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Thread: John Matthias Watson III - Nevada Death Row

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    John Matthias Watson III - Nevada Death Row




    Facts of the Crime:

    A jury granted a former California math teacher his request for the death penalty for the 2006 killing and dismembering of his wife in a Las Vegas hotel room. The same jury that convicted 70-year-old John Matthias Watson III of first-degree murder deliberated less than two hours before handing down the death penalty. The body of 50-year-old Everilda "Evie" Watson has never been found. Her children reported her missing in July 2006 after John Watson returned home to Ontario, California, from a vacation without her. Authorities reported finding blood in the couple's Jeep Cherokee, and Watson was seen on videotape buying an electric saw, bleach, odor absorbent trash bags and other items.

    Watson was sentenced to death on June 11, 2010.

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    June 11, 2010

    LAS VEGAS -- A 69-year-old former California math teacher found guilty of killing and dismembering his wife in a Las Vegas hotel room told a jury he wants the death penalty.

    But a Nevada judge told John Matthias Watson III he doesn't get to pick his own punishment.

    The jury that convicted Watson on Thursday of first-degree murder reconvenes Friday to hear additional testimony before deciding whether he should get the death penalty.

    The body of 50-year-old Everilda "Evie" Watson has never been found.

    Her children reported her missing in July 2006 after John Watson returned home to Ontario, Calif., from a vacation without her.

    Authorities reported finding blood in the couple's Jeep Cherokee, and Watson was seen on videotape buying an electric saw, bleach, odor-absorbent trash bags and other items.

    http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/23869895/detail.html

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    June 15, 2010

    LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A jury has granted a former California math teacher his request for the death penalty for the 2006 killing and dismembering of his wife in a Las Vegas hotel room.

    The same jury that convicted 70-year-old John Matthias Watson III of first-degree murder Thursday deliberated less than two hours before handing down the death penalty Friday.

    The body of 50-year-old Everilda "Evie" Watson has never been found.

    Her children reported her missing in July 2006 after John Watson returned home to Ontario, Calif., from a vacation without her.

    Authorities reported finding blood in the couple's Jeep Cherokee, and Watson was seen on videotape buying an electric saw, bleach, odor absorbent trash bags and other items.

    http://www.ktnv.com/global/story.asp?s=12643125

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Death penalty upheld in 2006 Vegas murder

    By SEAN WHALEY
    THE LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

    CARSON CITY — A former California schoolteacher sentenced to death by a jury in 2010 for killing his wife in a Las Vegas hotel room had his conviction and sentence upheld Thursday by the Nevada Supreme Court.

    The 5-2 ruling found that there were no errors that would require a new trial or penalty hearing for John Matthias Watson III for the murder of his wife, Evie Watson, in July 2006.

    Her body has never been recovered, but Evie Watson’s DNA was found in a shower drain at the Tuscany, in a room she was not supposed to be in as the room he rented for them was at Circus Circus.

    Prosecutors said at his 2010 trial that Watson rented the room at the Tuscany with false identification. It was there that Watson shot his wife and then cut her up with a band saw, according to evidence presented to the jury. In letters written from jail, Watson admitted to cooking and eating part of the body.

    Watson lured his wife to Las Vegas ostensibly to celebrate her 50th birthday. In reality, he had been plotting her murder for more than a month because she was going to leave him and he didn’t want to have to give her half of the family assets, prosecutors said at his trial.

    Justices Michael Cherry and Nancy Saitta dissented in part from the majority, saying Clark County District Judge Kathy Hardcastle erred by improperly defining mitigating circumstances to the jury that could have resulted in a lesser penalty.

    As a result, the two justices said the error affected Watson’s substantial rights and that he should receive a new penalty hearing.

    The dissent noted that Watson presented documentation showing that he had suffered from mental illness and had received psychiatric treatment but the jury found no mitigating circumstances present. The two justices said the jury might not have considered it as evidence favorable to Watson because of the erroneous jury instruction.

    The court majority argued the claim regarding the jury instruction did not warrant relief.

    http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/la...6-vegas-murder

  5. #5
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    John Watson will be featured in tonight's episode of Fatal Vows airing on ID (Investigation Discovery Channel) at 9:00 p.m. EST.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    New trial for Nevada death row inmate will await appeal

    LAS VEGAS (AP) — A 79-year-old Nevada prison inmate who was sentenced in 2010 to die may get a chance to again argue he’s not guilty, after a judge in Las Vegas overturned his conviction and granted him a new trial.

    However, the judge on Thursday postponed setting a new trial date for John Matthias Watson III, after prosecutors appealed the ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court.

    Watson’s attorney, Jamie Resch, says Watson’s trial lawyers made colossal errors.

    Everilda Watson’s body was never found and John Watson, a retired math teacher from Ontario, California, always maintained that he didn’t kill her.

    But in a bid to spare him from death row — and without his consent — one of his lawyers told jurors that Watson might have been guilty of a lesser murder charge.

    https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/06...-await-appeal/

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    Nevada high court weighs murder case of retired teacher on death row

    By David Ferrara
    The Las Vegas Review-Journal

    The Nevada Supreme Court is considering whether to grant a new trial for a death row inmate accused of murdering his wife in a Las Vegas hotel room and cooking her body parts nearly 15 years ago.

    A lower court judge reversed John Matthus Watson III’s conviction and death sentence after finding in 2019 that his trial attorney conceded a 2nd-degree murder charge in an effort to avoid capital punishment.

    Watson’s new lawyer, Jamie Resch, argued Tuesday before the high court that the trial attorney, Patrick McDonald, did so without consulting Watson.

    “The undisputed fact of the matter is simply that everyone, from Watson, his lawyers, the judge, the clerk, and the prospective jury, all understood that Watson’s position at trial was that he was innocent of the allegations against him,” Resch wrote in court briefs. “Trial counsel took it upon himself to argue the exact opposite of what Watson wanted and in so doing acted both ineffectively and inconsistent with the obligations of functioning counsel.”

    Watson, a retired high school math teacher, was convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to die in 2010 for killing his wife, Evie.

    Prosecutors said Watson lured his wife to Las Vegas to celebrate her 50th birthday in July 2006, but he had been planning to kill her because he was afraid she would divorce him and take his money. Prosecutors also said that while in Las Vegas, Watson checked into the Tuscany Suites and Casino using a fake ID, shot his wife and then cut her up with a band saw.

    Her body was never discovered, but investigators found her DNA in a shower drain at the Tuscany, though her husband had rented a room for her at Circus Circus. In letters written from jail, Watson admitted to cooking and eating part of the body, according to court records.

    In closing arguments, McDonald argued that “something happened” to Evie Watson.

    “Admittedly, you may very well find him guilty of 2nd-degree murder, if and only if, you feel that the circumstantial evidence warrants it,” McDonald said, according to court records.

    A 70-year-old Watson told jurors that if he was convicted, he wanted the death penalty. The jury did just that, finding aggravating circumstances in the slaying: that Evie Watson was killed during the commission of a kidnapping and that she was tortured or mutilated.

    In May 2019, District Judge Michelle Leavitt found that “the individual and collective effect of these arguments was to concede” Watson’s guilt to second-degree murder. She overturned his conviction and sentence, and prosecutors appealed.

    Should the high court uphold Leavitt’s decision, Watson would receive a new trial. Resch said the condemned 81-year-old is legally blind and uses a wheelchair at Ely State Prison.

    Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo argued that McDonald’s statements were part of a trial strategy that could not have been avoided. McDonald did not tell jurors that Evie Watson was murdered, the prosecutor said.

    “There’s nothing unreasonable about what the defense attorney did, which was trying to limit the liability,” DiGiacomo told a panel of 5 justices.

    McDonald, whose law license was suspended in 2013 while he faced charges of misappropriating roughly $480,000 in client funds, could not be reached Tuesday. He remains on disability-inactive status.

    https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/...h-row-2389762/

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    The trial court's ruling granting a new trial to Watson was reversed by the Nevada Supreme Court on December 13, 2021. Motion for rehearing denied on February 10, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...cert%20ext.pdf

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    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Distributed for conference September 28, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/21-8263.html
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court DENIED Watson's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Nevada
    Case Numbers: (78780)
    Decision Date: December 13, 2021
    Rehearing Denied: February 10, 2022

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/...22zor_fcgj.pdf

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