Miami man accused of gunning down wife at crowded Jewish center pool pleads not guilty
The Miami man accused of gunning down his wife at a community pool in front of terrified children and parents didn’t show up in court on Monday to formally face a murder charge.
Instead, a Miami-Dade public defender entered a not guilty plea to a charge of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon for the killing Shandell Harris.
Harris’ brother, Ty’rel Harris, 29, and her father, Matthew Everett, did show up for the brief hearing. “I wanted to make sure I’m present, to make sure he gets charged,” Everett said.
The 45-year-old Watts, who remains in jail, has a long history of domestic violence allegations and criminal convictions and is also being eyed in suspected murders of two other former lovers. One of them, Vickie Simmons, was found murdered inside a Miami motel in 2009. The other, Trukita Scott, vanished in June 2014 from Fort Lauderdale and her parents fear she may be dead.
Watts has not been charged in either of those cases and is not discussing either case of the Harris shooting with investigators, invoking his right to remain silent.
In the most recent case, police say, Watts murdered Harris, 30, at the pool at the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center on the afternoon of Aug. 3.
One day earlier, police said, Watts stabbed Harris when she threatened to leave him. She reported the case to Miami police, but detectives hadn’t yet tracked him down when he confronted her at the pool, where she’d brought her young daughter for swim lessons.
Watts, according to the arrest report, tried to get her to withdraw the allegations before he opened fire. Private security guards immediately detained Watts, who acknowledged he stabbed his wife, according to a Miami-Dade police arrest report.
Watts is also being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, tampering with a witness, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and tampering with physical evidence. He is being prosecuted by assistant state attorneys Shakia Burnam and Alexandria Lewis.
This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 11:10 AM.