By Ashlee Clark
aclark@herald-leader.com
WINCHESTER — Special Circuit Judge Gary Payne agreed with jurors and sentenced Patrick and Joy Watkins both to life in prison.
The couple was sentenced Thursday in Clark Circuit Court, exactly a month after a jury of eight women and four men ruled that Patrick and Joy Watkins were guilty of murdering 10-year-old Michaela Watkins. On Sept. 9, it took the jury about 40 minutes to recommend that both Patrick and Joy Watkins receive a life sentence — the maximum sentence — with the possibility of parole in 20 years.
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- Patrick Watkins
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- Joy Watkins
Michaela’s body was found severely bruised and burned on March 11, 2007, at the Watkinses’ apartment.
Michaela had a total of 77 injuries — 35 of which were on her head. She had bite marks behind her ear and on her ankle. And a four-inch-long bruise ran across her side that concealed the five crushed ribs that led to her death.
Michaela also had skin-peeling burns on the backs of her legs and buttocks.
Michaela Watkins
On Thursday, Patrick and Joy Watkins — who were wearing navy and orange jumpsuits, respectively — stood before Payne as they waited to hear their sentences.
Patrick Watkins declined to say anything during the sentencing. However, Joy Watkins did.
“I don’t think there will ever be a day that goes by when she’s not in my thoughts,” Joy Watkins said through a steady stream of tears.
Before sentencing, Payne told both Patrick and Joy Watkins, “She depended on you to take care of her and you didn’t.”
When Payne said he would impose the jury’s recommendation, Michaela’s mother, Rachel Adams, screamed “yes!”
Afterward, Adams said it was difficult to listen to Joy Watkins during the sentencing. She said Joy Watkins’ comments “made my blood boil, to put it lightly.”
“Michaela was mine and will always be mine,” she said.
Life in prison hmmm, Well, who do you think pays for these ignorant people to sit in prison? Once again the taxpayers $$$$$ is being spent unwisely. I don’t think their punishment fit the crime they commited.
Who in the hell is going to help us if/when we get laid off. The Ky unemployment insurance is about to run out. If we executed them, then the taxpayers don’t have to pay for their room and board. I just pray that a fellow inmate will take care of this for me
Joy Watkins can cry “Not Guilty” all she wants. Michael Watkins can stand speechless all he wants. But, the truth is they both were to blame one way or another. If they didnt participate in the beatings and scalding of this “Child” under their roof then they had to know this was going on. One question…Why did they have custody of little Michaela anyway? Why did her Mother not have her. I feel confident that we can expect “Daddy’s dance card will be full when he gets where he’s headed and hopefully Joy will get her’s too. Maybe they will both be someone’s B…. when they get there!!! May God Bless this “Little Michaela”. She doesn’t have to live in such an ugly world anymore. Beverly
It actually costs more for the death penalty if you look at the statistics.
Why is there a possibility of parole? They should rot in prison for what they did! I doubt he will ever make it out anyway. Prisoners read the news too.
Racheal Adams should be in prison next to them. Her actions also caused that little girls death. She makes me sick.
The little girls mom said this, ““Michaela was mine and will always be mine,” she said”
This brings tears to my eyes, and let’s not forget that the state took Michaela away from her mom and gave her to this dude to “protect her” in the first place.
Why did they do that? I really would like to find out what happened that the state felt they had to take her to protect her from her mom? I don’t think that the state “protected” her very well do you?
We have some (not all) people in this business of getting paid to protect kids that do not actually care about the best interest of the child or their family. These kind of cold hearted people can put a good show on and we have some really bad things going on because of these power hungry, power and control mongering individuals. It goes on this way all the time and we really only hear about the worst cases out of any of this and then we generalize them to the rest of the ones that this stuff is being done to. The general public never hears about the rest of the stories in most instances. Even if they have as bad of an affect on those that are being “protected” by this system as the result you get in the worst cases like this.
It is easy to let all of this go on and then ask for more and more of it, more and more money for it, more and more big groups being built to do it, because we all feel sorry for kids and we don’t want anything bad to happen to them or most people really don’t. So everyone jumps on the emotional bandwagons, and don’t see how it is really all working and not for the good of the people. I have seen what it can do too many times. I can’t just forget Baby Daniel, Rebecca Riley, Wynemma Worley, and others that I am aware of. They are just a few of the examples of all of this.
When you look at the picture of this little girl’s face, I want you to realize what this system is really doing to our children and our families on some mass scales. When is enough, enough? When is it time for a change, for a re-looking and reclaiming of what is right to be done instead.
I also take issue that no one has ever said why or how this little girl had the anti-deppressants in her blood system when she died, that shouldn’t be covered over. These drugs are dangerous, and these drugs are not treatments, and these drugs don’t stop stuff like this. If anything overall and in the long term they have increased it and not decreased it.
NO, I don’t hope that these people will be attacked like some of these fools on here would like to see them be. Isn’t that violence and cruelty to think that way and violence no matter where it is done or who does it or when it is done always begets more violence and that is about all. I do think they need to be locked up. I realize that the people wishing harm and violence on this couple are angry about what they did to this child and they have a right to be, they need to learn to use it for the right reasons and in the right ways. Violence isn’t going to change this.
When is our society going to wake up and learn that to late is too late, that doesn’t mean grabbing children away from parents, that love them, for this reason or that reason whatever can possibly be anonymously reported and possibly even be wrongly said or reported many times. That means that first of all people have to make sure that they have good and valid and reliable evidence that can be followed through in every case just like in this one. At the end of this I think that this was handled as well as it could have been.
Nor is it a good reason to grab kids because the ones that are charged with the protection of children are afraid they might be wrong in their decissions. Because when that is done it is always a fact that we might be wrong for the better or worse of it, and it still harms those that are wronged by it including the children.
Taken all together what this means is building into our communities more of the right things, in the right ways, in the way of ending abuse and violence before it starts or gets this far into the process. Things that all people are aware of and can and want to benefit from and willingly because it doesn’t harm or hurt anyone and no one is getting hurt in any way because of it. Things that work as preventive measures. Who is looking at prevention and what needs to be done to actually prevent stuff like this, or fix the minor issues before they become major ones.
Look at this and look at the statistics as they keep going up, coercion and force has been in Kentucky for years now and it doesn’t work. I promise you that it is not the answer or the solution either.
So when is anyone going to care enough about all of the real people here that have been hurt in all of this, the mom that lost her daughter twice once to the system and then to death, the people that did it that now are costing the tax payers so much and still have to live with it, little Michaela who didn’t deserve any of this. When is our society going to REALLY care, more then just to use this stuff to put on a show with? That is what I want to know!
Why Parole?????