In 1997, it became apparent that the work of Harriett Semander and Andy Kahan was beginning to pay off. Texas senator Jerry Patterson (R-Pasadena) took notice of the state’s mandatory release laws. When he spoke of Coral Watts, he used some of the exact phraseology of both Semander and Kahan. “The poster child for ending mandatory release is Coral Eugene Watts,” Patterson angrily informed the press. “Under mandatory release, Coral Eugene Watts will likely be released. . . . He’ll be fifty years old, still a maniac, still a threat, and still likely to kill more women.”
Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) echoed Patterson’s sentiments. “That’s nuts,” the senator exclaimed about the formula the Texas Department of Corrections used to calculate good-time behavior. “It must be stopped this session.”
Unlike many politicians who merely spout off what they believe their electorate wants to hear, Patterson and Whitmire actually attempted to do something about the problem. The senators introduced a bill that would actually attempt to force prisoners to serve the full time they were sentenced to upon conviction. Automatic release would not be granted to a prisoner before their actual
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time had been served. In other words, sixty years would mean sixty years.
The legislature had attempted to curtail this problem back in 1995, when a law was passed that gave the Board of Pardons and Paroles veto power. The problem with the Watts case, however, was that the law only covered prisoners who were convicted after September 1, 1996. Watts was convicted in 1982; therefore, the law did not apply to him.
State Representative Peggy Hamric (R-Houston) joined Patterson and Whitmire in drafting an additional bill that gave lawmakers the ability to veto any mandatory releases for prisoners convicted pre–September 1, 1996. Governor George W. Bush (R) fast-tracked the bill and declared it to be an emergency.
One of the main reasons for the expediency of the bill was the startling statistics from the previous year. In 1994, there were approximately sixteen thousand inmates released from Texas prisons due to mandatory supervision. More than nine hundred of those were convicted sex offenders.
On November 19, 1999, Coral Watts attended his fourth parole hearing. As had happened three times prior, Watts was denied parole. This time by parole board members James Bush and Rissie Owens. The reason for the rejection? “Criminal record and/or nature of offense(s).”
One month later, something offensive surfaced sur-rounding the case. A personal letter written by Coral Watts appeared for sale on the Internet auction site eBay. Harriett Semander was appalled by the sale. She contacted Andy Kahan to discuss the situation.
According to the
Double-Tongued Word Wrester: A Grow-ing Dictionary of Old and New Words from the Fringes of En-glish,
the term “murderabilia” first publicly appeared in a January 19, 1994,
Chicago Sun-Times
article entitled “The Undersee World of Pop Culture,” written by Jeff Huebner. The article focused on unique collectibles, in the Chicago area, such as posters, underground comics, and Tshirts. It also talked about a grimmer subcate-gory: serial killer artwork—specifically, the infamous “Pogo the Clown” paintings by notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted and executed for the murders of at least thirty-three young men, several who were buried in a crawl space underneath his home. Such artwork was deemed murderabilia.
Many imprisoned serial killers have a lot of free time at their disposal. As a result they like to use their hands in a different way than they had out in the free world.
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Some write; some do crafts; others draw or paint. There have been several well-known serial killers who enjoy artistic endeavors. Among them, Richard Ramirez, aka “the Night Stalker,” the brutal pseudo-Satanic murderer from the early 1980s, in Los Angeles, California, who was responsible for at least thirteen deaths. Ramirez likes to illustrate pictures of the Devil, as well as pornographic renderings of his favorite sexual fantasies. Gacy was known for painting extensive watercolor paintings of “Pogo the Clown,” a character he created and dressed up as to entertain little children at birthday parties. Gacy’s artwork is probably the most well-known, as it has been purchased by several celebrities, including actor Johnny Depp.
Another serial killer turned “artist” was Houston’s own Elmer Wayne Henley. The killer of at least twenty-seven young men and boys had parlayed his notoriety into sales of his artwork, which included everything from nude forms to placid sunflowers to interpretations of his crimes. Henley and Kahan both appear in the docu-mentary
Collectors
about the controversy of a Houston art gallery displaying Henley’s paintings.
Other forms of murderabilia include clothes from the killers, locks of hair, even the toenails of brutal serial killer Lawrence “Pliers” Bittaker, a lovely individual who, along with his buddy, Roy Norris, kidnapped and tortured at least five young women in the South Bay region of southern California during 1979.
Possibly the most common form of murderabilia, which is easily accessible, is correspondence, or handwritten letters, from serial killers. The former Hollywood Museum of Death used to display correspondence from numerous serial killers, including Henry Lee Lucas’s sidekick Ottis Toole, Ramirez, Gacy, and more. The late
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true-crime author Dana Holliday used to correspond with several murderers, including Douglas Clark, aka “the Sunset Strip Slayer,” and David Berkowitz, aka “Son of Sam.”
Coral Watts claimed he used to write letters to several people outside of prison. He had no idea that a cottage industry had sprung up around serial killers and that his signature was considered a cherished find in some circles.
When Harriett Semander learned that a two-page, handwritten letter signed by her daughter’s killer was up for sale, she went ballistic. She again teamed up with Andy Kahan to put a stop to the sale of murderabilia.
Ironically, Semander and Kahan had an unusual ally in their fight: Coral Watts. Watts managed to read an article in the
Houston Chronicle,
written by Mark Smith, that detailed the auction of Watts’s letter and decided to contact the reporter directly.
In a neat, handwritten, page-and-a-half letter, dated December 12, 1999, Watts thanked Smith for bringing the matter to his attention. He misspelled several words in the letter: “Mr. Smith. I had no idea that this was being done. I have bee in corraspondance with several people out there in the world, but I did not know this was happening.”
Watts surprisingly showed emotion for the families of his victims: “It greaves me to hear that is being done with my letters and art work. belive me when I say. I feel badly about what has happen. I would be just as up set as those familys. If it came to my attention that someone was making a profit off the death of one of my love ones in this manner.”
Watts stressed that he only wrote to individuals with whom he had had an understanding that they would not
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turn around and sell his writings. “Anyone that has done this,” he stressed, “has done this in defince of the understanding we had.”
He then wrote something that should have sent shivers up the spines of the death profiteers: “What I am asking of you to give me apalogy to all those afended. And if you could please send me the address and name or names of the individuals who has done such a shameful deed.”
Watts then attempted to take the high-and-mighty ground when he wrote, “This is a direct assault upon the dead and their living relatives, and a gross disrespect to my trust in that person to do what’s right.”
Watts then asked Smith if he would assist him in contacting eBay and putting a halt to the sale of his letters. Watts’s request began to turn more dark and unusual by the second page: “Some people will do anything for a small reward that will be gone in a twinking of an eye. Such people take their oaths as a means to deceive and betray those who put their trust in them. This type of person will sale their souls for a small profit. This is one reson the world is in the chaos it is in to day.”
He concluded with another plea to Smith: “Please! Get back with me on this. I must find out who this person is that has done such a hideous and dreadfull thing to my trust and to those who can longer defend for themselves.” Watts also wrote a similar, misspelled letter to Andy Kahan, dated January 15, 2000.
In the letter he spoke of “greedy fools” and “uncareing selfish people.”
Midway through the letter, Watts’s writing took an unusual turn, talking about death profiteers and corrupt public officials. “Mr. Kahan, I have learned from my dealing with people such as yourself. The State. That they
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can not be trusted. They mix truth with false hood. They lie, deieve, mislead and back stab. Some of you are more cruel and vicious then the crimals you hold in prison. And some of you belong in prison yourselves.”
Watts continued his rant: “Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing aganst you or the job you do. It has to do with the low down and dirty uncareing, conspireing terrorize-ing and controlling ways in which the State treat those under it’s supervison.” He then declared his stance against Kahan: “You may say, that you are not a part of that, but you are whether you admit it or not.”
But Kahan and public officials were not Watts’s only targets: “The news media is no better and sometimes worse. They decive by confuseing you with words, and knowledge. They use half truths to make there point.”
Watts then concluded with the chipper “Thank you for your help and concern, Coral E. Watts.”
Andy Kahan’s grassroots campaign to eliminate murderabilia from eBay reached a successful conclusion two weeks before the ABC news magazine
20/20
was scheduled to air a piece on the Internet auction sales of serial-killer-related merchandise. A press release was sent out by eBay that stated they would cease all sales of murderabilia. It was quite a victory for Andy Kahan and the families of murder victims.
Andy Kahan and Harriett Semander continued their relentless media campaign to bring the Coral Eugene Watts case before the public’s eye. Despite possibly murdering as many as eighty to one hundred women, Watts was relatively unknown.
Judy Wolf Krueger, Suzi Wolf’s older sister, was amazed at the lack of her sister’s killer’s notoriety amongst the American public. “Everybody knows about Ted Bundy and Son of Sam and all of the other serial killers of the past,” she declared. “And nobody knows about Coral Eugene Watts.
“It’s time.”
Indeed, Watts’s relative obscurity was unbelievable. If he did kill at least eighty people, Watts would have slaughtered more victims than Bundy, Gacy, and Dahmer combined. Yet, in less than four years, he would be free to walk the streets.
One of the grandest and most successful attempts to draw attention to the eventual release of Coral Eugene Watts, America’s most prolific serial killer, was named “A
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Call to Action,” conceived by Harriett Semander and Andy Kahan. It was a gathering of Watts’s victims’ surviving family members that took place on August 3, 2002, at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, the same church that Elena Semander attended, and where her personal memorial service was held after her death in 1982. It was nearly the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of Watts’s confessions of murder.
Harriett Semander once again led the charge. She, along with Andy Kahan, and Dianne Clements, president of Justice for All Alliance, a victims’ rights group, organized the memorial and made sure to contact as many media outlets as possible.
The success of the service went beyond their wildest imagination.
More than two hundred people showed up for the event, which was covered by several representatives of the local press. Most important, dozens of surviving family members and friends came to lend a face to their loved ones who were eradicated so savagely by Coral Watts.
Among those in attendance: Jane Montgomery, Elizabeth Montgomery’s mother, Keri Whitlow (formerly Murphy) and Lori Katt (formerly Bukowski), who were Suzi Wolf’s best friends, Harriett Semander and JoAnna Nicolaou, mother and sister of Elena Semander, Laura Allen, mother of Anna Ledet, Larry Fossi, husband of Meg Fossi, Elizabeth Young, mother of Emily LaQua, Marie O’Bryant, sister-in-law of Carrie Mae Jefferson, Lori Sword, best friend of Suzanne Searles, Beverly Searles, mother of Suzanne Searles, Maricela Gracia, niece of Yolanda Gracia, and Myra Gracia, daughter of Yolanda Gracia. Myra was only six months old at the time of her mother’s death.
Also in attendance were some key players in the case:
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retired police officer Don Schmidt, the man who arrested Watts, Ira L. Jones II, the assistant district attorney who came up with the plea bargain for Watts, Detective Jim Ladd, the officer who helped elicit Watts’s confessions, and survivor Lori Lister.
The gathering started off in a somber tone as people filtered into the church hallways. They ambled over toward several tables that were set up as memorials for the victims. For many, this was their first time to meet the other survivors. It was also the first time for them to learn more about the other victims’ lives.
They walked past tables decorated with attractive boards commemorating the women. One was entitled “In Memory of All Victims” and was decorated with cheer-ful, explosive-looking splashes of red, white, and blue. It was festooned with blue and white stars and tiny American flags. Another board was entitled “Angels in Heaven” and contained thirteen oversized red hearts; each one represented one of Coral Watts’s confessed-to victims.
Each participant would register at one of the tables and pick up a commemorative button showing their support. Another table was manned by a woman requesting signatures for a petition to keep Coral Eugene Watts behind bars. A poster board behind the volunteer was labeled with a bold black marker and entitled “Keep These Serial Killers in Jail. Please Sign These Petitions.” Prac-tically every person who showed up signed the petition. The beginning reception allowed the participants the opportunity to mingle and get to know one another. It also gave people time to look at the displays for the girls. Each tableau had photographs, letters, or keepsakes of the girls. Elizabeth Montgomery’s display had several pictures attached to a board, many that looked like professional modeling shots. There was also a photograph