MERIDEN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend days before she was found dead near his workplace will be charged with murder, police announced Tuesday.
Meriden police said they have secured an arrest warrant for Jason Watson in connection with the killing of Perrie Mason, a 31-year-old mother of two from Meriden whose body was found in Waterbury last August.
Watson, 39, is already detained on more than $2 million bail, charged with strangulation and assault in connection with an Aug. 15 attack when police say he choked Mason to unconsciousness a few days after they broke up. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Watson is scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charge Wednesday. Police did not release details of the evidence they compiled that led to the murder warrant so many months after Mason was killed.
Watson will plead not guilty to the murder charge at some point in the future, said his lawyer, Dean Popkin.
“He’s innocent of these charges and we will demonstrate that,” Popkin said.
Mason, who grew up in Kalihi, Hawaii, moved to Connecticut in 2018, worked as a court monitor and ran her own eyelash business. Shortly before she vanished, two 911 calls were made from her phone but dispatchers did not hear anyone on the line and got no response when they called her back, officials said.
Four days after the calls, police found her body outside Watson’s workplace in Waterbury after her sister reported her missing.
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