On January 27, 2017, the tiny town of Seabeck, Washington, was rocked by the murders of Christale Careaga, her son Johnathon Higgins from a previous relationship, and her stepson Hunter Schaap. Two days later, her husband, Johnny Careaga, was found dead in his burnt-out Ford F-150 pickup truck.
On the night of the murders, the family had some friends over at their house. At some point, Careaga received a phone call and left to meet someone, Gig Harbor Now reported. Surveillance footage taken around 9 p.m. at Camp Union Grocery showed Careaga’s vehicle parking next to another vehicle.
Careaga then drove back home but never entered the house. One of the guests would later tell police that they went out to the garage to check on Careaga and heard three men talking loudly. The guests left the home when Christale went to check the garage herself, the Kitsap Sun reported.
At 11:28 p.m., 16-year-old Hunter Schaap called 911 and pleaded for help, saying “Help! I’m dying … My family is dead! Come now!” The line went dead after 38 seconds, Gig Harbor reported.
When deputies arrived at the residence, it was engulfed in flames. Once the fire was put out, deputies discovered the bodies of 37-year-old Christale, Hunter, and 16-year-old Johnathon. The three had been shot in the head before the fire was set.
It appeared that Christale had been shot in the head when she went into the garage. Johnathon was shot when he left his room to check out the noises. Hunter had reportedly surprised the killers, coming home with a pizza. He was shot twice but managed to live long enough to call 911 before he was shot a third time.
“Firefighters battled the fire,” Kitsap County Sheriff’s deputy Scott Wilson told KIRO 7 several days after the murders. “Got it secured. Got it put out. And in their course of doing that, they came across the remains of three people inside the residence, two males and a female.”
The Kitsap County Fire Marshal’s Office later said that the alleged killers put fire-starting logs doused with accelerant on beds in the house and broke out the windows so oxygen would fan the flames, Gig Harbor Now reported.
While his family was dead, Careaga and his truck were missing. The Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office requested the public’s help in finding Careaga, but two days later, his remains were found inside of his truck, which had been set on fire. He was found on an abandoned remote tree farm in Belfair, Washington, KATU 2 reported.
David Zalenski, the Careaga’s neighbor for 12 years, told KIRO 7 that the family was “just so nice,” adding, “Geez, nice people don’t get killed like that.”
When police searched the Careaga home, they found $40,000 in cash in a safe and another $7,000 in a dresser. Another $200,000 was believed to be hidden under the house – but it was missing. While the Careagas owned Christale’s Java Hut and Juanito’s Taco Shop, the discovery of the cash was surprising.
Authorities also discovered marijuana growing at the residence, but it turned out to be authorized under state medical marijuana laws. Law enforcement then learned that Careaga was bringing a kilo of cocaine up from California to Washington every few months to sell in Kitsap County, Gig Harbor reported. One of his regular customers was Robert Watson, the vice president of the Bremerton chapter of the Bandidos motorcycle club. The Bandidos, according to the Justice Department, is labeled an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, meaning it’s an organization “whose members use their motorcycle clubs as conduits for criminal enterprises.” They’re considered a “serious national domestic threat” and are linked to drug-trafficking.
Careaga allegedly sold the cocaine to Watson through a close friend, who eventually decided to stop selling the drug, leaving Careaga to sell to Watson directly. After the direct communication began, Watson allegedly followed Careaga down to California while obtaining the cocaine, leading to a verbal argument between the men.
The two men allegedly continued to clash until the day of the murders. Detectives said that at around 4:00 a.m. on the night of the murders, Watson showed up at the home of another Bandido member. He had no pants and asked the member to borrow a pair. Watson allegedly told the fellow member he had been in a fight with a “homeless black man” and washed his hands. Watson then left the home in a car, even though the Bandido member thought he had arrived on foot, the Kitsap Sun reported.
Later in the day, Watson called 911 claiming his truck had been broken into “several days earlier” and that a loaded Glock handgun and a loaded magazine had been stolen. Following the murders, Watson stopped showing up for his job at Kitsap County Public Works, and was fired in September 2017.
That year, some $303,000 was deposited into Watson’s bank accounts, with “numerous cash deposits that the source could not be identified,” according to court records reviewed by the Sun.
A neighbor told police that on the night of the murders, he thought he heard gunshot sounds, and when he was outside moving his truck, he saw Careaga’s truck drive away “at a high rate of speed,” according to court records. This neighbor identified the driver not as Johnny Careaga, but as Danie Kelly, a former friend of Careaga’s who served as the best man at Careaga’s first wedding. But the two had a falling out when Careaga accused Kelly of stealing from him. The relationship deteriorated so much that detectives wrote, “Danie and John hated each other such that Danie would have no business being at John’s house or driving his truck.”
Watson allegedly took Kelly “under his wing” within the Bandidos, which meant that Kelly “would have to do anything Robert asked of him,” detectives wrote, according to the Sun.
Less than a week after the murders, a vehicle belonging to Robert Watson’s younger brother Johnny J. Watson was found “stripped and dumped in the Puyallup River.” The car appears to be the one seen in surveillance footage from a grocery store parking lot the night of the murders.
“The radio, tires, airbags, and other items generally stolen were still present in the Mercedes, but porous surfaces such as carpeting, seats, headlights, seatbelts, etc., were removed,” detectives wrote in court documents.
The vehicle had no plates and was never reported stolen. The Watsons would later pay $1,500 to get the vehicle back, according to detectives.
Detectives used cell phone tracking data to follow Careaga, the Watsons, and Kelly throughout the night of the murders. Kelly had purchased a burner phone and used it exclusively to communicate with Careaga for the 10 days prior to the murder, but not after. These cell phone records, as well as interviews and other evidence, were used to arrest both Robert and Johnny Watson, and Kelly, as suspects in the murders.
“The motive for the crime is complicated — it’s involving drugs, money, there’s definitely some personality conflicts,” Kitsap County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Lissa Gundrum said at a news conference in June 2022, according to the Associated Press.
The three men were held on $20 million bail each, KATU 2 reported. They pleaded not guilty, and in July, six felony charges were dropped from each suspect, leaving each charged with 10 felonies. The decision came after attorneys for the suspects argued that secondary charges had been filed after certain statute of limitations kicked in, Fox 13 reported.
The trial began in late November, with jurors listening to Hunter’s harrowing 911 call. In opening statements, Robert Watson’s attorney Matthew McGowan told jurors that his client and Johnny were acquaintances but that evidence would show Robert was not involved in the murders, the Sun reported.
“We do believe that once you see all the evidence, you’ll be convinced of his innocence,” McGowan said, according to the outlet. “As he stands before you here this morning, Robert Watson is an innocent man.”
McGowan pointed to DNA and other physical evidence that did not link to his client. He also said that the large money transactions could be explained through legitimate means. He also disputed cell phone evidence claiming Robert was at the scene of the crime.
“Cell phone tower data is not detailed enough to pinpoint the location of a specific phone other than within the entire coverage area,” he said. “This is really important, because when you hear from some witnesses that the TracFone was at Robert Watson’s house, or alternately in Robert Watson’s neighborhood, that’s not the end of the story.”
Johnny Watson’s attorney, Craig Kibbe, in his opening statements, said there was little evidence to connect his client to the crime.
“If this trial, over the next however many weeks we’re going to be here, was a two-hour movie, Johnny Watson would be on screen for maybe a minute or two in the background, might not even have a speaking part,” Kibbe said. “That’s because he’s a very minor character in this case.”
He also noted that “it will be a mystery” as to how Johnny’s car ended up in the Puyallup River.
“Almost none of the evidence in this case relates to my client,” Kibbe added. “Most of the witnesses in the case are not even going to mention Johnny Watson’s name, but yet he’s here charged with the exact same offenses as everyone else.”