My Unintentional Connections to Murderers and Serial Killers - Part 6 - William Watkins
The past few stories I have posted here have been about serial killers. This one is a little different. The guy that I knew was not a serial killer, but a serial child molester. I honestly do not know which is worse. Both categories are sadists and degenerates. You be the judge.
If you have ever been to The Beast haunted house in Kansas City's West Bottoms area, you have definitely seen this guy. His name was William Watkins, but we all called him Bill, or simply "Beetle" because he dressed up like Beetlejuice and entertained the crowd while they were waiting to go through The Beast. He would dance around, sneak up on people and scare them, and a ton of other wacky Beetlejuice type of hijinks. I started working at The Beast in 1993 and he was there. I worked there for five seasons and Beetlejuice worked all of them as well.
In the summer of 1994, I bought an 8mm Sony Handycam. That October I took it down to The Beast to capture some footage. At some point Bill asked me if he could get a copy of that video. Sure, not a problem. He said he has a hair salon on Noland Road in Independence called Prime Cuts and he would give me a free haircut in trade. At the time I was a little over a year out of the Marine Corps and I was letting my hair grow long, but I could use a trim every now and then. So for the 1994, 1995, and 1996 Halloween seasons I would make Bill a copy of what I shot down at The Beast.
I quit doing the haunted house thing in 1997 but I still went to Bill to get my hair cut. For another 10 years actually. At some point he moved Prime Cuts to the basement of his house. It was a nice setup. It had a quaint little fishpond outside the entrance, a nice seating area with stereo system, and a spot for the little spinny barber chair and mirror on the walls to see from different angles. He had pictures of Derrick Thomas (KC Chiefs #58) and him dressed up as Beetlejuice and also The Pussycat Dolls. I guess he did their hair when they were in town. Also as you came in there was his desk with telephone, answering machine, appointment notebook, and various intesting paperweights. So this was not some ramshackle shop or an unfinished basement with a barstool in the middle to cut hair. This was nice and had to be approved by the City of Independence to make sure it was up to code or whatever a place of business like his would need.
Bill also said he liked working out of his home because he could be there when his two school aged boys would get out of school and the schoolbus would drop them off in front of the house. There were quite a few times when Bill would be giving me a haircut and his boys would come through the sliding glass door of the basement and walk through the salon area and go upstairs. Occasionally with his boys would be a couple young girls here and there. Probably just neighborhood friends of his boys.
Halloween 2007 rolls around and leading up to that Bill was saying he is setting up his backyard as a mini haunted house for the trick or treaters in the neighborhood. He said I should stop by and take a look and see what I thought. Sure, why not. A friend and I went over to his house that Halloween. He was dressed up as Beetlejuice doing his act for the trick or treaters and sending them to the backyard. We followed behind a group of kids going though and it was a decent setup. Kind of an outdoor maze with one part being a cemetery, another scene was hacked up body parts, another was a summer camp or something like a Friday the 13th theme. It only took a few minutes to wander though and came out on the other side of the house. We hung out with Bill and some other people that used to work at The Beast. Told him it that was a cool thing for the kids and that I would see him in a few weeks for my hair appointment. That never came to be.
So along comes mid-December. It's snowy, icy, sleet, slick roads, and everything else. I was half way over to Bill's house to get my hair cut and decided it's not worth the trip with the weird hills and such where he lives. I called and left a message. Probably something like "Hey Beetle, it's Wolfie. Can't make it today. Let's reschedule." For the next week or so I am waiting for a call but never heard back. Finally, I was going to call him back but I received a call from the LaRetta who used to run The Beast. She asked me if I've seen the local news about Independence hairstylist and child molestation charges. Obviously I haven't so I checked out the local news and sure enough, it was Bill.
He was picked up December 20th, 2007 at 4:46 PM. If I would have rescheduled my appointment, most likely it could have been this day and this is the normal time frame I would do. I always did late afternoons. Good thing that didn't happen. It would have been a little odd, me getting a haircut and have Bill's house raided. Well during the raid they found drugs and child porn. I remember him having a computer up in the dining room area but he just played it off like he was computer illiterate and could barely figure out email. But apparently he could figure out where to download child porn. Just the thought of that makes me cringe.
Bill was charged with child molestation, five counts of statutory sodomy for alleged incidents involving girls who were under 10 years old, and possession of child pornography. I will not go in depth on his sick and depraved crimes. If you want to scar yourself for life, you can read the JACKSON COUNTY, MO. COMPLAINT. While reading the complaint, I had a WTF moment. One of the girls describes a purple hand massager that he used on her. This was one of the key pieces of evidence they were looking for when they busted him at home. This particular purple hand massager was what I thought was a paperweight on his desk downstairs. I remember picking it up and asking Bill what it was. He said it was a massager and then used it on my back to demonstrate. I remember it looking like the Cingular Wireless splat logo but purple.
How I never got contacted by the Independence Police is beyond me. Seriously. My name would have been in his appointment book for that week. Unless he deleted it, my cryptic "Hey Beetle, it's Wolfie" message would have been on his answering machine. My fingerprints would have been on that purple hand massager. Some of those VHS tapes they found would have been labeled "The Beast 1994", "The Beast 1995", and "The Beast 1996". If you are a detective going through and you see VHS tapes labeled that, imagine what is going through your head.
I still get skeeved out thinking about him putting me under the sink and using those fingers to wash my hair. One of his victims describes a costume he had her wear down to the haunted houses one year. I have been in his costume room in his basement and more than likely I saw that same costume he had this little girl wear with a stuffed bra. Also, those girls that would come inside the house when his kids got off the bus...were they some of his victims? It's just disgusting. I hope his two boys are okay and not completely traumatized by what their father did to young girls.
He was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was 10 years into his sentence at Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, MO when he died of natural causes on March 26, 2018.
