Minutes Before Six provides a forum for posting of content otherwise not available. All content is provided solely by the individual contributors and expresses their own views and opinions. Minutes Before Six does not endorse any individual opinions or accept responsibility for content provided by contributors. I can fill that bag with my blood in six minutes or less. If you follow me on facebook or the twitter, you know that today I did something that was personally very scary: I donated blood for the very first time.
Florida’s mostprolific serial killerbyRobert A. WatersEdgar J. Watson got his violent nature fromhis father. Nicknamed “Ring-Eye” Ligebecause of a circular scar around one eye that he got in a knife-fight, Ligewould fight anybody at the drop of a hat.
Bloody Ed’s mother fled her loutish husband, taking her son from South Carolinato Lake City, Florida.SoonEd grew restless and moved to Arkansas. There he hooked up with the outlaw, Belle Starr. They had a falling-out, however, and Starrended up on the wrong end of a bullet.
Watson was suspected of being her killer, but by then, he’d high-tailedit back to Florida where he began racking up an impressive string of murders.Inthe early 1900’s, he bought Chatham Bend Key, one of the Ten Thousand Islands inthe Everglades. According to Florida’s Past by James M.
Burnett, “Itwas not long before Watkins had his fertile little island lush with canecrops, produce, and the valuable buttonwood, cords of which he shipped to KeyWest. His cane syrup was a popularproduct and he shipped tons of it in his 70-foot schooner to Fort Myers and todealers such as Bryan and Snow in Tampa.”Despitehis financial success, Bloody Ed couldn’t keep from killing people. In Arcadia, he knifed Quinn Bass to death,but since no one could positively identify him, he escaped a charge of murder. While visiting relatives in Lake City, he hada dispute with Sam Toland, and ended up shooting him. Bloody Ed was somehow acquitted of Toland’smurder, but was given an ultimatum by the local sheriff: head back to the TenThousand Islands and never come back to Lake City.Watsondid just that.Buthe could never control his temper. Whileattending an auction in Key West, Watson got into an argument with localresident Adolphus Santini.
Thehot-headed Bloody Ed attacked Santini, slitting his throat. He likely would have killed his hapless victim,but bystanders pulled Watson off. Santinisurvived, but Bloody Ed was forced to pay him $900 (a fortune at the time) todrop the charges of attempted murder.Notlong after, Watson found two men “squatting” on one of his islands. They refused to move, and quickly ended updead.
While there was little evidence, localresidents figured Watson was the killer. But since there were no lawmen to investigate (the nearest sheriff lived90 miles away), Bloody Ed walked yet again.Butthose crimes were just incidental to Bloody Ed’s real murderous spree that had been going on for years.
In Florida’sPast, Burnett writes: “A young black boy fled Chatham Bend Key interror, racing over river, swamp, and sawgrass, to reach a group of farmers,clamdiggers, and herdsmen near Chokoloskee. The frightened boy bore witness to a gruesome murder by Watson” The boy guided the men to the grave of awoman named Hannah Smith. At more thansix feet tall and three hundred pounds, she was harder to bury than most ofWatson’s victims, and he inadvertently left a leg sticking out of the ground.Thiswas the final straw for the citizens of the Ten Thousand Islands. They disinterred the remains and soon headedfor Ted Smallwood’s Store in Chololoskee, where Watson bought supplies. The crowd had heard that Watson was on hisway.Oncehe arrived, a shotgun in his boat, the mob was waiting. Witnesses stated that, when Watson advancedtoward the men with his gun pointed at them, they opened up.
Thirty-three bullets later, Chololoskee’s badman lay dead. It turned out that Watsonhad tried to fire his weapon, but the powder in his shotgun shell had been wet andwouldn’t detonate. (Smallwood’s wife hadsold him the shells, and rumors circulated that she had intentionally tamperedwith them.)Butthe story didn’t end there.
Withinhours, a hurricane hit the islands, tearing up the landscape. When searchers returned to Chatham Bend Key, Burnettwrites that they unearthed “about 50 skeletons” on properties owned by Watson.Investigatorssoon learned that he would travel to Tampa or Tarpon Springs and hire workersto help load his produce.
He made surethese men had few, if any, relatives who would come looking for them. When these down-and-outers became insistent thathe pay them, he would dispatch them and bury their bodies on one of hisislands. In other cases, it is thoughtthat he dumped many in the Gulf of Mexico.Theactual number of souls murdered by the diabolical madman will never be known.Thecounty sheriff finally arrived and held an inquest into Watson’s death. No charges were ever filed against those whogunned down the killer.EdgarWatson’s remains were interred at Rabbit Key, and the secrets of Florida’s mostprolific serial killer were buried with him. All comments will be screened by the blog-owner (i.e., me).Here are the rules:1 – I’m one of the few people in America who does not use profanity. Any post that uses foul language of any kind will not make it onto my blog.2 – I will not publish posts that are argumentative or hateful.3 – I welcome posts that disagree with my conclusions. However, that being said, I will not publish posts that I find offensive.4 – All posts are the opinions of those who send them.
They do not necessarily represent the opinions of the blog-owner.
I am in serious debate as to whether or not to move my blog to another name. I've been blogging here for nearly two years and have made so many sweet friends. When I began this blog we truly were a family of six living in the country. Not so much any more. These days it's more like four of us. It's sort of a sad reminder to know that we have dwindled down to only four. Besides the numerical dilemma, I began this blog without any true mission.
After a year or so, I finally found out that my favorite subject quickly began my quest of decorating my home on a budget. This remains my favorite to this day.