Secrets of the Desert

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Speaker 4 It was the strangest call of my life. She just said, is Linda with you? She's missing.
We can't find her.

Speaker 5 That's all she kept saying.

Speaker 4 Everything changed from there on out and just got uglier and uglier.

Speaker 6 A loving mother one day just disappears.

Speaker 7 Her car was there and she wasn't home.

Speaker 8 The blood was Linda's.

Speaker 4 We all knew there's something very wrong here.

Speaker 6 But with no body, no evidence, and no suspects, no arrest.

Speaker 10 The ex-husband and the ex-boyfriend both had alibis.

Speaker 6 Then lightning strikes again.

Speaker 4 I drove into the driveway.

Speaker 12 Some reason thought.

Speaker 8 How often are a mother and daughter killed at the same house?

Speaker 6 Who would steal so much from one family?

Speaker 15 Was she afraid of him?

Speaker 4 She was afraid of him.

Speaker 17 I just found out they're investigating me again.

Speaker 19 Motive outweighed everything in this case.

Speaker 6 Miles away, buried in the sand, lay one piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 2 I know what you know. Period.

Speaker 6 The rest of the mystery hiding away in a woman's heart.

Speaker 21 She couldn't keep it inside anymore.

Speaker 6 The killer thought his secret was safe.

Speaker 18 He was wrong.

Speaker 15 This is, as they say, a game changer.

Speaker 13 Our prime suspect no longer has an alibi.

Speaker 22 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 6 Here's Dennis Murphy with Secrets of the Desert.

Speaker 2 It's a timeless Old West beauty as the setting sun grazes the mountains and the Vassinoran desert fades to dark,

Speaker 2 covering secrets and old bones for another night.

Speaker 2 It's as unchanging out here as the heartaches all those people in the valley below sometimes seem to make for themselves.

Speaker 2 With their jealousies, their rages.

Speaker 24 I need someone to come out and take a report my daughter's missing.

Speaker 2 When daily routine without warning gives way to stark terror.

Speaker 24 She's an adult, but the back door was found unlocked and the broken cuff at the entryway.

Speaker 16 A young woman vanished.

Speaker 24 What is your name? I'm Marilyn Cox. I'm a mother.

Speaker 2 That was the start of it all. An anguished mother's cry for help in a case that would take 15 years to untangle.

Speaker 15 You didn't have a weapon, you didn't have a witness, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 Before it was done, there'd be multiple murders.

Speaker 4 They pushed someone who doesn't like to be pushed.

Speaker 2 And maddeningly for law enforcement, suspects who just didn't quite fit.

Speaker 25 The two key people had alibis.

Speaker 2 A daughter ensnared in a family tragedy like few others.

Speaker 15 Did you understand what had happened?

Speaker 7 I don't think I really understood it like fully, but something bad happened.

Speaker 2 It all started here. Tucson, Arizona.

Speaker 2 the old pueblo they call it nestled in the desert at the foot of the santa catalina mountains Dave Watson spent nearly 20 years here with the Tucson Fire Department.

Speaker 2 He fought fires and was trained as an EMT.

Speaker 2 Eventually, he made captain, but he never forgot the camaraderie of his early days at the firehouse.

Speaker 15 We're gonna throw a lot of adrenaline together, huh?

Speaker 27 On occasion, yes.

Speaker 28 Hours aboard and moments of terror.

Speaker 29 Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 2 Seemed like everything he needed until in 1993, she came along.

Speaker 27 I was out with a friend, it was his birthday, and met her at an Eastside nightclub.

Speaker 29 And so

Speaker 27 walked up to her and asked her to dance.

Speaker 2 Her name was Linda.

Speaker 27 She was spontaneous, spunky, cute, and we just seemed to hit it off.

Speaker 4 She was very funny and just very sweet. That's always the word I think to describe her.

Speaker 2 Marnell Camp was one of Linda's best friends. Dave's too.
She was also dating Dave's best friend. The two couples soon made a young, fun-loving Forsome.

Speaker 4 But we didn't have kids yet. We didn't even have a house.
You know, neither one of us even had a mortgage yet or anything, so it was pretty carefree looking back.

Speaker 2 Lots of barbecuing, swimming, and yes, a fair amount of drinking too. This was a hard partying crowd, but there was no denying that Dave and Linda were in love.

Speaker 11 They were the ones that are well-liked, a cute couple.

Speaker 2 Mike Bratton was another close friend of Dave's.

Speaker 15 The kids on the float at high school, huh?

Speaker 13 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 So So it wasn't a surprise when in 1994, Dave and Linda married.

Speaker 30 Good bash?

Speaker 15 Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 18 It was a party.

Speaker 16 It was a party.

Speaker 8 Bartender was busy that night. Oh yes.

Speaker 31 Uh-huh. Yes.

Speaker 2 Dave and Linda scraped together enough money to buy their first home and take on that first mortgage.

Speaker 4 It was not in the best neighborhood, for sure,

Speaker 4 but very cute. It had a lot of character.

Speaker 15 Somewhere between a dump and a fixer-upper?

Speaker 4 Yeah, somewhere there.

Speaker 2 Linda and Dave were up for the challenge. They worked to transform that rum-down house into a loving home for themselves.
And after two years of marriage, baby Jordan came along.

Speaker 2 At first, Dave wasn't so sure about having kids, but...

Speaker 27 When Linda gave birth to Jordan,

Speaker 29 it was just all that nervousness was gone.

Speaker 30 So, yeah.

Speaker 27 It was nice. You know, kids make a world of difference.

Speaker 2 Jordan's grown up now, but remembers fine details of that little house and her mom.

Speaker 7 We had a strawberry patch kind of outside of the house. I remember us picking strawberries one morning before breakfast, her cooking breakfast.

Speaker 15 How was Linda as a mother?

Speaker 16 Oh, she loved that little girl.

Speaker 33 That baby was her whole world.

Speaker 2 Bobby Cuticy and Pat Hinkle were Linda's aunts.

Speaker 34 She's very attentive to that little girl. Loved her to pieces.

Speaker 2 With Jordan's arrival, Dave and Linda got another visitor too.

Speaker 34 Marilyn came out to be the nanny because they both worked.

Speaker 2 Marilyn was Linda's mother.

Speaker 15 Was that an SOS that went out from Linda to Maryland? Yes.

Speaker 2 To come, mom, come.

Speaker 15 I needed some help here.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not an unusual request from a new mother, but Marilyn's response was unusual.

Speaker 33 She sold her house and drove her car and headed out.

Speaker 15 She did all that for her girl and her daughter.

Speaker 33 She did that for the family.

Speaker 2 And where was she living?

Speaker 34 Dave actually built a little

Speaker 34 guest house out back

Speaker 34 specifically for Maryland.

Speaker 15 Not every young husband likes to have the mother-in-law around, let's face it.

Speaker 27 It's funny that, you know, all the guys at work said, that's a big mistake.

Speaker 27 They said it was going to end up in divorce.

Speaker 2 What was she like?

Speaker 35 Very pleasant, polite.

Speaker 27 And

Speaker 27 as time went on,

Speaker 27 you know, you live with somebody for 24 hours at a time. You get to know

Speaker 27 more about them.

Speaker 27 And our relationship got strained.

Speaker 2 And soon that wasn't the only relationship suffering. Linda's friend Marnell, who by then was married and living in Oregon, noticed the change when she invited Dave and Linda up for a visit.

Speaker 28 You were seeing the cracks right before your eyes.

Speaker 5 Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 2 Coming apart was a hard reality for Dave to accept.

Speaker 27 I had planned on staying married forever, you know. That was the deal, but it just didn't turn out that way.
You know, I was no more longer in love, but I still loved her.

Speaker 27 You know, and she's the mother of my child.

Speaker 2 In 1998, Dave and Linda separated, sharing custody of Jordan. That same year, Dave met someone new.

Speaker 32 I saw him and his buddy. I nudged my friend and I said, I'm going to go ask him to dance.
And I made a beeline.

Speaker 2 Her name was Rosemary, and she ran a successful karaoke business in town.

Speaker 15 And she's quite an entertainer, I guess, huh? Rosemary.

Speaker 27 Yeah, she is. She said, if you want to be successful in this business,

Speaker 27 you got to sell it.

Speaker 2 They fell for each other hard and fast. Their shared love of music, the outdoors, and little Jordan.

Speaker 32 He loves Jordan very much. I know when I met him, he definitely had, you know, parenting time with her, and it would go back and forth between Linda and Dave.

Speaker 2 Rosemary also had a daughter from another relationship, and in June 2000, She and Dave took the big step of blending their families.

Speaker 32 I had my daughters by my side. He had his two good buddies and

Speaker 32 we took our vows and celebrated with everybody around us.

Speaker 2 Linda also seemed to find happiness in a new relationship. His name was Carl Barton Jr., though most people knew him as J.R.

Speaker 2 He was a firefighter too for the Air National Guard in Tucson.

Speaker 15 What'd you think?

Speaker 27 He seemed nice. You know, I met him a handful of times, but

Speaker 27 more than a skin deep, I didn't know much about him ever.

Speaker 2 Linda called Marnell and gushed about her new flame.

Speaker 4 He was older, and

Speaker 4 I remember her commenting about how, you know, he was sexy or something like that.

Speaker 2 Marnell, busy juggling family and career, really didn't pay close attention. If her friend was happy, then so was she, until the phone rang one morning in August 2000.

Speaker 15 This phone call, I think, was one of the lines in the sand where your life was different thereafter.

Speaker 5 Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Changed there. Everything changed from there on out.
And just got uglier and uglier.

Speaker 22 On the phone, Linda's mother with a question when we returned.

Speaker 4 She said, Marnell, it's Marilyn. And is Linda with you?

Speaker 15 With you? Why would she be with you?

Speaker 4 It was the strangest call of my life.

Speaker 6 But things would get much stranger.

Speaker 7 We got there, her car was there, and she wasn't home.

Speaker 2 The week of August 21st, 2000 started out like any other, until Marnell Camp's phone rang. It was Marilyn, her friend Linda's mom.

Speaker 4 She called and said, Marnell, it's Marilyn, and is Linda with you?

Speaker 30 With you? Why would she be with you?

Speaker 4 It was the strangest call of my life.

Speaker 2 Marilyn said she and Linda had gone to church Sunday evening. The next morning, Marilyn couldn't find her.

Speaker 15 How'd she sound?

Speaker 30 Marilyn.

Speaker 4 Very stressed. Very stressed.

Speaker 2 Marilyn also called the Pima County Sheriff.

Speaker 24 She's an adult, but the back door was found unlocked. There's a broken cup at the entryway.

Speaker 2 Detective Kelly Anderson wasn't on the case back then, but remembers it well.

Speaker 8 There are not that many adult missing persons because frankly, an adult can go wherever they want to and they don't need permission or they don't have to tell anybody.

Speaker 2 Still, a deputy was dispatched to Linda's house.

Speaker 19 He doesn't see anything that would indicate foul play.

Speaker 15 Nothing's been tossed in the house?

Speaker 21 No, he doesn't see any blood.

Speaker 38 He doesn't see any indication of a violence or a struggle.

Speaker 41 The only thing he notices is the broken coffee cup and some property that Linda has left behind that may be a little suspicious.

Speaker 2 Linda's Bible was on the counter, her Jeep in the driveway. And perhaps most telling, she left her pager behind.

Speaker 15 remember this was the year 2000 when she didn't have her daughter she would keep her pager so that if anything happened with her daughter that was the way to communicate with her this is important that's a link to the daughter that's a link to the daughter so when she doesn't mean anything's happened here yet though not yet her purse is gone so the deputy tells miss cox

Speaker 2 let's just wait marilyn didn't want to wait She called her younger sister Pat.

Speaker 34 She tells me, Pat,

Speaker 2 Lynn is missing.

Speaker 34 Of course, you know, this don't happen to your family. It happens to other people.

Speaker 2 Marilyn also called Linda's ex-husband, Dave.

Speaker 27 Marilyn says that Linda's not home. She's missing.
She sounded panicked and is like, give us some time.

Speaker 29 It's Monday morning.

Speaker 1 Maybe she went somewhere.

Speaker 2 Three days passed. It was Linda's turn to take Jordan.
Dave and then four-year-old Jordan drove to Linda's house.

Speaker 7 We got there, her car was there, and she wasn't home. And so, you know, he was like, oh, that's weird.
You know, she's probably just out with a friend or something.

Speaker 2 It didn't sound that far-fetched to many people who knew Linda.

Speaker 44 She was like to party. I suppose she had a couple relationships with some crazy people.

Speaker 15 Hop in the wrong truck after a night of drinking?

Speaker 44 Maybe. Yeah, that was the assumption at the time.

Speaker 2 Investigators continued to poke around anyway. They wanted to talk to Linda's boyfriend, J.R.

Speaker 2 Marilyn brought him up when she reported Linda missing.

Speaker 46 Does he live near there?

Speaker 24 No, No, he lives over at Silverbell.

Speaker 2 Silver Bell Road, a two-lane blacktop that meanders from Tucson out into the vast desert. A detective went to JR's home.

Speaker 23 He cooperated in every way that was asked of him.

Speaker 2 JR told the same story others did, that Linda was a heavy drinker.

Speaker 12 We've had a seriously rocky relationship for over two years.

Speaker 12 All of our problems revolve directly around her alcoholism.

Speaker 2 The drinking was why JR said he recently broke up with Linda.

Speaker 12 She wings out bad and things right now are rougher than I've ever seen them for her. You know, she just lost her job.

Speaker 2 He said too much alcohol cost Linda her job. And JR said Linda faced an even bigger loss.

Speaker 12 She's looking at losing her daughter.

Speaker 2 Turns out Linda and Dave hadn't yet come to terms on custody of Jordan. And they had an important court hearing coming up.

Speaker 15 Are you going for full custody?

Speaker 27 I didn't want to take all the rights away from Linda by no means because, you know, every child needs both parents.

Speaker 2 But after his breakup with Linda, J.R. did something unexpected.
He volunteered to testify at the custody hearing on Dave's behalf.

Speaker 15 So here's a strange thing. He now has your back in family court.

Speaker 27 Not so much mine. I'm sure he could give two shakes about me.
But he cared about Jordan. So

Speaker 27 he was doing it for her, not me.

Speaker 2 More pressure on Linda. She had joined a 12-step program.

Speaker 2 Still, shortly before she disappeared, she went out drinking with her cousin Jay, Pat's son, at a place away from the bright lights of Tucson at a bar called the Circle S Saloon.

Speaker 34 Jay was over there, and she was needing to get around some family because, you know, things was a little tough for her. So he told her, well, come on out.

Speaker 2 Linda tried to climb back on the wagon. About 10 p.m.
the night she disappeared, she called her church sponsor and asked to meet the next morning.

Speaker 2 But she didn't show up for the meeting and hadn't been seen since. There seemed to be every reason to believe she was on another bender.

Speaker 2 Except for one thing, something Marilyn mentioned in that initial 911 call.

Speaker 24 Yeah, he threatened her before he threatened me, too.

Speaker 48 Coming up.

Speaker 6 Did Linda ask for help too late?

Speaker 49 He was over here this morning beating on my windows, calling me. I need to know, should I go down and put a restraining order on him when dateline continues

Speaker 2 before she disappeared investigators learned linda watson was facing the most trying time of her life she was broken up She was upset at JR.

Speaker 8 She was going through a custody battle.

Speaker 2 JR told detectives the custody issue was weighing heavily on Linda.

Speaker 12 She's told me more than once that, and this is a scary thing, if she lost her daughter, she would shoot herself.

Speaker 2 So JR said. Linda's mom shared her doubts with her sister Pat.

Speaker 15 What did Marilyn think about this guy, JR?

Speaker 15 The boyfriend is in and out of the picture.

Speaker 11 She didn't like him.

Speaker 34 She said that he's very controlling.

Speaker 2 Which is why when Marilyn couldn't find Linda, her mind immediately jumped to JR.

Speaker 2 That very first day, she told her suspicions to the 911 operator.

Speaker 50 I was hoping maybe you knew where she is.

Speaker 2 He phoned someone else as well.

Speaker 27 He called me up, told me that Marilyn had called him, accused him, blamed him, and asking, you know, where's my daughter?

Speaker 2 Was J.R. protesting too much? Detectives learned while he was dating Linda, JR sometimes went with her to pick up or drop off Jordan.
That's how he knew Dave.

Speaker 21 He was also a firefighter.

Speaker 23 He had met Dave. not through firefighting, but while he was with Linda doing child custody exchanges of Jordan, he had met David and Rosemary Watson at that point.

Speaker 2 Rosemary, Dave's new wife of two months.

Speaker 15 Keep your eye on that name.

Speaker 11 Keep your eye on that name, yes.

Speaker 15 What is JR's alibi for the night that Linda goes missing?

Speaker 19 On the night that Linda went missing, JR was with his girlfriend.

Speaker 2 His new girlfriend. JR was already moving on, he said, but he still seemed concerned about Linda.

Speaker 8 JR was very helpful offering different ideas or people to talk to.

Speaker 15 But I think cynically, sometimes detective guys inveigle themselves into an investigation when, in fact, they're part of the scheme.

Speaker 20 Sure, that could certainly have been.

Speaker 2 Detectives also had more concrete reasons to suspect J.R.

Speaker 51 There was a domestic incident that they were involved in shortly prior to this.

Speaker 2 Just two days before Linda disappeared, she had called the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 23 She made a report that J.R. had come to her house on Curtis and was banging on the windows and banging on the doors.

Speaker 2 JR said he was just trying to pick up some of his belongings, but it prompted Linda to call her attorney the weekend she disappeared.

Speaker 49 Hey, David, it's Linda. JR will not leave me alone.
He was over here this morning beating on my windows, calling me. I need to know, should I go down and put a restraining order on him?

Speaker 2 She wasn't the only one. Rosemary and Dave also had a restraining order against JR.

Speaker 2 It stemmed from an incident when he was still dating Linda and came to pick up Jordan at their home.

Speaker 32 I was home alone with the kids and just, you know, banging on the door, the big heavy,

Speaker 32 not just a knock-knock, it was kind of, you know, a boom. And it was more his tone at the time.
It made me nervous enough to protect myself and the kids and everybody involved.

Speaker 2 Of course, after JR and Linda broke up, things changed.

Speaker 32 J.R. came to us and said that

Speaker 32 he had concerns for Linda and her drinking, and he said that he would testify about her drinking in order to protect Jordan.

Speaker 2 The hearing happened right on schedule, just four days after Linda disappeared. Dave and Rosemary were there, of course.
JR, too.

Speaker 2 Linda was still nowhere to be found, but her mom arrived spoiling for a fight.

Speaker 27 JR was in the courtroom. And she accused JR of, you know, harming her daughter.

Speaker 15 She thinks this is foul play.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she does with linda a no-show the judge awarded temporary full custody of jordan to dave were you happy with that oh i was definitely happy with jordan in my life yes marilyn went back to linda's house dejected but not defeated and that's when she made a discovery that changed everything

Speaker 14 coming up marilyn calls us and said that she found blood in the entryway to linda's house now we have a theory of foul play but what police didn't have was a suspect.

Speaker 20 The only two people that might be looked at both had alibis.

Speaker 2 Linda Watson had just vanished.

Speaker 2 She didn't even show up to a custody hearing involving her four-year-old daughter, Jordan.

Speaker 15 Did you feel abandoned, Jordan?

Speaker 7 No, not really. My dad was always right there if I needed anything.

Speaker 2 Linda's mother Marilyn, however, was very worried, especially when she returned to Linda's house after the custody hearing.

Speaker 23 Marilyn calls us and said that she found blood in the entryway to Linda's house.

Speaker 2 The blood was under a trash bag, hidden from view. The deputy who responded to Marilyn's 911 call hadn't seen it.
Now, investigators came back and did a luminol test.

Speaker 8 It lit up blue and turned out to be positive for not only human blood but matching DNA to Linda Watson.

Speaker 2 Now that they were looking for blood they found more on the vacuum cleaner cord.

Speaker 38 It was apparent from the blood pattern that it wasn't dripped, it wasn't smeared, it wasn't wiped.

Speaker 8 The cord had been laying in a pool of blood to get that pattern and then dried.

Speaker 15 Did all these little fragments of observations suggest a narration detected?

Speaker 42 Something violent happened in this area that someone had cleaned up.

Speaker 15 So now you have a theory of foul play to explain her disappearance.

Speaker 20 Now we have a theory of foul play.

Speaker 2 Were investigators looking at J.R. as a potential suspect?

Speaker 21 He was certainly looked at as a person of interest, mostly because Marilyn said, this guy could have done it.

Speaker 2 But JR also had a defender. Linda's ex-husband, Dave.

Speaker 12 Would you personally feel if JR would be somebody that could do something he's being accused of?

Speaker 29 No,

Speaker 47 I strongly believe he didn't do a thing.

Speaker 47 He's the only one that's tried to help her. Marilyn's the ones pointing her fingers at him.

Speaker 2 Of course, investigators had to wonder. After all, JR had backed Dave in the custody dispute with Linda.
Could Dave be covering for him now?

Speaker 2 For that matter, where was Dave the night Linda disappeared?

Speaker 53 From what time to what time were you home?

Speaker 47 Sunday, I was here all day long.

Speaker 53 And you never left Zordi or your other daughter in anyone else's care? You pretty much took care of them all day and all night. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The detective also interviewed Rosemary, Dave's wife.

Speaker 46 They have a karaoke DJ business. And Sunday night I was working.

Speaker 2 Dave, she said, was home with the kids.

Speaker 36 He got home by 1 or 1.30 and he was home.

Speaker 4 Yes, he was sound asleep.

Speaker 2 So both Dave's wife and JR's girlfriend said the two men were at their own homes the night Linda disappeared. And despite all that blood, there was still no conclusive proof Linda was even dead.

Speaker 54 We have no

Speaker 23 body.

Speaker 23 We have no evidence of anything outside of the entryway.

Speaker 10 And certainly the only two people that might be looked at, the ex-husband and the ex-boyfriend, both had alibis.

Speaker 2 The investigation had stalled. And Linda's case landed in the place no victim's family wants.

Speaker 14 It's the vault.

Speaker 21 And what is that? Our administration building, many years ago, before we occupied it, was a bank.

Speaker 23 And on the second floor, there is an actual vault.

Speaker 45 And that is where we keep the cold cases.

Speaker 2 Locked away. A tomb of sorts where mysteries lay buried and forgotten.
But Linda's mom would not forget, would not give up.

Speaker 55 I want to find her. If nothing else, I want to take her home.
I don't want her in this desert. I want her to go home.

Speaker 2 That sprawling Sonoran desert, what secrets could it be hiding? Marilyn paid for billboards, raised reward money, organized vigils.

Speaker 15 This was the start, I think, of what you would come to regard as the steel strength of Marilyn. Absolutely.

Speaker 56 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And even if she couldn't find Linda, she would continue Linda's fight for Jordan.

Speaker 32 Marilyn sought a lawsuit for grandparents' visitation rights.

Speaker 2 Marilyn filed a lawsuit seeking unsupervised visits with her granddaughter. She made her case in court and in the media.

Speaker 55 I owed it to Linda and I owed it to Jordan and I owed it to myself to

Speaker 55 do as much as I could.

Speaker 2 Dave and Rosemary fought back for fear of what Marilyn might say or even do to little Jordan.

Speaker 43 She's flat out told me as soon as she finds Linda, gets Jordan, she's leaving this godforsaken place.

Speaker 2 Amidst their legal dispute, Dave and Rosemary grew their family. In 2001, they had a little boy, Caden.
And then a year later, Rosemary took a bold step and adopted Jordan.

Speaker 32 I sent out birth announcements. I said, it's a girl, you know, three foot,

Speaker 16 two,

Speaker 32 whatever, 68 pounds kind of thing. I was ecstatic.

Speaker 2 For Jordan, the feeling was much more muted.

Speaker 7 It seemed like what my father wanted.

Speaker 16 to happen.

Speaker 7 I didn't want to displease anybody, so I just said yes.

Speaker 2 With three kids, the court battle, and work, the Watsons had their hands full. But Dave always made it a point to check in with Jordan.

Speaker 7 When I was little, and even now, you know, when he goes to work still, I

Speaker 7 kind of worry.

Speaker 2 To calm her nerves, Dave made sure to tuck her in every night.

Speaker 4 Even if he's at work, he'll still call.

Speaker 7 and say goodnight around the same time every night, just in case.

Speaker 40 Does he still do that? Yes, he does.

Speaker 15 Last night you got a tuck-in call from him?

Speaker 16 I did.

Speaker 2 In January 2003, two and a half years after Linda vanished, the court finally issued a ruling. Marilyn sent Linda's friend Marnell an email with the news.

Speaker 4 In big, bold letters,

Speaker 4 she wrote, I've got Jordy.

Speaker 2 After a two-year legal battle, Marilyn won the right to have unsupervised visits with Jordan.

Speaker 4 I always thought that Linda must be, must have given her a little bit of peace to know that Jordan was with her mom.

Speaker 2 Rosemary and Dave were not happy. Rosemary spoke to NBC affiliate KVOA-TV after the ruling.

Speaker 32 Not the state's place

Speaker 32 to decide where my children stay. They're turning parents into babysitters.

Speaker 2 At first, Marilyn said the Watsons resisted the judge's order.

Speaker 19 She attempted

Speaker 23 to have her visitation, but Dave Watson made it difficult by not answering the phone, by not being available.

Speaker 2 Marilyn took them back to court for contempt, and once again, she won. On May 7th, 2003, Marilyn was due to have her first unsupervised visit with now seven-year-old Jordan since the contempt hearing.

Speaker 15 Do you remember seeing Jordan off that day? Were you off shift or?

Speaker 27 Oh, yeah, I was off shift.

Speaker 16 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 29 Booted her out the door.

Speaker 28 Have fun, huh? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Marilyn and Jordan spent the day together.

Speaker 15 Do you remember what you all did that day?

Speaker 7 I don't. I don't remember that day.

Speaker 15 Maybe the movies. Maybe some shopping?

Speaker 7 Maybe something like that. But I don't remember it.

Speaker 2 Maybe not, but what happened next was unforgettable.

Speaker 48 Coming up.

Speaker 2 I said, is that my sister?

Speaker 33 And he said, yeah.

Speaker 33 And I said, is she dead?

Speaker 31 He said, yeah.

Speaker 6 Lightning strikes twice.

Speaker 15 How quickly, Detective, do you start to connect the dots?

Speaker 40 Immediately.

Speaker 36 When dateline continues.

Speaker 2 May 7th, 2003. Linda and Marilyn's friend Marnell Camp had just moved back to Tucson.
She'd made plans to catch up with Marilyn.

Speaker 2 who was elated at just having been awarded unsupervised visits with Jordan.

Speaker 15 What were the plans with Jordan?

Speaker 4 Just to to stop at the house and see her and see Jordan and then possibly

Speaker 4 go with her to take Jordan home.

Speaker 2 But by the time Marnell made it over to the little house on Curtis Road.

Speaker 4 I drove into the driveway at 7, about 7.45

Speaker 4 and it was dark. Nobody was there.

Speaker 2 Marnell must have just missed Marilyn. who was supposed to have Jordan back at Dave and Rosemary's home by 8.30.

Speaker 2 That's when Marnell remembered something, a TV appointment.

Speaker 4 I thought, oh, if I leave now, I can still catch the bachelor.

Speaker 2 Just a short while after she left, calls started pouring into Pima County Sheriff's Dispatch.

Speaker 12 Yeah, they're shot. Somebody's been shot.
And there you say there's two people on the ground? Yeah. Someone ran away.

Speaker 12 And a black sweater with a hood on.

Speaker 2 Marilyn's sister Pat was just getting ready to turn in. when the TV caught her attention.

Speaker 34 It was a 10 o'clock news, and right at the,

Speaker 34 you know how they roll rolled something across there? It said,

Speaker 4 two ladies shot on Curtis Road.

Speaker 2 Maryland Street. Pat rushed over and found an active crime scene.
She saw an officer she knew. I said,

Speaker 34 is that my sister?

Speaker 33 And he said, yeah.

Speaker 33 And I said, is she dead?

Speaker 31 He said, yeah.

Speaker 34 And I asked him, would he please let me go to her? He says, no, I can't let you do that.

Speaker 34 So I just kind of,

Speaker 16 what could I do?

Speaker 34 I just lost it there.

Speaker 2 It was nearly incomprehensible. Two tragedies in the same family.
First, Linda disappeared. Now Marilyn, having just returned home from dropping Jordan off, murdered.

Speaker 34 And Renee, also, Renee was an innocent little neighbor lady. You know, she was just doing Marilyn a favor.

Speaker 2 Renee Farnsworth, the second victim, Marilyn's friend and neighbor who had gone with her to drop Jordan off.

Speaker 2 Someone had ambushed the two women in the driveway. Renee had been shot once, Marilyn twice, the second shot at close range to the head.

Speaker 40 This is incredibly rare to have a random act of violence to two women who have done nothing to anybody.

Speaker 15 How quickly, Detective, do you start to connect the dots? and say this is the mother in the same house of the missing Linda Watson.

Speaker 30 Immediately.

Speaker 8 Immediately.

Speaker 2 Several hours later, Pima County Sheriff's investigators went to the last place the two women had visited.

Speaker 32 Two detectives came over and had told us that they were there to do a well check on Jordan, and they started talking to us.

Speaker 2 Investigators told them there had been a shooting at Marilyn's home. They wanted to know where the Watsons had been.

Speaker 47 Mr. Gothar, off, you and your wife were here.

Speaker 57 Okay. How do you

Speaker 2 go home?

Speaker 2 Go home about 8.15.

Speaker 2 1815.

Speaker 2 Jordan came home about 8-3.

Speaker 2 The investigator asked if they had any contact with Marilyn.

Speaker 47 Did you ever make any contact with her at all?

Speaker 2 She pulled up.

Speaker 6 I was really depressed.

Speaker 2 So Dave said Rosemary came to the door.

Speaker 15 What does she make of what's going on?

Speaker 27 We're same as me, just

Speaker 31 kind of speechless, not

Speaker 27 just kind of taking it all in, trying to process it all.

Speaker 2 The investigators never told Dave and Rosemary exactly what happened that night. Dave said it wasn't until the next day that he saw the news and learned that Marilyn had been murdered.

Speaker 15 Did you feel bad about Marilyn?

Speaker 30 Oh, heck yeah.

Speaker 15 I mean, yeah.

Speaker 27 I mean, how could I not? This is Jordan's grandmother.

Speaker 2 There was someone else detectives needed to talk to. J.R., Linda's ex-boyfriend, whom Marilyn had accused of murdering Linda.

Speaker 46 Where were you on 7 May 2003?

Speaker 46 Between the hours of approximately 1,800 and 2,100 hours, if you can recall. I was

Speaker 46 old.

Speaker 2 J.R. told investigators he spent the evening with his fiancé and his kids.
And for some reason, he felt the need to tell Marilyn's family, too.

Speaker 34 I got a call the next morning from J.R. telling me he had an alibi.

Speaker 40 It's kind of a strange thing.

Speaker 34 I never cared for the man. I told him, I just said, What do you need an alibi for, JR?

Speaker 34 Well, I just wanted you to know.

Speaker 2 And I said, okay, bye and I just hung up the dawn had risen on the longest day of their lives Marilyn the matriarch of their family the one who fiercely fought to keep Linda's case alive was gone for family friend Marnell the heartbreak was twofold I didn't realize until then that I had never

Speaker 4 truly let go of the idea of Linda coming back until Marilyn was killed and that's when I realized oh she's gone that's she's dead so this is a double nightmare Yeah.

Speaker 15 Had you agreed to take Geordie home for the drop-off, you really would have been in this.

Speaker 4 Most likely, yeah.

Speaker 2 Three years after Linda's disappearance, investigators had a whole new, deadly mystery. And the key to unlocking it just might be a voice from the grave.

Speaker 6 Coming up, did Marilyn know what was coming?

Speaker 34 She said, and that's a gun laying right there. I won't be as easily taken as Linda was.

Speaker 2 For years, Marilyn Cox had been an advocate for her missing daughter Linda. With Marilyn's murder, that role fell to her sister Pat.

Speaker 34 I felt like literally she handed me the baton.

Speaker 34 I told her, you know, I might not do as good a job as you, but as long as there's breath in me, I will do my best to try to find Linda, and I will try to find who killed you.

Speaker 2 Pima County Sheriff's detectives were working to do the same for Marilyn's family and for the family of Renee Farnsworth.

Speaker 21 Renee is as much a victim as anybody else.

Speaker 40 She was moral support, huh?

Speaker 13 She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Speaker 2 Investigators compiled the preliminary evidence from eyewitness accounts.

Speaker 9 We know as soon as they got out of the car,

Speaker 42 they are attacked, accosted by a lone gunman, six feet to six two,

Speaker 21 slender, well-built, something covering his face, probably a hoodie.

Speaker 2 It looked like a targeted killing.

Speaker 9 There's no other motive.

Speaker 43 There's no burglary.

Speaker 52 There's no sexual assault. There's no car theft.

Speaker 16 There's nothing.

Speaker 2 But there was potentially valuable physical evidence.

Speaker 14 The bullet casings from the scene were a 9mm,

Speaker 37 and when you combined the bullet casings with the bullets from the victims it was consistent with a Ruger 9mm P85 semi-automatic handgun.

Speaker 2 Hanging over everything was the question who would have wanted Marilyn dead? Detectives knew from the moment Linda disappeared Marilyn had accused Linda's ex-boyfriend J.R. of harming Linda.

Speaker 2 It became a nasty feud. They even tried to get restraining orders against one another, but a judge denied their requests.
Which is when Marilyn's attention seemed to shift.

Speaker 23 After about January of 2001,

Speaker 38 when J.R.

Speaker 43 and her had no more contact with each other, and she totally focused on Dave.

Speaker 2 Detectives knew, the whole town knew, that she'd been feuding with Dave and Rosemary over visitation with Jordan.

Speaker 2 Pat said the reason Marilyn asked her friend Renee to go with her to drop Jordan off was that she feared a confrontation with Dave.

Speaker 34 She thought there was safety in numbers.

Speaker 2 Pat recalled an earlier incident, she said, when she was on the phone with Marilyn and Dave showed up unannounced at Marilyn's house.

Speaker 34 She let him in the house, which just blew me away, but she wanted him to feel better at having Jordan over there so he could see that it's nice, it's not dangerous, and I'm not planning on taking off.

Speaker 2 But Pat said the visit turned tense.

Speaker 34 So she showed him through the house and took him towards the little bedroom and it was just off to the left there and she said, and that's a gun laying right there.

Speaker 2 I won't be as easily taken as linda was marilyn warned everyone around her that if anything happened to her there was one person they should look at this is a letter she wrote to the sheriff's department in february 2003 shortly after she won the visitation case and just months before she was murdered This is just to let you know that if I should suddenly disappear, that I am not on vacation, as they told Jordan Linda was.

Speaker 2 I hope you keep this on file somewhere because Dave has now lost some major control and he's having a hard time with that.

Speaker 21 She was nervous and she was scared of David Watson.

Speaker 2 Of course, investigators had already questioned Dave and for good measure, JR as well. But once again, they both had alibis that checked out.
So did Rosemary.

Speaker 2 She'd been at home with the kids when Marilyn dropped Jordan off.

Speaker 16 Ever look at Rosemary as a co-conspirator here, possibly?

Speaker 15 She had interest in retaining custody of the child, too. Could they been in on it together?

Speaker 21 Sure.

Speaker 9 You don't ignore the wife.

Speaker 21 Just because she's who she is doesn't mean that she's excluded as being looked at.

Speaker 39 Obviously, she's not a man running from the scene.

Speaker 9 We know that, but could she be involved in it?

Speaker 23 Could she be planning it with him?

Speaker 2 Detectives had already talked to Rosemary, of course, but there was another potential witness at that house. What did she know?

Speaker 48 Coming up.

Speaker 20 How old are you, Jordan?

Speaker 2 Five,

Speaker 2 seven years old. My goodness, you've grown up quick.

Speaker 6 Jordan tells her story and suddenly David Watson's story looks a little less solid.

Speaker 45 She does not know where dad was at 8.30.

Speaker 36 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 6 Continuing our story.

Speaker 4 We all knew there's something very wrong here.

Speaker 2 What were the odds?

Speaker 6 First, a young mother goes missing.

Speaker 32 It became very clear that Linda was not coming back.

Speaker 22 Three years later, her mother is murdered.

Speaker 8 How often are a mother and daughter killed at the same house?

Speaker 18 It seemed like there had to be a link, but what was it?

Speaker 20 There is a lack of physical evidence in this case.

Speaker 6 One person knew the truth.

Speaker 32 When you have a deep, dark secret, you don't tell people.

Speaker 6 But soon, someone would.

Speaker 4 All of a sudden, I just couldn't breathe and I said, oh my god, this is it.

Speaker 18 Here again is Dennis Murphy.

Speaker 2 Three women gone. In 2000, Linda Watson disappeared from her Tucson home, leaving little more than traces of blood and a broken coffee cup in her wake.

Speaker 2 Three years later, Linda's own mother, Marilyn, who'd fought for answers for justice for her missing daughter, gunned down with her friend Renee in the driveway of that very same home.

Speaker 2 Detectives couldn't dismiss the strange coincidence of two tragedies happening at the same place to to the same family.

Speaker 16 How often are a mother and daughter killed at the same house three years apart?

Speaker 44 That

Speaker 16 doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 When Linda went missing, two men were blips on the investigator's radar. First was her ex-boyfriend, JR, with whom she'd had a tumultuous relationship.

Speaker 2 JR insisted he was at his house the night of Marilyn and Renee's murders and his alibi checked out. Plus, said Detective Kelly Anderson.

Speaker 10 There's nothing evidentiary at the scene that would indicate JR had any involvement, and he doesn't even match the physical description of the person the eyewitness saw at the scene running away.

Speaker 2 But then there was Linda's ex-husband, David Watson. He too, of course, had an alibi.
He said he was home the night of the murders, and his wife Rosemary backed him up.

Speaker 2 But investigators were eager to speak with someone else at the house that night. A small child facing a very grown-up tragedy for the second time.

Speaker 61 How old are you, Jordan?

Speaker 61 Five. Seven years old.
My goodness, she's grown up quick.

Speaker 2 Dave's daughter, Jordan, sat down for an interview the day after her grandmother was killed.

Speaker 2 She told the detective that her adoptive mom, Rosemary, greeted her at the door when Marilyn dropped her off at home.

Speaker 34 Where was your dad when you got home?

Speaker 61 He was outside. How do you know that?

Speaker 61 He came in

Speaker 61 and he told me because everyone thought he was still out of me.

Speaker 2 A curious response from the little girl that dad told her he'd been outside.

Speaker 61 He just came in the vision to say goodbye.

Speaker 2 The detective prodded further.

Speaker 61 When you came home and your mom let you in, did you ask her,

Speaker 61 you know, is dad here or where's dad? Did you want to see your dad? Yeah. Okay, did you ask her anything about that? Yeah, she said I don't know.

Speaker 61 Okay. Tell me exactly what you asked her as best you can remember.
I said,

Speaker 61 is that still

Speaker 61 a hole?

Speaker 45 She does not know where dad was at 8.30.

Speaker 2 Detectives wanted to speak with Dave Watson again.

Speaker 15 Do you think I'm in trouble here? These guys are looking for me for this thing? No.

Speaker 30 No.

Speaker 27 I just figured they'd just check mark on her list of people to go talk to.

Speaker 2 Once again, Dave told the detective he was home from his fire department meeting by the time Jordan arrived at 8.30.

Speaker 2 Remember, though, the night of the murders, he said he was in the bathroom when Jordan was dropped off. Now, his story was a little different.

Speaker 46 I'm out there messing with the dogs, I was up back.

Speaker 2 Small inconsistencies, but detectives also wanted to ask about their strongest piece of evidence: bullets and shell casings consistent with a 9mm Ruger handgun. Did Dave own that type of gun?

Speaker 46 You still have a Ruger?

Speaker 46 Ruger? No, sold that during the divorce. Man, he's a quick ad.

Speaker 46 Who'd you sold it to? Uh, I don't even know.

Speaker 46 Coworker or somebody off the street?

Speaker 10 Well, we ended up looking for that ad, and we were never able to find any ad for a 9mm

Speaker 8 by Dave Watson.

Speaker 2 But when they looked in Dave's gun safe, they did find 9mm ammunition. Why would he have that if the gun was long gone? They asked the big question.

Speaker 36 And to

Speaker 27 What time of night do you think he got home?

Speaker 32 I didn't look like it was shortly before Jordan came home, so I'm gonna...

Speaker 55 It was either like 8.15, 8.20-ish right in there.

Speaker 2 Which meant Dave could not have been the shooter. But then, a few weeks after Marilyn's death, her sister Bobby Cutic noticed something in Marilyn's backyard.

Speaker 33 As I'm coming back toward the gate,

Speaker 33 a reflection caught my eye. I said, look at this, look what I found.
And I picked it up, and it still,

Speaker 33 I think I said, somebody lost your money clip. And it said DDW.

Speaker 15 Anybody you know is a DDW?

Speaker 23 Well, we know Dave Watson.

Speaker 39 and his middle name is Dwayne.

Speaker 2 There was no proof it was Dave's, no fingerprints or DNA. And even if it were Dave's, it didn't necessarily mean anything sinister.
After all, he'd once lived in that home. Except.

Speaker 23 After Linda's disappearance, Marilyn got rid of everything that remained of Dave's. And by every account, anything that belonged to Dave was...

Speaker 42 Long gone.

Speaker 15 So what do you make of the initial money clip?

Speaker 2 Is it evidence?

Speaker 15 Just something maybe interesting or what?

Speaker 21 No, it's beyond interesting.

Speaker 23 That's certainly evidence.

Speaker 21 DDW goes beyond coincidence.

Speaker 2 And there was something else. An unusual comment Dave's friend Mike overheard.

Speaker 15 Dave allegedly says somebody brings up

Speaker 30 Marilyn's murder in the driveway.

Speaker 15 He says, well, I don't know what happened, but she probably deserved it.

Speaker 63 I did hear him say that. I don't think that was a good comment either.

Speaker 35 I mean, I don't have an answer to that.

Speaker 63 Don't like to hear something like that that about anybody, but that was him saying it.

Speaker 2 Bad blood, contradictory statements, shell casings, and a money clip.

Speaker 15 I imagine in your war room in the homicide offices, you're batting ideas back and forth, that you're looking at Dave Watson for this thing.

Speaker 42 Absolutely.

Speaker 15 This is a guy who kills when the issue of his child custody is challenged.

Speaker 21 Those similarities became glaring.

Speaker 15 But it doesn't seem to go anywhere investigatively.

Speaker 14 It does not.

Speaker 20 There is a lack of physical evidence in this case,

Speaker 8 and the suspect has an alibi for both nights.

Speaker 2 Three women gone and no answers on the desert horizon.

Speaker 15 And now all three investigations are in the vault.

Speaker 40 All three go cold.

Speaker 48 Coming up.

Speaker 6 But for some people, cases never go cold.

Speaker 4 I just couldn't believe that these innocent women were murdered and no one was talking about it. it.

Speaker 6 Apparently, somebody was.

Speaker 17 I just found out they're investigating me again.

Speaker 2 By the spring of 2003, three women in Dave Watson's orbit were either missing or dead. Detectives had their suspicions, but no hard evidence Dave had committed any crime.

Speaker 2 And so the cases of Linda, Marilyn, and Renee sat quietly, collecting dust in the cold case vault of the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 33 We keep waiting and listening and hoping that something will come up. They'll find something that proves that Dave did this.

Speaker 2 And all the while, Dave continued to climb the ranks at the Tucson Fire Department. even if he couldn't quite shake the shroud of suspicion that surrounded him.

Speaker 15 I mean, this is tongues are wagging in Tucson.

Speaker 22 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Matt McDonald, Courtney Corcoran, and Richard Johnson all rode horses with Dave and worked with him at the Tucson Fire Department.

Speaker 28 I mean, I went into a station

Speaker 28 where Dave was working and the phone rang, and one of the guys picked up the phone and they go, hey, killer, phone's for you.

Speaker 30 Yeah.

Speaker 40 I mean, you guys are tough on one in there.

Speaker 28 Yeah, tough one, one and there. Somebody called him Cole Case.
Is that true?

Speaker 15 I did.

Speaker 15 You did, man. I did.

Speaker 2 One day, his friend Matt decided to ask ask Dave point-blank if he had anything to do with the murders.

Speaker 63 He was very candid with me, and we spoke for probably four hours that morning.

Speaker 15 You had questions, Matt. Did he answer them? Did he persuade you?

Speaker 63 He did answer them.

Speaker 2 His buddies were convinced. Dave had done nothing wrong.

Speaker 28 I never had any doubt that he was innocent.

Speaker 15 You don't seem as the guy in the hood.

Speaker 28 No, I do.

Speaker 28 No, I do not.

Speaker 30 Not at all.

Speaker 36 I never called him on it because I never suspected Dave.

Speaker 2 Despite the whispers around town, Dave never left. And Jordan says says he remained focused on his kids.

Speaker 7 My dad really tried to make everything normal so, you know, we could have a normal childhood.

Speaker 2 But the ongoing investigation took its toll on Dave and Rosemary's marriage.

Speaker 32 I said, I can't do this anymore. And he said, okay.

Speaker 32 He asked if there was anything that he could do. And I said, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 By 2007, they'd divorced. and moved on.

Speaker 32 Mega 1063, Tucson's old school and R ⁇ B. Good morning, everybody.
This is Rosemary.

Speaker 2 Rosemary worked as a radio disc junkie, supporting her family, including her adoptive daughter, Jordan, who lived primarily with her. Dave was promoted to fire department captain.

Speaker 16 He earned it.

Speaker 28 It was not given to him.

Speaker 11 He earned it.

Speaker 2 Time, as it tends to do, kept moving on. But here in the cold case vault sat those three cases.
Linda, who was officially declared dead in 2006, Marilyn, and Renee.

Speaker 4 I think my biggest concern was always

Speaker 4 them being forgotten.

Speaker 2 Linda's friend Marnell did what she could to keep that from happening.

Speaker 4 For years, I sent letters to all the media, you know, just saying, here's the story. I was always just shocked that there wasn't outrage in the community.

Speaker 4 I just couldn't believe that these innocent women were murdered and no one was talking about it.

Speaker 2 But by December 2007, it seemed as though there'd been a huge break in the case. The local papers reported that the Sheriff's Department had new evidence.

Speaker 2 Information in this case is snowballing, and we have to pursue that, said an investigator. In reality, it was all a bluff.
The cops planting a story, hoping to pressure Dave.

Speaker 2 They tapped his phone, too, and recorded this call he made to Rosemary.

Speaker 17 I just found out they're investigating me again.

Speaker 16 Hey, what?

Speaker 17 Have the detectives came and talked to you yet?

Speaker 17 No, I just wanted to let you know because I just found out if they decided to knock on your door or come to a radio station, tell them to off.

Speaker 2 Dave seemed to suspect someone close to him was talking to the cops.

Speaker 64 When I got into his truck, he asked me if I was wired and he found me out.

Speaker 2 Detectives interviewed a friend of Dave's named Luis, who told investigators about something Dave said at a party one night. He said, I know where she's at, period.

Speaker 2 And when he said she, did he say, I know where Linda's at or I know where she's at? Well, obviously, the conversation was about Linda, instead of about her.

Speaker 2 Not so, said Dave's best friend's wife, who was at the same party. She said Dave was talking about a missing dog, not Linda.

Speaker 2 Hard to tell if it was just an innocent misunderstanding or a slip of Dave's tongue that indicated something sinister.

Speaker 2 The mystery of Linda's disappearance and Marilyn and Renee's murders no closer to being solved. No way of knowing that out there, in the desert, an answer had already been found.

Speaker 48 Coming up:

Speaker 22 someone took a horse ride out to the middle of nowhere. What was he looking for?

Speaker 10 It seems very coincidental that you would ride it there when, at that point in time, nobody else knew.

Speaker 36 When dateline continues,

Speaker 2 Linda Watson had been declared legally dead, but no body had ever been found, so there was no proof of a crime and no case to make against her ex-husband Dave Watson, not for Linda's disappearance or for the subsequent murder of her mother and a friend.

Speaker 2 All that changed because of a random discovery and a long-delayed lap result.

Speaker 40 So where are we, Detective? Why here?

Speaker 20 We are

Speaker 11 outside the Silverbell Mine area, that being the Silver Bell Bell Mine.

Speaker 51 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 20 Very remote area, the northwest side of Tucson and Pima County.

Speaker 2 Remember, J.R. had lived off of Silverbell Road.
Silverbell Mine was near the same road, but 20 miles from where JR lived.

Speaker 2 Way back in October of 2003, not long after Marilyn and Renee were killed, Hunters found a partial human skull here.

Speaker 40 This is a high-trafficked area for undocumented border crossers and unfortunately many in the summertime, in the hot summers of Arizona, do not

Speaker 13 make it and perish in this area.

Speaker 2 The medical examiner's office in Tucson runs a unique program to identify such remains, but it takes time. So a small portion of the cranium was removed for DNA testing at a later date, much later.

Speaker 23 Eight years later, in February of 2011,

Speaker 23 we finally get a DNA match back from that skull that was found in 2003, and it is a positive match for Linda Watson.

Speaker 2 Suddenly, the skull was a big priority. There was no sign of trauma, no evidence of how she died.
Still, 11 years after Linda Watson disappeared, at last, here was proof she was no longer alive.

Speaker 15 That's when you have a case. That's when I have a case.

Speaker 2 Indeed, he did have a case. Three of them, in fact.
Detective Anderson took over as lead detective after Linda's skull was identified.

Speaker 39 By the time I got the case in 2011, it was 11 years old, and there was 11 years of investigative work that had been done.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 41 I had to start piecing it together.

Speaker 2 It took him a year just to read through it all. There were so many things that stood out, but one in particular caught his eye.
It happened years before Linda's remains were identified.

Speaker 23 It was an aha moment for me.

Speaker 2 Back in 2007, when detectives planted that news story about the case heating up, they also put a GPS tracker on Dave's vehicle.

Speaker 41 I discovered GPS coordinates that indicated on December 31st, 2007, he drove his truck and his horse trailer and rode a horse

Speaker 8 within hundreds of yards, at least no further than 1.1 mile of where Linda Watson's skull was found back in 2003.

Speaker 15 Speculate, what do you think was going on?

Speaker 42 I think he was going back to the scene to see if he saw anything, if we were there, if we'd been poking around,

Speaker 19 if nothing had changed.

Speaker 2 After studying every detail of the case, Detective Anderson found it convincing.

Speaker 43 It was obvious to me

Speaker 21 and everybody I presented this case to that only one person committed these three murders and that one person was David Watson.

Speaker 2 And he had a theory about how Linda's murder went down at her house.

Speaker 15 Manner of death, do you see it?

Speaker 19 I have no idea.

Speaker 8 Something that creates a great amount of blood.

Speaker 13 And I think that he takes Linda in the very early morning hours out towards the Silver Bell mine and buries her in a shallow grave in the wash.

Speaker 2 And as far as Detective Anderson was concerned, Dave was the only person who had motive to kill Marilyn, too.

Speaker 19 Motive outweighed everything in this case. We have two women who took him to court over his daughter.

Speaker 43 He got what he wanted as a result of these homicides.

Speaker 2 Enough to go forward? Maybe. But this wasn't the only high-profile coal case being rescued from the vault at the time.

Speaker 2 Dateline covered the case of Gary Triano, who was killed when his car exploded in the parking lot of an upscale Tucson country club in 1996.

Speaker 42 They had new leads on that one, things to follow and do right now.

Speaker 2 Another four years passed. That other case was solved.
And then in 2015.

Speaker 27 Bam, bam, bam, on my front door. Thought the thing was going to break in.

Speaker 16 And there's cops out there and tactical wear.

Speaker 27 They asked me to step out. Four guys threw me into my gravel driveway.
You know, I said, I think you guys got the wrong person.

Speaker 37 I told them that you're under the arrest for the murders of Linda Watson, Marilyn Cox, and Renee Farnsworth.

Speaker 2 And I'm like,

Speaker 2 no.

Speaker 27 I told you before I didn't do any of of this.

Speaker 26 You know, and I told him, you know, I didn't do this stuff.

Speaker 27 You know, I'm innocent. I told you.

Speaker 2 Linda Watson's friend Marnell saw the news on TV.

Speaker 43 We arrested David Dwayne Watson for three counts of first-degree murder.

Speaker 4 All of a sudden, I just couldn't breathe. And I said, oh my God, this is it.
And I started trying to call her aunt, Pat, and she just said, this is it. And I was like, are you sure?

Speaker 31 Are you sure?

Speaker 4 I just remember screaming and crying. And she said, they just arrested him i couldn't believe it i just couldn't believe it this is 15 years after linda's gone missing yeah i just could not

Speaker 2 and i still have to pinch myself dave's daughter jordan couldn't believe this day had come either but for a very different reason she fully supported her father believed there was no way he killed three women all they really had was

Speaker 7 you know that he was in a custody battle and it seemed like a vicious custody battle.

Speaker 15 And when it came to a climax, somebody died.

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 7 And that's all they had. There's no hard evidence putting him somewhere.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 no murder weapon in his hand, nothing like that. They never found anything.
You know, his DNA isn't anywhere that they were.

Speaker 2 And remember, Dave had a solid alibi. His wife at the time, Rosemary, told detectives she was with him at home when all three women were killed.

Speaker 2 He pleaded not guilty and, in a recorded call from jail, told his friend Mike Bretton he was counting on his daughter and his ex-wife to defend him.

Speaker 64 I want Jordan to be a witness on my behalf and I need Rosemary. I really need Rosemary to be my witness too.

Speaker 2 Otherwise,

Speaker 64 you know, we were a team once. We need to be a team again.

Speaker 2 Dave had a big surprise coming. Did he ever?

Speaker 48 Coming up.

Speaker 6 Rosemary's dark and dangerous secret.

Speaker 32 How do I look my daughter in the eye and live the rest of my life knowing what I know?

Speaker 35 Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments.

Speaker 35 With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

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Speaker 32 I had told nobody. And when you have a deep, dark secret, you don't tell people.

Speaker 2 For seven years, Rosemary Watson carried the knowledge, buried down deep. It festered, ate away at her.

Speaker 32 If I never said a word to anybody, you know, how do I look my daughter in the eye,

Speaker 32 you know, and live the rest of my life knowing what I know and keeping that?

Speaker 2 Rosemary said the seeds of this dark secret first took root in August 2000, the night Linda disappeared.

Speaker 2 She, of course, had been her husband's alibi, told investigators he was home with her all night. But she told us that wasn't entirely true.
In the middle of the night, she said, she actually woke up.

Speaker 32 And Dave wasn't in bed, and I got up and I kind of walked through the house and I didn't see him. And I went and I laid back down.

Speaker 32 I fell back asleep.

Speaker 2 Sometime later, she said, she woke up again.

Speaker 32 And he was not in bed with me again.

Speaker 32 And I was looking for him and through the house, kind of peeking out into the backyard. And then I saw him.

Speaker 16 Where was he?

Speaker 32 He was standing at the back of his Jeep. I could see him through our kitchen window.
He appeared to be, he looked as though he was, you know, just kind of cleaning out the back of his Jeep.

Speaker 15 And then he comes in.

Speaker 32 He does come in, and he said, I went for a walk. And I asked him if he was okay.

Speaker 32 And he said, yeah, he just needed to clear his head.

Speaker 15 That makes sense to you?

Speaker 32 It did make sense to me. I had no reason to doubt him at all.

Speaker 30 None.

Speaker 2 And then Rosemary said, Dave handed her something.

Speaker 32 He actually handed me a a box of latex gloves, you know, and said put these away, which, you know,

Speaker 32 I didn't think anything of it at the moment.

Speaker 15 This is your new husband you're in love with?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 15 You don't know all his habits?

Speaker 32 Nope, still learning.

Speaker 15 He might get up and talk to the birds. You don't know, right?

Speaker 32 He was an early riser.

Speaker 2 And so when investigators showed up and asked where Dave had been the night Linda disappeared.

Speaker 32 I didn't mean to lie. That wasn't my intent, was to lie to

Speaker 32 law enforcement.

Speaker 15 Did you say Dave's in a jam here? I got a cover for him.

Speaker 32 I said I love my husband. He went for a walk.
It looks really bad and very suspicious that he went for a walk. Now suddenly all this is happening.

Speaker 32 You know, he said I'm home and I'm like, he's home.

Speaker 2 So no walk. He was home all night.
That was her story and she stuck with it.

Speaker 2 Although privately she said she couldn't help but turn things over in her mind and at one point even confronted her husband.

Speaker 32 What I said was please tell me that you're not involved, that nothing, you know, this has nothing to do with you.

Speaker 11 What did he say?

Speaker 32 I didn't do anything and that was enough for me. And I said okay.

Speaker 2 And so three years passed. Rosemary gave birth to her son, adopted Jordan, and battled over visitation rights with Marilyn.
And then on May 8th, 2003, the investigators were at the door again.

Speaker 2 Marilyn and Renee had been shot. Where, they asked, had Dave been around 8.30 that night? Dave and Rosemary, as we know, said he'd been at home.
But the truth?

Speaker 15 At that moment, Rosemary, was Dave home?

Speaker 32 Dave is not home.

Speaker 2 According to Rosemary, Dave did not get home until after Jordan was already tucked into bed, sometime after 9 p.m.

Speaker 32 And he walked in, and I saw his face, and it's something that nobody will ever, ever take away from me.

Speaker 30 Tell me.

Speaker 32 Panicked, which panicked me, white as a ghost, sweating.

Speaker 32 I mean just his eyes were huge and it just instantly, it scared me to where the first thing I, the very first thing I said to him was, what's wrong?

Speaker 32 And he didn't say anything. And I said, Dave, what is wrong?

Speaker 32 And he didn't say anything. And he leaned down, kissed Jordan, and he shut off the light.

Speaker 32 And he kind of pulled me around the corner, and I kept asking him, what is wrong? What's going on? There were a lot of, what the hell is happening.

Speaker 32 He started to take off his clothes in the kitchen and quickly. And he said, wash those.

Speaker 32 I'm getting in the shower. And he made a beeline for the shower.

Speaker 2 And then when the investigator showed up at the door.

Speaker 32 He clearly stated, you know, been home.

Speaker 15 And they asked you directly, was Dave Dave here?

Speaker 2 Yes. You told him a lie.

Speaker 32 I absolutely did. I followed Dave's lead.

Speaker 2 But Rosemary says her insides churned.

Speaker 32 I mean, it really took a toll on me physically and mentally. Just

Speaker 32 everything

Speaker 32 terrified me. Dave terrified me.
He handed me knowledge that I didn't want to know. I didn't ask for it.
I didn't want it. And he left me there.
holding it.

Speaker 32 And

Speaker 32 it became a very, very heavy burden.

Speaker 15 Is that when your your marriage becomes unraveled with Dave?

Speaker 32 It definitely starts there. It never was the same after that.
It never was the same.

Speaker 2 The dominoes said Rosemary quickly began to fall. Dave's behavior changed, and he had an affair.
Months after Marilyn's murder, Rosemary confronted him again.

Speaker 32 I said, I think you killed three women. And his response to me was,

Speaker 32 Are you afraid of me?

Speaker 2 Dave, she said, blamed her for the suspicion that had fallen upon him.

Speaker 32 He had made statements, you know, saying, people are saying that you're telling this town that I did it. And what he told me was, you need to shut your mouth.

Speaker 32 And what I said was, I'm your f ⁇ ing alibi. That was a quote.

Speaker 34 And

Speaker 32 it was kind of left at that.

Speaker 2 A few years later, Rosemary and Dave were divorced. And it was in the midst of an argument over child care arrangements that Rosemary said everything came to the surface.

Speaker 32 The moment that hit me was just when I said, please don't make me take you back to court.

Speaker 32 And when I said that, he took off his sunglasses and he said, don't f with me, Rosemary. And it did.
It scared me.

Speaker 15 Did you fear for your life at that point?

Speaker 2 I.

Speaker 15 Linda, Marilyn, Renee, I might be next here. I might be the subject of this.
Whatever is going on with this guy.

Speaker 32 There was a moment, yes, that I did.

Speaker 2 After this confrontation, Rosemary confided in her best friend, who urged her to call the Sheriff's Department. She met with an investigator.

Speaker 32 And I told him straight out. I said I lied both times.

Speaker 32 And I think as we went through conversation, you know, it kind of ended with, I never believed you anyway.

Speaker 15 But the alibi had gone up in smoke.

Speaker 32 Yes.

Speaker 32 And there was no turning back.

Speaker 32 It was the truth.

Speaker 2 Detectives kept Rosemary's Rosemary's confession secret as they slowly built their case against Dave. When he went on trial, she would be the star witness.

Speaker 2 But by her own admission, Rosemary had lied for years. Why would a jury believe her now?

Speaker 48 Coming up.

Speaker 15 Did any of that get to you, Jordan? Did she plant a seat?

Speaker 7 No, knowing my father, I really don't feel could go as far as to kill a woman.

Speaker 22 A daughter defends her father and explains herself.

Speaker 7 Being a seven-year-old, I probably wasn't very clear.

Speaker 36 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 2 Pima County prosecutor Jonathan Mosier spends his weekends about as far away from a courtroom as one can get.

Speaker 57 I need a way to get it out of my head. Rock climbing, you have to be completely focused in the moment, not worried about you, yourself, your life, or anything.

Speaker 15 All the chatter in your head stops.

Speaker 57 And it's liberating. It just scratches an itch that I need to be able to go back and do the next case.

Speaker 2 And there were few cases as daunting as the one he took on in 2014. The defendant, Tucson fire captain David Watson, accused of killing three women.

Speaker 57 This is the pinnacle for a prosecutor to take a challenge, make the challenge almost insurmountable, make it big, and overcome it.

Speaker 2 Mosier and his co-counsel Nicole Green felt they were up to the challenge.

Speaker 26 We had no doubt, no doubt that David Watson killed these three women. We just wanted a chance to put it in front of a jury.

Speaker 56 We will start with this April.

Speaker 2 That chance came in October 2016.

Speaker 56 Two women battled David Duane Watson for control and custody of Jordan Watson.

Speaker 56 Two women who are both dead.

Speaker 2 The prosecution called Jordan, who still believed her dad was innocent, to testify about that interview she gave at age seven.

Speaker 61 I said,

Speaker 61 is that what

Speaker 61 is meaningful to say that?

Speaker 16 That is number one corroboration for when Rosemary comes forward later and says that David Watson was not home.

Speaker 7 Being a seven-year-old, I probably wasn't very clear, of course,

Speaker 7 but Yeah, I have no memory of that at all.

Speaker 2 And she told us her relationship with Rosemary was never the same after Rosemary started expressing doubts about Dave.

Speaker 15 Did any of that get to you, Jordan? Did you start to turn these ideas around in your head? Did she plant a seed? Well, is there something to this?

Speaker 7 She really tried.

Speaker 16 I'll give her that.

Speaker 7 But no, knowing my father, I really don't feel could go as far as to kill a woman.

Speaker 2 Don't let the helpful fire captain image fool you, said the prosecution. Dave's training, they said, is exactly why he was capable of killing three women.

Speaker 35 What does a paramedic do?

Speaker 57 Responds to bloody scenes. They remain calm in such circumstances.
And this was David Watson's key attribute.

Speaker 2 That, along with a mountain of other circumstantial evidence, the money clip, the nine millimeter shell casings, Dave's statements to his friends, the horse ride near Silver Bell Mine in 2007, all pointed to a guilty man, according to the state.

Speaker 57 You prove this case by a thousand cuts, a thousand little cuts. And there's not going to be the one aha moment that comes down from on high and solves this case.

Speaker 2 Wrong, said the defense. There wasn't an aha moment because Dave didn't do it.
Representing Dave Watson, partners in law and marriage, Natasha Ray and Michael Story.

Speaker 2 And much like their prosecution counterparts, not ones to shy away from a challenge.

Speaker 67 This is the most monstrous undertaking we've ever had in our careers together.

Speaker 2 According to the defense, there were any number of reasons why Linda, Renee, and Marilyn died. Reasons that had nothing to do with Dave Watson.

Speaker 68 As much as the state says, Dave Watson, Dave Watson, Dave Watson, you're going to see it going in other avenues of people and circumstance.

Speaker 2 Other avenues, such as suicide, whether Linda's.

Speaker 25 With the drinking, an ex-boyfriend testifying against her, losing her job, or even Renee's.

Speaker 2 The defense said Marilyn's friend had once discussed suicide, and they suggested she may have chosen an unusual method.

Speaker 26 We all know insurance won't pay if you commit suicide.

Speaker 15 Is your theory, or at least you're willing to consider it, that Renee, the friend, has somehow commissioned her own murder?

Speaker 25 That was something that we had thrown out during the moment.

Speaker 15 Natasha, really, what movie are you seeing?

Speaker 4 There's some crazy people out there.

Speaker 2 Then there was the idea that maybe Linda's ex-boyfriend, JR, was the culprit here. DNA, consistent with JR and not Dave was found on a trash bag that had Linda's blood on it.

Speaker 2 Although JR himself testified nothing surprising about that. He said he'd been helping Linda fix up her house and that he had nothing to hide.

Speaker 56 I have cooperated with the Sheriff's Department in their investigation 110%.

Speaker 2 And remember how Linda went out drinking with her cousin a few days before she disappeared. The Circle S saloon isn't far from a rural part of town called Green Acres.

Speaker 2 A witness testified she had heard someone in Green Acres talking about moving Linda Watson's body.

Speaker 68 She reports that that body was being moved to Silverbell Road,

Speaker 67 and that is within four miles of where the skull was.

Speaker 15 So the geography matches.

Speaker 40 She had it.

Speaker 15 And this would fit the theory that Linda got into the wrong pickup truck as I think of it. Right.

Speaker 2 The defense said Dave, an avid rider, had ridden out near the Silverbell mine before. But as for that specific trip on New Year's Eve 2007.

Speaker 68 I don't think that happens.

Speaker 16 You don't believe he went for the ride.

Speaker 2 The defense highlighted that while Pima County Sheriff's investigators provided a printout of the GPS coordinates, they never saved the raw data. And what about that money clip with the initials DDW?

Speaker 2 The defense theorized, maybe Marilyn's family planted it.

Speaker 25 We have our theories that this family was looking for a scapegoat, and they believed Dave did it and so they planted the money clip.

Speaker 2 Ludicrous, said Marilyn's sisters.

Speaker 34 We may be old, but we ain't senile. No, if I was going to do something that stupid, I would have took it up front where the crime scene was.
Why would I put it clear in the back?

Speaker 2 The defense also pointed out that there was no provable link between the Ruger Dave once owned and the gun that killed Marilyn and Renee.

Speaker 32 It's not conclusive that it was a Ruger.

Speaker 2 But at the end of the day, both prosecution and defense agree. agree.
The case hinged on the believability of one witness, Rosemary Watson.

Speaker 57 If you do not believe Rosemary, we don't have a case.

Speaker 69 It just chilled me to the bone.

Speaker 2 Rosemary explained to the jury why she decided to come forward in 2007.

Speaker 70 And I knew that I could not

Speaker 69 hold this in any longer because

Speaker 62 Three women lost their lives and their lives matter.

Speaker 2 And then there was a critical detail.

Speaker 2 Rosemary testified that on the same day Linda disappeared, Dave found out his own mother was planning to testify on Linda's behalf at the upcoming custody hearing.

Speaker 71 He begged her not to.

Speaker 52 Did he succeed?

Speaker 15 No.

Speaker 71 She was very adamant about testifying for Linda.

Speaker 2 The prosecution said everything was coming to a head that night.

Speaker 8 It's about control.

Speaker 57 And that's a man who's seething inside the night that he finds out he can't get his mother not to testify against him, his own mother. And that's how vicious it had become.

Speaker 15 So you see the fuse being lit here.

Speaker 57 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 57 I don't know when the fuse was lit, but it was getting down close to the explosives at that night.

Speaker 2 But according to the defense, Rosemary Watson was just not credible.

Speaker 25 She's either lying back when she gave the alibis or she's lying when she recants the alibis.

Speaker 2 Jurors pick it.

Speaker 25 Well, they shouldn't pick it. They should take it and say, I can't believe anything she says because I don't know what to believe.

Speaker 68 So, for a seven-year span, you have this story you're calling a lie now, right?

Speaker 71 It is a lie.

Speaker 68 And then the last seven years is the truth, right?

Speaker 56 I came forward and told the truth.

Speaker 68 I understand.

Speaker 68 They're completely different versions of those knights, yes?

Speaker 68 They are. One of them is a complete lie, yes?

Speaker 56 Correct.

Speaker 29 That's all I have.

Speaker 15 The defense, in a nutshell, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. So she's long to stick it to her ex.

Speaker 22 That's your theory.

Speaker 36 Exactly right.

Speaker 2 A point the defense drove home in closing arguments.

Speaker 69 She's a liar.

Speaker 69 And when you have a blatant bald-faced liar like that, you cannot consider their testimony.

Speaker 70 You have to throw it out.

Speaker 2 The prosecution argued the jury should believe Rosemary and not the wild theories floated by the defense.

Speaker 69 The truth is, folks,

Speaker 69 in August of 2000, that man killed Linda Watson.

Speaker 69 In 2003, that man killed Marilyn Cox and killed Renee Farnsworth.

Speaker 69 There is no other

Speaker 69 evidence based in reason to any other answer than that.

Speaker 2 And now it was in the hands of 12 jurors. And right before Thanksgiving, they'd surprise everyone.

Speaker 48 Coming up,

Speaker 6 after so many years and one last twist, a verdict.

Speaker 7 We were all pretty positive that, you know, this is going to be over. He's going to come home.

Speaker 14 My hands were sweating.

Speaker 37 I was nervous because I know the victims' families are behind me.

Speaker 13 And this is everything to them.

Speaker 2 Jordan Watson firmly believed her father was innocent and expected to have him home for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 7 You know, we were all pretty positive that, you know, this is going to be over, he's going to come home.

Speaker 2 Then, three days after deliberations began, the jury came back. But it wasn't what anyone expected.

Speaker 62 Was there any possibility that the jury would want to consider further discussions?

Speaker 62 Not at this time.

Speaker 2 Or not it. No, no, sir.

Speaker 2 The jury was hung.

Speaker 2 Dave Watson soon learned he'd been just a few votes shy of walking out of jail a free man.

Speaker 15 It was 10 to 2 acquittal in the case of Linda and 8 to 4 for acquittal in the case of Marilyn and Renee.

Speaker 16 Yeah, it.

Speaker 27 It brought tears to my eyes that it was even a hung jury.

Speaker 2 The defense contained their excitement and braced themselves.

Speaker 67 Anything short of a conviction is a win,

Speaker 67 but it's a hollow win in that the state can come right back and charge it again.

Speaker 2 Which is exactly what happened. The retrial began on January 25th, 2017.
The prosecution led with its star witness.

Speaker 56 The state called Rosemary Wilde.

Speaker 2 But this time they retooled their case a bit.

Speaker 57 I read the transcripts from the first trial, and one thing I saw too much of was me speaking. And so I doubled down on the idea that the jury needed to hear from Rosemary, and so I got out of the way.

Speaker 57 I asked shorter questions.

Speaker 56 Did anything unusual happen that night?

Speaker 62 Yes, I woke up in the middle of the night a couple times and Dave was not there.

Speaker 2 The second time around was different for Rosemary, too.

Speaker 33 Now I'm a little mad.

Speaker 32 Not only is he lying, he's making me out to be just a bold-faced liar.

Speaker 2 She testified about how she had lied to protect her family and about what coming forward with the truth had cost her.

Speaker 56 Does Jordan call your mom anymore?

Speaker 62 Jordan doesn't speak to me very often anymore.

Speaker 56 Is that since this case?

Speaker 62 Correct.

Speaker 2 The prosecution called Jordan next, so the jury could hear how her interview at age seven backed up Rosemary's claim that Dave wasn't home. Not so fast, said the defense.

Speaker 67 I can only imagine if my seven-year-old was interviewed about a key fact that's going to decide a guy's life.

Speaker 18 It would be scary.

Speaker 2 The defense maintained Dave was home the nights in question. He didn't kill anyone, they said.
They once again presented multiple other scenarios of what could have happened to Linda.

Speaker 2 She committed suicide. She was murdered by a mysterious killer from Green Acres, or by the one suspect who stood out for the defense.

Speaker 15 If not Dave Watson, then who?

Speaker 16 It would be Carl.

Speaker 2 Carl Barton Jr., J.R.

Speaker 2 Nonsense, said the prosecution.

Speaker 57 There is no evidence linking J.R. to any of these three murders.

Speaker 22 None.

Speaker 2 After seven weeks of testimony, Dave's fate was once again in the hands of a jury.

Speaker 25 We were getting indications from questions out of the jury that they might actually go into the next week.

Speaker 16 I was thinking they're pretty hung.

Speaker 2 But then, after a day and a half of deliberations, the jury buzzed with a verdict. It was St.
Patrick's Day. Detective Kelly Anderson hoped luck would be on his side.

Speaker 14 My hands were sweating.

Speaker 23 I was nervous.

Speaker 8 I'm nervous over every verdict, but I'm more nervous now.

Speaker 37 And it's because I know the victims' families are behind me.

Speaker 23 And this is everything to them.

Speaker 2 The stakes were high for him personally, too. He was retiring, and this was his last homicide case.
The moment of truth, the one that had taken 17 years to arrive, was finally upon them.

Speaker 71 We, the jury, do find the defendant, David Duane Watson guilty of the offense of second-degree murder of Linda Watson.

Speaker 33 Oh, when he said Linda, I didn't even have to listen to the rest of it because we knew if we got him for Linda, the other two was just an automatic.

Speaker 2 David Watson, father, friend, and fire captain, was also convicted for the first degree murders of Marilyn and Renee. the loyal friend who didn't even play a lead role in her own murder case.

Speaker 5 She was forgotten a lot, but my mom was kind of the meek, mild, quiet person in the back and just kind of went with the flow, and she was always there for anybody that needed anything.

Speaker 2 Jordan was heartbroken. Dave says he could not believe it.

Speaker 27 I would have never imagined that in a million years.

Speaker 27 From what was being presented in court, I've thought there's no way, no way beyond a reasonable doubt, you could think I would have done any of this.

Speaker 15 Did you go over to Linda's house, abduct her, kill her?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 15 Drop her in the wash-up by Silver Bell? No.

Speaker 15 Did you get a 9mm, your Ruger? Did you put on a hoodie and go kill Marilyn and her friend in the driveway of their house?

Speaker 16 Sure did not. Point-blank range? Nope.

Speaker 40 Who do you think did?

Speaker 15 What's your theory? Not the theory on who did it?

Speaker 15 Sorry.

Speaker 2 His attorneys would not let him answer that question, citing Dave's pending appeal.

Speaker 2 The man who made a career out of saving lives is now doing time for taking them. Dave Watson was sentenced to life in prison.

Speaker 15 Is it a kind of nice sentimental ending for your career as a homicide detective?

Speaker 37 It's kind of bittersweet.

Speaker 21 There's a little bit

Speaker 41 that makes me want to do it again.

Speaker 2 The vault is three cases lighter now, and the families of Linda, Marilyn, and Renee have some measure of closure thanks to an enemy turned ally.

Speaker 15 One of the ironies here is that you ended up delivering for women that you had been fighting earlier in your life. You delivered for Linda.
You delivered for Marilyn and her friend Renee.

Speaker 32 Ultimately, I did, didn't I?

Speaker 2 She hopes Jordan will one day come to understand that.

Speaker 15 Speak to her directly now.

Speaker 34 Everything

Speaker 16 that I didn't want for her

Speaker 32 has happened. And so speaking to her, I guess the only thing that I can say

Speaker 32 is that I'm sorry.

Speaker 32 But I am always here for her.

Speaker 15 You're sorry, but you say you also did the right thing.

Speaker 32 I did do the right thing. If this was me and I died fighting, you know, for justice for my daughter, I would hope that everybody would just tell the truth.

Speaker 2 But the truth, sometimes as murky and hard to see as the desert with night closing in. What with all those secrets and old bones scattered about, unchanging?

Speaker 22 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 18 Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2 Hey, everybody. It's Rob Lowe here.
If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 58 And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

Speaker 1 Fox.

Speaker 58 There are new episodes out every Thursday.

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