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  • From: "Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>
  • To: "Homestead mailing list" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] when good men *don't* "remain silent" :
  • Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:04:22 -0800

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/ap11-08-075125.asp?t=apnew&vts=11820041249



Jury selected as trial of admitted serial killer opens

By SARAH KARUSH
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PONTIAC, Mich., Nov. 8 - A murder trial got under way Monday for a man who
confessed to 13 slayings in the early 1980s but received a sentence that will
release him from prison in two years.



Coral Eugene Watts, 51, is charged with the murder of a 14th woman,
Helen Dutcher, whose body was found in an alley in 1979. If convicted,
<>Watts faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Michigan does not have the death penalty.
A jury was selected Monday and opening arguments were to begin Tuesday
in the trial, which was expected to last two weeks.
Watts confessed to the 13 killings in 1982 in a deal with Texas
prosecutors that allowed him to plead guilty to a lesser charge of burglary
with intent to murder if he helped officials solve his crimes. He is set to
be freed in April 2006.
Prosecutors had no evidence of Watts' involvement in the slayings. The
killer wore a hood, picked his victims at random, struck quickly and left
little or no physical evidence behind.
The families of Watts' victims pushed for a plea bargain, saying they
wanted to know what happened to their loved ones. Twelve of those killings
took place in Texas and the other one - not Dutcher - was in Michigan.
At the time, prosecutors expected Watts would serve 60 years, which
would have meant he would either die behind bars or be in his 80s when he was
freed. But an appeals court ruling and mandatory release laws lopped more
than 35 years off his sentence.
In Dutcher's case, Oakland County Circuit Judge Richard Kuhn has ruled
that Watts' decades-old confession can be admitted in his trial, saying the
other 13 killings show a pattern of behavior. He has not confessed to the
Dutcher slaying.
Defense attorney Ronald Kaplovitz had fought to keep the confession
out.
Prosecutors also have a key witness, Joseph Foy, who says he saw the
killing from his back porch.
Foy said he told police years ago what he saw, but the killing of
Dutcher remained unsolved. He resurfaced in January after he saw Michigan
Attorney General Mike Cox on television appealing for help in solving the
case.



© 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



  • [Homestead] when good men *don't* "remain silent" :, Toni Hawryluk, 11/08/2004

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