If you want to support independent women's media, become a Mamamia subscriber . Get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts, articles, videos and our exercise app, MOVE.
It was just before dawn on May 23, 1982, when Melinda Aguilar heard a noise at the door.
Alone in her room, the 18-year-old assumed it was her roommate, Lori, 21, finally arriving home to their flat in Houston, Texas.
She didn't think much of it.
But it wasn't Lori at the door at all.
Watch: Uncovering the hidden network of men drugging and assaulting their wives. Post continues below.
Standing in her hallway was a man Melinda had never seen before. And behind him was her roommate Lori's unconscious body.
"All I saw was his eyes," Melinda told People Magazine Investigates. "His eyes were evil."
She didn't know it at that moment, but she had come face-to-face with Carl "Coral" Eugene Watts, a serial killer known as 'The Sunday Morning Slasher'. Their apartment wasn't even his first visit of the day.
Melinda told The Gainesville Sun that Watts lunged at her and started to attack her, while Lori lay behind them.
"He grabbed me, pulled my hair back and started choking me," she told the publication.
Instead of fighting back, she decided to feign passing out in the hopes that Watts would leave her there.
"I figured that if I was passed out, he would leave me alone and give me time to hopefully be able to get away," she told People.
Watts bound Melinda's hands behind her back with one of her belts and turned his attention back to Lori.
"I could hear him dragging her body into the apartment and she was moaning," Melinda told People.
He then began to fill up the bathtub and put Lori in it.
Melinda previously told The Gainesville Sun that's when she realised how serious the situation was.
"I knew he was there to kill just by the excitement he had," Melinda told the publication. "He enjoyed what he was doing. I remember him jumping and clapping and being excited about what he was doing."
With her hands still bound, Melinda jumped as high as she could from their second-story balcony. She fell into a somersault and hit her head on the railing on the way down before landing on the grass below.
She ran straight to her neighbours, People reports.
"Help me! Help me! Somebody's trying to kill my roommate," Melinda recounted to the publication. "I need you to call the police! Call the police!"
Help arrived quickly. Watts was arrested at the scene as he tried to flee from the apartment.
Lori was found still unconscious and underwater in the tub. She was resuscitated.
"It is a miracle I'm alive," she told The Gainesville Sun.
Unmasking 'the Sunday Morning Slasher'.
Watts was arrested and charged.
It emerged that Melinda and Lori were far from his only victims; they weren't even his first that day.
Authorities linked him to 13 murders across Michigan, Texas and Canada, though the true toll is believed to be closer to 100, according to CBS.
His victims were all women.
"He had three ways that he killed his victims — stabbing, strangulation and drowning," Director of Victim Services for Houston Crime Stoppers, Andy Kahan told KPRC 2 Houston.
"He was simply a cold-blooded killing machine."
Watts first came to the attention of authorities when he was just 15 years old, CBS reports.
He had attacked a woman while completing his paper route. He was evaluated by psychologists who deemed him "impulsive, emotionally detached, and remorseless" and "likely to strike again", according to People.
In 1974, he was arrested and charged after forcing his way into a Michigan woman's home and strangling her until she passed out.
A few short years later, in 1980, he was the prime suspect for multiple murder cases, but there was never enough evidence to put him behind bars.
On the day he arrived at Melinda and Lori's door, Watts had, only hours earlier, followed home 20-year-old Michelle Maday from a Houston nightclub. He strangled her and dumped her body in a bathtub, CBS reports, like he had planned to do with Lori.
It was Michelle's birthday.
Authorities ultimately agreed to a plea deal with Watts.
They agreed he would be charged with burglary with intent to murder. For the murders, he would have immunity in exchange for his confession. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, CBS reports.
Because he wasn't convicted of murder, he was classified as a non-violent, first-time offender, meaning he qualified for Texas's good behaviour laws. This gave him three days off his sentence for every day he served.
His 60 years became 24, according to CBS.
As 2006 approached, Watts was close to being a free man once again.
Sgt. Tom Ladd, who questioned Watts after his arrest in 1982, told The Gainesville Sun that Watts made an admission when they last spoke.
"Everybody knows he is going to kill again," Sgt. Ladd said. "His last statement to me was: 'You know, Tom, if I get out, I'm going to do it again'," The Gainesville Sun reports.
In a bid to keep Watts behind bars, authorities turned their attention back to Michigan, where Watts spent the majority of his formative years.
Desperate to keep Watts behind bars beyond his sentence, authorities launched a nationwide media campaign — and got lucky.
A Today Show segment caught the attention of a man in Detroit who recognised Watts' face. Decades earlier, he had watched him stab 36-year-old Helen Dutcher in a back alley, Fox News reports.
For more on true crime, listen to this episode of Mamamia's True Crime Conversations. Post continues below.
Watts was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Both Melinda and Lori came face-to-face with Watts, testifying at the trial.
He died behind bars in 2007 from prostate cancer, age 53.
The man had haunted the two survivors for decades.
"I can still remember when I had to identify him," Melinda said to CBS. "Just the way he looked at me was one of those looks like 'You just wait when I get out.'"
But he never got the chance.
Feature image: YouTube/ Investigation Discovery.
Lucy Ballenden
Author
No Comments
Be the first to leave a comment