TRUE CRIME ROCKET SCIENCE

True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek

Author: nickvdl (Page 4 of 6)

What Will Weld County Coroner Carl Besch Do About Those Autopsy Reports?

October 14, 2018 / / 5 Comments

It’s extraordinary isn’t it? Weld County District Court Judge Marcelo Kopcow denied Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke’s motion to seal autopsy reports in the Christopher Watts triple murder case. In plain language, the Weld County District Court is arguing with the Weld County District Attorney.

CarlBleschMug-214x300

Irrespective, it’s all up to the Weld County Coroner – Carl Blesch – to decide what happens to those reports. If Blesch decides not to intervene, theoretically the reports could be released as-is by as early as Monday, October 15th, just over two months after the murders. But that’s unlikely. More likely Blesch will file a response to the request based on the processes prescribed by Colorado Open Records Act  [CORA]. According to the Greeley Tribune:

Blesch basically has two options: take legal action or release the reports. Roberts said CORA allows a three-work-day period for a response to a request.

If Blesch files a response through the courts, this will almost certainly be either to refuse to release the reports, or to release a limited/redacted version. But we already know what Blesch plans to do.

In an email to The Tribune after Rourke’s motion, Blesch said he agreed with the motion to seal the reports in an effort to ensure the integrity of the ongoing investigation and a fair trial for the defendant.

Blesch’s basically saying the autopsy reports are being withheld to protect Chris Watts. Really?

Whatever is really going on here, the contents of those reports and findings as they relate to the Watts case are likely to be extremely shocking.

What gave the cops their MOST IMPORTANT CLUE against Chris Watts, leading him to confess to murder?

October 14, 2018 / / 16 Comments

Chris Watts’ confession came early; surprisingly early. What got him to confess? Was it guilt, was it a change of heart, was it because he hadn’t thought through the crime? Is it because he was stupid? Or had Nickole caught him – essentially – red handed?

It’s actually none of these. Chris Watts didn’t confess because he didn’t have to, he confessed because he had to.

Although Nickole Atkinson’s witness testimony to the cops was damning, it didn’t in itself prove that anyone was dead. In the same way the vehicle, phone and purse in the house didn’t prove anyone was dead either. The video surveillance footage didn’t prove anything either.

So what did?

When the cadaver dogs entered the residence while he was giving his interview, Chris Watts seemed pretty confident. But when a cadaver dog alerts it means only one thing:

A PERSON HAS DIED HERE

It was the early introduction of the dogs, therefore, that produced the big breakthrough in this case. By adding this element to Nickole’s early alert, and the video footage, and the personal effects in the home but the victims “vanished”, the cops had very good reason to believe harm had come to Shan’ann and the children – and it had.

In TWO FACE I provide a precise explanation for exactly when and how these events played out, and that when confronted with this evidence, Chris Watts had no choice but to throw in the towel and confess.

Was his confession completely truthful, or did the fox from Spring Lake have another trick up his sleeve? That’s the question investigators are still asking, and what will form the meat and potatoes of the upcoming criminal trial.

 

Is the Criticism Against TWO FACE Valid?

October 14, 2018 / / 8 Comments

The latest review of TWO FACE describes it as being 50% accurate “at best”. And the rest goes downhill from there:

Wildly inaccurate, a total work of fiction. This case is less than 2 months old and there’s extremely limited knowledge made public. Even the sample is at best 50% accurate. There were no cadaver dogs, they were search & tracking dogs. Cadavar dogs do not bark to alert their handlers either. The story the book tells is pure speculation, which [you] can read for free in any facebook group + copy & paste from news reports.
They’re not even cold in the ground yet and people are already trying to turn a profit and writing books based off of wild imaginations.

The main points in the review are summarized below:

  1. Wildly inaccurate, a total work of fiction. The main gripe in the review appears to be about accuracy.
  2. This inaccuracy claim is reinforced with the notion that the knowledge about the case is currently “extremely limited”, and thus any narrative about it [let alone two] has to be extremely limited also.
  3. As an example of the gross inaccuracy, the use of cadaver dogs [as highlighted in TWO FACE] is criticized.
  4. And to bolster the notion that cadaver dogs weren’t used, the reviewer notes that “cadaver dogs do not bark to alert”.
  5. You can read all you need to know about the Watts case on Facebook, for free.
  6. The book was written too soon in a cynical effort to make money.
  7. The idea of the book was to spin an imaginative yarn, and steal money from the public by deceiving them with speculations dressed-up as facts.

Now let’s deal with these 7 claims individually.

  1. The first section in TWO FACE deals with the timeline of events. A timeline is by default a factual narrative that’s anchored in time. In other words, at what time did Nickole Utoft Atkinson raise the alarm? When the police get the call and what time did they arrive at the Watts home? Where was Chris Watts at that time? What time did he return home? While he was out, and on his way, did he provide the cops with the garage key code? Had he really forgotten it? What happened during the initial wal-through? Which detectives were there? What happened afterwards? What was going on during the Sermon on the Porch? And so on. The narrative drills deep in the facts as they played out between Sunday August 12th and the end of that remarkable week, Friday August 13th. By placing the entire timeline in context and in chronological order, we suddenly see the events just as they are with a much deeper perspective. To argue that the timeline is either inaccurate or fictitious is a malicious claim.
  2. One of the reasons I wrote TWO FACE before the trial was to prove how much information and insight can be gained by paying attention to the case, and by simple investigation. One could argue the best, the most authentic data can only be gotten firsthand, by interviewing people directly, and by sniffing around the physical area.  What the narrative is really aiming towards is omniscience, but we don’t need to go to #2825 Saratoga Trail to be omniscient about Vass Road, or CERVI 319. We have modern tools for that – like Google, and Google Earth. The current archive of the Watts case – which is updated on a daily basis – provides more than 200 facts and hundreds more photos, maps, graphs, insights from the Watts’ social media and other relevant information. Although TWO FACE is a relatively short narrative at 30 000 words, I think most people have been surprised at just how much information it does reveal besides and beyond public knowledge.
  3. In the review the reviewer can’t even get the spelling of the word cadaver right. Cadaver dogs weren’t used? Actually, they were, and what’s more, the cadaver dogs probably provided the cops with their most important clue in the investigation.

View this post on Instagram

#ChrisWatts

A post shared by Nick van der Leek (@nickvdleek) on

4. “Cadaver dogs do not bark to alert.” Some do, some don’t. Here’s an example of a cadaver dog barking to alert:

5. “You can read all you need to know about the Watts case on Facebook, for free.” If it’s free coverage you’re after, True Crime Rocket Science has already posted over 20 articles, and an ongoing archive updated daily. They’re free to whoever wants to read them, and at least one new article is posted daily. Free.

The twitter profile associated with True Crime Rocket Science also highlights important news updates and ongoing insights about the Watts case – free as well.

There’s likely to be a lot more free coverage to come too.

There’s also an additional free resource of Watts case-related articles viewed – at last count – over 250 000 times on Shakedowntitle.com.

What the narratives provide that go well beyond the somewhat fragmented analysis  of individual posts and tweets, is that it builds a much deeper, wider and larger case for what we know, and it builds something new that doesn’t exist in the mainstream or on social media: a cogent scenario [a theory] for what we don’t know based on meticulously incorporating everything we do know. That’s where the real Rocket Science lies, in the authentic narrative.

The narrative requires greater care and consideration not only to write, but to read. It’s a more concentrated analysis, and so it requires proper investments of time and thought.

A lot of the insight and research that goes into the narratives is only touched on very lightly in these blog posts, and the best insights are withheld in order to make the narratives stand apart as valuable in their own right. The blog posts are designed to be a quick study, a stone bouncing quickly and lightly on the surface of the case. The narrative’s long form chapters provide a much deeper, darker and richer view of all the information, typically within a particular theme and framework.

6. “The book was written too soon in a cynical effort to make money.” How soon is too soon? One of the factors that inspired the writing of Chris Watts were the initial reports by “experts” that his Sermon on the Porch was convincing. Fullscreen capture 20181014 123425

It was this obvious heresy recycled by the mainstream media that I first attempted to counter in my first post on the Watts case, on August 18th. From then on, I felt the analysis by the media and on social media was far below par, with dozens of people making the same claims: From the misleading: “He just snapped”, “He’s a monster/psychopath/narcissist”, “If he just wanted his freedom, why didn’t he just get a divorce?” to the indignant by not particularly helpful “GUILTY!!!!!!!”

So instead of having these misperceptions misshape the narrative and perhaps control it, I hoped to control the narrative by being the first to put the most authentic narrative out there. In terms of the money motive, I write books for a living. How many people do you know who work for no pay, or wish to work for nothing?

Fullscreen capture 20181014 105642Fullscreen capture 20181014 105648

7. Is the point of True Crime Rocket Science to be exploitative in the way tabloids purposefully manufacture clickbait [that they know is false]? It’s the opposite. But if that were the case, if the point were to make a nice profit, my narratives on Steven Avery for example would stick to the popular “innocent victim” theory held by the majority of the public. Selling the Avery is innocent narrative would sell more books. If that were the sole purpose, to would make sense to also steer clear of “controversial” true crime cases such as Amanda Knox, where a significant number of Americans still believe in her innocence. Instead, two trilogies have been written on Knox with two more narratives left to go. These books weren’t written expressly to make money; the mission was to address the false myths about the Knox case, a case which is a classic in how PR has been used to successfully mold public opinion around a true crime suspect.Fullscreen capture 20181014 132356

Do the two TWO FACE narratives out there add nothing to what is being said almost daily on HLN and Facebook? It would be good to get the views of those who’ve read and enjoyed the first narrative, so if you have, please do make your voice heard in the comments below.

In the reddit screengrab the accusation is made that the language and tone is tabloidy and thus exploitative. You mean like CNN:

Fullscreen capture 20181009 221728

This is the way modern journalism looks and sounds today, my friend. As a narrator you either get with your readers, or you get left behind.

It’s the express mandate of this site, and this author, to provide an authentic narrative where none exists.  Where the media narrative is not up to scratch, True Crime Rocket Science aims to address it. Besides this, the dozens of true crime books already out there proves how much can be exposed and understood simply by taking a long, hard, honest look in the world of true crime. Part of the special power in these many narratives is how the criminal psychology in one case translates [or indeed, doesn’t] from criminal to criminal and case to case.

It’s my belief, for example, that the criminal psychology in the Casey Anthony case applies to the Watts case much more than has been appreciated, imagined or acknowledged thus far.

The ambit of Rocket Science is to explore true crime far beyond the factual or narrative spaces of anyone else.And so on that note, there’s a third TWO FACE underway that focuses entirely on the dynamic of the two murdered Watts daughters.

COMING SOON…

Fullscreen capture 20181001 222600-001

Bella and Celeste Watts: What if the cause of death WASN’T strangulation?

October 13, 2018 / / 16 Comments

“A mother kills a child somewhere in the US once every three days.” – Cheryl Meyer,  psychologist at Wright State University in Ohio

On Monday we’ll know whether the autopsy reports will be made available to the media and the public or not. In the meantime, a rather disturbing possibility has emerged.

Fullscreen capture 20181013 083047

What if the cause of the little girls’ deaths wasn’t strangulation? The only reason we already know the cause of all three deaths is because that’s the version Chris Watts has given. Should we believe him?

Fullscreen capture 20181013 083947

The prosecution and the defense are in agreement that Chris Watts killed Shan’ann, although the defense will probable argue that her murder was a justifiable homicide. They may argue that Chris Watts, in an effort to subdue Shan’ann while she was strangling Celeste, strangled her. In other words, her murder was contingent on her murdering Celeste and was thus justifiable – Chris Watts was trying to save Celeste because he knew what Shan’ann had just done to Bella.JUSTIFIABLE+HOMICIDE+A+killing+without+evil+or+criminal+intent,+for+which+there+can+be+no+blame,+such+as+self-defense+to+protect+oneself+or.

At this point I don’t want to debate who murdered who. I do want to raise the possibility that the children weren’t killed by manual strangulation. But before dealing with the manner of death, let’s get real about what happened to the Watts children. It’s not nearly as uncommon as Americans imagine.

According to research conducted by Dr. Kimberly D. Dodson, an Associate Professor and Criminology Program Director  at the University of Houston:

Filicide is a serious problem in the United States. For example, from 1976 to 2007, 94,146 homicides were classified as filicides (or approximately 15 percent). Arrest data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports indicate that an average of 2,942 filicides occurred annually from 1976 to 2007. There was a peak in filicides between 1991 and 1995, with an average of 3,233 filicides each year. The yearly average of filicides declined between 2001 and 2005 to 2,668. Among developed countries, the United States ranks as one of the highest in rates of filicide (Ferguson, Miller-Stratton, Heinrich, Fritz, and Smith, 2007).

Fullscreen capture 20181013 085230Fullscreen capture 20181013 085237Fullscreen capture 20181013 085241Fullscreen capture 20181013 085252

At this point it’s no more than a hunch that the Watts children weren’t killed by strangulation. They may have been, and the autopsy reports might confirm this.

Strangling is a very personal crime, and one needs to be very invested in it to carry out, let alone more than once. If it’s traumatic for the victim, the length of the time required to choke the life out of the person exacts a degree of trauma on the perpetrator too, in this case the parents.

Fullscreen capture 20180904 072221

One would expect in certain circumstances that a parent might wish to spare themselves – and perhaps their offspring – from this unnecessary trauma. In the Casey Anthony case, was Caylee drowned, strangled, suffocated with duct tape, or sedated not using Xanax but Chloroform?

If Caylee was sedated, then her exit out of this world may have been peaceful, if that’s the right word. This may have been the point, and in a premeditated scenario, although the parent wants their child dead, they don’t want to hurt the child. They also don’t want to be haunted by what they’ve done. It’s also the nature of child-rearing that children are often put to sleep, and this allows the parents freedom to get back to their own lives.

Fullscreen capture 20180929 202349

In a premeditated murder scenario, the harmless and habitual “putting to sleep” scenario is simply extended to a permanent sleep. The drowning is another extension of that, where the children are drowned/suffocated in oil. But this isn’t to kill them, but to make them disappear.

True Crime Rocket Science believes – prior to the release of the autopsy report – there is strong reason to suspect the children were sedated. The Watts family were caught up in the use of chemicals [from Shan’ann’s Lupus medication, to Thrive patches stuck onto the body to oil and gas rigs].

If the children were often sedated to get them to sleep, then the temptation to sedate them permanently may have been too great.

On Monday we may know for sure.

BREAKING: DA’s request to seal autopsies of Shanann Watts, children DENIED

October 12, 2018 / / 1 Comment

The Weld County District Court has denied the prosecution’s request to seal the autopsy reports for Shanann Watts and her children, who were killed in August, siding with the argument presented by a group of media advocacy associations.

In a court document filed Friday, the court denied Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke’s request to seal the autopsies of 34-year-old Shanann Watts, and two children, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste, saying it lacked “subject matter jurisdiction” on the issue. – Times.Call

Now we await the next move from the Weld County Coroner’s Office. Will they file a separate action in court to keep the autopsies sealed?

Why did Chris Watts change the time of the argument from 5am to 4am?

October 11, 2018 / / 7 Comments

Murder suspects go the extra mile to hide myriad details around their diabolical deeds. When they make voluntary disclosures, what are we to make of them?

An example of one of these disclosures is the fine-tuning of Chris Watts’ timeline, moving his “emotional discussion” with Shan’ann from 05:00 backwards in time by a full hour to 04:00.

Fullscreen capture 20181012 132445

If your answer is that he shifted the timeline because he realized he needed more time, think again. Why wouldn’t +-27 minutes be enough time to carry two little girls to his car, and then Shan’ann, and drive off?

In theory it could take 20-30 minutes to have their conversation and commit the murders, 2 minutes to move the car into position and 5 minutes to load his victims. If all three victims were murdered in short succession of one another, why the need for an extra hour?

https://youtu.be/Au8sBnt2zZU

The point to this question isn’t the shifting of the timelines at all, but why he started with 05:00 to begin with? In addition to this, Chris Watts’ disclosure wasn’t completely voluntary either. A murder suspect must hang his hat on a particular version of events, so when he was asked when was the last time you saw Shan’ann, he had to have a version!

Fullscreen capture 20180921 123224

But why start with 5?

We find the answer not by projecting ourselves or our thoughts onto this case, but by interrogating and intuiting Chris Watts’ thoughts. The first aspect he has to deal with is plausible deniability. Shan’ann arrives home late at night and ends up dead early in the morning. The question then becomes – where were you and what were you doing the whole time?

If Chris Watts pushes their conversation out to 05:00, then what he’s suggesting is that he and she were harmlessly and innocently both asleep, at least between 02:00 and 05:00. Three hours isn’t much, but it’s better than being awake for that period and doing…well…who knows what, and having to explain what he was doing for three whole hours in the dead of night.

Also, the shorter the space of time the shorter the “violence” of the argument.

For the same reason, Chris Watts wouldn’t want to concede that the argument with Shan’ann occurred at 04:00 if he didn’t have to. Between 02:00 and 04:00 is just two hours. But in this version, well, now there’s a suggestion that maybe they didn’t go sleep at all. Maybe one or both of them were awake throughout all those critical hours?

Fullscreen capture 20181012 133104

The changing of his story also had to do with information coming through from other sources. So for example, he didn’t leave at 05:15 as he initially claimed, but more than 12 minutes later after 05:27. In this sense his “volunteering” of information isn’t quite as voluntary as it seems.

So at the same time that he’s pushing the timeline back to 04:00, he’s also pushing his departure time back by at least twelve minutes.  He may have done the latter to make his late departure on August 13th not seem quite so late and beyond the norm after all. In other words, the emotional conversation was what delayed him, not the murder, cover-up and loading of bodies.

Fullscreen capture 20180921 122914-001

Once the surveillance footage is integrated into his version [in terms of Shan’ann and the kids never leaving the house alive], then he must integrate that aspect into his departure.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s 05:00 or 04:00 though, neither time is correct, but the change to 04:00 does volunteer that in Chris Watts’ mind, various events needed time to play out. According to Chris Watts it took three minutes shy of 100 minutes [60 + 37] for the three murders to happen.

Fullscreen capture 20181012 135038

In TWO FACE I make the case why the crime at Saratoga Trail took three hours to play out at least, but possibly – probably? – twice as long or even longer.*

 

*If the duration of the crime scene at Saratoga Trail was six hours from beginning to end, and the crime ended with his departure at 05:27, then it started at 23:27. If nine hours, then the murders began on August 12th from approximately 21:00 onward. If twelve hours, then the murders started at around 18:00, presumably close to the time Chris Watts was barbecuing on his balcony.

Was Niko Buried With Shan’ann Watts?

October 11, 2018 / / 21 Comments

Three coffins, not four. Three hearses, not four. Three graves, not four. And the unborn child’s name was Niko, not Nico.

PINEHURST, NC – SEPTEMBER 1: Frank Rzucek puts his hand on the casket of his daughter Shan’ann Watts, 34, before it is loaded into a hurse outside Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church on September 1, 2018 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Family and friends gathered for the funeral mass of Shan’ann her daughters Bella, 4, Celeste, 3, and unborn son Nico. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

PINEHURST, NC – SEPTEMBER 1: The bodies of Shanann Watts, 34, her daughters Bella, 4, Celeste, 3, and unborn son Nico are taken from the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church to head to their final resting place on September 1, 2018 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

PINEHURST, NC – SEPTEMBER 1: Friends and family gather as the bodies of Shanann Watts, 34, her daughters Bella, 4, Celeste, 3, and unborn son Nico are taken from the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church to their final resting place on September 1, 2018 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

PINEHURST, NC – SEPTEMBER 1: Friends and family make their way from the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after the funeral mass for Shan’ann Watts, 34, her daughters Bella, 4, Celeste, 3, and unborn son Nico on September 1, 2018 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

At the end of the funeral service at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Pinehurst, North Carolina on September 1st, 2018, a video recording [see below] shows three coffins exiting the church.

The autopsy results aren’t available, but the funeral and grave site suggest that Niko’s remains were either removed, destroyed or buried with his mother.

 

Was Niko Buried With Shan’ann Watts?

It’s difficult to speculate what the norm would be in a criminal case, especially where an autopsy would need to be performed on both the mother and fetus. But generally speaking, if an early term pregnant woman dies: is the baby removed and buried separately?

The answer probably depends on a case by case basis. What is the the wish of the family?

In some cases, such as this one reported by The Sun, a young mother who died of cervical cancer had her baby sewn back into her post mortem and buried with her [as this was apparently her wish]:

…five-and-a-half months into her pregnancy [Scarlett De-Lacey, 18] suddenly collapsed and was rushed to hospital after suffering deep-vein thrombosis which caused a blood clot in her leg. Doctors were unable to save Scarlett or her unborn baby Rocco, and after delivering him by caesarean, sewed him back inside his mum for burial. Gayle, from Newport, Wales, explained: “Rocco was too young, legally, to require a separate burial and I was asked if I’d like him put back inside Scarlett.”

“I knew that was what she would have wanted, so they’d be together forever. Her baby was back where he belonged.”

 

 

 

 

It’s possible that 15-week-old Niko was also too young to “qualify” for a separate burial, as Colorado law currently only recognizes the rights of a fully-fledged person at a particular point post-conception. What is that point? Live birth.

According to Westword:

To be considered a person…a baby has to be born alive. As proof, t[lawyers] cited a 2008 case in which doctors performed a C-section on a woman who was five months pregnant when she was in a car accident that caused her placenta to detach from the uterine wall. A Colorado appeals court ruled that she could sue the driver who caused the crash because the premature baby lived briefly — even if it was only for an hour and six minutes.

 

Count 6 of the arrest affidavit states “the woman died as a result of the unlawful termination of the pregnancy”. Does this mean the fetus was removed from Shan’ann’s body, prior to the first burial at CERVI 319?

One reason for the murderer to do this would be contingent on rational premeditation: to break the link between the remains of a pregnant victim and and Shan’ann – assuming Chris Watts succeeded in getting away with her murder. Let’s face it, he thought he would as all would-be-murderers do.

In other words, by sequestrating the fetus from Shan’ann’s corpse, if Shan’ann’s remains were ever found, the absence of the fetus could “prove” it wasn’t her. In such a scenario her DNA would need to be destroyed too, perhaps through chemical means.

In the Scott Peterson case, the mother and child’s remains washed up a mile from one another. At the time, three months after Laci’s disappearance, there was uncertainty whether either cadaver was related to the Peterson case. It required specialized DNA tests to confirm the corpse as Laci and the smaller body as Conner’s.

Without access to the autopsy evidence, we can’t know for sure whether this grotesque processing of the corpse/s occurred or not. Given the efforts to dispose of the three bodies, all three in separate “graves” at a remote site under the cover of darkness, there appears to be some reason to suspect the defendant may have made the effort to remove the fetus before burial and disposal.

On the other hand, the affidavit makes no mention of blood evidence inside the Watts home when the first safety inspection was made. A removal of a living fetus, if it happened, would have been very bloody and difficult to clean up, especially if it occurred over a short span of time – only two to three hours in this case.

What’s in a Name?

 

At the grave site and in the funeral flyer, Niko’s name is spelled “Nico”. This has led some to speculate that Shan’ann named “Nico” after her “best friend” Nickole Utoft Atkinson.

It’s a nice story. Going through the media narrative it’s clear that the Watts themselves intended to call their son Niko. Niko with a K, not a C. This has led to speculation – not unfounded in my view – that the name-choice and the specificity of the spelling was a nod to another Nichol with a surname beginning with the letter K.

Niko with a K is unusual. I should know,  I’ve seen my birth name – Nicolas – misspelled over the years, but never as Nikolas, and almost never shortened as Nik or Niko.

There’s something else too. Celeste, the second-born daughter, took their mother’s second name. Niko was the first child to take Christopher Lee Watts’ middle name as his own.  Niko Lee may or may not have been a symbolic message to his mistress-in-waiting. Maybe if the third child was unplanned, as a gesture of good faith or his future commitment, or even as a kind of apology, naming his son in some way after his mistress may have sent a symbolic message to her.

If so, it wasn’t enough.

Significantly there appears to be purposeful changing of the spelling at the funeral and the grave of the unborn child’s name, as if to undo this intention. Either that or it was a simple mistake, a misspelling.*

Fullscreen capture 20181011 090022

*Shortly after the murders in mid-August, an effort was launched to initiate “Niko’s Law”. The ongoing petition is in aid of changing Colorado law so that it recognizes unborn children as people. As of this writing, the petition  has over 96 680 signatures.

TWO FACE is the definitive narrative on the Watts case available exclusively on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

What made Chris Watts STOP loving his kids?

October 10, 2018 / / 38 Comments

He seemed more of loving father than a loving husband. So what changed? Why did the children have to die?

On September 10th I analyzed the day Shan’ann told Chris Watts she was pregnant for the third time. This was a significant date in the Watts timeline, and if it plays directly or indirectly into motive, it’s vital that we know when the motive began to manifest.

A number of followers of this blog were critical of the idea that Shan’ann knew exactly when she fell pregnant, and were perhaps doubtful that she knew she was pregnant close to or immediately after conception.

It’s important to emphasize in this respect that Shan’ann’s her own person. Shan’ann’s Shan’ann and you’re you. Her pregnancy, her attitude to life, her personality etc is unique to her. In order to fathom the authentic interiority here, one has to look inside the developments not through our eyes but through her eyes. That’s not easy because it requires us to spend some time actually figuring out who she is.

That’s really the business of true crime over all, isn’t it? To figure out who people really are, and through that, to figure out ourselves and the agendas of those around us.

That’s also what True Crime Rocket Science is all about. #tcrs specializes in this most difficult area of all, human nature, and the unique natures of various identities in various cases.

When Shan’ann’s friend Nickole Utoft Atkinson described her as OCD, we get it. We know what OCD means, and we think that explains what sort of person Shan’ann was. But does it?

https://youtu.be/CIrN1TbQ6_A?t=215

What does it means to be OCD about one’s pregnancy?

Shan’ann found out she was pregnant with Bella, her firstborn, on April 16th 2003. Bella was born on December 17th, 2013. The span of time between those dates is 246 days, or eight months and two days.

Another important aspect Shan’ann had to deal with in terms of her pregnancy was lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own organs. Lupus is an important factor antagonizing against pregnancy: it can lead to miscarriage and premature delivery in the mother, and heart problems in the fetus.

So pregnancy was a far bigger deal with Shan’ann than it would be for most first-time mothers. It wasn’t just about the anxiety of getting pregnant, but the ongoing tension of managing the monitoring the pregnancy in terms of her own health and the health of the baby. The OCD in terms of controlling the pregnancy was also evident everywhere else in Shan’ann’s life. This need to control while rooted at the surface in health concerns was really about controlling the fear of death.

Fullscreen capture 20181010 232741

It’s not clear whether Bella was born prematurely, but what is clear is that Shan’ann knew very, very early on in her first pregnancy when she fell pregnant. At most she became aware of it less than 4 weeks after the fact. If Bella was born prematurely, which is likely where the mother is a lupus sufferer, then Shan’ann may have been aware even sooner, within days.

It’s likely Shan’ann’s OCD/vigilance would have been even greater during her second pregnancy, and greater still during the third pregnancy.

The idea that Shan’ann was very aware of the timing of the pregnancy is enhanced by the blogs she kept in 2013. Not only does it show her meticulous record keeping, it also shows Chris Watts as an attentive and caring father. In 2013 he appeared to be just as caught up in the fairy tale they were embarking on as Shan’ann was.

Fullscreen capture 20181010 233014Fullscreen capture 20181010 233028Fullscreen capture 20181010 233008

The blog involves careful documenting of each moment and milestone. This also sets the tone for Shan’ann controlling effectively her husband’s role in her narrative. She’s the active voice, he’s simply a bit player in her spiel.

Fullscreen capture 20181010 232940

Chris Watts also makes his contributions to the blog, probably at Shan’ann’s prompting. Because it’s his first child, he’s happy to be part of her dairy. But how might these feel and play out for a parent a second time, and then a third?

Fullscreen capture 20181010 232801

So what made Chris Watts STOP loving his kids?

There are perhaps two broad answers to this question. Firstly, in any family, the more people added to it, the more love is lost or redistributed simply as a matter of logistics. Each new person on the scene requires resources: attention, love, time and money. Each new person on the scene means fewer resources for everyone else: attention, love, time and money.

If any of these resources [especially love and money] are becoming thin to begin with, then an additional child could cause the credit in these accounts to run out completely.

Secondly, if the third child wasn’t part of his plan, if it was her plan – her scheme – then we can see how the fairy tale could begin to darken, and then unravel.

If Shan’ann was a particularly OCD and controlling sort of person, then Chris Watts may have felt that not only was the third child not his idea, but everything was starting to feel overwhelming. Shan’ann’s control over his life had become total, and thus oppressive and off-putting.

When everything was starting to feel foisted upon him, and he was merely a sperm donor, a pawn and a prop in Shan’ann’s fairy tale, where’s the fun in that? When he felt like he was drowning in her fairy tale, maybe that’s when his fairy tale ended. Maybe his love for his children changed not because of them, but because of her.

 

Why the GPS Tracking Device Theory on Chris Watts’ Truck is a Dead End

October 10, 2018 / / 37 Comments

Today is two days shy of two months since the Watts family murders. HLN has provided consistent coverage of the case until now. But not all the analysis is what it’s cracked up to be.

Take the GPS tracking device stuff. The line of interrogation HLN took is that Anadarko looked at Chris Watts’ GPS tracker [it comes standard in many corporate vehicle fleets] and gave this data to the cops, and that’s how they located the remains.

But for one thing, that’s not how the affidavit reads. According to the affidavit Chris said he loaded all three bodies onto the back seat of his work truck and then took them to CERVI 319, a remote work site where he was stationed as an operator.

In other words, the affidavit notes that once confronted with the surveillance video and the fact it confirmed that Shan’ann and the kids were never seen leaving the residence, the only possible inference was that they had left – alive or dead – with him. [There’s actually more to it than this, which I go into in TWO FACE, and there’s also the possibility that they could have gone out through the back door, but for the sake of argument, let’s accept that the surveillance video alone was sufficient].

The affidavit pertinently notes that Chris said…[to the cops]…he took them to an oil work site.

HLN seems to believe he said this only because he was confronted with GPS tracking data. The cops knew the bodies were somewhere at the work site, they just weren’t sure where.

Fullscreen capture 20181011 220826

There have been lingering doubts about where the little girls were disposed, but the affidavit is unambiguous: they were placed in separate locations.

Secondly, there’s a very good reason why the GPS data isn’t crucial evidence.  HLN makes out that Chris Watts was driving around unaware that he was being tracked, and this data caught him out. It’s possible of course, but in my view unlikely.

When Scott Peterson returned from his fishing trip [which we now know was actually a body dumping trip], he made several calls to Laci’s phone and to the home phone. The point of these calls wasn’t because Scott Peterson didn’t know where Laci was, or didn’t know that his movements were being tracked, timestamped, logged and the geographical location recorded, but the opposite. It was because he did. He wanted his trip to San Francisco Bay that day to pass the plausible deniability test. In Peterson’s scenario, his deniability lay in the “fact” that he was a hundred miles away from Modesto when Laci was walking her dog and disappeared.

As it turns out, his browser history on his work computer actually proved he was still in Modesto mid-morning. Uh-oh.

I’ve seen a fair amount of comment suggesting Chris Watts had “no plan” after the murders, and others that he may not even have planned any of the murders to begin with. I won’t deal with that here, except to say, just like Scott Peterson, the secret was to disguise the crime in plausible deniability. What does this mean? It means on the morning of Monday August 13th, Chris Watts was supposed to be at CERVI 319 anyway.

In TWO FACE I provided extended timelines, and also showed that Chris Watts often left home before the crack of dawn. A neighbor also said it was unusual that he’d leave as “late” as he did Monday morning.  He usually left shortly after 04:00, not 05:00. Shan’ann said as much in several of her social media posts.

Like this one.

Fullscreen capture 20181011 223234

Fullscreen capture 20181011 223346

And so, the murder and the disposal of the remains was hidden in plausible deniability – hidden in the routine work schedule. Here was Chris getting up early as usual, except it was a little unusual that he was up and out quite a few minutes later that Monday morning of all mornings.

If the murder/s were committed close to 02:00, then what had Chris Watts been doing for the next three hours that delayed him getting through the door on time?

Chris Watts going to work as per his usual routine was meant to be his alibi. Where was he when Shan’ann disappeared? Why, he was at work. He, being the concerned husband he was, also called her from work throughout the morning [reinforcing his alibi].

So the idea that GPS tracking data gave away secret information is, to my mind anyway, a little silly. Chris Watts’ job was to monitor work sites. He knew exactly what was being monitored and where, and it’s likely he knew his vehicle was being monitored too. When the cops were investigating his house as a crime scene with sniffer dogs, he was also painfully aware of scent issues around the remains, which is why he dumped the children in separate oil drums to begin with.

So going to the work site wasn’t any different to where he was going anyway, and that was the point.

The affidavit does note that prior to Chris Watts’ confession, investigators arrived at CERVI 319 with consent to conduct a drone search. Does this mean Chris Watts consented, did Anadarko consent, or did Chris Watts and Anadarko consent?

More likely the latter. If either had objected the cops would have had to get a search warrant. Chris Watts was fine with the cops searching his house; why wouldn’t he play it cool and be fine with them searching the work site too? They’d need specialized tools to find anything inside the tanks anyway.

920x920

While the idea is intriguing that Andarko or the fleet controllers gave GPS data to the cops, what’s more likely is the cops simply asked Chris Watts where he went when he left home, and confirmed this information with Anadarko.

Exactly the same spiel played out with Scott Peterson. He was asked where he was that morning, and he told investigators where he was. He even had a ticket stub from the marina to prove where he was. The whole point was to commit a crime under the disguise of doing something completely plausible, in Peterson’s case it was going fishing, in Watts’ case it was going to work.

And in both cases, even telling the cops where he was, wasn’t going to reveal bodies very easily. That was also precisely the point, which is why it took as long as 48 hours to retrieve the bodies of the little girls even when the cops knew the location of the burial site.

In the Peterson case, they knew roughly where the burial site was but ultimately Scott Peterson and the currents of San Francisco Bay succeeded in fooling them. The cops never found Laci’s remains; nature – when she was ready – returned them to the world of the living. This happened with a little help from mother nature and man’s best friend. What was never meant to be found made its way back into the world thanks to a large storm and two families walking their dogs.

Just because the search span in the Watts case was much shorter doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of planning, calculation and strategy involved.

There was a plan.

The bodies being found ever was never part of the plan.

An Idiot’s Guide to the Watts Family Finances

October 10, 2018 / / 62 Comments

We ought to do our due diligence in the Watts case, and figure out the finances. How was responsible for what? What financial storms were barreling over the Colorado plains that summer for this picture-perfect family from North Carolina?

As an initial point, in the 2015 Bankruptcy Filing, under the heading DEED OF TRUST FOR PRINCIPAL RESIDENCE, a black rectangle censors out a space. Does the blacked out space cover one name or two?

Fullscreen capture 20181010 130232

I know something about economics, but I don’t claim to be an expert on the subtleties behind income statements and balance sheets. Over the past few days I’ve approached three expert friends of mine – an accountant, a banker and a guy with a successful debt collection business – and asked them to prognosticate on the Watts family finances, including the 2015 Filing. I’m still waiting to hear back from all three of them. Other people’s money, it seems, is seldom as simple, straightforward or easy as it looks.

While we’re waiting for the experts to pronounce on those finances, let’s begin by stating the obvious in three areas:

1) What did the Watts themselves believe about their financial ability? 2) How were they living in 2018 compared to 2015 [during their first bankruptcy filing]? 3) What are the relative histories of Shan’ann and Chris Watts towards money and debt over time?

https://youtu.be/a6VSTvEGpfs

1) What did the Watts themselves believe about their financial ability?

Shan’ann uses the same language over and over again in all her promotional videos. A product is seriously “amazing” and “incredible”, we’re told, and her fellow promoters breathlessly repeat the same empty aphorisms. We never really find out why Thrive is such a gamechanging life changing product. As amazing as it is, it’s amazingly thin on facts, stats and real information, and incredibly fat on fancy packaging, branding and promotion.

There are endless character witnesses just like Shan’ann telling the world of Facebook – anyone dumb enough to listen – how amazing they feel, how good they look, what cars they’re driving, what holidays they took and of course what to do to join the Thrivin’ to make it all a better world for everyone.

The product [like the money in this game] is just a byproduct to living the Thrivin’ fairy tale. Nobody really cares about the product on their way to financial wellness. Well, only in a fairy tale business is the product itself a fiction and a fairy tale, and only real world flakes invest in fictitious finance.

During the above call Shan’ann refers to someone on her team earning a $200 000 bonus, someone else a $1 million bonus. These massive sums are presumably amounts extra over commissions, incomes and salaries. If so, it seems being part of the Thrivin’ thing means being awash with cash, doesn’t it?

So why wasn’t Shan’ann cash flush two years into her swim in the MLM Kool-Aid? Or was her marriage in trouble not because of financial strain, not because of the enormous debt they still carried three years later, but other factors?

Let’s consider for the moment that their finances were going down the drain. Being involved in MLM tends not to be a success story for 99% of people who do get involved, so the idea isn’t far-fetched.

The massive cash payouts Shan’ann was referring to in the clip above sounds and feels almost like a lottery, doesn’t it. Is it performance based or random?

Where this phantom money is supposed to come from is beyond me, but to MLM it doesn’t manner. The pyramid will fart it out. Who cares about the marginal economics of patches and powders, or how many of these bandaids must be actually purchased and recycled by those drinking the Kool-Aid to produce an excess – who cares about that when what matters is getting the bonus!

The extent of Shan’ann’s “investment” if that’s the word, in MLM provides some idea about just how poor her grasp was of business, economics, income or simply making ends meet.

If Shan’ann was drowning in Kool-Aid, Chris Watts was also taking glugs and gulps at the font of the barrel. If he wasn’t drunk on the Kool-Aid, he was certainly susceptible to its hypnotic pull.

The Watts family were in a real sense the intellectual inheritors of the housing bubble. In other words, they believed wealth could be conjured [like bubbles] out of thin air. Straw woven into gold with a few careful chosen words/incantations on social media.

The problem with bubbles is the same problem with fairy tales – when they pop, you find yourself in the real world, but this time the wolf barking at the door is real.

https://youtu.be/fkrUWWW7zqc?t=198

2) How were they living in 2018 compared to 2015?

In the video clip above Shan’ann appears to say [at about the 5 minute mark] that “they” have donated $500 000 to breast cancer awareness over the past two years, and are “shooting for” $500 000 “in this year alone”. What she means is the entire company has donated money. In 2015 Le-Vel donated $250 000 to the National Breast Cancer Foundation via the proceeds of it’s “Limited edition breast cancer DFT” [whatever that is].

Le-Vel Brands Donation

I haven’t been able to find any further evidence of additional donations to Breast Cancer Awareness besides this. If there are, drop me a line in the comments below.

The point is, the donation isn’t really anything else besides the company using it’s own promoters to raise money for charity through their own sales to one another “for a good cause”.

If the Watts family were Thrivin’ in 2017 and 2018, had they been able to address their debt burden, or had it gotten infinitely worse?

We don’t need an intimate knowledge of their finances to know that three years after filing for bankruptcy, it may not have been the best idea to have a third child. The original bankruptcy filing noted as much, stating in 2015 that the financial conditions of the family were likely to worsen after 2015 as Shan’ann was pregnant with her second child.

Fullscreen capture 20180910 084301

It should also be noted that Chris was driving a fairly beat up old truck in 2018. Hadn’t he qualified for a luxury auto bonus somewhere down the line? So why was he stuck in 2018 driving a company car, a fleet vehicle?

Fullscreen capture 20181010 232125

Fullscreen capture 20181010 232233Fullscreen capture 20181010 232242

3) What are the relative histories of Shan’ann and Chris Watts towards money and debt over time?

This is the critical question. In a prior post we saw the backstories of Shan’ann and Chris Watts, and the sort of home they grew up in and lived in over the years. Shan’ann’s from a humble background. Her mother is a hairdresser, her father and brother are carpenters. Chris Watts is a mechanic from humble roots too. So how was money conjured into a $400 000 mansion on spiffy Saratoga Trail?

Now, remember that blacked out rectangle we looked at a moment ago? According to research done by one commenter on this site [thanks Cheryl]:

In terms of deed information the header for 2825 Saratoga reads:

“Two deed records were found on this property.” Underneath that header in this order is the following information:

Ownership Change: June 4, 2013
From: Christoper L. Watts to Christopher L. Watts and Shanann Watts (there is no loan information here, indicating the property was not refinanced; the June 4 activity indicates the addition of Shanann’s name to the deed only.)

Ownership Change: May 1, 2013
From KDB Homes, Inc. to Christopher L. Watts

Lender: DHI Mortgage
Loan Amount: $392,709
Lender Type: Mortgage Company
Loan Type: Federal Housing Authority (FHA)
Line of Credit: 0 Credit Line

Given what we know about the North Carolina house she owned and her selling it with all the furnishings, I would have to think she was in significant financial trouble (probably behind on mortgage payments) and couldn’t qualify for a loan…in 2013, when lending had really tightened due to the housing debacle. Assuming Chris’s credit was good, they probably had a better chance of obtaining a loan under his name only. Perhaps the idea was to jointly refinance the home later on, so that Shanann would be on both the deed and the loan. Since their finances went downhill after 2013, I imagine this was not a possibility. They certainly couldn’t take advantage of the rock-bottom interest rates that were available around the time they filed bankruptcy.

…What’s interesting about this is I think you can be on the deed without having to be on the loan, which means Chris may have been solely responsible for the loan while Shan’ann enjoyed half ownership of the house without the financial responsibility.

As their finances unraveled resulting in the 2015 bankruptcy coupled with what seems like continuing financial problems after that, the birth of two children, Shan’ann’s quitting her job to stay at home with the kids, unreliable income from Thrive, and then a third child on the way, I can only imagine the level of rancor this created in the Watts household, especially with Chris. It would also support Chris’s possibly having a sense of entitlement (literally and figuratively) to the home, thereby underscoring Chris’s wanting sole possession of 2825 Saratoga as a primary motivation for the murders. On the other hand, if Chris had no way to retain the home, his murdering Shan’ann could have been revenge for losing the home and compromising Chris’s credit–Chris had mentioned to a neighbor they were considering selling the home. Anyway, something to think about..

There’s also a third possibility. By getting rid of the straws that were breaking the camel’s back, Chris Watts may have figured he could cut his losses and replace his family [especially his wife] with a more viable family.  Perhaps he could move in a girlfriend who had a half-decent paying job like his, and together they could get real about keeping the dream house and at least have a chance in paying it off.

In the post unequally yoked I touched on this aspect. The money train, debt and the idea of being yoked isn’t as sexy, apparently, as reading about a mistress. Like Shan’ann, the mistress may have been a means to an end, the end being keeping the fairy tale going at all costs. For Chris Watts the fairy tale was the house, not what was in it.

fullscreen-capture-20181009-1138421.jpg

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 TRUE CRIME ROCKET SCIENCE

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑