A True Femme Fatale, Prosecutors Say

Trial to Begin for Woman Accused of Defrauding, Killing Md. Man

Nancy Jean Siegel sold Jack Watkins his grave, and a couple of years later, prosecutors say, she all but put him in it.

And for nearly seven years after Watkins was found strangled, Siegel, who once said she would marry the 76-year-old Maryland resident, was collecting his Social Security payments, according to prosecutors.

The payments had continued because no one knew that Watkins was dead. Investigators in Virginia were unable to identify the half-naked body found in 1996 near the Appalachian Trail in Loudoun County. Watkins had drifted away from his old circle of friends, and no one looked for him after he disappeared.

Today -- almost 13 years after Watkins was killed and almost six years after Siegel was arrested -- a federal court jury in Baltimore is scheduled to begin hearing the case against Siegel, who is accused of killing Watkins and committing a host of fraud offenses.

Siegel, 60, has denied involvement in Watkins's death. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges and contests much of what the government says about her conduct.

In what prosecutors say was a scheme spanning about 20 years, Siegel stole not only from Watkins but also from her three husbands, two daughters and a host of friends and strangers. Driven by a gambling habit, Siegel took to opening up unauthorized lines of credit in the names of her husbands, according to prosecutors.

The first husband was left more than $100,000 in debt and had to file for bankruptcy, prosecutors said. The second tried to confront Siegel but ended up hiding in a closet, fearful of his enraged wife, they said. And the third, whom she married after Watkins was killed, found that Siegel had run up about $300,000 in debt, prosecutors said.

But for all the financial turmoil that the husbands endured, Watkins fared far worse. He was strangled and his body was packed in a steamer trunk and left near an entrance to the Appalachian Trail. The corpse was discovered within a couple of days, on May 14, 1996, but for more than six years his identity remained a mystery.

Police used a military database of World War II veterans to identify Watkins in January 2003. Soon, they were looking for Siegel.

Initially, Siegel told investigators that Watkins was alive and had been living in Pennsylvania for about six years, prosecutors said. She said that he lived briefly with her before that, after selling his house in Maryland, and that she was cashing his checks because he was a gambler who could not manage his own affairs.

When investigators told her that they knew Watkins was dead, she said it "didn't happen the way you think," according to court documents filed by prosecutors. Later, she told family members that she went home one day and found Watkins laid out on the bed with a cord wrapped around his neck, according to the documents.

Investigators came to very different conclusions as they began to unravel the two-year relationship that prosecutors say cost Watkins his savings, his home and his life.