California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Jonathan Watson is a convicted murderer and California inmate who wrote a letter to the Mercury News, a Bay Area newspaper, saying he killed two people in prison because they were child molesters.
Watson is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. He had recently been moved to a lower-security facility, although he wrote in the letter that he repeatedly called the move a bad idea. He used another inmate’s cane to attack the two men, Graham De Luis-Conti, 62, and David Bobb, 48, who were both serving life sentences for sexual assault of a child under 14, the Mercury News reported. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a press release Watson was the attacker, and they are investigating the deaths as homicides.
Watson was sentenced to life in prison in the 2008 death of 27-year-old Garrett Benson in Humboldt County, California. Benson served with the National Guard and worked for UPS, according to his obituary.
Watson was lauded for the murders of Bobb and De Luis-Conti. Some called Watson a “national hero” and others used his inmate number to donate money to him. Donations using his inmate number were blocked after a few hours.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Jonathan Watson Is Serving a Sentence of Life With the Possibility of Parole in the Murder of Garrett Benson
This week Jonathan Watson sent me a four-page letter confessing to killing two child molesters in prison. He also said that he warned the prison that violence was coming, and was able to beat two people to death with a cane without guards noticing:
Watson, a 41-year-old convicted murderer, is serving a life sentence in the death of Garrett Benson in Humboldt County in 2008. Watson forced his way into a Cutten, California, home and confronted Benson on December 3, 2008. The two men struggled, and Watson shot Benson three times. Benson died a few hours later in a hospital, according to the Times-Standard.
Benson was 27 years old and a nine-year member of the National Guard, according to his obituary. Watson also had a co-conspirator, Jason Leon Belles, who was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison.
Officials said there was a large amount of marijuana being grown and processed in the Humboldt County home, the newspaper reported. Humboldt County was the setting of a Netflix documentary, Murder Mountain, which examined the outlaw lifestyle of marijuana growers in the isolated area and a high number of missing person cases. The Benson case was not featured on the show.
While Watson described himself as a “lifer” with little to lose in his letter to the Mercury News describing the reasons he killed two convicted child molesters, he had the possibility of parole, according to a press release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
2. Fans Sent Watson Money for Killing 2 Inmates With a Cane in Corcoran Because They Were Child Molesters
National Hero forhislasttwomurdersONLY Jonathan Watson has been BLOCKED by the @CACorrections from receiving further funds from fans.
Guess he won’t have endless Hunger Games money on his books for his deeds. America! Send him tagless white tees! 👀💀💀
Watson received commissary donations after his story made headlines, causing a block on donations using his inmate number. Some were calling Watson a “national hero.”
He wrote a letter to the Mercury News saying he quickly confessed to prison staff at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a press release on January 22, 2020, that two inmates had been killed in the facility January 16. The release identified Watson, 41, as the attacker, and said officials were investigating the deaths as homicides. The men died of “multiple head wounds.” Prison staff treated the inmates until ambulances arrived.
Graham De Luis-Conti, 62, was pronounced dead three days after the attack at a local hospital. David Bobb, 48, died of his injuries on the way to the hospital.
“Bobb was received by CDCR from San Diego County on October 17, 2005 to serve a life with the possibility of parole sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 years old,” the press release said.
De Luis-Conti was sentenced to 121 years in prison for the sexual assault of three teenage girls. In 1995, on a houseboat in Napa County, De Luis Conti raped and assaulted two 14-year-old girls and a 13-year-old girl, according to court documents filed in his case. In at least one of those assaults, he restrained the child to sexually assault her.
The conviction of De Luis-Conti was affirmed in 2013 after he filed an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. You can read the court’s answer to his appeal in full here. De Luis-Conti claimed he had ineffective counsel and that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction.
3. Benson, the Man Watson Was Convicted of Murdering in 2008, Was a Military Service Member & UPS Worker
Jonathan Watson, 41, is accused of attacking two other inmates with a weapon, which severely injured one and killed the other, a convicted child molester. t.co/t5SapSEOCB
Garrett Benson was a 27-year-old member of the National Guard, according to his obituary. He had two deployments during his time in the service, with a year stationed in Utah and a year stationed in Sinai, Egypt. He worked at UPS for 7 1/2 years. His family said he enjoyed his work, and his customers enjoyed his service.
“People always were happy to see Garrett deliver their packages. Brown never looked so good,” the obituary said.
Benson had a girlfriend named Rachel Wold, who was present during the shooting. She told Watson at his sentencing he may remember her face, calling him “a coward who hides behind a mask and a gun,” according to the Times-Standard. She said she did not feel safe in her own home, but was determined to overcome that fear.
Benson also had a sister and a brother. His sister, Erica Benson, said she did not know if her family could survive without Benson’s cheerful disposition, and that he was loved by many.
“You may have murdered one man, but you’ve slaughtered the souls of hundreds of people in this community,” she said.
Benson’s mother, Susan Benson, said at Watson’s sentencing she was proud of her son and the person he may have become. She considered his life her greatest accomplishment and said Watson robbed her of a loving son.
“I doubt I will accomplish any greater thing than raising a responsible child,” she said.
Benson’s family asked in the obituary that mourners donate to the CASA of Humboldt, an organization for foster children, or Food for People, the food bank of Humboldt County, in lieu of flowers.
A poem was also published in his obituary. It said:
Afterglow
I’d like the memory of me
to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow
of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo
whispering softly down the ways,
of happy times and laughing times
and bright and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve,
to dry before the sun
of happy memories that I leave
when life is done.
4. Jonathan Watson Said He Warned Prison Staff He Might Become Violent & Was Set Off by a Convicted Child Molester Watching PBS Kids
Jonathan Watson warned a counselor at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison he needed to be transferred from the facility because he was going to attack an inmate, and called the matter “urgent.” But his message was disregarded, according to a letter he wrote to the Mercury News. He had not yet been charged in the case as of the newspaper’s article, published February 20 and updated the next day. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a press release they were investigating the deaths as homicides and named Watson as the attacker.
Watson wrote he had recently been moved from a single-person cell to dorm-style living at the Corcoran prison after he was given a lower-level security classification, moved from Level III to Level II. The newspaper reported Watson described that as a “careless” mistake and said he left “quite a paper trail” of grievances protesting it.
His letter, which did not name Bobb or Luis-Conti, said “Molester #1” began watching PBS Kids around the other inmates. Watson and other inmates took that as a taunt.
That night, Watson wrote, “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.”
That day, two hours before the attacks, Watson told a prison counselor he needed to be transferred back to Level III, saying he was going to “really (expletive) one of these dudes up.” He claimed the counselor “scoffed and dismissed” him.
He was contemplating what to do when another inmate drew his attention to the inmate watching PBS Kids, the Mercury News reported.
“I was mulling it all over when along came Molester #1 and he put his TV right on PBS Kids again,” he wrote. “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.”
He left to find a guard to turn himself in but encountered another inmate on the way.
“As I got to the lower tier, I saw a known child trafficker, and I figured I’d just do everybody a favor,” Watson wrote. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
He approached a guard, still holding the cane, and told him he had bad news.
“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?'” Watson wrote. “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 went on to describe the men as “every parents’ worst nightmare.”
“Being a lifer, I’m in a unique position where I sometimes have access to these people and I have so little to lose,” Watson wrote.
He later added, “And trust me, we get it, these people are every parents’ worst nightmare. These familys spend years carefully and articulately planning how to give their children every opportunity that they never had, and one monster comes along and changes that child’s trajectory forever.”
5. Watson Tried to Withdraw His No-Contest Plea in the 2008 Humboldt County Murder, Saying His Judgement Was Skewed by Medications
Update: Inmate Murders *2nd victim, Graham De Luis-Conti, died 3 days later; Jonathan Watson wrote a letter confessing to both murders t.co/aEzhMoMRGG
Watson tried to withdraw his no-contest plea before he was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison in the death of Garrett Benson. Watson, who was 30 at the time of his sentencing in August 2009, entered a plea of no contest to his charge of first-degree murder with a firearm enhancement. He tried to change that plea, saying he was not fully competent because of medications he was taking when he entered the plea, according to the Times-Standard.
It wasn’t until one week before his sentencing date that he tried to change his plea. He also tried to change his legal counsel at the same time, saying his attorney had been ineffective. A California judge denied both requests, the Times-Standard reported August 29, 2009.
“I believe Mr. Watson was in full possession of his faculties at the time of his plea,” Judge Bruce Watson said, according to the newspaper.
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