{"id":314002,"date":"2026-08-05T02:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T02:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314002\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T02:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T02:40:20","slug":"watertown-man-charged-with-murder-after-factory-street-stabbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314002\/","title":{"rendered":"Watertown man charged with murder after Factory Street stabbing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) &#8211; A Watertown man is charged with murder after allegedly stabbing a woman in a city apartment building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">City police arrested Robert Taplin, 35, shortly before 3 p.m. on Tuesday on Water Street.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Robert Taplin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/UIWWQBQF7BEZJLDK7ENXFOBPTU.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"1225\" \/>Robert Taplin(Jefferson County jail)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He\u2019s accused of stabbing a 37-year-old woman at 661 Factory Street, Apartment 27. The woman\u2019s name is being withheld until family members can be notified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Police declined to say if Taplin and the woman knew each other. Officials said he admitted to the crime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Taplin was being held in the Jefferson County jail pending his arraignment.<\/p>\n<p>Convicted sex offender<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to the New York State Sex Offender Registry, Taplin is a convicted sex offender. It lists his address as 661 Factory Street, Apartment 26.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The registry says Taplin was convicted on a third-degree rape charge in 2013 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He was sentenced to 18 months to 3 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Arrested in Georgia murder case<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In 2017, 7 News reported that he and another man from the North Country were arrested in connection with a murder in Ware County, Georgia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A 72-year-old woman was found stabbed to death following a home invasion. While Taplin was not accused of murder, he was charged with first-degree arson in the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nny360.com\/news\/ex-city-man-pleads-guilty-in-georgia-murder\/article_be74f70c-fa76-566e-bb14-25ad15e10c14.html\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nny360.com\/news\/ex-city-man-pleads-guilty-in-georgia-murder\/article_be74f70c-fa76-566e-bb14-25ad15e10c14.html\">Watertown Daily Times<\/a>, Taplin pleaded guilty in 2018 to theft by bringing stolen property into the state, theft by receiving stolen property, and failure to register as a sex offender. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n<p>Factory Street investigation<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The stabbing is still under investigation. Police ask people with information to call Detective Gibbs at the Watertown Police Department at 315-786-2601.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Law enforcement officials from several agencies, including city police, the county sheriff\u2019s office, state police and U.S. Border Patrol responded to the scene at around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Yellow police tape surrounded the building and an adjacent parking lot. <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WWNY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) &#8211; A Watertown man is charged with murder after allegedly stabbing a woman in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[118596,259,9,11,10,49,51,50,104,118597,260,7524],"class_list":["post-314002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-661-factory-street","tag-murder","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-police","tag-robert-taplin","tag-stabbing","tag-watertown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}