Some of the regular visitors to this site are locals, and so they’ve volunteered to go to actual locations to photograph and fact check. This is invaluable and much appreciated. There is no quicker way to clear up confusion and dispel myths than to investigate in situ and in person [assuming of course you’re already in the area].
All the images below were taken on the last day of 2018, a devastating year for the Watts family above all.
Below is 6507 Black Mesa. This site was still under construction when Watts visited it briefly on his way back from CERVI 319 at around 14:00 on August 13th. The Black Mesa address was not the house Watts intended to buy, but an alleged dumping site.
Photographer’s note: I did NOT stop on HWY 52 to photograph the Wattenberg well site, too dangerous to pull over, but I did get this ‘passing by’ photo as I was heading east on HWY 52:
Photographer’s note: Approaching Wyndham Hill subdivision as I was heading east on HWY 52 (note the development).
Additional Info:
The Wattenberg drill site (owned by Crestone) is a drilling site in the area (one of eight, I believe) and was the talk of the town for years leading up to the drilling. Some wells in the area are routed to a Wattenberg site for collection. The site north of HWY 52, east of Outdoor Craftsman (landscape company), and west of CR 5 was drilled earlier this year and is now a collection site. (see attached map/screenshot)
There is an active well very close to the Watts house per the attached map, but I didn’t see it while driving around today. It may be behind the new townhouses being built. Per the interactive map (link below), it is a Spindle field well (also owned by Crestone) – this well, and the Wattenberg sites continue to be a hot topic in the neighborhood (according to my brother who lives in Wyndham Hill). There are many residents stating they are seeing heightened asthma diagnosis and respiratory illness rates – but no firm information from a reliable source. My brother’s two children spent several nights in the hospital this past November – one for a collapsed lung, the other for severe asthma symptoms. My brother is considering moving.
Why did Chris Watts do what he did? Simple – because he’s a narcissistic psychopath. Strange though, that following Dr. Phil the Weld County District Attorney didn’t hold a press conference letting America know the mysterious motive has been solved – and on national television:
CHRIS WATTS IS A NARCISSISTIC PSYCHOPATH
The news media, at least, took this breakthrough and ran with it, publishing locally, nationally and internationally the answer to the question that has hung like a cloud over this case, ever since it broke into the mainstream…
Why did Watts murder his pregnant wife and two daughters? Because…
CHRIS WATTS IS A NARCISSISTIC PSYCHOPATH
Mystery solved! Case closed!
Now let’s find out if you’re one too by taking this Narcissistic Personality Quiz. Be sure to leave your score in the comments section, so that society knows who to be aware of in future.
When you’re done, take this test to find out if you’re a psychopath. Once again, please be sure to post your score in the comments, as it’s in society’s best interest to know how psychopathic you are. In the interests of full disclosure, and the greater good, I scored a 5.
Full disclosure, I scored pretty high on the narcissist quiz, a 19. Celebrities often score close to 18. Narcissists score over 20. Having said that, I scored low on two potentially harmful indicators, “exploitativeness” and “vanity”. On the other hand, my “entitlement” score is quite high, which clearly can’t be good.
I understand the official take on authority, but I’m not sure it’s as relevant to an author. Author–ity is a kind of intellectual power, the recognition that one is a valuable, insightful, intelligent thought leader or an expert in a particular field. I’m not sure whether an author aspiring to that is narcissism or a career necessity…
On another measure there’s definitely less ambiguity. On this site, and in my narratives, I am definitely guilty of entitlement. I do expect favorable treatment and am not happy when there is criticism instead of compliance. I often feel the criticism is undue, uninformed or unwarranted. I’m not sure whether this reflects entitlement in other areas, but I will have to think about and try to be aware of that going forward.
Still looking for a Narcissistic Psychopath Test, and a definition on what that means…
The cousin, JoDee Garretson, says Berreth met 31-year-old cattle rancher Patrick Frazee online in early 2016, and moved from Warden, Washington, a few months later to be closer to him. They were ultimately engaged and while they lived in separate homes about 15 miles apart, they shared custody of a 1-year-old daughter, Kaylee.
According to police, Berreth’s employer got a text from her phone on Nov. 25, saying she wouldn’t be at work that week. Frazee also said she texted him that day, but the contents of that text have not been released.
The book also says that the head of the hit squad, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, told Khashoggi when he entered the consulate that he would not be harmed if he cooperated with them.
He asked Khashoggi to send a message [from his cell phone] to his son Salah’s phone in Riyadh, informing him that he was safe in Istanbul and not to worry if he could not be contacted for a while.Khashoggi refused to do so, and in the recording, cited in the book, can be heard saying: “Will you kill me? Will you suffocate me?”
According to the book, Khashoggi maintained his composure when he realised that he would not get out of the consulate alive, after he heard Mutreb ordering five members of the hit squad to attack the writer by suffocating him with a nylon bag. The recordings indicate that Khashoggi’s last sentence was: “Do not cover my mouth. I have asthma, you will suffocate me.”
Khashoggi resisted his killers for five minutes, according to the book.
Afterwards, Khashoggi’s body was cut up by Tubaigy using a forensic saw. The book purports that the members of the hit squad, who remained present at the scene, were disturbed and nauseated by the dismemberment.
1. CrimeRocket was started on October 10th, 82 days ago, or 2 months and 20 days. Today it passed 1 million page impressions. Thank you to all justice seekers for supporting this site. See you all on the other side.
Could the manner in which he collected a nude selfie really threaten the national security of the United States,” Concord’s lawyers ask in the filing.
Concord’s filing Thursday comes amid a drawn-out fight where the Russian company seeks to access what the Justice Department says is “sensitive” evidence in the case, which could reveal national security and American investigative secrets to powerful foreigners.
Is a nude selfie “sensitive evidence”?
December 29th, 2018
1. Trial Analyst Andell Brown Discusses the Many Opportunities for Chris Watts to be Truthful
“He’s very conscientious about his work,” Cline tells PEOPLE of Frazee, a farrier who, at least twice a year, arrived to trim and care for the hooves of the donkeys that roam free in the historic former gold mining camp near the base of Pike’s Peak. “He had the health and the well-being of the donkeys’ interest at heart,” Cline says.
Given the circumstances — Kelsey Berreth, Frazee’s 29-year-old fiancée and mother to their 1-year-old daughter, who by then had been missing for 28 days — “I think that’s the last thing I would have been doing at that time, calling my customers and giving a new cell,” Cline says.
Of filming and living in France, particularly in Auvers-sur-Oise, the commune outside of Paris where van Gogh died after suffering a gunshot to the chest, Dafoe says the experience was “incredible. You’re approximating his perspective; you can see some of the landscapes from his paintings and then you can visit them so they’re alive…. You feel his spirit.”
Learning to paint, which in several scenes from the film he had to do in real time, similarly rooted Dafoe in van Gogh’s body. “It was very important to give me the physical experience to be able to relate to some of the things he was talking about. I can relate as someone who’s interested in art, some I can relate to as a human being. But once I started painting, it was more complete.”
Note the custody hearing was scheduled last week, so clearly the hearing itself does not play into the motive for the murder, although that doesn’t mean custody wasn’t a contentious issue.
People claiming they know Kelsey Berreth & she was once committed to a mental institution in Idaho. Was Kelsey on medications? What did she buy @ Safeway?#PatrickFrazeepic.twitter.com/3xB61Ei0BI
Knox, 31, says she and new fiancé Christopher Robinson are “utterly heartbroken” over the accident.
“He was the smartest, funniest, sweetest, cuddliest, most talkative and wonderful cat. We feel so lucky to have had him our lives.”
Words and sentiments Knox failed to come close to expressing after her friend, Meredith Kercher, was murdered in her home, in the room next to hers, in Perugia, Italy.
Former Secret Service Agent Jonathan Wackrow, who has helped coordinate conflict zone trips for multiple protectees…says the spotting of Air Force One and Twitter chatter is not a security breach, but is concerning and a lesson to be learned.
“In the age of social media, this highlights a new vulnerability that the Secret Service and military have to be super mindful of in the future,” Wackrow says. “You’re charting new territory with the inclusion of social media from a threat perspective and from an awareness perspective, and future planning is going to address that.”
June 14: Chris Watts enters coworker Nichol Kessinger’s contact information into his phone. Kessinger would later become his mistress.
The way the media has written this suggests Watts had one phone, and by entering her details into his phone in June, Kessinger became his mistress after this date. This is how myths and misconceptions are created by the MSM.
June 27: Shanann Watts takes Bella, right, and Celeste, left, to North Carolina for a five-week vacation, while her husband stays at home and works.
July 4: Kessinger told police she went to Chris Watts’ house for the first time on the Fourth of July to “set up his diet and weight loss/exercise goals.” “He invited her to his home, he cooked lunch, they ate and she left,” according to police documents.
July 7: The first phone call is logged between Chris Watts and Kessinger.
That too is a misleading misinterpretation.
July 14: Chris Watts and Kessinger go on a date to [the Shelby American Collection in Boulder]. That afternoon, Shanann Watts makes four unanswered calls to her husband.
This is how the media “investigates” a 22 year old crime on its anniversary:
The child pageant queen’s cute pink tricycle, complete with streamers on the handlebars, was dumped beside the house. Soon enough, Novick had taken ownership of the dead girl’s trike, along with a packet of popcorn and an oversized candy cane which had decorated the front lawn, but became a grim symbol of the tragedy as cameras filmed every minute of the investigation from outside the Ramsey home.
Novick, previously a member of local Charles Manson-themed band Scramblehead, was no stranger to controversy. He wanted to explore the meaning behind the trike.
He took it to psychics to see whether they could read anything from it. He left it on the footpath to see how passers-by would react (many began riding it).
He realised everyone had some kind of link to JonBenet. “One woman who rode it, her dad was one of the movers,” he told news.com.au. “Another one told me she lived two doors down, and grew up with the media attention.
“There will always be theories. I’m as interested in how we treat it, the media.”
Sheila Frazee, the mother of the suspect, was briefly detained by authorities but not placed under arrest. The divorced mother-of-four, who is a registered nurse, lives with her youngest son at the ranch, which she outright owns according to public records. She also owns two additional properties in the area.
Her son meanwhile attends to the ranch and also breeds dogs.
That same source said that Frazee’s arrest came after authorities obtained new information about Berreth that has lead them to believe she is no longer alive. Frazee was arrested after cell records and data provided new details regarding Berreth’s disappearance, according to officials.
The solicitation charge was also addressed at a news conference on Friday, with officials saying that Frazee asked someone to commit some sort of crime but refusing to elaborate beyond that at this time. On Friday, Frazee appeared at Teller County court via video conference where the judge read him his charges – first-degree murder as well as solicitation of murder. The audience at court was unable to see the screen.
None of his relatives were present during the hearing. He will be held without bond pending his next court appearance on December 31. As for where the body may be, police told residents of Woodland Park that they should expect an increase in police activity around the area in the coming days. Agents are also at Berreth’s home looking for evidence.
Monday’s court documents include a request from Frazee’s public defenders asking that investigators turn over emails and text messagesthey’ve recovered.
Woodland Park Police Chief Miles De Young said the two had exchanged custody of their 1-year-old daughter on Thanksgiving. Frazee does not have a prior criminal history in Colorado, according to CBI records. He is slated to appear in court again on Dec. 31.
De Young said it is an “absolute possibility” there could be more arrests in Berreth’s disappearance.
…eyewitnesses exclusively told KRDO they saw Frazee at a waste management facility, dropping off a load on Monday.
Employees at the company in Teller County also tell us they saw Frazee at the facility dropping off trash from a long trailer with two other men. Witnesses say Frazee remained in a white pickup truck as the two other men, who drove in two separate cars, unloaded the trailer.
The trash was later collected by police and it’s been reported a few of the items were taken away by police for further investigation. Photos capture Woodland Park police cars on the property. They were not able to give us any further information regarding the investigation or could not tell us what exactly was found.
Jameson, who is now in her 60s, described herself in her pre-cybersleuth days as a housewife who homeschooled her kid and baked bread all day. I imagine in 1997 when Jameson first heard of what happened to JonBenét, she put herself in the Ramseys’ shoes. She saw herself and her husband in John and Patsy and she saw her own child or children in JonBenét and Burke.
The article appears to indicate that Jameson has inherited detective Lou Smit’s case files.
1. For the past week or so, the mainstream media has been saturated with talk about Watts receiving love letters in jail. That’s all the media can talk about, and all that is being talked about. It’s ultra lame tabloid-style coverage of the Watts case. Here’s another:
“You should call your dad and tell him you did not appreciate your mom putting your daughter at risk today, nor do you like that she teased our girls,” Shan’ann reportedly wrote in texts to Chris. “You should also say you don’t appreciate her saying they have to learn they can’t always get what they want! They are 2 and 4!”
…we’ve decided as a society that certain behaviors are not OK. As a result, we’ve decided that there are certain standards by which people are obligated to act. We expect people to act according to “that degree of care that an ordinarily prudent person can be reasonably expected to exercise under similar circumstance.” If someone acts “unreasonably” in those situations, then they can be sued for the harm caused to a third person as a result. For instance:
If you are injured by a driver who failed to exercise reasonable care when driving on the freeway, you can sue them because all drivers have a duty to act reasonably to prevent harm to other drivers. Doctors are supposed to perform their duties as any other reasonable doctor would in a similar situation, or else face liability for medical malpractice. Store owners must put up a sign when a floor is wet, because society considers that to be the reasonable way to act to prevent someone from slipping and falling. Homeowners must warn guests in their home of any sort of danger that may be posed by an ongoing remodeling job of the kitchen. If someone punches you, you can sue them for injuries for intentionally hurting you! …but in most states you can’t sue an affair-partner for interfering with the most important relationship of your life?
In the Chris Watts case, the “missing persons” were found a few days after they “disappeared”. In the Madeleine McCann case, the “missing person” search has been going on for eleven years, and this story involves another pledge to never stop searching.
£12 million has already been spent on the search for Madeleine, making it the most expensive individual missing person’s case in history.
Maybe he’s trying to transform himself from Sexy Hunk to Joe Ordinary, in an effort to be overlooked by libidinous prison-mates.
According to his December 14 commissary list, the jailbird, 36, will soon trade in his buff physique for a dad-bod: He ordered a six-pack of fudge brownies, three boxes of holiday cookies, powdered donuts, and three iced buns.
He also bought deodorant, shampoo, body lotion and even pens and envelopes to mail letters out — amid reports he’s receiving a massive amount of love letters from female fans.
He spoke about how Watts’ wife Shan’ann texted him over and over trying to save their marriage, how she bought relationship books for him, one of which was found in the trash. Instead, he shopped for jewelry and vacation spots for his new girlfriend.
Prosecutor Michael Rourke said Watts killed his family not out of rage, but in a calculated manner.
“Why did this have to happen? [Watts]’ motive was simple, your honor,” Rourke said. “He had a desire for a fresh start.”
Colborn contends the series was edited to make viewers think he and others planted evidence to frame Avery.
“His reputation and that of Manitowoc County, itself, has been severely and unjustly defamed,” Colborn’s lawyer, Michael Griesbach, said in a press release (per Variety). “He is filing this lawsuit to set the record straight and to restore his good name.”
Representatives for Netflix had no comment when reached by Fox News.
Colborn contends that the filmmakers distorted the events and left out key facts in order to make the argument that he framed Avery and Dassey for the murder.
Both Dassey and Avery remain behind bars as the debate over their guilt or innocence continues to be debated.
1. Dr. Phil reckons Chris Watts broke the bones of his daughterswhen he forced their bodies through the thief hatches and into the tanks. But the autopsy doesn’t show any broken bones…
Rebecca's last hours of life were awful. We aren't stopping until her killer is behind bars, no matter how much incompetence and corruption we encounter along the way. https://t.co/gT6xbbcwRf
A spokesperson for the Weld County District Attorney’s office said that prosecutors there were just as surprised by Chris Watts’s seemingly sudden decision to plead guilty to murdering his pregnant wife and two children as the curious public that has been gripped by the tragic family killing.
CrimeOnline contacted the Weld County District Attorney’s office for confirmation of a report related to the Watts murder case and to follow up on a fulfilled Colorado Open Records Request. Part of CrimeOnline’s original request asked for any documentation related to any recorded discussions preceding Watts’s decision to plead guilty to murdering his pregnant wife Shanann and two daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste.
But a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office said that Watts’ defense lawyer approached the District Attorney “out of the blue” to announce that Watts had decided to plead guilty on the condition that the death penalty be taken off the table. The spokesperson indicated that Watts’ decision was very unexpected, and said that prosecutors don’t know why Watts appeared to have a sudden change of heart.
The #ChrisWatts case holds up a giant mirror over the idea of love, family and finance. Who do you see reflected in it? https://t.co/DV1hYzJY72
‘I don’t even know if they were like filing for divorce. I don’t know if they were putting the house up. I don’t even know. I don’t even know anymore what is real and what is not.’
Vincent van Gogh’s swirling dreamscape vision of the night sky, the iconic The Starry Night is estimated to be worth more than US$100 million.
Ma Chunyan, a 32-year-old artist in Dafen, can produce in one day a 1,000 yuan (US$145) reproduction of the masterpiece from an image on her mobile phone.
Ma is one of 8,000 painters creating copies of Western art in Dafen for a market which has never returned since the global financial crisis in 2008 when foreign demand for art reproductions fell.
The declining overseas orders have spurred the local government to embark on a plan to transform Dafen into a producer of original works instead.
Nichol Kessinger ‘plans to start fresh with a new name,’ a source claims.
“She has received several threats, public shaming and could be considered one of the ‘most hated women’in America,” a source close to the investigation told Radar. “She plans to start fresh with a new name, new town and ultimately a new identity.”
Now, she is living in another state for her own safety, the source explained…
Before this week, there was no point in 2018 when average prices in Colorado were lower than they were at the same time period in 2017, 2016 or 2015. The drop was abrupt. As recently as a month ago, motorists were paying an average of $2.77 per gallon in the Centennial State.
“We had the largest week-to-week drop of any state,” AAA Colorado spokesman Skyler McKinley said. “So there is some stabilization going on.”
The reasons behind Colorado’s pricey year are complicated. Gas prices are affected by “thousands if not hundreds of thousands of micro economies,” McKinley said, especially since the state gets gas from West Coast sources, refineries in states to the north and from the Gulf Coast.
Local gas taxes aren’t to blame.As of July, Colorado applied 22 cents of taxes and fees to each gallon of gas sold in the state, the 11th lowest rate in the nation, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation.
The intense and turbulent friendship between the Post-Impressionist masters Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh lasted only 63 days and ended in one of the most bizarre acts in the history of art—van Gogh brutally slicing off his own ear.
That’s the official version of why the world’s most famous artist cut off his own ear, and almost bled to death afterwards. I believe Gauguin – who was a keen fencer – cut off Vincent’s ear, and Vincent took it on the chin. He had to because Gauguin was the more successful artist, and had a business arrangement with his brother Theo. And coincidentally, so did Vincent, so he couldn’t fuck that up by blaming Gauguin, so he reverted to type, he blamed himself.
So add credence to this theory, Gauguin bugged out of Arles so quickly after Vincent’s “mishap”, he left behind his fencing equipment. He wrote to Vincent later asking him if he’d courier his swords back to him. This was Vincent’s response:
Read the full New Yorker article about Van Gogh’s Ear, here.
My book The Murder of Vincent van Gogh rubbishes the popular mainstream contentions that 1) Vincent cut off his ear, 2) went mad and 3) committed suicide. It also provides an in-depth revisionist history of the great artist. The Murder of Vincent van Gogh describes how and why Gauguin injured Vincent [it was an attempted murder in fact], what drove him to the asylum at St Remy [it wasn’t madness, but he was a very troubled man, you would be too in a similar situation] and finally, that Vincent wasn’t shot by accident but deliberately murdered.
The identity of the murderer and the motive, as well as the location of the crime, is sketched in true crime terms for the first time ever.
Here’s the full unedited video that shows the full play. Not convenient context. The offender is suspended pending a hearing on Jan 8. There were no charges filed. I fully agree that this type of play has no place at ANY level. But at least do your research before you post Pav. pic.twitter.com/IghfVNjv2Q
At Friday’s news conference, Gore told reporters he knows some observers are skeptical of his department’s conclusions. But he defended his homicide team, calling them “as good as any in the state or the county.”
“They’ve got 100 years of experience,” he said. “We have no reason not to follow the facts, follow the evidence, and follow the interviews where they lead us.”
Greer, the Zahau family attorney, told reporters that the sheriff’s department had barred him from the news conference. Speaking outside the department’s conference room, he claimed it is “impossible” that fair, thorough review of the evidence could again conclude that Zahau killed herself.
“That tells me there’s something corrupt in the (Sheriff’s) process,” Greer said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know that (that corruption) is, but it’s not a logical conclusion. There’s something here that is motivating (the Sheriff’s department) to do the wrong thing.”
Before the news conference, Greer told NBC 7 that it’s possible that Sheriff Gore and other department executives were influenced by Jonah Shacknai’s wealth.
Gore responded with a measured but forceful denial. “I never took any money from Jonah Shacknai in my election or re-election campaigns. That’s just not the way we operate,” he said. “And to be quite honest, I take personal offense at that, at impugning the reputation of this department, one of the best in the country.”
Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments,” Time magazine’s editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, wrote in an essay about the selection.
“This year we are recognizing four journalists and one news organization who have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment…
I thought the District Attorney wanted to know why? Now he's lost all curiosity. Bizarre>‘This is not a witch hunt’: Chris Watts prosecutor cannot explain data from girlfriend’s phone https://t.co/SOZKTKIJjq#ChrisWatts
Despite his desperate pleas, the last discernible words the transcript records for Khashoggi are:
“I can’t breathe.”
The transcript notes more noises, and several more voices.
One of those voices is identified on the transcript by Turkish authorities as belonging to Dr. Salah Muhammad al-Tubaiqi, the head of forensic medicine at Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry, the source says.
Aside from Khashoggi and Mutreb, he is the only other voice identified by name on the transcript. As the transcript continues, it is clear Khashoggi is not yet dead.
The transcript notes the noises that can be heard on the tape, almost in the manner that subtitles describe moments in movies where there is no dialogue.
“Scream.”
“Scream.”
“Gasping.”
Then, the transcript notes other descriptions.
“Saw.”
“Cutting.”
Tubaiqi is noted giving some advice to other people in the room, apparently to help them deal with the appalling task.
“Put your earphones in, or listen to music like me.”
During the scene, the transcript notes at least three phone calls placed by Mutreb.
The transcript does not specify the moment Khashoggi dies.
All of it was used to build a sweeping case against Chris Watts, the 33-year-old man who ultimately pled guilty to killing his wife and kids in a deal brokered by his attorneys to spare him the possibility of facing the death penalty.
But even as much information as it provides, it does not answer the biggest question of all: Why did Watts decide to strangle Shanann Watts, his wife of six years, and smother the couple’s little girls, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3?
When Watts family neighbor and Shanann Watts’ friend Nickole Atkinson was looking through the Watts home with Frederick police Aug. 13, she said she tried not to touch anything.
It had been hours since Atkinson had sent several unanswered texts to Shanann, since Atkinson had called Shanann’s husband, Christopher Watts, since Atkinson had gone to the doctor to beg them to tell her whether Shanann made it to her scheduled appointment.
Jesus, it’s December and they can’t even get the facts straight that Atkinson was Shan’ann’s friend not her neighbor. Clueless media!
So when she walked into the Watts home with Christopher and police at the very beginning of a missing persons-come murder case, Atkinson said she had an eerie feeling. That’s why she tried not to touch anything.
“Because at that point, bad thoughts were going through my head,” Atkinson told investigators in a newly released audio recording.
“They’re silly little things, but why would he strip the bed before he went to work if Shanann was still sleeping in the bed (as Watts told friends, family and investigators),” Atkinson said.
It turns out, Atkinson’s eerie feeling was correct. The family wasn’t on a play date; they had been murdered by Watts. Shanann was never around to make the kids beds Aug. 13. And the master bed? Investigators would later find a fitted sheet matching that bedding near the tank battery north of Roggen where Watts had dumped his families’ bodies.
There was more. Atkinson watched a neighbor’s camera footage from early that morning. It was 5:18 a.m., and Watts had backed his truck up into the garage and loaded something into the bed.
“That’s when my mind went bad — really bad,” Atkinson said. “What would he be loading up at 5:18 in the morning? And Shanann yells at him (when he uses the garage) because the garage wakes up the (girls) and the girls’ bedroom is right above the garage.”
In one exchange, Shanann tells her friend Watts wasn’t wearing his wedding ring, and he had changed his phone’s background photo to sand dunes. Unknown to both Shanann and Atkinson was this: Watts had spent time at the sand dunes with his mistress while Shanann was in North Carolina with the girls.
Shanann told Atkinson she would tell Watts to find a place when they got back from North Carolina, and she told him she was going to put the house on the market and takes the kids out of school to save money.
In a series of texts about a week before she would be murdered, Shanann laid out her thoughts on Watts’ posture toward the relationship.
“He’s obviously not in it. He’s not fighting. He’s not in love. He’s checked out.”
Susan Rohde’s estate has paid R2.9m to her husband, Jason, to fund a defence that failed when he was convicted of murdering her.
This was revealed on Wednesday by the administrator of Susan Rohde’s estate, David Anderson, who was giving evidence during Rohde’s sentencing proceedings in the High Court in Cape Town. Rohde is the estate’s beneficiary.
Anderson told Rohde’s advocate, Graham van der Spuy, that there was only R80,000 in cash still available for distribution, and that he would be unable to finalise the estate until Rohde’s criminal proceedings were concluded.
He said Susan’s mother, Diane Holmes, had offered to loan the estate R500,000 so that it could continue to fund the education and maintenance of the couple’s three daughters.
Prosecutor Louis van Niekerk handed Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe confirmation from Stellenbosch University that the Rohdes’ twins, Alexandra and Josie, who have just written their matric exams, had been accepted to study there in 2019.
Anderson said annual expenses for the twins and the Rohdes’ eldest daughter, Katie, were expected to amount to about R250,000 a year.
He told the court that a Liberty Life insurance policy on Susan’s life, which named Rohde as the beneficiary, was expected to pay out R2.6m. When this amount reached the estate the financial pressure it was facing would ease.
Anderson was the first prosecution witness to testify in aggravation of sentence for Rohde, who was convicted on November 8 of murdering Susan at Spier, in Stellenbosch, in July 2016.
Proceedings were delayed when power cuts hit the high court at 10am. The court sitting resumed after 12.30pm. Rohde arrived in court in handcuffs after spending the last four weeks in Pollsmoor prison.
Anderson was followed into the witness box by Dr Naeemah Abrahams of the Medical Research Council. Abrahams is a global expert on femicide, which she described as the killing of women by their intimate partners.
So this is right after his wife and kids we reported missing. He was at the neighbors with police looking at their video. Of all things to show up on TV it’s a video of an unborn baby and right after what appears to be a skull in oil. How crazy. #ChrisWattspic.twitter.com/jPc8R2TPAZ
Sandra said the estrangement seemed to have been going on for a “few weeks, maybe a month.” Chris acted “just cold as ice,” she said, not replying, not responding.
“I just said, ‘Give him space,’ you know,” Sandra recalled. “But little did we know.”
“I’m not going to blame the kids for a disconnection or anything, but yeah, we focus on the kids like, all the time,” he told an investigator. “And like, as our relationship got longer and longer, I could feel that disconnect.”
Chris then went on to say that he and Shanann didn’t have deep conversations anymore.
1. In the video below, Shan’ann Watts’ pants are in the laundry. Watts picks them up and shows them to the K9 officer. Thank you to Sylvester for providing this link.
CNN begins using the proper spelling for Shan’ann Watts. People magazine have been using it for some time now.
#Rohde Alex indicated that even thinking about her mother brings up negative feelings because her death is associated with ongoing trial. They still require closure and surety in this matter to be able to deal with their mother's death. @TeamNews24
#Rohde Perry says twins believe they need their father. They were able to voice their opinions on impact of Susan's death. Alex had strong opinion but Josie found it difficult. Neither have been able to deal with death and this causes ongoing emotional distress. (@JennaEtheridge)
Wow, the twins didn't hand in a victim impact statement. I guess it's a foregone conclusion then that #Rohde's daughters will testify in mitigation of sentence [in other words, as defense witnesses].
Van Niekerk brings up the twins' distrust of the legal system. Important point, but so ironic. Is the system working if it's lenient, or if it's strict when it comes to punishing this sort of crime? #rohde
#Rohde Perry: As a probation officer, it was unusual for me to have to gain access to victims by working through the defence parties of an accused. "At the end of the road, things worked out". @TeamNews24
#Rohde Salie-Hlophe says she wants photos that reflect Susan's normal life and who she was as a person. She gives the State time to do this. Defence says it was distressing to look at" this lovely woman as a dead person" and wants better photos. @TeamNews24
Four sources confirm to Denver7’s Jace Larson that Chris Watts was transferred from the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center, where a new prison inmate goes after conviction, to an undisclosed facility out of state. The Colorado Department of Corrections inmate locator shows Watt’s location as the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center, but this is no longer the case.
Earlier this month, the State Bar’s probable cause committee ordered the Bar attorneys to prepare a formal complaint against Martinez. He is alleged to have given false testimony to the Bar and alleged to have revealed the identity of a juror in the second Jodi Arias murder trial, which Martinez prosecuted in 2015.
Dishonesty is a cardinal sin in the legal profession, and if an attorney or a law enforcement officer is found to be untruthful, it casts doubt on all of his or her cases. And jury identities are protected by law. The media is barred from photographing or identifying jurors without their permission.
Martinez gained national attention and devout fandom from those trials, the first of which was live-streamed in 2013. Arias was convicted of the 2008 murder of her sometime boyfriend, Travis Alexander. But two different juries failed to reach a unanimous verdict on whether to sentence her to death.
America may get its most intimate look yet inside Robert Mueller’s secretive Russia investigation in the next four days, with a series of disclosures that have the potential to be greatly damaging for President Donald Trump.
Court filings focusing on Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, on Tuesday and his ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Friday could offer tantalizing new details of Mueller’s deep dive into the 2016 campaign.
If the special counsel lives up to his reputation, his filings will feature surprising revelations and rich texture to color the picture he has already painted in indictments and witness testimony of a culture of endemic dishonesty in Trump’s orbit about multiple, so far unexplainable, ties with Russians.
He may also begin to add context and answers to some of the intriguing clues he has dropped in a probe that has so far seen three people sentenced, one convicted at trial and seven guilty pleas and has charged 36 people and entities with a total of 192 criminal counts.
With each twist of the investigation, a fascinating trove is building of hints and implied connections, odd coincidences and apparent shady links between key players that is crying out for explanation.
But a civil suit filed by Shanann’s parents, Sandra and Frank Rzucek, and brother, Frank Jr., on behalf of her estate seeks to ensure that his name recognition doesn’t turn into cash. The document is accessible below, and its language echoes that of a complaint that the family of another murder victim aimed at arguably the most notorious alleged American killer of the past century.
“It has a lot of similarities to the suit Ron Goldman’s family brought against O.J. Simpson,” notes Tom Grant, a partner in Greeley’s Grant & Hoffman Law Firm, which represents the Rzuceks. “That’s its intent — to make sure Chris Watts is never able to profit from his evil acts.”
I can’t imagine Watts is the type to write books, or have books written about himself. He’s not an actor or a showman to the extent OJ was and is, but that’s not to say he’s not been putting on some kind of act for God knows how long.
Tomorrow morning at 8:30am ET we are taping a special #CrimeStories diving into the discovery documents, videos, audio and more in the case of killer dad #ChrisWatts. Have a question, theory or tip. Leave us a message at 909-49-CRIME now or call us in the morning! See you there
Reporters have been tweeting out jokes about what the two men must have saying. “You would be happy too if you just got away with murder,” wrote Aaron Blake of The Washington Post, as he offered his caption.
As concerned messages and calls about his missing wife lit up his phone and the bodies of his daughters sank in Weld County oil tanks less than 100 feet from his truck, Christopher Watts planned his new life as a bachelor.
He called his daughters’ preschool to unenroll them. He exchanged text messages with a real estate agent about selling the family’s large Frederick home, the house that made them seem like any other suburban family. Minutes after speaking with his mother-in-law, who was wondering about Shanann Watts’ well-being, he searched online for coupons to Aspen resorts, phone records released by investigators show.
He looked up the lyrics to a Metallica song, the chorus of which includes: “Pounding out aggression/Turns into obsession/Cannot kill the battery/Cannot kill the family.”
Hours had passed without anyone hearing from Shanann.
“What the heck is going on with you guys that she would totally shut out everything?” a friend texted. “It’s not like her.”
Watts tried to allay everyone’s fears. He asked them not to call police.
Cellphone data obtained in the investigation into Colorado murderer Chris Watts show he was looking up ways to marry his mistress and the lyrics to love songs in the days before he killed his pregnant wife and their two kids in August.
The data was included in a batch of nearly 2,000 documents obtained by the Daily Mail in a Freedom of Information Act request this week.
The cellphone data showed Watts striking up a romantic relationship with a woman he met at work, Nichol Kessinger. He entered her phone number into his phone on June 14, and they started dating while his wife, Shanann Watts, and daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, were away for most of the summer visiting family in North Carolina.
Chris Watts’ phone data showed that he had his first phone call with Kessinger on July 7, and a week later they visited a Mustang museum together. Four days later, Kessinger started sending him seminude photos of herself, according to the data obtained by the Mail.
That same day, a worried Shanann Watts sent a slew of texts to her husband saying she had realized “what’s missing in our relationship!” and accusing him of not reciprocating her feelings and effort. The following morning, Chris Watts made several Google searches between 8:41 a.m. and 12:07 p.m., including, “When to say I love you,” “When to say I love you for the first time in a new relationship,” “What do you feel when someone tells you they love you,” and, “How does it feel when someone says I love you.”
During an interview with The Denver Post earlier this month, Kessinger said that she started dating Watts at the end of June and that he told her he was in the final stages of his divorce. She said she didn’t know that he was expecting his third child with his wife.
On July 28, investigators wrote in documents that Watts and Kessinger traveled together to spend a night at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Two days later, Watts started looking up “love letters” and lyrics to love songs.
The next day, Watts flew to North Carolina for the final week of his family’s vacation.
On August 4, while Watts was away, Kessinger spent two hours looking for wedding dresses on Google.
On August 8, a day after the family returned from North Carolina, Watts searched Google for topics related to “marrying your mistress.” Meanwhile, Shanann Watts had started confiding in her friends that her husband had become distant and they were having issues.
In the five final days of her life, Shanann Watts Googled couples counselors in her area and bought relationship self-help books online, according to the documents.
Meanwhile, on August 9, four days before he killed his wife and kids, Chris Watts looked up the price of an Audi Q7. That day, his wife left for a quick business trip to Arizona. The following day, he spent the morning arranging a babysitter to look after his girls so he could attend a Colorado Rockies game the next day. In reality, he went out on a date with Kessinger.
Weeks before he killed his wife and two daughters amidst an affair he was having with a co-worker, Chris Watts typed into Google, “When to say I love you for the first time in a new relationship.”
On that same day of July 25, less than three weeks before the Aug. 13 murders, Watts Googled, “What do you feel when someone tells you they love you” and “How does it feel when someone says I love you.”
Four individuals brought the legal challenge to this decision, with the support of the campaign group Hacked Off. The four were phone-hacking victim and former Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames, the Bristol schoolteacher Christopher Jefferies, who was wrongly accused of murder, and Gerry and Kate McCann – the parents of missing child Madeleine McCann.
At a hearing earlier this month, the four argued that in November 2012 the former prime minister David Cameron made a “clear and unambiguous commitment” that the second part of the inquiry would go ahead. Their lawyers said that commitment, made at a meeting with Jefferies, Mrs McCann and Hames, meant they had a “legitimate expectation” it would proceed.
But Lord Justice Davis said Cameron made “no such promise” in the meeting and that it was unacceptable that the case was based on a covert recording of the discussion, despite participants having agreed that what was said in the meeting would remain confidential.
The judge said he had a great deal of sympathy for the claimants but that sympathy could not override the law and the legal case failed “at almost every level”.
Towards the end of 2017, Shan’ann encouraged her Facebook faithful to share the highlights of their last year. For Shan’ann it was quitting her full-time job as a pediatric call center nurse and becoming her own boss.
However, despite being “retired”, Shan’ann’s posts between Christmas and New Years are chock full of Thrive promotion, often several promotional posts per day, and many with few or no responses.
On Instagram Chris Watts features on December 23rd, and then again on January 26th, working out at 21:40 at night.
Close to New Years Shan’ann photographs Ceecee “overreacting” while wearing a t-shirt with the words: HOLD ON A MINUTE I’M BUSY OVERREACTING” printed on her chest.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdSaWF8nwMz/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdVYwvRnbHY/
Another image of the playroom seems to indicate more displeasure. There are no New Years posts of the family, or Chris Watts on Instagram, although there are Thrive-related messages.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdYWdN5nUrh/
2016
In the video below, Shan’ann, Chris Watts and two friends “toast” the New Year – 2017 – not with champagne, but glugging down Thrive Pure.
In the video below Shan’ann’s sales angle is to get a tax benefit by signing up to Thrive before the end of the year.
For Christmas 2016 Chris Watts gave Shan’ann a shirt with the words WIFE MOM BOSS emblazoned on it.
2013
Shan’ann remembers New Year’s Eve in 2013 as “an amazing year” when she started a new job she loved [as a pediatric call center nurse]. She also refers to herself and her husband purchasing and building their first house together, that year.
If Shan’ann knew, or suspected, that her husband was cheating on her, when would have been the best time to confront him about it? Before her trip to Arizona was one possibility, except he’d already communicated to her that he didn’t want the baby. So consider the fine line Shan’ann may have felt she had to walk. If she confronted him too strongly, he may have dug in his heels and rejected the baby. What she was trying to do was sort of woo him back – by suggesting counselling, by have him read a book, by him writing a love letter to her.
Shan’ann would have felt some confidence, perhaps, that she could get the ship back on course. She was an influencer on Facebook, and she was used to controlling her husband and telling him what to do. So this would be just another version of that.
At 16:18 in the video belowAddy Molony, one of Shan’ann’s Thrive promoter pals, mentions Watts “coming around a little” immediately before her trip to Arizona. This made Shan’ann think she should stay and sort out her marriage. If she had, maybe the children would still be alive, and maybe Shan’ann would be too.
ADDY: Maybe he was willing to work things out. And she told him she didn’t want to go to Arizona, she wanted to stay home, and work things out with him. He said, ‘No, just go.’ Because, you know, she had the kids by herself for six weeks, so he said, ‘Go, go ahead and get away…and we’ll talk when you get back.’ So she was really anxious to get back when all the bad weather was happening, she was super nervous that she wasn’t going to get back…And she was looking forward to this coming weekend when they were supposed to go away [to Aspen].
So Watts also made Shan’ann think it was okay, even good, if she went on the last trip. Of course what this did was buy him more time with Kessinger, and provide him access to the girls while she was away.
During the weekend when she was in Arizona, the signs that something were afoot got worse. Things – literally – weren’t adding up. Addy suggested Shan’ann look through Watts’ phone to make sure.
At around 09:00 in the video clip below, Addy tells the cops that Shan’ann knew he was deleting messages even before she left for Arizona on August 10th.
ADDY: She told me through a text that he was even deleting text messages with his dad…because she’d had a falling out with his parents.
We ought to ask: why would Watts feel it necessary to delete messages to his father while Shan’ann was still alive? One possibility is that he was trying to minimize the fallout that was already taking place. Shan’ann had exploded about the nuts thing, and after that she wanted to some extent to shut out Watts’ family. So if he was communicating with them, this could set off a conflagration between her and him.
Another possibility is that Watts knew the argument she’d had with his dad could go to motive, and so he wasn’t just deleting messages at this stage [about 4 days before the murders], but destroying evidence.
What this demonstrates, though, is the first person Watts was trying to conceal, hide and deceive stuff from was his wife, and arguably he’d sort of succeeded in that until he made a credit card purchase on Saturday night [August 11th] at the Lazy Dog restaurant.
This purchase then alerted her phone, just as the hair care product purchase on the morning of August 13th immediately activated an email at 02:30. When it did, the penny dropped.
From the moment Shan’ann found out about the $62 charge, she was pretty sure he was having an affair and she was right – he was. That bill was proof that he was on a date with one Nichol Kessinger. But Shan’ann couldn’t very well confront him while on a business trip, nor could she do what she did to his parents on Facebook [name and shame] because by then his Facebook was no more. That meant she had to sort things out the moment she got home, or the next morning first thing.
In one of her messages she admits to temporarily “going with the flow” and hoping for the best. Watts was hoping she would do that, anything that could buy him some extra time with his mistress.
This was an interesting change in the dynamic, because usually it was him going with the flow, not her.
If Watts knew she was going to return home to confront him, and the murder is premeditated, why would he want to have that confrontation? Why would he let that happen? Remember, if he told Shan’ann he was having an affair with a co-worker, would Shan’ann want him to continue going to work? Would she try to confront Kessinger herself? What would happen then?
Wouldn’t he prefer not to have a confrontation, or rather, to have a confrontation on his own terms?
When British tabloids reported that Watts – or someone that looked like him – was seen wearing an orange shirt and buying a breakfast roll at 08:00 on Monday morning in a convenience store, legions rose to debunk the footage. IT’S NOT HIM! they screamed.
I suspected it could be.
The fact that Weld County released the footage to begin with suggested the District Attorney thought so too.
Intuitively, in terms of the timeline, I knew it was possible because there’s a gas station and convenience store right there in Roggen. The first time I came across it was while researching the drive to CERVI 319.
As part of that research I found this video; the visit to the gas station is documented at around the 13 minute mark.
When the videographer turns off the road to visit a Conoco gas station which is right in the area of CERVI 319, he mentions the station is right beside a Guttersen CERVI ranch gate.
That gate is only just visible to the right of the grey pole in the screengrab below. It has small, white signboards attached to it.
Below is the same scene zoomed in. The videographer assumed the area behind the gate is also part of the large Guttersen ranch, but it’s not. The large Cervi ranch borders the even more massive Guttersen ranch. Both ranches have hundreds of fracking pads scattered across the landscape.
In order to get to the gas station and the Cervi gate, one has to exit the highway and take the overpass to the other side.
Conoco’s Facebook page provides a handy map with directions to the gas station.
While there are hundreds of Conoco gas stations in and around Denver, there’s only one in Roggen.
The gas station is situated on Frontage Road, about 10-15 minutes drive to or from CERVI 319.
The gas station is also clearly en route to CERVI 319 from Saratoga Trail, or conversely, heading back.
The other aspect to consider: if it was Watts, should he have been hungry by 08:00 on August 13th? If he’d last eaten at around 19:00 [during his chicken barbecue on the porch], and particularly if he’d been up all night committing and covering up three murders, then after the dumping, digging and disposal, he was likely to have developed quite an appetite when it was all over.
All over was likely to be close to 07:30-07:40, which gave him around half an hour to get back to the store for breakfast. That fits the timeline perfectly.
It’s important to note that the layout of this store is different to the one where he is wearing a white shirt. It’s not the same convenience store.
The other aspect that stands out in terms of the orange shirt, was Officer Coonrod’s bodycam footage. When Watts is standing with his back to his wardrobe, the color coded shirts behind him show a hanger with nothing on it right by the orange shirts.
At the same time, there also appears to be a gray or black shirt missing from the wardrobe. There’s another hanger missing there too.
This line of inquiry is interesting because it suggests Watts may have changed his clothing three or four times that morning. It made sense to change out of the black shirt and jeans, because these were likely to be dirtied by sweat, dirt and possibly other body fluids and fibers.
Watts making multiple changes to his clothes also implies he’d do the same to Shan’ann after her murder. The change of clothes is intended to get rid of evidence transferred to the clothing during the crime and/or dumping of the bodies.
In a way the many changes of clothing make sense. It’s like the leopard trying to change his spots, and that’s exactly what lay behind this crime. Watts was trying to craft a new life for himself. Putting on a new shirt was almost like becoming someone else. If anyone spotted a guy in a dark shirt running around CERVI 319, or standing atop the tall tanks, well, they wouldn’t think to link him to the guy in the orange shirt…
Far from not thinking his crime through, Watts was trying to think of everything. He arguably got many of the technical aspects right, but failed dismally at the social game. Not only could he not explain where Shan’ann had gone in a convincing way, he failed to predict human behaviors, including how Shan’ann’s best friend and her son would respond to her disappearance.
He also seemed to overestimate his own social game, or as it turned out, lack of.
After their meal at the Lazy Dog on Saturday night [August 11th], Watts and Nichol Kessinger had their final intimate encounter.
From her home Watts drove to his home, but stopped at a gas station on the way to draw babysitting cash for McKenna Lindstrom.
Below is a map showing the route from Watts’ home to Kessinger’s place on Claude Court.
The closest gas station on that route is at 3768 State Highway 52.
McKenna described Watts that night wearing a white-t-shirt and black jeans.
The screengrabs below are from 22:19 to 22:22. McKenna and her mother Jennifer said Watts arrived home late that night, at around 22:30. He’d agreed to be home by 22:00.
At first glance the brunette on the right in the screengrab below appears to be Nichol Kessinger. But the label on her shirt and the fact that she appears later with her back to the camera, counting notes for him from behind the counter, suggests she was a convenience store worker.
Many thanks to a follower of CrimeRocket who brought this info to my attention, but asked to remain anonymous.
In POST TRUTH, the 100th True Crime Rocket Science [TCRS] title, the world’s most prolific true crime author Nick van der Leek demonstrates how much we still don’t know in the Watts case. In the final chapter of the SILVER FOX trilogy the author provides a sly twist in a tale that has spanned 12 TCRS books to date. The result may shock or leave you with even more questions.
SILVER FOX III available now in paperback!
“If you are at all curious about what really happened in the Watts case, then buy this book, buy every one he has written and you will get as close as humanly possible to understanding the killer and his victims.”- Kathleen Hewtson. Purchase the very highly rated and reviewed SILVER TRILOGY – POST TRUTH COMING SOON.
TCRS MERCH available now – just in time for Christmas!
Book 5 – ALL NEW! “I have thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook…” – Connie Lukens. Drilling Through Discovery Complete Audiobook
Read the entire 9-Part TWO FACE series, the most definitive book series covering the Chris Watts Case
Visit the TCRS Archive of 100 Books dealing with all the world’s most high-profile true crime cases.
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Book 4 in the TWO FACE series, one of the best reviewed, is available now in paperback!
“Book 4 in the K9 series is a must read for those who enjoy well researched and detailed crime narratives. The author does a remarkable job of bringing to life the cold dark horror that is Chris Watts throughout the narrative but especially on the morning in the aftermath of the murders. Chris’s actions are connected by Nick van der Leek’s eloquent use of a timeline to reveal a motive.”
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