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Watson murder verdict upheld by Ga. Supreme Court

jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the murder conviction of James Lamar Watson Jr., who authorities said killed his wife Beverley and then reported that she disappeared from their east Fayette home in 1997.

The unanimous decision, which came Monday morning, means Watson will remain in prison serving a life sentence instead of receiving a new trial.

The justices declined to overturn the case, saying in a written opinion that the evidence in the trial, though much of it was circumstantial, supported the jury’s verdict.

Watson was convicted of murdering his wife in June 2002 by a Fulton County jury. The case was in Fulton County because Beverley Watson’s remains were found in a wooded area off an dirt road in 1999.

Watson’s attorneys were hopeful the court would overturn the decision because presiding Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford allowed several of Beverley Watson’s friends to testify that she told them if she ever turned up missing, her husband would have killed her.

Normally, such testimony wouldn’t be allowed, but state law makes exceptions when the hearsay testimony is from a deceased murder victim. Watson and his attorneys had hoped a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on hearsay witnesses would play in his favor, but the Georgia Supreme Court declined to reverse the jury’s decision.

The court also noted in its opinion that Watson “was known to stalk Beverley” and “on at least one occasion he threatened his wife with a shotgun.”