An unusual murder-for-hire plot took another odd twist Monday when the alleged victim offered to put up $200,000 in property to bond out his accused girlfriend, Quinntella Benson.
Yet while testifying in court, the alleged victim, Boisie Watson, supplied a possible motive for the would-be hit: to silence him before he learned of Benson’s long affair with Robert Heiss and their theft of his prized viola. Watson testified he bought the valuable viola–itself the subject of an intense, more than yearlong search by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to which it belonged–at the Maxwell Street Market shortly after it first disappeared.
Benson, 33, and Heiss, 72, are accused of hiring an undercover FBI agent posing as a hit man from Mississippi to carry out the murders of Watson and an undisclosed business associate of Heiss.
In June, Heiss was charged with theft for trying to sell the $175,000 viola that had accidentally been left on a downtown Chicago sidewalk in September 1996, but a judge dismissed the charge last month. Heiss has contended he found the viola on the street, where it had been lost by a CSO performer.
In testimony Monday, Watson, 54, a junkyard operator who holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Notre Dame, said he bought the viola in September 1996.
The instrument’s exact path still remains unclear.
In an unusual move, Watson was called to the witness stand by Benson’s lawyer, Keith Spielfogel, and testified that he didn’t believe she intended to carry out the plot, calling her meek and nonviolent.
Watson offered to post two residences with a combined equity of $200,000 as collateral for a bond.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys was less trusting, sticking by his earlier decision that Benson is a danger to the community and ordering her detained until trial.
Heiss remains in custody as well.
It was under cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Atty. Matthew Bettenhausen that Watson said that he and Benson considered the viola their nest egg and talked of selling it overseas.
Upon returning from dinner with Benson in June, Watson said he discovered the viola, made as early as 1723, missing from the home they shared.
Days later, Heiss tried to sell the viola to a Lincolnwood violin expert, who alerted police.
Watson lived with Benson for 17 years and they had a child together, but he didn’t know of her 15-year love affair with Heiss until the FBI told him of the alleged attempt to have him killed last month, according to authorities.
In questioning Watson, Bettenhausen disclosed that Benson, in a conversation secretly recorded by the FBI, had declared Heiss “means more to me than life itself.”
Watson admitted Monday that he had verbally and physically abused Benson during their relationship, including once kicking her in the stomach when she was pregnant.
Watson’s identity as the alleged target had not been disclosed until he took the witness stand Monday and identified himself.
Heiss is also alleged to have wanted a partner in a cookie business killed. Heiss felt the partner was trying to force him out and had stolen recipes, authorities have said.
The charges alleged that Heiss paid the undercover FBI agent $500 in cash and promised an additional $25,000 after the slayings of Watson and the former business partner.
Heiss was arrested after the agent showed him photos of what appeared to be the corpse of his business partner, authorities said. The photos had been faked with the help of the partner.
