Empty Chair, The (2025)

[bunniefuu]

[dramatic music playing]

[distorted screaming]

[panting]

[Elena] Mothers worry. It's what they do.

I never really thought

I gave mine too much to worry about.

-[man] No.

-[girl 1] Come on, it's just the movies.

-[girl 2] Just the movies...

-[girl 1] It's not fair.

-They're our best friends.

-[girl 2] Can't we just go?

-[man] No, it's not safe.

-[girl 1] I've been working hard all year.

[girl 2] I got head cheerleader.

We have to celebrate.

-[man] That very well may be true, but...

-Mom, I wanna watch TV.

[girl 1] You never let us go out

on a Saturday night.

-[man] It's not safe. I don't care.

-It's not fair, all my friends are going.

I'm going to college in the fall,

so I'll just do what I want then.

-[man] Enough!

-[pounds table]

Elena?

But I guess most daughters don't realize

something like that until it's too late.

JoAnna, Maria, enough.

[dog barking in background]

John, go out and check on the dog. Go on.

[ominous music playing]

[clattering]

[man grunting]

[man grunting]

[water splashing]

[panting]

[heavy breathing]

[thumping noises]

[muffled screaming]

[faucet squeaks]

[doorknob rattling]

[banging on door]

[door breaking down]

[yelps]

[music stops]

[man] Today's date is August 9, 1982.

Time of day, 11.55 a.m.

This is an interview

with Coral Eugene Watts.

Okay, Coral, we're just gonna

jump right into this, all right?

So...

You just go ahead, in your own words,

and tell us what happened.

Any particular one of these

you wanna start off with first?

[Coral] The lady out jogging.

-The lady out jogging?

-Mm-hmm.

Off Main Street?

All right.

-Tell us what happened.

-Uh...

I think it was in the morning.

-That's early in the morning?

-Uh-huh.

She was wearing a thing around her chest.

What kind of thing around her chest?

[Coral] Uh...

Like a... elastic deal?

Yeah.

I choked her with it.

Then I took the thing

that she had around her.

There was a low branch,

so I broke it off, and, uh...

[ominous music playing]

you know.

[man 1] All right. Why'd you hang her?

[Coral] No reason.

I just hung her up there.

[man 1] Did you think she was dead

when you hung her?

[Coral] No.

-[man 1] Was she moving at all?

-[Coral] A little.

-[man 1] Was she trying to free herself?

-[Coral] Yeah.

[man 1] Now, for purposes of this tape...

What's her first name?

[man 2 sighs] Uh, Phyllis.

For the purposes of this tape,

Coral Watts has just told us

about the m*rder of Phyllis Tamm.

That's T-A-M-M.

Originally ruled a suicide by the ME.

So, uh...

Uh...

-We're gonna have to fix that.

-Yeah.

[man 1] Coral,

did you take anything from her?

Yeah, uh, she had socks on her hands.

It was kind of cold.

And what did you do with the socks?

I believe I burned them.

-Why?

-Huh?

-Why?

-Why what?

Why'd you burn the socks?

To k*ll the spirit.

And you didn't think hanging her

would accomplish that?

No.

Coral, why did you have to k*ll

this particular woman's spirit?

She was evil.

She was evil?

I saw it in her eyes.

She had evil eyes?

Yeah.

[unsettling music playing]

I put her in the bathtub,

ran water down on her

until the tub was full.

Then I let the water out,

so her spirit couldn't get out.

I think she was wearing a white dress.

Might have had flowers in it.

I parked the car.

Evil eyes.

Ran up, grabbed her,

stabbed her, choked her,

put her in the bathtub.

Evil eyes. She had evil in her eyes.

Evil Eyes.

She was driving a solid white car.

Stopped, I got out,

grabbed her, choked her,

stabbed her about five times.

It was an ice pick.

This one here,

I put in a dumpster.

[man 1 sighs] All right.

Tell us what you did to her.

She was stopped at a light.

I was going the opposite way.

I turned around and followed her

to her apartment.

I lost her for like two or three minutes,

and she came back from the apartments,

get back in the car again.

I walked over to her.

She said something, uh,

trying to flag some people down.

There was people walking by.

I grabbed her,

choked her with my hands.

I took her coat, her pants and shirt off.

I tied the shirt around her neck,

I leaned around her leg

and I picked her up,

threw her in the dumpster.

[sobs]

[phone ringing]

-[indistinct chatter on TV]

-[phone ringing]

Gotta pay to play.

You got to pay to play.

[woman on TV] ...bodies found

in a relatively small section of Houston.

[man 1 on TV] The youngest of the victims

was Elena Semander,

a University of Houston student.

Her body was found on February 7th,

stuffed in a dumpster like this one here

in the 10,000 block of Fondren.

She had been strangled

with her own blouse.

[woman] Now, finally,

a suspect is in custody.

[man 2] If in fact,

this person is responsible

for Elena's death

and the other, uh, young ladies,

I'm quite frankly glad

that he's been apprehended

and is off the street.

[Maria] She's the one

who needs to move on.

I mean, no amount of therapy

is going to bring back Elena.

[JoAnna] She's having

a hard time dealing with it, Maria.

All I know is,

if they keep going on like this,

they're gonna get a divorce.

You really think she'd leave him?

I hope not, but, I don't know,

they just both seem so...

[Maria sighs]

[JoAnna] Broken?

Yeah, like Elena's m*rder is

all they have in common anymore.

God, I mean, seriously, I can't believe

they still keep her light on.

I just wish they would, you know...

Honey, it's late.

So it is.

Her diary.

You think

you should be doing that right now?

It's my way of coping.

You have yours.

I have mine.

Yeah. [sighs]

I, uh... I wasn't gambling.

Mmm.

Good for you.

Zack. [sniffs]

A detective called today...

to tell us that Coral Watts confessed

to Elena's m*rder.

I told him that...

I would not accept

a simple phone call on the matter.

I told him

that I wanted to personally meet

with every single detective on this case.

And then that's when he, um,

hung up on me.

Harriet,

we have three other kids to look after.

He was under police surveillance

the whole time.

How could this have happened?

Thirteen girls in nine months?

Thirteen!

And our daughter, Zack,

he took our little girl!

I am never stopping with this.

Not till the day I die, okay?

[man on TV] What triggers

his brain to k*ll is not yet known,

but there was a method.

He would always stalk his victims

late at night or early in the morning,

usually on weekends.

He would always look for single women.

He would always attack from behind,

and he would always stab them

or strangle them.

And he was very quick,

k*lling in minutes...

Wait, what did he look like?

What the hell does it matter

what he looks like, John?

I can't believe what they're saying.

I just pictured him different.

Let me know when Dad's ready to go.

I'll be in my room.

Race does not seem to matter.

What mattered to Watts was a female alone,

usually early in the morning.

The attorney who knows him best,

Don Keegan, says

there is a shocking, bizarre reason

in Watts' mind.

But attorney-client confidence

prevents him from saying...

Turn that off, John,

and go get ready for school.

Mom's taking me.

-She's staying home today.

-She is?

Yes.

-Why?

-I don't know.

-Can I stay home?

-No!

Then why can't Maria take me?

She's not doing anything.

Just stop watching the damn TV

and go get ready!

Go!

[Zack sighs]

Ever since Elena died,

it's like Mom died too.

I don't have a sister or a mom anymore.

[exhaling] Oh, God.

[man on TV] Police reports obtained

by News Center 11 reveal

that ten months earlier,

Houston police were warned

by Michigan police

that the suspected mass-k*ller

had moved to Houston.

Houston police placed Watts

under surveillance

and even put a bug in his car,

but that surveillance was later dropped.

Both Mayor Whitmire

and Police Chief Brown say

there's no need

for an outside investigation

because the police department did

a good job in probing the Watts case.

[dramatic music playing]

[Elena] A deal with the devil.

That's what crime victims' advocates

were calling a plea-bargain agreement

between the Houston DA's office

and confessed serial k*ller

Coral Eugene Watts back in 1982.

He k*lled me with just his bare hands.

They were huge, around my throat.

I tried like crazy to fight him off,

but it was useless.

He ended up receiving

60 years in prison

in exchange for his full confession

to 13 murders and six assaults,

along with the information that would lead

to the discovery of three missing bodies,

which would then all be erased

from his criminal record

like chalk from a board.

Now, we all know justice

is supposed to be blind,

but did she really have

to be deaf and dumb too?

Because it turns out that the devil

would receive two days off his sentence

for every good day he served,

reducing that 60 years down to just 20.

And then, well,

America's most prolific serial k*ller

would get himself a mandatory release

back into our society...

unless my mother finds

the strength to stop it.

[music intensifies]

[serene music playing]

[music fades]