Coral Eugene Watts

Infobox Serial Killer
name=Coral Eugene Watts


image_size=140
caption= Watts' 1982 mugshot
birthname= Carl Eugene Watts
birth=Birth date|1953|11|07
location=Fort Hood, Texas
death=Dda|2007|09|21|1953|11|07
cause= Prostate cancer
victims=19-80
country=United States
states=Michigan, Texas
beginyear=1974
endyear=1982
apprehended=May 23, 1982
penalty=Life imprisonment

Carl Eugene "Coral" Watts (November 7, 1953 – September 21, 2007), also known as "The Sunday Morning Slasher", was an American serial killer. He obtained immunity for a dozen murders as a result of a plea bargain with prosecutors in 1982; at one point it appeared that he could be released in 2006 despite possibly having committed as many as 80 murders. He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele.

Biography

Early life

Carl Eugene Watts was born in Fort Hood, Texas to Richard Eugene Watts, who was a World War II veteran and 17 year old Dorothy Mae Young who was an art teacher and eleven years younger than her husband. In 1955, when Watts was not even two years old, his parents divorced and Watts was raised by his mother and moved to Inkster, Michigan. In 1962, Dorothy Mae Watts married a mechanic named Norman Ceaser who fathered two daughters with Dorothy Mae.

As a child, Watts was described as acting strangely and weird. Around the age of twelve Watts claimed that this was when he started to think and fantasize about torturing and killing girls and young women. During adolescence, Watts began to stalk girls and is believed to have killed his first victim when he was fifteen years old Fact|date=July 2008. When Watts was in the eighth grade, he was infected with meningitis which caused him to stay back a year at school and not be able to leave the house much. Watts' meningitis went away after one year in 1968, and shortly after he was healthy he began to spy on, and stalk young women. When Watts returned to school, he had difficulty keeping up with other students and often recieved poor or failing grades. He was also a victim of verbal abuse at the hands of other students and his friends would often mock and tease him and often called him a "mama's boy".

On June 29, 1969, Watts was arrested for severely beating 26 year old Joan Gave. When Watts went to court he was sentenced to stay at the Lafayette Clinic, a mental hospital in Detroit, Michigan. He underwent psychiatric observation and when Watts returned to high school, a couple months later, he was given psychotherapy.

Despite Watts' failing grades and extremely low IQ, he high school graduation in when he was 19 and recieved a football scholarship to Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. He was expelled from Lane College after only three months because he was accused of stalking and assaulting women. Another reason he was expelled was because many people at Lane College believed Watts was a suspect in the brutal murder of a female student however, there was not enough evidence to convict him of the murder. After expulsion he moved to Houston, Texas.

erial killer

Watts' career as a serial killer began when he was 20 years old in 1974, by kidnapping his victims from their homes, torturing them, and then murdering them. On October 30, 1974, Watts tortured and brutally murdered the 20 year old Gloria Steele, who was believed to be his second victim. Watts often killed females between the ages of 14 and 44 using methods such as strangulation, stabbing, and drowning. Watts has murdered dozens of women between 1974 and 1982, and despite how many women he murdered, Watts was not discovered as a serial killer for several years.

There were several reasons for this. He attacked in several different jurisdictions and even different states. With the advent of DNA testing it was still nearly impossible because he rarely dallied with his victims, unlike most serial killers of women and girls, even though his crimes were not thought to be sexually motivated.

Arrest and discovery

On May 23, 1982, Watts was arrested for breaking into the home of two young women in Houston, and attempting to kill them. While in custody, police began to link Watts with the recent murders of a number of women. Until early 1981, he had lived in Michigan, where authorities suspected him of being responsible for the murders of at least 10 women and girls there. Watts was previously questioned about the murders in 1975, but there had not been enough evidence to convict him. At that time, he had spent a year in prison for attacking a woman, who survived.

Prosecutors in Texas did not feel they had enough evidence to convict Watts of murder, so in 1982 they arranged a plea bargain. If Watts gave full details and confessions to his crimes, they would give him immunity from the murder charges and he would, instead, face just a charge of burglary with intent to murder. This charge carried a 60-year sentence. He agreed with the deal and promptly confessed in detail to 12 murders in Texas. However, Michigan authorities refused to go in on the deal so the cases in that state remained open.

Watts later claimed that he had killed 40 women, and then implied the total was as many as 80. He is now suspected to have killed more than 100 women, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in American history.Citation | url = http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/14/60minutes/main649363.shtml | title = A Deal With the Devil? | author = Cbs News:"60 Minutes" | year = 2004 | accessdate = 2008-06-28] Several of the killings were not linked to each other. Watts' attacks were so short in duration that no DNA evidence was ever found to compare to his DNA profile, sometimes killing a woman without even touching her while stabbing her. Also, serial killers usually kill people of their own race; Watts, who was African American, selected mostly white victims. Watts claimed that he saw evil in the eyes of the women he killed. Watts also claimed to have taken steps to prevent the souls of his victims from coming after him such as, keeping some of their possessions and then burning them and drowning women in a bathtub to prevent the spirit's escape. Watts also would drive one to two hours away to commit his murders. He would stalk his intended victim in his car, park ahead of them and then get out and approach them. He is believed to have committed murders in Canada, Michigan, Ohio and Texas.

New trial

Watts was sentenced to the agreed 60 years, but the prosecutors did not take into account the rules for early release. Watts was a model prisoner, and under Texas law he could have up to three days deducted from his sentence for each one day served, as long as he was well behaved. This meant that Watts could have been released as early as May 9, 2006. Watts' release was predicated on a ruling that he had not been informed that the bathtub and water he attempted to drown Lori Lister in was considered a deadly weapon, which would have made him ineligible for parole. As a result, the law was changed but according to the Texas Constitution, it could not be applied retroactively.

In 2004, authorities made appeals to possible witnesses in order to try and convict Watts of murder to ensure he was not released, given that he had made it clear he would kill again if he ever got out of prison. Joseph Foy of Westland, Michigan, came forward to say that he had seen a man fitting Watts' description murder Helen Dutcher, a 36-year-old woman who died after being stabbed twelve times in December 1979. Watts then fled from the scene. Foy identified Watts by his eyes, which he described as being "evil" and devoid of emotion. Watts had immunity from prosecution for the 12 killings he had admitted to in Texas, but that did not apply in Michigan. Before his 2004 trial, law enforcement officials asked the trial judge to allow the Texas confessions into evidence, which he agreed to.

Watts was promptly charged with the murder of Helen Dutcher. On November 17, 2004, after hearing eyewitness testimony from Joseph Foy, a Michigan jury convicted him.

On December 7, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days later, authorities in Michigan started making moves to try him for the murder of Western Michigan University student Gloria Steele, who was stabbed to death in 1974. The case was featured in episodes of the TV programs "Cold Case Files" and "The Investigators" [ [http://www.trutv.com/shows/the_investigators/episodes.html The Investigators: Episodes on truTV.com ] ] [ [http://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime_video_gallery/4/Cold_Case_Files.htm Cold Case Files - Video Gallery - Crime And Investigation Network ] ]

On July 25, 2007 Watts' trial for the Steele murder began in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Closing arguments concluded July 26. The following day the jury returned a guilty verdict. Watts was incarcerated at a maximum security prison in Ionia, Michigan. He was reportedly diagnosed with prostate cancer and died on September 21, 2007.

Shortly after being convicted for Dutcher's murder, a detective questioning Watts said that he did not have enough fingers and toes to count all the murders he committed. Watts replied there were not enough fingers and toes in the room to count the murders he had committed. There were 4 men in the room at the time.

References

Bibliography

*

External links

* [http://www.murdervictims.com/watts.htm Watts' Biography]
* [http://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime_video_gallery/4/Cold_Case_Files.htm Coral Watts on Cold Case Files website - includes video]
* [http://www.americanserialkillers.com American Serial Killers]
* [http://www.state.mi.us/mdoc/asp/otis2profile.asp?mdocNumber=517918 Michigan DOC OTIS]
* http://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/tv_programme/510/Cold_Case_Files_Episode_106.htm