Friday, June 14, 2002
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Friday, June 14, 2002 |
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Witness: Watson wanted to stash car By JOHN
MUNFORD
As he was being investigated for foul play in the 1997 disappearance of his wife, Jim Watson asked a fellow Riverdale police officer if he could park his vehicle at her Newnan residence since Fayette County detectives were looking for it, the officer testified in court Tuesday. Alex Manning said she told Watson, who was a reserve police officer for Riverdale at the time, that it was not a good idea. Watson, who's 39, told the Georgia Bureau of Investigation a month after his wife's disappearance that he thought a friend picked his wife up from their residence after the two had quarreled about where she was going after midnight Jan. 18, 1997. He was the last person confirmed by police to have seen her alive, according to witnesses. Beverley Watson was 33 when she disappeared from the couple's southeast Fayette County residence. The murder case against her husband is being held in Fulton County since her remains were found there in a wooded area in 1999. Manning also testified that Watson once told her and another police officer that Fayette detectives were attempting to follow him and track his whereabouts. He did so while pulling up next to their vehicle after she and the officer she was with had interviewed with Fayette County detectives to aid in their investigation into the disappearance of Jim Watson's wife Beverley. At the time, the officer she was with was a K-9 officer and they needed to go to the veterinarian in Peachtree City to pick up his canine partner. "He (Watson) was making jokes that they were following him," Manning recalled. Watson even followed them inside and sat down in the lobby of the veterinarian's office while the other officers waited to pick up the animal, Manning said. Manning said she quietly kept Fayette sheriff's detective Mahlon Donald abreast of Watson's actions during the investigations. She also told him of Watson's request to hide his vehicle at her Newnan home. Manning also testified that Watson would "switch cars" when Fayette detectives discovered what vehicle he had previously been driving. She said he had an older model black Corvette that he used in addition to the green Mercury Mountaineer SUV that he had asked to hide at her residence. The day Beverley Watson was reported missing by her husband, Jim Watson called the Riverdale Police Department and asked to speak to Manning, she said. Often, he would ask her questions about the Fayette-led investigation, Manning said. For example, Watson asked her what luminol was and why would detectives want to spray that in his vehicle. Luminol is a chemical that can reveal trace amounts of blood splatter and is generally used by detectives to find evidence of a struggle between individuals. At the time of Beverley Watson's disappearance, the Fayette County Sheriff's Department had to call in the Clayton County crime scene unit to conduct luminol tests since Fayette crime scene technicians were not trained to do so at the time, witnesses have testified.
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