Coral Eugene Watts began his known killings when he stabbed and mutilated fellow Western Michigan University student Gloria Steele. Suspected of the crime but never charged, Watts was sent to prison on an unrelated assault just a few days after Steele's murder and served one year, gaining his release in 1975.
Watts moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and began killing women with regularity and earning the press moniker of "The Sunday Morning Slasher." His killing were marked by very extreme violence and mulilation. He moved to to Houston, Texas, in 1981 and after committing a few more slayings he was captured after a botched murder attempt on May 23, 1982.After his arrest Watts agreed to admit to all of his murders in return for a sixty year aggravated burglary sentence. Somehow prosecutors agreed to this deal and Watts admitted to twenty-two killings, revealing for the first time that he would often travel into Detroit and Canada to committ crimes when he lived in Michigan.Authorities believe his total number of kills could be as high as forty women.
12/23/2002-Due to a techinicality in his sentencing, Watts has won an appeal and is now eligible for time off due to good behavior in prison and is scheduled to be released (not paroled, flat-out released) from prison on May 8, 2006. He will be just 52 years old and would be the first known Serial Killer to ever be released in the United States. Authorities in Texas, Michigan, and Canada are attempting to amass evidence to try and convict Watts in one or more of the many killings he has committed. No doubt that will be a daunting task since a lack of evidence in the murders is what led prosecutors in Texas to agree to the lenient 60-year sentence in the first place. Also, since no rapes apparently took place during his killings, Watts likely left behind little if any DNA evidence. Watts vowed after his original sentencing that he would kill women again if ever released and has been described by one investigator as a 'homicidal time-bomb'.
3/10/2004-Michigan authorities hoping to ensure that Watts never sees a minute of freedom have brought charges against him in the 1979 slaying of Helen Dutcher, 36 at the time of her death. Dutcher was discovered stabbed to death in Ferndale, Michigan, in the driveway of a dry cleaning business.
9/9/2004-Watts has pled not guilty to the murder of Dutcher. He is scheduled to go on trial in November of 2004.
12/5/2004-Mission accomplished. Watts has been found guilty of murdering Helen Dutcher based largely on testimony from an eye witness to the crime. Though not officially sentenced yet, Watts' conviction for first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors have also charged Watts with another slaying. Gloria Steele, 19, was killed on October 30, 1974. She had been stabbed to death in her apartment.