Mt. Pleasant man charged in 1974 shooting death of Connellsville teen

The mother of a 14-year-old boy who was shot to death four decades ago in Fayette County always suspected the killer was living under her roof.

But Joseph E. Leos never uttered a word to the late Sarah Watson about the rainy spring night in 1974 when police said he fired a .22-caliber bullet into the back of her son's head as he bicycled home after an errand, according to the victim's niece.

“We always had our suspicions, but he never said anything,” said Erica Saunders, 40, of Connellsville after Leos' arrest Wednesday in the cold-case homicide of John David Watson.

“It's heart-wrenching,” Saunders said, describing how Leos lived for several years after the murder with Watson's mother and his sister, Janet, who is her late mother.

“It's not like he was a stranger,” Saunders said.

Leos, 58, of Mt. Pleasant was arrested Wednesday by state police after a Fayette County grand jury recommended criminal homicide charges in the May 2, 1974, death of Watson of Dunbar Township.

Jack Heneks, Fayette County district attorney, credited the arrest to advanced forensics techniques used to identify gunshot residue on the coat Leos wore the night of the killing and witness testimony elicited by a grand jury.

“This case represents the tenacity of law enforcement in never giving up on a case and using updated techniques, including shotgun residue analysis, along with good old-fashioned police work, in seeking justice,” Heneks said.

Saunders said most of Watson's immediate family members have passed away, except for a brother, Tom, who lives in West Virginia.

“It's devastating to the family, because my mom and my grandpap never got to see this,” Saunders said. “It's closure for my uncle Tom, but it still won't heal any broken hearts and the pain they suffered through the years.”

Never made it home

Watson and Leos, who was 17 at the time, were friends. Police said Watson was known to have relationships with other males. They placed the timing of the shooting shortly after Watson began to see a girl at school.

The grand jury, in its presentment, pegged the “interpersonal relationship” between Leos and Watson as the motive for the murder.

Watson bicycled to the Pines Motel shortly before 9 p.m. to buy cigarettes for his mother.

Witness said the boy bought the cigarettes and played pinball before he left.

Two witnesses told police Watson was carrying a paper bag when he passed them just after 9 p.m.

He said “hello,” then pedaled toward home, police said.

But Watson never made it. Friends and relatives searched through the night but found nothing. Watson's body was found the next morning in a grassy area 200 feet downhill from the Kirk Street home of Leos' grandmother, an area police had searched hours earlier.

Watson's older brother, Tom, went to the scene, “picked up and hugged the victim and discovered that his body was dry, which was in contrast to the rainy, wet conditions ... all night,” police said.

Drag marks, about 50 feet from Leos' grandmother's house, ran diagonal to the body, police said.

In an interview two years ago, Tom Watson told the Daily Courier in Connellsville he was 24 and was working at a bar on River Street when his mother called to say John was missing. He stayed up all night searching for his brother.

“We received a phone call about someone laying down in my aunt and uncle's yard,” Tom Watson said. “I ran down there, and it was my brother.”

Unsettled demeanor

An autopsy found John Watson was shot in the back of the head with a small-caliber weapon, most likely a .22-caliber, according to a police affidavit of probable cause.

Neighborhood children found his bicycle in a wooded dump near the body.

Witnesses told police that at 9:30 the night of the shooting, Leos visited the Watson home. He wore an ankle-length overcoat that was wet from the rain, they said, and he seemed frightened, frantic, upset and agitated.

When the kitchen door unexpectedly flew open, Leos closed it and said, “Something terrible has happened to Johnny. He's in trouble.”

Leos went to an upstairs room in the Watsons' home, then left. He told police he returned to the home between 1 and 2 a.m. “When I shut the door, something just hit me and told me Johnny was in bad trouble. That is all I can tell you,” he said.

Police found a .22-caliber rifle upstairs in the Watson home. The bullet recovered from Watson's body was too mutilated to be matched to the rifle, police said.

Under suspicion

The jacket Leos wore the night of the shooting was confiscated by police in 1974. When forensics experts tested it in 2009, they discovered gunshot residue, police said.

Heneks said Leos has long been a suspect.

“His actions on the night in question aroused suspicion, but because of the nature of the case and the nature of the scientific evidence at the time, the state police were not able to make an arrest,” Heneks said. “I think he probably was a suspect, certainly in some of the family members' eyes, from the night that it happened, because of his actions.”

Tom Watson said his mother died never knowing who killed her son.

Saunders said she never knew her uncle; she was born two weeks after his murder. “This has been a long time coming,” she said.

Leos is being held in the Fayette County Prison without bail. He has a preliminary hearing March 3 in Central Court in Uniontown.

Trib Total Media reporter Mark Hofmann contributed. Liz Zemba is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-601-2166 or lzemba@tribweb.com.