Watts had insisted that his confessions be handled by homicide Detective Tom Ladd, a big, blond bear of a man whose brother Jim is also a Houston homicide detective. Tom Ladd had played Watts' "baby sitter" when Bostock and his partner had tried to get Watts to talk after his arrest. "They'd play good cop, bad cop," Ladd says. "Coral knew the techniques; he'd just shrug and say, 'I don't know what you're talking about.' Then they'd leave and I'd watch him. Coral and I always got along, because I wasn't trying to get him to confess."
The sessions, attended by Tom and Jim Ladd, Watts' attorneys and two other detectives, began each day with Tom Ladd asking Watts a vague but leading question. The first day began this way: "Do you remember a woman walking her dogs?"
In August 1982, Watts confessed to the murders of (pictured from left to right each row) Jeanne Clyne (October 31, 1979), Linda Tilley (September 5, 1981), Elizabeth Montgomery (September 12, 1981), Susan Wolf (September 13, 1981), Margaret Fossi (January 17, 1982), Elena Semander (February 7, 1982), Emily La Qua (March 21, 1982), Anna Ledet (March 27, 1982) and Michele Maday (May 23, 1982). Watts also confessed to killing (not pictured) Phyllis Tamm (January 4, 1982), Yolanda Gracia (April 15, 1982), Carrie Mae Jefferson (April 16, 1982) and Suzanne Searles (April 25, 1982). He tried but failed to kill Julia Sanchez (January 17, 1982), Alice Martell (January 29, 1982), Patty Johnson (January 30, 1982), Glenda Kirby (March 27, 1982) and roommates Lori Lister and Melinda Aguilar (May 23, 1982).
If you see this man, run like hell: Coral Eugene Watts in a recent prison photo.
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Watts nodded and then described in detail his slaying of Elizabeth Montgomery, followed by the murder of Susan Wolf. As they continued, Ladd realized that Watts was confessing to crimes they never could have connected to him, including one another detective had insisted was a bizarre suicide.
Watts never seemed upset, though Tom Ladd frequently had to tell him, "Speak up, Coral." After discussing several murders, the Ladds would take Watts driving in the 100-plus-degree heat to the general area where a crime took place. "We didn't want some dickhead saying we were just trying to dump cases on this poor little black boy," Tom Ladd says. Watts would spot a landmark and then lead detectives exactly where each attack occurred. Tom Ladd was amazed at the accuracy of his memory.
"He came across as articulate and very smart," says Tom Ladd, who sat in the back seat with Watts while his brother drove. "He'd never get the details of one murder mixed up with another."
But when Tom Ladd pressed him to tell why he chose one victim over another, Watts surprised him. "She had evil eyes," Watts said. "I could see her eyes, and they were evil."
Over and over, he repeated it. Instead of his old explanation--that it made him feel good--Watts had learned to blame his victims.
Tom Ladd believed that Watts' need to kill was sexual, the moment of a woman's death his mental ejaculation. But some murders were more bizarre than others. As he discussed the murder of Carrie Mae Jefferson, the only black woman he is known to have killed in Houston, Watts described how hard she fought him and how he'd stabbed her twice on each side of her neck before burying her in a deep grave.
"Why did you stab her in the neck?" Ladd asked.
"For the blood," Watts said.
"You wanted her to bleed?" Ladd asked. "Why?"
"I'll tell you later," Watts said. But he never did. He would lead police to Jefferson's grave, however.
Watts confessed to 13 murders and five attempted murders in Harris and Galveston counties, including the murder of Tilley in Austin and Jeanne Clyne near Detroit, supplying details only the killer would have known. His assault on Patty Johnson, 19, on January 30, 1982, in Galveston, had led to the conviction and life sentence of a black ex-con misidentified by Johnson as the man who slashed her throat. After Watts' confession, the man was freed.
On September 3, 1982, Watts appeared in court to be sentenced under the terms of his plea bargain. To ensure that he would spend as much time in prison as possible, Judge Shaver entered a finding that the water in Lister's bathtub constituted a deadly weapon. The finding restricted the parole board in counting "good conduct time" toward Watts' parole eligibility. (Good time--days off an inmate's sentence earned by good behavior, working and attending classes--is used to maintain order.)
Shaver ordered a transcript of the hearing sent to the Texas Department of Corrections "to consider if and when anyone in the future, whether it be 20 years, 30 years from now or 40 years from now, if anyone is ever so foolish, in this court's opinion, to allow you to walk upon the streets again until you have completed the entire 60 years in the Texas Department of Corrections."
On the Inside
Torso stripped bare and coated with Jheri Curl hair gel, Watts struggled to slip through a small window while a makeshift dummy snoozed in his cell. His slither to freedom just a few months after his arrival at the Coffield Unit near Palestine failed when Watts got stuck.
Watts had arrived in prison affecting a "wild-eyed" look that seemed designed to keep other prisoners at bay. In September 1987, Watts tried a different tactic: a handwritten appeal of his sentence for "berglarey [sic] attempt murder," alleging that Houston police threatened to take away his daughter "and place her in a home," that his attorneys and the prosecutor promised he would not be sentenced to an "aggravated" crime and that "mandatory supervision would not be a part of his sentence."
Watts' appeal had no legal basis. The crime was not aggravated, according to the state's legal definition. And the "mandatory supervision" statute, passed in 1977 to alleviate overcrowding, requires the early release of a nonviolent inmate when his time served plus good time equals his sentence. Though the law was rescinded in 1987, inmates sentenced from 1977 to 1987 remain its beneficiary.
