"She Wasn't Under Lock and Key": Florida Woman Kills Estranged Husband During Divorce

Divorces can be acrimonious, but for one couple, it ended in murder.

Police said they could smell a “foul odor” as they approached the Lake City, Florida home of Tommie Kellum on June 23, 2009. They’d gotten a tip from a police informant that the 76-year-old had been murdered, so they had come to check out his home. They found him wrapped up in a rug with bags on his head and feet. He’d been shot in the chest.

His wife, 45-year-old Brenda Watson, was missing — and now the prime suspect.

“The truck’s missing. Brenda’s gone,” Joe Lucas, Former Columbia Co. Sheriff’s Lieutenant, said on Snapped, airing Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen. “She’s made contact with the family, saying that Tommie was with her. We know that Tommie’s not with her, that Tommie’s actually the victim of a homicide.”

The couple met in 2003, and despite their 30-year age difference, married, to the dismay of Kellum’s family.

“She didn’t have a car. She didn’t have a job,” Cassandra Kellum, Tommie’s daughter, said on Snapped. “I just could not understand why you’re with this woman.”

Cassandra Kellum told police that her father was the one who wanted to end his marriage to Brenda Watson.

“The neighbors are saying that she’s having affairs. She’s bringing men into the house,” Kellum said. “So as far as I know, that was the reason for the divorce.”

Despite ending their marriage, Brenda and Tommie still lived together when he was killed.

Brenda Watson. Photo: Oxygen

“They had a roommate situation at that point,” La’Tuana Kellum, Tommie’s granddaughter, said on Snapped. “My grandfather was making her pay bills.”

Tommie Kellum had also started to move on from his marriage, and rumors swirled that he was also having an affair.

There were also rumors of physical discord: Family told police that Watson had been violent toward Kellum in the past, and even alleged she once shot him in the hand.

The coroner determined Tommie Kellum was murdered on June 20. His wallet was missing, in addition to his truck, so police subpoenaed his credit card records. They discovered his card had been used multiple times in the Ft. Lauderdale area of Florida the weekend he died. Officers got photos of Brenda Watson making ATM withdrawals with his card after he died.

But they also discovered video from a Walmart of Watson buying cleaning supplies the same day her husband died. She also purchased a rug with the same pattern as that of the rug found around Tommie Kellum’s dead body. Officers were able to identify the man with her: Jeffrey Love. Tracking bus ticket purchases, they arrested him in South Carolina, and he immediately confessed, alleging Watson brought him to her home.

“I looked, and I saw something wrapped in sheets,” he told police in an interview.

He claimed Watson made him help her clean up, but that she was the one who killed Tommie Kellum.

Eventually, Watson was arrested in Pennsylvania, and confessed that she murdered her husband.

Brenda Watson told police she had several reasons to shoot and kill her husband, Tommie Kellum.

“Tommie was seeing somebody else,” Lucas said. “And not one to make a commitment to her, I think this began to set Brenda off. Get her more jealous.”

On Friday, June 19, Watson said she told Kellum she wanted to marry him again, but he refused.

“He wouldn’t marry me,” she said in a police interview. “[He said] that he would marry a dog before he would marry me. I told him that there was no need for him to talk to me that way.”

That conversation pushed her over the edge.

“She was tired of Tommie treating her like she was dirt. Like she was a nobody,” Lucas said.

She told officers she grabbed a gun from their gun rack and waited. When he came out of his room, she pulled the trigger.

“She just fired rounds until the gun was empty,” Glenn Wyche, former Columbia Co. Sheriff’s Det. Sergeant, said on Snapped.

Watson stood trial in 2012 in front of a judge, and the judge found her guilty of second-degree murder. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Jeffrey Love agreed to a deal to testify against Watson, and was never charged.

“This was a senseless crime that shouldn’t have happened,” Lucas said. “Brenda should have found other places to go or other people to stay with. She wasn’t under lock and key or being held against her will.”

Watson’s earliest release date is 2039, when she’s 75 years old.

Watch all-new episodes of Season 35 of Snapped on Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen.