Crime
Convict says he did everyone a ‘favour’ by killing 2 child molesters
By Josh K. Elliott Global News
Posted February 21, 2020 9:58 am
Updated February 21, 2020 12:09 pm
Warning: This story contains details some readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.
The child molester was watching PBS Kids again and Jonathan Watson says he simply couldn’t take it anymore.
Inmate Watson, 41, has publicly confessed to beating two convicted child molesters to death at a California prison last month, after one of them allegedly “taunted” him by watching children’s programming in a shared prisoner space. He told his side of the Jan. 16 rampage in a confession letter sent to the Mercury News earlier this week.
David Bobb, 48, died en route to the hospital while Graham De Luis-Conti, 62, passed away three days later. Both victims were serving life sentences for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 years old.
“Being a lifer, I’m in a unique position where I sometimes have access to these people and I have so little to lose,” Watson told the Mercury News. “And trust me, we get it, these people are every parents’ worst nightmare.”
Watson has not yet been charged, but prison officials identified him last month as the person responsible for beating two other inmates to death with a walking cane at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran, Calif. Watson had only been at the facility for a week after he was transferred there from a higher-security institution. He is serving a life sentence for murder.
Watson says he never should have been transferred to the lower-security facility, where he was placed in a shared prison pod with several other inmates, including one of the convicted child molesters. According to his letter, the first victim seemed to “taunt” their entire pod by watching PBS Kids in full view of the other inmates.
“I could not sleep having not done what every instinct told me I should’ve done right then and there, so I packed all of my things because I knew one way or another the situation would be resolved the following day,” Watson wrote to the paper.
He claims he went to the prison counsellor the next day and asked for an “urgent” transfer to a more secure facility because he was afraid he might turn violent. He says the staffer declined his request, so he went back to his pod.
That’s when he says he saw PBS Kids on the television again.
“This time, someone else said something to the effect of, ‘Is this guy really going to watch this right in front of us?’” Watson wrote to the paper.
“And I recall saying, ‘I got this.’ And I picked up the cane and went to work on him.”
The prison guards did not notice the first attack, according to Watson’s account. He says he left the pod to tell a guard about what he’d done, but he stopped in his tracks when he spotted a “child trafficker” in a neighbouring cell.
“I figured I’d just do everybody a favour,” Watson wrote to the paper. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
Afterward, Watson says he went to a guard and reported the killings immediately. He says the guard didn’t believe him until he looked in the dorm and “saw the mess I’d left.”
He told the paper that he gave prison staff a full confession, and he plans to plead guilty to whatever charges he faces.
A homicide investigation is currently underway.
“We can’t comment on an active investigation,” Dana Simas, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email to the Associated Press.
Watson has already served 10 years of his current life sentence, which he received for first-degree murder and discharging a firearm causing great bodily injury or death.
He has been segregated from other prisoners since the attack and is not allowed to use the phone or see visitors, according to the Mercury News. He sent the paper his confession letter in response to an interview request.
Watson said he and many other inmates have sympathy for the victims of child molesters. That’s why he believes those offenders face so much violence from other inmates in prison.
“These families spend years carefully and articulately planning how to give their children every opportunity that they never had,” he wrote. “And one monster comes along and changes that child’s trajectory forever.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/6578746/inmate-confesses-child-molester-killing/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------By Alyssa Choiniere
Updated Feb 22, 2020 at 2:43pm
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Jonathan Watson
Jonathan Watson is a convicted murderer and California inmate who wrote a letter to a newspaper saying he killed two people in prison because they were child molesters.
Watson is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. He had recently been moved to a lower-security facility, although he wrote in the letter he repeatedly called the move a bad idea. He used another inmate’s cane to attack the two men, Graham De Luis-Conti, 62, and David Bobb, 48, who were both serving life sentences for sexual assault of a child under 14. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a press release Watson was the attacker, and they are investigating the deaths as homicides.
Watson was sentenced to life in prison in the 2008 death of 27-year-old Garrett Benson in Humboldt County, California. Benson served with the National Guard and worked for UPS, according to his obituary.
Watson was lauded for the murders of Bobb and De Luis Conti. Some called Watson a “national hero” and others used his inmate number to donate money to him. Donations using his inmate number were blocked after a few hours.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Jonathan Watson Is Serving a Sentence of Life With the Possibility of Parole in the Murder of Garrett Benson
Jonathan Watson, a 41-year-old convicted murderer, is serving a life sentence in the death of Garrett Benson in Humboldt County in 2008. Watson forced his way into a Cutten, California home and confronted Garrett Benson on December 3, 2008. The two men struggled, and Benson was shot three times. Benson died a few hours later in a hospital, according to the Times-Standard.
Benson was 27 years old and a 9-year member of the National Guard, according to his obituary. Watson also had a co-conspirator, Jason Leon Belles, who was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison.
Officials said there was a large amount of marijuana being grown and processed in the Humboldt County, California home, the newspaper reported. Humboldt County was the setting of a Netflix documentary, Murder Mountain, which examined the outlaw lifestyle of marijuana growers in the isolated area, and a high number of missing persons cases. The Benson case was not featured on the show.
While Jonathan Henry Watson described himself as a “lifer” with little to lose in a letter to the Mercury News describing the reasons he killed two convicted child molesters, he had the possibility of parole, according to a press release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
2. Fans Were Sending Jonathan Watson Money for Killing Two Inmates With a Cane in Corcoran Because They Were Child Molesters
Jonathan Watson received commissary donations after his story made headlines, causing a block on donations using his inmate number. Some were calling Watson a “national hero.”
He wrote a letter to the Mercury News saying he quickly confessed to prison staff at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a press release January 22, 2020 that two inmates had been killed in the facility January 16. The release identified Watson, 41, as the attacker, and said officials were investigating the deaths as homicides. The men died of “multiple head wounds.” Prison staff treated the inmates until ambulances arrived.
Graham De Luis-Conti, 62, was pronounced dead three days after the attack at a local hospital. David Bobb, 48, died of his injuries on the way to the hospital.
“Bobb was received by CDCR from San Diego County on October 17, 2005 to serve a life with the possibility of parole sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 years old,” the press release said.
De Luis-Conti was sentenced to 121 years in prison for the sexual assault of three teenage girls. In 1995, on a houseboat in Napa County, De Luis Conti raped and assaulted two 14 year old girls and a 13 year old girl, according to court documents filed in his case. In at least one of those assaults, he restrained the child to sexually assault her.
The conviction of Graham Roger Lee De Luis-Conti was affirmed in 2013 after he filed an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. You can read the court’s answer to his appeal in full here. De Luis Conti claimed he had ineffective counsel and that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction.
3. Garrett Benson, the Man Jonathan Watson Was Convicted of Murdering in 2008, Was a Military Service Member & UPS Worker
Garrett Benson was a 27-year-old member of the National Guard, according to his obituary. He had two deployments during his time in the service, with a year stationed in Utah and a year stationed in Sinai, Egypt. He worked at UPS for 7 1/2 years. His family said he enjoyed his work, and his customers enjoyed his service.
“People always were happy to see Garrett deliver their packages. Brown never looked so good,” the obituary said.
Benson had a girlfriend named Rachel Wold, who was present during the shooting. She told Watson at his sentencing he may remember her face, calling him “a coward who hides behind a mask and a gun,” according to the Times-Standard. She said she did not feel safe in her own home, but was determined to overcome that fear.
Benson also had a sister and a brother. His sister, Erica Benson, said she did not know if her family could survive without Benson’s cheerful disposition, and that he was loved by many.
“You may have murdered one man, but you’ve slaughtered the souls of hundreds of people in this community,” she said.
Benson’s mother, Susan Benson, said at Watson’s sentencing she was proud of her son and the person he may have become. She considered his life her greatest accomplishment, and said Watson robbed her of a loving son.
“I doubt I will accomplish any greater thing than raising a responsible child,” she said.
Benson’s family asked in the obituary that mourners donate to the CASA of Humboldt, an organization for foster children, or Food for People, the food bank of Humboldt County, in lieu of flowers.
A poem was also published in his obituary. It said:
Afterglow
I’d like the memory of me
to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow
of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo
whispering softly down the ways,
of happy times and laughing times
and bright and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve,
to dry before the sun
of happy memories that I leave
when life is done.
4. Jonathan Watson Said He Warned Prison Staff He Might Become Violent & Was Set Off by a Convicted Child Molester Watching PBS Kids
Jonathan Watson warned a counselor at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison he needed to be transferred from the facility because he was going to attack an inmate, and called the matter “urgent.” But his message was disregarded, according to a letter he wrote to the Mercury News. He had not yet been charged in the case as of the newspaper’s article, published February 20 and updated the next day. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a press release they were investigating the deaths as homicides and named Watson as the attacker.
Watson wrote he had recently been moved from a single-person cell to dorm-style living at the Corcoran prison after he was given a lower-level security classification, moved from from Level III to Level II. The newspaper reported Watson described that as a “careless” mistake and said he left “quite a paper trail” of grievances protesting it.
His letter, which did not name Bobb or Luis-Conti, said “Molester #1” began watching PBS Kids around the other inmates. Watson and other inmates took that as a taunt.
That night, Watson wrote, “I could not sleep having not done what every instinct told me I should’ve done right then and there, so I packed all of my things because I knew one way or another the situation would be resolved the following day.”
That day, two hours before the attacks, Watson told a prison counselor he needed to be transferred back to Level III, saying he was going to “really (expletive) one of these dudes up.” He claimed the counselor “scoffed and dismissed” him.
He was contemplating what to do when another inmate drew his attention to the inmate watching PBS Kids, the Mercury News reported.
“I was mulling it all over when along came Molester #1 and he put his TV right on PBS Kids again,” he wrote. “But this time, someone else said something to the effect of ‘Is this guy really going to watch this right in front of us?’ and I recall saying, ‘I got this.’ And I picked up the cane and went to work on him.”
He left to find a guard to turn himself in, but encountered another inmate on the way.
“As I got to the lower tier, I saw a known child trafficker, and I figured I’d just do everybody a favor,” Watson wrote. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
He approached a guard, still holding the cane, and told him he had bad news.
“I told him, ‘I’ve got some pretty bad news,’ to which he ironically replied, ‘You’re not going to hit me with that cane are you?'” Watson wrote. “So after jesting for a moment, knowing this might be the last decent moment that I have for a long time, I told him what I’d just done, which he also didn’t believe until he looked around the corner and saw the mess I’d left in the dorm area.”
Watson went on to describe the men as “every parents’ worst nightmare.”
“Being a lifer, I’m in a unique position where I sometimes have access to these people and I have so little to lose,” Watson wrote.
He later added, “And trust me, we get it, these people are every parents’ worst nightmare. These familys (sic) spend years carefully and articulately planning how to give their children every opportunity that they never had, and one monster comes along and changes that child’s trajectory forever.”
5. Jonathan Watson Tried to Withdraw his No-Contest Plea in the 2008 Humboldt County Murder, Saying His Judgement Was Skewed By Medications
Jonathan Watson tried to withdraw his no-contest plea before he was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison in the death of Garrett Benson. Watson, who was 30 at the time of his sentencing in August 2009, entered a plea of no contest to his charge of first-degree murder with a firearm enhancement. He tried to change that plea, saying he was not fully competent because of medications he was taking when he entered the plea, according to the Times-Standard.
It wasn’t until one week before his sentencing date that he tried to change his plea. He also tried to change his legal counsel at the same time, saying his attorney had been ineffective. A California judge denied both requests, the Times-Standard reported August 29, 2009.
“I believe Mr. Watson was in full possession of his faculties at the time of his plea,” Judge Bruce Watson said, according to the newspaper.
Benson was 27 years old and a 9-year member of the National Guard, according to his obituary. Watson also had a co-conspirator, Jason Leon Belles, who was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison.
https://heavy.com/news/2020/02/jonathan-watson/
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Anyone who kills two young teen rapists deserves some sort of break. Sure he is doing life for killing a pot grower with an accomplice but lets make his lifetime incarceration a bit more enjoyable. A conjugal visit once a month with a big titted blonde hooker would be a good start. Pizza and shrimp once a week would also be good. For some reason the California Prison Authorities are not allowing the public to donate money to Mr.Watson. Why? If I or anyone else wants to give money to a person who happens to be incarcerated why is it not allowed? Sure if the inmate has outstanding fines or restitution orders it could be confiscated but an outright ban maybe these rapist coddlers need to be locked up for awhile until they see the light. Sweet dreams Mr.Watson.