Carl Eugene Watts (November 7, 1953 – September 21, 2007), dubbed the Sunday Morning Slasher, was an American serial killer who murdered numerous women and girls between 1974 and 1982. He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life imprisonment without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele.

Watts officially confessed to the murders of thirteen women but later claimed he had killed forty women and also implied that there were more than eighty victims in total. He would not confess outright to having committed these murders, however, because he did not want to be seen as a "mass murderer." Police consider Watts a suspect in ninety unsolved murders,

Early life and criminal history

Carl Eugene Watts was born on November 7, 1953, to Richard Eugene Watts and Dorothy Mae Young, both natives of Coalwood, West Virginia.

Watts, his sister and his mother frequently visited his maternal grandmother in Coalwood. In the rural region near his grandmother's home, Watts learned to hunt and skin rabbits with his grandfather, an activity he enjoyed. Watts later adopted the nickname "Coral," which was the southern pronunciation of his name, as a result of his passion for the Coalwood and the relatives who lived there. Watts reportedly had academic difficulties in Michigan but yet managed to earn decent grades.

When he was eight years old, Watts and his sister contracted meningitis, which nearly killed him.

During a psychiatric evaluation, when asked if his dreams disturbed him, Watts replied, "No, I feel better after I have one," and claimed that they were not nightmares because "he enjoyed them." He further elaborated that his motivation for assaulting Gave was because he "just felt like beating someone up." According to a psychiatric assessment, Watts was revealed to have a mild intellectual disability with an intelligence quotient of 75, and to have a delusional thought process and no evidence of psychosis. However, a police officer interrogating Watts after his arrest later stated that he appeared to be "very, very intelligent" with an "excellent memory." Watts' psychiatrist later reported that he was an "impulsive individual who has a passive-aggressive orientation to life" and who is "struggling for control of strong homicidal impulses." He thought Watts posed a threat to society and hoped that the adolescent would benefit from outpatient therapy. Watts was discharged from the Lafayette Clinic on his 16th birthday and visited the facility nine more times for outpatient care throughout the ensuing years. During his time in various mental institutions, he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.

Watts graduated from high school in 1973 at the age of 19 and was given a football scholarship to Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, despite his subpar grades and sporadic drug use after his release. Watts said that exercising allowed him to let out his suppressed rage. He was able to achieve stardom as a football player and even greater success in boxing, becoming a Golden Gloves fighter. After just three months, he was expelled from Lane College after being charged with stalking and assaulting women and receiving minor leg injuries. The fact that many people at Lane College thought Watts was a suspect in the violent killing of a female student—even though there was insufficient evidence to hold him accountable for the crime—was another factor in his dismissal. Watts briefly resided in Houston, Texas, following his expulsion, and then spent a year working as a mechanic for a Detroit wheel manufacturer. In 1974, when Watts enrolled in Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, a string of heinous assaults and attacks on women started to occur. However, Tomes was taken from Detroit and murdered somewhere else, which is contradictory with Watts' known modus operandi. Watts may also have been involved in the disappearance of 16-year-old Nadine Jean O'Dell, who disappeared on August 16, 1974. O'Dell was last seen walking down John Daly Street in Inkster, on her way to babysit at her boyfriend's house. Her body has never been found, and no one witnessed her presumed abduction. It is also believed that Watts was behind the 1979 murder of Malak “Mimi” Haddad, aged 34, whose headless body was found in Allen Park. Her case is still open, and her head has never been found.

On October 6, 1980, a 20-year-old woman named "Dalpe" survived a vicious stabbing attack. She ended up with partially paralyzed muscles, could hardly eat or move her head and her arms barely moved over her head due to deep slashes sustained to her face, one of which ruptured her jugular vein.

In 2004, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox went on national television asking for anyone to come forward with information in order to try to convict Watts of murder to ensure he was not released. Joseph Foy of Westland, Michigan, came forward to say that he had seen a man fitting Watts' description murder Helen Dutcher, a 36-year-old woman who died after being stabbed 12 times on December 1, 1979. Foy identified Watts by his eyes, which he described as being "evil" and devoid of emotion. Although Watts had immunity from prosecution for the 13 killings he had admitted to in Texas, he had no immunity agreement in Michigan. Before his 2004 trial, law enforcement officials asked the trial judge to allow the Texas confessions into evidence, to which he agreed.

Watts was promptly charged with the murder of Helen Dutcher. A Michigan jury convicted him on November 17, 2004, after hearing eyewitness testimony from Joseph Foy. On December 7, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days later, authorities in Michigan started making moves to try him for the murder of Western Michigan University student Gloria Steele, who was stabbed to death in 1974. Watts' trial for the Steele murder began in Kalamazoo, Michigan on July 25, 2007; closing arguments concluded July 26. The following day the jury returned a guilty verdict. Watts was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on September 13. He was incarcerated at a maximum security prison in Ionia, Michigan. He died of prostate cancer on September 21, 2007, in a Jackson, Michigan hospital.

See also

  • List of homicides in Michigan
  • List of serial killers in the United States
  • List of serial killers by number of victims

References

Bibliography

  • Coral Eugene Watts at Crime Library