Blair Watts: Pennsylvania man sentenced to life in prison for murdering his 'friend and business partner'

MONTGOMERY, PENNSYLVANIA: A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his 'friend and business partner' before burying her body in a 'shallow grave'. On Wednesday, December 13, a Montgomery County jury found Blair Watts, 34, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Jennifer Brown, 43.

According to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, following the jury’s verdict, County Judge William R Carpenter “immediately” ordered Blair to serve a mandatory sentence of life in a state correctional facility.

Blair Watts denied killing Jennifer Brown

During the six-day trial, Watts did not testify or address the court during the sentencing phase of the hearing. However, he briefly addressed a gaggle of reporters as he was being led out of the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies, saying, "I didn’t kill Jennifer Brown," local news outlet The Mercury reporte. 

What did the district attorney say?

First Assistant District Attorney Edward F McCann Jr responded to Watts’ shocking claims. “He’s been saying that from the beginning but we just spent five days proving that he did and I think we proved it beyond any doubt. Frankly, I don’t really think reasonable doubt was even an issue. I think the case was very strong,” McCann reportedly said.

 “Clearly, the jury considered this thoroughly. Clearly, the evidence that he did it was overwhelming," he added.

Blair Watts was referred to as 'broke narcissist'

According to the outlet, McCann and Deputy District Attorney Kelly S Lloyd repeatedly referred to Watts as a “broke narcissist” throughout the trial, arguing he killed Brown because she was going to expose his illicit use of funds she had invested with Watts for a proposed restaurant venture.

“In court, I characterized him as a manipulator who lied and he was trying to hide on the surface who he was underneath, a broke narcissist who was always concerned about himself and his own image,” Lloyd reportedly said, adding “I think that came out through the testimony and through all the evidence we showed in this case.”

The investigation into Jennifer Brown’s disappearance began when Blair Watts reported her missing

The investigation into Brown’s disappearance began when Watts himself reported her missing on January 4. Prosecutors said that Watts was Brown’s “supposed friend and business partner” in the planned reopening of a restaurant called “Birdie’s Kitchen.”

Watts told police that Brown’s eight-year-old special-needs son had spent the previous evening at his house for a planned sleepover with his three children in order to “give Brown a break,” but Brown failed to pick up her son from the school bus the following afternoon.

However, authorities at that time felt it was peculiar of Brown whom others described as an 'attentive and loving mother,' to fail to provide Watts with her son’s 'necessary daily medications' or new clothes for the boy to wear to school after the sleepover. 

What did the police find on searching Jennifer Brown’s home?

An initial search of Brown’s home showed 'no obvious signs of a struggle,' and the only significant personal item missing was her cellphone, police said, per Fox29. But a K-9 unit cadaver dog trained to detect the presence of human remains was brought into the residence and “indicated in the kitchen area of Brown’s residence as well as by a trash dumpster outside of Brown’s townhouse,” prosecutors said.

When investigators searched the specific area inside the home where the cadaver dog first indicated, they found “several black-and-white, marble-patterned plastic pieces embedded within the high-pile carpet” that were later determined to be pieces of a hair clip found buried in the shallow grave with Brown’s body.

The same dog later indicated that human remains had been in two cars driven by Watts, police said.

What did Jennifer Brown’s autopsy report reveal?

On January 19, the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office conducted an autopsy on Brown’s body and a toxicology analysis, determining that her cause of death was a homicide by 'unspecified means', prosecutors said. The autopsy report also noted that Brown had suffered three broken ribs prior to her death.

What actually happened before Jennifer Brown’s murder?

Soon investigators came to know that in the late afternoon of January 3, Watts picked up Brown’s son from the bus stop and told the boy that his mother was at the grocery store and that he would be sleeping over at Watts’ house that evening.

The two then drove to Brown’s home and Watts went inside while Brown’s son waited in the car, police said. But when Watts returned to the car, the child allegedly told police he noticed that Watts was holding his mother’s cellphone which he recognized because the phone’s lock screen was the child’s own school photo.

Additionally, authorities say that cellphone data showed Brown and Watts’ phones 'traveling in tandem' away from Brown’s home at around that time before returning a short while later, and again the next morning in the area of North Lewis Road and West Ridge Pike at approximately 7 am before Brown’s phone became inactive.

In January, Watts appeared insulted by the suggestion that he could have anything to do with Brown’s disappearance.

“It seems like I’m being the one poked at,” he said in response to questions from reporters, adding “And it’s frustrating because I’m the first person that was the one calling the police, trying to kick down windows. Trying to find my friend. Trying to make sure her son is covered.”