Evil Eyes (37 page)

“Yes, he had stopped complete, turn around, and look at me . . . and smile. He was laughing,” Sanchez stated of the audacity of Coral Watts. “He was just laughing at me!” she practically screamed out. “And then, he keep on running. And when we were on the feeder going to the hospital, I told my husband, ‘I’m not going

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to make it to a hospital.’ I told him he had to stop at the gas station and ask for help. ‘Get an ambulance so they can do something about it.’ My husband, he didn’t speak no English. I make a strong effort to get out of the car and asked the guy in there to call an ambulance because I was dying. My body started going in shock and I was shaking so bad and I was feeling so weak. I feel my skin was gonna froze from shaking so much,” she stated as she rubbed her face, her head bowed down. Her sobs became physical for everyone in the gallery.

At least thirty seconds passed before Cameron said, “Mrs. Sanchez? I want to back up for just a minute, okay? You said you were taking the nuts, or the lug nuts off of the tire that was flat on your car. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“You said that you had retrieved a spare tire from the trunk, and I think you said you leaned it against the car, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“You said at that time you saw a man approaching you. Was he approaching you from the front or was he approaching you from behind?”

“No, he was approaching from behind,” she said as she regained her composure.

“It seems as though you were paying special attention to this man. Why were you watching him so closely?”

“Because he never spoke. He never make an effort to help me. And I was scared because I was by myself on the road. Like I said, I was waiting for him to say, to offer some help. And I even think to myself, if he offers some help, I’m gonna say, ‘No, thank you. My husband is coming to take care of me.’ And he never did. It was real strange that he never did. He just walked by me.”

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“ ‘He’ being this man from behind?” “Yes.”

“Could you, did you get a good look at his face?” “Yes. He walked right in front of me.”

“Could you describe what race he was?” “He was a black man.”

“When he walked by you, did you look at his face?” Cameron posed to the witness.

“Yes.”

“You said, later on he came back to you, do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“When he came back to you, were you standing or were you on your knees at the time?”

“I was on my knees.”

“When he came up on you, did he come up on you from the front or again from behind?”

“Again, from behind. From the front, behind me. He came back again. He was coming from behind, he passed by me, and he returned, behind me.”

Watts continued to ignore Sanchez as she testified. “Did you see him either walk or run up to you?”

“I was on my knees. I thought he was gone for good. But he [
sic
] was seconds, it was seconds before he was behind me. I can hear his breath right on my ears from when he was running.” Her demeanor became more erect as she recalled the attack. Her voice became more firm.

“Did you say you could feel his breath on your ears?” “Yes.”

“Was this when he was close on you?”

“Yes, that’s when he cut me the first time.” The anger and resentment became evident in Sanchez’s voice.

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“The first time he cut you,” Cameron continued, “did he stab you or did he slice your neck?”

“He went like this,” Sanchez stated while bringing her right hand in front of her neck, as if she held an imagi-nary knife and slit her throat.

“For the record, that’s a slicing motion?” Cameron confirmed.

“Yes.”

“And the slicing motion, where was the slicing motion on your body?”

“In my neck.” She pointed below her chin. “Okay. Do you still have a scar from that?” “Yes, I do.”

“Have you recently had surgery on that?”

“Yes, I had surgery on this part”—she motioned to the left side of her chin—“because people always ask me, ‘What happened to you?’” Sanchez again looked down, as if embarrassed. “And I didn’t want to keep repeating . . . anything.”

“You just used your left hand and made a motion to your face. You actually made a motion to your cheek. Is that right?” Cameron queried.

“It was from right here”—the victim pointed to the middle of her left jawbone—“all the way right here,” she recalled as she pointed underneath her right earlobe. “And then from here, he push it all the way inside.” She began to cry with the memory of the vicious attack.

“For the record, you’re pointing to your left cheek; you’re drawing a line, a continuous line across your throat.”

“He came all the way across; from right here he pushed the knife deep down; then he went like, that’s when I managed to move, and then he came the second time. He cut my neck all the way around and he also cut half

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of my ear, right here it was cut.” Sanchez lifted the hair over her right ear and pointed to where Watts sliced her. “Okay. For the record, you’re indicating your right ear was cut?”

“Yes.” She tugged on her lobe, as if it were the Carol Burnett signature “good night.”

“Okay. And is that where the slicing motion ended, at your right ear?”

“The second time, my ear.”

“All right. You mentioned that there was more than one cut. Was that the first cut you just described?”

“The first one was from this side to the middle of my neck. The second one, it was from right here all the way to the middle of my neck. And from there, that one, he”—she began to sob loudly—“he push my, my face against the car. And then that’s when he starts trying to stab me in my back and everywhere.”

“Did he stab you in your back?”

“He cut my clothes a couple of times, but, like I said, you know I had so much clothes on me that I guess that probably helped.”

“So, as I understand, you were stabbed a total of three times? Once, the slice across your neck. The second one pressed against your neck, the stab wound to your neck just below your right ear, and then the third wound was to your thigh, or your groin area?”

“In my groin area.” “Ma’am, how tall are you?” “Five. Five feet tall.”

“Okay. How much did you weigh then?” “About one hundred eleven, twelve.”

Cameron then asked Sanchez to act out the attack on him. He walked up to the frightened witness, stood before her, then turned around in front of her so that

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his back faced her front. He then asked her to show the jury what exactly Coral Eugene Watts had done to her. The petite woman stood up in her witness seat, grabbed Cameron around the neck, and said, “He grabbed me like this.” She mimicked sliding the knife all the way across Cameron’s neck. “And the first cut went like this and he push it all the way inside and then he hit like this, and then he cut the rest of my neck and my ear.”

Sanchez released Cameron and continued, “Then he grabbed my head.” She paused and grabbed Cameron by the hair on the back of his head with both hands. She began to sob heavily as she pretended to smash the young prosecutor’s head. “And he just went like this into the car.” Sanchez broke down in tears and looked at the floor. She would not bring herself to look at the man who had tortured her all those years ago.

After she regained her composure, Sanchez testified that several months later she saw Coral Watts on television, just as Joseph Foy had done. She stated that she told a friend of hers that Watts was the man.

“Did she encourage you to go to the police?” Cameron asked about Sanchez’s friend.

“After, it took a couple of days. She encouraged me, just about every day to come forward.”

“And did you go forward and explain to the police that the person who attacked you was the same person you saw on television?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. And is this the same person that was later identified as Coral Eugene Watts?”

“Yes,” Sanchez stated emphatically as she nodded her head.

“Did it take a very long time to recognize the perpe-trator’s face on television when you saw?”

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“No. No,” Sanchez responded. “Why not?”

“Because I look at him real good when I turn around. I think if I look at him real good when he was passing by me.”

“Is that a face you’ll ever forget?”

“No. Never, because he’s always in my dreams.” Sanchez withered from strength to tears.

“I have no further questions,” Cameron informed the judge. He soon changed his mind. “Ma’am, just a few more questions, okay? When you did report this to the police, you appeared at the police station, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And did they give you what’s called a photo array, or number of different photographs, a pile of photographs?”

“They gave me a pile of photographs, like this.”

“All right, for the record, you’re indicating a pile of photographs that looks maybe ten to twelve inches high.”

“I would say a stack of this much.”

“Okay. And were you asked to go through those photographs?” Cameron questioned.

“Yes.”

“Were you asked to go through those photographs to determine whether the person who attacked you, if you could identify that person?”

“Yes.”

“And did you identify that person?” “Yes.”

“Did you identify that person as Coral Eugene Watts?” “Yes,” Sanchez affirmed.

“All right, you mentioned also that your husband was at the scene back when you were attacked?”

“He got there before, when everything had already

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happened. He didn’t know anything, that it was happening. He just pull over.”

“You were driving earlier that day, following each other.” “I was following my husband. Yes, he was driving to a mechanic to fix his car and I was right behind him so we both can return and leave the car there. That’s when I had the blowout tire.”

“Very good. Thank you.”

Coral Watts never bothered to look at Julie Sanchez. Judge Kuhn immediately turned to defense counsel.

“Mr. Kaplovitz.”

Ronald Kaplovitz, dressed in a blue business suit and wearing his black-framed glasses, began to speak to the witness as he sat up from his chair and walked over to the wooden lectern. “Mrs. Sanchez, my name is Ron Kaplovitz. I’m gonna ask you a couple of brief questions. You indicated that you were able to pick Mr. Watts out when you saw him on television, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you saw him on television a couple of days . . .” “No.”

“. . . a couple of weeks afterwards?”

“No.” She defiantly shook her head and spat out the word.

“Month afterwards?” “No.”

“What, sometime later?” “No.”

“When did you see him on TV?”

“Like I say, I was taking a shower, I came out of the shower, the TV was on, and there he was.”

“On TV?” Kaplovitz asked. “On TV,” Sanchez replied.

“How long after the incident”—Kaplovitz slowly enun-

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ciated the last word and seemed slightly irritated— “where he attacked you, how, how, how long a period of time had elapsed? Weeks, days, months?”

“Months.”

“Now you happen, unfortunately, to see and have dealings with Mr. Watts, up close and personal, is that a fair statement?”

“I guess.”

“I mean, he was as close to you as Mr. Kramer (actually Mr. Cameron) was when he approached, when he had you show the jury what happened.”

“He was right here.”

“Right. Right next to you. You saw him . . .” “Yes.”

“. . . face to face?” “Yes. Right here.”

“Okay,” Kaplovitz continued. “Now, when he, you were, you were following your husband to take his car to the mechanic’s shop?”

“Yes. No, not a mechanic’s shop. One of his friends.

One of his coworkers was gonna fix his car.”

“When he attacked you, did you start screaming for help?”

“I screamed, ‘Oh, God!’ and everything, you know, that he did to me . . . I could hardly talk. I could hardly scream anymore.”

“But you did scream when it happened?”

“My first words was ‘Oh, God!’ until he got right here and he went deep down and I could hardly talk.”

“The whole contact with him on the attack, approximately, how long did it take? I mean, can you give me a guesstimate—seconds, minutes?”

“I would say minutes.”

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“Okay. Now, your husband’s car pulled up, is that right?” Kaplovitz asked.

“Yes.”

“And as soon as that happened, Mr. Watts ran away?” “He let go.”

“He let go?” “Yes.”

“And he ran away?” Kaplovitz confirmed. “He ran away.”

“He went to his car?”

“No, he was on foot all the time,” Sanchez clarified. “Okay, and he just took off, running?”

“He just took off, running.”

“All right, he didn’t stick around?” “No.”

“Okay. Were you working at that time?” Kaplovitz inquired.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Where did you work at?”

“I worked at the same place where I work now, NASA. Johnson Space Center.”

“NASA Jones Space Center?” Kaplovitz asked. “Johnson Space Center.”

“Oh, Johnson Space Center.” “Yes.”

“Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Sanchez.” Kaplovitz was done. “You may step down, Mrs. Sanchez,” Judge Kuhn informed the witness. “Watch your step.”

Thomas Cameron walked to Julie Sanchez to assist her from the witness stand. The short woman seemed to grow several inches right before everyone’s eyes. She had faced the essence of evil once again, and, once again, she came out on top.

Next up for the prosecution was another Texas sur-

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vivor victim, Lori Baugh, known as Lori Lister at the time of the assault on her by Coral Watts. Baugh wore a gray business jacket, blue vest, and button-down white shirt. Her fash-ionably styled brown hair rested on the nape of her neck and she wore clear-rimmed glasses. She appeared very elegant and respectful.