Evil Eyes (38 page)

Thomas Cameron again took up the direct examination. He had Baugh describe how she had been blind-sided at the foot of her staircase. Her attacker did not completely knock her out and she was aware that she was in serious danger.

“He said, ‘Where is your apartment?’” Baugh recalled. She tended to smile, sometimes in bewilderment, sometimes in bemusement.

“Do you remember what you were thinking?” asked Cameron.

“At that point I remember thinking, ‘I’m gonna die. I want my parents to find me,’ and, I don’t know, I just thought he was gonna carry me off and bury me somewhere. And, but I was too weak to do anything or say anything. I remember raising my hand slightly, but I couldn’t have pointed because I was too weak.”

“When you say you raised your hand, is that you raised your hand in the direction of where your apartment was?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered because I couldn’t point and I didn’t really know what direction it was”—she chuckled nervously—“but I knew it was upstairs, but I just raised my hand like this, just barely, but I just knew he was gonna carry me off somewhere and bury me.” She laughed again and almost rolled her eyes up to the sky. “And I, I don’t know, I just wanted so badly for my parents to find me because I was about to die. And at that point I knew he was a black man.”

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“What happened next?”

“He beat me up at that point and, so, I was unconscious after that.”

“Okay. What’s the next thing you do know?”

“I know he, the next thing I know was I woke up semi-consciously in the ambulance asking about Melinda. ‘Melinda, Melinda! Is she okay?’”

“Who’s Melinda?”

“She was my roommate at the time.” “Did she live with you at that time?” “Yes, she did.”

“Did she live with you in the second-story apartment you described?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Why were you concerned about Melinda?” Cameron questioned.

“Because I knew she was up there. She was there that night and I was scared that he would have found the key and gone up and hurt her or killed her, because I knew that that was what was supposed to happen to me.” She smiled again. “And if he had my key, he was gonna, for sure, go and find her.”

“Did you learn what had happened to you?”

“I, I didn’t remember for a couple of days what he had done. I remembered, it all came back to me and then, and then I did hear from everybody that he had pulled me up the stairs and my ankles were real torn up. Actually, up into my legs were all bloody and torn up and scratched from having been pulled up the stairs.”

“Is this cement stairs?”

“Yes. And I had been tied with hangers and I had been submersed under a tub of water,” Baugh said in a quieter voice.

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“The tub of water you were submersed into, was that the tub in your apartment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You mentioned that you had regained consciousness at some point in the ambulance, is that right?”

“Uh-huh. It was still blacked out. I mean, I , I couldn’t see anything, but I had woken up to yell, ‘Melinda! Melinda! Where is she?’ and the fireman told me, ‘She’s okay, she’s okay,” and that’s when I passed out again. And the next time, the next thing I remember is in the hospital emergency room.”

“Could you tell us a little bit about the injuries you had when you were in the hospital room?” Cameron inquired.

“Well, the first thing I know that happened was my tongue was swollen to the point I couldn’t breathe. I, I kept having to get up on my elbows to breathe, because when you get strangled, your tongue swells and it was all black.”

“Was your tongue swollen?”

“Yes, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk. Had to do phone numbers with my hands. I also lost the feeling on top of my hand for months on end, and I was really scared I would never regain that feeling.”

“What was that a result of ?”

“Having been tied with hangers,” Baugh explained. “Were those the only injuries you had?”

“No, my face was beaten up. I was all bruised. My eyes and my forehead was all scratched up. I didn’t see pictures—I mean, I don’t know—but I know from looking around I had some injuries on my hip and then, of course, my legs, both my legs. I tried not to look in the mirror”—she laughed again—“at that point, because it was really not a nice sight.”

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“Back when this occurred, how much did you weigh?” “About one hundred fifteen.”

“And how tall are you?” “Five-seven.”

“And how old were you at the time?” “Twenty-one,” Baugh replied.

“Thank you. I have no further questions.” Cameron closed. Quick, but efficient.

Next up on the stand was Melinda Aguilar. Like he had been about Julie Sanchez, Andy Kahan was worried whether or not Aguilar would even make the trip. The still-tiny woman had never flown before and was not sure if she would be able to get on a plane and testify against Coral Eugene Watts. The little fighter was determined, however, to make sure she would contribute her part in the attempt to put him away for good.

The attractive Aguilar took the witness stand next to Judge Kuhn. She wore a long-sleeved white turtleneck cotton shirt, with an oversized light gray jacket with large pockets on the chest and large lapels. Her dark brown hair was stylishly streaked with blond and red strands. It was draped over her left eye, which just happened to be in the line of vision of where Watts was seated. She spoke in a pixieish, almost-little-girl voice.

Donna Pendergast asked her to describe what happened that day of May 23, 1982.

“I was shocked. I wasn’t expecting to see him,” Aguilar stated with no fear. “I was expecting to see my roommate and I think he was pretty shocked to find someone in there also. We just kind of stood there for a moment.”

“What happened after you stood there for a moment?” “Um, he came around and grabbed me and started,

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put his arm around, put a knife,” she recalled as she pan-tomimed placing a knife at her own throat, “and said if I was to scream that he would kill me.”

“All right. Did you see where he took that knife from?” Pendergast pursued.

“From his sock in his leg.”

“All right. So, is the person, you said he grabbed you.

How did he grab you?”

“Kind of went behind me and grabbed me like this,” she stated as she made a move that looked similar to the attack on Julie Sanchez. She brushed the hair out of her eyes and continued, “He started choking me.”

“All right. And when he started choking you, did he already have a knife in his hand at that time?”

“He did everything so quick.” Aguilar jerked her hand toward her throat again. “It was like all, I mean, he did everything so quick, he put the knife up to me right away, and I think kind of went, like this, and started choking me.”

“All right. Did you know where your roommate, Lori Lister, was at that point?”

“Not at that point, no.”

“All right. After the defendant put the knife to your neck, can you tell the members of the jury what happened next?” Pendergast asked.

“Um, he was choking me so tight that, um, I couldn’t breathe, so I was afraid that, um, you know, he was gonna kill me that way, and so I pretended to pass out and I just kinda let my body loose.”

“And after you just kind of let your body loose, what was the next thing you remember happening?”

“He dragged me into the bedroom and kind of laid me against the bed, and then, um, he left the room.”

“All right. How big were you back then?”

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“I’s about, I was short.” Aguilar laughed. “About eighty-six pounds.”

“Eighty-six pounds. And how tall were you?” “I’m five even, right now.”

“Five foot. All right, so he dragged you and laid you next to the bed. How did he lay you next to the bed?”

“I was on my knees and he kinda laid my head against the bed.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“No,” Aguilar stated as she shook her head. “I was pretending to be out. I was pretending to be out the whole time.”

“All right. What’s the next thing that you recalled happened?”

“He, um, left the room and I heard him open the door, and next thing I heard was, um, he was dragging my roommate, her body, up the stairs and I could just hear her body hitting every step. And then he, um, later in the living room, and I could hear the moaning . . .”

“You could hear the what?” Pendergast inquired.

“I could hear the moaning. She was moaning. I didn’t know . . .”

“You could hear Lori moaning?”

“Yes. Yes,” she said as she nodded her head. “And at that time after he left her there, he came and checked on me, um, and I had, I was getting ready for church, so I had my dress on the bed, and he grabbed that, the hanger off the dress and the belt, and he tied me up, really.”

“How did he tie you up?”

“With my arms behind my back.”

“All right. And what was actually around your arms? Was it the belt or was it the hanger?” Pendergast asked.

“Both. Hangers and belt.”

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“All right. After he tied you up, did he say anything to you at this point?”

“No, because I was pretending to be out still.” “Okay, so you’re still pretending to be out when he

bound you?”

“Yes,” Aguilar asserted.

“What happened after he bound you up?”

“He went back into the living room and I could hear him, uh, getting into a closet, looking for hangers and, um, I assumed that’s when he tied Lori up.”

“What happened next?”

“He came back in to check on me and, um, and I was, the whole time I pretended to be out, so he checked on me and then went back out, and I don’t know if he was confused because, you know, there was two of us. Then he went back out, and he came back in and, um, he started the bathwater and he came back in and checked on me.”

“So, you could hear the water in the bathtub running at that point?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Did you know where Lori was at that point?”

“Um, I just assumed she was still in the living room, ’cause he had gone and started back, and he came back in and checked on me one last time, but when he did, he, um, he kinda made a, like, he kinda jumped and clapped,” she said as she clapped her hands and jerked in her seat, “and made a little remark like this was ‘gonna be fun.’ This was gonna be exciting, and I knew at that point that he was enjoying what he was doing.”

“What happened next?”

“He left the room and he left the door a little cracked, you know, he kinda shut it a little bit, and at that time I, uh, he went into the living room and I could see him

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dragging Lori into the bathroom, so I figured that was my time to get some help.”

“Will you tell the members of the jury, what did you do in an attempt to get some help?” Pendergast queried. “I got up and locked the bedroom door and then I went, we had a sliding door, um, in our bedroom, and so I got up and unlocked that and I went to the balcony.”

“How did you do that with your hands bound?”

“I just kinda walked with the sliding door, kinda unlocked it and walked with it to open it. And then when I got out to the balcony, um, I didn’t know how I was gonna get away, um, being short, and there was a fenc-ing, the railing, um, so I decided to go headfirst. I jumped and did a somersault, and then I hit my head and my shoulder and then I landed on my knees.”

“This was from the second floor?” “From the second floor, yes.”

“All right. And after you landed on the ground, what happened next?”

“Well, there’s a fire station across the street, so I told myself that’s where I was gonna go, but, I guess, just out of fear, I went to the left and I saw a lady sitting outside on her balcony, on the first floor, drinking coffee, and I told her that someone was trying to kill my roommate, that we needed to get help.”

“Okay, were you still bound at this time?” “Yes,” Aguilar stated.

“All right, what happened next?”

“Um, they took me inside and they were trying to take the, um, hangers and the belt off, but they were having a really hard time, and, uh, I guess when they took them off, I must have gone in shock or something, because I don’t remember anything after that.” She jerked slightly in the witness stand. Her hair dangled back

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down over her left eye. “Other than, um, I had a cup of tea sitting on the couch and they told me that my roommate was fine and that I had to go outside and identify the, the person that did this.”

“And did you go outside to identify the person who had done this?”

Melinda Aguilar nodded her head affirmatively. “Okay, and who did you identify?” Pendergast questioned.

“Coral Eugene Watts.”

“And where did you see him at outside?” “In the police car.”

“All right, and did you recognize that as being the same person who had been inside your apartment and had bound you up?”

“Yes,” Aguilar said as she firmly nodded her head. “Yes.”

“What was Mr. Watts wearing that day?”

“He was wearing a, a sweatshirt with a hood, and I noticed he had some gloves when he first came in.”

“What kind of gloves, do you remember?”

“They were dark gloves. I don’t, everything happened so quick.”

“Nothing further, Your Honor.” “Mr. Kaplovitz?” Judge Kuhn spoke.

“Ms. Aguilar, my name is Ron Kaplovitz,” Watts’s defense attorney stated as he walked from the defense table to the wooden lectern. “I must say, you have my respect for your bravery.”

With eyes downcast, Aguilar stated in a less-than-excited voice, “Thank you.”

“Ma’am, what city did you say you lived in at the time?” “Houston, Texas.”

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“Okay. And there was an area, I thought you said like the Hamley area, or something like that?”

“It’s off of Hammerly Road (Boulevard, actually).” “Oh, Hammerly Road, okay, all right. And, uh, you

were on your way to go to church, is that right?”