SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – With just one juror and two alternates left to select, opening statements are expected to get underway Thursday in the trial of the Shreveport man accused in the slaying of a local couple who gave him a ride from the mall.
DeWayne Willie Watkins, 37, is charged in the November 2018 murders of 32-year-old Heather Angela King Jose and her husband, 43-year-old Kelly Dean Jose. Prosecutors say he shot them both after they gave him a ride from Mall St. Vincent on the night of the slayings and left their bodies to burn inside a vehicle in the carport of a vacant home in the Queensborough neighborhood.
Jury selection began on Aug. 22, but the process was halted the next day after Watkins tested positive for COVID. Voire dire resumed Monday. It wasn’t the first time the trial had been delayed due to COVID.
Jury selection originally began June 26, but the trial was shut down three days later after a COVID outbreak and re-scheduled for August 22.
The case, which has been winding through Caddo District Court for more than three years, has been delayed multiple times, starting with the Caddo Parish grand jury upgrading Watkin’s original second-degree murder charges to first-degree murder in a Feb. 14, 2019 indictment. The trial had to be rescheduled in February 2022 under a court order issued in January postponing all jury trials until at least March 1 due to COVID concerns.
Watkins is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, which is punishable by life in prison or the death penalty but Caddo Parish District Attorney James Stewart reversed course in early 2021, taking the death penalty option off the table in an effort to move the case along.
Over the state’s objections, defense attorneys were allowed to ask prospective jurors individually if they felt the defendant already “caught a break” with the death penalty off the table.
Court is set to resume at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday to select the final juror and two alternates. Barring any unexpected delays, opening statements are expected to get underway at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
