The Case of J. P. Watson, the Modern "Bluebeard"

Abstract

Early in May, 1920, Mr. Thos. Lee Woolwine, district attorney of Los Angeles County, California, apprehended a suspicious person who gave his name as J. P. Watson, from whom was obtained a remarkable confession. This confession was, in effect, that Watson had contracted many illegal marriages and had murdered at least five of his wives. The investigation finally uncovered the most astounding case of criminality ever known in America. At the time of obtaining this confession the district attorney had no evidence, and only unsupported suspicion against Watson, and he was merely holding the man on a technicality of suspected bigamy. Even this had not been proved, and if Watson had made no confession he might have been given his liberty within an hour, since the authorities had no ground upon which to detain him. Watson's remarkable story, his manner of telling it, and the appearance of the man himself at first aroused the suspicion that the story was the vaporings of a deranged mind, but the detailed accuracy with which he was able to describe his last murder, which he claimed had occurred only a few days before, and his accurate description of the place where the body of the murdered woman was buried, finally impressed the district attorney with the truth of his prisoner's statement. Moreover, it had been determined that the last alleged victim of Watson had disappeared mysteriously and was nowhere to be found; and, furthermore, there was abundant evidence discovered among his effects which indicated that a long series of crimes had actually been committed. Acting on the information he had received, the district attorney. therefore, sent an investigating group of men into the desert of Imperial Valley to the spot indicated by the prisoner as the burial place of his last victim. Watson himself did not at first accompany this party because at that time he was still in a too weakened condition from the effects of an attempted suicide a few days before. The result of