No one can understand why Chris Watts committed murder. He must be a monster, a psychopath. He’s evil, that’s why this happened. No, none of those are explanations. We need to try a little harder than that.
Murder is an aggressive act. Triple murder is a very aggressive act, so aggressive in this instance it’s aggression mixed with sadism. Where does sadism come from? That’s easy. When someone takes pleasure inflicting pain onto someone else, it’s seen as recompense [in their minds] for a perceived slight. Sadism in other words is revenge for humiliation.
In the Watts case the sadism is extreme. It suggests the humiliation is chronic as well.
Of course as soon as we interrogate the authentic nature of the relationship, as soon as we see a controlling, dominant and often sniping aspect in Shan’ann’s personality, then we’ve crossed the line into victim blaming. Shan’ann is innocent and good, we’re reminded, Chris Watts is evil, he’s to blame and that’s all there is to it.
If you want to know why, then you ask questions. If you don’t want to know why, we can stand on the rooftops and all scream together how EVIL Chris Watts is, and in typical social media madness, see who screams the loudest or comes up with the best meme. Whoever screams the loudest wins, and then, that’s your answer. There’s your 21st century why.
Except for the minority of intelligent people in this world, that’s not an answer, unless your standards for figuring out criminal psychology are based on the reptilian brain. We need to be less primitive, simplistic and black and white in our thinking than that.
So let’s try to be a little more sophisticated in our thinking.
The last week in the timeline leading up to the Annihilation of the Watts family is crucial. And what do we find during that last week? In Shan’ann’s own words on august 12th, hours before her murder, she confirms there was plenty of humiliation.
There was belittling…
In the week prior, from August 5th:
There was insulting, threatening and undermining him and his family to his face…
There was her claiming to be the dominant, controlling figure in their relationship at his expense…
There was her telling her friends he doesn’t have any balls, or any game…
There was her wanting him to choose between her family and his own.
This venting wasn’t the only reason for the murders. Their cratering debt [a situation they both contributed to], his affair with Kessinger and hers with MLM weren’t doing their respective families or finances any favors. The reality is, as horrible and tragic as the murders of Shan’ann and her beautiful children were, it wasn’t an act of madness, or evil, or psychopathy. It was a human choice made by an angry, deceitful, cowardly but also humiliated man.
He refers a lot to the girls throwing chicken nuggets at him as something he “misses,” but I believe it was something he really hated. He probably felt disrespected and they might have thought it was a funny game but had no idea how much he disliked it.
Good point Kaye.
The way he disposed of their bodies – all three of them – was also like him showing no respect for them. He could theoretically have dumped their bodies in the South Platte [he crossed the river on the way to Roggen]. But I think part of trying to destroy their bodies was to cover the shame of what he’d done as well. He has been unable to admit what he did to his own children, and with good reason – it’s shameful and unforgivable for everyone except his parents.
I believe this marriage was eroding almost from the start. When she met him she was sick. She had at least three illnesses – fibromyalgea (sp), lupus, and migraine headaches due to a serious car accident. Jeremy Lindstrom said whenever a commercial came on TV about some illness she claimed to have it. Chris comforted her early on but after awhile – when you are living with a malingerer it starts to wear you down, especially when they are always asking for sympathy. Then the pregnancies – feeling sick. Telling him about it. Toward the end she uses her third pregnancy to once again play the sympathy card, when he has started to “become someone else” and pull away from her – her pregnancy and her fatigue and her having to deal with two fighting girls all of the time in NC. But it’s a ploy that is no longer going to work on him. She finally sees what has gone wrong, while in Arizona, a trip she made for Level, when she should have stayed home and tried to work things out – instead of hurling threats and feeling put upon or telling him to get some balls. She realized too late that what she was doing (also ignoring him in favor of Thrive) was not going to repair their relationship. Not blaming her, just have to pull back and see what lead up to this. You can’t keep trying to dominate your partner and expect them to keep taking it and taking it.
True….she was the dominating one ….he was fed up off her always wanting them and the kids to face the camera for her mlm companies …..they were bankrupt….the third pregnancy too added up … it all got to an explosive point ….there were better ways to handle it though ….sad
I agree that the marriage had problems. There is no evidence to suggest Shannon was a malinger. Interestingly you never point out the fact that Chris went outside of the marriage when marriage problems arose. Obviously that put gas on the fire. Of Chris felt unhappy in his marriage he had options like going to therapy or hell addressing the issues directly with his wife. I think he simply didn’t want to as evidenced by the fact that he “took care” of his issue as only a true psychopath would. Shannon was not at fault for him being a psychopath. She was human. But a normal man would have handled it differently. Don’t get it confused.
That sounded harsh. His main issue was with her. He rejected her and by association, the children, bundling them all into the thought “problem” – an emotional liability and financial liability he couldn’t afford anymore. Others reported he seemed cold and distant in NC. He was mentally preparing himself for what he thought he had to do, then. Because Sha’nann hadn’t paid any attention to the consequences of dominating him over the course of a few years, it would have taken alot more time than her last weekend to figure out why this was happening. If she had any awareness that her children might be in jeopardy, she wouldn’t have kept her commitment to the LeVel trip, and would have stayed home.
If she never went on that weekend business trip I suspect she and the kids would still be alive today.
That 5 week trip away was also damn unusual if you think about it. How many married couples would do that?
And then she really wasn’t away – constantly texting him, asking him for facetime and pictures and questioning him, being suspicious, checking credit card purchases, push push push.
“questioning him, being suspicious, checking credit card purchases, push push push.”
How dare she suspect her cheating husband of cheating. Hmmm, what did the little girls do to “push” him? Or maybe, just maybe, he’s a narcissistic psychopath. If you don’t read the entire 2,000 page discovery, you have no idea what was going on.
She could have come home. If she was that worried. She was just visiting her parents.
The only truly innocent people here are the children. Shanann did NOT desrve to die but she, along with Chris, created an awful living environment. The kids did absolutely nothing.
She said they both agreed to her going visiting both families.
I think by that time she knew he was cheating that’s why she was venting her resentment towards him about it. I think she left on that trip to prepare for leaving him. She probably needed the break from him and maybe to acclimate the kids moving to North Carolina. In most of the public videos she was pretty deliberate in making him look like a great supportive husband and father. Every now and then she’d be annoyed and let it slip but most couples who have been married for 6-7 years at that point don’t need to fake their feelings anymore. Chris is an aberration to that. So passive aggressive and hidden.
Slyvester. Good thoughts I have said everything you have said. Build up over time, started to take its toll on him and I think the last couple of months, well since May, he started to analyze his situation. 6 weeks apart sealed it.
No Man is going accept this behaviour of their wife treating them like this.
With her becoming more vocal the last bit, kinda sealed her fate.
All 3 killed, fresh start…..like they never were in his life.
It seems his family didn’t like her since day one.
Terrible marriage, full of lies, deception, and hurt feelings.
This is pretty good – it’s called “Lies”. The interviewer is being very detailed with Chris. Chris, I think, thinks his story is being bought, until the interviewer says he doesn’t believe his account.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE0ALkRtkO0
This video is no longer at link. Do u know where I can find it?
He says let’s look at the two Chris’s. This interviewer, officer, or agent, is really great.
When someone like Chris who doesn’t understand how the law works, no lawyer, not talking to media, letting people in.
They had a gold-mine in front of them.
Most killers would not act like this.
Everything out of haste here.
I wonder if he has asked for legal council yet.
Nope – and they left him in the room for 30 minutes reviewing his phone. I suppose he couldn’t leave without his phone, but after 15 minutes or so I would have grown impatient, poked my head out the door and asked if I was free to go. Toward the end he’s still staring at a picture of his family and picking his nose.
I know. I would have knocked on the door also. Just strange this whole case. I think he thought he was ok, by saying she did the kids.
There’s still more info being leaked everyday.
If he ever changed his mind, ask for Lawyer. I wonder what would happen. His time running out soon. Probably doesn’t even know this.
He’s never really confessed to killing the children, has he. His own attorneys told him they had too much on him so he needed to plead guilty. Poor advice! Remind me to never ask for them to represent me. I’d rather have someone from PrePaid Legal.
Is a signed plea deal by him not a confession to killing his kids. Even his parents accepted he killed them after seeing the evidence and no longer urged him to withdraw plea. If they accepted it as a confession I think the rest of the world should as they were his staunchest defenders I think he pleaded guilty in part not to have everything come out. Little did he know they were free to release discovery to everu
To the poster calling Nick out , yes he might not sugar coat his words when responding to readers . I follow you on that . But saying his theory on what happened and why makes no sense is a bunch of bs. Just because he wants to figure out what caused this murder doesnt mean he is simply overlooking or excusing it. It was totally wrong. But it got to that point somehow. Its tragic . But just because Shanann is dead does not give her a free pass to excuse what was happening while she was still alive. If one has any interest in figuring out WHY this happened, then the way she treated her husband is a damn good place to start. And just because I say that, no need in jumping on the ” victim blaming ” soap box. Please. No one has the right to end a life. But move past that if you want to find out why . if you dont want to find out why , then WTF are you here?
You’re all a bunch of simpletons repeating each other’s psychobabble bull crap. Anyone who can sympathize with malignant narcissist psychopath Chris Watts, and blame the victim, Shan, is just plain ignorant and ridiculous. If he had killed her only I might believe that; but what what about the girls did he hate them to because they humiliated him by “throwing chicken nuggets at him? And what about all the crazy nut jobs who also annihilated their wives and babies, Chris Coleman, Chris Longo, Neil Entwistle, Scott Peterson, just to name a few. Do you also sympathize with them and make excuses for them?
No one is making excuses, and applying psychological diagnosis of mental disorders against a subject that you arent qualified to make is psychobabble. The moral judgement of the crime and the blame of the act are of one instance, what antecedent events occured are another.
Yes, just don’t kill in that state…..lol
No matter how much you invest in projecting the “image” the truth is always there. If you are a seeker, you get to the root of the situation. No matter what you see, hear, or are told, you feel the truth. Appearances mean nothing, words mean nothing, you see the energy and intention at the root of the situation. The truth is the thing that hold value, everything else falls always like a house of cards. Where ever you go- there you are. You can try as hard as you want, but there is no running away from yourself.
Thank you for bringing to light the dysfunction in the Watts relationship. Ongoing verbal abuse can be detrimental to anyone’s psyche, this does not make an excuse for murdering your whole family but I, like so many others, are looking for answers as to why this tragedy happened. You, and only one other person reporting on this case, are the only unbiased ones. There was a reason why Chris’s family did not get along with Shanann- you can control some people (like Chris) but others will push back and stand their ground, most will try to avoid you. Eventually, though, the person being belittled will reach their breakimg point too. It was interesting to me about the statement of the chicken nuggets, it reminded me of the pie in the face video- I think Shanann was a bit sadistic as well, which, if she was narcissistic, goes hand in hand. As for the children, Chris said they were starting to sass back at him like Shanann, I think that was one of the last straw’s for him, losing control over the children as well. This case has many, many layers, thank you for your insights, you really make the reader think.
Pleasure Iris. Who is the other unbiased commentator?
FYI while researching RAPE OF CASSANDRA I came across a lot of disturbing information about how and why Watts felt humiliated in his marriage, way beyond what is mentioned here.
Hi Nick, The other unbiased reporter is Brenda Irish Heintzelman, she is the one with the Miss Mensa youtube channel and I think she has a Facebook group on the Watts case also. I am going to get your series of books on this case after Christmas. I read your series of books on the Jodi Arias case and they were so in depth and well researched. Like I said, you really leave no stones unturned in these true crime stories. I absolutely love your work!
There is shame/humiliation in all human interaction. Read Tomkins theory of affect! Unless there is something terribly abnormal with your development and or your hardwires have shorted out you don’t respond to what shame reveals to you and actually anhnilate the source of your shame, especially your children! Clearly a deep rooted mental illness in this case! Covert narcissistic sociopathic behavior! He used attack other on the compass of shame but to the most extreme and unreasonable degree! In fact it so extreme it threatened it own survival which is manifested in the result! In my opinion should be put to death in the manner he used! Maybe we could learn something from dissecting his grey matter!
The Frankie Rzucek interview is on youtube now. He has some perceptions about the last week Chris visited in North Carolina. Sha’nann spent the night on the couch, not Chris, and he heard the argument “on the back porch” having to do with the nut incident. He said it wasn’t violent arguing, just arguing. He liked Ronnie Watts very much, but said it was Chris’s mom who did not like Sha’nann whatever her reasons were. In that last week the children acted much more attached to their mother than to Chris. Chris should not have gone to NC week 6. He clearly didn’t want to be there, he was distant and couldn’t care less, he should have stayed home, he did her no favors by going.
Thanks for the heads up Sylvester – just posted. Have you listened to it yet?
Yes, but I would like your thoughts on it when you are ready.
atleast chris watts dad spoke of shannan as his daughter in his statement to the court.
no mention of shannan by his estranged mum,just her grandchildren.
Might be awhile. Hard at work on RAPE OF CASSANDRA. Trying to bring it out next week. Please do keep me posted on new news over the next few days. With your help we can be omniscient 😉
I’ve been reading your blogs every day for the last month or so. I believe everything you’ve been thinking about Watts and this case. Like you, I like to understand why people do what they do, and the psychology behind it all. I believe as well that he felt belittled, shamed, disrespected, and emasculated. For a man, that’s probably about the worst you could feel, especially with your own family. I don’t think he really dated anyone serious before Shanann. He said in his interview he dated a little bit after technical school, but no one serious. He needed a strong woman like Shanann in his life because of his Mom. Someone that would be able to stand on her own and have her own voice, stick up for themselves. I think Cindy Watts was always intimidated by Shanann. Since they were both strong personalities. Once, he started working out and loosing weight, he started to get more confident as the days went on, and he was getting noticed by other women. He finally had the attention he maybe had always wanted. Then the freedom of being a bachelor again. He didn’t have the daily stresses of having a family. As the other comment I saw above about the kids throwing chicken nuggets at him, I think he hated that as well. When he said that I knew right away, that he hated that his whole family had been disrespecting him, and he had enough of it all. I do find it strange that she would leave for so long. I would never be gone that long. Maybe two weeks at the most?? If my husband was acting standoffish wasn’t answering my calls, I would’ve said some choice words as well. He obviously didn’t care anymore. I don’t know why she wouldn’t have looked at his phone logs or did some research. Maybe she didn’t want to find the truth? Do you feel that if she hadn’t gone to Arizona she would still be alive? Or, he had found another time to get away with it? Do you believe NK pushed him to do this? Or do you think this is his own doing? Everyone said they never would’ve thought he could’ve done this, everyone said he was a great husband! Even SW parent’s said the other night he was. So was he a sociopath his whole life and a narcissist like his Mom? Or, he really just did snap the last month and couldn’t take anymore of it, and really thought this was his only way out?
The six weeks in NC was to save the money daycare would have cost, I read.
But in NC Shan’ann was not in her own home. She did not have control – she hassled with her own mom, she clearly freaked out when Cindy let other kids have pistachio ice cream because she could not control Cindy and then she had lost control of Chris. Did not know where he was, who with, what he was doing.
For someone who has such major control issues leaving your home base -where everything is as you want it and your minion is there to feed the kids etc – Is dangerous. There are all these moving parts. They get uncomfortable… control freaks don’t do well on vacation.
I think she’s an in-fighter as well. Not having access to Chris where she could get in his face about not being excited for the new baby must have been a problem. She was like a pressure cooker keeping the lid on everything in her life quite tightly and telling him off was a release .she didn’t have any more. That he now had the freedom to simply ignore her rants was driving her crazy. Just being able to not return her calls or texts must have felt like a great relief.
The loss of the ability to stage manage their life I think was a big issue and maybe one she wasn’t expecting. She was not an introspective person although she knew she was controlling I don’t think she realized how out of control it was going to make her to be uprooted while newly pregnant. Her parents would help w kids but not like Chris, not standing at attention awaiting her direction.
she was ready to snap & spoiling for a huge fight by the time he got out there. It is a shame it took so long for her to realize what effect her behavior was having on her husband Because by then it was too late- once the girlfriend got entrenched in his head I think Shan’ann’s fate was sealed. And his mother as well- that trip to NC held a lot of mama drama that did not bode well for them.
Chris could have stepped up earlier (instead of allowing her to throw him out of his own home for failing to comply with her demands and rules For example) And taken up more space in his own life and family. But he seemed terrified of Shan’ann but also not able to stand on his own feet without a woman telling him what to do, whether mama, Shan’ann or Nikki.
The NC trip created big problems all the way around. Nikki pushing harder for him to leave his wife in her jealousy that he was with her in NC, Shan’ann getting very fed up and verbally or emotionally abusive to him, Cindy sniping at him about how terrible his wife was and how ridiculous etc.
These are all reasons to leave her and get out. How these guys make the jump from that to murder without crippling moral doubts or common sense realization that they will be caught I don’t know.
I think the square root of these murders lies with Cindy and Ronnie Watts. I know their kind very well, and had to go no contact almost 10 years ago for my own sanity and physical health. If you don’t know anything about Cluster B personality disordered, especially Cluster B parents and their family systems, then it may be completely lost on you, especially if you have/had normal, loving parents. Having lived through this particular pain myself, there is a whole lot of rage built up in the scapegoated children. What Chris experienced as a child and well into his adulthood is narcissistic abuse. Chris was the family scapegoat and his sister, Jamie, the golden child. Shanaan’s many texts concerning Chris’ family dynamics forms this observation.
Chris was groomed by his parents.
The reason Chris is so unemotional and awkward is because somewhere in his life he learned to go “gray rock” to survive his childhood. Narcissists live for narc supply. A lot of their supply is getting an emotional reaction out of their targets and/or seeing flashes of emotional pain on their faces. It’s sick, I know.
By going “gray rock” for so long somehow created a disconnect between Chris – his true self and Chris – the persona (what everyone wanted to see). I think with Shanaan, Bella and CeCe, Chis was “the persona.” He could never be himself with them. When he met NK, he was Chris – “his true self.”
Chris had never felt alive before he met NK, and in many ways, it’s true. For some reason, their dynamic worked, and they had an electric connection.
Shanaan, by extension of Chris, was also scapegoated. Cindy and Jamie also gas lighted Shanann with the nuts. Shanaan said when she came back inside with Bella, Chris’ sister put a bowl of nuts on the table that wasn’t there before the argument with Cindy Watts. Shanaan was a major threat to Chris’ parents. She saw their dysfunction, and stood up (early on) for Chris. They didn’t like that. They also treated Shanann’s girls differently than Jamie’s children. Shanaan texted to Chris, “They act as if they have 2 grandchildren when they have 4.” Now they only have 2 grandchildren, but what a cost!
Chris, by his parents’ grooming, married a woman quite similar to his own mother. Is Shanaan narcissistic? She could very well be somewhere on the spectrum. Her texts to her friends and to Chris were very honest, even realizing where she may have crossed the line. The malignant narcissists will never be honest, never self-reflect, apologize. They are pathological. Chris’ mother, in my opinion, is a malignant narcissist of the covert kind. In Shanaan’s own words, “They are evil.”
If it’s true that Cindy treated Chris with scorn and humiliated him or bosses him unduly then I would say he did marry a woman like his mother as that probably felt familiar and like love.
Nikki took ot I’m a different direction and probably would have made a better mate for him until she got bored being in the driver’s seat.
Chris seems not to have any there, there. Isn’t that a sociopathic trait? To have no core identity but just to be wearing the mask, whoever you’re around kind of drives how that will look?
Also the inability to plan. I guess some have it. Scott Peterson did a more thorough job. But I guess they think others will believe their “perfect husband” mask.
Seymour glass- 💯
Seymour glass, +1. Spot on.
Here’s what I think happened. She came home that night at 1:48 a.m. . I believe Chris and the girls were probably sleeping at this time. Because at 2:18 a.m., Chris’s cell phone links up to the Wi-Fi router. I believe that is aactually SHANNAN going through his phone while he was sleeping , checking for incriminating evidence of him cheating, as her friends advised her to do. She doesn’t find anything. And I know that to be true, because at 2:38 a.m. she was on her own phone, purchasing hair care products….. Something she clearly would not have been doing had she found what he had been hiding in his calculator app. What I DO think happened though, is she unknowingly woke him up when she clandestinely walked off with his phone. And I think that’s what started the entire fight that would tragically and her life…. Bcuz while she was ordering the hair care products, he came down those stairs and confronted her about taking his phone. And then things clearly escalated out of control. I’m sure they were arguing about what had been going on with him the past several weeks, I believe they also argued about separating / divorcing, too. I’m also willing to bet that Shanann probably told Chris that she planned to fight for, and probably would get full custody of the girls.,,, which is when Chris snaps, and grabs Shanann by the throat….. and eventually kills her, and their unborn son. SMH. Now, when it comes to those sweet little girls…… That’s where I just cannot come up with any theories on understanding what he was thinking, or why he killed them too. I mean, in his mind, were they collateral damage? Potential witnesses that saw him kill their mother? Or was he an “If I can’t have them, nobody can” kind of guy? ,,,, I just truly don’t understand why those little girls had to die. I’m not saying I am condoning the killing of his pregnant wife by no means, I’m just saying that at least I can theorize what events may have transpired that possibly led up to her death. But not the little girls. SMH. I don’t know. I’m just offering up my own theory of what I think happened that fateful night. The bottom line is, we probably will never truly know what happened unless that piece of shit, oh excuse me,— I mean Chris Watts —ever decides to actually tell what happened. And the bottom line is this whole thing was such a cruel and senseless act. It should have never happened. And I’m glad he has to live the rest of his life in 24-hour a day protective custody in a jail cell no bigger than most people’s bathrooms.
Read other topics, posted by Nick.
It will give you more insight.
I agree with Seymour. Go back to the beginning of Chris Watts – his mother that raised him. It’s all very well saying Shanann belittled him by her no balls comments etc but I would get frustrated as hell too if my husband didn’t back me in that kind of evil situation that his mother intentionally created to disrespect Shanann. He is the husband & father & he should bloody man up & protect his family. He was so weak .
I know a lot of people don’t like to explore this area, and some refuse to, but when we go to motive, and we have Shan’ann admitting that she belittled her husband in the last days of their unraveling marriage, it seems obvious that his response was to feel anger.
In a general sense, when one person belittles another, how do people generally respond?
Murder is a violent act, and Watts didn’t seem to be a violent or angry type of person in general. So where did that kind of violence come from?
“He was so weak .”
Wow. I couldn’t disagree more! I’ll borrow a passage from Marc Matz’ “Nocturne for a Dangerous Man”, p. 464: “An automatic in a two-handed grip. Tears flooding her face, and under the tears, almost unbearable resolve. And under the resolve…”
It took *tremendous* resolve to put this plan into action, a plan from which there could be no return. If you think that’s “weakness”, then I don’t understand how you define “weak”.
That violence came from a place deep within himself, that had been laying dormant from years of narcissistic abuse from his mother, exactly what Seymour said.
No normal person goes through life without showing emotion, and if you look at most of the photos of him before he met Shanann, his face is a blank, there’s no sign of happiness or anything really, and he looks exactly the same now.
His father doesn’t look much different to him, he’s got no balls either, like father like son, and his sister is his mother’s protégé.
Shanann was sick of having to stick up for, and protect her children and family against that woman and his sister. They targeted Shannan from the start, she forgave and forgave then had enough of them, and also had enough of him not having any balls and being so submissive to his mother, as he saw his father be all his life.
His mother only pretended to cry in her interviews when she spoke about herself.
NK was more like his mother than anyone he’d ever met before and who knows what they all came up with or plotted, it’s not like it’s never happened before; even the way NK spoke to the detectives during her interviews ‘ahhhh just leave Jim alone, just leave Jim alone, Jim is not even wrapped up in this’. I’d say the detectives had no balls either. And by Jim not being ‘wrapped up in this’ does she mean not wrapped up like Shannann Bella and Celeste before being discarded in the wilderness like trash.
And Watts saying he didn’t want Nichols name being ‘dragged through the mud’ does he mean not dragged through the mud and dirt and buried in a shallow grave like Shannann or shoved through an 8 inch opening of an oil tank, dropped several feet into the oil and left to turn into sludge.
The reason doesn’t really matter, because there’s plenty more from where he came from, and they are under the influence of their mothers right now, and there’s young girls growing up thinking they are going to marry a prince, and find out they’ve really married an psychopathic narcissist, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it from happening.
Shannann had nothing to do with her own murder or the murder of her children, Watts made a choice and he is in jail for the rest of his life because of it.
I’m sure his mother is blaming Shannann for him being in jail as well, when instead she should be thankful that it wasn’t her he murdered, instead of trying to please.
His mother doesn’t give a stuff about anyone but herself anyway and as far as she’s concerned about Shannann it’s mission accomplished.
He didn’t snap, He’d already thought about it and set it all up beforehand. It was a calculated plan that failed. Being the submissive and emotionless person he is, I also don’t believe he was in it alone, and all the children were just collateral damage
Nick: At some point, would you ever consider publishing a book comprised of all of your Watts blog posts? (I personally would love to have them all consolidated in book format. 🙂 )
No, I would never do that. The books stand apart and certainly in my view are far better reading, writing and research than the blogs posts. Some of the narratives refer to certain posts that deal with messy information, maps and certain tedious explanations. The two are meant to complement one other, and are intended to be side by side, the blogs being a much smaller research component than the books.
But there’s nothing stopping you from printing out the blogs and putting them into one big file 😉
I just watched the documentary on Netflix and I know I am way late here but I think you’re taking this to the other extreme.
He in his own words said he drove 45 mins to 1 hour to the burial/body disposal site with his dead wife and alive children in the back of the truck. In this entire time, it didn’t occur to him once to spare the lives of the small children?
That is an act of Evil.
Not to mention afterwards his actions (like contacting a real estate agent) indicated he made plans for his new life .
When I watched the documentary, I did get the sense that the wife was overbearing and if he had only killed her, I’d definitely agree with you. Or at least if he had a gun and shot them all at once without thinking about his actions.
I believe his final confession to the detectives for the most part. It contained such awful and personal details and made him look so awful, the admissions are so horrible they have the ring of terrible truth. Also he was discovering religion and on that high and may have sincerely been trying to make that one effort toward atonement that he could make. When they asked him why the girls he responded he was just so angry by that time he just couldn’t stop or something like that. I think he was so angry at her for “making him kill her” that he then killed them. I’m not sure it was pre-meditated. We will never know the full truth.