Serial Killer Documentary - Coral Watts

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1:52I was scared to death that he was going to get out on the street, because now what he's going to know where he is until the body start turning up. A clever and emusive serial killer, Coral Eugene Watts, admitted murderer of 13 women, could soon see the light of day. Middle-E, you're thinking Texas isn't going to let a serial killer out of prison. That's not going to happen. Somebody's going to do something, but nobody did. You don't see a murderer every day.

3:08You don't get to see the person that killed the person every day. It's engraved. It is well that it is chiseled in my mind. On a cold December night, Joe Floyd hears something in the alley behind his home. I had seen a black male and a white female standing. The woman had her back against the wall, and the male was standing in front of her, and he was moving around. I seen the man bring his arm up and bring it down in a slashing motion. The woman fell to the ground. I yelled into the house, call the police, call the police.

4:09The man walks toward him. We just lack of answers. His eyes were just dark. Like nothing had just happened. His walk, his act was just so callous and cold that he opened his car door, just pulled off and went on his merry way like nothing had happened. Ferndale police identified the victim as 36-year-old Helen Dutcher. She's been stabbed 12 times. The clothing that you had on was eventually looked at where they had stabbed wounds, who had lined up for where she was stabbed and sliced on her body. Floyd tells police that the suspect drove away in a tan potty act. He also helps police come up with a composite sketch of the killer,

5:11but the investigation leads nowhere. I had called them quite a few times, say, a guy didn't think going on with it, anything happening, and both three, four times it was not there's nothing we haven't found anything. A few months earlier, Detroit news reporter Jean Klein is stabbed to death in a similar assault that left no clues. The Detroit cases go cold. Then 25 miles away in the college town of Ann Arbor. 17-year-old Shirley Small is stabbed to death while walking home. Three months later, 20-year-old Glenda Richmond is found murdered inside her apartment's complex. In two months after that, 20-year-old Rebecca Huff becomes the third Ann Arbor victim.

6:12This was the apartment house that Rebecca Greer Huff lived in. This is where she had parked her car and was walking down here when she was attacked and murdered. Her wounds were all central to the front of her chest. There were 54. It looked like she had been attacked from behind and stabbed. In all the cases, the wounds appeared to have been made by a screwdriver. With three homicides, over a five-month period, all happening early in the morning hours, all on Saturday night, early Sunday morning, and all young women, they were all accosted and stabbed and left right where they had been assaulted. There was very, very unusual for Ann Arbor. None of the women were raped or robbed.

7:12The killer is meticulous, leaving behind no evidence and no witnesses. These are well-populated apartment complexes. You knock on every door and nobody saw anything. Heard nobody heard anything. It's very frustrating. By now, police know they have a serial killer on their hands. Forensic psychologist Marley Stock joins the investigation. Almost all serial killers that we knew about in the early 80s were white. They said he'd be between about 22 and 31, and he would have somewhat limited intelligence. If he was married, it would have been for relatively short period of time, because of poor relationships with women. A 15-member special task force begins searching for leads. Months go by. Then, a tip from a Detroit police officer points to a suspect.

8:17I was reading the Detroit news. They had a story in there that stated that the victims were stabbed with a screwdriver. I immediately knew that it wasn't a screwdriver, that it was a woodcarving tool. Six years earlier, Arthur's had investigated the stabbing death of Gloria Steele, a 19-year-old student in Kalamazoo, just 90 miles from Ann Arbor. He stabbed Gloria Steele so hard in the chest with this woodcarving tool that it embedded in her spine and had to be chiseled out by the medical examiner. The prime suspect was a fellow student named Coral Eugene Watts. At the time, Arthur searched Watts's home in Detroit. We went to the address and there were several woodcarvings in that home.

9:18We did recover some woodcarving tools. But there was never enough evidence to arrest Watts. Now, Arthur's is convinced the latest murders are the work of the same men. He contacts Ann Arbor Police. This week at Vons and Albertans, USDA Choice Tri-Tip Rost untrimmed are 599 per pound, limit 4 roasts with membership were applicable, and medium-ripe Hassovicados are 99 cents each, with membership were applicable. Plus Kellogg's cereals 8.8 to 16.1 ounces, selected varieties, or peppered farm goldfish, 5.98 ounces, are 190.9 each when you buy three. Limit three offers with membership were applicable. Visit Vons or Albertans.com for more deals and ways to save.

10:31Kalamazoo knew that he was very probably their murderer, but they could not prove that case. Very frustrating for them. This really struck us as a good suspect, so we started spending all of our time just working on Coral Eugene Watts. The more we worked on him, the better he looked as suspect. Coral Watts had eluded Ann Arbor Police. They suspect he's killed at least three young women in their town. Watts has a violent history. By age 15, he was assaulting women.

11:32When he was very young, he told a psychiatrist that he just did it because it made him feel good. As a 15-year-old, he realized that people could identify his face. He evolved and he started attacking women from behind and dropping them where they stood, so they could never see his face. He actually lived in the city of Detroit. We found out where he worked. We found out a whole lot of information, but it was during this heightened investigation, where we put out information about his car and everything to all of the officers.

12:34We were in the central campus area for 40 in the morning. We saw a young woman walking down the street. She was very careful to look about her. It wasn't like she was out just for a casual walk. She appeared to be trying to make herself aware of her surroundings. They see a tan potty act driving back and forth. We thought he was stalking her. We knew he was interested in her, at least in our minds. We were sure that he was interested in her. After a few minutes, the woman disappears from the street, but the car keeps prowling. The supposition was he was hunting and he'd lost sight of his query.

13:36Police called into dispatch. They heard Don Terry call on the radio with a license number and that the guy looked like he was going to run. He wasn't going to stop. I heard the license number. I knew that license number right away. It's Coral Watts. Police arrest him for driving with a suspended license and expired plates. This incident was the first time that anybody had been able to place Watts in Ann Arbor. Even though he'd been on a suspect list, I knew that this was our guy. I knew very well it was. Okay, what's your date of birth, Coral? What really tipped me off is when I talked to him, he was very cordial. I sat in the interview room with him. Talked with him. He told me where he was, where he was going.

14:37As soon as I got crime-specific, he immediately said I want to see an attorney. He was released. We didn't have enough to hold him. We did search his car and we took some evidence out of his car, nothing that proved to be evidence from our victim. But Ann Arbor police keep Watts in their sights around the clock. I worked midnight shift on surveillance. He didn't move a lot on midnight, but we got a search warrant for tracking device for his car. He was very difficult to follow. He didn't do anything at all while we were following him. We know where else to turn. Bunten brings Watts in for questioning and tries to get him to crack. Man, I didn't. Nothing. I spent several hours in a room with him talking with him. I tried to get him to confess. And he continued to talk to me.

15:39And that was very surprising to me. At one point, I told him, Coral, I even know how you did it. And I put my arm around his neck. And I held him and then I simulated the stabbing. And I said, she did it just like this, Coral. Just like this. And it went limp in my hands, you know? And he looked like he was going to cry, even. And that's when he said he wanted to talk to his mother. After that, Watts refuses to talk. And Bunten has no choice but to let him go. But even after the surveillance is officially called off, the detective won't give up. I would wake up at three or four o'clock in the morning and get dressed, and strap my gun out and go on and get in the car and drive. Just look around. You can't help but to get obsessed. You have three dead young ladies.

16:40These kind of murderers often think they're smarter than the police. And they play cat-a-mouse games. He left very few clues, which shows that he was very organized. He approached the task in a logical and coherent fashion. And so we had to convince him that the game was up. We knew where he went. He kind of lived a routine life, and I was already be there. When he goes to the grocery store, I would be coming out as he walked in, and I'd say hi to him. When he went to school, I'd be in the parking lot. He was going to diesel mechanic school. We wanted Watts to know that we knew. And we wanted to flush him out, make him careless. Or in this case, make him paranoid. He was in Ann Arbor, and he was at the Coney Building in the courthouse. He was on the telephone when I saw him,

17:41and I walked up to him and said, hi, Coral, can we go back to the office and talk? And he dropped the telephone and ran. If he thought he was being watched all the time, he wouldn't be out killing people. And I was under the impression at that point that he was quite a killing machine. The Detective Paul Bunton has been trailing Coral Watts for months. Then suddenly he seems to vanish. Bunton goes to the transport company where Watts worked. They said, oh yeah, he left a forerining address, he's in Houston, Texas. Bunton immediately calls Houston police. He advised me that they had what they thought was a serial killer. In Texas at this time, that had been up in Ann Arbor, Michigan for some time, that had killed a lot of women.

18:46He explained to me what his MO or method of operation was up there. Methods of surveillance that they had used to attempt to catch him. He also explained that he rarely, if ever, left any kind of evidence of these scenes. I had contact with Doug Bostock. Oh geez, a couple times a week from that point on. In 1981, Houston was a city that was rapidly growing. So was its crime rate. We were going through the throes of some very high murder rate. We have several years that we were investigating over 700 murders a year here in Houston. Doug Bostock is assigned to track down Coral Watts. After weeks of searching, Houston police locate Watts' Pontiac at the Houston Metro Garage,

19:49where he works as a mechanic. Police attach a tracking device to his car. Just as in Ann Arbor, police follow Watts around the clock, but nothing happens. We attempted to follow him, keep track of him, through work, through his residence. We had people in the homicide division pulling up cases of women that were killed in the method that was used up in Ann Arbor missions. Since the time that Watts arrived in Houston, there have been dozens of unsolved murders. Young women who've been stabbed, strangled, even drowned. But without any tangible evidence, Houston police can't tie any of the crimes to Watts. He was suspect, but he was not charged in any way, and we had nothing that we could put on here. After 10 months of tailing Watts, police decide to call off the surveillance.

21:00With the heat off his back, the serial killer goes on the prowl again. I was just driving to my apartment. I wanted to go home and either have breakfast with Melinda or take a nap, whatever we chose to do before we went to church that morning. You had to go inside the courtyard to go to the stairway, and somebody came up behind me and grabbed my throat, really, really tight, and it scared me, but I was able to scream a little bit. Oh, my God! Then he tightened his whole so much tighter that I just started blacking out immediately. At that time, I just knew I was going to die. That's the only thing that came across that I was blacking out. Watts walks upstairs to the apartment with Laurie's keys.

22:09Immediately I noticed his eyes. They were very evil and cold-looking. I was in shock. He was in shock. I wasn't expecting to see him. He wasn't expecting to see me. I knew that he was there to, you know, to hurt or kill. He came behind me, put the knife to me. He had his arm around me, so he was choking me, and I couldn't breathe. When he put the knife to me, he said that he would kill me if I screamed. I just said, okay, his arm got a little tighter on me to where I couldn't breathe, so I had to pretend to pass out.

23:31I heard her body hitting the steps as he was dragging her up. When she came in, I could see him dragging Laurie into the bathroom. I could hear her moaning, so I knew that she was not in any kind of condition to get away or anything. Him grabbing the hangers and taking them apart to tie you up and stuff. He did everything so quick, so I knew that he had done it before. I don't want to move because, you know, I'm pretending to be passed out the whole time.

24:34There were times where he made sounds like sounds of excitement. After he checked on me, he started the bath water. I was thinking if he took me in there, there was no way that we were going to get out of their alive. Immediately stood up and went to the door and locked the bedroom doors quietly as I could. My intentions were to jump over the balcony and go get help. I didn't know how I was going to jump off the balcony with my hands tied, but I'm thinking, okay, how am I going to do this?

25:46I landed on my knees, thank God, and I ran to the left. There was a woman sitting outside her patio drinking coffee, and I ran to her and totalled someone's trying to kill my roommate. She needs to call the police. After that, I don't know what happened. What's tries to flee, but it's too late. You're not moving, get your hands up, put your hands on your head and turn around. Follow my commands, interlace your fingers. A neighbor finds Laurie in the bathtub and resuscitates her. I was so grateful that the girls had survived. Don't think about it, get down. Do as I say right now.

26:51I saw no remorse whatsoever. Not the slightest bit of remorse on what he had done much less being caught. Coral Watts is charged with attempted murder. I was ecstatic that we finally had him in custody and it looked like two very good cases on him. It seems that Coral Watts's game of cat and mouse has finally come to an end. The killer has been caught, but keeping him locked up will be a lot tougher than investigators ever imagined. Coral Watts, a 28-year-old bus mechanic, was in court today pleading guilty on an unrelated Coral Watts' arrest hits the evening news. Detective Button flies into Houston to meet with Watts.

27:55I said, you know what I'm down here for? I need to talk to you about Ann Arbor's case as he says I'm not going to talk to you. Says, I need to see an attorney. And so we were done talking to him. Meanwhile, the Houston police believe that Coral Watts could be responsible for dozens of unsolved murders. I spoke with him yesterday morning and until now was the opportunity to get his last straight and to help these people carry their dead. The prosecutor's office offers Watts a controversial deal. In exchange for a guilty plea in the Laurie Lister case and a 60-year sentence, Watts will confess to a number of Houston's unsolved murders and be granted immunity for those crimes. I hated to see any deal made. A man who killed so many people, but we didn't have proof of these deaths. All we had was the two attempted murders. We still had no proof up in Ann Arbor or any other place.

29:01I got a call at my home from Doug Bostock again that said he will confess to your three murders if you come down here with a grant of immunity. This was a Sunday and we all went to the station and met and discussed it and we all agreed that we weren't going to give a grant of immunity on homicide case. Police had been told a body was buried along the banks of White Oats by you with the deal in Houston signed. Watts gives homicide detectives Tom and Jimmy Lad the first glimpse into his secret life. We never realized that Watts buried him in his victims so he gave us the first body that was buried or members of his own sorrows. We went out there he said okay dig right there and we did and we excavated her grave. Kerry Mae Jefferson had also disappeared as she was returning home from work. Watts takes the detectives to her grave site. Generally in this

30:05vicinity right here is this out of the bio and up in the waters where he had dug the grave for Kerry Jefferson. Claw was very stoic in his demeanor and he just pointed out you know the area where he thought he buried her and it's just like we'd talk about how hot the weather was. Investigators press Watts for more information. He started telling us about other cases too and I think you know within about 30 or 45 minutes or so we identified seven or eight Houston murders that he was talking about and knew that he committed because we've been studying all these cases and had it charted them and everything and so you know we knew he was telling the truth. It's gonna be bad and we can't speculate on any number but this is gonna be a start.

31:08Back at police headquarters Watts divulges details of more murders. People asking him in the police. He was amazing how he he never got the details of one case mixed up with the other. He said I killed a girl left her beside a dumpster over you know on such and such a street. Of course from the center we heard dumpster girl in the street and you know we knew what case she is talking about. That was 20-year-old Elena Semander. Tell us he strangled a girl he's like he hit Margaret Foster in the throat and you know crushed her larynx. 25-year-old Elizabeth Montgomery was stabbed in the heart. She was able to stumble away and go to her apartment. Of course the wound was mortal and you know she was dead before they get paramedics there and a couple hours later he

32:09killed Susan Wolf. He saw her leaving a grocery story followed her home and she was approaching her apartment with bags of groceries. Multiple stab wounds I think he stabbed her seven or eight times. On this same night the woman that killed a woman or a woman that happened that same night. Sometimes Watts attacked more than once in a day. 20-year-old Michelle Mede was drowned in her bathtub. Only hours before Watts tried to kill Laurie Lister. We knew he'd drove around all night long every night. We were trying to figure out what triggered him to pick a certain bit and so we just asked him.

33:21I think I'm looking at Laurie. But we knew that was a bunch of bull because most of his victims were two three o'clock in the morning or later. He couldn't see the eyes and a lot of him he was following their car. You know my mind I think he just drives around to a little bomb goes off his head and when it does he just picks out a victim. And there were more confessions. Phyllis Tam was choked her body hung from a tree. Emily Laquois just 14 was on her way to her waitress in job when she was strangled. Anna LaDay was stabbed after attending a party in her honor. Linda Tilly was attacked and then drowned in her apartment swimming pool. And Yolanda Grasia was stabbed to death on her own front lawn. He and all Watts confesses to 13 murders.

34:22The calming thread in the Watts case is that all of his killings were fueled by fantasy. He killed thousands of times in his mind. He rehearsed these killings and then he went out to find someone who fit his psychological profile. When I was working on the story I would drive around to all the places where bodies had been found and you just get this sense of the vastness of the city and how he just was a predator on the freeways. He was just like a shark trolling for prey. As the depth of Watts's depravity is revealed controversy grows over the immunity deal. It's not something I would have done. I just can't see myself doing that.

35:25What they don't understand is every one of these cases that Watts confessed to. There was no witnesses. There was no evidence. If Watts hadn't confessed to him, they'd still be in the unclear status. And family members would be wondered, you know, who did it and why and whatever. Watts dehumanized his victims. They were no more important to him. In a piece of discarded paper. He had no emotional connection to the rest of the world around him. Now people say anybody who does that has to be crazy. Corn Watts was not mad. He was bad. Three years after witnessing the murder of Helen Dutcher, Joe Foy sees Watts on TV. I had the volume down and the stereo on and I was just watching the picture and I seen a black man being led into a courtroom and as soon as they walked him through the door.

36:28I just, oh my god, that's the man that killed that woman in a fur and day. Once again, Foy contacts Furndale police. I call numerous times. Aren't you guys going to do anything about this? Aren't you guys going to do anything about this? And it was always no more satisfied, no more satisfied. And the very last phone call I got was Mr. Foy put it to bed. Just put it to bed. In September 1982, a judge rules the bathwater in Laurie Lister's case is considered a deadly weapon and sentences Coral Watts to 60 years in prison for attempted murder. It is my suggestion to test the problem for it. The thing is you so deep into the front of the picture to let the pipes of law continue. And that you serve Lee and Karen for the 60 years. Do you think justice has been served? Of course not. Let me just assume.

37:28I'm lamented. I just felt like I was furious. I felt it was unfair in my just. But for Houston prosecutors, it was the best possible outcome. They had cleared 13 unsolved murders and taken a serial killer off the streets. It would appear that Coral Watts would never kill again. After confessing to 13 murders, Coral Watts is sent away to a Texas penitentiary for what seems like a life sentence. If he survives his 60 years behind bars, you'll be 88 years old when he gets

38:30out. A serial killer is off the streets. But investigators can't help but wonder what secrets are locked away within. I said to him, Coral, I haven't got enough fingers and toes to count the amount of people you have killed. And he looked around and said there are not enough fingers and toes in this room. And there were four of us in here. Years went by. He goes into prison. Everybody just kind of dropped it. I forgot about it. He's not really written about much for 15 years. But then Harriet Summender, mother of one of the victims, makes a frightening discovery. I found out that he was up for parole. He was classified non-violent. So he was in the parole system. She alerts Andy Khan, the mayor's crime victim director in Houston,

39:38who calls the prison. I called Harriet back and I said parole is the least of your problems. Under Texas law, he must be released somewhere around the year 2006. No offense or buts. In 1987, Watts had appealed the deadly weapons charge against him, saying it was never part of his plea bargain. The court ruled in his favor and his status was changed to a nonviolent offender. We had a law that was crafted to alleviate overcrowding in prison called the mandatory release law. That made Watts eligible for good time credits, which would only expedite his release. Basically, he was achieving good time at a rate of three days for every day served. He would have served 24 flat calendar years, which is actually less than two years for every Houston area homicide victim that he murdered. I knew nothing about good time. Oh, that was a shock to learn about good time.

40:43Did you just wake up in the morning, you get three days taken off your sentence every day? We wanted the governor's office to form a committee of the best legal minds of this state and see if there was any other possible solution other than release. But we couldn't get anywhere. We were just barking and barking and everybody pretty much told us that the two baddies coming out, there's nothing you can do about it. Furious, Harriet Sumander launches a campaign to abolish the mandatory release law. She succeeds, but it's a hollow victory. They couldn't make the law retroactive to include the Watts case, so it didn't change anything for me. With Watts' release now definite, Harriet Sumander and Andy Khan organized a memorial and called to action in 2002. So my honor to be up here and see that we remember the families.

41:50We couldn't believe it. Families of the victims came from Boston, from Washington State, Colorado, or how we were just stunned. After we did the memorial ceremony and called action, it's things just spiraled, media wise. It got picked up by the Associated Press and I got contacted by Donna Pendergast at that time with the Michigan Attorney General's Office. And apparently Michigan, like most people in the country, was unaware that Corolla gene Watts was going to be released. If you're going to enter into a plea bargain, you have to have your teas crossed and your eyes started. And when I realized how it all evolved and how it ended up, that he was in this position where he was scheduled for release, it was really horrifying. But there's still one last chance to keep Watts off the streets. Try him on another murder case.

42:52The state of Michigan picks up the ball and begins searching their files for any unsolved case that could be tied to Watts. We looked at primarily stabbing strangulations of there was evidence that would be suitable for testing for DNA or other type of evidence that could link the case to a suspect. Then we submitted the evidence to the lab. We kept getting calls from Texas, Andy Khan, kept calling and saying, have you come up with anything yet? And it was always, we're still looking, Andy, we're still looking. But pressure was building because obviously the day release date was getting closer. Then in January 2004, two years before Watts' schedule to be released, Michigan's Attorney General Mike Cox appeals to the public for any information about Corolla Watts' crimes. What we're trying to do here in Michigan is do all we

43:53can to make sure that when May 8th 2006 comes along, that we have a charge to serve him with. Very quickly, where should people call if they have any information they think it's relevant? I'm sitting there. You idiots. What about the Furndale murder? How come you guys aren't calling me on the Furndale murder? Joe Foy calls the Michigan Attorney General's office. And finally, someone listens to him. He was lucid, he was coherent, and he seemed to know what he was talking about. I called Lieutenant Hanger back immediately and said he's not a wacko bell. I think we've got something here. Voice testimony and composite sketch are just what the state needs. I'm directing my prosecutors to swear out a warrant this afternoon, charging Corolla Jean Watts with premeditated first degree murder for the brutal killing of Helen Nate Dutcher.

44:55No Hollywood writer could have ever dreamed this scenario up that way in the world. You had to be divine intervention. Somebody was actually all looking for the good guys for one. T.