The young women survived, thanks to Aguilar, who managed to leap from the balcony of the second-floor apartment with her hands bound behind her and summon help. And when police interrogated the suspect, Coral Eugene Watts, then 28, he almost nonchalantly admitted to killing scores of women. His reason? "She was evil," he told his interrogators over and over. "I could see it in her eyes." As part of a plea deal, Watts got a 60-year sentence. But thanks to mandatory time off for good behavior, the now-49-year-old prisoner stands an excellent chance of being released on parole in 2006—which would mark the first time in this country that a known serial killer has ever been set free. As Andy Kahan, the crime victims' advocate for the Houston mayor's office, puts it, "Watts is a diabolical killing machine. He will resume his carnage against humanity if he gets out."
Watts admitted as much in 1982. While being questioned by Tom Ladd, a homicide detective of the Houston Police Department, he said, "You know if I get out I'm going to kill again." Which explains the sense of urgency over the case, even though Watts's possible release is still four years away. Within the past few months a rally was held in Houston to publicize the issue, while government and law enforcement officials have redoubled their efforts to search for a way to keep him behind bars. "It's alarming to think about him out there," says Ladd. "We have him and we're going to let him loose."
Watts was born in Killeen, Texas, and was 2 when his parents—Richard Watts, who was in the Army, and Dorothy Mae, later an art teacher—separated. After that he moved with his mother to Inkster, Mich., near Detroit. His first brush with the law came at 15, when he knocked on the door of a woman on his paper route and beat her for no reason. Sent to a psychiatric center, he told doctors that he often fantasized about assaulting women. Asked if such daydreams disturbed him, he said, "No, I feel better after I have one." Released, he graduated from high school and eventually ended up enrolling at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo in 1974. It didn't take long before a rash of attacks began to plague the area around campus. Two women were beaten and one was murdered in the space of a few weeks that fall. Watts was convicted of aggravated assault, for which he served a year, and police questioned him in the killing but weren't able to make a case.
Once released, Watts returned to Detroit and got a job as a mechanic. Between October 1979 and November 1980 eight women were killed and six others attacked in the Detroit area. Police quickly linked the crimes, in which the women were either strangled or stabbed, but the attacker was clever and left unusually clean crime scenes. He never sexually assaulted his victims, and since he never robbed them there was no stolen property to trace. He just brutalized and attempted to kill. Terrified survivors could give only the sketchiest description of their attacker.
The first break came in November 1980, when Watts was picked up while stalking a woman in Ann Arbor, Mich. Paul Bunten, then a captain on the Ann Arbor police force, believed the suspect might be responsible for the other attacks. Bunten brought him in for interrogation, hoping he could sweat out a confession. Watts politely shrugged off all questions. "If you can forget what he does, he seems soft-spoken," says Bunten. "Timid, but a pleasant person."
Realizing that he was under surveillance by the police, Watts moved to Texas, ending up in Houston in the summer of 1981. It will never be known exactly how many women Watts killed in Texas over the next 12 months, but he evidently worked at a feverish pace. He ranged as far as Austin, but also murdered at least 11 women in the Houston area alone. On May 23, 1982, he killed 20-year-old Michelle Maday and later that day attacked Lister and Aguilar. As Aguilar was escaping and getting the police, Watts was plunging the bound Lister into a tub full of water, trying to drown her.
While in custody this time, Watts suddenly began telling investigators about all the women he had killed. He eventually claimed a total of 80 victims; authorities believe it may be half that number. In any event his court-appointed lawyer Zinetta Burney later told the Houston Chronicle that her client's manner on first meeting was so frightening she immediately went home and put a crucifix around her neck. "There's something evil in the man," she said. "He never threatened me. He was always quiet and polite, but he scared me more than anyone I've ever dealt with."
Watts offered police a deal: If given immunity, he would lead them to the grave sites of as many of his victims as he could. In return for avoiding a murder charge and a possible death penalty, he would plead guilty to a lesser charge of burglary with intent to commit capital murder in the Lister and Aguilar case. Police felt they had no choice but to accept, given the scant evidence against him. In August 1982 Judge Doug Shaver sentenced Watts to 60 years in prison. In the meantime Watts had led police to the burial sites of three of his Houston victims and discussed another 10 murders in such detail that authorities were sure he was the killer. He received immunity for all 13 murders.
But the problem is that under Texas law Watts has been able to earn generous time off for good behavior, shaving nearly an extra two days from his sentence for every day served. (Aside from one attempted escape in 1983, Watts has been a model prisoner.) The upshot is that, assuming he keeps his record clean between now and May 8, 2006, he will walk out of the Texas Department of Corrections facility at Huntsville, a parolee but otherwise free—and his release cannot be blocked by any agency or person, including the governor.
Police and prosecutors insist that when they cut their deal with Watts 20 years ago they realized that he would likely be sprung before his sentence was up. But at least some of the victims, who approved of the plea deal at the time but now say they were under the impression that their attacker was effectively being put away for life, are feeling some bitterness over how the case was handled. "I do feel misled," says Lister. "I'm angry that I can't teach my children to trust the law, because I don't feel protected by the law."
The options for keeping Watts behind bars appear very limited. No change in the law can be applied retroactively to him. The best hope is to convict him in an attack for which he was not granted immunity. Police argue that they have been trying to do that for years, with no success, and aren't particularly optimistic they can do it now. "If there had been any way to nail him then, we would have," says former Ann Arbor detective Bunten. "I can't think of anything else we could have done." If all else fails, Texas parole authorities have vowed to take whatever steps necessary to keep Watts from killing again. "With someone like this," said parole official Perry Ivey, "if we have to put someone on him 24-7, we will."
Bill Hewitt
Bob Stewart and Gabrielle Cosgriff in Houston
- Contributors:
- Bob Stewart,
- Gabrielle Cosgriff.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
