The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (96 page)

acts from which society must be protected by plac-and while they also suspected him of shooting his ing him in preventative custody.”

second wife in Zambia (she survived), no charges

•
Michael Hernandez:
Before fatally stabbing an were filed in that case. Jurors convicted Allan of eighth-grade classmate on February 3, 2004, 14-murdering Lewis on March 8, 2000, and he

year-old Michael Hernandez filled a notebook

received a life sentence.

with doodles and jottings that revealed his fascina-

•
Patrick Lee Harned:
Seventeen-year-old Patrick tion with violent crime. One note, released to the Harned was living with a convicted sex offender in press by police in Palmetto Bay, Florida, disclosed February 1999, when he strangled a seven-year-Hernandez’s plan for life: “You will be a serial old girl and hid her corpse under the floorboards killer and mass murderer, stay alone, never forget of his parents’ home in Astoria, Oregon. Jailed God ever, have a cult and plan a mass kidnapping pending trial on aggravated murder charges,

for new world . . . be an expert thief etc.” Author-Harned penned a letter asking imprisoned “Happy ities charged Hernandez as an adult, with first-Face Killer” KEITH JESPERSON for advice on his degree murder. Trial in his case was pending when legal defense. Defense attorneys cited Harned’s this volume went to press.

correspondence with dozens of convicted felons as evidence of mental illness. Harned received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole on

WARNING Signs of Violent Tendencies

November 9, 2000.

While generalizations are admittedly hazardous, psy-

•
Michael Leopold:
Following his arrest for aggra-chologists have long recognized certain childhood or vated assault on a streetwalker, this 38-year-old adolescent behaviors as symptoms of violence to come resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, informed in adulthood. The often-cited “triad” of warning signs, psychiatrists of his longstanding desire to torture including ARSON, cruelty toward animals, and persis-and kill prostitutes. He received an 11-year prison tent adolescent enuresis (bed-wetting) was originally sentence in that case, on August 25, 2000. Police identified from a single anonymous case in the 1940s, briefly considered Leopold a suspect in the disap-but time has proved at least the general validity of all pearance of more than 20 Vancouver hookers, but three symptoms as indicators of a child with serious that case was apparently resolved with the arrest of mental/emotional problems.

suspect Robert Pickton.

The FBI elaborated on those very basic guidelines

•
Mathew Hardman:
On July 16, 2002, police in with its study of 36 sexually motivated killers con-Llanfair, Wales, reported the arrest of a 17-year-ducted between 1979 and 1983. Questions of the old art student for the November 2001 mutila-study’s validity to serial murder in general arise from tion-slaying of 94-year-old Mabel Leyshon.

the fact that all of those questioned were male, all but Evidence produced at trial revealed that Hard-three of them white, and no killer with other than sex-man was obsessed with VAMPIRISM and drank

ual MOTIVES was included for study, but the results are Leyshon’s blood in a quest for immortality. He still instructive. According to the Bureau’s published also removed the victim’s heart, wrapped it in results, 43 percent of the killers were sexually abused in newspaper, and placed it in a saucepan on a silver childhood; 73 percent reported “sexually stressful platter. Convicted of murder on August 2, 2002, events”; 72 percent admitted childhood fetishism; 68

Hardman was sentenced to a minimum of 12

percent suffered from enuresis as children (60 percent years in prison.

lasting into adolescence); 56 percent set fires in child-

•
Name withheld:
On March 26, 2003, a judge in hood (52 percent in their teens); 36 percent tortured Oslo, Norway, sentenced an unnamed 21-year-old animals as children (46 percent in adolescence); 54 per-ballet dancer to 15 years in prison for strangling a cent were cruel to childhood peers (64 percent as ado-prostitute. Evidence presented in court revealed lescents); 71 percent were chronic liars; and 38 percent the defendant as a devotee of serial murder who assaulted adults (up to a whopping 84 percent in ado-hallucinated a personal friendship with British lescence).

slayer DENNIS NILSEN. In passing sentence, Judge In addition to behavioral traits, analysts have also Gudrun Andvord declared, “The court finds that compiled lists of medical or genetic symptoms displayed since his interest in death, murder, mutilation of by so-called BAD SEEDS, allegedly predestined to vio-corpses, necrophilia, serial killers, violent pornog-lence. While such diagnoses dating from the moments raphy and more continues, and if he does not

after birth (or even from prenatal tests) are perilous, develop or change his personality, then there is a potentially branding innocuous children as “violence
277

WATERFIELD, Fred

prone,” it is equally clear that behavioral indicators, ings. In April 1980, 18-year-old Shirley Small was especially those involving violent or destructive activity hacked to death in her apartment, followed by 20-year-in childhood, should be viewed with grave concern by old Glenda Richmond in July and 29-year-old Rebecca parents, counselors, and teachers.

Huff in September. Canadian authorities believe Watts
See also
JUVENILE KILLERS; PARAPHILIAS

may have crossed the border into Windsor that October, assaulting 20-year-old Sandra Dalpe outside her apartment, leaving her near death with multiple stab
WATERFIELD, Fred

See
GORE, DAVID ALLAN

wounds to the face and throat.

By that time, Watts had fallen under scrutiny from local homicide investigators. A task force was orga-WATTS, Coral Eugene

nized in July 1980 to probe the Sunday slashings, and Born at Fort Hood, Texas, in 1953, Coral Watts grew Watts was placed under sporadic surveillance, a up on the move, attending public schools in Texas, West November court order permitting officers to plant a Virginia, and Michigan before finishing high school—

homing device in his car. Despite pursuit by squad cars after a fashion—in Inkster, a Detroit suburb. Despite a and a helicopter, though, Watts managed to commit at tested IQ of 75, he was admitted to Western Michigan least one murder while police were on his trail. Fired University at Kalamazoo and was enrolled there when from his job as a diesel mechanic in March 1981, he he started acting out his violent fantasies against moved south to Houston, leaving the murder investiga-women in October 1974.

tion at loose ends. Michigan authorities alerted their His first two victims managed to survive when Watts Texas counterparts, but Watts was accustomed to living came knocking on the doors of their apartments, start-under surveillance. He found a new mechanic’s job and ing on October 25. Watts choked them both uncon-started visiting a local church, sometimes living with scious, leaving them for dead with not attempt at rape relatives, other times out of his car.

or robbery, but he was disappointed when the press And the murders continued.

reported both of them were still alive. He found knives more efficient, claiming his first fatality on October 30

when 19-year-old Gloria Steele was stabbed 33 times and discarded near campus.

Identified as a suspect in the nonfatal assaults, Watts had himself committed to a state hospital on the advice of his attorney, refusing to answer any questions about the Steele murder case. Fourteen months after the fact, he struck a bargain with Kalamazoo prosecutors, pleading guilty to one assault in return for dismissal of another similar charge, accepting a one-year sentence in the county jail. Upon release, he moved to Ann Arbor, marrying long enough to father a child, but his deep-seated hatred of women made the relationship untenable, and he was divorced in May 1980.

Meanwhile, Watts was hunting. When his marriage started showing signs of strain, he spent some time with relatives in the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms, jogging by night to keep himself in shape. On October 31, 1979, he invaded the home of 35-year-old Jeanne Clyne, slashing her to death—again without attempting rape or robbery—before he fled. Eyewitnesses described an African-American man jogging near the scene, but homicide detectives had no way of linking their case with a five-year-old series of crimes against women in Kalamazoo.

Back in Ann Arbor, Watts entered criminal history as the “Sunday Morning Slasher,” claiming at least three victims in motiveless, random attacks committed between 3:00 and 5:00 A.M. on peaceful Sunday morn-Coral Watts (Author’s collection)

278

WATTS, Coral Eugene

On March 27, 1981, Edith Ledet, a 34-year-old med-

“as pure fantasies which resolve to a large extent ical student, was stabbed to death while jogging in around the struggle against the ‘evil’ he sees every-Houston. Six months later, on September 12, 25-year-where.”

old Elizabeth Montgomery was attacked while walking On August 9, 1982, with jury selection under way her dog at midnight, staggering into her nearby apart-for his trial, Watts struck a controversial bargain with ment before she collapsed. Two hours later, 21-year-old the prosecutor’s office. In return for his guilty plea on Susan Wolfe was knifed to death outside her apartment, burglary charges and acceptance of a 60-year prison nearby, presumed to be a victim of the same assailant.

sentence—the equivalent of life imprisonment in The new year brought no respite from horrors in Texas—Watts would clear the books on several

Houston. In January, 27-year-old Phyllis Tamm was unsolved Houston murders while escaping trial for found on the campus of Rice University, hanged with an homicide.

article of her own clothing; another Rice student, 25-With the deal complete and Watts compelled to serve year-old Margaret Fossi, was killed that same month, a minimum of 20 years before consideration for parole, found in the trunk of her car, her larynx crushed by a he confessed to 10 Houston murders, including those of powerful blow that produced death by asphyxiation.

victims Wolfe, Jefferson, Montgomery, Fossi, Semander, On February 7, Elena Semander, a 20-year-old coed, Searles, Garcia, Tamm, Ledet, and Maday. He also was found strangled and partially nude in a trash bin, threw in some surprises, including the nonfatal slashing not far from a tavern where she had spent the evening.

of a Galveston 19-year-old, attacked on January 30, In March 1982, Emily LaQua was reported missing 1982, and the “accidental” death of 22-year-old Linda from Brookshire, Texas, 40 miles north of Houston, but Tilley, found floating in an Austin, Texas, swimming authorities drew no immediate connection with the pool on September 5, 1981. Other nonfatal assaults spate of unsolved murders. On March 31, 20-year-old were also cleared in Austin, Galveston, and Seabrook, Mary Castillo was found, strangled and seminude, in a Texas.

Houston ditch. Three nights later, 19-year-old Christine Watts led authorities to the remains of victims Sear-McDonald vanished while hitchhiking home from a les and Jefferson in Houston, directing other searchers party on the Rice campus. Suzanne Searles, 25, joined to the body of Emily LaQua, near Brookshire, and he the missing list on April 5, her shoes and broken specta-was still talking when Michigan weighed in with cles recovered from her car in the parking lot of her charges in the murder of Jeanne Clyne. Swapping testi-apartment complex. Carrie Mae Jefferson, age 32, van-mony for immunity, Watts ran his score up to 13 con-ished after working the night shift on April 15, and 26-fessed murders with the Clyne case, but detectives year-old Yolanda Degracia was killed the following suggest that his actual body count includes a minimum night, stabbed six times in her home. High school stu-of 22 victims. On September 3, 1982, Watts received his dent Sheri Strait disappeared with her mother’s car on 60-year sentence, the judge declaring, “I hope they put May 1, the car and her body recovered together on May you so deep in the penitentiary that they’ll have to pipe 4. Two weeks later, Gloria Cavallis, a 32-year-old sunlight to you.”

exotic dancer, was found dead in a trash dumpster, her Tough talk aside, Watts remained eligible for parole, body wrapped in cast-off curtains.

and Texas residents were outraged in July 2002 when On the morning of May 23, 1982—a Sunday—

they learned that his release had been scheduled for Watts was caught while fleeing from the Houston May 2006. Ex-judge Doug Shaver, who sentenced

apartment where he had assaulted tenants Lori Lister Watts in 1982, told reporters, “It makes me kind of and Melinda Aguilar. Lister was half-drowned in the sick. It’s the most unforgettable case I ever had before bathtub, while Aguilar escaped by leaping from the me, and he’s the most dangerous person I’ve ever come balcony and calling for help. Held in lieu of $50,000

face to face with. When he gets out, some woman is bond, Watts was charged with two counts of attempted going to die.” Texas authorities denied Watts’s fifth murder, plus burglary and aggravated assault. On the parole bid in November 2002, repeating that the law day of his arrest, another victim, 20-year-old Michelle required them to free him in 2006, at age 52. Relief Maday, was found strangled to death in the bathtub of came from Michigan, where prosecutors announced a her Houston apartment.