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BREAKING: CBI 34 Page Release [Chris Watts' "Second Confession"]

Although officially 34 pages, 31 pages were released. This is it. Page 26 deals with Kessinger’s involvement [or lack of] in the murders.
Analysis to follow.
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39 Comments

  1. Sherri

    This is absolutely the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I don’t know if it’s the truth, but it made me cry. I really want(ed) to believe he killed the girls in their sleep as humanely as possible.

  2. Shannon

    Jay is for justice, apparently has the audio of the talk.

  3. CBH

    Really upsetting. The way the investigators lay it out, the details, somehow ring fully true.

    • Clean Queen

      CBH – I feel the exact same way. I read the transcript before I looked at any coverage or comments about it. A lot of it rings very true for me. There are certain things that had me saying wow, that makes a ton of sense. Some of it I’m a little uncertain about, but it’s so hard to tell because people differ so vastly in their reactions and responses. I found the whole thing to be extremely fascinating. I’m definitely going to read it multiple times.

  4. mitzi2006

    If true doesn’t look like NK was too hip on him going home, what happened to the “go spend time with your kids”….was it not the night before that NK said there was no sheets on the bed when he was talking to her, I could be wrong.

    • nickvdl

      Good point. No the no sheets comment was on Monday night.

  5. Fred

    After all the content available on this case, I still wasn’t prepared for how hard this would hit. And I’m surprised to say that it feels/sounds sincere and truthful. It was very heartbreaking to read some of those words. Wow, it got me. I look forward to hearing all the feedback from Nick and company.

    • nickvdl

      It’s good that you’re moved and “feeling” this case. All the people in this story are as real as you and I.

      • Fred

        I understand that, I mean that I expected to not believe what Watts would say. Just as I haven’t bought anything he’s said so far. Just in reading the transcript, I felt like he was being truthful but I still haven’t listened to the audio.

  6. Duttdip

    This is going to be my last post on the topic.
    While his actions were monstrous, at some level this is a story of humans. Humans who are extroverts, humans who are introverts, humans with rage, humans with emotions, humans with passion, humans with blind love, humans with anger, and humans with spells of insanity. All of us have been one of those humans at some point in life, though we might not have ended up doing what he did. It was a beautiful family that like any other family had its ups and downs (including tiffs with in-laws), but was never meant to complete the full circle. At least I would like to remember them that way.
    I enjoyed being a participant in this blog; thanks everyone for the thorough and incisive analysis.

  7. Stacy

    Very interesting that he describes straddling her pretty much the same way he said he caught her on top of CeCe. So sad.

    • Clean Queen

      Excellent observation, Stacy. I hadn’t thought of that. I feel like as I re-read the transcript, new details will pop out at me.

    • Ralph Oscar

      “Very interesting that he describes straddling her”
      And if he was straddling her with her face-down (per my “backrub” scenario), she would have been in the perfect position for him to throttle the life out of her. This would also explain the lack of any defensive wounds on Chris – she couldn’t reach him face-down. Also, the “Get off – you’ll hurt the baby” comment makes more sense if she was lying on her stomach and he was on top of her.
      Those might have been her last words, in fact.

    • Ralph Oscar

      “Very interesting that he describes straddling her pretty much the same way he said he caught her on top of CeCe. So sad.”
      What this looks like to me is Chris simply inserting real facts into his narrative, just in the wrong place. That’s one of my contentions in evaluating his commentary, and I’m continuing to see this pattern. It was he who was straddling Shan’Ann, not Shan’Ann straddling CeCe. There was straddling; someone was on top of someone else; but it was only one scenario: Chris on top of Shan’Ann. And she let him get on top of her. If she had been face up, she would have been able to fight back and leave defensive marks on him.

  8. Victor

    At the end of it all, you do feel for CW. He doesn’t seem to be the monster that we have all made him out to be. Just a human being who lost control of himself for a few hours. And ended up ruining many lives in the process. At multiple places in this confession (Bolte, McMahon, Nicole lying about not knowing of his marriage, his nice words for Shan’ann etc.), he comes out as a good enough guy who just did 1 really horrible thing in his life. There was not a single negative comment about anyone in his “confession”.

    • Clean Queen

      I know. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Watts, mainly due to my belief that Shan’ann was like very difficult to live with. Somehow, I don’t see him as a monster. I just see a guy who did something monsterous. He has many redeeming qualities.
      While Ronnie Watts isn’t exactly my cup of tea, I feel bad for him to a degree too. It’s obvious that he loves his son. The part about Ronnie going to all of Chris’s sports events even if he wasn’t playing really hit me. It’s a sad story all around.

    • Duttdip

      Sorry-I have to break my resolve.. Can’t but comment..
      It was a few hours of insanity, but a few weeks of blindness. He regrets Shanann going away for a few weeks, his “freedom” was an illusion. In some weird way, it is a retributive justice that he had his last sexual act of his life with Shanann, and not NK.

      • Orlando momma

        I hope he is allowed out in general population. He is evil

      • CBH

        I think so, also. Well put.

      • Ralph Oscar

        We’re all weak, Duttdip.

    • Sherri

      Even though what he has done has been absolutely monstrous, I did find myself feeling a little empathy for Chris.. for the first time. It completely surprised me, especially since this was in the same day as reading the transcript of how he killed the girls. It’s the complete destruction of a man who started out as a somewhat normal person. I consider this story to be a modern-day tragedy, and the details have been as heartbreaking as any fictional story I’ve read (someone mentioned Stephen King–. I wanted closure to this case, and since I finally heard him express emotion during the interview about how/when he killed his daughters, I feel like I can finally let go of my obsession to this case.

      • Victor

        I just wish I had never read the first discovery file. I knew just the basics of this case till I did and I would have passed it on as just another crime. Reading the discovery file and all the wonderful analysis here and the discussions alongside has just fueled the obsession. Hopefully this will be the last of it.

        • Shannon

          I know you feel Victor. Me to

        • Clean Queen

          Victor – I held off reading anything about the case until late November. I did so because I though it was just another crime. It would take over the media for a week or two, then we’d all move on. I started with a YouTube video on the case, and it was an instantaneous obsession. I just had to know as much as possible. I still can’t put it down. If I run out of new info to digest I go back and read one of Nick’s older books on the case, or older blog posts. There are lots of gold nuggets tucked away there. Things I didn’t notice or understand the first time around can take on new meaning.

    • Dess

      Really?! Are you for real?! He did just “one mistake” in his life and we judge him all so harshly, poor Chris… This “mistake” did cost the life of his wife, his son and his two daughter, whom he had 45 (fourty-five!!!) minutes to spare!!! Of course, it was all his wife’s fault, it put all the blame on her, she forced him to kill her, to kill the girls, blah blah blah… I am asking why didn’t he kill himself, as well? Because he is a psychopath, that’s why. Now he found God, all is fine, sun and flowers, let’s forget and forgive that he killed his daughters like stray dogs. People don’t even treat animals like this… I am appalled by these comments. I am sure what you would do next is sending him your pictures and oferring him comfort. He is a liar, a murderer and a psychopath. He killed his little girls in the most despicable way – or maybe they abused him, too. To me this “confession” doesn’t settle anything. Doesn’t justify anything. Doesn’t explain anything.

      • Stacy

        I agree Dess. Even though he confessed to killing them all he deflected a lot of the blame to SW, being able to get a babysitter and see NK that Sat, etc. He said he couldn’t control himself. I do think there was resentment and some absolutely effed up family dynamics in the Watts household that helped mold him but I think he coldly calculated these murders. He said he had no choice but to kill them. That’s b.s. I don’t think he’s truly remorseful. I think he feels a little bad like one might if they accidentally kill an animal with their car because they can’t avoid hitting it. That is how he acts about their murders. He’s trying to make people believe that it couldn’t be avoided.

        • Ralph Oscar

          “He said he had no choice but to kill them. That’s b.s. ”
          The bs here is your conviction that he felt that he had choices. It is not about *you* and what *you* would have done or not done – remember that. CW, doing his best at every moment as we all do (because if we *could* do better, we *would*), ended up murdering his family. For CW, that was his only choice. If HE had seen another choice as a viable option, he would have taken it.
          You can accept reality, or you can’t. But the fact that you can’t accept reality doesn’t change reality. The rest of us accept reality and seek to understand why it is that CW felt that this was his only option.

          • SRC

            Chris Watts isn’t an idiot and neither is Stacy. We always have choices and are responsible for the choices we make. CW came to the conclusion that murder was his best choice for the outcome he desired. Stacy was simply sharing her thoughts, not what her choices would have been in his situation – she didn’t deserve that attack. I was just going to mind my own business so that the focus stays on the case and doesn’t get redirected to each other, but I’ve noticed you have a tendency to go after the person rather than the merits of their statements and minding our own business hasn’t helped curb Ralph’s Wrath. 🙂

          • Shannon

            There are commentaries on here, who have been here since day One. Me included.
            These people have excellent thoughts, reasons, analysis.
            They re-comment to lead on the right path.
            Just like Shanann, she was going full forward, But not stopping to look left and right. Aka…stop and smell the flowers.
            You just might notice, something else.

  9. Sylvester

    I see him as coming from a very dysfunctional family. I won’t go into all of the signals right now. Similar to the home Casey Anthony came from, however. He conveniently doesn’t remember or claims he wasn’t thinking to so many questions posed to him. He gives a “sniff” after the end of every sentence where he’s obfuscating. If you listen very closely you can even hear him attempting to turn himself into a victim at the hands of Nicole K., calling her bi-polar – a word his dad liked to throw around when describing Shan’ann. His scenario of the last night – apparently straddling his wife for 15 minutes while having a conversation about selling the house and telling her he doesn’t love her any more just doesn’t cut it. And finally when Baumhover or Coder asks “were you coming back?” (to possibly dig up Sha’nann) he answers “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” So why is he confessing again. I haven’t quite figured it out but it has to do with enjoying the limelight, the same guy who enjoyed giving his porch sermon, and playing the victim. And I think Coder, Lee and Baumhover don’t believe him either – but time will tell.

  10. ncam619

    Im really disappointed that no one asked Chris about that 111 minute conversation with NK on the night of 8/12. I think that conversation played a major part in his state of mind the following morning. NK was obviously playing mind games with him at that point. She was pretending to set up Eharmony dates to make Chris jealous. I’m willing to bet she gave him an ultimatum during that 111 minute phone call. That would explain the urgency he felt the next morning to “solve the problem”. Before listening to the interview this morning, I really wanted to continue despising Chris. We all know he’s a horrible actor, so i knew he couldn’t fake the sincerity that came across in that interview. I now feel as though I can finally let go of this case knowing this is as close to the truth we are ever going to hear. What i find most upsetting about this case is how normal Chris appears to be. Does that mean it could’ve just as easily been me or you?? It’s frightening to consider.

    • Fred

      Great point!! Oh man, I can’t believe I forgot to mention that missed opportunity also. I still need to listen to the audio but I also am ready to put this one to bed and move on. So far from reading it, I feel more empathetic towards Chris than I have ever before. I don’t know how I feel about that because what he did is obviously unimaginable to myself as I’m sure it is for most people. What a twisted case, full of turns and unanswered questions this has been.

    • Ralph Oscar

      “the urgency he felt the next morning to “solve the problem”.”
      Except that, at that point, the girls were already dead. They were known to be VERY light sleepers (likely due to being expected to sleep far more than is typical for children their age), so CW would not have been having a loud phone conversation with the TV blaring in the background (as it has been established) if they were still alive.
      By that time, the plan had already been set in motion. If CW had planned to put forward the suggestion that SW took off with the kids, just kinda ran off, that would have resolved any concerns NK might have had about being #1 in his life. And with SW and the kids just “disappearing”, CW could have presented himself as the victim, the grieving abandoned husband and father, the most sympathetic possible character. Sunday night and the 111-minute phone call wouldn’t have been the first time they’d have discussed NK’s requirement that she be first in his life if they were going to stay together. In the 111-minute “emotional conversation” they had, I’m sure that he reassured her that he would be coming clean to SW as soon as she got home (in a couple of hours) and that, by morning, he would be a free man and all hers.

  11. nancyjames3358

    Quite the week. The next interview I would like to hear is Nick interviewing Coder, Lee, and Baumhover. Pay Per View.

    • nickvdl

      I think a lot of what lay behind this interview was an attempt to study Watts and the art of lying. The fact that he was so talkative [in some areas] made it easier, and Watts wanting to please his interviewers was something they could also use to manipulate him. I don’t think Watts tells the truth as much as reveals lies around critical issues, which in a way reveals what isn’t true and points one to some other alternative.

  12. Maddie Johnston

    I don’t believe him, full stop! People are defining him by “one moment in his life”… Moment! So he supposedly had his girls alive in the back with their dead mother and they didn’t have hysteria all the way to the oil tanks? I have no idea why he would come out with this bs other than to twist the knife!!
    He blames Shannan for taking him away from his parents and sister, he was 25 when they met fgs!

  13. Shannon

    I think Rourke was tired of the public bombarding him with their thoughts. So he sent them out there to get another “Story*, hoping it would shut up the public.
    Backfires.
    Detectives very rarely just Pop In on an inmate….aka: killer.
    Unless there looking for closure, or more info.
    Which they didn’t get.
    Maybe if Rourke had done his job right, this BS wouldn’t be happening now.
    We all know there are thousands of inconsistencies in Chris’s two tales.
    Maybe he try to go for a 3rd time.
    I have a feeling…..it ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
    Lol…..that’s an old saying. Some might get it, some might not.

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