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Serial Killer Documentary - Coral Watts · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:03
Speaker 1: For the first time in US history, a serial killer
0:07
Speaker 1: is scheduled to be released from a Texas prism. There's
0:11
Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind he's going to resume his career,
0:14
Speaker 1: and that career is randomly killing women.
0:19
Speaker 2: I feel threatened by the fact that he will kill again.
0:22
Speaker 2: For sure.
0:25
Speaker 1: I was scared to death that he was going to
0:28
Speaker 1: get out on the street, because nobod he's going to
0:31
Speaker 1: know where he is until the body start turning up.
0:34
Speaker 1: A clever and delusive serial killer, Coral Eugene Watts, admitted
0:41
Speaker 1: murderer of thirteen women, could soon see the light of day.
0:46
Speaker 3: Mentally, you're thinking, Texas isn't going to let a serial
0:51
Speaker 3: killer out of prison. That's not going to happen. Somebody's
0:55
Speaker 3: going to do something, but nobody did.
1:34
Speaker 4: You don't see a murder every day. You don't get
1:41
Speaker 4: to see the person that killed the person every day.
1:46
Speaker 1: It's ingrained.
1:47
Speaker 4: It is well that it is chiseled in my mind.
1:55
Speaker 1: On a cold December night, Joe Boyd hears something in
1:59
Speaker 1: the alley behind his home. I had seen.
2:05
Speaker 4: A black male and a white female standing. The woman
2:11
Speaker 4: had her back against the wall and the male was
2:14
Speaker 4: standing in front of her and he was moving around.
2:22
Speaker 4: I seen the man bring his arm up and bring
2:25
Speaker 4: it down in a slash emotion. The woman fell to
2:31
Speaker 4: the ground. I yelled into the house, Call the police,
2:35
Speaker 4: Call the police. The man walks towards him. We just
2:40
Speaker 4: locked glances. His eyes were just dark, like nothing had
2:47
Speaker 4: just happened. His walk, his act was just so callous
2:52
Speaker 4: and cold and evil. He opened his car door and
2:56
Speaker 4: just pulled off and went on his merriage way like
2:59
Speaker 4: nothing at that.
3:05
Speaker 1: Ferndale Police identify the victim as thirty six year old
3:08
Speaker 1: Helen Dutcher. She's been stabbed twelve times. The clothing that
3:15
Speaker 1: she had on was eventually looked at where they had
3:20
Speaker 1: stab wounds. Who would line up were where she was
3:23
Speaker 1: stabbed and sliced on her body. Boy tells police that
3:31
Speaker 1: the suspect drove away in a tan potiac. He also
3:36
Speaker 1: helps police come up with a composite sketch of the killer,
3:40
Speaker 1: but the investigation leads nowhere.
3:43
Speaker 4: I had called them quite a few times, say he
3:47
Speaker 4: got anything going on with it, anything happening, and both
3:51
Speaker 4: three four times it was no, there's nothing.
3:53
Speaker 1: We haven't found anything. Months earlier, Detroit News reporter Jeene
4:02
Speaker 1: Klein is stabbed to death in a similar assault that
4:06
Speaker 1: left no clues. The Detroit cases go cold. Then, twenty
4:15
Speaker 1: five miles away, in the college town of ann Arbor,
4:19
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Shirley Small is stabbed to death while
4:22
Speaker 1: walking home. Three months later, twenty year old Glenda Richmond
4:27
Speaker 1: is found murdered inside her apartment's complex, and two months
4:33
Speaker 1: after that, twenty year old Rebecca Huff becomes the third
4:37
Speaker 1: ann Arbor victim. This was the apartment house that Rebecca
4:42
Speaker 1: Grier Huff lived in. This is where she had parked
4:47
Speaker 1: her car and was walking down here when she was
4:51
Speaker 1: attacked and murdered. Her wounds were all central to the
4:55
Speaker 1: front of her chest of her fifty four. Looked like
5:00
Speaker 1: she'd have been attacked from behind and stabbed. In all
5:04
Speaker 1: the cases, the wounds appear to have been made by
5:07
Speaker 1: a screwdriver. We had three homicides over a five month period,
5:16
Speaker 1: all happening early in the morning hours, all on Saturday
5:21
Speaker 1: night early Sunday morning, and all young women. They were
5:26
Speaker 1: all accosted and stabbed and left right where they had
5:31
Speaker 1: been assaulted. That was very, very unusual for ann Arbor.
5:37
Speaker 1: None of the women were raped or robbed the killer
5:41
Speaker 1: is meticulous, leading behind no evidence and no witnesses. These
5:47
Speaker 1: are well populated apartment complexes. You knock on every door,
5:51
Speaker 1: nobody saw anything, heard, nobody heard anything. It's very frustrating.
6:01
Speaker 1: By now police know they have a serial killer on
6:04
Speaker 1: their hands. Forensic psychologist Harley Stock joins the investigation. Almost
6:11
Speaker 1: all serial killers that we knew about in the early
6:15
Speaker 1: eighties were white. They said he'd be between about twenty
6:18
Speaker 1: two and thirty one, that he would have somewhat limited intelligence.
6:23
Speaker 1: If he was married, it would have been for a
6:24
Speaker 1: relatively short period of time because of poor relationships with women.
6:31
Speaker 1: A fifteen member special task force begin searching for leads.
6:38
Speaker 1: Months go by, then a tip from a Detroit police
6:43
Speaker 1: officer points to a suspect.
6:46
Speaker 5: I was reading the Detroit News. They had a story
6:49
Speaker 5: in there that stated that the victims were stabbed with
6:53
Speaker 5: a screwdriver. I immediately knew that it wasn't a screwdriver, that
6:58
Speaker 5: it was a wood carving tool.
7:06
Speaker 1: Six years earlier, Arthur's had investigated the stabbing death of
7:10
Speaker 1: Glorious Steele, a nineteen year old student in Kalamazoo, just
7:15
Speaker 1: ninety miles from ann Arbor.
7:17
Speaker 5: He stabbed glorious steel, so harder than a chest with
7:21
Speaker 5: this wood carving tool that had embedded in her spine
7:25
Speaker 5: and had to be chiseled out by the medical examiner.
7:29
Speaker 1: The prime suspect was a fellow student named Coral Eugene Watts.
7:34
Speaker 1: At the time, Arthur's searched Watts's home in Detroit.
7:40
Speaker 5: We went to the address and there were several wood
7:44
Speaker 5: carvings in that home. We did recover some wood carving tools,
7:51
Speaker 5: but there was never enough evidence to arrest Watts. Now
7:56
Speaker 5: Arthur's is convinced the latest murders are the work of
7:59
Speaker 5: the same men. He contacts Ann Arbor police. At first,
8:05
Speaker 5: they didn't believe me. They didn't think it was him.
8:08
Speaker 5: I continued to call them several times.
8:11
Speaker 1: I spoke with.
8:14
Speaker 5: The chief of police first and then Paul Bunten. We
8:20
Speaker 5: drove to Kalamazoo to look at their case. It just
8:24
Speaker 5: struck us immediately. The wounds were almost identical to Rebecca Hoff's.
8:30
Speaker 5: Kalamazoo knew that he was very probably their murderer, but
8:36
Speaker 5: they could not prove that case. Very frustrating for them.
8:41
Speaker 5: This really struck us as a good suspect, So we
8:44
Speaker 5: started spending all of our time just working.
8:48
Speaker 1: On coral Eugene Watts. The more we worked on him,
8:52
Speaker 1: the better he looked. As a suspect, Karl Watts had
9:12
Speaker 1: eluded Ann Arbor police. They suspect he's killed at least
9:17
Speaker 1: three young women in their town. Watts has a violent history.
9:25
Speaker 1: By age fifteen, he was assaulting women.
9:29
Speaker 6: When he was very young.
9:30
Speaker 3: He told a psychiatrist that he just did it because.
9:34
Speaker 6: It made him feel good.
9:36
Speaker 3: As a fifteen year old, he realized that people could
9:41
Speaker 3: identify his face.
9:47
Speaker 6: He evolved and he.
9:48
Speaker 3: Started attacking women from behind.
9:53
Speaker 6: And dropping them where they stood so they could never
9:58
Speaker 6: see his face.
10:12
Speaker 1: He actually lived in the city of Detroit. We found
10:16
Speaker 1: out where he worked. We found out a whole lot
10:19
Speaker 1: of information, but it was during this heightened investigation where
10:25
Speaker 1: we put out information about his car and everything to
10:30
Speaker 1: all of the officers. We were in the central campus
10:38
Speaker 1: area for forty in the morning. We saw a young
10:43
Speaker 1: woman walking down the street. She was very careful to
10:48
Speaker 1: look about her. It wasn't like she was out just
10:52
Speaker 1: for a casual walk. She appeared to be trying to
10:55
Speaker 1: make herself aware of her surroundings. They see a tan
11:01
Speaker 1: potiac driving back and forth we thought he was stalking her.
11:10
Speaker 1: We knew he was interested in her, at least in
11:12
Speaker 1: our minds, we were sure that he was interested in her.
11:17
Speaker 1: After a few minutes, the woman disappears from the street,
11:22
Speaker 1: but the car keeps prowling. The supposition was he was
11:29
Speaker 1: hunting and he'd lost sight of his quarry. Police call
11:34
Speaker 1: into dispatch. I heard Don Terry call on the radio
11:39
Speaker 1: with a license number and that the guy looked like
11:42
Speaker 1: he was gonna run, he wasn't gonna stop. Well, I
11:47
Speaker 1: heard the license number, and I knew that license number
11:49
Speaker 1: right away. It's Coral Watts. Police arrest him for driving
11:58
Speaker 1: with a suspended license and fired plates. This incident was
12:04
Speaker 1: the first time that anybody had been able to place
12:08
Speaker 1: Watts in ann Arbor, even though he'd been on a
12:11
Speaker 1: suspect list. I knew that this was our guy. I
12:16
Speaker 1: knew very well.
12:17
Speaker 6: It was okay, what's your date of birth, Carl.
12:21
Speaker 1: What really tipped me off is when I talked to him,
12:24
Speaker 1: he was very cordial. I sat in the interview room
12:27
Speaker 1: with him, talked with him. He told me where he was,
12:32
Speaker 1: where he was going. As soon as I got crime specific,
12:38
Speaker 1: he immediately said, I want to see an attorney. He
12:41
Speaker 1: was released. We didn't have enough to hold him. We
12:43
Speaker 1: did search his car and we took some evidence out
12:45
Speaker 1: of his car, nothing that proved to be evidence from
12:49
Speaker 1: our victim. But ann Arbor police keep Watts in their
12:54
Speaker 1: sights around the clock. I worked midnight shift on the surveillance.
13:00
Speaker 1: He didn't move a lot on midnights, but we got
13:04
Speaker 1: a search warrant for a tracking device for his car.
13:08
Speaker 1: He was very difficult to follow. He didn't do anything
13:11
Speaker 1: at all. Why we were following him with nowhere else
13:16
Speaker 1: to turn. I know you did it. Bunton brings Watson
13:19
Speaker 1: for questioning and tries to get him to crack man.
13:23
Speaker 1: I did nothing. I spent several hours in a room
13:27
Speaker 1: with him, talking with him, trying to get him to confess,
13:33
Speaker 1: and he continued to talk to me, and that was
13:38
Speaker 1: very surprising to me. At one point told him, Coral,
13:44
Speaker 1: I even know how you did it. And I put
13:47
Speaker 1: my arm round his neck and I held him, and
13:51
Speaker 1: then I simulated the stabbing and I said, she did
13:54
Speaker 1: it just like this, Carl, just like this. She kind
13:57
Speaker 1: of went limp in my hands, you know, And he
14:00
Speaker 1: looked like he was going to cry even and that's
14:04
Speaker 1: when he said he wanted to talk to his mother.
14:07
Speaker 1: After that, Watts refuses to talk and Bunton has no
14:11
Speaker 1: choice but to let him go. But even after the
14:15
Speaker 1: surveillance is officially called off, the detective won't give up.
14:23
Speaker 1: I would wake up at three or four o'clock in
14:26
Speaker 1: the morning and get dressed, strap my gun on, and
14:29
Speaker 1: go out and get in the car and drive. Just
14:32
Speaker 1: look around. You can't help it to get obsessed. You
14:37
Speaker 1: have three dead young ladies. These kind of murderers often
14:41
Speaker 1: think they're smarter than the police, and they play cat
14:45
Speaker 1: and mouse games. He left very few clues, which shows
14:50
Speaker 1: that he was very organized. He approached the task in
14:54
Speaker 1: a logical and coherent fashion, and so we had to
14:57
Speaker 1: convince him that the game was We knew where he went.
15:02
Speaker 1: He kind of lived a routine life, and I was
15:06
Speaker 1: already be there when he goes to the grocery store.
15:11
Speaker 1: I would be coming out as he walked in, and
15:12
Speaker 1: I'd say hi to him. When he went to school,
15:16
Speaker 1: I'd be in the parking lot. He was going to
15:19
Speaker 1: Diesel Mechanics school. We wanted Watts to know that we knew,
15:26
Speaker 1: and we wanted to flush him out, make him careless
15:30
Speaker 1: or in this case make him paranoid. He was in
15:33
Speaker 1: ann Arbor and he was at the Coney building in
15:36
Speaker 1: the courthouse. He was on the telephone when I saw him,
15:39
Speaker 1: and I walked up to him and said, Hi, Corl,
15:41
Speaker 1: can we go back to the office and talk? And
15:43
Speaker 1: he dropped the telephone and ran. If he thought he
15:48
Speaker 1: was being watched all the time, he wouldn't be out
15:50
Speaker 1: killing people. And I was under the impression at that
15:53
Speaker 1: point that he was quite a killing machine. Detective Paul
16:09
Speaker 1: Bunton has been trailing Coral Watts for months, then suddenly
16:14
Speaker 1: he seems to vanish. Bunton goes to the transport company
16:19
Speaker 1: where Watts worked. They said, oh, yeah, he left a
16:23
Speaker 1: forwarding address. He's in Houston, Texas. Bunton immediately calls Houston Police.
16:29
Speaker 1: He advised me that they had what they thought was
16:32
Speaker 1: a serial killer in Texas at this time that had
16:36
Speaker 1: been up in ann Arbor, Michigan for some time, that
16:39
Speaker 1: had killed a lot of women. He explained to me
16:44
Speaker 1: what his mo or method of operation was up there,
16:48
Speaker 1: methods of surveillance that they had used to attempt to
16:52
Speaker 1: catch him. He also explained that he rarely if ever
16:58
Speaker 1: left any kind of evident at these scenes. I had
17:02
Speaker 1: contact with Doug Bostock, Oh jeez, a couple times a
17:08
Speaker 1: week from that point on. In nineteen eighty one, Houston
17:14
Speaker 1: was a city that was rapidly growing, so was its
17:18
Speaker 1: crime rate. We were going through the throes of some
17:22
Speaker 1: very high murder rate. We had several years that we
17:28
Speaker 1: were investigating over seven hundred murders a year here in Houston.
17:33
Speaker 1: Doug Bostock is assigned to track down Coral Watts. After
17:41
Speaker 1: weeks of searching, Houston Police locate Watts's Pontiac at the
17:45
Speaker 1: Houston Metro Garage where he works as a mechanic. Police
17:50
Speaker 1: attach a tracking device to his car. Just as in
17:54
Speaker 1: ann Arbor, police follow Watts around the clock, but nothing happens.
18:00
Speaker 1: Attempted to follow him, keep track of him through work,
18:04
Speaker 1: through residents. We had people in the homicide division pulling
18:08
Speaker 1: up cases of women that were killed in the method
18:12
Speaker 1: that was used up in ann Arbor missions. Since the
18:16
Speaker 1: time that Watts arrived in Houston, there have been dozens
18:20
Speaker 1: of unsolved murderers, young women who've been stabbed, strangled, even drowned,
18:27
Speaker 1: but without any tangible evidence. Houston police can't tie any
18:31
Speaker 1: of the crimes to Watts. He was suspect, but he
18:35
Speaker 1: was not charged in any way, and we had nothing
18:37
Speaker 1: that we could put on him here. After ten months
18:45
Speaker 1: of tailing Watts police decide to call off the surveillance.
18:58
Speaker 1: With the heat off his back, the serial killer goes
19:01
Speaker 1: on the prowl again.
19:05
Speaker 6: I was just driving to my apartment.
19:08
Speaker 2: I wanted to go home and either have breakfast with
19:12
Speaker 2: Melinda or take a nap, whatever we chose to do.
19:15
Speaker 6: Before we went to church that morning. You had to go.
19:23
Speaker 2: Inside the courtyard to go to the stairway, and somebody
19:29
Speaker 2: came up behind me and grabbed my throat really really tight,
19:33
Speaker 2: and it scared me, but I was able to scream
19:36
Speaker 2: a little bit. Then he tightened his hole so much
19:42
Speaker 2: tighter that I just started blacking out immediately.
19:47
Speaker 6: At that time, I just knew I was going to die.
19:49
Speaker 2: That's the only thing that came across then I was
19:51
Speaker 2: blacking out.
19:56
Speaker 1: Watts walks upstairs to the apartment with Lourie's can.
20:11
Speaker 7: Immediately I noticed his eyes. They were very evil and
20:14
Speaker 7: cold looking. I was in shock. He was in shock.
20:19
Speaker 7: I wasn't expecting to see him. He wasn't expecting to
20:22
Speaker 7: see me. I knew that he was there to, you know,
20:28
Speaker 7: to hurt or kill. He came behind me, put the
20:34
Speaker 7: knife to me. He he had his arm around me,
20:37
Speaker 7: so he was choking me and I couldn't breathe. When
20:41
Speaker 7: he put the knife to me, he said that he
20:44
Speaker 7: would kill me if I screamed, and I just said okay.
20:48
Speaker 7: His arm got a little tighter on me to where
20:50
Speaker 7: I couldn't breathe, so I had to pretend to pass out.
21:36
Speaker 7: OR heard her body hitting the steps as he was
21:39
Speaker 7: dragging her up. When she came in. I could see
21:47
Speaker 7: him dragging Laurie into the bathroom. I could hear hermoning,
21:54
Speaker 7: so I knew that she was not in any kind
21:57
Speaker 7: of condition to get away or anything. Him grabbing the
22:10
Speaker 7: hangers and taking him apart to tie you up and stuff.
22:13
Speaker 7: He did everything so quick, so I knew that he
22:15
Speaker 7: had done it before. I don't want to move because
22:25
Speaker 7: you know, I'm pretending to be passed out the whole time.
22:31
Speaker 7: There were times where he made sounds like sounds of excitement.
22:38
Speaker 7: After he checked on me, he started the bathwater. I
22:45
Speaker 7: was thinking, if he took me in there, there was
22:48
Speaker 7: no way that we were going to get out of
22:52
Speaker 7: there alive. I immediately stood up and went to the
23:12
Speaker 7: door and locked the bedroom door as quietly as I could.
23:18
Speaker 7: My intentions were to jump over the balcony and go
23:22
Speaker 7: get help. I didn't know how I was going to
23:26
Speaker 7: jump off the balcony with my hands tied, but I'm thinking, okay,
23:30
Speaker 7: how am I going to do this? I landed on
23:44
Speaker 7: my knees, thank god, and I ran to the left.
23:50
Speaker 7: There was a woman sitting outside her patio drinking coffee,
23:55
Speaker 7: and I ran to her and told her someone was
23:58
Speaker 7: trying to kill My roommate used to call the police.
24:02
Speaker 7: After that, I don't know what happened.
24:16
Speaker 1: Watts tries to flee, but it's too late.
24:23
Speaker 8: Do not move, get your hands up, put your hands
24:25
Speaker 8: on your head, and turn around. Follow my commands. Interlationsip fingers.
24:33
Speaker 1: A neighbor finds Laurie in the bathtub and resuscitates her.
24:38
Speaker 1: I was so grateful that the girls would survived.
24:43
Speaker 8: Don't think about it, get down, do as I say
24:46
Speaker 8: right now.
24:48
Speaker 1: I saw no remorse was woever, not the slightest bit
24:53
Speaker 1: of remorse on what he had done, much less being
24:55
Speaker 1: caught Coral. Watts is charged with attempted murder. I was
25:00
Speaker 1: ecstatic that we finally had him in custo him. It
25:03
Speaker 1: looked like two very good cases on him. It seems
25:06
Speaker 1: that Coral Watts's game of cat and mouse has finally
25:10
Speaker 1: come to an end. The killer's been caught, but keeping
25:14
Speaker 1: him locked up will be a lot tougher than investigators
25:18
Speaker 1: ever imagined.
25:37
Speaker 9: Coral Watts, a twenty eight year old bus mechanic, was
25:39
Speaker 9: in court today pleading guilty on an unrelated burglar Kral.
25:43
Speaker 1: Watts's arrest hits the Evening News. Detective Button flies into
25:50
Speaker 1: Houston to meet with Watts, and I said, you know
25:53
Speaker 1: what I'm down here for. I need to talk to
25:56
Speaker 1: you about an heerber's cases. And he says, I'm not
25:58
Speaker 1: going to talk to you. Yes, I need to see
26:01
Speaker 1: an attorney. And so we were done talking to him. Meanwhile,
26:07
Speaker 1: the Houston police believed that Coral Watts could be responsible
26:11
Speaker 1: for dozens of unsolved murders.
26:16
Speaker 6: I spoke with.
26:16
Speaker 1: Him yesterday morning and told him now was the opportunity
26:20
Speaker 1: to get his last straight and to help these people
26:24
Speaker 1: bury their dead. The prosecutor's office offers Watts a controversial
26:29
Speaker 1: deal in exchange for a guilty plea in the Lori
26:33
Speaker 1: Lister case and a sixty year sentence. Watts will confess
26:38
Speaker 1: to a number of Houston's unsolved murders and be granted
26:42
Speaker 1: immunity for those crimes. I hated to see any deal
26:46
Speaker 1: made on a man who killed so many people, but
26:49
Speaker 1: we didn't have proof of these deaths. All we had
26:52
Speaker 1: was the two attempted murders. We still had no proof
26:55
Speaker 1: up in ant armor or any other place. I got
26:59
Speaker 1: a call at my own home from Doug Bostock again
27:02
Speaker 1: that said, he will confess to your three murders if
27:07
Speaker 1: you come down here with a grant of immunity. This
27:11
Speaker 1: was a Sunday, and we all went to the station
27:14
Speaker 1: and met and discussed, and we all agreed that we
27:17
Speaker 1: weren't going to give a grant of immunity on homicide case.
27:21
Speaker 1: Police had been told a body was buried along the
27:23
Speaker 1: banks of White Oaks by you. With the deal in
27:27
Speaker 1: Houston signed, Watts gives homicide detectives Tom and Jimmy Ladd
27:33
Speaker 1: the first glimpse into his secret life. We never realized
27:38
Speaker 1: that Watts buried any of his victims. So and he
27:41
Speaker 1: gave us the first body that was buried. Her name
27:44
Speaker 1: was Susan Cyrils. We went out there. He said, okay,
27:48
Speaker 1: dig right there, and we did, and we excubated her grave.
27:53
Speaker 1: Kerrie May Jefferson had also disappeared as she was returning
27:56
Speaker 1: home from work. Watts takes the detective. It was to
28:00
Speaker 1: her grave site, generally in this vicinity right here is
28:06
Speaker 1: this side of the bio and up from the waters
28:10
Speaker 1: where he had dug the grave for Carrie Jefferson. Glarel
28:16
Speaker 1: is very stoic in his demeanor and just pointed out,
28:20
Speaker 1: you know, the area where he thought he buried her.
28:24
Speaker 1: And it's just like we'd talk about how hot the
28:26
Speaker 1: weather was. The investigators press Watts for more information.
28:33
Speaker 10: He started telling us about other cases too, and I think,
28:37
Speaker 10: you know, within about thirty or forty five minutes or so,
28:40
Speaker 10: we'd identified seven or eight Houston murders that he was
28:44
Speaker 10: talking about, and knew that he had committed because we'd
28:47
Speaker 10: been studying all these cases and had it charted him
28:51
Speaker 10: and everything, and so you know, we knew he was
28:54
Speaker 10: telling the truth.
28:55
Speaker 1: To be bad. And then we can't speculate on any number,
28:59
Speaker 1: but this is gonna band start back at police headquarters.
29:07
Speaker 1: Wats divulge's details of more murders. It was amazing how
29:13
Speaker 1: he never got the details of one case mixed up
29:17
Speaker 1: with the other.
29:18
Speaker 11: Right, what kind of a day or the night's going to.
29:24
Speaker 1: Occur, whether you play female or dumpty to say, I
29:28
Speaker 1: killed a girl after beside a dumpster over you know,
29:32
Speaker 1: on such and such a street. Of course, the son
29:35
Speaker 1: of me her dumpster girl in the street. You know,
29:37
Speaker 1: we knew a case he is talking about. That was
29:40
Speaker 1: twenty year old Elena's samander told us he strangled a
29:45
Speaker 1: girl and he like, he hit Margaret Fosse in the
29:47
Speaker 1: throat and you know, crushed her lyarynx. Twenty five year
29:51
Speaker 1: old Elizabeth Montgomery was stabbed in the heart and she
29:55
Speaker 1: was able to stumble away and go to her apartment.
30:00
Speaker 1: Of course, the wound was mortal and she was dead
30:03
Speaker 1: before they get paramedics there. Then a couple hours later,
30:06
Speaker 1: he killed Susan Woolf. He saw her leaving a grocery
30:10
Speaker 1: store and he followed her home and she was approaching
30:13
Speaker 1: her apartment with bags of groceries. Multiple stablished. I think
30:17
Speaker 1: he stablished severalor eight times on the same night home
30:23
Speaker 1: to kill the bull in her dogs was another one
30:26
Speaker 1: that happened that same night. Yeah, sometimes Watts attacked more
30:31
Speaker 1: than once in a day. The twenty year old Michelle
30:35
Speaker 1: Maday was drowned in her bathtub only hours before Watts
30:43
Speaker 1: tried to kill Laurie Lister. We knew he drove around
30:53
Speaker 1: all night long, every night. We were trying to figure
30:59
Speaker 1: out what tigered him to pick a certain victim, and
31:03
Speaker 1: so we just asked it, all right, fur.
31:12
Speaker 8: Deal have to be covering it.
31:19
Speaker 12: Time.
31:20
Speaker 1: Look at her eye. Well, we knew that was a
31:25
Speaker 1: bunch of bull because most of his victims were two
31:29
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning or later. He couldn't see
31:34
Speaker 1: their eyes, and a lot of them he would follow.
31:37
Speaker 8: In their car.
31:38
Speaker 1: In my mind, I think he just drives around till
31:40
Speaker 1: the little bomb goes off in his head, and when
31:42
Speaker 1: it does, he just picks out a victim. And there
31:46
Speaker 1: were more confessions. Phyllis tam was choked, her body hung
31:51
Speaker 1: from a tree. Emily Lacroix, just fourteen, was on her
31:56
Speaker 1: way to her waitressing job when she was strangled. Anna
32:00
Speaker 1: Ledet was stabbed after attending a party in her honor.
32:05
Speaker 1: Linda Tilley was attacked and then drowned in her apartment
32:09
Speaker 1: swimming pool, and Yolanda Gracia was stabbed to death on
32:13
Speaker 1: her own front lawn. You know, all Watts confesses to
32:18
Speaker 1: thirteen murders. Becoming tread in the Watts case is that
32:23
Speaker 1: all of his killings were fueled by fantasy. He killed
32:28
Speaker 1: thousands of times in his mind. He rehearsed these killings,
32:33
Speaker 1: and then he went out to find someone who fit
32:37
Speaker 1: his psychologic profile.
32:42
Speaker 3: When I was working on the story, I would drive
32:44
Speaker 3: around to all the places where bodies have been found,
32:49
Speaker 3: and you just get this sense of the vastness of
32:54
Speaker 3: the city and how he just was a predator on
32:59
Speaker 3: the freeway. He was just like a shark trolling for prey.
33:10
Speaker 1: As the depth of Wats's depravity is revealed, controversy grows
33:15
Speaker 1: over the immunity deal. It's not something I would have done.
33:20
Speaker 1: I just can't see myself doing that. What they don't
33:23
Speaker 1: understand is every one of these cases that watch confess,
33:27
Speaker 1: there was no witnesses, There was no evidence, And if
33:31
Speaker 1: Watcha can confess to him, they'd still be in the
33:33
Speaker 1: uncleared status and family members would be wondered, and you know,
33:38
Speaker 1: who did it and why and whatever. Watts dehumanized his victims.
33:45
Speaker 1: They were no more important to him than a piece
33:48
Speaker 1: of discarded paper. He had no emotional connection to the
33:53
Speaker 1: rest of the world around him. Now people say, anybody
33:58
Speaker 1: who does that has to be crazy.
34:01
Speaker 6: KORL.
34:01
Speaker 1: Watts was not mad. He was bad. Three years after
34:07
Speaker 1: witnessing the murder of Helen Dutcher, named Joe Foy sees
34:11
Speaker 1: Watts on TV.
34:13
Speaker 4: I had the volume down and the stereo on, and
34:16
Speaker 4: I was just watching the picture and I seen a
34:19
Speaker 4: black man being led into a courtroom. And as soon
34:23
Speaker 4: as they walked him through the door, and I sayid,
34:26
Speaker 4: oh my god, that's the man that killed.
34:27
Speaker 1: That woman in Ferndale. Once again, boy contacts Ferndale police.
34:34
Speaker 4: I called numerous times, aren't you guys gonna do anything
34:38
Speaker 4: about this? Aren't you guys gonna do anything about this?
34:40
Speaker 4: And it was always no, we're satisfied, No, we're satisfied.
34:43
Speaker 4: And the very last phone call I got was, mister Foy,
34:47
Speaker 4: put it to bed, Just put it to bed.
34:50
Speaker 1: In September nineteen eighty two, a judge rules the bathwater
34:55
Speaker 1: in Lorie Lister's case is considered a deadly weapon and
34:59
Speaker 1: sentences co Arl Watts to sixty years in prison for
35:02
Speaker 1: attempted murder. It is my suggestions at tasted the barrow
35:07
Speaker 1: of the prison that they must you so thee to
35:11
Speaker 1: the kind of tangeries I had to fight someone inte
35:14
Speaker 1: and that.
35:15
Speaker 13: You served the arian over sixty years.
35:19
Speaker 14: Do you think justice has been served? No, of course, no,
35:23
Speaker 14: limited justice did limited. I just felt like I was furious.
35:30
Speaker 14: I felt it was unfair and unjust.
35:34
Speaker 1: But for Houston prosecutors it was the best possible outcome.
35:39
Speaker 1: They had cleared thirteen unsolved murders and taken a serial
35:44
Speaker 1: killer off the streets. It would appear that Coral Watts
35:50
Speaker 1: would never kill again. Yes, after confessing to thirteen murders,
36:14
Speaker 1: Coral Watts is sent away to a Texas penitentiary for
36:18
Speaker 1: what seems like a life sentence. If he survives, is
36:23
Speaker 1: sixty years behind bars. He'll be eighty eight years old
36:27
Speaker 1: when he gets out. A serial killer is off the streets,
36:32
Speaker 1: but investigators can't help. But wonder what secrets are locked
36:35
Speaker 1: away within? I said to him, Coral, I haven't got
36:41
Speaker 1: enough fingers and toes to count the amount of people
36:45
Speaker 1: you have killed. And he looked around and said, there
36:48
Speaker 1: are not enough fingers and toes in this room, and
36:52
Speaker 1: there were four of us.
36:53
Speaker 10: In the grim.
36:56
Speaker 1: Years went by.
36:58
Speaker 3: He goes into prison, everybody just kind of dropped it,
37:02
Speaker 3: forgot about it.
37:05
Speaker 6: He's not really.
37:05
Speaker 3: Written about much for fifteen years.
37:12
Speaker 1: But then Harriet's Samander, mother of one of the victims,
37:16
Speaker 1: makes a frightening discovery.
37:19
Speaker 9: I found out that he was up for parole. He
37:24
Speaker 9: was classified non violent, so he was in the parole system.
37:31
Speaker 1: She alerts Andy Khan, the Mayor's Crime Victim director in Houston,
37:36
Speaker 1: who calls the prison.
37:39
Speaker 11: I called Harriet back and I said, parole is the
37:42
Speaker 11: least of your problems. Under Texas law, he must be
37:45
Speaker 11: released somewhere around the year two thousand and six. No
37:49
Speaker 11: fans or butts. In nineteen eighty seven, Watson appealed the
37:54
Speaker 11: deadly weapons charge against him, saying it was never part
37:58
Speaker 11: of his plea bargain. The court ruled in his favor
38:03
Speaker 11: and status was changed to a non violent offender. We
38:07
Speaker 11: had a law that was crafted to alleviate overcrowding in prison,
38:12
Speaker 11: called the Mandatory Release law.
38:14
Speaker 1: That made Watts eligible for good time credits, which would
38:18
Speaker 1: only expedite his release.
38:21
Speaker 11: Basically, he was achieving good time at a rate of
38:23
Speaker 11: three days for every day, sir, he would have served
38:26
Speaker 11: twenty four flat calendar years, which is actually less than
38:30
Speaker 11: two years for every Houston area homicide victim that he murdered.
38:34
Speaker 9: I knew nothing about good time. Oh that was a
38:38
Speaker 9: shock to learn about good time. Did you just wake
38:41
Speaker 9: up in the morning You get three days taken off
38:44
Speaker 9: your sentence every day.
38:45
Speaker 11: We wanted the governor's office to form a committee of
38:49
Speaker 11: the best legal minds of this state and see if
38:53
Speaker 11: there was any other possible solution other than release, but
38:58
Speaker 11: we couldn't get anywhere. We were just barking and barking,
39:02
Speaker 11: and everybody pretty much told us that too bad, he's
39:06
Speaker 11: coming out. There's nothing you can do about it.
39:09
Speaker 1: Furious, Harriet Samnder launches a campaign to abolish the mandatory
39:14
Speaker 1: release law. She succeeds, but it's a hollow victory.
39:21
Speaker 9: They couldn't make the law retroactive to include the Watts case,
39:27
Speaker 9: so it didn't change anything for me.
39:30
Speaker 1: With Wats' release now definite, Harriet Samnder and Andy Kahn
39:35
Speaker 1: organize a memorial and call to action in two thousand
39:39
Speaker 1: and two, So my honor to be up here and
39:43
Speaker 1: see that we remember the families.
39:47
Speaker 6: We couldn't believe it.
39:49
Speaker 9: Families of the victims came from Boston, from Washington State, Colorado, Ohio.
39:57
Speaker 9: We were just stunned.
39:59
Speaker 11: After we did had the memorial ceremony and call to action,
40:02
Speaker 11: it things just spiraled media wise. It got picked up
40:07
Speaker 11: by the Associated Press and I got contacted by Donna
40:12
Speaker 11: Pendergass at that time with the Michigan Attorney General's Office,
40:16
Speaker 11: and apparently Michigan, like most people in the country, worth
40:21
Speaker 11: unaware is that Corolia Jane Watts was going to be released.
40:26
Speaker 12: If you're going to enter into a plea bargain, you
40:28
Speaker 12: have to have your teese crossed and your eyes dotted.
40:31
Speaker 12: And when I realized how it all evolved and how
40:35
Speaker 12: it ended up that he was in this position where
40:37
Speaker 12: he was scheduled for release, it was really horrifying.
40:41
Speaker 1: But there's still one last chance to keep Watts off
40:45
Speaker 1: the streets. Try him on another murder case. The state
40:50
Speaker 1: of Michigan picks up the ball and begins searching their
40:53
Speaker 1: files for any unsolved case that could be tied to Watts.
40:59
Speaker 1: We looked at premier early stabbings and strangulations. If there
41:03
Speaker 1: was evidence that would be suitable for testing for DNA
41:08
Speaker 1: or other type of evidence that could link the case
41:12
Speaker 1: to a suspect. Then we submitted the evidence to the lab.
41:19
Speaker 6: We kept getting calls from Texas.
41:20
Speaker 12: Andy Kahn kept calling it saying, have you come up
41:23
Speaker 12: with anything yet, and it was always.
41:24
Speaker 6: We're still looking, Andy, We're still looking.
41:27
Speaker 12: But pressure was building because obviously the day release date
41:30
Speaker 12: was getting closer weird.
41:32
Speaker 1: Then in January two thousand and four, two years before
41:37
Speaker 1: Watson's schedule to be released, Michigan's Attorney General Mike Cox
41:41
Speaker 1: appeals to the public different for any information about Coral
41:45
Speaker 1: Watts's crimes. Six.
41:48
Speaker 13: What we're trying to do here in Michigan is do
41:50
Speaker 13: all we can to make sure that when May eighth,
41:53
Speaker 13: two thousand and six comes along, that we have a
41:56
Speaker 13: charge to serve him with very quickly.
41:59
Speaker 1: Where should people call if they have any information they
42:01
Speaker 1: think it's relevant.
42:02
Speaker 4: I'm sitting there, you idiots. What about the Ferndale murder?
42:08
Speaker 4: How come you guys aren't calling me on the Ferndale murder.
42:13
Speaker 1: Joe Foyd calls the Michigan Attorney General's office and finally
42:19
Speaker 1: someone listens to him.
42:22
Speaker 12: He was lucid, he was coherent and he seemed to
42:24
Speaker 12: know what he was talking about. I called Lieutenant Hangar
42:28
Speaker 12: back immediately and said, he's not a wacko bill.
42:32
Speaker 6: I think we've got something here.
42:34
Speaker 1: Boy's testimony and composite sketch are just what the state needs.
42:40
Speaker 15: I'm directing my prosecutors to swear out a warrant this
42:43
Speaker 15: afternoon charging Choral Eugene Watts with premeditated first degree murder
42:48
Speaker 15: for the brutal killing of Helen May Dutcher.
42:52
Speaker 11: No Hollywood writer could have ever dreamed this scenario up,
42:58
Speaker 11: no way in the world. It had to be divine intervention.
43:03
Speaker 11: Somebody was actually out looking for the good guys for
43:05
Speaker 11: one