Fire captain charged in cold-case murders after body discovered; ex-wife recants alibi
01/26/2016 12:42 pm PST
UPDATE March 20, 2017: A jury found David Watson, a former captain with the Tucson Fire Department, guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder on Friday, March 17, KOLD-TV reports .
Watson will be sentenced April 17, 2017.
UPDATE Nov. 22, 2016: The murder trial of David Watson, the former Tucson fire captain accused of killing three women more than 10 years ago, ended with a hung jury on Tuesday, Nov. 22, KOLD-TV reports.
Linda Watson vanished into the thin desert air from her Tucson, Arizona home in 2000.
Linda and her ex-husband, fire captain David Watson, were in a bitter custody battle.
Linda disappeared the day before she had an appointment to get a restraining order against David.
Her mother, Marilyn Cox, was convinced Linda was kidnapped and killed by David.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department seemed to think so too: From day one, David was considered the prime suspect. But without a body, the sheriff can't arrest him.
David wasn't charged, and the case went cold.
Then three years later, tragedy strikes again, with eerie similarities. This time it's Linda's mom Marilyn and her friend Renee Farnsworth. Both are gunned down in the very driveway of where Linda once lived.
Police say Marilyn, like Linda, was also locked in a custody fight with David. She wanted visitation to see her granddaughter.
A chilling email to her attorney emerges: Marilyn wrote that she was afraid what happened to her daughter might happen to her.
"In this February 9, 2003, email she said: 'I just want you to be aware that if I should disappear it won't be of my own choosing,'" Marilyn's attorney said.
Five months after the driveway killings, in the mountains outside the city, a hunter finds the remains of a woman. The body is so badly decomposed it takes eight more long years, but finally DNA proves it is indeed Linda Watson.
Then a bombshell comes from David's second ex-wife, who gave him an alibi for all those years. She admitted she lied, telling investigators that David disappeared without explanation the night Linda went missing. In a police report she's quoted as saying to her husband: "Are you going to bury me in the desert next to Linda?"
Finally, 15 years after Linda disappears and 12 years after Marilyn and Renee are gunned down, the Pima County Sheriff's Department arrests David Watson, charging him with the three killings.
In a video arraignment, David Watson pleads not guilty to all three counts of first-degree murder.
Now the onetime hero firefighter sits behind bars held on a $900,000 cash bond awaiting trial.
UPDATE Nov. 22, 2016: The murder trial of David Watson, the former Tucson fire captain accused of killing three women more than 10 years ago, ended with a hung jury on Tuesday, Nov. 22, KOLD-TV reports.
