Charged With Murder: Court Documents Say Jason Watford Admitted Strangling His Wife Aboard the Galveston Cruise Ship
The charging update to the case this station first reported Tuesday: the victim is identified as Susan Watford, the FBI says her husband admitted the attack in their cabin while a child was inside, and a judge heard no plea at Tuesday's hearing.
The passenger held on an FBI hold when the MSC Seascape turned back to Galveston has now been charged with murder in his wife's death. Jason Watford, 48, of Tyler, Texas, is accused of killing Susan Watford aboard the Caribbean-bound ship hours after the couple boarded in Galveston on Sunday - the case this station first reported Tuesday, when the FBI would say only that a woman had been found dead and a passenger was in custody.
What investigators say happened in that cabin is laid out in the court documents, and it is carried here as allegation, not verdict. Watford admitted, the documents say, that the argument made him "snap" - that he struck his wife multiple times, causing her to bleed from the mouth, and choked her with both hands, his right arm around her neck, for approximately four to five minutes until he became exhausted. A child was inside the cabin as the attack unfolded, Hagan said; the child was unharmed and is in foster care, and investigators have released no details about the child's age, gender or relation to the couple. Susan Watford lay motionless for about 10 minutes, investigators say, and her husband did not call ship security for medical help. A housekeeper who knocked on the door just after 9 p.m. to drop off towels saw what she thought was blood on his clothes and a motionless body inside, and raised the alarm. Susan Watford was found with multiple facial injuries, and ship security detained her husband as a suspect.
The ship changed course at about 11 p.m. Monday to return to Galveston, where Watford was arrested and taken off the vessel after it docked, passengers filming the removal. He is in custody; at a hearing Tuesday he entered no plea and waived a detention hearing. The Seascape has since resumed its itinerary - Costa Maya, Roatan on November 12 and Cozumel, returning to Galveston on November 15 - sailing week-long Caribbean round trips with capacity for up to 5,877 passengers.
The Post, citing Houston's KTRK, reports that Susan Watford had raised an alarm about her husband before. In September 2024 she reported to Smith County authorities that he grabbed her wrist in a dispute about money and that she used a stun gun as he became agitated; he pleaded guilty to causing bodily injury and was sentenced in November 2024 to 15 months of probation and 30 hours of community service. That record is part of the public file in this case now - and the federal case itself is at its beginning: a charge, a custody status, and a court process that has not yet heard a plea.
