Harding drove a stolen car to South Lake Tahoe, California, where he broke into the hotel room belonging to 35-year-old Charles Dickerson; Harding robbed Dickerson and left him bound and gagged. By the time a hotel maid discovered Dickerson, he had suffocated to death. Harding remained in California, robbing and carjacking multiple individuals and couples. On January 10, 1980, a car that he stole from Joseph Wohlers broke down on U.S. Highway 101; when 39-year-old Gerald O. Huth, a Bloomington, Minnesota native who worked for Sperry Univac, stopped to help Harding, Harding shot Huth to death and stole his car. Huth's murder was not immediately discovered, and weeks following the murder, authorities still had not found a body, although by late January, a farmer had discovered Huth's body in a field near Paso Robles, California; he was found with his hands tied behind his back and a gunshot wound in his head. While still in California, Harding used Huth's stolen identification to conceal his identity, and he used Huth's credit cards to rent a hotel room in San Diego, California. Later, while still in San Diego, Harding robbed four people in an optometrist's office and ordered one of the robbery victims to drive him to an unknown woman's house. Arizona murders On January 24, 1980, Harding fled to Phoenix, Arizona, where he gained entry to a hotel room belonging to 38-year-old gastroenterologist Allen F. Gage. Harding bound Gage's wrists and ankles and gagged him with a sock before robbing him. Like Dickerson, Gage suffocated on the gag placed in his mouth. On January 25, 1980, Donald Harding posed as a security guard to gain entry into a motel room in Tucson, Arizona where Robert A. Wise, a 35-year-old businessman, was meeting with Martin Concannon, 33, his corporation's sales representative. Upon entering the hotel room, Harding hogtied the two men, beat Wise with a wooden motel lamp, and stuffed socks into Concannon's mouth; afterwards, he shot both men in the head and chest. Once both men were critically injured, Harding stole Wise's briefcase, which contained his credit cards; he then took Concannon's Oldsmobile. The next morning, police in Tucson discovered the bodies. Wise's body was on the floor next to the bed, tied to the bedpost by a restraint wrapped around his neck with his hands and ankles bound together. He had missing teeth and jaw fractures from when Harding had