Families of 3 slaying victims share their stories

Linda Watson, Marilyn Cox and ReNée Farnsworth were strong women who were dearly loved, their families say.

Families and friends of the three homicide victims remembered their loved ones, and spoke about forgiveness, hope and justice in a news conference Wednesday held by Homicide Survivors, an advocacy group,

David Dwayne Watson, 46, was arrested Saturday nearly 15 years after Linda Watson, his ex-wife, first disappeared from her northwest side home. On Wednesday, Watson resigned his post at the Tucson Fire Department.

“This justice is about them,” said Carol Gaxiola of Homicide Survivors. “It’s not about him.”

Amid a bitter custody battle between the formerly married couple, Linda Watson went missing in August 2000. Skeletal remains found in the desert in 2003 were positively identified as Watson eight years later, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

In 2003, Cox and Farnsworth were shot in front of Linda Watson’s old house in the 2600 block of West Curtis Road, where Cox had been living. The two women were close friends and neighbors.

Cox and David Watson were involved in a number of legal battles over the visitation rights for Linda and David Watson’s child and for conservatorship over Linda, who had gone missing, court records show.

The families of the victims said they lived for years believing that David Watson was responsible for their deaths. After a whirlwind of emotions had swept through those families’ lives for over a decade, they said the arrest was a “long time coming.”

“It’s about time,” said Dorothy “Dottie” Brady, Farnsworth’s daughter. She and her family were at the Pima County Fair when a detective called to let them know about David Watson’s arrest. “I screamed,” she said.

Pat Hinkle, sister of Cox and aunt of Linda Watson, said she was “overjoyed.”

“I’ve waited so long to see him pay for what he did,” she said.

A ‘ROLLER COASTER RIDE’

For Hinkle, the past 15 years have been a series of dead ends, hope, then dead ends again.

“It was kind of like a roller coaster ride,” she said. “Up and down and up and down.”

Hinkle said she expected Watson to be arrested someday, but after years of waiting and hoping, there were times she felt like she had given up. But last year, she had a “glimpse of hope” when a sheriff’s detective told her not to give up.

Over the years, she said she tried to “get something going” for Linda and David Watson’s daughter, who is now 19 years old. She engaged in a lengthy resistance against the man arrested on charges of killing her sister and niece, in which she fought in court to protect the assets Linda Watson and Cox had left behind for Linda’s daughter.

“I just wanted to let her know she’s got a huge family,” Hinkle said. “We wanted her to know that she had support, that we hadn’t abandoned her.”

At times, Hinkle said she felt nervous for her safety. There were times Hinkle would be afraid being outside in the dark, she recalled.

But Hinkle said she wasn’t “real, real afraid.” She knew that if anything were to happen to her, the authorities would know where to look.

More importantly, she had a promise to keep – to find justice for her sister and niece. To do that, she had to be strong. “I told Marilyn I will see this through,” she said.

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The ride was similarly bumpy and emotional for the family members of Farnsworth, who they say was close to Cox and had wanted to keep her safe when she was “brutally ripped from our lives,” according to Brady, Farnsworth’s daughter.

“My mom was where she wanted to be, where she needed to be,” she said.

The family brought Farnsworth’s ashes to the news conference. They vowed to keep them until justice was served, and set them on a chair along with family photos, a stuffed frog and other personal items symbolizing Farnsworth’s life.

The 12 years since her death in May 2003 were difficult for Brady and her family, she said. At times, she felt like she wasn’t a good mother or wife, but through the sadness, her family held her together.

Years of coping with her mother’s death has “faded” many of the memories, she said.

“Maybe once this is all done, some of it will come back,” she said.

Brady and her husband said they knew David Watson from when they went to Amphitheater High School. Both said Watson did not show any violent or aggressive behavior in school, but that he had a different personality back then.

Neither had any idea their lives would intertwine in this way.

FORGIVENESS

Hinkle said she has pictures of her sister and niece all around her house. And at times, seeing those pictures trigger raw emotions.

But the anger and sorrow were tearing her up inside, she said. About four years ago, she decided it was time to relieve herself of the weight by forgiving the man who she believed had killed her sister and niece.

“Lord, forgive David for what he did,” she recalled saying at the time. When she forgave, she said the weight came off of her shoulders.

Brady said she never hated David Watson. “I hated what he did.”

She said she isn’t the kind of person to resent. “I’m my mama’s daughter,” she said, referring to the forgiving person Farnsworth was when she was alive.

At the news conference, she and her husband shared a poem one of their daughters had written in eighth grade after Farnsworth’s passing.

The closing read: “Her spirit has found the way. Way up high. With the angels she does now fly. In my heart, she’ll never die.”

The families must now face the man who they believe to have killed their loved ones in court. Hinkle said she would be there, but that she’s not too excited about the prospect of seeing his face.

It’s not over until she hears the word “guilty” from a judge, she said. But she said she’s good with waiting. She’s already waited 15 years.

“I will always miss my sister,” she said. “I will always miss Linda.”