MAN SUPPLIED DRUGS BEFORE 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL DIED AT PARTY

A one-time Hamilton criminal jailed for hog-tying a teenage girl during a
drug binge 12 years ago says he supplied prescription drugs to teenage
girls at his Puslinch Lake home last week. Hours later, a 13-year-old girl
had died there. In an interview with the Torstar News Service yesterday,
Christopher Watts said Amanda Raymond was given a prescription painkiller
called Percodan while she was partying at his house with four other teenage
girls.

He said the dose was not enough to kill her.

Watts said the girls arrived on the island Tuesday, June 26 and spent the
first day sunbathing and relaxing in his hot tub.

They partied all night on Somme Island near Cambridge before crashing on
his bed at about 10 a.m. June 27.

He said he wasn't sexually involved with any of the girls and said Raymond
told him she was 18 years old.

Raymond was pronounced dead at Cambridge Memorial Hospital after she was
found unconscious in Watts's bed at about 9 p.m. June 27.

Wellington OPP said they are questioning witnesses, including Watts.

Watts was well-known to Hamilton police.

He was known to use different identities and have a Houdini-like ability to
break out of jail.

The Hamilton man had 27 criminal convictions for a variety of offences when
he was sent to jail for four years in 1989 for binding and gagging a
16-year-old girl during a three-day cocaine and booze binge in Hamilton.

In an interview yesterday, Watts said he gave six pills of a powerful
painkiller called Percodan to one of the girls partying at his home. He
said she gave three pills to Raymond.

But he denies the drugs led to her death.

"The pills give a buzz for one hour or two," he said. "There is no way she
could have (overdosed) from it. Not even if she took all six. It's
impossible for her to OD."

Large doses of Percodan may slow or stop breathing and result in death. The
drug is very dangerous when used in combination with alcohol.

Watts, who admits to a lengthy criminal record, said about five young
women, the oldest being about 20, came to his island home for an all-night
party on the Tuesday night. Alcohol and drugs were available, he said.

He said at least two of the young women -- not Raymond -- took the drug
Ecstasy they brought themselves. Other drugs were available in his
cupboard, but he said he's not sure if Raymond had any.

Wellington OPP said Raymond's death may be drug-related but can't confirm
that until an autopsy and toxicology tests are completed.

Watts said he tries to teach people partying at his home not to abuse drugs.

"I think it's all a question of drug use instead of drug abuse," he said.
"I think that's the most important thing I tell people when they come out
here -- if you're going to do drugs to get high, don't go overboard."

He said the girls stayed up all night partying and passed out early on the
Wednesday morning in his bed while he went outside to do yard work.

At 5 p.m. on the Wednesday, Watts said he left to run some errands and drop
two of the girls off in Kitchener. A few hours later, he received a
cellphone call from one of the girls, who said Raymond wasn't breathing.

Watts said he had no part in Raymond's death.

"Hell no," he said, when asked about a connection to Raymond's death and a
confinement conviction he received in Hamilton in 1989.

While he was awaiting trial on the confinement case, Watts escaped from
Barton Street jail and was at large for two months. He had told jail
officials he injured his arm and asked to have it X-rayed. Watts slipped
away from his guards while at Hamilton General Hospital.

He had earlier tried to break out of a holding cell at the Oakville police
station by crawling through the ventilation system. The plan went awry,
however, when he fell through the ceiling into a room next to the target range.

Born and raised in Hamilton, he had apparently disappeared from the city in
1982 while he was facing a number of outstanding criminal charges. Police
didn't realize he had created a new identity and lived as Clifford Snider
from 1983 to 1988.

Assistant Crown attorney John Nixon -- who prosecuted Watts on the
confinement charge -- admitted he was a cut above his peers in intelligence.

"He's the most scary thing we'll see in the criminal courts -- an
intelligent criminal. A rare breed in the criminal courts," Nixon told the
judge in 1989.

In a pre-sentence report, Watts was described as a "professional criminal"
who had managed to buy a house and live quite comfortably through his adult
life without ever holding a regular job.

Today, Watts lives with his Rottweiler dog on the tree-lined island on
Puslinch Lake he bought eight years ago. He said he is self-employed and
"buys and sells and invests," for a living.