A 61-year-old man with convictions for previous crimes has been sentenced to 40 years to life in state prison for a February robbery and residential burglary.
A Sacramento County jury in August convicted Jonathan Mayhew Watson of the robbery and burglary. The court further found the Watson had five previous convictions for crimes including residential burglary, attempted residential burglary, forcible rape and rape by threat, according to a Sacramento County District Attorney's Office news release. He was sentenced by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Ernest Sawtelle.
On the evening of Feb. 28, the victim returned home to find that Watson had broken into her apartment and was rifling through her belongings, authorities said. The woman screamed for help and Watson fled from the residence.
When the victim's neighbors confronted Watson, he brandished a knife that he had hidden in his jacket and escaped.
Sacramento police officers located Watson at a nearby park shortly after the burglary and found many of the victim's personal items in his pockets.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
• Read more articles by Cathy Locke
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
Order Reprint
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.