True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek

Chris Watts: What Rocket Science got right – and wrong

One of the reasons the TWO FACE trilogy was written before any of the evidence came to light was to counter the myth that until there is a court case, “we don’t know anything yet”. Between mid-August and mid-October, Shakedown published about 70 blogs, most of them dedicated to the Watts case, and Rocket Science over the past month almost twice that number – 138 blogs.

On the page Christopher Watts: What else do we know? [UPDATED] 258 snippets of factual or newsworthy information was collected and archived, and that process still continues.

A fourth book, TWO FACE RAPE OF CASSANDRA is waiting in the wings, but is it really worth reading? Don’t we know all there is to know about this case – now – and more importantly, where did all the “Rocket Science” speculation actually take the narrative in three short months?

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What TCRS got right…

1. Strangling as a the manner of death for Shan’ann was the position from the very first book. The autopsy has since proved this to be true.

2. No defensive wounds on Shan’ann. The autopsy has proved what the trilogy has maintained all along, that it was a stealth attack and murder.

3. Chris Watts had a slight contusion on his neck. During the sentencing hearing the District Attorney noted this as the only recent injury Watts suffered when he was photographed from head to toe. As early as August 19, Shakedown highlighted this injury [using several highlighted images of the wound] as an extremely likely defensive wound inflicted by Shan’ann during her death throes [Shan’ann had long nails]. This wound was also compared to a similar slight injury to Amanda Knox’s neck found immediately after the death of her housemate, Meredith Kercher.

“He had one small mark on his neck that was observed on the night he was originally interviewed, we don’t know if that’s related or not, but other than that, no, we had him photographed from head to toe that night and nothing was observed that could be consistent with injuries to him as result of a struggle.”  —Carl Blesch, Weld County Coroner

4. That all the murders were premeditated. None of them were spur of the moment or in a rage. There was an enormous push back from many readers who felt, because Chris Watts said they had a row which led to an argument, that’s how the murder happened. Don’t always believe what I lying murderer asks you to believe.

5. The time it took to murder Shan’ann has been brought up repeatedly as a sign of Chris Watts’ strong intentionality to commit murder. The District Attorney also brought up the “slow death” that a strangling invokes, as long as 2-4 silent minutes of desperate but fruitless struggle for survival.

6. That the murders and dumping of the bodies were disguised through “plausible deniability”. In other words, far from being the bumbling crime many have epitomized this crime as, Watts was carefully trying to hide the crime in plain site by integrating it [without being seen or detected] in his work day. His call to a co-worker on the evening before dumping the remains reinforces this notion of a carefully calculated and co-ordinated crime as well.

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7. That the bodies were dumped through the thief hatch at the top of the tanks. An analysis by an expert on HLN describing the thief hatch as eight inches through a spanner into the carefully crafted scenario in TWO FACE. 8 inches is small, and yes, conceivably too small. But no matter how I looked at it, it didn’t make any sense that the bodies weren’t dumped through the top hatch. To have done otherwise would have required draining both tanks, which would have taken a lot of time – hours – and left a lot of evidence and alarms going off. HLN were happy with this cockamamie scenario, I wasn’t. I insisted they were dumped through the thief hatch, and if the bodies didn’t fit, then I surmised they may have been altered in some way – dismembered or partially dissolved [processed] by chemicals. But this aspect was contingent on them not “fitting” through the hatches in the first place. Now we know they both did, and that poor Bella’s little body was forced through and stomped on, causing abrasions on her buttocks and a divot of her hair and scalp to dislodge on the side of the hatch.

I’m not 100% convinced Bella’s injuries [as reported in the autopsy] were suffered when she murdered [including the biting of the tongue]. I suspect they may have been inflicted post mortem during the dumping process. But that’s based on intuition and how other aspects of the case hold together. I will need to apply my mind further to reach more certainty on this point.

8. Because the grave sites of Shan’ann and the daughters differed, the manner of death likely differed as well between Shan’ann and her daughters. This turned out to be true. While Shan’ann was strangled in a killer move that caught her by surprise, Bella and Celeste were both smothered, officially, though it’s less clear to me that Bella was smothered.

9. Nichol Kessinger was identified as early as August 23rd, ten days after the murder, as Chris Watts’ mistress, on Shakedown. It was also the position in TWO FACE that his affair with Kessinger played a significant part in the overall motive. This has subsequently been confirmed:

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10. It was also stressed that Nichol Kessinger was a co-worker of Chris Watts [and her father was his boss], something that was addressed in the media a week before the sentencing trial, but not addressed in court whatsoever, in fact Kessinger’s name wasn’t so much as mentioned in court.

11. TWO FACE made the contention that the six week period when the couple were apart was a sort of trial separation. Watts told his mistress they were separated and getting divorced. Shan’ann, her parents and his parents knew. There was also significant push back on this, with many people insisting that she was simply away on vacation and the marriage was still fine. It wasn’t. This aspect too was confirmed more by Cindy Watts than the trial coverage.

12.  TCRS also unambiguously called the plea deal here before anyone else, and on twitter called the plea deal about two minutes before it broke in the mainstream media [time is recorded in GMT not MST].

TCRS breaks plea deal story first

Anything else TWO FACE and these blogs got right?


I don’t want to deal with what the District Attorney got wrong, but their assessment that Chris Watts’ finances were an issue just as they are for any other couple simply doesn’t wash.

The fact that he called a realtor hours after dumping the bodies of his wife and children isn’t just a sign of Watts’ monstrous and reckless inhumanity, it’s also a sign of the debt monster that was breathing down his neck. The fact that the District Attorney is so blasé about the family debt is a massive miss in my view.

Another aspect that TCRS disagrees with: the District Attorney believes Shan’ann came home and there was an emotional conversation in the night or early morning [that no one heard] immediately prior to the murder/s.

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The prosecutor, the media and both families still seem completely in the dark about why this crime happened. This is the central question – a question of psychology, identity, desire and motivation – that the ongoing TWO FACE series of books has attempted and continues to answer.


 

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What TCRS got wrong

1. The girls may have been dead by as early as Saturday. It wasn’t stated that they were definitely murdered on Friday or Saturday, just that if it was a premeditated murder, it’s possible they may have been killed earlier rather than later. Why wait?

Information emerged later that they were looked after by a babysitter on Saturday and at a birthday party on Sunday afternoon, and metadata from a camera at the party shows they were alive at least until 14:30 and likely for a few hours afterwards.

The autopsy doesn’t provided a time of death for any of the victims, so this is another area that it left to the true crime writer [and readers] to figure out.

2. That the girls were sedated. Although Bella clearly wasn’t sedated [according to the literal reading of the autopsy reports], Celeste may have been. It’s very shocking that the older child, who was similar to her father in so many was, was killed by him apparently without regard for her suffering. Poor child!

An important reason why I felt the girls were sedated was no screams were heard. It may be that Bella bit her tongue post mortem [as mentioned above], of course, while getting stomped through the thief hatch.

If she bit her tongue when she was alive, it’s difficult to believe she wasn’t screaming in agony, but even if she was, she could have been dispatched in the basement or subdued and silenced very quickly.

JonBenet Ramsey was just two years older than Bella when she died, and she managed to scream just before she was garroted and bludgeoned over the head. If Bella was smothered while biting her tongue, would that have muffled her cries?

3. Chris Watts didn’t withdraw his guilty plea. Because of the media blitz and cries of coercion, is seemed likely he could withdraw his plea. When the anonymous woman explained the media blitz as a mistake, that the parents were simply misinformed, I must admit, I was surprised. That switcharoo still requires some figuring out.

 

4. HLN was correct in saying that GPS data was used by law enforcement to track the location of Chris Watts truck.

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My assessment [posted on October 10] was that this had to be read in conjunction with the video surveillance footage. Shan’ann and the girls never left the house, and round-the-clock video surveillance confirmed this. But when the cops arrived none of them were home, so it stood to reason they left with Chris Watts, and wherever he went that morning, that’s where the bodies would be.

At the time I didn’t think GPS was absolutely necessary to ascertain where he was, but it appears it was fairly key after all. It should be noted though that CERVI 319 wasn’t the only site Watts visited that morning. He also visited  CERVI 1029.

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This means if Watts hadn’t spoken to the media, hadn’t confessed to his father, had lawyered up, and if law enforcement weren’t able to find the bodies early on, they may only have ever discovered Shan’ann’s remains, and even that wasn’t guaranteed. An oil site is likely to be smelly and odors of death might be misinterpreted as natural gas odors for some time.

A smarter man, and a more socially savvy murderer – using the same scenario – could well have gotten away with this crime.

What’s still uncertain…

1. Time of death. This applies to all the victims.

2.  Given Bella’s defensive wounds it’s not completely unlikely that Chris Watts strangled her in a rage. If that’s the case then Bella’s murder triggered all the others.

3. What’s the expert medical opinion on the date Shan’ann conceived Niko? The autopsy curiously leaves out Shan’ann’s medical history even though it was completed on October 2nd.

4. Will Watts appeal?

5. Is he bisexual?

Anything else?

So many questions remain, but so many answers have been provided over the last week, compared to three months ago. There’s a treasure-trove of reading-between-the-lines that remains to be done in this still unfinished criminal case.

43 Comments

  1. Tammy

    I was surprised to hear that Shanann was trying to work through the difficulties in their marriage. He obviously didn’t want to work through it at all. I get the distinct impression he was done. He didn’t want the house either. She wasn’t giving up, and he wanted her to. I wonder if he wanted her to terminate the pregnancy, move to NC with the kids, sell the house, and get a divorce? I guess that would have made for an emotional conversation if this was what he was asking for. My guess is that she wasn’t doing any. She seemed to love that house, and she thought CO was amazing. She wasn’t leaving. She already had her baby boy named.

    I guess we can ask ourselves “why” over and over. Whatever the “why” is, it won’t make any sense to most. His reasons were probably very simple. He was tired of his family. Didn’t want to babysit kids; tired of playing family man always wiping runny noses. He wanted excitement; Wine on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace. 😒

    • Eleni Palmos

      I am not surprised Shannan was trying to save her marriage! The book in the garbage that the DA refers to was her Pollyanna side. I never believed that Shannan knew exactly how bad things were with her and her husband. Of course she wouldn’t have thought that he was going to resort to murder. I don’t think that she even really believed he was going to divorce her. Still waters run deep. He was the type to never let on what was going on in his head and heart.

  2. Shannon

    Shanann’ needed to do everything to keep this marriage. She would have ended living at her Dad’s place with 3 kids….no home, no marriage, no husband, no trips, no one to boss around. No more Thriving, videos.
    She would have not been able to handle all of that too well. Desperate, she was trying everything to keep it.
    House would have been sold.
    Chris wanted out. He would stay in area, his job.
    Curious, she said she had lupus, you not supposed to be in the sun, pregnancies are difficult. She never really spoke of it and was always in the Sun? Nothing in the Autopsy about it, nor any Doctor confirming this?
    Her parents said awhile back, some fundraising money , was going to be donated to it?
    Lupus foundation had never said anything.
    They got about 150.000.00 in fundraising money, maybe more?

    • Eleni Palmos

      Shannan had set up her life in such a way that a husband was a critical prop in it.

  3. Karen

    I’m certainly looking forward to that treasure trove of information that remains

  4. Diana

    Nick I think you may be on to something with how Bella died. Odd that she would have an injury by her jaw, that seems to point more to strangulation, then again, I’m a nurse, not a medical examiner. I can’t help but wonder if she was awake and knew it was her “hero” depriving her lungs of precious air. Not to get too gruesome, but I do believe the bite marks on her tongue could’ve occurred while Chris was manipulating her little body through that thief-hatch as well, fits right in with the excoriated area on her body, also from being jammed in there.

    Here’s what I must’ve completely overlooked about this case. Color me stupid, but for some reason I thought Chris took their bodies to the basement using interior stairs, not that he carried each one outside! It did throw me off when it was apparent one of the k-9’s alerted to the cushions on the bench outside the house as if a body had been there. Then the prosecutor said yesterday they had video of Chris going in and out of the house in the darkness on the morning of August 13 obviously loading the bodies. I thought he backed his truck up so the rear half wasn’t on camera, then carried each body out of the basement to his truck. I do recall in one of your books or your blog Nick, that you allude to Chris carrying the bodies right out the front door, so you were correct on that as well. Maybe there are no interior steps down to the basement? If anyone can clear that little detail up for me I would appreciate it!

    • Alyson Marie Rogers

      Thought It was Shannan who had the injury to the left side of her face, not little Bella?

      • nickvdl

        They both had injuries, Bella to her tongue and Shan’ann to her neck.

    • Rosa

      The basement was below the garage. The basement was reached by steps inside first floor level. He didn’t back his entire truck into the garage because there wasn’t enough room because Shanann’s white Lexus was parked there. Watch police cam videos and you will see these details more clearly.

    • Sally Davis

      The basement had no exterior door, only windows. Chris carried the bodies out through the garage or front door.

  5. Shannon

    I just wonder if he will speak or remain silent.
    I think I now know why her first husband Divorced her.

    • nickvdl

      I wonder if/when we’ll hear from Mr. King?

      • Kaye

        There is an interview with him in the discovery. It doesn’t provide much detail but he does note that when Shan’ann decided the marriage was over, she shut down and refused to communicate. So ironic since that is what Chris was doing to her. No wonder she panicked because she knew what that meant. Another weird detail: King’s current wife also was involved with Le-vel for a brief time.

  6. Alyson Marie Rogers

    From the autopsy report, I feel that Bella was killed in the same manner as her poor sister. There were no strangulation marks identified on her neck. I think that she may have been a lighter sleep state than her sister, such that when the smothering began, she arose from her sleep and struggled. Alternatively, I read somewhere else that the oxygen deprivation may haver caused seizures resulting in the biting. I cannot bear to think of her being have awake and muffled cries through that pillow (or whatever he used). The forensic analysis disprove anything but smothering, I only hope that the end was quick. It all still takes my breath away. As Michael Rourke said : how? why? There is more to to the why than he revealed – for the sake of Shannan’s family I believe – the crushing debt through both Watts’ decision to live the high life – and the overpowering MLM influence in both their lives. Nothing but nothing ever will excuse his behaviour, but I don’t think it was all about the new girlfriend. She, in my opinion, has been outed as a liar herself. Don’t tell me all those intimate dinners, the trips out etc etc PLUS Shannan’s facebook tsunami didn’t tell her a) he was very much marriedand b) they had discussed future plans. Also 4-5 times a week with a guy you just met !!!! Come on, she fell for him hard. Well, that’s not how I do things anyway, spending nearly all week with a guy for 2 months and she doesn’t want/know more ?! And why delete all texts – very convenient – she was probably coo-ing back to this depraved weirdo. Just my opinion !

  7. Shannon

    I love reading all the comments. You can learn so much from each person’s views. Some things you might not think of and look at differently.
    I have never before Followed a Murder so much, with such intent.
    And I love Nick’s writings on each topic.

    I heard a song that I love, it kinda makes me sad, when I think of this situation.
    Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone…..

  8. Diana

    I thought it was stated yesterday that Bella had a jaw injury. Sorry for the misinformation!

    • nickvdl

      Diana why don’t you read the autopsy reports. All the injuries are mentioned there.

    • Carol

      They did say she had a jaw injury, and lacerations on her buttock

      • Carol

        By they I mean the district attorney….can’t remember if it was at the press conference or in court but I’m sure they said trauma to her jaw, a commentator on HLN said it but the autopsy does not say it so I’m not sure why that went around

      • Ralph Oscar

        The vertical lacerations on her buttock are consistent with forcing her through the thief hatch opening.

  9. nan

    Fastest true crime story I’ve ever followed. Thank you Nickole Utoft.

    I’m curious how it would have played out had Nickole not intervened. Watts “plan” doesn’t seem to well developed.

    Or was this Plan B. This was such a shitshow, it had to be a reaction to Nickole’s sucker punch to “the plan”.

    The Sermon was not at all believable. Why did he do that? Arrogance and adrenaline?

    I’m stuck on the shallow grave he dug. I’m in Arizona and our dirt is like concrete, you don’t just “dig a grave”. I’ve been up in that part of CO in the past, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but the dirt around the area doesn’t appear to be the rich dark Midwest soil I grew up with.
    He had to be The Hulk, Flash Gordon and Superman that morning.

    I believe he planned this. But is what we know, the plan?

    Thoughts on what his real plan was?

    How would this have played out had Nickole stayed home?

  10. Karen

    I agree. You don’t spend 4 or 5 days a week with someone and only “barely” know them. When she was in NC they must have been together a lot. Shan’ann was getting alerts on her phone about the money he was spending . Driving her around in Shan’ann’s car. No wonder he cleaned it top to bottom. Shan’ann was texting him a lot during that time and that’s why Atkinson said she was quiet on the ride to her house. I think when she got home they arguing about it. All she was wearing was a shirt and underpants so he definitely caught her off guard. Maybe after she went to sleep.

  11. Shannon

    I believe that also , Karen . She was probably asleep, when he started to Choke her. Her right hand came up towards her neck, to grab his hands, scratch on her right side neck.
    The little ones, pillows on faces. Since autopsy left many things out…we could never for sure when and how she might have bit her tongue.

    PS: I’m not sure but did someone post a Nasty post about me. Not sure which topic it was.
    Thanks Nick. ((*-*))

  12. Georgia

    I was thinking about the shallow grave today when I saw some dry earth and wondered if he pre-dug it. Maybe he knew his schedule in advance of where he’d be and dug it out of sight to others visiting. Bodies out the front door and on camera? I thought that was the whole point of backing into the garage with the work vehicle, to conceal that. Did he not know about the neighbour’s camera? I wondered with the girlfriends texts being deleted if perhaps she was encouraging him to leave quicker etc. and thought she might be seen as part of it if found. Though with messages going back and forth, provided he didn’t delete his there would still be a record. Did he have a second phone I wonder, or did he risk Shan’ann finding messages from her? Or delete as he went? Maybe she read something on his phone when she got in thinking he was asleep? He didn’t erase his internet history as the DA talked about it, for someone who intended on starting afresh by disappearing his entire family he didn’t think too much about how to do it convincingly. Was he seriously thinking he could just say to his girlfriend oh yeah na they’re still missing. So let’s go out, move in etc. ?

  13. Miriam

    Just some quick thoughts :

    The unnamed woman representing the parents of Chris Watts was identified as attorney Jean Powers
    in a Denver Post article, see the copied/pasted sentence below.
    “We still don’t have the answers,” Ronnie Watts said in a statement read by his attorney, Jean Powers. “I hope one day, Christopher, you can help us.”

    After the sentencing hearing I tend to think the kids weren‘t smothered before but after CW strangled
    Shan’ann. Beeing a mother myself I can’t imagine a scenario of returning at night from a work trip without looking after my kids first before I start undressing and going to bed.
    The autopsy report states some kind of sleepwear for all three victims and Shan’ann was lacking defensive wounds, so IMO CW waited until all were asleep until he attacking his wife and kids.

    Or he got her in a chokehold from behind at the base of the staircase ( as Nick wrote in TWO FACE)
    and partly undressed her body afterwards.

    Either way, this whole thing was doomed to failure from the very beginning.

    • nickvdl

      Thanks Maria, it sounded to me from the audio like she was introduced as Parish, but now we have the confirmation.

      Some good reasoning here except, if the children were murdered at 2am or 3am when Shan’ann came home, then they would have had dinner before they died. Watts barbecued that night, he was seen out on the balcony but none of the children were. Why not? And steak would tend to break down slowly in their stomachs. No food was found in their stomach contents which suggests they were killed before they were fed dinner.

      In the Ramsey case JonBenet ate a few pieces of pineapple and these remained in her stomach more than 13 hours after ingestion. Pieces of fruit.

      Personally I have difficulty understanding the idea that, with an intent to kill your entire family, you would cook and feed your children dinner first, and allow your wife to come into your home, lie in your bed, fall asleep and then kill her. But that’s how I see it.

      I also think it’s absurd to imagine Watts killing his wife spontaneously, risking rousing the children [both children] from their sleep and then killing them when they’re awake and risking them screaming out loud in the middle of the night. If it was a premeditated murder, you’d want to kill all three in a way that none of them would suspect, and being in a position of trust, that was obviously possible.

      • Kaye

        I don’t believe the children had any steak. That was for Chris. Because the girls were at the party in the afternoon I’m sure they skipped their usual naps. They would have probably gone to sleep at 6 or 6:30 tops. I have a 4-year-old and that is the sleep pattern for the most part when a nap is missed. They might have had something to eat at the party, perhaps a quick snack before bed after they got home.

        And what is it with Chris and steak? I guess it’s a good thing for him he ate so much steak that summer, according to Shan’ann, because he is not getting any more where he is now.

        • nickvdl

          Seems like you have it all figured out.

      • Sylvester

        This is what I’d like to know – time of death and sequence. I find it strange that the medical examiner couldn’t have taken fluids from the eyes to determine time of death. Sha’nann was at least partially dressed. Maybe she always wore a bra to bed. But that’s strange to me – to sleep in your bra. And also that she wouldn’t have checked on the children before retiring for bed, if what she saw were two children who appeared to be “asleep” but were actually dead, I would think she would bend down and kiss them and then notice they weren’t breathing. Then her murder would not be as stealth as it appears to have been (no defensive wounds) yet it fits with a stealthy kill. Annihilating your whole family doesn’t just “come upon you” suddenly as a good idea. I still believe it was all planned. Premeditated. It seems like it could be possible that Sha’nann was the first to be strangled and that it took 2-4 min. as they say it did, and does, and that Bella wandered in to the bedroom and then had to be subdued next and was awake. I could buy that. But my God, he had a long time between putting them to bed and lying in wait for his wife. Why waste all of that quiet dark time with dark thoughts when they could have been disposed of long before she arrived home. I don’t like it that the case is “closed” for all intents and purposes. And I don’t like it that Watts wanting a “fresh start” is the partial motive explained. It’s much more than that in my opinion. He had an absolute collapse of identity and felt he could only begin to live if they were dead.

        • nickvdl

          Really think he had a collapse of identity? Wasn’t it the opposite – that he wanted to assert himself. That he actually was occupying and actualizing his identity, or trying to do so? Conducting an affair while married suggests to me his identity was expanding, not contracting.

      • Carol

        Shanann said on a post that Chris was living on t-bones and shrimp while she was gone. Kids might not have been seen because she said in multiple videos that they go to bed at 6:30 already so they possibly could have been in bed already. Bella’s stomach had sludge mixed in with other contents, but I’m not sure they said a anything about Celeste’s

      • julinka1981

        It was stated by Frank Rzucek that he spoke to Bella and Chris in the night before murder and they had pizza.bear in mind he didn’t say evening but night.So it would have been just before Chris started BBQ at 7pm or when he finished at 8pm which corresponds with his version of putting them to bed(not that I believe everything he says ofc)Killing them whilst being awake is just not possible and too risky,one would scream if she saw her dad etc.I also do not know many 2 and 4 year olds that eat steak.Chris was heatlh conscious so he would BBQ steak for himself and not kids and probably put on telly/devices for them to watch to do it in peace.
        If he was preparing to murder in advance,he knew he couldn’t get around house alarm system-if I was a murderer,I would try to tamper with alarm or switch it off etc so there is no evidence,or I f I have known about neighbours camera,I could cover it up or something.Also,he could have easily texted from phone if he planned it in advance to check who is she meeting on 13/08 so people wouldn’t become suspicious.This all points to not being prepared.Night before your girls are starting school to kill them…hmmm We also know Shannan didn’t go to bed straight away and was up online shopping,her card was declined.Could this trigger her confrontation over his 60 dollar bill in restaurant and now she has no money? If he strangled her,he most likely killed girls afterwards because he couldnt let them live and cover up for murder.So he made a decision to end their lives too,out of inconvenience to him.All signs points he left in hurry,didn’t have time to change beds or didn’t think of taking their shoes,Shannan wallet etc.this is not premeditated murder.

  14. Kaye

    No, I don’t believe I have it all figured out. It’s why I use words like “think” and “believe” and “might have” when trying to imagine what happened. The findings from the autopsy report have brought up new questions/info. For example, the girls’ clothing definitely seemed like pajamas and were different from what they wore to the party. Why would he have changed them into pajamas if he was planning to kill them before bedtime? Just trying to understand how the autopsy findings fit in with possible scenarios.

  15. Sylvester

    Like transmutation. Expansion, not contraction. I like that. Getting ready for it, bulking up, slimming down. Moving to Colorado and away from who he was and thought he wanted to be in North Carolina, gaining confidence. Who he was in NC would have wanted a wife and family, life of the car mechanic. So in many ways she’s responsible for helping him bust out, yet he’s resentful and no longer needs her, or wants her, or anything she represents because he’s becoming something else now.

    • Karen

      Sylvester, many girls with Large breasts do sleep in a bra. Especially a sports bra. It just helps with support. I agree with the whole not trying to determine a time of death. Also I wish the ME would have given some info on the fetus. Date of conception, etc…

  16. Diana

    Nick – In response to your question as to why I don’t read the autopsy in regards to Bella? On “True Crime Rocket Science Facebook”, it is clearly written “Coroner found blunt force trauma on Bella’s jaw….” with a link to – thedenverchannel.com. After reading your Facebook post where it IS stated Bella had a jaw injury, I proceeded to the website you linked where it also states Bella had blunt force injury to her jaw. Between your Facebook post and the article I read, thanks to your link, I certainly didn’t think it was all false reporting. I read all of that PRIOR to having access to the autopsy. All my comments made in my original post here were made from info from that Denver Channel article you referenced on FB and the comments made by prosecutor Rourke. Honest mistake for believing what I read. I was able to finally read all the autopsies. Maybe you should consider removing false reporting of the autopsy from TCRS.

    • nickvdl

      I see, now it’s my mistake.

  17. Shannon

    At 15 weeks, the fetus is the size of an Apple or Orange.

  18. Shannon

    I feel he must have had a “deep Hatered” for Shanann, not so much the girls, but they had to go also, because of her. I feel alittle pre-meditated, he waited till all asleep that nite to do away with them. He didn’t want the responsibility to look after kids, when she gone, if alive her parents would likely get them……this way, no one gets anyone…fresh start.
    Shanann’ might have been on the pill, stopped taking to get pregnant?
    The way the Media, Rourke, Judge, describe these killings, brings a Hatered towards Chris.
    Like it hasn’t happened before.
    This is, unfortunately a case that happens everyday, everywhere.
    Some make the News, some don’t.

  19. Diana

    NOPE! My mistake for believing what I read by MSM before reading the autopsy myself!

  20. Diana

    Shannon the prosecutor says it was premeditated because the medical examiner said it would’ve taken Chris 2 to 4 minutes for Shan’ann to die during the strangulation. During those 2 to 4 minutes he could’ve stopped but didn’t. Premeditation can be planning and/or carrying out a murder days, weeks or even 2 minutes prior to committing a murder. And I agree with you that murders happen every day, we just don’t hear about them. I think the kids bodies in oil tanks and Shan’ann all over social media attracted a lot of attention, not to mention the facade of a “perfect” family. We know what a lie that was!

  21. Shannon

    Diana. Oh yes I know they said Premeditated. I know what it means.
    I was thinking out loud.

  22. nickvdl

    @Julinka Well, the FBI seem to think the girls were murdered first.

    https://www.ajc.com/news/national/shanann-watts-girls-may-have-been-dead-when-she-got-home-husband-charges-show/Fi2dNHjtLmhOHq5rv7FhZM/

    Agent Grahm Coder actually says this to Watts, that he believes the children were murdered even before Shan’ann arrived home.

    You can argue evening or night, but the children’s bedtime was around 19:00, and on Saturday night the babysitter had allowed them to stay up later than they usually did. After the birthday party in the hot sun the next day they were probably quite tired.

    It’s unfortunate Rzucek can’t be more specific and give an actual time when he spoke to his grandchildren for the last time.

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