CORCORAN, Calif. (AP) — A newspaper chain says a California prison inmate serving a life sentence for murder has confessed in a letter that he beat two child molesters to death with a cane while behind bars after his urgent warning to a counselor that he might become violent was ignored.
The Bay Area News Group in Northern California reported Thursday that Jonathan Watson wrote in the letter that he attacked the other inmates on Jan. 16 at the state prison in Corcoran.
According to AP, the first attack happened after Watson saw one of the sex offenders watching a children's TV show.
“I was mulling it all over when along came Molester #1 and he put his TV right on PBS Kids again,” he wrote, according to the newspaper chain. “But this time, someone else said something to the effect of ‘Is this guy really going to watch this right in front of us?’ and I recall saying, ‘I got this.’ And I picked up the cane and went to work on him.”
Watson was on his way to tell a guard about what he'd done when he saw "a known child trafficker," AP reported.
"I figured I’d just do everybody a favor,” Watson wrote. “In for a penny, in for a pound."
After the beatings, Watson said he found a guard and confessed. The California Department of Corrections is investigating and declined to comment.
The prisoners died three days alter at the hospital, AP reported.
Watson is serving a life sentence for a 2009 murder conviction.
