JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Jurors convicted Johnson City resident Rex Lewis for killing an acquaintance in a trial that concluded late Friday, nearly three years after he initially was charged with tampering with evidence related to the death.

The jury convicted Lewis, 62, on one count of second-degree murder in the April 13, 2022 death of James Allen Watson. Watson was cut in several places and had head injuries when Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) officers responded to a call of a dead man at Woodstone Condominiums off East Oakland Avenue.

“While speaking with emergency services, Mr. Lewis refused to provide aid to the victim,” a news release from the First Judicial District Attorney’s office stated.

Johnson City police told News Channel 11 within a couple of days of the report that they were investigating the death as a homicide, but didn’t name a suspect. By that time, Lewis had been charged with tampering with evidence, according to an affidavit.

That document said Lewis was at the scene when JCPD officers arrived and that they concluded he had attempted to destroy and alter evidence, including moving a vehicle that could have provided crucial information. The affidavit said evidence also showed someone had tried to clean the death scene prior to their arrival, that Lewis’s shoes and his thumbnail had blood on them and that he gave inconsistent statements when interviewed.

The First District news release said officers searched a garage owned by Lewis and found the murder weapon hidden in a vehicle there.

A grand jury initially indicted Lewis on the tampering with evidence charge in August 2022 before reindicting him in May 2023 and adding the second-degree murder charge.

Assistant District Attorneys Scott Shults and Murphy Mullins served as prosecutors in the four-day trial.

Second-degree murder is punishable by 15-25 years in prison at 100%, the DA’s office said. Lewis also faces three to six years for a guilty plea to the evidence tampering charge.

His sentencing is set for March 7.