Murder charge filed against suspect in Portage woman’s disappearance
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KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — A murder charge has been filed against the boyfriend of a Portage mother of eight who vanished in 2022.
“We have reached a point in this investigation where we are going to take the next step. That means criminal charges,” Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting said Wednesday morning at a news conference. “We have this morning charged Carlos Vance Watts Jr. with the offense of murder for causing the death of Heather Kelley.”
According to a probable cause affidavit filed Wednesday, one subject told investigators that Watts “admitted to killing Heather by striking her in the head with a blunt object and then disposed of her body in a dumpster.”
Later in the affidavit, investigators wrote that they interviewed “a cooperative witness who knows Carlos.”
“That cooperative witness told investigators that after Heather disappeared, Carlos admitted to the witness that he ‘got rid of the (expletive),’ which to the cooperating witness based on the topic of conversation meant that Carlos killed Heather,” the affidavit reads.
Kelley, 35, was last seen in December 2022. No remains have been found
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Investigators say that when Kelley disappeared, she was with her boyfriend, Watts. Kelley’s car was later found in Kalamazoo with her blood on the front and back seats. They also found clothing in a field about half a mile away from Kelley’s vehicle, including women’s underwear, women’s jeans, boots and a durag. Tests later determined that the jeans and durag had DNA from Kelley and Watts, court records say.
Court documents show Watts was on federal parole, wearing a tether and finishing a federal sentence at the KPEP halfway house in Kalamazoo for a 2010 cocaine conspiracy that included a murder-for-hire plot. Watts’ tether was inactive for several hours the night Kelley went missing, according to court records. It wasn’t turned back on until the next morning.
Detectives interviewed Watts at KPEP the day after Kelley’s disappearance, according to court filings. The next morning, Watts cut off his tether and escaped through an emergency exit, according to documents filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Watts was arrested days later after a two-hour standoff at a home in Battle Creek. He has since pleaded guilty to a federal charge related to the halfway house and is expected to be sentenced Friday.
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