Tag: Chris Watts (Page 14 of 47)

How the Narcissism Pendulum Swings

February 23, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 20 Comments

One thing I hope to achieve at TCRS and through those brave enough to navigate the entire TWO FACE series on Chris Watts, is to mythbust the seething swamps of misconception around the notion of narcissism.
Thus far I’ve engaged in the narcissism debate only so far as to dismiss it as typically irrelevant to true crime in general, and also mostly [though not entirely] irrelevant to the Chris Watts case.

There are a few exceptional true crime cases where narcissism is a significant feature, and where the word actually deserves to be bandied about. These are few and far between. A classic recent example, however, is Oscar Pistorius. I could spend a lot of time writing about that but I’ll try to convey what I’m getting at about his extraordinary narcissism simply by showing you a few pictures.

If you want to accuse a criminal [or any person] of being a narcissist, you might want to use Oscar Pistorius as your measuring pole.
At a glance we can see Oscar the athlete, Oscar the model, Oscar the marksman, Oscar the cover boy, Oscar on Larry King etc. Oscar appears frequently in front of the camera – in commercials, in documentaries about him, in interviews, in A-list gatherings, in celebrity shows, in magazine features. As a brand ambassador for Nike, Oscar did a lot of his PR on social media, including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. All of this includes self-inflation. The man as an icon, the man a machine, the man as a superhero, and in one instance, the man as I am the bullet in the chamber…

At the time he shot his model girlfriend to death this was the branding that appeared on Oscar’s official web page.
At the time he shot his model girlfriend to death, Oscar’s face was festooned on billboards marketing the Academy Awards for a local television network [Every night is ‘Oscar’ night].

During Oscar’s criminal trial the prosecution repeatedly noted Oscar’s self-absorbed personality. That even in phone messages read out in court, the prosecutor taunted him, telling him: Your life is all about you...It’s always about you.

Okay so lots more to say on this topic but let’s get back to the topic at hand. How does narcissism apply to the Watts case? The short answer is that it doesn’t, and that the narcissist label used is a misnomer. It’s wrong. The longer answer is that there is an aspect of narcissism worth looking at, but it doesn’t involve Chris Watts [besides perhaps his weight loss in the final months].
There’s a lot more to be said about the other aspect of narcissism which is a particular idiosyncrasy in this case – it’s in the unusually extreme use or even addiction, to social media.

If you’re one of those folks talking the narcissism talk about the Watts case, and if you’re on Facebook, and if you’ve ever taken a selfie, then you’re a narcissist.

Is Facebook Really a Playground for Narcissists? – Psychology Today

Facebook addiction linked to narcissism and other psychological factors, study finds – PsyPost

Is Your Facebook Obsession Feeding a Personality Disorder? – Reader’s Digest

If you’re on Facebook a lot, then you’re a lot of narcissist. You be the judge for a change.

The narcissism debate becomes useful not so much when directed at criminals [unless it’s the Prime True Crime Narcissus himself, Oscar Pistorius], but when we reflect on it in a more general sense.
The extraordinary social media preoccupation in the Watts case, and the catastrophe that took place because of, or in spite of that fake Facebook fairy tale, presents us less with a question than with a warning. We’re cautioned by this cautionary tale, or we ought to be. We’re warned about how selectively [and deceitfully] we project our own fairy tales on social media can come back to haunt us.
Part of modern narcissism is the inability to admit mistakes, and to be highly reactionary and resentful when we do make mistakes, and these are pointed out [especially to an audience].
But what happens when we come clean about our own narcissism?
The YouTube video below is a good example. It’s a simple clip of an Irish rock star talking to Dr Phil, openly and honestly, about her mother. What you’ll intuitively pick up when watching the clip is a strange thing that happens with narcissism: we all need some.
We need a certain amount of narcissism to be healthy and happy. And it starts with our parents. If our parents give us that sense of being valued and loved for who we are then the chances are we’ll develop a healthy and balanced narcissism. If they don’t, then we must find our narcissism somewhere else, and that often leads to imbalances and overcompensation.
In Oscar’s case, his father rejected him as a child [remember his son had lost both legs], and his mother, who doted on him, died prematurely due to a botched medical diagnosis when he was a young teenager.
So Oscar’s narcissism is partly an attempt to seek the love he desperately needed from his parents in the theater of the real world, and the arena of the athletics track, and from there on social media. Narcissism for an addict is like crack cocaine, once you get a shot, is one shot ever enough? This is so because in the world of the wounded child, the hole can never be filled because even as an adult, the wounded child remains.
It’s like a bucket with a hole in it. No amount poured in will ever keep the bucket [the sense of self] filled. So something must be found to keep the self-worth fountain flowing. Social media is a handy tool for that.

Because one’s narcissism can be quantified in social media, now one can measure one’s self worth. Not only that, one can have one’s self-worth measured vis-a-vis the measurement and social power of others.
In the case of Sinead ‘O Conner, we see an almost Van Gogh-like troubled artist syndrome. Van Gogh was rejected by his parents, and his siblings [excluding his brother Theo], this lead him to over-perform and overcompensate. In the same way Sinead ‘O Conner must find her mother’s love somewhere besides from her mother – on a stage, in front of a shouting audience [I’ve attended one of her shows in person, and went backstage to meet her].
Is this narcissism by the unloved malignant or healthy? If parents don’t endow their brood with healthy narcissism, they must generate it themselves, somewhere else. Who is to say whether this is healthy or not? Do you really have the authority to prognosticate on the narcissism of someone else? In the end, your attitude to someone else’s narcissism is relative to your own narcissism. What that means in the scheme of things is a subjective soup full of sound fury, signifying nothing.

Read my magazine article on Oscar Pistorius at this link.

The Two Faces of Chris Watts – what does it mean?

February 23, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 49 Comments

Another word for a “Two Face” is a hypocrite, and in some ways a hypocrite is a coward. A fearful person who appears one way but is another.
Many of the YouTube conspiracy buffs associated with this case spend their time sifting through details and detritus, looking for meaning and revelation. But it’s not in shadows or dolls covered in plastic sheets that the real answers lie. It’s somewhere else, somewhere more subtle.
One of the obvious idiosyncrasies of this case is not only Shan’ann’s OCD, but Chris Watts’ OCD. If Shan’ann was more about organizing and scheduling, Watts seemed preoccupied with numbers, cleanliness and self-grooming.
Those who dispute the OCD Narrative, or which to minimize it, do the disservice of breaking a vital fragment of the psychology from this case, and removing it from the main body. If we acknowledge that OCD was present within both of these people, where does it lead us?
There’s a long and a short version to the answer. The short version is that OCD is symptom of one simple thing: anxiety. It’s a psychological attempt to control anxiety. This suggests that both Shan’ann and Watts were – despite appearances, despite their public faces or social media avatars – privately insecure and unusually anxious.
This chronic social anxiety partially explains Watts’ motive. He was a weak man with a weak social currency, and in his mind destroying his family and making them disappear was the easier option than a messy divorce. Probably money factored into his decision-making, but it was driven by fear. Fear of retribution from a vindictive society if he did things by the book.

Coming back to Shan’ann, and her second face, when we take the OCD Narrative [as well as the anxiety] into the realm of MLM and Facebook, we see all the troubles that are there magically disappear. How? Through magical thinking. Suddenly the world is recast as a place where one can Thrive. All problems disappear as soon as I put a patch on my arm. What the MLM effectively is in this case is a proxy for the OCD. It’s an antidote against anxiety.
It’s also a lie, which shows how ultimately the efforts to control anxiety by putting on a brave face may fool a few people, but the real loser is the liar. We don’t learn by lying, we learn by living. We don’t grow or enrich ourselves by lying, but by advancing ourselves in reality.
Where these ideas bring us is to the original title I wanted to use for this post: The Psychological Connections Between OCD, Trauma and Victim Culture. Since I thought it would scare most people away I went with the kindergarten version.
Elsewhere on this site a discussion arose around the relevance of history. It doesn’t seem relevant, does it? What does a war in a previous century have to do with a family in Frederick Colorado? Everything and nothing. Everything in the sense that a myriad of forces we’re not aware of are forming our culture, and who we are, and who we respond to our circumstances today. And nothing, because the identities in this story were to some extent self-generated.
It’s important to consider both aspects in true crime – the cultural psychology aspect and the identity aspect.
We ought to be aware that “identity politics” was what fueled the Second World War. Identity politics is all about rallying around and identifying strongly with an idea. One identifies so strongly with this idea, that one’s identity becomes infused with it.
For those interested in this subject, I recommend a brief browse through the history of identity politics [written by the sociologist Frank Furedi]. Here’s an excerpt:
…the politics of culture has rarely allowed the forging of strong bonds between different groups, as today’s acrimonious dispute between feminists and trans activists shows. Human solidarity is one of the main casualties of identity politics. Once different groups retreat into their respective safe spaces, there will be little common ground left for those committed to the politics of solidarity and the ideal of universalism…
How identity politics appears in the Watts case is this tribal approach to identifying with the victim, or sympathizing excessively or inappropriately with perpetrator, and then the two groups bombarding one other with the backing of their respective political camps. TCRS actively discourages this practice, but it’s nevertheless a constant theme in true crime.
Identity politics is our own form of OCD. It’s our own version of trying to control or recast our anxiety. There is a lot more to say about the Culture of Victimhood as a general theme pervasive in our society, and also the victim psychology within the Watts case. What’s clear is during his “confession”, when Watts himself was becoming a real victim in his own story, he was offered an olive branch.

He was offered the chance to be the victim, and thus innocent of his own actions. This was ironic given the reason he committed the crime – it was a chance to no longer be a victim, and not be held accountable by his ex-wife for his actions [meaning his new partner could see him as innocent, or in his mind, as “who he really was”.]
When offered the chance to be the victim during his interrogation, Watts did this by making his murdered wife the offender.
Think about Identity Politics and idea of identifying with a Perceived Victimhood. Maybe you feel discriminated against because of your race, sexual orientation or some other reason. Maybe you feel diminished because of someone or something else. Maybe you feel your country is about to be overrun by immigrants. Maybe you feel someone or some class of people is invading your domain and will soon steal your job. All of this raises anxiety. At the same time, the source responsible for this narrative offers an instrument to sort it out [a wall, a patch, an exit, an army of the like-minded etc].
There is also a fascinating relationship between history and victimhood, in fact history tends to be used like a convenience store to prop up victimhood, especially in modern times. So after decades of silence on the subject, concepts like slavery and colonialism and the idea of privilege comes into vogue, at a time when – for example – colonialism is safely in our past. So why bring things up if their relevance to our actual lived realities is such a stretch?
Because it cuts to who we are. It cuts to the core of our own whys. And this is the attraction of true crime. We don’t realize it, but in some way, shape or form we identify with the circumstances of a crime as much as we are horrified and try to distance ourselves from it. Even when we blame and disassociate ourselves, calling the criminal names that makes us feel better about ourselves, we reveal our own shallow approach to the victim and their lived experience. We’re not expressing solidarity when we gravitate to a victim psychology, we’re doing the opposite: we’re separating ourselves from a universally lived existence, and we do that in an attempt to elevate ourselves [as innocent victims we deserve some sort of recompense, some compensation].
We need to move beyond imposing our own sense of Perceived Victimhood on how we see others, and how we see the world. Just as MLM recasts the world in an instant as a place filled with magical solutions and patches that can transform our lives, victimhood does the same. We wear a patch branded with a particular kind of victimhood, which allows us to belong to a fellowship of victims, and we may even pay money to do that.
TCRS is about seeing the people in these cases, not imposing our own narratives onto them.
It’s not easy.
I don’t like to discuss these concepts here, simply because they require a lot of background, and a lot of silent contemplation. I prefer to do due diligence to these ideas as a chapter within a narrative where it will resonate best, and where there are a lot of enriching references to sketch the psychology properly. Also, many who come here skating on the highways of Google, tend to be the least affected by them. This is a private and personal matter, and better debated and considered as part of one’s own internal dialogue.
Let me leave you with something from Psychology Today originally posted in June 2014.
Why would people loudly and publicly proclaim themselves as victims? Perhaps a better question, based upon the level of secondary gain, attention, protection and support received by these people, is why wouldn’t they? With all of the attention on the issue, why are we surprised when people are exaggerating, using, or downright lying, about victimization? Of course, when we attach benefits to identification as a victim, we will hear from more victims, both real and exaggerated. Acknowledging a history of victimization is healthy, but is that all that a person is?

"The Doorbell Video Footage Proves Shan'ann had time to change her clothes…"

February 22, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4

Does it?

Shanann Watts last video of her alive shows her wearing different shirt from what she was buried in.
That shows she had time to come home & undress into sleepwear.
Odds are that she had time to check in on daughters before going to bed.#chriswatts https://t.co/EuDXaa555i pic.twitter.com/ISX7LriFKY

— Mason Perry (@masonpe60234700) February 21, 2019

The 102 References to the word "Alert" in the Chris Watts Discovery

February 22, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 6 Comments

When I wrote the first book in the TWO FACE series, I was convinced that the cadaver dog evidence would be instrumental in solving this case. I was also certain Chris Watts made a fatal error in allowing the canine units into his home. This suspicion seemed to be confirmed by the loud barking of these dogs while he was giving his Sermon on Porch. I assumed those barks were the dogs alerting to cadaver traces. I was right. And wrong.

It’s true that Jayne Zmijewski’s K9 alerted in several places. But Jeff Hiebert’s K9 did not. For there to be “reasonable cause” to suspect a crime, an alert requires corroboration. This may be physical evidence, or a second dog showing a strong alert separately but in the same area. If this happens it’s considered “confirmed”. But this didn’t happen in the Watts case.

In fairness to the dogs we have to acknowledge that in this instance the dogs weren’t just scenting for one cadaver but three, and making it even more complicated was the fact that all three cadavers occupied the search area in life, which had been extensively cleaned prior to the search. Adding to this was the possibility that scented items were contaminated by Watts himself.
Although the shoes of the children were used to scent off, it appears these had been washed and touched by Watts.

Normally the brief for a cadaver dog is simple: find evidence of a dead person. In the Watts case the dogs had to identify the dead, and there were three identities to juggle in their noses.
When the discovery was made available, I made a beeline for the cadaver evidence but was sorely disappointed at how iffy it all was. Watts obviously had reason to be confident in letting the dogs in. He’d prepared and processed the house from top to toe. It’s not that he completely boggled the animals, just that he compromised the crime scene enough to produce a confusing and contradictory result. The dogs were interested in something, but they couldn’t agree on where. Nevertheless it’s a mistake to assume there were no alerts. The word “alert” appears 102 times in the Discovery Documents. Let’s examine a few of them:
1. Cadaver Alerts

2. Vivint Security Alerts

3. Transactional Alerts

4. Chemicals/Drugs causing reduced alertness and impaired muscle coordination

5. Ordinary Alerts [Notifications]

6. Missing Endangered Alert

What both dogs have in common is that they both alerted to the basement stairs. According to the discovery, one dog alerted at the bottom, the other at the top, or both at the bottom. The Discovery Documents are somewhat inconsistent and unclear on this information.

Chris Watts: Which Documents Are Still Missing and How to Request Documents from Weld County

February 21, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 55 Comments

It was HLN who made an open records request to Weld County for the doorbell camera footage of Shan’ann arriving home at 01:48.

Around the same time HLN contacted Weld County Courts, so did I. On February 20th I received a response to a request for Return Date of Summons [for the August 24th court appearance]. This was the email response I received:

There’s a fair bit of information I’m looking for since I have three more books to complete in this series. In no particular order:

Full autopsy findings
Autopsy photos
Police + CBI Crime Scene photos [Saratoga Trail – besides and excluding the bodycam video footgae]
Police + CBI Crime Scene photos [CERVI 319 – besides and excluding the drone footage]
Shan’ann Watts: Financial records
Shan’ann Watts: Criminal Records [North Carolina]
Police report re: forensic evidence and testing [sheets, carpet, blue glove, dustbin detritus etc]
Vivint records for July 4th and July 14th [dates Nichol Kessinger visited Watts home]
Police report re: cadaver dog examination of the interior of work truck
Police report re: internal examination of Lexus.
Transcripts of the interrogation subsequent to the “confession” leading to the plea deal.
Transcripts of meetings in November between Watts, his counsel and his parents.
Nichol Kessinger cell phone review and images.
Browser histories of home computer
Audio Interview Transcriptions

Anything you would like to add to this list?
For those who would like to submit their own records requests, please download and print this form, or leave your address and I will email you the attachment:

BREAKING: Last Photo/Footage of Shan’ann Watts Alive [August 13, 2018/01:48]

February 20, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 168 Comments

This is a screengrab from the Ring doorbell camera at 2825 Saratoga Trail. In her left hand, Shan’ann is holding her phone. Over her shoulder Nickole Atkinson is backing down the drive. Once inside the door, Shan’ann waved and Atkinson drove off. What happened next remains unknown.

Is the shirt she wore the one she was buried in?
7100536-6468517-image-a-93_1544118907347

Bennett Hammer Murders + Castle Rock: The Two Colorado Cases Agent Lee Mindfucked Watts with before his Confession

February 19, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 20 Comments

On August 9, 2018, a few days prior to the murders in Frederick, and a week prior to Watts interrogation and confession, Vanessa Bennett, the victim of a family murder in Aurora in 1984, broke her silence.

From 9News.com:

Vanessa Bennett sat under a picnic shelter on a muggy Arizona morning and talked for the first time about the physical and emotional toll she bears as the only surviving victim of one of Colorado’s most brutal crimes.
Bennett is 38 now, and the scars of the 1984 hammer attack that left her clinging to life are visible. Vanessa’s life changed on Jan. 16, 1984. Her grandmother, Constance Bennett, went to the family’s home that morning after her son and daughter-in-law didn’t show up for work at the family’s furniture business. She walked into a scene of absolute horror: Bruce Bennett crumpled near the bottom of the stairs, Debra Bennett and Melissa dead in their bedrooms, Vanessa barely breathing.
“I was in a coma,” Vanessa Bennett said Thursday. “My jaw was wired shut. I had tubes in my nose to eat. I went through physical therapy. I had braces on my legs.” The physical injuries were difficult to overcome.
“I had paralysis on my left-hand side,” she said. “So, like, I felt handicapped, you know. I had a lot of anger issues growing up. My family really couldn’t handle me – I just wore everybody out with my problems.”
Some of those problems were fueled by the things other kids said to her. “I was made fun of in school because my parents were killed,” she said. “I was made fun of because the hammer man or whatever you want to call it was going to come to my house and hurt everybody when I had slumber parties and stuff. I was made fun of for a long time.”
She was frank as she discussed her life. She has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. She also struggled for a decade with substance abuse problems and got into multiple scrapes with the law.

During her interrogation of Watts, Agent Lee cited Bennett’s “survivor’s guilt”, saying:

She said I wish I could’ve died with them.

At this point Lee was fielding a scenario where one of the children died by accident [say, Ceecee from an extreme allergic reaction], and Shan’ann freaked out and then killed the other child and perhaps herself.

The second scenario Lee cited was the Castle Rock case, where a mother was found guilty of smothering her two children to death.

Denver Post [November 27, 2012]:
Prosecutors said Kelli Murphy smothered and killed her two young children in May 2011 because she was not going to share custody of them with anyone else.
On Tuesday, a jury agreed.
“This is a woman bent on control,” prosecutor Chris Gallo said during closing arguments. “Controlling her kids, her husband and her divorce … It was Kelli’s way or no way.” Douglas County District Judge Vincent White immediately sentenced her to two terms of life without parole after the nine men and three women on the jury found her guilty of two counts of first-degree murder after deliberation and two counts of first-degree murder of a victim under 12 years old.
When her sentence was read, Murphy, 43, remained silent and looked forward until she was led from the courtroom. Throughout the case, prosecutors claimed that Murphy killed her 6-year-old daughter, Madigan, and 9-year-old son, Liam, when she became distraught over her impending divorce from her husband, Robert Eric Murphy.
Gallo said Murphy was a controlling, angry, calculating woman who did not want to share the children with her ex-husband.
“I want 100 percent custody of the kids and 100 percent of your salary,” Gallo told the jury that Kelli Murphy had told Robert Murphy. “I’m going to make your life hell.”

"Fuck him!" "Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you."

February 17, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 86 Comments

The word “fuck” appears 28 times in the Discovery Documents, two of those are from Trent Bolte [“fucking ridiculous”], but about half – perhaps surprisingly – aren’t from Shan’ann, but from Chris Watts. All of these instances from Watts occur in a few minutes during his “confession” with his father and FBI Agent Coder.
Did Chris Watts see any of the messages about him on Shan’ann’s phone?

It was important to Watts to be thought well of, and clearly, Cassie and Nickole sided with their friend in solidarity against Watts, especially in the last week of Shan’ann’s life. If Shan’ann was against him, perhaps he thought he could handle that, but if she recruited her Facebook flock, what then? They could ruin his reputation in a public lynching, far worse than she’d just done to his mother on social media in early July.

Page 605 of the Discovery Documents provides the following instance of Watts quoting Shan’ann – what she supposedly said on the morning when he supposedly confronted her about wanting to end the marriage:

Ronnie asked Chris what Shanann said that morning when he told her everything. Chris said Shanann asked him why and asked him why he wanted to give up. Chris said Shanann told him, Fuck you, and fuck you, and fuck you.

(Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

Deaths by Gunshot – Watts Family Males [INFOGRAPHIC]

February 16, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 45 Comments

Was Custody a Factor in the Watts Case?

February 16, 2019 / crimerocket_pmfrt4 / 34 Comments

On February 15 “new court documents” were revealed to the media about a possible motive in the Patrick Frazee-Kelsey Berreth case. The cops reckon custody was the main motive. It’s taken them awhile to figure that out, hasn’t it?
On December 23rd, almost two months ago at the time of writing, TCRS made a call on the motive in the murder of Kelsey Berreth. In fact the motive was mentioned in the very first paragraph of that assessment and infidelity was mentioned in a post on December 22nd.

I noted the strange circumstances surrounding Thanksgiving. Why would a couple who were engaged not be spending Thanksgiving together? Why was Patrick Frazee coming to pick up his daughter, and not his wife as well?

I will do more analysis on the Frazee case at some point, perhaps even a book, but first things first. Was custody a factor in the Watts case?

On the face of it, no. There are 44 instances of the word “custody” in the Discovery Documents, the overwhelming majority have to do with chain of custody issues affecting law enforcement, as well as evidence and cadaver collection.
In Nichol Kessinger’s lengthy interview on August 16th, she brings up custody a couple of times.

On page 1494 of the Discovery Documents, Shan’ann brings up custody [during her discussion with Olayinka Hamza, a lawyer from Glendale in March or April 2018]. She wants to know whether the custodial parents can be told where to live by a court, or whether a man can get custody. This discussion illustrates that even prior to the third pregnancy or the trip to North Carolina [or, arguably, the affair] Shan’ann knew her marriage was in terminal decline. This is difficult to reconcile with the glowing posts of her husband and marriage on social media at the time.

It’s interesting, in this respect, that Hamza recommended to Shan’ann to do everything in her power to save the marriage, rather than file for a costly divorce, and insodoing become embroiled in a long battle. It appears Shan’ann took this advice to heart. We know in the last days of her life, what with the self-help book, the getaway to Aspen, the counselling she had in mind, the letter she wanted him to write, Shan’ann wanted to avoid divorce.
But she was also ready to do battle.

On August 8th she told her pals Cassie and Nickole that if it came to a divorce, she would fight for full custody.

Significantly, this is the first and only time the word is directly linked to Shan’ann. The timing is important, given what happens next. Watts, who at the time had been away from wok for a week spent just ~~one day~~ two days at work, and then took the next day [~~August 9th and~~ 10th] off work leading to the weekend.

[Note: the August 9th “day off” [see below] is an error in the Phone Data Review.] The Augusy 10th “day off” however, is accurate.

It may be that during ~~these days~~ this day off he and Shan’ann discussed the custody issue, and discussed divorcing. And as the battle lines were drawn, he realized he was standing inside a tank with excrement swilling around his heels, warming them, and rising inch by inch.
So he told Shan’ann “he wasn’t in a hurry” to get divorced, which made her think she could still convince him to stay.
She was wrong.
This taking off of work may have had a dual purpose. Firstly, to prepare for the battle he had in mind [triple murder]. And secondly, to muddle those at work about his whereabouts. If he appeared at CERVI 319 on Monday morning, the few operators he encountered there might not think that much of it, and those who didn’t see him may have assumed he was still in North Carolina.
It may also have been intended to muddle Shan’ann. To pretend that things were okay after all and raise the white flag, at least until she was out of town again.
In any event, on the evening of August 9th Watts [Shan’ann was due to fly out first thing the next morning] he appears to be car shopping online. If he was going to do away with Shan’ann, the Lexus would probably have to go, and then he was going to need a chariot to ferry his beloved around in. He couldn’t do that with the work truck. He was going to need some wheels. And fast.

Because Watts was a mechanic and a car nut, it stands to reason that wheels played significantly in his calculus at this stage of the game. But he had a problem. Could he afford an Audi? Because that’s specifically what he was checking. Not just an Audi Q7, but the prices of an Audi Q7.

A second-hand Q7 sells for anywhere from $22 000 — $80 000 depending on the year of the model. Watts said he could only afford $1100 – $1400 to rent an apartment. Does that include money for a car payment?
It appears to be a family car Watts is after, here, doesn’t it? At this point Watts was probably doing the math and realizing he couldn’t afford any of it. He couldn’t afford a divorce. He couldn’t afford to move out. He couldn’t afford alimony. And if he wanted to keep Kessinger and do things the right way, he was going to lose everything – his home, their vehicle, the kids, his reputation and with no money, probably Kessinger too.
Without going into too much detail, we know that the week of the disappearance, Watts and Kessinger had agreed to go and look for a new apartment for him [and the kids]. But then by Saturday night [August 11], Watts’ mood had changed and he was no longer interested in getting an apartment.

What changed?
Watts did the custody calculations and realized he couldn’t afford to lose the house. He wanted the kids but if he fought for them he’d lose. And then he’d lose everything. It was either her and the kids [three kids], or Kessinger. Shan’ann made her choice. Then he made his choice.