By Katie Doherty
The year is 1953. Texas born Carl Eugene Watts is brought into this world. A wide eyed child, who he had a promising future.
Carl (often known as Coral) had a reasonable upbringing but he struggled with his school work, despite this he worked hard with the help of his Mother. Coral was often described as a strange child but health problems he experienced at a young age did not help matters. In 1961 he was struck down with meningitis which as a result from the swelling of the brain affected his memory. Unfortunately this allowed him to deteriorate in school and the quiet, shy and introverted child became somewhat of a nightmare.
As a child Coral’s dreams were disturbed with images and acts of violence but these weren’t a problem for him like it would be for other children his age, he enjoyed them and random acts of violence upon other children followed, a path he walked for years until it led to murder.
The year was 1974, Coral brutally murdered two women - the start of quite a career. The first was Lenore Knizacky, he knocked on the door of her apartment and proceeded to strangle her, the second was Gloria Steele who he again approached at her apartment and stabbed her 33 times. His attempt at killing a third woman failed, she survived the attack and called the Police. Coral was arrested and charged with assault and battery. Due to the nature of his crime he was put under psychiatric tests which showed he was suffering from anti-social personality disorder and that he was emotionally detached, something that was obvious from childhood. During this time, he attempted suicide but failed only suffering from minor injuries.
Editor’s note: Serial Killer Magazine has not been able to confirm that Lenore Knizacky was killed in 1974, or the figure of thirty-three stab wounds given here for Gloria Steele.
After his release in 1979, he went on somewhat of a killing spree but due to the random way he killed and the various locations he visited the Police were unable to find their killer. But he soon grabbed their attention when he decided to start killing in the college town of Ann Arbor which has been described as tranquil. He brought up suspicion when he was spotted by local Police following a woman in his car. He was pulled over not for this specifically but for his expired license plate and for holding a suspended license. His car was searched, they found evidence in the form of a dictionary that belonged to a murdered victim but unfortunately this was not enough to convict him – he was placed under surveillance.
Coral was fully aware of the fact that he was under surveillance and he stopped himself from killing for 2 months. Once the surveillance was complete he was brought in for questioning but again they didn’t have enough evidence to convict him. Following on from this Coral moved to Texas. Police decided to send details of his crimes and their suspicions over to the Houston Police Department in hope that this would stop any future murders or attempted crimes but this wasn’t enough.
District Attorney Ira Jones came up with an idea that could lead to confessions from Coral so a deal was offered that in exchange for information and a confession he would get immunity for murder. He agreed and a confession was made but as he had struck up this deal he was only imprisoned for burglary. During his time there his compulsion for murder reached a peak and he attempted to escape but failed.
In 2004 Coral’s future was looking much bleaker than before.
A witness who had been made aware of Coral’s crime from a TV programme decided to get in touch with police; the witness had seen Coral kill a woman. This was enough to convict Coral to a life sentence without parole.
During his trial it was questioned whether the witness could see exactly who the murderer was but with many of his surviving victims present to make statements and evidence collected over the years it was finally decided he would be sentenced to life.
In 2007 Coral died of prostate cancer. He was 53 years old.
Editor’s note: Katie Doherty’s article ran in issue 16 of Serial Killer Magazine and is published here as she wrote it.