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Shan’ann’s black suitcase was moved upstairs – what about the purple sleep mask?

With the wealth of around-the-clock video footage we have of the Watts’ crime scene, as well as the sheer number of officers casing the joint and writing their respective reports, it’s inevitable that more signs of Watts’ cover-up will become apparent. This is a useful exercise not so much to prove his guilt, but to track his deception, and also as a way of challenging our own true crime perceptual skills.

Worth playing for?

By meticulously cross-checking the bodycam footage with the Discovery Documents, we can also find areas where law enforcement missed something, or were bamboozled.

For one thing, we know the Rzuceks unwittingly frustrated the investigation by taking Shan’ann’s purple make-up bag. It was requested that it be returned, and ultimately it was, but this was a serious error the cops made; a top defense lawyer would have made a meal out of that in a trial.

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For another, Deeter’s movements are an obvious example of law enforcement leaving open a few seemingly insignificant loose ends. Law enforcement didn’t seem to think where the little dachshund was in the house when Watts arrived, was necessary for their reports.

One aspect that was highlighted was the movement of the black suitcase from the foot of the stairs on Monday to the bedroom on Tuesday. Why would Watts want to do that? Isn’t it obvious? Because of an unanticipated event – the cops being summoned so early by Nickole Atkinson -Watts needed to change his story. He needed to put Shan’ann in the bedroom before she supposedly left.  Who knows, perhaps his original story [if her flight wasn’t delayed] was that she came home, they argued, and she said she was going back to North Carolina, back home to her folks, but she never made it to the airport…

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By cross-referencing the footage with the reports, do we see anything else overlooked by law enforcement? Is there any mention of a sleeping mask in the Discovery Documents?

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What you’ll notice is as soon as we venture down the rabbit hole around the idea of a sleeping mask, other issues, ideas and evidence crops up. Like this:

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So there is a mention of the word “mask” but it’s volunteered by Watts himself in a rather sinister context. I believe this seemingly throwaway statement is very significant. You don’t want to be the people parading around with like a mask on when their kids are around…But wasn’t that exactly what Watts was doing in terms of his unborn child, and Kessinger?

And probably that’s precisely how Watts felt – he didn’t want to be “parading” around with her, wearing a mask. When they secretly went to the Lazy Dog restaurant in Erie – instead of the Rockies game on Saturday night, August 11th – they took Kessinger’s car. The white Lexus belonged to a married woman. Too much of a risk for the Lexus and her better half to be spotted in public, but also a real drag for the better half.

I’ve also suggested in the TWO FACE narratives that Watts may have donned a mask when he attacked Shan’ann. This wasn’t necessarily to scare her or to trick her, but to keep evidence of himself from being scratched and transferred onto her. This may be why the only scratch Watts suffered was on the lower side of his neck, the area a mask might not necessarily cover.

When Watts was asked what the significance was of the mark on his neck, he said it was a mosquito bite.

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I’ve already stressed in the first TWO FACE trilogy that Shan’ann never made it upstairs or to bed. A few of the obvious reasons include the fact that Watts’ described Shan’ann still wearing mascara to bed [something she would never otherwise do], and because her body was also found wearing a bra. would she have gone to sleep still wearing her bra?

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The murdered in bed theory also has to address the mystery of the mobile sleeping mask, assuming the fuzzy thing on the floor is the sleep mask. Shan’ann’s friends would probably be able to shed light on whether Shan’ann often slept with a mask on, and if she did, what it looked like and where she usually kept it. Kessinger might be able to shed the same light on Watts’ sleeping habits. That black garbage bag hanging over the window probably didn’t do much good blocking out the light after dawn. On the other hand, if he had to be up at 04:00, why would he need the basement to be dark enough so he could sleep…?

Did Chris Watts move a purple night mask from his bed in the basement, to the bedroom upstairs, or the other way round?

If he moved it upstairs, why would he do that?

If he moved it downstairs, what would be the reason for that?

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11 Comments

  1. Kim

    What were you thinking about where the little dog was?
    I think it’s so good law enforcement releases this info to the public. Clearly people can assist with observations and are glad to do so which helps them because at time law enforcement has limited man hours.

  2. Carol

    So she stayed downstairs for 30 plus minutes to place a hair supply order? That doesn’t seem likely to me. So her kids had to have still been alive then because there is no way she didn’t check on kids when she got home. Every mom who’s been away from her kids a few days by large majority would. Her family staunchly believes he killed her in her sleep. I believe that as well. He could climb on top of her easily and kneel that her arms were trapped. Both parents and brother said she was very strong.

    • nickvdl

      You’re making a huge assumption – that she knowingly placed an order on a card that had no money on it. And the reason all your other speculations running on from there make no sense is because the original assumption makes no sense. I believe I’ve spoken to you about this before Carol. If you’re convinced Shan’ann was murdered in bed, great, but quit harping on about it.

      The reason it makes no sense [this is a cue for you to put your hands over your ears and say loudly LALALALALALALA] that Shan’ann would be home and placing an order for hair products online is clear when you look at what preceded it. There were a million things far more important and pressing on Shan’ann’s mind in the first week of August, and then in the last 3-4 days of her life.. You seem *completely unaware* of this, so you disconnect the online purchase and hold it up as your sole piece of evidence about her state of mind, and that she was awake [and in bed].

      You do a terrible disservice to the victim ignoring who she was, and what she was going through in her heart by fixating on a single piece of evidence.

    • Brittany Grantham

      Exactly Carol! The very first thing that alarmed for me was the fact that the very FIRST thing you do as a mom is run up those stairs to see your babies! There is absolutely no way she made it all the way up that fight because if she had, her babies rooms to at least peek in on them. I don’t care how tired or sick you are, checking in on your babies is instinctual. I myself have been battling lupus for 8 years, and for the duration of my journey, and am 34 yrs old. The exhaustion this ridiculous disease puts on you is beyond anything I’ve ever felt. It literally hurts to sit up, move, blink; etc. Emotional duress is lupus’ kryptonite. Parallel to Shan’ann, I’m also extremely high strung so I physically feel her struggle. The word struggle doesn’t convey the the suffering. A verbal argument with a loved one will without a doubt bring a flare because lupus is a fickle bitch and any kind of alarm in your body sets off a snow ball effect that’s out of your control. I don’t believe in coincidences, so there’s got to be a connection with high strung, extroverted, women who have lupus. Anyway, I know that her first order of business is going right up those stairs and straight to the babies rooms. I didn’t personally know Shan’ann but even I know she wouldn’t sleep with mascara. Having lupus, your eyelashes aren’t as thick and long as once once and sleeping with mascara will break them off.

  3. YoYoMama

    But didn’t the sensors say there was no movement after Shanann came home until 4:30? Wouldn’t the sensors have shown a lot more movement if she never made it upstairs?

    • BAMS13

      I doubt that in the state of mind she was in, feeling unwell and tired that she place an order for hair color after 2am.

    • Brian George

      Chris had been sleeping in his basement man cave in recent weeks. If that basement dooe was opened by either SW or CW shortly after she got back, it would have blocked the motion detector that was down the hallway from picking up any additional movements.

  4. D Bailey

    After cross referencing your story you mention that “because of on unanticipated event – the cops being summoned so early by Nickole Kessinger – Watts needed to change his story”.
    It was not Kessinger….. It was Atkinson.
    Facts need to be correct.

    • nickvdl

      You’re right – facts do need to be correct. Error has been corrected. If you find any other errors, including typos, please let me know.

  5. Brian George

    Something must have happened in between 1:48 and 2:a.m. Shan’ann’s phone is shut off at 2:00 a.m. She wouldn’t have turned it off because SW likely said to her friend Niki “Text me that you got back safely”. So SW goes upstairs to check on her girls and then proceeds to her and Chris’ bedroom where she finds a pair of NK’s panties that NK left there accidentally on purpose. That sparks an immediate and devastating confrontation. The loud confrontation awakes Bella who gets up and witnesses the strangling.

    On the note about the hair product order, I would like to know from which device the attempted hair product purchase was made from. Her phone, Chris’ phone, a tablet or laptop? Someone had mentioned that she had set up automatic payments to be deducted from the credit card each month for monthly shipments of hair products to their house and it was that particular transaction that was posted and not SW’s action of manually attempting to place the order. I don’t believe that. The timing is just too dang suspicious for it to be a monthly automated withdrawal. Very interested in hearing about what investigators found to be the digital fingerprints of this order.

  6. Brian George

    Was it really purple sleep mask or was it NK’s purple panties left on the bedroom floor?

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