Twenty-five years after Joseph Foy witnessed a fatal stabbing from his back porch, the Michigan man described the incident for an Oakland County jury Wednesday in the first-degree murder trial of admitted serial killer Coral Eugene Watts.

From the witness stand, Foy identified Watts as the man he "locked eyes" with after he allegedly stabbed Helen Dutcher 12 times in the face, neck and chest on Dec. 1, 1979, behind a laundromat.

Joseph Foy was the only eyewitness to Helen Dutcher's 1979 murder.

"We both locked glances and held it for what I thought was an eternity. He had no feeling in his eyes, just dark, no emotion," Foy said of Watts as he allegedly walked away from the body to his car, parked in an alley separated by a fence from Foy's home.

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"Did you notice anything about his eyes?" Assistant Attorney General Donna Pendergast asked Foy.

"Evil," Foy said. "This man was in no hurry. It was like he dropped off his laundry and walked casually to his car, like nothing ever happened."

Foy's characterization did not sit well with Watts' lawyer, who pointed out in his cross-examination that Foy could not tell a sketch artist the color of the suspect's eyes the day after the incident.

"If eye color in the report says 'didn't know,' that would be inaccurate?" Ronald Kaplovitz asked.

"I'm not sure," Foy said.

Some consider Watts to be the nation's most prolific serial killer, although he has never been convicted of murder. He has been in prison since 1982 on burglary charges, after he was granted immunity for 12 murders for which authorities had insufficient evidence to charge him. He is suspected in at least 23 other murders.

In a blow to the defense, the jury will hear about the murders by way of prior bad act evidence.

Watts, who enters court each day with his legs, arms and waist shackled, faces a mandatory life sentence without parole if convicted of killing 36-year-old Dutcher in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale, just off the 8-Mile Road, recently made famous by the rapper Eminem.

Foy is the state's only witness to the murder. His cooperation with police in 1979 led nowhere, as did a second call in 1982 after seeing Watts on television in connection with his confessions.

Then, in 2004, Foy saw Watts' mug shot on MSNBC's "The Abrams Report" in a segment with Michigan attorney General Mike Cox.

At the time, Watts was facing release in 2006 after receiving credit for time served. Cox was asking the public for help in linking Watts to any previously unsolved crimes.

A defense exhibit compares Foy's description of the killer with a 1982 picture of the defendant.

Foy testified that, as soon as he saw the mug shot, the man he locked eyes with 25 years earlier immediately sprung to mind.

Foy, 47, testified he was 23 years old and living with his first wife and their two children on the cold Sunday evening when he heard his dog barking "violently" outside.

He noticed an unfamiliar tan Pontiac pulling out of the alley alongside his backyard, which bordered a laundromat, he said.

A few minutes later, he noticed the car had returned. A few feet away, he said he saw a white woman leaning against the wall of the laundromat and a black man facing her, his back to Foy.

Foy described a lot of movement and vapor coming from the duo, which culminated in a "slashing" movement from the black man, causing the woman to fall to the ground.

In his cross-examination, Kaplovitz called attention to Foy's failure to mention the slashing movement in his statement to police the next day, along with the gaze he shared with the suspect.

"It seems to me your memory is getting better as time goes on," Kaplovitz said.

Kaplovitz also questioned Foy's ability to accurately identify his client as the perpetrator based on the images he saw on TV in 1982 and in 2004.

"You see this video and instantly you recognize this person you haven't seen in two years? The same person whose eye color you couldn't tell?" Kaplovitz asked, voice booming.

"I didn't see anybody kill anyone between then and now either," Foy said, apparently becoming increasingly exasperated with the attorney.

The trial is being aired live on Court TV.