A cruise ship passenger accused of killing a woman shortly after the vessel departed from Texas told FBI agents he beat and choked her in their cabin after an argument caused him to “snap,” according to court documents.
Jason Watford, 48, of Tyler, Texas, was set to make an initial federal court appearance on a murder charge Tuesday in Galveston. He was being held at a county jail. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could respond to the allegations.
A man who said he is Watford’s son declined to comment Tuesday when reached at a phone listing in public records for relatives.
The alleged killing happened aboard the MSC Seascape, a towering white vessel that has 2,270 cabins and can host nearly 5,900 guests on five- and seven-night trips to the Caribbean, according to the company’s website.
The woman, who was not immediately identified, was killed Sunday after the vessel left Galveston, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. A ship investigator contacted authorities to report that the woman was found dead in her room with multiple facial injuries.
A housekeeper who knocked to deliver towels saw the woman lying motionless on the floor and what looked like blood on Watford's hands and pants when he opened the door, the affidavit said.
In an interview with FBI agents after the ship returned to Galveston on Monday morning, Watford said he and the woman had boarded the vessel together Sunday and began arguing while having dinner at one of the ship's restaurants, according to the affidavit. The argument continued in their room, it said.
Watford told agents he struck the woman several times and “applied pressure” to her neck “for approximately four to five minutes” until he became exhausted, the affidavit said. He said she lay motionless for about 10 minutes until the housekeeper arrived.
Surveillance video showed that Watford entered the room at 7:46 p.m. and the victim went in about 25 minutes later, authorities said. At 9:15 p.m., he was seen on the video leaving the room wearing a different shirt and pants, according to the complaint, and sat on the hallway floor looking at his phone.
MSC Cruises said authorities told the ship to return to Galveston after the crew reported the passenger's death, and that the vessel resumed its voyage Monday. The company said it was cooperating with authorities and providing support to those impacted.
Homicide investigations on cruise ships are uncommon. Earlier this year, a teenager was charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship out of Florida.
Associated Press writer Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed.
The MSC Seascape cruise ship is visible above the newly opened cruise terminal near 16th Street and Harborside Drive in Galveston, Texas, Friday, Nov., 7, 2025. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are falling Tuesday after a report showed inflation was worse across the country last month than economists expected.
The S&P 500 fell 0.8% and gave back some of its big rally from the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 291 points, or 0.6%, as of 12:28 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% lower.
Pressure from the bond market undercut stocks following the discouraging report on inflation. People had to pay prices for groceries, electricity and other costs of living that were even higher last month than economists expected. That could push the Federal Reserve to hike its main interest rate at its next meeting in December and beyond.
Higher interest rates can help rein in inflation, but they do so by making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money and by slowing the overall economy. Higher rates also make investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks and other investments.
One Fed official even hinted the central bank may increase the federal funds rate by double the typical amount next month because of how high inflation has remained for years.
Speaking in London before the inflation report was released, Fed Gov. Christopher Waller said “a stronger policy move may be needed” if the report showed an important underlying measure of inflation rose by 0.3% from September.
In that case, he said the Fed should consider hiking the federal funds rate by half a percentage point rather than the typical quarter point. Moving by only the usual amount could “put our credibility at risk, a risk I am not eager to take.”
Shortly afterward, Tuesday’s inflation report showed that the underlying measure of inflation Waller was worried about was exactly 0.3%, the threshold he had set. It's the Fed's job to keep inflation under control, along with keeping the job market strong.
That sent yields jumping in the bond market as traders upped their forecasts for coming hikes to rates by the Fed.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 5.02% from 4.88% late Monday. It's a notable move for the bond market, and the yield helps set where rates are for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses.
The 10-year Treasury yield had been dropping since early October, when it topped 5.30% as worries spiked about high inflation, higher interest rates, the U.S. government’s big debt and other concerns.
Tuesday’s jump in yields came even though oil prices fell again. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil fell 0.7% to $91.91. President Donald Trump said late Monday that the war in Iran, which sent oil prices much higher, “militarily is effectively over.”
Brent’s price has been falling from more than $112 at the start of the month amid uncertainty about what will happen with the war with Iran.
Jumps in Treasury yields push downward on prices for all kinds of stocks, and they can particularly hurt companies in the real-estate business.
Higher mortgage rates can keep potential customers away from homebuilders, for example, and Lennar fell 4.8% for one of the sharper losses in the S&P 500.
Rival homebuilders also fell, including drops of 3.9% for D.R. Horton and 3.8% for PulteGroup. Builders FirstSource, which sells crown mouldings, cabinets and other products to homebuilders, sank 3.8%.
The single heaviest weight on the S&P 500 was Nvidia, which fell 6.3%. It's been under pressure since its board announced an investigation into its CEO, Jensen Huang, who admitted to a relationship with a woman who, according to The New York Times, U.S. intelligence determined was gathering information for China.
It's also been swinging amid broader worries that have knocked the artificial-intelligence industry around recently. Democratic victories in statehouses across the country last week raised concerns about possible restrictions on construction of AI data centers. That built on top of already longstanding worries that AI stock prices had shot too high and were in a bubble.
Other stocks in the AI industry also slipped. GE Vernova, which is helping to power AI data centers, dropped 6.2%. Micron Technology, which sells memory for computers, fell 3.7% after flipping between gains and losses earlier in the morning. CoreWeave, a company that rents out access to AI chips to customers over the cloud, fell 2.2%.
Advanced Micro Devices held up better and was mostly unchanged.
The recent shakiness for AI-related stocks had raised questions about whether Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, may delay its initial public offering of stock.
But Anthropic said in a filing with U.S. regulators on Tuesday that it's looking to sell its stock at a price valuing the company at roughly $1.3 trillion. That would make it one of the most valuable companies on Wall Street, worth more than Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil or Coca-Cola.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
South Korea's Kospi jumped 4.4% for one of the world's biggest gains on strength for its two tech giants that have benefited from the AI boom, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
AP Writers Elaine Lai and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
Trader Robert Greason works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Specialist Dilip Patel works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Options trader Frank Maiolo works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Screens display the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won and the Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Screens display the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), the foreign exchange rates and the Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A dealer walks near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A dealer walks near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A dealer talks on a phone near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
