CLEVELAND, Tenn. – A Bradley County commissioner accused by Sheriff Eric Watson of involvement in a Florida murder case called Watson a liar and demanded an apology from the sheriff and the local newspaper.
“I want to make this clear: The attempt to link me to this or any murder is a clear fabrication,” Commissioner Dan Rawls said from the dais during a commission voting session Monday.
Dan Rawls
He was referring to a March 12 story in the Cleveland Daily Banner that detailed a 1977 robbery-murder in Jacksonville, Fla. Two men, Donald Perry and Daniel Rawls, were charged in the case. Rawls was granted immunity and testified against Perry, who got a death sentence that later was commuted to life in prison.
Watson told the Banner that Commissioner Rawls “ran into some problems in Florida” and that the murder case went to the state’s Supreme Court. The story seems to assume defendant Rawls and Commissioner Rawls are one and the same.
Commissioner Rawls said that was a different Rawls – and he said the sheriff had known it since 2015.