Alexander Wayne Watson

Case record: Alexander Wayne Watson

Background

Alexander Wayne Watson Jr. was 34 years old at the time of the 2007 proceedings and was imprisoned since 1994. He worked at an office in the same plaza as Cobb.

Watson was a minor when he killed Boontem Anderson. There was no evidence that Lisa Haenel was sexually assaulted, so the death penalty was possible only in the slaying of Elaine Shereika.

By the early 1990s, Watson became a father, married, and moved to an apartment in Glen Burnie near Old Mill High School. Records showed Haenel’s family lived in that same apartment complex called Southgate.

Watson’s parents bought a house in November 1985 in the Four Seasons neighborhood where Anderson and Shereika lived.

Watson was behind bars at the Maryland House of Correction Annex in Jessup.

The offence

Watson pleaded guilty in Circuit Court in Annapolis to three brutal slayings that had been unsolved for many years before DNA evidence linked him to the crimes.

Watson admitted that he killed:

• Boontem Anderson, 34, who was stabbed, strangled, and sexually assaulted in her Gambrills home in 1986.
• Elaine Shereika, 37, who was raped, stabbed, strangled, and sexually assaulted while jogging near her Gambrills home in 1988.
• Lisa Haenel, 14, who was stabbed and strangled on the way to school in the Glen Burnie area in 1993.

During the bail-review hearing in Annapolis, Watson responded to questions with only “yes” and “no” during a brief bail-review hearing.

Investigation

Investigators used DNA evidence to link Watson to the three slayings.

The investigation included evidence from Andersen’s case, Shereika’s case, and Haenel’s case, and later Cold-case work to connect Watson to all three murders.

Anne Arundel detectives said their investigation began in the Four Seasons neighborhood of Gambrills on Oct. 8, 1986, the date of Andersen’s killing.

Jeff Cover collected evidence from Andersen’s home on Snow Hill Lane. Cover joined the Anne Arundel County crime lab a year earlier after a stint in Baltimore and had been present during Andersen’s autopsy. Several swabs of someone’s body fluid were taken from Andersen’s corpse, were tested, and were preserved for future testing.

On May 23, 1988, Shereika had been out for an early-morning jog near her home in Four Seasons when a man police believed was familiar with her route grabbed her and dragged her into a rye field. There, police said he sexually assaulted, beat, stabbed, and strangled her. Cover was at the autopsy and helped collect fluids from her body; some swabs were tested and others were saved.

At the site of Haenel’s murder on Jan. 15, 1993, in a ravine off a path she walked each morning to Old Mill High School, crime scene technicians found that the teenager had not been sexually assaulted, so they did not take the same kind of DNA samples from her body. A few feet from her nude body, police said, there was an unlit Newport cigarette with what appeared to be blood on it. Police said Haenel’s blood was on the cigarette and that saliva from the filter end was used to create a DNA profile, possibly of her killer.

The place where Haenel’s body was found was later marked with a white wooden cross bearing her name and ladybug decorations.

Cold-case work later used DNA technology to link Watson conclusively to the slayings. Sgt. David Waltemeyer supervised homicide detectives and oversaw the cold-case unit. Waltemeyer said the unit formed in 1998 and that the Andersen, Shereika, and Haenel killings were among the first he reinvestigated. The unit had closed four homicides before this week and was investigating about 25 open ones that date to 1970.

After DNA samples submitted to CODIS from the Shereika and Haenel cases matched Watson’s DNA in October, Waltemeyer said cold-case investigators re-examined thousands of pages of paperwork in all three cases through the lens of Watson being a suspect, including interviews and notes from the original detectives.

Walimtemeyer said DNA from Andersen’s case did not conclusively match Watson’s until this year, but detectives considered him a suspect because he lived in her neighborhood at the time of her killing. Police also said detectives learned that Watson knew her fiance’s family and that his crimes were motivated by opportunity.

At Tuesday’s news conference announcing the charges, State’s Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee said:

“Witnesses tend to forget. DNA is a timeless stamp that could always be used as evidence.”

Police Chief P. Thomas Shanahan called DNA the “greatest thing that’s happened in police work since fingerprints” and praised the evidence technicians for having “enough foresight and professionalism” to collect and save evidence for so many years.

Anne Arundel police said the unsmoked Newport cigarette found near Haenel was bagged and marked as evidence by a crime scene technician. Police said the cigarette was a few feet from the 14-year-old Glen Burnie girl’s body and that on it was Haenel’s blood and “someone else’s saliva.”

Police said as DNA technology improved year after year, lab workers analyzed tiny pieces of the cigarette to create the best DNA profile possible. They said they finally matched it to DNA from a convicted murderer, Anne Arundel County police said.

Police said DNA connected the suspect in Haenel’s case to two mothers who had been killed in Gambrills in the late 1980s, Boontem Andersen and Mary Elaine Shereika, and police said this paved the way to charge Alexander Wayne Watson Jr. with three counts of first-degree murder.

Watson was charged with the slayings in 2004, not long after a match was obtained from DNA samples that Anne Arundel police had sent to a database.

Arrest

Watson made his first court appearance in the county on the day of the charges.

Trial

Watson pleaded guilty to three murders in Circuit Court in Annapolis, and prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty under a plea bargain.

Witnesses’ family members were involved in the plea process. Prosecutors said they struck the deal at the urging of the victims’ families.

Under the plea deal, part of the arrangement was that before sentencing, the families were allowed to meet one on one with Watson.

Watson declined to address the court and sat emotionless, surrounded by a wall of sheriff’s deputies, as a prosecutor detailed his crimes.

Victim details as presented at proceedings

The prosecutor detailed facts about each victim:

Boontem Anderson was described as a mother of two who stayed home sick from her job at Fort Meade on Oct. 8, 1986. Her 11-year-old son returning from school found her facedown in a bathtub.

Elaine Shereika disappeared while running before work about 5:20 a.m. on May 23, 1988. A farmer found her partially clothed body in a puddle of blood in his field.

Haenel was described as a ninth-grader at Old Mill High School. She left her Glen Burnie home Jan. 15, 1993. Her mother’s boyfriend found her nude body the next morning in a ravine near the path she used to take to school.

Sentencing

Watson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1994 for the murder of Debra Cobb, 37, an office manager in Prince George’s County.

The proceedings related to the 1994 murder included that he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced in December 1994 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was behind bars at the Maryland House of Correction Annex in Jessup.

Watson was later sentenced to three consecutive life terms on August 16, 2007.

At the bail-review hearing for the three new murder charges, an Anne Arundel prosecutor asked for Watson to be held without bond even though he was in prison for the 1994 murder, to show “an abundance of caution,” and the judge agreed.

Judge Joseph P. Manck told the families that he had been in their position once, referencing the slaying of his mother years ago. Manck said that with the resolution of the case, “your lives will change” and “you will have what is commonly referred to as closure.”

Manck also said:

“You will not have the thoughts of the evil that happened to your loved ones.”

Jennifer Scott, Shereika’s daughter, said she doubted closure was possible, and said:

“I don’t believe in closure.”
“This is just another chapter in the book. We just move on.”

Appeals

No appeals were described.

Other details

Jennifer Scott supported the plea agreement after “a great deal of discussion, thought, prayer, soul searching and tears.” Scott also said the guilty pleas did not represent “a great victory” or warrant “a celebration,” and said:

“We have not gotten a violent offender off of the streets of this county,” Scott said.
“All that has been done today is that three women’s files can finally be closed, their boxes put away for good, after far too many years.”

A letter to the court from Shereika’s son stated that the one-on-one meeting showed Watson had no remorse. Daniel D. Shereika Jr. wrote:

“He looked at us with blank eyes and gave pat answers to our questions,” Daniel D. Shereika Jr. wrote.
“He stated with no feeling that he was getting high in the park when my mother ran by and thought, 'I got away with it before, so figured I could get away with it again.' “

Watson did not address the court during sentencing for the 2007 case.

In a letter to a judge before his 1994 sentencing, Watson blamed Cobb’s killing on his addiction to crack cocaine.

Watson wrote in a subsequent letter dated Jan. 27, 1995, asking the judge to lessen his sentence, stating that what he had done was “horribly wrong.” Watson wrote:

“If given a second chance some day I am sure I can prove to the court, and society that I am not a threat to anybody,” he wrote.

When Watson faced the bail-review hearing, John Gunning, a public defender appointed Tuesday to represent Watson, declined to comment Tuesday night, saying he was just beginning to learn about the case.

Detectives said investigators determined that Watson was living in the same neighborhoods as his victims at the time of their deaths and had worked with Anderson’s son at a fast-food restaurant.

At Watson’s parents’ house on Tuesday afternoon, a man who came to the window said, “The family has no comment,” and refused to open the door.

At Tuesday’s news conference, Police Chief P. Thomas Shanahan praised the evidence technicians for their “enough foresight and professionalism” and said DNA was the “greatest thing that’s happened in police work since fingerprints.”

At a bail-review hearing, Watson was described as a stocky man with a shaved head and close-cropped beard and mustache.

Timeline

• Oct. 8, 1986 — Boontem Anderson was killed in the Four Seasons neighborhood of Gambrills.
• 1986 — Anderson was stabbed, strangled, and sexually assaulted in her Gambrills home.
• May 23, 1988 — Elaine Shereika disappeared while running before work about 5:20 a.m.
• 1988 — Shereika was raped, stabbed, strangled, and sexually assaulted while jogging near her Gambrills home; her partially clothed body was later found in a puddle of blood in a farmer’s field.
• Jan. 15, 1993 — Lisa Haenel left her Glen Burnie home.
• Jan. 1993 — Haenel’s nude body was found the next morning in a ravine near the path she used to take to school; an unlit Newport cigarette was found a few feet from her body with what appeared to be blood.
• Dec. 1994 — Watson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Debra Cobb.
• Jan. 27, 1995 — Watson wrote a letter asking the judge to lessen his sentence.
• 2004 — Watson was charged with the slayings.
• October (year not specified) — DNA samples submitted to CODIS from the Shereika and Haenel cases matched Watson’s DNA.
• Aug. 16, 2007 — Watson was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.
• Aug. 17, 2007 — Watson pleaded guilty in Circuit Court in Annapolis to three murders.