CHESTER — Standing in leg irons and in handcuffs, Clayton Eli Watts told the court why he wanted his grandparents murdered, and was willing to pay someone to kill them.
"Things had been going bad for a while. My grandmother argued with me a lot, and that just basically broke me," Watts said.
Watts had been adopted by Jimmie and Mack Paul when he was only a toddler, and they had raised him. He said they were tough on him, and didn't approve of his friends or his grades at Chester High School.
Jimmie Paul had even taken his car at one point as discipline. Five months before the murder, Watts began talking to classmate Marqueas Buchanan about killing them.
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"I said that I wish she was dead, and he said for $5,000 he'd do it," Watts said.
On January 29, 2013, Watts picked up Buchanan and another teen named Shaderius Cohen, who he said he'd never met. While in the car he gave them a 9mm and a .357-caliber pistol that he'd taken from his grandparents' bedroom along with the bullets.
They drove back to the house and waited to ambush his grandparents.
When Mack Paul came home from work he went around back and began working on his boat. That act saved his life. He later found his wife, Jimmie Paul on the kitchen floor.
She'd been shot in the legs, and through the heart. Deputies said Cohen was the shooter. He had the .357 at the time.
The plan was to make the attack look like a robbery. The phone lines were cut and various drawers in the house were left open.
Watts said Buchanan was supposed to text him "when it was done." He went to his room, put on headphones to listen to music, but still heard the three gunshots. Cohen and Buchanan ran after killing Paul, and were arrested later that same night.
Watts confessed to deputies what he had planned and how he had arranged to use his inheritance money to pay them $5,000 for the death of each grandparent.
At the time Sheriff Alex Underwood said Watts showed no emotion and shed no tears when he explained the plot to investigators.
The defense and solicitor's office negotiated a 30-year sentence for Watts if he testifies against Buchanan and Cohen during their court appearances.
However, the judge does not have to abide by that negotiated sentence. Sentencing was delayed until both Buchanan and Cohen appear in court, and Watts left the courtroom staring at the carpet, as he was escorted back to jail.
His grandfather, Mack Paul, was not in court Wednesday, and other relatives who were there did not speak on his behalf.
Solicitor Randy Newman said it may be several months until a sentence is handed down. That's because Buchanan's lawyer Cyrus Hinton was murdered Sunday night at his home in Spartanburg.
That hearing has been delayed, and the third defendant, Cohen, also has no court date.
WSOC
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