Business partner charged in death of Montgomery County woman he reported missing

A Royersford man has been arrested in the killing of Jennifer Brown, a 43-year-old Limerick Township mother who was reported missing in early January and discovered in a shallow grave, Montgomery County prosecutors announced Thursday.

Blair Watts, Brown’s 33-year-old business partner, was arrested Thursday and charged with first-degree murder, third-degree murder, theft by unlawful taking, and access device fraud. He is being held in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility without bail.

Watts reported Brown missing on Jan. 4, telling police he last saw Brown when he picked up her 8-year-old son for a sleepover the day before to “give Brown a break.”

However, Brown — described by the District Attorney’s Office as an attentive and loving mother — was absent when her son left school the next day, and had not packed clothes or the boy’s medications for the sleepover.

Watts’ report launched a two-week search that ended when detectives found Brown’s body on Jan. 18 in a shallow grave behind an industrial facility in Royersford.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said during a news conference that investigators believe there was “no mystery” that Watts was involved, citing evidence uncovered by a K-9 cadaver unit in the man’s car, GPS data from his cell phone placing him at the grave site, and unusual financial transactions made from Jennifer’s phone after she went missing.

Steele told reporters he could not give a specific motive in the killing.

Brown’s cause of death was homicide by unspecified means, according to Steele.

An autopsy showed that Brown suffered three broken ribs while she was alive, and showed signs of asphyxia.

Watts was Brown’s business partner, and the two were planning to launch a restaurant together called Birdies Kitchen that was expected to open at the end of January.

But Steele said that investigators discovered Watts had never signed the lease for the building they planned on purchasing, and had yet to pay the property’s owners. When the owners refused to sell the building to Watts, the man threatened to sue.

Detectives would later find that Watts attempted to transfer money from bank applications on Brown’s phone the day Brown was killed and before he reported her missing — funds investigators found weren’t part of any agreement between the two.

Discovered on Brown’s computer tablet were transactions totaling $17,000 made into accounts controlled by Watts, according to Steele. The following day, Watts returned to the property owners, saying he had the money for the lease.

Steele also said the location of Watts’ cell phone showed he was in the area where Brown’s body was found and was traveling with Brown’s cell phone before it became inactive on Jan. 4.

A K-9 cadaver dog played another important role, finding evidence of human biological material in Brown’s kitchen, inside of two Jeeps driven by Watts, and in a covered trash dumpster around 20 yards from her apartment.

Pieces of a broken plastic hair clip were also discovered in both Brown’s residence and the shallow grave, leading them to believe Brown was likely killed inside the residence.

Steele credited efforts in the arrest to the FBI, and the Philadelphia, Royersford, Phoenixville, Limerick Township, and East Vincent Township police departments.