There’s a weird admission here that when Watts wasn’t home, it was almost like he “forgot” he was a father. He says since there were no reminders around him [at Kessinger’s house] it was easy to forget who he was.
It reminds me of a scene in the movie The Hours, where a housewife is baking a cake for her husband’s birthday, “to show him that we love him.” Her son, standing in the kitchen, asks her: “Otherwise [without the cake] he wouldn’t know we love him…?”
Yes I also found this admission extremely interesting. He apparently has no “object constancy,” a term usually thrown around when describing the problems of borderline personality disordered individuals which he clearly isn’t.
I tend to think he did more than forget he was a father. He compared and contrasted his status as a dad and husband with his role as Kissinger’s lover. As the former he felt henpecked, bossed around, and maybe even servile as the primary provider and the main child care provider, and hesitant to talk to his wife for fear of angering her. At Kissinger’s place he was in the moment, carefree (other than her pressing him to move forward with her), sexually sated, fearless in talking to her, and adored and adoring. He felt so much better there that he began planning his freedom to live that life forever. We know he never saw a divorce lawyer or made any moves to a separation. And I wonder if still having kids to care for is part of the reason he skipped those options, and jumped to annihilating all of them?
That’s what gets me as well. Very well written post by the way, and I agree with you. Anyway, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something. Im sure money was a motive, but this case still feels like an incomplete puzzle. I don’t mean “this blog” is missing something, Nick’s done a wonderful job compiling and analyzing things, but I feel like there’s alot more Chris hasn’t said. He probably won’t either, and that drives me mad. Why the constant stream of lies after the confession? His story is just so… superficial? Does anyone else feel like that?
Have you read the Two-Face series? That put so many things into place for me.
It seems important to CW that he not be viewed as a monster, but I don’t know how a person murders someone, especially his own children, and be anything but a monster. When it’s convenient for him he says he WASN’T thinking. The 35 minute drive to Cervi he “wasn’t thinking,” yet when he can interject comments that make him appear caring, put plastic bags on Shanann’s head and feet because he didn’t want the girls looking at their mom, then he WAS thinking. An aside, why would have her head and feet been visible if she was wrapped in a king-size sheet?
I think he played out several scenarios in his head first. If I do this, then that. Nope, that won’t work. Well I could be up front and try and work something out with her – but I’ve tried and that doesn’t work either. Well I’ve got to do something, she’s about to ruin the happiness I created with someone else, after all of this crap I’ve put up with for so long so I guess this is the only thing I can do. But how will I get away with it? With careful planning, that’s how. And then he planned. And he had to plan his story too. And when that fell apart he knew people were still talking about him and had more questions, so he planned a second story that had a little mixture of the first story in it – that she came home, went to bed, he got up, went downstairs, came back up and they had an argument, he got on top of her – but how about the kids? He’s never said that they were murdered first nor will he. That would be very very cold. So he had to figure out how it happened they came second, when he didn’t have much time after murder number one and loading up his truck to go to work. So why not say I took them with me. He’s still protecting what he doesn’t want us to see about him.
I think he said that because it was easier. It was sort of what he thought they thought, or wanted to hear. If he admitted premeditation there would be a lot more detail dealing with other days, other people and other evidence. And it would make him look sly and conniving, a real piece of shit.
I think Watts wanted to forget who he was, when he was with Kessinger..
It all made it easier for him to continue living his fantasy.
In his head he believes it. Isn’t it obvious?
He believed he could have a life with his mistress, didn’t he?
I believe he didn’t have a true sense of his own identity in the first place.
Fantasy and reality then became one in the same for him.
His 5 weeks with Kessinger was fantasy, but it was also reality. It was who he wanted to be, and who he wanted to be with.
I was recently in situation that didn’t work out. What are you gonna do, force the other person into staying involved, guilt them into submission? Desperate people do desperate things, and I think all three people in this love triangle were pretty desperate, Watts and Shan’ann especially.
I like that one – “guilt them into submission”. No, that won’t work! 🙂 Shan’ann had a lot at stake – 8 years she had known him, 6 years of marriage, two children and one on the way, a house she couldn’t afford on her own, single motherhood flashing before her eyes, move in with her parents like high school days, horrible future. And he still wasn’t telling her the whole truth. He may have said “it isn’t working” but “I’ve met someone else” might have given her something to work with instead of the “it” in it isn’t working. However, I think she did know – how could she not. At her most desperate she tried to hold on but they were past the self-help book, love note and weekend retreat stage. They were completely in the red danger zone. Leaving him right at that crucial time for Arizona, and alone with the children, was a fatal mistake. Which is more important – Thrive or your marriage. He still could have killed her Sunday night had she stayed home, but it would have been more tough to deal with the two children with her there.
Chris didn’t want to remember that he was a father. He didn’t want to remember who he was. He wanted to stay in that little bubble with Kessinger with no reminders.
In his other life. He could truly be himself. Something he hadn’t or couldn’t be with Shannan.
Did he ever really want kids?
New thoughts, carefree living no worries.
The kids were whiney, uncontrolled and sicky.
That alone would drive anyone crazy.
Then a wife who is a nightmare.
Put that life in a little box in the brain and forget.
It seems important to CW that he not be viewed as a monster, but I don’t know how a person murders someone, especially his own children, and be anything but a monster. When it’s convenient for him he says he WASN’T thinking. The 45 minute drive to Cervi he “wasn’t thinking,” yet when he can interject comments that make him appear caring, put plastic bags on Shanann’s head and feet because he didn’t want the girls looking at their mom, then he WAS thinking. An aside, why would have her head and feet been visible if she was wrapped in a king-size sheet?