Had it been included, Watts would probably not have lived to see the light of day. Since it was not included, Watts had to be considered a nonviolent offender and, as a result, should have been eligible for mandatory good-time behavior credits, the prisoner argued.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals heard Watts’s plea this time. One of the main reasons they elected to do so was because in 1987 the court had begun to enforce the deadly-weapon notification during all sentencing hearings. In 1982, when Watts was arrested and convicted, prosecutors were not required to inform defendants that they planned on including a deadly-weapon charge, thereby elevating a defendant to violent-offender status. In 1987, the courts decided in the case
Ex Parte Patterson
, 740 S.W.2d 766 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987) (en banc), that such inclusion was pertinent and necessary to the understanding of the sentencing by the defendant. All mentions of uses of deadly weapons now must be included.
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On March 1, 1989, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals handed down its opinion on Watts’s petition. The court determined that “the indictment in this cause made no reference to any use of a weapon. The transcrip-tion of the plea proceedings clearly reveals that whenever the parties entered into the plea bargain agreement, it was not the intention of the prosecuting attorney to have the trial judge enter an affirmative finding in the judgment.” The opinion added that Judge Shaver “found that no notice was given that the State would seek a finding of the use of a deadly weapon.”
In conclusion, the court of appeals granted the relief sought by Watts. It also ordered that the following lan-guage be deleted from the original record: “. . . and the Court further found that a deadly weapon, to-wit, the water in the bathtub, was used during the commission of this offense.”
The decision by the court of appeals would have incredible ramifications. Primary among them, Coral Watts’s prisoner status would automatically go from a violent offender to nonviolent offender. Subsequently he no longer had to wait twenty years before his good-time behavior credit kicked in. The tolling began retroac-tively from the day after his prison-escape attempt back in 1983. As a result Watts would have his first parole hearing on January 15, 1990.
Miraculously, America’s worst serial killer would be eligible to walk the streets again one day. He could become the first-known confessed male serial killer ever to be released from prison.
The response to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision was one of outrage. Judge Shaver, who included the bathtub-water-as-a-deadly-weapon proviso in the original sentencing, declared, “Any member of the Board of Pardons and Paroles who votes to let him out ought to be charged as a party in his next murder.” District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. had a more juvenile response: “Phooey!” Lori Lister, Watts’s victim in the attack in question, stated, “I don’t think he should ever be released. I wouldn’t have any trouble watching him die.”
Widower Larry Fossi was also outraged. He decided to fight fire with fire. Fossi, on behalf of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, filed an amicus curiæ brief, also known as a friend-of-the-court brief, wherein a person with a strong interest in a case—but not a party to the proceedings—may request to file a brief expressing their beliefs. He urged the court to deny Watts’s petition. Fossi’s brief essentially attempted to dismantle the court’s rendering of the
Patterson
decision.
According to William Murchison in the October 31, 1988, edition of the
Texas Lawyer,
Fossi’s brief stated that “the Texas Constitution creates no right to parole, nor
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does it envision any role for the judiciary in parole matters.” Also, there is “a century of settled law that militates against”
Patterson
. Fossi added that “the Texas legislature by no means intended to create any liberty interest or other constitutionally cognizable right in parole or good conduct time.”
Fossi concluded that the court of criminal appeals decision “is a mistaken exercise of judicial power, unteth-ered by any deference to the legislative branch. It should be expressly overruled.” Almost everyone involved in the case, as well as the public opinion, was in total agreement.
Everyone, that is, except for the criminal court of appeals.
William Murchison added, “The Court of Criminal Appeals should get its act together and stop making up new constitutional protections for murderers. The court clev-erly is using the Texas, rather than the federal, Constitution to avoid federal review of its decisions. The judges apparently deluded themselves that the people of Texas won’t notice.”
Fossi’s arguments, as well as the opinion of the Texas citizenry, fell on deaf ears.
The authorities in Michigan had also kept an eye on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision in regard to Coral Watts. “It’s very frustrating,” claimed Harper Woods police chief Gary Ford. “We know he did it,” he said in reference to the murder of Lena Bennett. Ford’s frustration was because “we can’t extradite him even if he is paroled because we don’t have any physical evidence connecting him to the crime. No prints or witnesses, but we know he did it.”
Western Michigan University lieutenant Wesley
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Carpenter expressed a similar frustration. “We believe he killed a coed by the name of Gloria Steele.”
The only people in Texas that could be bothered to do something about keeping Coral Watts behind bars were the friends and family of the Semanders. Led by Elena’s mother, Harriett, the Semanders set about distributing petitions that opposed Watts’s potential release. The petition was addressed to Harry B. Keene, chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. It stated, “As a confessed serial killer, he (Watts) is a continued threat to women and he should be made to serve the full sixty-year sentence imposed by the court.” The Semanders sought out the signatures of Houstonians who did not want a serial killer roaming their streets. The signed petitions would then be included in Watts’s parole packet for any possible future parole hearings.
Family friend Gwen Pratt, a University of Houston senior, the same school that Elena attended, pitched in as well. She helped organize a petition drive at the University of Houston’s University Center and the University Center Satellite to collect signatures.
On January 15, 1990, Watts had his first hearing before the parole board. Board Members John Escobedo and Kenneth Coleman heard Watts’s plea for freedom. They were fully prepared with all of the necessary documen-tation in the Watts case, including the confessions and details of Watts’s murder confessions that Ruben M. Torres showed little concern for, back in 1982.
The decision was relatively simple for Escobedo and Coleman. They denied Watts’s request for parole for
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the following reasons: (a) parole not in the best interest of society and/or inmate at this time; (b) nature and seriousness of offense(s); (c) use of weapon in current offense; and (d) “assaultiveness” in the instant offense, or in past offenses. Apparently, the board members lis-tened to the public’s desires. Furthermore, the inclusion of the deadly weapon ran counter to the court of criminal appeals’ decision.
The parole board decided that Watts’s next parole hearing would take place in December 1993.
“We’re so glad he won’t be getting out,” stated Pratt. “Not yet, anyway.”
It was that sentiment, that everything was nowhere close to complete, that drove Harriett Semander. Even after Watts’s parole denial, she and daughter JoAnna were still out collecting signatures. They were determined to make sure that Coral Eugene Watts would
never
be released from prison to terrorize and murder young women again.
In 1991, Coral Watts was transferred from the psychi-atric ward of the Texas Department of Corrections Ellis II Unit in Huntsville, Texas, to the Clements Unit in Amarillo, Texas. Clements is located on Spur 591, just east of Loop 335. The high-security prison houses all levels of criminals, over thirty-five hundred of them. Clements also institutes a Program for Aggressive Mentally Ill Offenders and also provides an inpatient mental-health treatment program.
On May 13, 1992, Andy Kahan was named as the head of the Crime Victims Assistance of the Mayor’s Office. The prior year, according to Kahan, “crime was the number one issue in Houston.” Mayoral candidate Bob Lanier met with several Houston-based victims’ groups, such as Parents of Murdered Children and Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), and asked them how he could help if elected mayor. They suggested someone to work out of the mayor’s office to assist victims of crime.
Lanier won the election and immediately formed a transition subcommittee. Kahan was placed on the com-
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mittee, along with Harriett Semander and Vera Cronin, of MADD. They were asked to write a proposal for the position and Kahan was selected by the mayor to fill that role. Andy Kahan had worked with several people from the different advocacy groups and had developed a reputation as a straight shooter, which was quite unusual at the time for someone in the Houston criminal justice system.
Mayor Lanier had no idea what kind of monster he created.
One year later, in May 1993, Harriett Semander was notified of Watts’s second parole hearing. The hearing would take place in September of that same year. Once again, the steadfast mother was prepared to put up a fight. She immediately wrote a letter in which she demanded a hearing of Watts’s victims, which was her right under state law. This time around she had the backing and support of Houston mayor Bob Lanier, Judge Doug Shaver, and District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr., and Andy Kahan.
Kahan believed the Texas Legislature in Austin would also support Harriett Semander’s cause: “We can go up [to Austin] anytime, not just for the hearing. They don’t want to let anyone out if it’s not in the best interest of society.” Holmes proclaimed, “We’re not going to roll over.” Holmes believed that the thirty-nine-year-old Watts would continue to be a threat if released from prison: “He is a continuing danger.”
Semander wanted to make sure that the parole board members had a fully painted picture of their potential parolee. “The man is in there only for a burglary,” Semander stated, exasperated. “I’m afraid he’s going to look pretty good to the members. They’ll think he’s rehabil-itated. It’s important to let them know that he’s not.”
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As Watts’s parole hearing drew nearer, Semander and Kahan cranked up the media machine. They were geared up for a showdown with Watts. Semander informed the press that “when this guy is released, he will make Kenneth McDuff look like Santa Claus.”
McDuff was a convicted triple murderer on death row who was released due to prison overcrowding in October 1989. Within three days McDuff went on a second killing spree, which lasted much longer. McDuff was eventually captured and convicted of murder. He was suspected of killing at least seven young women, and was, at one time, a prime suspect in the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders of four young ladies at an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop. “It is insane,” Semander punctuated, “to be reviewing this case for parole.
“There is nothing we can do about him being released in fourteen years,” Semander noted, regarding the fact that she learned, from Kahan, that Watts would receive a mandatory release under Texas law in 2006, “but we can stop his impending release.” Semander attempted to reach out to her fellow Texans: “We want to get the public involved. Police officers, students, everyone who is concerned about a killer being released.”
Semander seemed emotionally drained from yet another legal battle to keep her daughter’s killer incarcerated. “It drives me batty, but, in a way, it keeps my mind off what happened, because I’m so mad at the criminal justice system.” She sighed and her shoulders slumped as she said, “When this is over, maybe then I can sit down and cry.”
Kahan, on behalf of the city of Houston’s mayor’s office, was there to lend support. “This is happening in Texas,” the no-nonsense advocate pointed out, “so you
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never say never. We want to call everyone’s attention to what is going on.”
Semander and Kahan drafted another form letter that urged the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles not to consider Watts for parole.
On September 3, 1993, Watts had his second hearing before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. This time he was reviewed by board members Terri Schnorrenberg and Mae Jackson. Again, like the first time, Watts was denied parole for the following reasons: (a) nature and seriousness of offense(s); (b) involvement with a controlled substance and/or inhalants; (c) repetition of similar offenses; (d) use of weapon in current offense; (e) “assaultiveness” in the instant offense, or in past offenses; and (f) alcohol involvement in the instant offense and/or alcohol abuse history.
It would be three more years before Watts’s next parole hearing. In those intervening years, Andy Kahan and Harriett Semander fought hard to try and overturn the mandatory-release laws implemented by the state of Texas in 1977. The law was enacted to relieve overcrowded prisons. Kahan and Semander were unable to rattle the Legislature awake enough to reverse the course of action.
On October 23, 1996, Coral Watts had his third hearing before the parole board. Leading up to the hearing, Andy Kahan continued to pound the bully pulpit with support from Harriett Semander.
Kahan focused his discussion on the issue of mandatory release. Kahan labeled Watts the “poster boy” for the abolishment of the mandatory-release law, implemented by the state of Texas in 1977. The victims’ advocate also
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believed it was ludicrous that Watts would even be considered for parole. Kahan also made a dire prediction: “Unless we do something about the mandatory-release laws, he will walk out [of prison] within the next decade.” Parole board members Victor Rodriguez and Bennie Elmore made sure Coral Watts did not walk out of prison that year. They denied Watts’s third bid for parole and gave the simple answer of “criminal record and/or nature of offense(s).”