Serial Killer Trial To Be Televised

[bloodrayne]

TV To Air Watts Stabbing Trial

DETROIT - When a confessed serial killer stands trail in Oakland County Circuit Court next week, the eyes of the world will be watching.

Numerous television programs requested courtroom access for the trial of Coral Eugene Watts, 50, who is charged with the Dec. 1, 1979, stabbing death of Helen Dutcher, a woman he did not admit to killing.

"There will be two cameras in the courtroom," said Gavin Routt, a clerk for Judge Richard Kuhn, who will hear the case. "One of them will be Court TV, which may broadcast live."

The Court TV camera will feed other national news programs, and a second camera will belong to the A&E program "Cold Case Files," Routt said.

Watts, an Inkster native, confessed to killing 13 women, and police suspect him in as many as 80 other deaths. He is scheduled to walk out of a Texas prison in 2006 under a 1982 plea agreement that allowed him to plead guilty to burglary in exchange for a 60-year sentence and confessions in the 13 deaths. Good behavior credits cut Watts' sentence by more than half.

Authorities in Texas and Michigan have tried to put together a case before Watts can be released. A task force pored over more than 100 unsolved murders in southeast Michigan in search of evidence against Watts.

His Oakland County trial is his first for murder. It involves the death of Dutcher, a 36-year-old Detroit prostitute, who was stabbed 12 times. Her body was found in an alley near the intersection of Eight Mile and Woodward. Watts has admitted stabbing to death former Detroit News reporter Jeanne Clyne on Halloween night 1979 in Grosse Pointe Farms.

"We intend to vigorously pursue justice in this case," said Randall Thompson, spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox. "We expect the case to go about 1 1/2 to two weeks, and we expect to call roughly 30 witnesses."

One of the witnesses is expected to be Joseph Foy, who contacted investigators in January after he saw Cox discussing the case on television. At a preliminary examination in June, Foy testified that he spotted Watts with a woman in an alley known for prostitution. He said he peered out of several windows of his home and saw several slashing motions before a woman fell to the ground. Then he saw Watts.

"I want him tried based on the facts of this case that is before the jury, not tried based on what happened in other events," said Watts' attorney Ronald Kaplovitz.

Jury selection begins Monday.