At just 18 years old, Carrie Ann Caughey was standing on the threshold of adulthood. A former runaway from Hobe Sound, Florida, she was navigating the complexities of life when her future was stolen in the early morning hours of Memorial Day, May 31, 2004. Her death was part of a series of brutal killings that gripped the community of Port Salerno with fear, as a serial killer later dubbed the "Salerno Strangler" preyed on vulnerable women.
In the hours before her death, Carrie was last
seen by an acquaintance who had been with her at the Heritage Inn. Around 3:00 a.m., he dropped her off in the parking lot of a Li'l Saints convenience store. As she walked away, another man approached her. That man was Eugene Wayman McWatters Jr., and he was the last person ever seen with Carrie. He lured her away with the promise of sharing drugs, a tragically common tactic he used to gain his victims' trust.
Four days later, on June 3, 2004, a passerby made a grim discovery in a secluded, wooded area near Lincoln Street in Port Salerno. Carrie's body was found about fifteen to twenty feet from the road, partially concealed with dead vegetation and vines. She had been strangled to death and sexually assaulted. The manner in which her body was left was chillingly similar to another recent homicide victim in the area, 43-year-old Jacqueline Bradley, whose body was found in a canal two months prior. This discovery heightened fears that a serial killer was at large.
The spring of 2004 was a terrifying time for the residents of Port Salerno. With the discovery of a third victim, 29-year-old Christal Wiggins, on June 7, the community was on high alert. People were afraid to walk alone or leave their doors unlocked. The Martin County Sheriff's Department poured resources into the investigation, with detectives working 15-hour days to connect the dots and find the person responsible for the string of murders.
The investigation soon focused on Eugene Wayman McWatters Jr., a man with a history of violence and drug-related offenses. He had been identified as the last person seen with the first victim, Jacqueline Bradley. A crucial break in the case came from an unexpected source: McWatters himself sought medical treatment for a broken foot, an injury he sustained while covering Carrie's body. On June 23, 2004, detectives arrested McWatters on an unrelated sexual battery charge. During questioning, he confessed to the murders of all three women. He told investigators that he would have consensual sexual encounters with the women, then "freak out" or "lose it" and strangle them.
In September 2006, Eugene McWatters Jr. went on trial. Prosecutors depicted him as a calculating and manipulative killer who preyed on vulnerable women, luring them with promises of drugs and alcohol before sexually assaulting and murdering them. The defense argued that McWatters' confession was coerced and that he had only confessed for the attention. After about two hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of sexual battery. He was subsequently sentenced to death.
However, the legal proceedings did not end there. In 2014, a judge granted McWatters a new trial, citing an inadequate defense in his original trial. In 2015, to avoid another death sentence, McWatters pleaded no contest to the three murder charges. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole. McWatters died in prison in September 2024, ensuring he would never harm another person. While justice was served, it could not return the lives of the women he so brutally took, including a young woman named Carrie Ann Caughey, whose life had only just begun.
