Sarasota Murderer to be Released

John Waterman Sarasota County Sheriff Department Photo

SARASOTA -- 20 years ago, John Waterman's Hudson Bayou crime spree shook a local community to its very foundations. A 36-year-old female neighbor brutally strangled, another, 31, viciously raped when she awoke to find herself under his knife. Terrified residents hoped that the then 28 year old's 45-year sentence, a result of a plea deal, would mean the end of such threats.

However, Waterman is scheduled to be released next month after only 20 years of incarceration. It is unknown whether he will return to the neighborhood, where he reportedly still has family. Still, it is unlikely that any community will be comfortable should Waterman decide to move in. The utter gruesomeness of his crimes, which mirrored those in a novel found in his home, make it hard to imagine anything less than imminent danger, regardless of time served.

Waterman, now 48, was sentenced prior to Florida's tougher sentencing guidelines that require such criminals to serve out at least 85 percent of their sentence. Prosecutors are trying to have him held for evaluation at a treatment center for violent sex offenders outside of Arcadia, where he can be evaluated for a month before a jury would decide whether he should be released to the public or held there longer.

For the victims' families, the woman he raped and tortured, those of Hudson Bayou who remain scarred by memories of the ordeal, or new families that have since moved to the neighborhood, perhaps unknowingly, any expression of ”longer“ is unlikely to be long enough.

Click here to read the original 1991 People Magazine feature on the case.