The child molester was watching PBS Kids again and Jonathan Watson says he simply couldn’t take it anymore.
Inmate Watson, 41, has publicly confessed to beating two convicted child molesters to death at a California prison after one of them allegedly “taunted” him by watching children’s programming in a shared prisoner space. He told his side of the Jan. 16 rampage in a confession letter sent to the Mercury News.
In the letter, Watson stated that hours before the attacks, he told a counselor that he wanted to be transferred, and added that the request was “urgent.” He wrote that he said that he would soon attack another inmate, but he was ignored.
Watson wrote that he had been given a lower-level security classification, from Level III to Level II, and was transferred from a single-person cell to dorm-style living at the Corcoran prison. The transfer displeased him, and he called it a “careless” mistake by CDCR, explaining that he left “quite a paper trail” of grievances protesting the transfer.
In the letter, he stated that a “child molester” moved into his pod six days into his stay at the prison. He doesn’t say whether it was 48-year-old David Bobb or 64-year-old Graham De Luis-Conti, instead referring to the man as “Molester #1.” Watson wrote that Molester #1 began watching PBS Kids in full view of the other inmates, who took it as a taunt.
Watson wrote about that night:
“I could not sleep having not done what every instinct told me I should’ve done right then and there, so I packed all of my things because I knew one way or another the situation would be resolved the following day.”
Watson spoke to a prison counselor the next day – two hours before the attacks – and stated that he needed to be transferred back to Level III “before I really (expletive) one of these dudes up.”
He said that the counselor “scoffed and dismissed me.”
Watson wrote that he returned to his pod after warning the counselor that he might turn violent.
He wrote:
“I was mulling it all over when along came Molester #1 and he put his TV right on PBS Kids again. But this time, someone else said something to the effect of, ‘Is this guy really going to watch this right in front of us?’ and I recall saying, ‘I got this.’ And I picked up the cane and went to work on him.”
Watson wrote that he then left the pod and was on his way to find a guard and turn himself in when he encountered Molester #2 and decided to kill again.
Afterward, Watson says he went to a guard and reported the killings immediately. He says the guard didn’t believe him until he looked in the dorm and “saw the mess I’d left.”
He told the paper that he gave prison staff a full confession, and he plans to plead guilty to whatever charges he faces.
In his letter, Watson wrote:
“I told him, ‘I’ve got some pretty bad news,’ to which he ironically replied, ‘You’re not going to hit me with that cane, are you?’ So after jesting for a moment, knowing this might be the last decent moment that I have for a long time, I told him what I’d just done, which he also didn’t believe until he looked around the corner and saw the mess I’d left in the dorm area.”
Watch the video below for more details:
Sources: AWM, Mercury News
