The Discovery Documents are like a giant haystack, a Mount Everest of evidence, yet the mountain itself seems to obscure the fact that there’s nothing there. Important needles that should there are missing. There are no crime scene photos, for example, released by official police photographers, in fact, it’s still not even clear where the “crime scene” was in the Watts home.
There is also no certainty about time of death, order of death or even motive. If this wasn’t problematic enough, in the aftermath of the status conference [which ended up being a “surprise plea deal”] the defendant’s mother took to the media to bang the drum that her son was coerced into taking the plea deal, and was doing all she could to “scuttle the plea deal before it was too late”, as one 9News reporter put it.
That narrative also swirled into nothing. Just as suddenly as it manifested it swirled quietly down a drain and disappeared.
In hindsight we can see that despite Cindy’s attempts in the week before the sentencing hearing, the plea deal wasn’t scuttled. In court Cindy’s lawyer/representative said the media blitz she’d initiated was because they were “misinformed”. Judge Kopcow accepted that, he decided the plea wasn’t co-erced, Chris Watts maintained a mute though slightly tearful silence in court, and the rest – as they say – is history.
The history of this case is filled with weird mismatches, incongruencies and downright deceits. Let’s examine 7 Serious Inconsistencies, starting with Shan’ann Watts herself.
1. “Shan’ann Watts was excited and happy to have children” versus “I don’t want to have this baby…I’m not happy”
2. “Chris Watts wasn’t excited or happy about the third pregnancy” versus “Little Peanut! Love her/him already!!!”
It feels like it’s taking things too far to suggest Shan’ann’s expropriation of Watts’ social media extended to making declarations of his joy and happiness at the arrival of the third baby on his behalf. And yet she did indirectly do exactly this by posting screengrabs of his reaction and letting the whole world know about it. She was also adamant in her pregnancy announcement posts that the pregnancy was all his idea.
If that’s the case, and it probably was, then Watts clearly had a change of heart almost immediately after the baby was conceived. It’s not like that’s never happened in human history. And the seed for the family holocaust that followed began with the announcement – ultimately – of an unwelcome arrival at an “inappropriate” time.
Shan’ann’s excessive social media posting, including about the pregnancy, placed him and her in a bind. Now that the whole world, including the Thriver cabal, knew about the pregnancy, they were both locked-in. They couldn’t back out even if they wanted to, unless they wished to court a social death for the mortal sin of giving up their child or aborting it.
3. Nichol Kessinger claimed she didn’t know Shan’ann’s name “for a while”. How long and when exactly was that “while”?
More pertinent is once Kessinger did know about Shan’ann, then what? Did she see Shan’ann’s happy family fairy tale spiels on Facebook and dismiss them, or did she cynically think they were just part of vacuous Thrive promotion, and held no actual meaning [which has evidently proved to be the case].
4. Nichole Kessinger maintained that she didn’t know Shan’ann was pregnant, and found out via the media around August 14th, after her disappearance. 
Kessinger also claimed when she found out about the pregnancy [sometime in August after the disappearance] and confronted Chris Watts, he told her the baby wasn’t is. But what if she did know? How could she not know when Shan’ann posted the first video on May 29 and the changed her profile picture to “Oops we did it again” on June 11th.
What if she did know before the murders that Watts’ wife was pregnant?
A cursory glance at Shan’ann’s public Facebook page during June and July [when Kessinger’s affair supposedly began] would have confirmed not just a happy family narrative, but the fact that Shan’ann was happily pregnant too.
If Kessinger did know about the pregnancy, why did she persist with the affair?
5. If Kessinger was aware of the pregnancy, then she HAD to have seen red flags, including seeing herself as potentially creating one by the process of actively tearing her partner away from his newly pregnant wife
5. Shan’ann’s parents say they had no clue Shan’ann’s marriage was falling apart
Sandi claims she had no idea Shan’ann’s marriage was falling apart, even though Shan’ann and Chris Watts slept in their home for several days during the first week of August, Watts refused to touch his wife and Shan’ann slept alone. Shan’ann also claimed, during that week, that she cried herself to sleep each night. Did her parents not know this?
Sandi also told her colleagues at Hair Jazz that the couple were definitely separating.
6. Shan’ann was a very controlling, OCD type personality.
Her personality as a factor that may have caused Watts [wrongly of course] to assume he couldn’t “come clean” to her about the affair, or about not wanting the baby, was likely an important factor in the underlying dynamic that made him feel locked-in.
7. Does the DA know the motive or doesn’t he?
Does the DA know the motive and won’t tell, or does he not know why this crime happened? Which is worse? \
It’s difficult to imagine the DA can’t have a clear motive, even though the cops, CBI and FBI were on the case, and Watts confessed and struck a plea deal with the DA.
There are other factors that don’t make sense, such as the secrecy surrounding the autopsy reports, the rushing of the legal process and avoidance of a criminal trial, and the strange argument around avoiding the death penalty when everyone knows the death penalty was never any issue to anyone in the first place.
So why is the Chris Watts case so peculiar in so many respects?
Despite struggling with her pregnancy in those messages, Shannan was still feeding her hope that final weekend: she planned a trip with her husband and was counting on it; she was excited about Bella going to kindergarten, and so on. As for her mother saying they were “definitely separating”, when did she say that at Hair Jazz? Maybe it was on 08/13 just like Nichole Atkinson did when she first talked to the Well Check officer. Nichole stated that the couple was separating, which Chris Watts – not Shannan – had just told her about by phone. Nichole probably informed Shannan’s mothe, who was on the phone during the whole search.
You know Chris Watts went to have a hair cut at Hair Jazz in Aberdeen, during the first week of August? There’s also a picture of Shan’ann’s mother cutting his hair inside Hair Jazz.
This article was posted on August 16th. Try to read the whole thing.
https://www.wral.com/shanann-watts-murder-case-friends-family-recall-life-of-slain-nc-native-/17774026/
Shanann knee she had to take the kids out of daycare, to save money.
There was a televised interview of a Hair Jazz coworker of Sandi’s in which the coworker said that Chris had been distant and quiet when he visited the salon, and that it was known that they were separating. So Sandi was gossiping about Shanann’s failed marriage with her coworkers. I remember being taken aback that Shanann’s dirty laundry was being discussed so casually at her workplace, and the purple-haired coworker was pleased to say it on TV.
This was before any discovery was released, before his guilty plea in court.
Hey Sheis, you can see the purple haired-hairdresser interviewed at Hair Jazz at the link I provided in the comment above. You’re right about them being pretty open very early on, very gossipy, but then a lot of dirty laundry gets aired in hairdressing salons.
Nick, I wonder how much pull / power Nichole’s dad may have and to what degree that might have effected the hasty outcome of the plea deal?
Affected
Thanks for posting this partial list of confusion. I too have felt gaslighted trying to make sense and keep track of many versions of the fluid facts. It’s like do you believe what you read, hear or what you see.
My profound interest in this story is based on how a “normal, good guy” hides his darkness, nobody has a clue, and in a matter of months, disconnects from his life, and then, like a ninja, wipes out his family.
I, too, have been confused about the pregnancy, who wanted it, who didn’t, who knew, when they knew. Also confusing to me is getting a clear picture of when and who knew about the derailing marriage.
I am fascinated watching this guy stone cold lie and believe everyone is buying it.
Kessinger has told many lies. I wonder if when she was playing around on Google she read about Diane Downs? Diane shot her kids because her new boyfriend didn’t want kids. Diane’s daughter lived to tell what her mother did. I notice that Kessingers seems to emphasize that the girls were not a problem.
Nearly every type of social media I’ve scanned thinks the “smears” on the pillow cases and the stains found on the top sheet are due to Watts using the pillows from his bed to smother the children and the bed to strangle his wife. But I have my doubts. First of all we do know that Bella bit her tongue and that the piece of skin under her lip was broken. However there has been no results published as to the source of the pillow case smears or the sheet stains. If it’s blood who’s blood is it, and why wouldn’t forensics say so. Social media thinks the stains on the sheet are mascara. The stains look to be indiscriminate dark and slightly yellowish. If they were urine stains, again, wouldn’t an analysis reveal that fact?
I’ve also seen pictures of the wastebasket from the kitchen with a small amount of trash in the bottom. What I do see on top is a Starbucks coffee clear plastic container. It’s likely the sheet and pillow cases were wadded up and thrown underneath some of the existing trash in the wastebasket. For all we know Watts could have poured some fluid in the wastebasket as well. If Shan’ann was killed in her sleep why were there stains on the top sheet? When you normally get into bed you lie on the contour sheet and pull the top sheet and comforter up to your chin. How would choking get stains on the top sheet? If it’s make-up in order to get it all over the sheet wouldn’t he literally have to cover her face in the sheet and rub it on her face?
To my mind he used the pillow cases to smother his girls and either did or didn’t leave behind smears. After he killed Sha’nann he thew the comforter and top sheet (and throw pillows) on to the floor, took off the contour sheet and brought the sheet to where he had killed her, not her to the sheet. He then laid her onto the contour sheet and wrapped her in it or bundled her so that he could drag her out to the truck. I did read an analysis that the brown streaks on the contour sheet was dirt from being dragged out at Cervi 319. The countour sheet served several purposes – it could be used to wrap the body to conceal it, and to drag the body so that he didn’t have to lift and carry.
If one item of bedding is gone (to the gravesite) of what use is the pillow cases and top sheet – so they went into the trash, where they absorbed gunk from the trash or he mixed them sufficiently inside as to pick up trash gunk. Otherwise where is the forensic analysis of what the smears and stains are?
If the smears were incriminating Watts would have gotten rid of it.
Extremely sloppy Police work and many unanswered questions especially surrounding Nichole Kessinger; so it’s OK for her to like to federal investigators? It is a federal offense.
I thought that normally in plea deal offers one of the requirements is that the defendant has to tell the court exactly what happened and how he did it. Is that not required in all plea deals?
Good question, so that’s called allocution, and it isn’t required in all plea deals. They can require it but it looks like that was not the case here, it wasn’t in the plea deal apparently so there was no necessity for him to allocute his congress to the court.
You took these messages out of context. I have a hard time believing it was unintentional. For one, Shannann said she acts like Chris isn’t able; that has nothing to do with controlling where he goes and what he does. Think about Chris’s text, “I would like to hang a picture in the house”. Also, Shan’ann left him at home alone for 5 weeks, where he carried on an affair. Controlling him is much different than controlling how the house is tended to. I control how my home is cleaned, and what goes where. I rarely know where my husband is and what he’s doing until he comes in from work and tells me, nor do I control what he does, and where he goes. I know controlling women, and they would never leave their husband alone for 5 weeks. 2) Shan’ann was excited about the baby, and Chris is the one who wanted the baby. When he changed his mind, after she was pregnant, she was clearly upset and said she couldn’t raise 3 children alone. That was the reason she said she didn’t want the baby. It was also an emotional moment. Those feelings are most likely fleeting. You people do understand humans, right? You are human? Her parents? Was she supposed to be scream crying? Why do you think would see her crying herself to sleep? The list goes on and on. You’re intentionally misleading the intellectually challenged.
Ok, to begin with, I am not taking side of Chris Watts, as I believe that he is a sick person and more for what he did, its insane and out of this world, more like what IS is doing.. It would be best if they would sentence him to death, he took the life of 4 souls. Let him rotten in jail, and after in hell. What I believe is that he grew up with a controll freak of a mother, he never ever could have his own opinion, Shanann and her mother in law didn’t get along because 2 captains on a ship is never going to work, they were alike, alot. You see that in people, when they are alike, especially both controll freaks, they won’t agree, ever. So, when Chris finally broke loose of his mothers authority, and created a live with Shanann, again he wasn’t able to express himself, or be himself. He was like a robot, Shanann pushing the buttons and decided what he said and did. ( not to blame Shanann in any way, she should have had a man in her life that would stand up to her, a man with character and balls, as she was a freaking good mom and wife) But she could go all the way with Chris as he let her. When Chris got more confident about his body, and looked handsome and sexy, he got in touch with NK, wich was in to him way before May of June 2018, as we all know. NK was young, vibrant and hanging on Chris lips, he was the one in controll, and she listened to what he said, he was the “father figure”to her, and he finally felt like a real man. Whatever happened exactly that night Shanann came home from her Arizona trip, noone will ever know. I do assume NK was involved, and I don’t understand that the cops won’t continue that investigation as it’s pretty clear she has been lying about a million things, she already deleted text messages she send to Chris long before Shanann and the kids went missing.. She knew Shanann was pregnant, I mean come on, if you like someone or fall in love with them, you want to figure out all about this person, and especially when this person has a wife, and you have acces to her facebook account, you will dig through all the footage. Right? I don’t trust her at all. I don’t think Chris would have been able to kill his kids, ever, there is no way you can love your kids the way he did, he was a real dad, as we can all see in the pictures en clips on Shanann’s facebook. I think NK pushed him in that direction, somehow, or made him take drugs, as it’s unreal how little sleep he had the days leading up to Shanann’s dissapearance. He probably went psychotic?! Noone will ever know, or perhaps they will, IF they start investigating NK, put her on a lie detector, then we will know the truth, I do believe that. She has blood on her hands. He didn’t act alone, there is no way. I do hope the police will continue the investigation. Shanann, Bella, Celeste and Niko, rest in peace, I hope justice will be served.