‘Evil’ killer refuses to say where he hid grandmother’s body
A SCOTS pensioner has been branded ‘the personification of evil’ after being found guilty of murdering a grandmother he had been in a relationship with.
Andrew Watson, 79, bludgeoned Lise Fredette to death with a shovel in Canada, before dumping her body. She has never been found.
Prosecutors told jurors at Peterborough Superior Court of Justice, in Ontario, that Watson, who is originally from Edinburgh, was a ‘jilted and controlling’ ex-boyfriend who had killed 74-year-old Miss Fredette as the ‘final act of harassing her’.
He was arrested ten days after the grandmother was last seen – leaving her job at a Walmart store on November 12, 2014. Her glasses and keys were found next to her car at her home and there was blood on her drive.
Watson refused the trial judge’s pleading for him to end the torment of Miss Fredette’s family by revealed where he had buried her body. After the jury had found him guilty, Justice Hugh O’Connell said: ‘Mr Watson, the road is now over for you. If you have a heart, sir, I would strongly suggest you speak to put closure to this, so this family can lay this very kind, compassionate woman to her proper rest.’ Watson replied: ‘No thanks.’ The judge told Miss Fredette’s family and friends sitting in the courtroom: ‘It seems to me Mr Watson is a completely, utterly empty vessel, concerned with only one thing: himself.
‘There are people, regrettably, like Mr Watson who are the personification of evil.’
Watson, who emigrated to Canada several years ago and worked as a government office clerk, now faces spending the rest of his life in prison. He is due to be sentenced later this month.
The court heard how he met Miss Fredette at a dance in Peterborough, where they both lived, in 2011 and the couple dated on and off before their relationship ended for good in April 2014.
Miss Fredette started dating another man a few months later, but Watson wouldn’t leave her alone. He sat outside her home and bombarded her with letters. In one letter, read to jurors, he wrote: ‘I’m very worried about you going to bed at 1am.
‘I keep wondering how you can have sex with someone you don’t love. Perhaps you should sit down and consider how you’re going to pay for this lifestyle.’
Miss Fredette contacted police about Watson in September 2014 and again in November, just days before she went missing.
Detectives searched a number of areas using dogs, heat-seeking equipment, divers and a groundpenetrating radar but have found no trace of the mother-of-two, who was declared dead days after she went missing. DNA testing revealed blood in the driveway belonged to Miss Fredette and a pool on the pavement was Watson’s. When police searched his home and car they found more blood. They seized rope, tarpaulin and a shovel from his basement.
The shovel was sitting in a bucket filled with liquid believed to be bleach. Blood belonging to both Miss Fredette and Watson was on the handle end and the victim’s blood was on the metal.
During the trial, Watson argued that the blood got there when the pair were gardening together.
Miss Fredette’s son, Stephane Leclerc, said he was still hopeful Watson would reveal where he hid her body. He said: ‘If he ever loved my mom, that would be the very least that he could say for us to be able to recover her, bring her home, give her some dignity. I’m hoping that Andrew Watson will see that in his heart.’
‘If you have a heart, I suggest you speak’