It happens on the second night of the interrogations, at roughly seven minutes into the fifth hour [after seven total hours including the previous night]. Interestingly, Agent Coder doesn’t ask Watts at this point if he’s cheating. He does the opposite.
For several minutes leading up to this moment, both agents reinforce Watts’ ego, telling him what a good man and father he is, and how much everyone likes him. Coder, choosing his moment, then tells Watts there is something they know he is lying about [besides the polygraph].
That’s when Watts says barely audibly at 06:52:
I cheated on her.
It’s a significant moment, and even a breakthrough, not because Watts has told them anything they don’t know, but because it was the first big step in getting him to tell the truth, a big truth, after countless hours of back-to-back lying.
Once the truth of the affair was revealed, and it was important to have him “confess it”, it was easier to lead him towards volunteering more information about his family.
This is interesting. I had watched it before, but this time I wonder if Agent Coder’s theory might not make some sense. He says he thinks Shan’ann was going to leave Chris – that she started on that path first. Either he’s fishing, or…it might have some merit. She had spoken to Olayinka Hamza in March or April ’18. Could it be she was thinking of leaving him? In February or March he has his fling with Amanda McMahon. In May Shan’ann is pregnant – and says it was Chris’s idea. Maybe it was – because he was trying to save his marriage at that point. Then oops, she’s pregnant, and oops, he is having second thoughts – starts flirting with Nickole K. and now it’s him who wants out and is ashamed of himself because it was his idea to save the marriage with a third child in the first place. Shan’ann was going to leave Chris.
I think Coder was fishing. Starting to work angles to give him that “out.”
My reasons: All the pleading and begging him to just talk to her and tell what’s wrong and “how could you fall out of love with me in 5.5 weeks!?!” And the self-help/relationship therapy book she sent him and expected him to read that final weekend. In Nickole A’s interview, she states Shan’ann spent much of the weekend in AZ listening to the audio version of the same book. And that hand written note she was going to leave for him.
Beyond her emotional state, I don’t think she was logistically ready to leave. That’s hard with two little kids and no family near by.
@Aaren I 100% agree with your comment. The FBI agent was working an angle to get CW to open up to tell them where the bodies were.