Wednesday, June 12, 2002
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Wednesday, June 12, 2002 |
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Watson: Told differing stories to wife's friends By JOHN MUNFORD
Murder defendant Jim Watson in a taped interview played in court Tuesday said he told different versions of his wife's disappearance to friends "to get them off my back." Watson, 39, testified Tuesday, but not as a witness in his own defense. Instead, it was the prosecution that played his taped account of what happened in his wife's disappearance on a cold January night in 1997. A Fulton County jury hearing the tape will decide if he is guilty of murdering his 33-year-old wife Beverley Watson five years ago. Audio tapes from an interview with a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent that was conducted a month after his wife's disappearance were played in court Tuesday morning for the jury. On the tapes, Watson detailed his actions from the time Beverley Watson disappeared until the time he reported her missing to the Fayette County Sheriff's department two days later. Watson explained that in the days after his wife's disappearance, he told different stories of her whereabouts to friends and family "to get them off my back." He said he tried to call Beverley at work Monday morning two days after her disappearance and she wasn't there. He also went by two of her friends' homes to look for her but could not find her. The last time he saw Beverley, Jim Watson said his wife had come downstairs with her jacket and went to the door to the garage. He said he then confronted her about where she was going so late, since it was after midnight. "I grabbed her arm she turned around and threw her keys at me and said she didn't need her keys 'to get out of the damn house,'" Jim Watson said. The couple's two children were not home at the time; both were spending the night elsewhere. After that confrontation Jim Watson said his wife went upstairs again while he went to the garage to let his dogs in because it was cold that evening. "She stayed upstairs and the next thing I know, the door chime went off," Jim Watson said on the tape. He said that the chime sounded whenever the front door was opened. Watson said his wife would often leave home and walk around for 10-15 minutes after an argument. But this time she never returned. Approximately 15 to 20 minutes after he heard the door chime, Watson said he sat down to watch TV, "waiting on her to come back in the door." Testimony in the prosecution's portion of the case continued as of press time Tuesday. The defense is expected to present its case later this week, with one defense attorney Lee Sexton predicting the jury will get the case no later than this Friday.
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