Coral Eugene Watts: "The Sunday Morning Slasher"

Pending Threat

Coral Eugene Watts

Several months after Coral was imprisoned he attempted an escape. He greased himself with hair gel and tried to squeeze out of his jail cell window. However, his attempt failed when he got stuck. From that moment on, he tried using a more legal method to get of prison. He began appealing his sentence.

In 1989, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed Coral’s case. Moor said that the judge failed to inform Coral that, “the bathtub water he attempted to drown Lori Lister in was construed as a lethal weapon.” Consequently, he was not required to serve his entire sentence.

Coral was now considered a “nonviolent” inmate and was allowed to earn “good time” credits for being a model prisoner. The “good time” policy was an old mandatory law enacted in Texas that granted prisoners a reduction in time for good behavior. The policy was based on a criminal classification system.

Coral was classified as a Class I inmate and was accredited 2-3 days sentence reduction for every 1 day served. The credits would reduce his sentence by more than half. The man who admitted to killing again if let out of prison was due to be released on May 9, 2006. He would be considered one of the first confessed serial killers to be legally released in U.S. history.

The fact that Coral was going to be released early horrified his surviving victims, the families of those murdered and area citizens, who were well aware of his promise to initiate a new murder campaign. According to Hewitt, Stewart and Cosgriff, Lori Lister suggested that she thought Coral was being put away for life and felt “misled” and “not protected by the law” when she learned he was being let out just 36 years after his sentence. Many others mirrored her feelings and felt betrayed by the system.

Because of Coral’s new status as a Class I inmate, he was also eligible for parole. However, he would not be granted it. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Coral’s release six times between 1990 and 2004.

The Associated Press suggested that the authorities in Michigan and Texas were working hard to find old cases, where evidence might have been overlooked. State police forensic scientists were also hoping to use DNA tests, unavailable in the 1980s, to link Coral with some of the crimes. It was clear that the authorities in both states realized that Coral’s pending release in 2006 should be avoided at all costs because he posed a threat to society. No one doubted he would kill again.