The two men Watson attacked were David Bobb, 48, and Graham De Luis-Conti, 62.
Both had been convicted of serious sexual offenses involving minors.
California corrections officials said Bobb was serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14.
De Luis-Conti had received a sentence exceeding a century for sexually assaulting three teenage girls. Court records described offenses against girls who were 13 and 14 years old.
Those convictions explain why the story generated such a strong emotional response. Crimes against children produce understandable anger and revulsion, and prisoners convicted of such offenses are often vulnerable to violence behind bars.
But their convictions do not make the circumstances of their deaths irrelevant. They were prisoners in state custody. The state remained responsible for controlling the institution and protecting them from extrajudicial punishment.
A criminal sentence is imposed by a court. It is not an authorization for another prisoner to execute the defendant.
What Happened on January 16, 2020
The attacks occurred on January 16, 2020, roughly a week after Watson arrived at the Corcoran facility.
Watson later wrote that one of the men repeatedly watched children’s television programming in the shared housing area. He interpreted that conduct as a deliberate taunt.
His account said that another prisoner drew attention to the program. Watson then picked up a cane belonging to another inmate and attacked the man.
David Bobb suffered multiple head injuries and died that day while being transported for medical treatment.
Watson wrote that he left the housing area intending to find an officer and confess. Before doing so, he encountered another prisoner whom he described as a known offender against children.
He attacked that man as well.
Graham De Luis-Conti died at a hospital three days later, on January 19.
Corrections officials subsequently identified Watson as the person responsible for attacking both inmates with a weapon. Their statement corroborated the core facts of Watson’s confession, including the date, location, identities of the victims and fatal injuries.
Watson’s Confession Letter
Watson did not merely acknowledge involvement during an interrogation. He sent a detailed letter to a news organization describing the attacks and his reasoning.
In that letter, he claimed that he had warned a prison counselor he would become violent unless transferred. He said the counselor dismissed the warning.
Watson portrayed the first attack as a response to the children’s programming and the second as a spontaneous decision made after encountering another convicted sex offender.
His language was unapologetic. He suggested he had done other prisoners and the public a favor.
That rhetoric became central to the story’s online popularity. It offered audiences a ready-made antihero: a man already condemned to prison who claimed to have used his remaining freedom to punish people associated with crimes against children.