MERIDEN — Police have obtained an arrest warrant for the ex-boyfriend of Perrie Mason, the 31-year-old mother whose body was found in Waterbury last year.
Police announced Tuesday that they plan to charge Jason Darnell Watson, 39, with the murder of Mason, a mother of two boys. Watson is scheduled to be arraigned today in New Haven Superior Court, police said.
A records clerk said a copy of the warrant couldn't be released until it is served.
Watson has been in custody since he was charged in connection with a domestic incident that occurred shortly before Mason went missing last August.
Authorities found Mason’s body at a textile recycling business in Waterbury, where Watson worked, less than a week after she was reported missing. She died due to homicidal violence by an undetermined cause, a representative of the chief medical examiner said in October.
After Mason’s body was found, a “lengthy investigation ensued by Det. Femia of the Meriden Police Major Crimes Division,” police said in a Facebook post announcing the warrant Tuesday.
“The Meriden Police Department would like to thank the Connecticut State Police, Waterbury Police, New Haven FBI Office, the Department of Children and Families, and the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office for their assistance,” the statement read.
Family members of Mason couldn’t be reached Tuesday afternoon.
Mason was born in Hawaii, where she lived most of her life, her father, DeVictor King Mason, told the Record-Journal last year. She moved to Meriden with her two sons to be with Watson, a longtime Meriden resident, about a year and half before her disappearance. Mason owned her own eyelash business in Meriden and also worked as a court reporter for the state Judicial Branch, fulfilling the law career her father once envisioned for her when he named her after the 1950s legal drama, "Perry Mason."
Friends, family, and colleagues remember Mason as a softspoken, sweet person who worked hard at owning her own business.
"We just want justice,” Mason’s brother, Albert, told the Record-Journal in August. “That's the only thing that'll make anything better right now."
mzabierek@record-journal.com203-317-2279Twitter: @MatthewZabierek