LAUDERDALE COUNTY, Tenn. — Emotional moments in court Thursday as a judge finds probable cause to bind the case of Curtis Watson over to a grand jury.
Watson is charged with first degree murder, especially aggravated burglary, and aggravated sexual battery in the death of top Tennessee Department of Correction administrator Debra Johnson. He's accused of killing Johnson before escaping the West Tennessee State Penitentiary and leading authorities on a four-day manhunt.
Testimony revealed new information surrounding the investigation into Johnson's death.
WARNING: SOME OF THE DETAILS BELOW ARE DISTURBING.
According to our Memphis news partner WREG, several witnesses took the stand, including Correctional Officers Kenneth Edwards and Austin Jones, and Corporal David Shelton, all of whom worked at the West Tennessee State Penitentiary where Watson escaped from in August 2019.
Edwards testified that Watson signed out around 7 a.m. on the morning of his escape and was located by prison officials in a golf cart. He said that it wasn't unusual to see Watson around this type of equipment considering the job he had at the time.
Jones told the court that later that day Watson told him he "needed to run to maintenance."
Several hours later, Watson went missing again, but this time on a large tractor. They later found that tractor about 10 miles away about an hour after Watson went missing.
During that time he was missing, authorities said Watson sexually assaulted and then murdered Debra Johnson at her home on the penitentiary grounds. Her body was found 30 minutes after prison staff realized Watson was gone.
Trinity Minter, the warden for the women's side of the penitentiary and a friend of Johnson, said she had texted with Johnson at 8:03 the morning she was killed.
When she heard Johnson hadn't reported for work, Minter got keys from an administrator and went to Johnson's home on prison grounds.
"I walked into the house ... and I could see Debra laying on the bed, with her right leg up, and her left leg down. I knew at that point, that something was really wrong," Minter said.
She said Johnson wasn't clothed from the waist down and had what looked like a black cell phone cord around her neck.
A nurse who arrived at the scene testified she didn't find a pulse on Johnson, and said the cord had been wrapped around her neck three times.
Both correctional officers said they didn't witness any interactions between Johnson and Watson prior to the incident.
But Robert Walden, an inmate at West Tennessee Penitentiary who worked in the prison lawn mower shop with Curtis Watson, testified he saw Watson at Johnson's house that day.
Walden said he saw Watson "beating on the door" of Debra Johnson's home around 7:30, and they acknowledged each other.
That was before Watson was first lost-and-found. He later saw him traveling away from the prison on a tractor.
Zachary West, an inmate who worked with Watson in the mower shop, testified that Watson approached him for the tractor that West was washing, then asked for and took West's orange work vest.
"Watson says, 'I'm in a hurry, I need that tractor,'" West said in court.
West said he witnessed Watson putting air into the tires of a car believed to be Debra Johnson's.
He said Watson told him that the woman wanted to have sex with him, and he was going to have sex with her.
"He was seriously convinced [that she wanted him]," West testified.
TBI special agent Chuck Baker read results in court from a rape kit that had been performed on Johnson's body.
The profile, he said, was consistent with Curtis Watson, and Watson could not be excluded from the male DNA profile.
Watson was on the run for four full days before authorities located him about 10 miles away in a bean field.
According to the judge, the charge of felony escape carries a penalty of 1-6 years; especially aggravated burglary, 8-30 years; aggravated sexual battery, 8-30 years; and first degree murder could carry the death penalty, life in prison without parole or life in prison with parole.
