- November 1, 2024
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A Flagler County jury will deliberate later this week on whether to convict a 35-year-old registered sex offender for the kidnapping, rape and attempted murder of a woman last November.
But regardless of the outcome, defendant Obtravies Watkins will spend the rest of his life in prison: He’s already been convicted of rape and kidnapping and sentenced to two life terms in Volusia County in connection with the same crime, which began in Volusia County and continued into Flagler County, where Watkins, according to the prosecution, drove the victim into a wooded lot off Old Kings Road, raped her and twice tried to strangle her to death, leaving her for dead after she lost consciousness.
Watkins had previously been convicted in 2003 of molesting a child, in 2005 for failing to register as an offender, and in 2010 for using the internet to solicit a child for sex.
The Flagler County court case began Monday, Sept. 17, with jury selection before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins, followed by the opening arguments of the defense and the prosecution. Watkins is being represented by Regina Nunnally, a public defender.
"He puts his two hands around her throat and begins to squeeze. … She passes out completely naked, lying in a grassy field.”
— MELISSSA CLARK, prosecutor, describing the case to the jury
The 40 potential jurors who showed up for the case were whittled down Sept. 17 through a series of questions asked by the judge, defense attorney Nunnally and the prosecution, represented by Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark.
Jurors were asked if they had relationships with anyone who was involved in the case, a witness in the case, or handling the case’s prosecution; and if they had relationships with law enforcement officers that would prevent them from being able to fairly weigh evidence and testimony. They were also asked if they would be able to handle the violent and sexual content of the case. Two women said no, and were excused.
Watkins had previously been convicted in 2003 of molesting a child, in 2005 for failing to register as a sex offender, and in 2010 for using the internet to solicit a child for sex.
Clark asked the jurors if any of them thought that a prostitute — the victim in the case was working as a prostitute when she met Watkins — can’t be raped. Nobody said that they did. Nunnally asked if her client, who is black, could get a fair trial as a black man who’s been charged with raping a white woman. She asked jurors to think of some reasons someone might be falsely accused of a crime. She asked how they would feel if the defense had no witnesses to call on his behalf. She asked jurors if they thought it was the defense’s responsibility to prove the prosecution wrong. Jurors said no, but some also said they would expect the defense to try to poke holes in the prosecution’s case and try to prove the defendant’s innocence. She then asked the jurors if they thought two people could have violent sex without it being rape, asking them if they’d heard of the novel or movie “Fifty Shades of Gray,” which centers around a sadomasochistic relationship. The potential jurors replied that such sex acts would not be rape as long as the acts were consensual.
Opening arguments began the afternoon of Sept. 17, with Clark laying out the prosecution’s account of the crime: Watkins, she said, met the victim in Volusia County the night of Nov. 26 and agreed to pay the victim for sex.
Watkins drove the woman to a secluded area and the two engaged in a sex act, but Watkins wanted more sex and the woman did not have more condoms, and she told Watkins that she would need to buy more before proceeding, because she would not have unprotected sex. First Watkins pleaded with her to have sex without a condom, then he became enraged, struck her in the face, and raped her, Clark said. He then drove her to another area in Volusia County and raped her again.
“All the while, he’s threatening her, threatening he will shoot her and kill her,” Clark said.
At one point as he was driving, Watkins started looking for his cell phone but couldn’t find it, and the victim saw it and handed it to him.
He then began accusing her of trying to call someone for help, and said, “Now I have to kill you,” according to Clark.
He drove onto Old Kings Road, pulled off on a dirt road in Flagler County, parked, told the woman to strip — she was pleading for him to let her go — and raped her.
Then, Clark said, “He puts his two hands around her throat and begins to squeeze. … She passes out completely naked, lying in a grassy field.” When she awoke, he was dragging her into the woods. She played dead.
She waited and then tried to get up, but he saw her, immediately ran toward her, then wrapped a belt around her neck and pulled until she passed out, Clark said. She awoke in a deeper part of the same wooded lot. It was 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m. Nov. 27. All of her things — clothes, bag — were gone.
She staggered out to the road and flagged down a car, and was able to give a description of Watkins and his vehicle to law enforcement. He was arrested after a deputy saw his car and stopped him, and the victim picked him out of a lineup.
DNA taken from her body confirmed that Watkins had committed a sex act on her. Her skin cells were also found under his nails.
“She didn’t survive because he let her live, she just survived by sheer luck,” Clark said.
Nunnally’s presentation to the jury followed Clark’s.
“This case is about quality over quantity,” she said. “The reliability of the evidence that the state’s bringing to you, not about the quantity.”
The defense, she said, wasn’t contesting the fact that the victim met Watkins in Daytona Beach, or that they had sex: The defense was contesting the charges of rape, kidnapping and attempted murder.
When the victim was first found on the side of the road, Nunnally said, she told police that Watkins was a stranger who’d offered her a ride. She didn’t admit that he had hired her as a prostitute.
“She told that story five times,” Nunnally said. “She wanted everybody to believe that this was some chance encounter.”
She only admitted that she had met Watkins while working as a prostitute when a detective challenged her on it, Nunnally said.
Nunnally said police did not find blood on the victim, and never found a gun.
“This was a fight for money,” Nunnally said.
The trial continues Thursday, Sept. 20, and is expected to conclude on Friday, Sept. 21.
