, their realtor showed them a rural 2-acre lot with a main house, a detached garage, and a cottage in Burkesville, Kentucky — a town known as the fishing capital of Kentucky. "The house was immaculate. No furnishings in it. You can eat off the floor," Hammersley told correspondent Peter Van Sant in "The Mansion Above Dale Hollow Lake," an all-new "48 Hours" airing Saturday at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.Hammersley was impressed with the property, including the sight of a Dodge truck found inside the detached garage."And I started to salivate over the possibility of that being part of the deal," he said.

As Hammersley and his family approached the cottage at the far end of the property, they were overpowered by a stench radiating from the cottage."It had to be something like a dead raccoon, in my opinion," Hammersley said.Hammersley and his father-in-law proceeded to investigate, and within moments they stumbled across a horrific scene."I saw a man on the floor, his arm outstretched, obviously dead, from gunshot wounds," Hammersley told Van Sant.They immediately contacted the authorities, who identified that man as Michael "Mike" Harding, a California transplant