Wife doesn't care if Watson did it

By JULIET ROWAN

The woman who married convicted double-murderer Scott Watson last month says she does not care if he killed Ben Smart and Olivia Hope.

Coral Branch said on TV One's Sunday programme last night that she hadn't asked Watson if he committed the murders and even if he had, it wouldn't matter to her.

"I fell in love with the man I have gotten to know," she said.

The 35-year-old Rotorua mother of four began corresponding with Watson in December 1999, soon after he received a minimum 17-year sentence.

Ben Smart and Olivia Hope vanished in the Marlborough Sounds on New Year's Day 1998.

Ms Branch married Watson, who turns 33 this month, on May 28 in the chapel at Auckland Prison at Paremoremo.

She said she had no idea who he was when he first wrote to her after getting her address from a mutual friend.

Learning his identity did not put her off and she continued writing, calling and visiting him in prison until he proposed to her over the phone last August.

Prison authorities would not allow the marriage to take place until he was eligible for transfer to a lower security wing.

The wedding lasted five hours, most of which Ms Branch said was unsupervised.

There were three guests, one of whom was her brother.

Ms Branch said the marriage had not been consummated.

Ms Branch's children - Robert, Kirsty, Odette and Scott - often visit Watson with her and now call him "Dad".

Herald Feature: Sounds murders