Detectives from the Pacific County Sheriff’s Office arrested a Vancouver man in connection with the 2015 slaying of Jeffrey Beach on the Long Beach Peninsula, according to a sheriff’s office news release.
Charles Joseph Watts, 43, who was arrested late Friday, is facing allegations of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter. Watts’ bail has been set at $1 million for each charge, the sheriff’s office said.
Beach, who was from Kent, was in Long Beach over the Fourth of July in 2015 weekend for a softball tournament. According to previous reports, he was attacked the night of July 3 and left in an area of sand dunes. Beach was taken to a Portland area hospital but later died of a traumatic brain injury.
In 2020, Beach’s family put up billboards throughout Vancouver offering a $36,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. The family believed the suspects or others with information about the case lived in the Vancouver area.
