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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- The Williamsburg teenager who brutally stabbed a hospice nurse in April 2020 outside his residence was sentenced Thursday to 18 to 36 years in prison.
Michael Douglas Watson, 15 years old at the time of the stabbing and now 17, apologized to the victim in the same Blair County courtroom where he rendered guilty pleas in November to attempted homicide, aggravated assault, possessing an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering another person and tampering with physical evidence.
"While I may never understand or fully realize why I did it, I know you didn't deserve it and I sincerely regret what I did," Watson said in court Thursday.
The teenager also said he wouldn't insult the victim by asking for her forgiveness.
"I just want you to know that if I could change what I did that night, I would in a heartbeat and faster if I could," Watson said. "I'd give anything to take away your suffering."
The victim, Rebecca Detwiler, who gave the Mirror permission to print her name, said Thursday that she was OK with the sentence that President Judge Elizabeth A. Doyle imposed.
"No one wins here," Detwiler said after the four-hour sentencing hearing concluded where she, family and fellow nurses spoke of the lasting effects of the stabbing, including the fear it generated for hospice and palliative care nurses.
Nurse Jennifer Miller told Doyle that she remains "so angry" at Watson for brutalizing her friend and fellow nurse.
"If it can happen to Becky in a small sleepy community, it can happen anywhere," Miller said.
State police at Hollidaysburg arrested Watson at his Stone Row Drive home near Williamsburg after learning that he had severely stabbed Detwiler, who had been at his residence to tend to his grandfather.
Detwiler, who said Watson offered to walk her to her car, said the teenager struck her on the head from behind and knocked her down, then used a sword to stab her multiple times while telling her she was going to die.
In court Thursday, Detwiler spoke of crying out for help and getting no response from anyone in Watson's house or two nearby dark houses. She then grabbed the blade of the sword with her hand and pushed Watson in a way that allowed her to close the car door, lock it and flee. She drove to nearby Williamsburg with her fingers on her neck to restrict the loss of blood and sought help.
First Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith told Doyle that without Detwiler's training as a trauma nurse, this would have been a homicide case.
The 53-year-old Detwiler told the judge that while she appears to have recovered, the reality is much more complicated and no part of her life is the same. She hasn't been able to return to nursing because the use of her right hand -- damaged when she grabbed the sword -- remains severely compromised.
"My fingers don't even stretch far enough that I can hold my husband's hand," she said.
She also has lung injuries, chronic pain and nerve damage.
District Attorney Pete Weeks and Smith asked Doyle to impose the maximum possible penalty of 23.5 years to 47 incarceration, based on Watson's crimes, the victim's injuries and the impact of those crimes on the community.
"It may not have been as much as we asked for, but I think the judge held Mr. Watson accountable," Weeks said after the sentencing hearing.
Defense attorney Julia Burke told Doyle that the prosecutors were seeking vengeance by asking for a maximum sentence. She asked the judge to consider a mitigated range sentence of no more than six years for the young defendant who turns 18 years old in mid-August.
"He was, and remains to this date, a child ... a child who was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders," Burke said.
At the time of the attack, Watson was caring not only for his aging grandfather, but also for his mother and stepfather who had medical ailments limiting their mobility.
Psychiatrist Robin Altman of Reading, who met with Watson in preparation for sentencing, advised the court that Watson's reason for the stabbing was rooted in his anger with Detwiler for how she assessed his grandfather's injury from a fall.
The teenager feared the grandfather had a concussion, the reason Detwiler was summoned to the house.
Altman said Watson told her that he always heard that someone with a concussion shouldn't be allowed to go to sleep, but Detwiler gave the grandfather a sedative to help him sleep, prompting him to become angry.
When Detwiler spoke in court, she said Watson's versions "weren't true." She said she explained to the teenager why his grandfather didn't have a concussion and that there was "no sense of disagreement or anger" between them.
Weeks asked Altman if she was aware that Watson previously told police, as well as a clinical psychologist and a forensic psychiatrist, that he had "blacked out" the night of the stabbing and heard voices telling him to hurt people.
According to Altman, Watson indicated that he didn't know why he said that to the other doctors.
"But he recalls everything now," Weeks said.
Doyle said her challenge in sentencing Watson would be to settle on a length that gives him a chance to rehabilitate and the incentive to improve.
She acknowledged an assessment showing Watson with a low risk of reoffending, that his actions on the night of the stabbing were out of character and that he has already shown a potential for rehabilitation in prison where he earned his high school diploma in December.
The judge also acknowledged the prosecutors' arguments for a lengthy sentence.
"You've committed monstrous things," Doyle told Watson, who cried and wiped tears from his eyes during portions of the sentencing hearing. "You have given Mrs. Detwiler a life sentence of pain and trauma."
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.