A Royersford man will face trial in his business partner’s murder

Blair Watts defrauded his business partner Jennifer Brown for months, prosecutors in Montgomery County said Thursday. And as his desperation mounted amid his crumbling restaurant plans, they said, he killed her and dumped her body in a shallow grave.

Watts, 33, faces first- and third-degree murder, theft, and related charges in the death of Brown. He was held over for trial on all charges after a marathon preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Richard Welsh.

The Royersford native’s attorney, Christopher Mandracchia, vehemently contended at the hearing that the prosecution had assembled a “rubber shell of a case” that lacked evidence.

“This is all circumstantial at best, and there isn’t enough to pass this level for a first-degree, intentional killing,” Mandracchia said.

First Assistant District Attorney Ed McCann disputed that characterization, saying the evidence, while circumstantial, was “significant and powerful.”

Watts acknowledged that he was the last person to see Brown, 43, alive in January, McCann said. He then reported her missing and concocted a story about her last few hours that the prosecutor said was patently false.

» READ MORE: Business partner charged in death of Montgomery County woman he reported missing

Brown, Watts said, told him she “needed a break” from child care, and gave him permission to take her 8-year-old son, Noah, to his home for a sleepover with his kids. Yet, the sleepover took place on a school night, and Noah did not have his needed medication, leading prosecutors to believe the arrangement was unusual and unplanned.

Inside Brown’s apartment, detectives investigating her disappearance discovered that she had left behind her work cell phone, car keys, and wallet. Plastic shards from her hair clip were found embedded in the home’s carpet.

Brown and Watts had known each other for a while, and had hammered out a contract partnering in a restaurant Watts had hoped to open in Phoenixville, prosecutors said. Financial records showed that over the course of a few months, Brown had agreed to pay Watts $14,000 to be a partial investor in the eatery, Birdie’s Kitchen. She fulfilled that obligation, prosecutors said, well before January.

However, banking records revealed that additional transfers for $17,000 were made to Watts from Brown’s account after he said he had last seen her. Those transfers came after other, failed transfers from Brown’s accounts, McCann said, and the successful transfers only went through after two-factor authentication had been suddenly deactivated on Brown’s Cashapp account.

The entire time, he said, cell phone records showed that Watts had Brown’s personal cell phone. It was never recovered by investigators.

Other cell phone records placed Watts outside a warehouse in Royersford for an extended period the day after he reported her missing.

Two weeks later, a passerby discovered Brown’s body in a hastily dug grave at that warehouse, prosecutors said. Underneath her corpse was the remainder of the shattered hair clip that had been found in her home.

An autopsy revealed that Brown had been killed by asphyxia, and her ribs had been broken. A forensic pathologist ruled her death a homicide, likely by choking.

Detectives researching Watts’ business activity found that he had grossly exaggerated the status of his restaurant venture, McCann said. He had repeatedly told detectives that he was weeks away from opening Birdie’s Kitchen.

Yet, the owners of the building where Watts hoped to open the eatery told detectives they had ended their business partnership with him in late December. Yet Watts showed up at the building hours after he claimed to have seen Brown last and told the owners he had more money to invest, and begged them to reconsider, McCann said.

When detectives visited the location weeks later, they found it in disarray: It was in no condition to be opened, McCann said.

Mandracchia tried to cast doubt on McCann’s theory of the case and suggested that a neighbor of Brown’s was a more likely suspect: The man had admitted to having an affair with Brown.

Welsh, the judge, was not swayed and held Watts for trial on all charges.

As Watts was led out of the courthouse, he told reporters he was innocent, and said he missed his kids.