2/13/2009

Arrest made in double homicide

By ERIN MATHEWS

Salina Journal

A 25-year-old California man was arrested Wednesday, accused of fatally shooting two people in a Salina apartment in September in what officials are describing as a drug-related crime.

Terrence J. Watson, of Los Angeles, is being held in the Saline County Jail on $2 million bond. He is scheduled to make his first appearance this morning in Saline County District Court.

Relatives of the two said they were pleased to hear that someone had been arrested for the shootings.

Watson was arrested on one count of capital murder for the killing of two human beings as one act, according to a statement from the Salina Police Department. Assistant Kansas Attorney General Steven A. Karrer will prosecute Watson for the murders, which a spokeswoman for the Kansas Attorney General's Office said are drug related.

Anna Louise Hartman, 20, was arrested in December, accused of aiding in the murders of Taryn K. Dechant and Ernest J. Jones Jr., both 22. She is also scheduled for a court appearance this morning.

Salina police arrested both Watson and Hartman on illegal drug charges the day of the murders, but both were released from jail.

The investigation is ongoing, the police department statement said, and police ask that anyone with information call the Salina Police Department at 826-7210 or Crime Stoppers at 825-TIPS.

Watson was picked up Wednesday afternoon in a parking lot in the 2800 block of South Ninth Street by Salina police officers and agents of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

He is expected to face a charge of battery on a law enforcement officer for spitting on one of the arresting officers, said Salina Deputy Police Chief Carson Mansfield.

Jones and Dechant were found shot to death Sept. 26 in an apartment they shared at 611 S. Second. Police removed Dechant's two young children, unharmed, through a bedroom window of the apartment to prevent them from seeing the crime scene.

Whoever pulled the trigger

Michelle Lumley, Dechant's mother, said the children are both doing well and seem to be dealing with the loss of their mother and her boyfriend, Jones.

"Ernest was a big part of their lives, too," she said. "He was very good with the kids."

Lumley, of Ness City, said she is glad the person believed to be the shooter is in custody.

"Whoever pulled the trigger needs to be held responsible," she said. "Neither Ernest nor Taryn deserved to die the way they did, or to die at all."

Lumley said she is "doing as well as can be expected, I guess."

She and Jones' mother, Trisha Louden of San Bernardino, Calif., are making plans to attend the trial together. The women met for the first time a couple of weeks after their children were killed, when they held a candlelight vigil in their memory in front of the apartment building where they had lived and died.

Louden said she hopes the trial will provide her with the answers she needs to feel a sense of closure.

"I want to hear everything that happened and why," she said.

She said news of the arrest of the person believed to be responsible for her son's death was already helping her to feel better.

"I want to know what would possess you to shoot him," she said. "He was not a bad person."

He works in mysterious ways

Ernest Jones Sr., of Bakersfield, Calif., said Louden let him know about the arrest first thing Thursday morning.

"I was thinking about my son all night last night," he said. "I was dreaming about him when he was a kid. God must work in mysterious ways."

Jones Sr. said he dreamed he was talking to his son when he was a little boy and taking him swimming.

"Then I woke up and looked at my phone and saw a text message from his mama saying, 'They caught him,' " he said. "If he's the one who did it, he needs to be punished."

Jones Sr. said the loss of his son has been hard on the family.

"I've just been praying and trying to stay strong," he said. "When you do something like that to somebody's family, you need to get what's coming to you."

n Reporter Erin Mathews can be reached at 822-1415 or by e-mail at emathews@salina.com.

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