Miami Valley Murder Mystery: Who killed Toni Watkins?
Someone beat a Dayton woman so badly that her family didn’t recognize her.
It happened 35 years ago and the person who killed Toni Watkins probably feels confident that they’ve gotten away with it. However, the Dayton Cold Case is confident that they can still arrest the person responsible for her death.
It was past midnight on May 14, 1989, when Dayton homicide detectives were called to Grandview Hospital after getting reports that a woman was critically injured.
Retired Detective Doyle Burke said, “And found out that she had been wandering around Old Orchard and Kenwood looking for help.”
Burke said the people who helped her told police the woman was disoriented but able to speak.
“Never gave her name, never responsive to questions like ‘what happened? Who did this to you?’ Things like that,” Burke said.
Investigators said she had been raped and severely beaten. “Literally beaten to death,” Burke said.
Watkins lived 12 days in a medically induced coma until her family made the hard decision to let her go.
Watkins’ cousin, Yyvette Beach, said, “She was known as Toni Gail Anderson,” Beach and Watkins were more like sisters.
Watkins’ mother, Serepta Anderson, was well known as a physical education teacher and principal with Dayton Public Schools.
“We used to tease her about being an only child and a female. We would tell her she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth,” Beach said.
Watkins’ Roth High School yearbook shows just how popular she was in the class of 1973. She was a cheerleader, volleyball player, and Homecoming Queen.
“Very popular. She played volleyball, she was a cheerleader and captain of the cheerleading squad,” Beach said.
She went to college and later married and had a son and a daughter. Alicia, her daughter, said, “She was loving, full of life. She liked to make people happy.”
One of Alicia’s favorite memories of her mother was from her job with the city of Dayton’s recreation department.
“I remember a day when we went to a school and then we played basketball, played basketball in the gym and just ran around and we had fun,” Alicia said.
However, at the age of 34, Watkins and her husband separated, and she was struggling with substance abuse. Alicia believes that likely led to her losing her mother when she was only 11 years old.
“It made me angry because not understanding exactly what happened. I was lost, confused,” Alicia said.
She continued by saying it’s very important that the case gets solved. “It’s like my number one goal,” Alicia said.
That’s why all these years later, she came back from North Carolina to retrace her mother’s final steps.
“We know from another neighbor that she was down there earlier, so we know she was coming this way and she ends up on the porch here at 356,” Burke said.
Detectives said two missing elements make this case tougher to solve – the lack of a definite crime scene and the lack of a motive.
Det. Gary White said, “Not a robbery. So, it just seems to be an interpersonal relationship of some type that would be the motive but we were never able to nail that down.”
White said although Watkins was not able to name her killer, she may still be able to help do so. Her injuries yielded DNA evidence and they’ve resubmitted for testing using new technology.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that there are people in Dayton who know who murdered Toni Watkins,” White said.
“Y’know, I would like them to just think about themselves at 7 years old and if they lost a loved one as close as my mom was to me,” Alicia said.
She said answers would bring closure and ease the painful memory of that lost and confused little girl who had to grow up without her mother.
Cold case detectives urge anyone with information about Watkins’ murder or any other unsolved murder to call them at 333-7109. Any information at all could be helpful and you don’t have to give your name.
