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Debra Johnson, a corrections administrator at the West Tennessee State Penitentiary, was found s*xually assaulted and strangled in her home on the grounds inside the facility on August 7, 2019. A convict with a violent past and inmate in the same prison, Curtis Ray Watson, who escaped that day, was identified as the killer by investigators.
See No Evil on ID chronicles Debra Johnson's murder in an episode titled Prison Break. The synopsis states:
"An escaped inmate murders Debra Johnson, a highly respected Correctional Administrator, at her home outside the prison; with the public at risk, police scour through surveillance footage for clues to hunt him down before he strikes again."
Reports state that Curtis Ray Watson then led authorities on a manhunt for five days before eventually getting captured in a soybean field in Henning, Tennessee, on August 11. He later pleaded no contest to a charge of first-degree murder in the perpetration of a r*pe, among other charges, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Corrections administrator Debra Johnson was murdered on prison grounds by an escapee inmate with a violent history
TDOC Administrator and mother Debra Johnson, 64, was discovered dead in her bed inside her on-site residence located on the grounds of the West Tennessee State Penitentiary on August 7, 2019. Forensic tests declared that she was s*xually assaulted and strangled. She was pronounced dead at 11:40 am.
Curtis Ray Watson, a 45-year-old inmate with a violent history serving time for an aggravated kidnapping and assault of his wife from 2012, was later identified as Johnson's killer by investigators. They connected Watson to the crime shortly after finding that he was missing and that he likely escaped on a tractor.
Investigators believed that the inmate, who was serving a 15-year prison sentence, reportedly assaulted and killed Johnson while escaping the prison grounds on a tractor. The tractor was found at least a mile away from the prison grounds, and a massive state-wide manhunt was initiated for Watson.
He was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated s*xual battery and aggravated burglary.
Reports state that Watson subsequently led authorities on a five-day manhunt before getting arrested on August 11, at the edge of a soybean field in Henning, Tennessee.
The arrest was made after home security cameras in Henning captured him. After his arrest, DNA samples taken from Johnson's home as evidence were used to place him at the crime scene.
According to information revealed later in the case, prior to the murder Debra Johnson had a brief encounter with Curtis Ray Watson and the latter reportedly told another inmate that she wanted to have s*x with him.
The Commercial Appeal reported that before Johnson's body was discovered, and during a search for Watson, a corrections officer allegedly noticed a golf cart that the inmate had used near the victim's house and even approached her doorstep, knocked on the door, and left when there was no response.
Curtis Ray Watson was initially charged with 15 counts, including pre-meditated murder, r*pe, and kidnapping, all in the first degrees. He later pleaded guilty to nine out of those 15 counts.
Learn more about Debra Johnson's case and Curtis Ray Watson's prison break case on ID's See No Evil.
