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| Watson’s family posts Web site to ‘expose lies’ By JOHN MUNFORD Family and friends of convicted murderer Jim Watson are taking to the World Wide Web to buttress their claims that numerous witnesses lied in the 2002 murder trial that landed him in jail after a Fulton County jury determined he killed his wife. The Web site, www.jimwatsonframed.com, features separate sections on individuals who were influential to the case in which Watson was convicted of murdering his wife, Beverley, after she walked away from the couple’s south Fayette County home. Beverley Watson was reported missing in January 1997, only to have her body discovered in the spring of 1999 in a wooded area of south Fulton County. The Watsons’ daughter, Ashley, has maintained her father’s innocence. She said the family wanted to publish the information “to show the lies” told about her father to secure his conviction. “They said it,” she said, noting the information is taken from transcripts of interviews and testimony in the case. “They’re the ones who lied and we intend to go out and prove it to the public. ... We’re tired of people making stuff up about us and we’re ready to say, ‘You lied.’” The Web site contains some information that wasn’t even brought out at trial, including one theory about another party who might have abducted Beverley Watson. According to the site, Jim Watson, who was an undercover narcotics agent for the Riverdale Police Department at the time of his wife’s disappearance, was covertly investigating a report that two police officers were involved in drug trafficking. Although the investigation wasn’t “official,” it was possible those officers found out and abducted Beverley, the site indicates. The case is being appealed by Jim Watson’s attorneys; the presiding judge in the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford Jr., last year denied a motion for new trial. One of the targets of the Web site is Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan, who led the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office investigation into Mrs. Watson’s original disappearance. Jordan said Friday morning he was unaware of the site but after briefly reviewing it he felt it was “sad.” He was also upset about allegations that he knew Beverley Watson personally prior to the case. “I had never met her. It’s just simply not true. We never worked together.” Jordan said he was so upset about that discrepancy that he was going to speak with an attorney about it. Ashley Watson said the section of the Web site about Jordan “shows all the tricks he played with us and how he didn’t do things right.” Ashley said she felt one of the most important parts of the site was the link to GBI and FBI reports on the dust and dirt samples taken from her mother’s car. Although Fulton prosecutors tried to link that dust to the dirt road where her mother’s body was eventually found, the reports concluded there was no “remarkable” result showing any link. The trial featured scant physical testimony other than the scratches on Jim Watson’s face that were noticed when he reported her missing two days after she disappeared. Watson told police the scratches came from when he and his wife quarreled just before she left the house on foot, never to return, as she threw her keys at him. The other significant physical evidence was that of Beverley Watson’s remains, which were identified through dental records. Several close friends of Beverley Watson testified at trial that she told them if she ever disappeared it was because her husband had killed her. The couple had separated at one time and just before her disappearance Beverley Watson had moved out of the couple’s south Fayette home and into an apartment in addition to hiring a divorce lawyer to represent her in legal proceedings. Beverley Watson later dropped her divorce case before it went to court. The Web site took over a year to put together because of all the paperwork that had to be reviewed to compile the information, Ashley Watson said. The work became so overwhelming that it drew Ashley to stay up late at night and avoid visiting her father, who is at the Fulton County Jail instead of a state prison so he can be closer by to assist his attorneys with the appeal. Ashley is running her father’s locksmith business, Anchor Lock and Key, with input from him. She’s also supporting her brother Todd, who’s in eighth grade and playing baseball. She is proud she’s able to give him tips, since she jokes she is “retired” from her softball career. The Watson family will be out in public this weekend handing out business cards and fliers to create awareness about the site.
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