If the murder case won’t be enough to potentially keep Richard Howard Watkins behind bars for life, the other charges very likely will. 

On Monday the 49-year-old DVI inmate that has been accused of murdering 22-year-old Kelly Marelich of Manteca and dumping her body in a dumpster behind a dental clinic on North Main Street appeared before a San Joaquin Superior Court judge for the first time since his arrest. In addition to the charge of murder, Watkins, who was at DVI on an unrelated case when Manteca Police Detectives arrested him several weeks ago, is also being charged with California’s Three Strikes law. 

While Watkins is being charged in San Joaquin County with the murder, he is being housed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and transported for his court hearings which makes his legal postings much more difficult to follow – standard cases, even for those charged with murder, go through the county system, but since he was already in prison his takes a different track.