As a convict in the California prison system, 41-year-old Jonathan Watson doesn’t have much more to lose. He’s already lost access to his freedom, so he figured that attacking two convicted child molesters and beating them to death with a cane would protect children from the abusers in the future. In a letter written to Mercury News, Watson confessed to beating 48-year-old David Bobb and 64-year-old Graham De Luis-Conti to death with a cane only one week after being transferred to Corcoran, California for a stint in the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison.
In his confession, Watson explained that he had tried to warn people that he would not be able to handle himself around the child molesters. According to his letter, he asked a counselor to get him transferred out of the facility, making it abundantly clear that his request was “urgent” and desperate. However, his request was not heeded, and hours later, two men were beaten to death.
After he was transferred to the substance abuse treatment facility, Watson was assigned a lower-level security classification, dropping him down from a Level III to a Level II. This meant that he no longer had to remain in a single cell but was moved into dorm-style living. He called the decision a “careless” mistake by prison officials. Although he created “quite a paper trail” of complaints regarding the transfer, no one ever took his warnings seriously.
Just six days after Watson was transferred to the Corcoran facility, a “child molester” was moved into his pod. Instead of referring to the man by name, he called him “Molester #1” and wrote that the molester began watching PBS Kids in front of the other inmates. Watson took it as a threat.