May 10, 1920: Serial killer, bigamist had ties to Edmonton
He was nicknamed the “King of Bigamists” when he was arrested in Los Angeles. But American con artist James P. (Bluebeard) Watson turned out to be a serial killer who murdered up to 15 of the 20 to 30 women he married, including one of two Edmonton women.
Bluebeard is a French literary folk tale from 1659 about a violent nobleman who murders his wives.
Watson, who was also known by 16 other aliases, met his future “wives” by placing “lonely hearts” personal ads in newspapers wherever he happened to be living at the time.
No shortage of lonely women took the bait and accepted the lie that he had to travel frequently for his work.
He told his Edmonton wives, and women he married in Calgary, Winnipeg and Nelson, B.C., he had to be away from two weeks to two months at a time because of extensive property in California he had to take care of. South of the border, where most of his wives lived, he told them he was in the U.S. Secret Service.
Watson targeted wealthy women, took control of their finances, then killed at least seven and as many as 15 of them.
The suspicions of one of his American wives, and the tenacity of investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, were credited with exposing Watson as more than just a polygamist.
Watson was married to Kathryn (Kate) Kruse and Agnes Wilson while he lived in Edmonton from 1915 to 1919. He also owned a ranch near Innisfail.
At one point he ran a commercial collection agency, and later a loan and mortgage company, changing both business and residential addresses on an almost annual basis. In 1919 he lived in the Arlington Apartments and worked in the Tegler Building. His love letters to Kruse were found in a storage locker at the Arlington and were used as evidence in his trial in California.
Kruse met Watson in San Francisco and told friends she and “James” had wed very quietly in 1913 in Nelson.
“James certainly knew how to get married quietly,” she told one friend. “We were married without any of our friends knowing anything about it. My parents did not know of it until sometime afterwards.”
Watson often returned home from his travels with women’s clothing and jewelry. He explained the items were seized in payment of overdue debts or mortgages.
At the time of his arrest, Agnes, his other Edmonton wife, was one four “wives” known to be missing.
Watson drowned most of his victims in rivers and lakes in the states of Washington and Idaho.
On this day, Watson, who confessed to the murder of seven women, was sentenced to life imprisonment in San Quentin penitentiary. He avoided the gallows by leading investigators to the shallow grave near Los Angeles of his last wife, and making a deal with authorities to not be sent to Washington State where he would have received the death sentence.
The model prisoner died behind bars of pneumonia at the age of 61.