Nine-year-old Emily Watkins watched TV Monday, trying not to think about her brother, who died by a mugger's knife in the subways of New York City.
Emily stayed in Springville with grandparents while her parents, Sherwin and Karen Watkins, and two brothers, Todd and Brian, flew to New York for the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament.Now Brian, 22, is dead - stabbed in the chest Sunday after he leaped into the fray when his father was slashed and his mother punched.
In Provo, family members huddled and wept as they waited, helplessly, for news.
"She (Emily) is only doing fair," Karen Watkins' mother, Leota Cox, said, crying. "She's only 9, so she's watching TV to take her mind off it."
Police Tuesday were again stationed outside the New York Hilton, both to protect the Watkins family and keep back reporters, who are eager to talk with the parents who had taken their children east to see the world's most famous tennis players compete.Instead, they tragically found themselves in the spotlight.
Albert O'Leary, a transit police spokesman, said Brian, his parents, brother and sister-in-law had attended the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Flushing, Queens, and were heading for a late dinner at Tavern on the Green in Central Park.
They were standing on a relatively deserted subway platform in midtown Manhattan - located at 53rd Street and 7th Avenue - waiting to change to the "D" train about 10:20 p.m. when five to eight youths between the ages of 17 and 20 approached.
O'Leary said one was armed with a knife; a second with a (razor) box cutter.
Sherwin Watkins, 46, was cut on the leg as one mugger slashed his pants pocket to grab a money clip or wallet containing $200 and credit cards. The mother, Karen Watkins, 45, was punched in the mouth, when she tried to intervene.
"Brian and his brother, Todd, 25, jumped to her defense," O'Leary said. "There was a fight, and at some point in the struggle Brian was stabbed in the chest."
According to one unidentified bystander, the brothers chased the muggers up to the mezzanine where Brian collapsed. He apparently didn't know he'd been stabbed.
"The lady was holding her son in her arms with a knife in his chest," the witness told police.
The muggers fled from the scene up the stairs to the busy Manhattan street while the desperate family awaited help.
O'Leary said the clerk in the token booth was notified of the crime, and transit police were summoned.
"It took 10 minutes for an ambulance to get there. Todd applied pressure on Brian's wound until the ambulances arrived," Mrs. Watkin's brother-in-law, Walt Silva, said Monday. "They took Brian to St. Vincent's (Hospital), and Karen and Sherwin to Roosevelt Hospital. They split the family when one was dying of a heart wound. They (Brian's parents) didn't know where he was until after they were released."
Sherwin Watkins sustained a leg injury, which required several stitches, O'Leary said. Karen Watkins was treated for a mouth injury. Todd Watkins and his wife, Michelle, were not injured.
But Brian Watkins died at St. Vincent's Hospital at 11 p.m. - the 18th murder victim on a subway system, which O'Leary said is used by 3.7 million people daily.
During the same period last year, 20 people had been killed on the subway in New York - a city that, according to O'Leary, had more than 2,000 homicides in 1989.
"These were two young men who did what every red-blooded American would hope he had the courage to do if someone he loved was being attacked. And look what happened," O'Leary said. "It's a particular poignant tragedy. But we are happy to say it is the very rare occurrence."
Walt and Joyce Silva, Provo, talked with Karen and Sherwin Watkins after their son had been declared dead.
"They were devastated. No one ever thinks this ever happens to them. It's a terrible deal - such a shock."
The shock rippled through the streets of New York, where citizens expressed outrage that a Utah family had traveled to see the best of Manhattan. And found the worst.
"New Yorkers are very crime conscious right now," one Manhattan reporter said Monday. "Crime takes on a special significance when a family comes to see all the spectacular things the city has to offer and ends up seeing only its dark side."
But the shock was much greater in Provo, where Brian's friends, grandparents and his sister, Emily, waited, helplessly, for news.
The family's only comfort came in reminiscing about the young man "who had everything going for him."
"He was a bright kid - just full of life. There are no words to describe how good a kid he was," Silva said. "He never caused any trouble. He didn't drink, didn't smoke - was a churchgoer."
Following family tradition, Brian was an avid tennis player and fan.
He played at Provo High School, and during his senior year the team was champion. Watkins later coached tennis at Provo High.
Following Brian's graduation in 1986, he went to Idaho State University on a tennis scholarship. He also taught the sport at the Ridge Athletic Club in Provo, where his parents are members and ardent tennis players. The family belonged to the Utah Tennis Association.
"He (Brian) slept, ate and drank tennis," Brian's uncle, Carl A. Watkins Jr., said. "His dream was to become a tennis pro."
Each year the Watkins family flew east for the U.S. Open. "I don't know how many years they did it, but it was almost a tradition," said the family's bishop, David G. Hansen, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
According to Silva, never before had they experienced "any trouble."
"They were a well-traveled family. It's not like they are country bumpkins; they've been around."
According to police, the Watkins family spent much of Monday afternoon at the precinct station house on West 42nd Street viewing lineups. Blinded by television cameras, they stepped from unmarked police cars and ran quickly into the police station, holding hands.
Now that several suspects are in custody, Cox said her daughter is eager to return to Utah.
Although Todd positively identified his brother's body, New York law requires that an autopsy be performed before the body is returned to Utah, O'Leary said.