Married to Murder: The Bizarre and True Accounts of People Who Married Murderers (2 page)

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Convicted serial killers serving life sentences don’t always make the best husbands. New Zealander Coral Branch found that out the hard way when she caught her husband, Scott Watson, cheating on her with another woman in prison.

Watson, a burglar and small-time drug dealer, became one of New Zealand’s most famous prisoners because of the Marlborough Sounds murders. Even though they were well-publicized the Marlborough Sounds murders are actually something of a mystery.

What is known is that, on New Year’s Eve 1997, Ben Smart and Olivia Hope took a ride on Watson’s boat, The Blade, and were never seen again. Their bodies were never found even though police searched the area where Watson had been sailing the Marlborough Sounds off New Zealand’s South Island with sonar.

Police alerted by Hope’s father started investigating the incident and quickly zeroed in on Watson, who had 48 criminal convictions on his record. Watson was eventually arrested, charged, and tried for the crimes and sentenced to life in prison. 

Watson tried a number of tricks to beat the murder rap. He appealed to New Zealand’s court, the Privy Council, and made allegations of misconduct by the police. New Zealand’s head of state, the Governor General (representative of the Queen), refused to give Watson a pardon. At least one of those complaints dragged on as late as 2010; the Independent Police Conduct Authority, which reviews complaints against law enforcement in New Zealand, rejected Watson’s charges that detectives had framed him.

Coral Branch, a resident of
Rotorura, New Zealand, attracted a lot of media attention in May 2004 when she married Scott Watson at Paremoremo Prison. Little is known about Branch except that she had four teenaged children before marrying Watson.

The marriage lasted three years, although it was apparently never consummated. Conjugal visits are not allowed in New Zealand’s prison system. The most bizarre aspect of Branch and Watson’s marriage was that Watson figured out how to cheat on her even though he was locked up in maximum security and kept away from other women.

The New Zealand Herald
reported that Watson apparently used a cellular phone he had access to in order to send pictures of himself naked to other women from his prison cell. It isn’t clear what Watson was doing with a cell phone, but inmates in New Zealand might be allowed them.

Branch told
The Herald
that she learned about the affair from another inmate’s wife that she met at the supermarket. New Zealand is a very small country, so it’s hard to see how he could have kept it secret.

When she first heard of the affair, Branch turned to marriage counseling. The counseling did not work, and she eventually filed for divorce.

When news of the marriage’s collapse hit the press, Branch started attacking Watson in New Zealand’s newspapers. She called Watson a gigolo because other women had been writing to him in prison, and he had been responding to their letters.

Branch also accused Watson of hurting her children, who she claimed still loved the man to pieces. She said that Watson had spoken of a desire to adopt her four children: Robert,
Kirsty-Anne, Scott, and Odette. Newspaper reports indicate that at least one of the children reciprocated Watson’s love. The unidentified child reportedly got into a fight with other kids at school for defending Watson.

After the breakup, Branch called Watson irresponsible because he refused to take responsibility for anything he did. The fact
that Watson was in prison for murder should have alerted her to his character flaws, but it didn’t.

Instead, Branch told reporters that she still believed in Watson’s innocence even after divorcing him. She claimed
that she would never stop believing that her ex-husband was framed despite the way that he treated her and her children.

Scott Watson is still in prison and on schedule to be released in July of 2016 if everything goes his way. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 17 years. The earliest date he could be granted parole is 2014, but legal experts expect he’ll stay in
the stir for an additional two years.

Infidelity is not the only questionable activity that Watson has engaged in while in prison. In 2007 Watson was found guilty of assaulting another inmate in prison. He appealed that conviction as well and failed in 2008.

The case of Scott Watson proves that serial killers don’t make very good spouses, especially when they are in prison. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that serial killer groupies will pay much attention to it.

If history is anything to go on, next time a celebrity serial killer is sentenced to life imprisonment or death, some woman will step forward and marry him. History also shows us
that such killers will have lots of women to choose from because of the reams of mail that many of them receive in their cells.

murderpedia. "Scott Watson." n.d.
murderpedia.org .
Online Encylopedia Article. 24 January 2013.

New Zealand Herald. "Scott Watson's marriage is over after three years." 26 August 2007.
www.nzherald.co.nz.
Newspaper Article . 24 January 2013.

Wikipedia. "Scott Watson." n.d.
.en.wikipedia.org.
Online Encylopedia Article. 24 January 2013.

Most of the women who marry their murderer pen pals live for the day when their dream man walks out of prison. These women should be very careful what they wish for, because the “dream” came true for Carol Spadoni Jablonski and turned into a nightmare.

Carol
Spadoni met her dream man, Phillip Carl Jablonski, when she answered a lonely hearts advertisement he had placed in a newspaper. At the time, Jablonski was serving prison time for killing his second wife, Alice McGowan, in 1978. Subsequent events show why this was a very bad idea.

Jablonski
eventually came home from prison and launched another killing spree. His victims included Carol, whom he shot, suffocated with duct tape, and stabbed at her home. For good measure, Jablonski also raped and shot Carol’s 72-year-old mother, Eva Peterson. Jablonski murdered his wife and mother-in-law the day after he had murdered another woman and sexually assaulted her corpse.

Phillip Carl
Jablonski was a lifelong abuser of women and a sexual predator. His victims included both his wives and other women. Jablonski’s crimes started when he was just 16; he reportedly put a rope around the neck of his 14-year-old sister and tried to strangle and rape her. Jablonski’s father responded to this behavior by beating up his son.

Jablonski’s
first marriage in 1968 ended because he attempted to strangle and suffocate his first wife, Anne McGowan. She soon left Jablonski, and he found another woman, Jane Sanders. Jablonski raped Sanders on their first date and threatened her with a gun to make her have sex with him. He also beat her with a gun. Like McGowan, she eventually left Jablonski.

Jablonski
eventually tracked down Alice McGowan and murdered her in Palm Springs in 1978. It was this crime for which he was serving time when he met Carol Spadoni through the want ads.

When he finally got out of prison,
Jablonski’s parole officer considered him so violent that she was afraid of the man. The parole officer even tried to stop Jablonski from coming back to Burlingame to live with his wife because she was afraid Jablonski would kill her.

At his 1994 murder trial, testimony indicated that
Jablonski may have carried out attacks on as many as 10 other women. The identities of these women were never revealed.

The killing of Carol
Spadoni Jablonski and her mother was part of a particularly gruesome crime spree Jablonski went on in 1991. On April 22, 1991, Jablonski kidnapped Fathyma Vann, a widow and mother of two who was a fellow student at a community college.

Jablonski
took Vann out into the desert near Indio, Calif., shot her in the head, had sex with her body, and mutilated it. The gruesome mutilations included cutting off the ears and carving the words “I love Jesus” into her body. He also reportedly cut out her eyes.

The next day,
Jablonski went to Carol’s home in Burlingame, Calif., near San Francisco. Once there, he shot Carol, tried to suffocate her with duct tape, and stabbed her. Police also believe that Jablonski sexually assaulted Eva Peterson.

Jablonski
continued with his road trip by driving to Grand County, Utah, near Moab. Once there, he robbed and murdered 58-year-old Margie Rogers on April 27. The next day, Jablonski was arrested two states away in Kansas; he was apparently driving east on Interstate 70.

Phillip Carl
Jablonski is not exactly the brightest man on the planet. When the police finally caught up with Jablonski, they found a tape detailing his crimes in his car. The killer apparently taped his own confession.

Jablonski
was found guilty of the three murders in California and sentenced to death in 1994. He immediately appealed the case by using the interesting claim that San Mateo County Superior Court Judge John G. Swartz had prejudiced the jury against him by allowing a prosecution witness to call Jablonski a serial killer.

The California Supreme Court didn’t buy
Jablonski’s defense. The death sentence was upheld, even though it has not yet been carried out. Phillip Jablonski is still living at the taxpayers’ expense and is apparently trolling for more victims.

Even though he is imprisoned on death row, Phillip
Jablonski has figured out a way to hunt for more victims. Newspaper articles indicate that he placed a number of advertisements looking for friends online.

In the ads,
Jablonski called himself “Death Row Teddy” and stated that he had been on death row for 11 years. He also stated that he was looking for a male/female teddy bear with which to build a “special friendship” with. He wanted somebody who is mature and wanted an honest friendship.

Jablonski
even tried to paint himself as a romantic who likes walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and cuddling in front of the fire while soft music plays. Jablonski’s criminal record indicates that his real interests are rather different; they include murder, mutilation, rape, and necrophilia (sex with corpses).

The most bothersome part of this saga is that recent history indicates that
Jablonski will have no trouble finding more victims online. Fortunately, he has no way to get out and come visit them. If he did, there would surely be more mutilated bodies dumped in the desert.

Murderpedia. "Philip Carl Jablonski ." n.d.
.murderpedia.org .
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 27 January 2013.

Ofgang, Kenneth. "S.C. Upholds Death Sentence in Killing of Bay Area Woman." 24 January 2006.
.murderpedia.org/male/Jablonski-Philip .
Metropolitan News-Enterprise Newspaper Article Posted at Murderpedia.org . 27 January 2013.

Richman, Josh. "Death Sentence for wife killer upheld on appeal." 25 January 2006.
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Oakland Tribune Newspaper Article posted at murderpedia.org . 27 January 2013.

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en.wikipedia.org.
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 27 January 2013.

When an imprisoned serial killer marries a fan or admirer, the arrangement usually involves a female groupie marrying a male psychopath. Yet there has been at least one high-profile case of a female serial killer marrying a male admirer. In 1987, Charles Manson follower and killer Susan Atkins married James W. Whitehouse.