Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Bathroom Slayings Part One: Sharon Kay Watts

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The Bathroom Slayings Part One: Sharon Kay Watts · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. In nineteen sixty seven, Abilene, Texas
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: was expanding rapidly. New subdivisions pushed farther into the prairie
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: each year as oil, agriculture, and military spending fueled the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: local economy. Less than a century earlier, the city had
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: emerged as a cattle shipping center along the Texas and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Pacific Railway, but it had since grown into one of
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  Speaker 1: the largest cities between Fort Worth and El Paso, with
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  Speaker 1: a population approaching one hundred thousand people. Downtown department stores
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: drew shoppers from across the region. Customers moved between Sears, Thornton's, Mentor's,
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  Speaker 1: and Murphy's department stores, while restaurants and cafes lined North
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  Speaker 1: first Street. Teenagers gathered at movie theaters and drive INDs.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: High school football stadiums filled on Friday nights, and church
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  Speaker 1: parking lots overflowed on Sundays. Children rode bicycles through quiet neighborhoods,
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  Speaker 1: and many people still left their front doors unlocked. Abilene
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: was built on familiar routines and long standing traditions. From
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  Speaker 1: the air, the city looked like a sprawling patchwork of neighborhoods, churches, schools,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and businesses spread across the flat prairie of Taylor County
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  Speaker 1: just west of Town. Dias Air Force Base tied Abilene
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  Speaker 1: to events unfolding far beyond West Texas. Originally established in
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty two as Abilene Army Air Base, the installation
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: had trained thousands of bomber crews during the Second World War.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, it was renamed in honor of
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dias, an Abilene native and decorated
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Army Air Forces officer who survived the Bataan Death March.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: An Abilene Native and decorated Army Air Forces officer who
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: survived the Bataan Death March. By the mid nineteen sixties,
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  Speaker 1: DAIS had become one of the region's largest employers and
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  Speaker 1: a critical component of Strategic Air Command. B fifty two
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  Speaker 1: Strato fortresses and KC one th five Strato tankers rumbled
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  Speaker 1: over neighborhoods and cotton fields, while military families settled alongside
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: residents whose roots in Taylor County stretched back generations. Airmen
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: arrived from every corner of the country, living in apartments,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: boarding houses, and modest homes scattered throughout the city. Many
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: remained only a few years before moving on to another assignment,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: but military personnel were hardly the only ones to come
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and go. Zh highways carried travelers through West Texas, and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: a growing city made it easier than ever for strangers
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  Speaker 1: to arrive, remain for a time, and disappear with little trace.
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  Speaker 1: Transient workers were common. Even so, most residents still believed
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  Speaker 1: Abilene was a safe place, far removed from the violence
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  Speaker 1: associated with larger cities or even comparable ones like Odessa.
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  Speaker 1: Violent crime existed, but homicide remained uncommon enough to dominate
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  Speaker 1: newspaper headlines for weeks. When murders did occur, they were
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  Speaker 1: usually tied to family disputes, robberies, or arguments that had
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: escalated into violence. Random attacks by strangers belonged in most
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: people's minds to places like Dallas or Houston. When violent
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: crimes did occur, the Abilene police had few resources at
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: their disposal, and they relied heavily on strong physical evidence
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: left at the scenes of crimes for investigators all over
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  Speaker 1: the US. In fact, solving violent crime in nineteen sixty
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  Speaker 1: seven often depended almost entirely on what was left behind.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: There were no surveillance cameras monitoring businesses, apartment complexes, or
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  Speaker 1: parking lots. There weren't any DNA databases capable of linking
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  Speaker 1: crimes committed hundreds of miles apart, and no computers that
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: could sift through millions of fingerprints in seconds looking for
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  Speaker 1: a match. Detectives relied instead on witness statements, circumstantial evidence, motive,
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  Speaker 1: and painstaking examinations of physical evidence. Fingerprints had to be
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: compared by trained officers and viewed one at a time.
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  Speaker 1: Witnesses often had to be found by going door to door.
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  Speaker 1: Every lead demanded far more time, manpower, and persistence than
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  Speaker 1: it does in the age of desktop and handheld computers.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Even the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit was yet to be created,
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  Speaker 1: and what Americans now associate with serial crime signatures, victim profiles,
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  Speaker 1: cooling off periods, and offender typologies had not entered the
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  Speaker 1: world of everyday policing. Detectives approached each homicide as an
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: isolated event, connecting cases only when evidence forced them to
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: do so. A single overlooked clue, perhaps a fingerprint, could
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  Speaker 1: mean the difference between an arrest and a mystery that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: endured for decades. Beyond West and West Central Texas, the
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  Speaker 1: United States itself was changing in the mid and late
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. In nineteen sixty seven, Americans watched riots erupt
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  Speaker 1: in Detroit, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey, but it was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the Vietnam War that truly dominated television news broadcasts, and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: public support for the conflict was beginning to quickly erode.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court's decision in Miranda versus Arizona the year
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  Speaker 1: before continued to reshape police work and criminal investigations, much
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  Speaker 1: to the dismay of many in law enforcement. Across the country,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: longstanding assumptions about politics, culture, and perhaps particularly authority seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be shifting, But in Abilene, many still believed they
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: lived in a place insulated from those changes. It was
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  Speaker 1: a city where familiar faces, day to day routines, and safe,
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  Speaker 1: lively neighborhoods seemed to offer a measure of protection from
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  Speaker 1: the unrest and transition that was taking place elsewhere. But
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: as the summer of nineteen sixty seven was coming to
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  Speaker 1: an end, an unimaginable and horrific event that occurred inside
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  Speaker 1: a small apartment just south of downtown shattered that sense
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  Speaker 1: of security. One of the thousands of young people building
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  Speaker 1: a life in mid nineteen sixties Abilene was Sharon K. Watts.
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  Speaker 1: Sharon was born on November eighth, nineteen forty two, in Denver, Colorado,
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  Speaker 1: to Robert and Jacqueline Watts. Her father worked as a
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  Speaker 1: bricklayer and independent building contractor, a profession that often required
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the family to relocate wherever work could be found. During
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Sharon's childhood, the family moved frequently before eventually settling in Abilene.
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  Speaker 1: While she was in junior high school, she made fast
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  Speaker 1: friends with her classmates, who knew her as active and involved.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: In high school, Sharon sang in the choir and participated
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  Speaker 1: in programs sponsored by the Young Women's Christian Association, an
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  Speaker 1: organization dedicated to leadership, service and community involvement. She graduated
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  Speaker 1: from Abilene High School in nineteen sixty one. After graduation,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Sharon joined the city's large working class, following a path
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  Speaker 1: familiar to many young women of her generation. She worked
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  Speaker 1: for US Time, the watch manufacturer later known as Timex,
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  Speaker 1: and mcilwaine Ford, one of Abilene's major car dealerships, before
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  Speaker 1: eventually taking a job at Murphy's department store. Murphy's was
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  Speaker 1: one of Abilene's bustling five and dime stores that sold
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  Speaker 1: everything from cosmetics and clothing to toys and household goods.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties, department stores were more than places
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  Speaker 1: to shop. They were among any given city's largest employers,
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  Speaker 1: particularly of women, who made up roughly two thirds of
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  Speaker 1: that workforce. Hundreds of local residents worked as cashiers, clerks, stockers,
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  Speaker 1: office employees, and managers. Located in the heart of downtown Abilene,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Murphy's sat among banks, restaurants, and other storefronts that served
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  Speaker 1: customers from across the region. By nineteen sixty seven, Sharon
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  Speaker 1: had worked at Murphy's for more than a year and
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  Speaker 1: shared apartment number three at two to eighteen Poplar Street
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  Speaker 1: with her roommate Loreen Yocum, who was also employed at
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  Speaker 1: the store. The apartment was located in south central Abilene
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  Speaker 1: in a large, two story, white frame house that had
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: been converted into four units during the nineteen twenties. Advertisements
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  Speaker 1: described the furnished apartments as all bills paid, children and
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: pets were prohibited. Sharon and Loreen lived upstairs, immediately to
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  Speaker 1: the left of the exterior landing. A staircase led from
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  Speaker 1: the yard below to a narrow hallway serving the two
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  Speaker 1: second floor units, and from a window overlooking the landing,
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  Speaker 1: the women could easily see anyone approaching from the street.
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  Speaker 1: The neighborhood, called Original Town South today, sat at the
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  Speaker 1: boundary between two different parts of Abilene. Immediately to the
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  Speaker 1: north is Downtown, with its department stores, offices, and businesses.
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  Speaker 1: To the south and west, modest homes, apartment buildings, and
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  Speaker 1: small churches housed many of the city's working class families.
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  Speaker 1: Though o' sharon had built her life in Abilene, most
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of her family now lived elsewhere. Her parents had moved
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  Speaker 1: to Iowa, where her father was completing a construction contract.
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  Speaker 1: Her brother Robin was serving in the United States Army
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  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, while her sister Laanna lived in Carlsbad, Texas,
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  Speaker 1: about one hundred miles to the southwest near San Angelo.
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  Speaker 1: Despite the distance between them, Abilene was where they were
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  Speaker 1: rooted and it remained the center of the family's life.
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  Speaker 1: Sharon had spent most of her formative years growing up there,
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  Speaker 1: and it was where she expected to remain. Her grandfather,
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  Speaker 1: Lawn Watts, also still called Abilene home and Sharon's parents
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  Speaker 1: planned to return once her father completed his project up north. Instead,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: they would be summoned home by tragedy. Coworkers described twenty
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  Speaker 1: four year old Sharon K. Watts as dependable and friendly.
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  Speaker 1: As the fall of nineteen sixty seven approached. She had
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  Speaker 1: long settled into the routines of work, home, and life
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  Speaker 1: in Abilene, but in mid September she had been struggling
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  Speaker 1: with gallbladder issues and was under a doctor's close care. Wednesday,
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  Speaker 1: September twentieth, nineteen sixty seven, began quietly. Sharon had stayed
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  Speaker 1: home from work the day before and again that morning, convalescing.
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  Speaker 1: Her roommate Loreen later said that Sharon appeared to be
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  Speaker 1: in good spirits when she left for her shift at
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  Speaker 1: Murphy's that morning. Outside the apartment, the city moved through
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  Speaker 1: another ordinary weekday. Morning traffic flowed through downtown. Students filed
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  Speaker 1: into classrooms at Abilene Christian College, Harden Simmons University, and
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  Speaker 1: McMurray College. Bombers lifted from Das Air Force Base. The
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  Speaker 1: sounds of their engines familiar to anyone living in Taylor County.
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  Speaker 1: But what happened to Sharon after Loreen left that day
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  Speaker 1: has never been fully explained, at least beyond the story
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  Speaker 1: the crime scene told. At approximately two thirty that afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: Loreen returned home and climbed the exterior staircase leading to
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  Speaker 1: apartment number three. It was a route she knew by heart,
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  Speaker 1: one she had taken countless times after work or after
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  Speaker 1: returning home from running errands. As she entered the unit,
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  Speaker 1: Loreen called out for her roommate. There was no answer.
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  Speaker 1: At first, nothing seemed out of place. Sharon was nursing
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  Speaker 1: herself back to health, so perhaps she was napping, Loreen thought.
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  Speaker 1: She walked toward the bathroom. There on the floor laid Sharon.
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  Speaker 1: After Loreene placed the call, emergency responders rushed to two
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  Speaker 1: eighteen Poplar Street, but there was nothing they could do.
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  Speaker 1: Sharon Watts was gone. Abilene police officers, detectives, and Justice
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  Speaker 1: of the Piece Silas Clark were called to the scene.
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  Speaker 1: By the time they arrived, Sharon had been lying there
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  Speaker 1: for some time, though exactly how long was unknown. The
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  Speaker 1: victim wore only her underwear, which had been torn and
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  Speaker 1: remained caught around only one leg. Nearby, a bottle of
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  Speaker 1: mouthwash lay shattered. Shards of glass were scattered in a
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  Speaker 1: small proximity. Detectives observed bruising to Sharon's neck, chest, and legs,
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  Speaker 1: as well as a cut above her right eyebrow. They
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  Speaker 1: discovered a washcloth lodged deeply inside her mouth, pushing into
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  Speaker 1: her throat. The entire scene was burned into their minds,
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  Speaker 1: but that detail would haunt them. As police secured and
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  Speaker 1: searched the apartment, they were quickly confronted with a problem
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  Speaker 1: the lack of an immediately apparent motive. There was nothing
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  Speaker 1: to suggest Sharon had interrupted a burglary or was the
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  Speaker 1: victim of a robbery. The unit hadn't been ransacked, no
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  Speaker 1: valuables appeared to be missing, and detectives found no signs
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  Speaker 1: of forced entry. Yet something inside the small upstairs bathroom
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  Speaker 1: had clearly gone terribly wrong. Rape was a possible motive,
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  Speaker 1: detectives knew, but they weren't sure if the condition and
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  Speaker 1: placement of Sharon's underwear were the results of that or
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  Speaker 1: a struggle. Officers photographed every room of the apartment and
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  Speaker 1: carefully searched for anything that might identify the person responsible.
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  Speaker 1: Hairs and fibers were collected, Scrapings from underneath Sharon's fingernails
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  Speaker 1: were preserved, her clothing, bed linens, and fragments of broken
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  Speaker 1: glass were gathered for examination. As technicians dusted surfaces throughout
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  Speaker 1: the apartment, they did uncover something a partial palm print
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  Speaker 1: on the edge of the bathtub. In an era long
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  Speaker 1: before DNA profile analysis and identification prints whether finger or
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  Speaker 1: palm could break a case. The print was photographed, lifted,
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  Speaker 1: and sent to the station for comparison against known area offenders. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: detective's canvassed the neighborhood, interviewing residents and attempting to establish
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  Speaker 1: a timeline of Sharon's final hours. They searched for anyone
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  Speaker 1: who might have seen a visitor coming or going, heard
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  Speaker 1: an argument, or noticed something anything out of the ordinary.
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  Speaker 1: As the app Eabilene police did their job, word of
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the murder spread quickly across the city. Reports that a
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  Speaker 1: young woman had been found dead inside her own home
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  Speaker 1: sent reporters scrambling to Poplar Street. Neighbors also gathered outside
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  Speaker 1: to watch as officers moved in and out of the
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  Speaker 1: building carrying evidence bags. Soon, authorities found themselves contemplating the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: solution to another problem entirely in Taylor County, as was
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: common in Texas during the nineteen sixties. There was no
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: medical Examiner's office to assume control of suspicious deaths and
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: obvious homicides. Instead, that responsibility fell to local Justices of
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  Speaker 1: the peace. Peace justices aren't physicians, forensic pathologists, or professionally
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  Speaker 1: trained death investigators. They were elected county officials whose duties
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: extended far beyond crime scenes. In fact, vast majority of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the time, their jobs centered around civil, administrative and minor
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  Speaker 1: criminal matters, things like issuing marriage licenses and warrants, or
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  Speaker 1: handling small claims lawsuits. Yet when an unexplained death occurred,
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  Speaker 1: they were expected to make an initial determination as to
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  Speaker 1: whether the circumstances appeared natural, accidental, suicidal, or criminal, and
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  Speaker 1: often relied on police officers and physicians for guidance. Standing
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  Speaker 1: inside the cramped bathroom of Apartment number three, Peace Justice
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  Speaker 1: Clark was forced to consider every possibility, including whether Sharon's
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: death might have been self inflicted. The question of suicide.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: In fact, the question of whether the woman was capable
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of shoving the washcloth deep inside her own mouth became
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  Speaker 1: the subject of far more discussion than the theory deserved
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  Speaker 1: At that early stage of the investigation authorities had nothing
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  Speaker 1: more than the evidence before them. The injuries, the condition
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  Speaker 1: of the bathroom, and the absence of any clear sequence
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  Speaker 1: of events suggested that determining exactly what had happened would
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: require far more than the observation of police officers and
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: an elected official. Ultimately, some of the most important answers
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: would have to come from a medical examination. Before long, however,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: that examination, the one they hoped would provide specific evidence,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: would become a source of controversy. After Sharon Watts's body
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: was removed from the apartment, embalming procedures began before an
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: autopsy could be conducted. By the time, by the time
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: one was performed, portions of the physical evidence that pathologists
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: might normally rely on had already been compromised or completely destroyed.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: The catastrophic mistake only added confusion within the investigation, and
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: it quickly became the subject of public scrutiny. Newspaper articles
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: read like an airing of disagreements over the extent to
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: which the embalming process had affected the autopsy results. North
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Funeral Home defended their actions, explaining that the procedures they
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: performed had followed standard practice. They insisted that nothing they
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: had done could have prevented doctors from determining Sharon's cause
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of death. Others were far less certain. As details emerged,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Justice of the Peace Silas Clark spoke candidly with reporters
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: on the record, He stated that, in his opinion, Sharon's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: death had not been self inflicted. Clark later said that
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the pathologist believed that the most likely cause of death
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: was asphyxiation by suffocation, though determining precisely what had happened
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: had been complicated by both the removal of the washcloth
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and the embalming, both of which took place at the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: funeral home, so in the end, the procedure that should
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: have provided detectives with clear, medically supported explanations only left
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: questions unanswered. The autopsy report documented extensive bruising and abrasions
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: across Sharon's body. It noted injuries to her neck, face, hip,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and knee, along with a severe wound above her right eye.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Blood and bruising was found on her hands, and examiners
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: observed dirt on the insides of her thighs. Despite the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: condition in which her body was found, pathologists were unable
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to determine conclusively whether Sharon had been raped, a point
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that was inarguably complicated by the embalming, and the case
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: hadn't been officially determined a homicide. For Abilene police detectives
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: working the Sharon Watts case, the results of the autopsy,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: detrimentally complicated by the fact that her body had been
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: embalmed first, were frustrating, if not maddening. Lieutenant Bill Davis,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: one of the law men leading the investigation, found himself
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: fielding questions from reporters who wanted to know whether they
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: believed they were dealing with a murder. At one point,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: when asked if detectives were proceeding under that assumption, Davis
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: replied by George, I'm beginning to wonder. The remark emphasized
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the confusion surrounding the case, but not because their beliefs
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: weren't strong. Publicly, authorities remained cautious, avoiding any definity statement,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: while detectives continued their work privately. However, few of them,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: if any, believed Sharon's death could be explained as anything
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: other than a cold blooded killing, and it soon became
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: clear the case was being investigated as a homicide. The
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: embalming controversy prompted changes within the department. Lieutenant Davis later
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: announced that in future cases requiring autopsies, officers would accompany
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: bodies to ensure that embalming not begin before medical examinations
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: were completed. But the policy change, of course, came too
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: late to help detectives investigating Sharon's death. Somewhere beyond the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: walls of her Poplar Street apartment, the person responsible was
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: either walking the streets of Abilene or a long skipped town. Meanwhile,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the police pressed forward. Multiple detectives were assigned full time
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to the case. Friends, neighbors, coworkers, and anyone who might
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: have seen Sharon in the hours before her death were interviewed.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Prints were taken from anyone known to have entered her
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: apartment after her body was discovered, allowing detectives to quickly
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: eliminate who they could and focus their attention on the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: unidentified palm impression recovered from the bathtub, but the palm
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: print found on its edge remained unmatched. Detectives had no
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: idea who entered that apartment, and they still couldn't determine
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: whether Sharon or her roommate had known the person who
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: had left it. They looked for anyone who knew Sharon
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: was going to be alone that Wednesday, but ultimately came
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: up empty handed. Grasping at Straw's Police soon focused their
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: attention on a forty seven year old transient laborer who
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was living at a motel only a few blocks from
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Sharon's apartment. The South Central neighborhood was home to a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: mixture of longtime residents, college students, military personnel from Daias
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Air Force Base, and workers who moved from job to
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: job as construction and oil work carried them across West Texas.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Boarding houses, apartment buildings, motels, and converted homes lined the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: streets surrounding Poplar. On Monday, October second, nineteen sixty seven,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: police picked up the laborer after receiving a call that
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: he was acting strangely. Exactly how was never expounded upon.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Detectives questioned him extensively, hoping to determine whether he had
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: crossed paths with Sharon in the days or weeks before
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: her death. Newspaper reports did their best to sensationalize the lead,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: calling the man grizzled and shoddily dressed. They arranged for
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: both Loreen Yocum, Sharon's roommate and Sharon's employer to see him,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: neither recognized him. Police were unable to place the laborer
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: at the apartment on September twentieth, nineteen sixty seven, or
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: any other time for that matter, and no physical evidence
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: connected him to the crime scene. As quickly as he
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: entered the investigation, he faded from it. Then the case
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: took an unexpected turn. Sometime in the last months of
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, a seventy one year old Abilene man
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: came forward and confessed to killing Sharon Watts. In a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: case with no eyewitnesses, no identified suspect, and little understanding
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: of what had happened inside the apartment, detectives couldn't afford
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to dismiss the confession outright, even as they held strong doubts.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: They interviewed the man at length, carefully comparing his account
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: against the evidence recovered from the bath room. For a
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: brief time, the confession appeared to be a breakthrough, but
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: that hope quickly disappeared as detectives pressed him for details.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: They discovered that crucial parts of his story stood in
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: stark contrast to the evidence. Facts known only to police
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: were absent from his account. While other claims directly contradicted
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: what was found at the scene. Officers uncovered no connection
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: between the elderly man and Sharon Murphy's department store or
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the victim's apartment. Apparently, after hearing family members talking about
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the murder and reading about it in the newspaper, the
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: seventy one year old had somehow convinced himself that he
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: was responsible. By the time detectives eliminated the man as
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a suspect, valuable time had passed. Once again, they found
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: themselves back at square one, with nothing more than a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: death scene in the bathroom of a small Abilene apartment,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: an unidentified partial palm print, and a young woman whose
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: final hours remained a mystery. The investigation stalled. The list
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of people eliminated as suspects continued to grow, while the
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: list of people who could be positively connected to Sharon's
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: final hours remained empty. As the months passed, the investigation
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: expanded beyond Abilene. In the summer of nineteen sixty eight,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: detectives found another suspect, one whose name would remain associated
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: with Sharon's murder for years to come. Joe Nathan Tubbs
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: was nineteen years old when Sharon Watts was killed. He
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: had been stationed at Das Air Force Base at the time,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: one of thousands of young servicemen passing through Abilene during
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the height of the Cold War and the escalating conflict
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: in Vietnam many airmen. His stay in West Texas was temporary.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: By the time his name surfaced in the Sharon Watts investigation,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: he had left Texas and was stationed at Barksdale Air
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Force Base in Bowjer Parish, Louisiana. What brought Tubbs to
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: the attention of Abilene detectives was his arrest in Shreveport
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: on unrelated aggravated rape and burglary charges. He was accused
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: of raping, choking, and beating a woman in her room
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: at the YWCA there just before midnight on May twenty ninth,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. He was also the suspect in the
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: rape of a woman on base and the physical assault
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: of several other women as well. Tubbs was apprehended trying
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to leave the scene of a reported crime when officers
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in Boser City barricaded a street after receiving a call
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: about an attempted break in the circumstances of Sharon's death
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: led investigation to consider whether rape had played a role
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: in the crime, and the arrest of a former Dias
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: airmen shocked the public. Detectives began examining Tubbs's background, confirming
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that he had been stationed in Abilene during the period
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: surrounding Sharon's murder. Police obtained his fingerprints and palm prints
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: and compared them with the partial impression recovered from Sharon's bathtub.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: The results proved frustrating, as they could not identify him
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: as the source of the print, but they could not
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: eliminate him either. The ambiguity kept Tubs on detective's radar.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Hoping to uncover some connection to Sharon. Abilene detectives traveled
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to Louisiana to question him personally. They searched for witnesses
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: who might place him in Sharon's orbit, and examined his
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: time in the city more closely. Despite months of investigation,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: and after determining Tubbs lived just a few blocks from
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the victim, they found nothing strong enough to move the
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: case forward, nothing to prove he'd ever stepped foot in
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Sharon's apartment. Joe Nathan Tubbs was never charged in her murder,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: but after his arrest, he was charged with the rape
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of a sixty three year old woman in her North
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Side Abilene home on December thirteenth, nineteen sixty seven. A
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: survivor who identified the man as her attacker in a
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: photographic lineup. Tubbs eventually pleaded guilty to the May nineteen
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: sixty eight rape at the YWCA in Shreveport, Louisiana, avoiding
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: attempted murder and attempted burglary charges, though the aggravated rape
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: charge landed him life in prison. For detectives in Abilene,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: it was another dead end. Lieutenant Grover Cronister continued the
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: painstaking work of compare bring the palm print found in
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Sharon's bathroom against every promising lead that emerged. Years later,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: he would explain that over the next seven years, every
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: palm print collected by the Abilene Police Department had been examined.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Only ten to fifteen impressions appeared similar enough to warrant
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: closer examination in that time, but none matched. While the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: case remained open and cold, Abilene moved forward until several
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: years later when another woman was found murdered under similar circumstances.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: That's next time. Ugone Cold Texas True crime. If you
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: have any information about the murder of Sharon K. Watts,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: please contact Abilene crime Stoppers at three two five six
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: seven six eight four seven seven. If you'd like to
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: join Con Cold's mission to shine a light on unsolved
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: homicides and missing persons cases, get the show at free
• 33:04
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• 33:08
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• 33:13
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• 33:16
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• 33:21
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• 33:25
  Speaker 1: for listening, y'all.