A Missouri Woman Was Killed By Her Married Fiancé 2 Days Before Their Wedding

Molly Watson, 35, was less than 48 hours away from marrying her long-term boyfriend, James Addie, when a passing motorist discovered her lifeless body lying in front of her vehicle. She had been shot at point-blank range in the back of the head. Her marriage certificate was on the passenger seat of the car she’d driven to a remote area near Route M and Highway 151 outside of Middle Grove, Missouri.

Tim Watson, Molly’s brother, remembered feeling his blood pressure spike when his dad called him in the early morning hours of April 27, 2018, to let him know that his sister had been found dead.

“You could hear the sorrow in his voice,” Tim recalled.

Police had very little evidence to go on as they observed the scene. There was a lone tire print, which they immediately took a cast of, and a stained t-shirt on the nearby road.

When authorities established that the woman on the ground was the same woman named in the marriage certificate on the front seat, they drove to the home of the future groom to break the bad news to him.

In nearby Moberly, Missouri, 51-year-old James Addie answered the door of his home where police told him they had some bad news.

Just then, Addie’s wife stepped out of their bedroom to find out what had happened.

A Double Life

Police were stunned to see that the would-be groom was actually a married man. As they investigated, it became evident that Addie had been living a double life.

Molly and Addie had met seven years prior at the prison where they both worked as corrections officers. Molly, then 28, told her family that Addie was going through a divorce that was soon to be finalized.

In 2018, it was she who proposed to Addie, and she was looking forward to marrying the man she called the love of her life. The wedding was set to take place just a couple days after her body was discovered.

Back at the Addie home, Addie’s wife, Melanie, was in shock at what the police were saying—her husband’s name was on a marriage certificate in a murdered woman’s car.

“He was home every night. If I missed something, I don’t know what it was. We got along well. He was very charming and sweet and engaging,” Melanie Addie said. “Jim had no tolerance for people that had affairs. He absolutely hated it, so I never would have thought him to have an affair. Never.”.

As police took James to the station for questioning, Melanie began looking for proof of what the police were trying to tell her.

As she searched through the garage, she found a photo album of a trip to Mexico—a trip that James had gone on with Molly.

Families Shattered

The Addies were parents to a teenage daughter, Emma, who was preparing for her junior prom the night after James was arrested. She had slept through the police coming to get her father, but she knew something was wrong immediately upon waking up the next day when she spotted her grandparents and mom sitting in the dining room.

As Melanie and Emma reeled from the news of the affair and the death of the mistress, plans to attend prom went on as normal. After the dance, however, Emma got the news from a friend—an article circulating on social media brought word that her father had been charged in his mistress’s death.

After that, Emma never spoke to her father again.

Across town, Molly's death was the beginning of the end for her devastated parents. Her father died of a heart attack in 2020. Her mother died just a few months after that—likely of a broken heart.

“I feel like James Addie took my entire family away from me,” Tim Watson said.

For more on this case, stream Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death "A Double Life" on discovery+ and Max.