chapel a few doors away where 40 residents were celebrating Mass. The frail residents could not evacuate the chapel themselves and staff struggled to get everyone out safely. Most of the fatalities came from shock and smoke inhalation. The nursing home did not have an internal sprinkler system. It was discovered that not long before the blaze, Watson had been told by management that she was being fired from her position.
During the investigation, police discovered Watson had a history of being in close proximity to fires. As one officer put it, Watson had a ‘bad history of pyromania’. An arson investigator and fireman recognised her name as they scanned a list of employees of the nursing home. They had met Watson before.
In 1973 there was a fire at the house where she lived and it was declared arson by investigators. In 1974 there were three small fires in Watson’s apartment that investigators believed were ignited with nail polish remover. There was another fire in 1975 in the hospital room where Watson was a patient but her roommate told investigators that neither she nor Watson were in the room when the fire started.
The Wincrest Nursing Home fire was – and remains – one of the worst ever in Chicago and the 69 counts of murder that Watson was charged with were, at the time, the most counts of murder ever charged to a single defendant in the state’s history. (There were three separate murder counts for each individual death.)
The case looked like a slam-dunk for prosecutors and even Watson’s public defender, William Murphy, thought his client would surely be found guilty. However, his client told him that her confession came after hours of interrogation by police. Mr Murphy’s strategy was to discredit Watson’s confession and say that because she was so mentally fragile and tired she was prepared to confess to anything to get out of the interrogation room. He also had her testify in her own defence, thinking that she would make a favourable impression on the jury.
Watson was acquitted on all counts in November 1977 and a United Press International news report described that the young woman ‘screamed with joy, then collapsed, crying in her lawyer’s arms’. Her lawyer Mr Murphy had told the jury his client was ‘a young, nice girl’ and innocent of all the charges.
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