A Colombian man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the kidnapping and murder of Drug Enforcement Agency Special Agent James “Terry” Watson in Bogotá, Colombia, almost two years ago.
Edwin Gerardo Figueroa Sepúlveda, 39, of Bogata, was accused of being part of a six-man robbery team who carried out “millionaire’s rides” where victims are lured into taxi cabs, then kidnapping and robbing them with the help of assailants in a tail car.
Following an outing with U.S. Embassy colleagues, Watson left a restaurant and got into a taxi cab. Unbeknownst to Watson, two other cabs with accomplices were following them. When Watson’s car stopped at a red light, a signal was given by the driver to the other assailants who entered the backseat with Watson where Sepulveda shocked him repeatedly with a stun gun while another attacker stabbed him.
Watson, a 13-year veteran of the DEA who had been in the Army and worked with U.S. Marshal’s, was able to escape the deadly “millionaire’s ride” during his attack and collapsed into the street and later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Police in Colombia later arrested four people connected to the murder while two of his attackers remained at-large.
In July 2013, six Colombians, including Sepúlveda, were indicted on kidnapping and murder charges for their connection to Watson’s death.
One of the men, Andres Alvaro Oviedo-Garcia, was charged with assault and his role in trying to cover up the crime. The Justice Department in its statement of facts contends that Oviedo-Garcia washed the taxi cab where the crime occurred, removing Watson’s blood stains from the back seat and discarding the cleaning materials before turning the vehicle over to Colombian National Police for evidence.