A former La Salle man serving a life sentence for murder has died in prison, the Illinois Department of Corrections confirmed Wednesday.

Michael Watson, 51, was serving natural life sentence for the 1992 murder of Caroline Jensen, an 18-year-old convenience store clerk. Watson kidnapped her at knifepoint and then sexually assaulted and killed her in a nearby yard.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections said Watson died Aug. 8 at Lawrence Correctional Center. The DOC did not disclose a cause of death and a message left at the close of business Wednesday with Lawrence County Coroner Shannon Steffey was not immediately returned.

Notably, the La Salle County State’s Attorney’s Office did not receive a notification at the time of Watson’s death. Instead, his passing was suspected after a routine check of local inmates by Shaw Media. Online DOC records are deleted after inmate deaths and a Tuesday search for Watson came up empty, prompting a query of the DOC media office.

Watson was charged in 1992 after being arrested for an unrelated crime. While in custody, police questioned him about Jensen and Watson implicated himself in her murder. A year later, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sexual assault.

The jury ruled that Watson was eligible for the death penalty, but could not agree on whether he should receive a capital sentence. Without a unanimous ruling, Watson was automatically sentenced to life in prison

La Salle County Circuit Court records show Watson still was trying to overturn his conviction as recently as 2024, when an appeals court affirmed a lower-court denial of a petition he’d filed five years earlier.

Watson last appeared in person in La Salle County Circuit Court in 2003. At that time, Watson tried to argue for new proceedings citing a then-new U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Apprendi vs. New Jersey) that gutted some criminal convictions. Watson was unsuccessful and his convictions and sentence were upheld.