A county prosecutor urged jurors in the triple-murder trial of a former Tucson fire captain to use their “common sense” while a defense lawyer asked them during her closing arguments not to be “persuaded by sympathy.”
David Watson, 47, is charged with one count of second-degree murder in the 2000 death of his ex-wife Linda Watson, 35. He also is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the 2003 fatal shootings of Linda Watson’s mother, Marilyn Cox, 63, and Cox’s friend, Renee Farnsworth, 53.
Watson was tried on the same charges last fall in Pima County Superior Court, but the seven-week trial ended with a hung jury in November.
The 12 jurors are tasked with reaching either a unanimous verdict or no verdict at all in a case that spanned 17 years and involved more than 60 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits.
If jurors are unsure who to believe, they must adhere to the justice system’s presumption of innocence and find Watson not guilty, defense lawyer Natasha Wrae told the jurors Wednesday.
In particular, if jurors can’t decide whether to believe statements made by Rosemary Watson in 2000 and 2003, when she provided alibis for her then-husband David Watson, or statements she made in 2007, when she recanted those alibis following the couple’s divorce, they must find in favor of her client, Wrae said.
“That’s how your conflict is resolved,” Wrae said to the jurors.
Linda Watson disappeared in 2000 from her house in the 2600 block of West Curtis Road. Investigators found blood on the floor, on a plastic trash bag, and the cord of a vacuum cleaner.
Three years later, her skull was found near the Silverbell Mine northwest of Tucson. However, it wasn’t until 2011 that the skull was identified as hers due to a mistaken assumption the skull belonged to someone who died after crossing the border illegally.
Cox led a public campaign to identify her daughter’s killer and fought David and Rosemary Watson in court for visitation rights to Cox’s granddaughter, who was 4 years old when her mother disappeared.
In 2003, Cox and Farnsworth were fatally shot in Cox’s driveway by a lone gunman after Cox’s first unsupervised visit with the Watsons’ daughter.
Prosecutor Jonathan Mosher said David Watson killed the three women as a result of the custody battle he had with his ex-wife Linda and then with Cox.
Wrae said the facts of the case were “tragic,” but the investigators’ view of the case was “myopic” and unduly focused on Watson. Several other people, including a former boyfriend of Linda Watson, should have been suspects.
The prosecution did not present any evidence that proves David Watson is guilty, Wrae said. The murder weapons were never found and no eyewitnesses could identify Watson as the killer, she said.
Mosher said Watson waited for the two women to return home and then shot them, including a close-range shot to the back of Cox’s head after she had been shot in the torso.
In his closing argument Tuesday afternoon, Mosher pointed to what he called incriminating statements made by Watson on wiretapped phone calls, a money clip with Watson’s initials found at the scene of the double-homicide, and a gun Watson owned, but sold, that could have matched the gun used to kill Cox and Farnsworth.
Mosher also said statements made by Watson’s daughter and Rosemary showed David Watson was not home at the time of the killings and an eyewitness to the double-homicide described someone who fit Watson’s general physical characteristics.
Mosher also appealed to the jurors’ “common sense” as they considered the alternative theories put forth by the defense, telling them: “You know how to tell when someone’s telling you a big whopper.”
Both Wrae and Mosher devoted much of their closing arguments to Rosemary Watson’s testimony.
Rosemary Watson is “key to the state’s case,” Wrae said, but she is a “liar” and “drama queen” who gave an “Oscar-winning performance” on the witness stand.
In his rebuttal Wednesday, which was peppered with Mosher saying incredulously “Are you kidding me?” as he went through Wrae’s arguments, Mosher said the only lies Rosemary told were the lies she “carried for her husband.”
Jurors may find it hard to believe a firefighter and father could be a killer, Mosher said.
“Your mind and heart struggle to believe that,” Mosher said. “That was Rosemary’s struggle.”
Jury deliberations begin Thursday morning.
