Several members of Jim Watsons

family have testified in his defense as he faces a possible murder conviction

for the death of his wife Beverley who he claims disappeared form their

Southeast Fayette home in January 1997.

Jim Watsons sisters, Sandy

Wells and Kathy Ragsdale, and his mother Gail Watson each testified they

never saw Jim Watson hurt his wife, as did his daughter Ashley, one of

his friends, and one of his former employees.

Gail Watson said Beverley once

asked her for help in 1994, the same year Beverley first filed for divorce

from Jim. Jim's mother said she asked her daughter-in-law if her son was

hurting her in any way.

"She looked me straight

in the eye and said Jim has not hit me or harmed me in any way,"

Gail Watson told the jury.

Although she admitted to asking

Beverley whether there was any violence in her marriage, Gail Watson said

she had no reason to believe that there was.

Kathy Ragsdale , one of Jim

Watson's sisters, testified that the night of Beverley's disappearance,

she had offered to take the couple's son Todd to Discovery Zone. Both

Todd and his sister Ashley spent the night elsewhere when their mother

allegedly disappeared.

Prosecutors allege that Jim

Watson had his sister take Todd away from the home so there would be no

witnesses to the alleged murder.

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