As a convict in the California prison system, Jonathan Watson has essentially nothing to lose. He’s already lost access to his liberty, so he thought that murdering two convicted child molesters and bludgeoning them to death with a cane would protect future generations from predators.
In a letter to the Mercury News, Watson acknowledged striking 48-year-old David Bobb and 64-year-old Graham De Luis-Conti dead with a cane just one week after being transferred to Corcoran, California for a sentence at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Center and State Prison.
Watson stated that he had tried to warn people that he would not be able to control himself around the child molesters in his confession. According to his letter, he requested a therapist to get him relocated from the institution, making it clear that his request was “immediate” and “desperate.” However, his request was not accepted and two men were beaten to death hours later.
Watson’s security clearance was downgraded from a Level III to a Level II after he was sent to the substance abuse treatment center. He was moved into dorm-style living, which meant he no longer had to stay in a single cell. He said it was a “careless” mistake on the part of prison officials. Despite the fact that he generated a “quite a paper trail” of complaints about the transfer, no one ever took his warnings seriously.
On the seventh day, Watson was moved to Corcoran. A week later, a “child molester” was relocated into his pod. He referred to him as “Molester #1” and wrote that the offender began watching PBS Kids in front of the other inmates. Watson interpreted it as a threat.
“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.” wrote Watson.
Watson had a prison counselor meet with him the next day, just two hours before the grisly murders, and request that he be returned to Level “before I really (expletive) one of these dudes up.”
Instead of reacting to his warning, Watson stated the counselor “scoffed and dismissed me.”
He was returned to his pod, despite having previously stated that he would be unable to control himself around child molesters.
“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 exited the pod to seek out a prison guard after killing the first child molester. He then found “Molester #2” and decided to kill him, too.
“As I got to the lower tier, I saw a known child trafficker, and I figured I’d just do everybody a favor,” he wrote. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
Watson walked up to an officer after killing the two child molesters and turn himself in.
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.”
Watson was serving a life term for a 2009 murder conviction at the time.
