Beth Mrozinski, Helen Dutcher’s niece, gave a victim’s impact statement at the hearing. She did not mince words. She first told Watts that he should be a man and admit to all of the murders he ever committed so that the victims’ families could have some peace.
“Watts”—she directed her ire at the serial killer—“you have taken away and brutalized our loved ones. Our hope is that you never again see the light of day outside of prison. Hell is not even a good enough place for you.”
Coral Watts took the time to speak at his sentencing
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hearing. He calmly denied the charge against him. “I did not kill Helen Dutcher. That’s one murder I did not do.” Watts informed the judge that he planned to appeal the sentence. He also declared he hoped that Helen Dutcher’s real killer would be discovered one day. “If I did it, I’d confess to it,” he calmly stated.
Judge Kuhn sentenced Coral Eugene Watts to life in prison in the state of Michigan. Watts would not be returned to Texas.
The response to Watts’s conviction and sentence was fast and overwhelmingly positive. Joseph Foy, the key witness for the prosecution, sighed. “I’m glad it’s over, not for me, but for the families.” Foy did not have many kind words for the man who tormented his dreams for the past twenty-five years. “He’ll rot in prison until God comes and takes his soul to hell. He’s a selfish coward and what he did that night will be with me every day until I die.”
On Thursday, January 27, 2005, Harriett Semander sat at a white-clothed table next to Andy Kahan and five other individuals. Their table was surrounded by thirty to forty similar tables, also filled with well-dressed individuals. The people at the other tables were there to honor Semander.
The occasion was the Crime Stoppers of Houston 2005 Annual Meeting at the plush Warwick Hotel, located in the Museum District. Keri Whitlow and Dianne Clements were also in attendance; so were dozens of judges, police officers, attorneys, and other concerned citizens. They were all there to honor the tiny seventy-one- year-old mother who had lost her child nearly twenty-three years earlier.
Crime Stoppers were there to honor Harriett Semander with the Leon Goldstein Award for the “citizen who made a significant contribution in fighting crime in our community.”
After a presentation to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Robbery Division for their contribution, Master of Ceremonies Dave Ward—a longtime fixture on the
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local news from ABC affiliate KTRK-TV Channel 13 (the only local news station that bothered to send a reporter to Michigan to cover the Helen Dutcher murder trial)—awarded Harriett Semander for her efforts in a nearly twenty-three-year-old ordeal to make sure Coral Eugene Watts was finally charged and put away for murder.
The always modest and gracious Semander walked up to the podium and stood next to Ward. She looked out at the gathering of appreciative Housto-nians and, in a barely audible voice, thanked the audience and Crime Stoppers.
Semander continued, “I dedicate this award to my oldest daughter, Elena”—Semander began to weep, but forged on—“and to the other thirteen women killed by Coral Eugene Watts.” She then recited the entire list of Watts’s murder victims. She then dedicated the award to Watts’s surviving victims.
Semander continued stating that Watts’s conviction “was the ultimate in grassroots achievement. I was told for many, many years that there was nothing we could do to stop it from happening (Watts’s manda-tory release). Watts’s conviction is proof that you should never doubt what a small group of people can accomplish.”
The audience sat in rapt attention. “There are no coincidences,” Semander continued, “in Watts’s case because I believe all things come together through the glory of God.” Semander added that it was through God’s power that “something good came out of something evil. When Coral Watts was sentenced to life in prison, heaven and earth united to celebrate the victims.”
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Semander concluded, “There is an old saying that ‘the dead aren’t buried until justice is served.’ Now our loved ones rest in peace because the boogeyman has been put away.”
Coral Eugene Watts: serial killer as pop culture icon? Judy Wolf Krueger’s statement about Coral Watts being less known than Ted Bundy or Son of Sam is a curious fact in this day and age of mass-media proliferation. It was inevitable that the horrific tale of America’s most prolific serial killer would finally seep into America’s consciousness. Or would it?
Coral Watts’s tale was finally co-opted by the main-stream entertainment industry in the form of two network television top-rated shows:
Crossing Jordan
and
Cold Case
.
Sort of co-opted, that is.
In the April 10, 2005, episode of NBC’s
Crossing Jordan
, entitled “Locard’s Exchange,” Ted Shackelford played a serial killer who was to be set free from prison despite having killed fourteen women because of a plea bargain. When asked why he killed a victim, the serial killer replied, “She had evil in her eyes.” He later tells lead character Jordan Cavanaugh (played by Jill Hennessy) that “it would have been because they had evil in their eyes. Like you.”
In the May 1, 2005, episode of CBS’s
Cold Case
, entitled
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Corey Mitchell
“Creatures of the Night,” Barry Bostwick also played a serial killer who was to be set free from prison despite having killed fourteen women because of a plea bargain. One major difference between the fictional representations and the real-life Coral Watts is obvious: Ted Shackelford and Barry Bostwick are both white.
A trial date for Coral Watts in the Gloria Steele murder was set for August 23, 2005, after this book went to the publisher. On Friday, May 27, 2005, circuit judge William G. Schma ruled that Watts’s confessions and information about his previous murders would be inadmissible.
Watts’s latest defense attorney, Jeff Getting, asked the judge to dismiss the case against Watts. According to Getting, “The judge’s decision leaves the prosecution without a winnable case. There is insufficient evidence for a finding of guilt.”
Judge Schma declared he would rule on the request at a later date.
Sharon Watts, Coral Watts’s younger sister, has no idea why the state of Michigan wants to try her brother for another murder.
“It makes me wonder what people’s true motive is,” Sharon wondered aloud in an interview with the author on June 3, 2005. “Is it truly do you want to understand what’s going on because, obviously, he has some psyche [
sic
] problems. He’s been peeked into this problem, this schizophrenia, displacement kind of thing, and, you know, I really don’t see where anybody has tried to help him. Or other people with schizophrenia and other displacement disorders, but they’re real quick to say he’s a ‘monster’ and we should put him away.”
EVIL EY ES 425
When addressing the Gloria Steele trial, Sharon Watts professed, “I just don’t understand the point. I really don’t understand the point. You brought this guy back who was already doing God-knows-what for whatever and you think he probably wouldn’t have gotten out of jail anyway, and to me it’s just a thing that Texas decides it’s spent too much money on this guy who originally originated from Michigan.” Sharon Watts continued, “Okay, let’s ship him back to Michigan and make it Michigan’s problem.
“So now they take him and they grandstand him on the media for all they can get. As far as I’m concerned, the evidence that they had [in the Helen Dutcher trial] was nothing anyway. It was just this big thing that they had down in Texas that convicted him, as far as I’m concerned.”
Watts became animated. “Okay, he did that! Fine! How come that’s not the end of it? Why do you, whatcha gonna do? Take him all around Michigan and just display him?”
Sharon Watts continued to talk about her brother. “He’s really not . . . well, my definition of a monster because he does have a conscience. However, he does have difficulty putting certain things in certain places and perspective. You know, that goes back to the help.
“He should be able to recognize some of those issues now. But he really doesn’t. We talk with him and he still does things that are totally inappropriate and then he will have to think about. When I say he ‘does things,’ you know, one of his oldest, dearest friends called and got in touch with him and it just so happen, she got shot. Well, when she told him that she got shot, he thought it was the funniest thing. He’s just not a normal person!”
It is for that reason that Harriett Semander will never let down her guard. Her fear that another crack may
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Corey Mitchell
appear in the judicial system is what drives her to make sure that the man who killed her daughter will remain imprisoned until he takes his final breath. It is the reason why she will never burn all of the materials and notes and articles about her daughter Elena. She does not want to see this abnormal man hurt another human being ever again.
For case updates, additional photographs, and more, please go to: www.coreymitchell.com
For author’s blog please go to: www
.myspace.com/corey mitchell
A portion of the royalties from
Evil Eyes
will be donated to Crimestoppers by the author.
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