Business Partner Who Reported Pennsylvania Mom Missing Arrested For Murder

 

Blair Watts (L); Jennifer Brown (R)

A former friend and business partner of a missing Pennsylvania mother has been arrested for murder.

Blair Watts, 33, was arrested Thursday morning and charged with “first-degree murder, theft by unlawful taking and fraudulently accessing a device,” Fox News reported.

“For 37 days since this devoted mother was reported missing, detectives have been accumulating evidence, piece by piece, bringing into focus what happened to Jennifer and who murdered her,” Steele said on Thursday. “That picture shows Blair Watts murdered Jennifer Brown on Jan. 3rd, then moved her body and ultimately buried her in a shallow grave.”

Jennifer Brown was found in a shallow grave two weeks after she disappeared in January. 

Watts reported Brown missing on January 4 and told police he watched her 8-year-old son for a sleepover to “give Jennifer a break.”

Brown had not packed her son’s medication for the sleepover and the child’s teacher couldn’t reach her which raised suspicions.

Jennifer Brown’s body was found in a shallow grave on January 18 and the coroner determined the cause of death to be “homicide by unspecified means.”

Brown had broken ribs and appeared to die from asphyxiation, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele.

On January 3, two large cash transfers totaling $17,000 were made from Jennifer Brown’s computer to Watts’ accounts.

The money transfers lead authorities to believe Brown was murdered on January 3 before the cash transfers.

Fox News reported:

A former friend and business partner of slain Pennsylvania mother Jennifer Brown was arrested this week for her slaying, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele announced.

Brown was originally reported missing on Jan. 4 by Watts, who told police that she had failed to pick up her 8-year-old son from the school bus that afternoon.

Her son had spent the night at Watts’ residence the night before on Jan. 3 to “give Brown a break,” Watts told investigators.

A two-week search ensued and Brown’s body was eventually found buried in a shallow grave behind a warehouse in Royersford on Jan. 18. A medical examiner determined that she was murdered and had three broken ribs.

Before her death, Brown and Watts had planned to open a restaurant together in late January called “Birdies Kitchen” in Phoenixville.

Investigators found that on Jan. 3, the last day anyone saw Brown, two cash transfers worth a total of $17,000 were sent from Brown to accounts controlled by Watts. That transfer was “never part of a written agreement between Brown and Watts,” the district attorney said.