On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.
CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.
In true crime we often don’t see the wood for the trees. It’s always useful to get some perspective on what we’re looking at, and to make sure we’re not too close to or familiar with our case, by looking elsewhere [either the real world or other analogous true crime cases].
This post by Ralph Oscar does that. It not only humanizes Shan’ann and Chris Watts financial circumstances, but personalizes how they may have responded to them:
I was pondering the financial angle, which I feel is the wild, drunken elephant in the room in this case. I was talking to a new acquaintance online, who revealed that he was twice divorced. Something he said brought to mind the Watts case, and so I’ve been quizzing him about the finances of divorce
He and his first wife divorced in a state with *permanent* alimony. Even though his ex now has a really good tech sector job, he still must pay her alimony. He’s asked if they can change this; she says no. Who would turn down free money? He remarried, had two daughters. His financial situation has never recovered – he’s been unable to set aside anything for his two daughters’ college. He lives paycheck to paycheck, and meanwhile, there sits his first wife, who is earning good money, receiving permanent alimony. He describes the two divorces with child support/alimony leaving him with “virtually nothing”. Some of his observations:
“It’s virtually impossible to stop or modify the alimony as long as she wants it. I’d attempt to talk to her and she’d say things like ‘would you stop taking money if you didn’t have to?’”
“It can get pretty bad financially when you’re busting your ass at work and doing well but still taking home as much as if you were working for minimum wage. The wife getting alimony … lives in a paid off home with her mom.”
“Meanwhile I can’t save to retire although I can modify or stop the alimony when I’m ready to. The catch 22 is that I can’t save to retire but that’s the only way to stop it.”
“Many angry men and a few women in my shoes. Very frustrating but you need to make it work somehow.”
“I can’t honestly relate to the idea of killing someone to avoid giving them money but I do understand how another might get there. I also can’t honestly say I’d mourn her passing if that did happen. I’ve joked about loosening the lugs on her car wheels but that’s just out of frustration, etc.”
“I haven’t been able to recover financially. I’ve gotten raises at work and the dollar amount of my commissions increase but never enough to pay bills without having anxiety about next week or next month.”
“I had two daughters with my second wife and haven’t been able to save anything towards college.”
“The person making the payments becomes nothing more than a source to enable the other to be ok with no consideration regarding its affect on the payer.”
“The ex who receives the alimony seems to feel fully entitled to my money to this day. If I bring it up in any shape or form she will move away or discontinue the conversation immediately.”
While Colorado is not a permanent alimony state, in 2014 a new law went into effect that prescribed a formula for how to determine spousal maintenance payments: 40% of the higher-earning spouse’s income minus 50% of the lower-earning spouse’s income. Shan’Ann would finally have incentive to come clean about how much she was *not* making on her “business”, or at least there would finally be an accounting of just how much it was *costing* her to make that income amount (which means that’s not the actual income). If she’d been making $80K/yr in actual income, they’d have been paying their bills. That’s all there is to it.
While my acquaintance would never countenance murder (he has two daughters from that first marriage), he is clear that the financial fallout of his two divorces, particularly that first one with the permanent alimony, has changed his life for the worse. His perspective is that the financial situation for the Watts family was likely a very important factor in Chris Watts’ deciding to do what he did.
If Chris and Shan’Ann had won the lottery the day before the murders, I’m confident there wouldn’t have been any murders.
It happens on the second night of the interrogations, at roughly seven minutes into the fifth hour [after seven total hours including the previous night]. Interestingly, Agent Coder doesn’t ask Watts at this point if he’s cheating. He does the opposite.
For several minutes leading up to this moment, both agents reinforce Watts’ ego, telling him what a good man and father he is, and how much everyone likes him. Coder, choosing his moment, then tells Watts there is something they know he is lying about [besides the polygraph].
It’s a significant moment, and even a breakthrough, not because Watts has told them anything they don’t know, but because it was the first big step in getting him to tell the truth, a big truth, after countless hours of back-to-back lying.
Once the truth of the affair was revealed, and it was important to have him “confess it”, it was easier to lead him towards volunteering more information about his family.
On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.
CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.
The sixth part includes:
A description of the couch in the loft where Nicolas Atkinson retrieved Shan’ann’s phone.
Nickole Atkinson can’t confirm after the phone was turned on, if only text messages were coming through, or if notifications were coming through as the phone connected to the WiFi [if it did].
Nickole also describes the suspicious situation surrounding Shan’ann’s purse. It seems she found after she returned from the Trinatich house after initially searching for it and not finding it.
The audio for the above transcript is available here.
Notice in the image below, the sheet in the background is of the same type used to dispose of her body.
Here we see Bella wrapping her father and her doll in a blanket, which goes some way to showing that it is possible she wrapped the doll in the twister mat.
If Watts was a dutiful husband, this sort of thing couldn’t have been very encouraging especially posted on social media. Scroll down to read the comments.
On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.
CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.
The fifth part includes:
The fact that it was Watts job to do the laundry [all the laundry].
The obvious assessment that Watts couldn’t strip the bed if Shan’ann was still asleep in it [and Shan’ann would never have thrown the sheets on the floor].
Nickole’s response to Watts announcing that he’d “found” Shan’ann’s wedding ring.
The unusual circumstances around the discovery of the phone.
The audio for the above transcript is available here.
Note: TCRS provides video commentary and analysis of the Atkinson Transcripts, including clips from the actual audio of Nickole’s interview, in a companion series to these blog posts available on Patreon.
At 34:35 in the clip below, Watts heads into the master bedroom and comes out holding Shan’ann’s ring.
The case against Amanda Knox is a useful reference case for the Chris Watts case, particularly in the area of the interrogation. Watts’ interrogation was long and exhausting. It involved three hours on Tuesday night [August 13] followed by seven hours the next day [August 14]. It could also be argued that he was informally interrogated for four additional hours, between 14:07 until around 18:00 when the cops were at his home.
If one adds the various phone calls, including several very early in the morning, the numbers on the clock really start adding up.
There are more than just a few glaring similarities between the Chris Watts case and the Amanda Knox case. For starters:
Both confessed [and both confessions were bogus but derived to some extent from the true facts of the crime and crime scene
Both implicated an innocent third party
Both spoke at length during their interrogations, believing [or presenting] themselves to be “helping” investigators.
Both went to elaborate lengths to obstruct justice [Watts by disposing of the bodies and removing evidence. Knox false accusation against Patrick Lumumba – to name one example – meant he was jailed for two weeks before he was finally cleared].
Both were at the scene of the crime the next day, spotted by the media and behaving not a little inappropriately, but very inappropriately. This included not just physical behavior and demeanor but many statements made to various witnesses.
Amanda Knox claimed “I wasn’t there” because very little evidence was found of her in Meredith Kercher’s bedroom. Although never tested in court, Watts also seemed to claim he wasn’t there [he was at work, or barbecuing] when his family disappeared or were murdered, even though they lived in the same house.
Both Knox and Watts suggest some unknown intruder came into the home, committed murder, took virtually nothing and left no traces of themselves.
A key part of Knox’s defense was to undermine, invalidate and challenge the police interrogation against her. So despite living in the house opposite the room where Meredith Kercher was stabbed to death, the real criminals – the real suspects – weren’t her and her boyfriend. It was the dodgy, abusive cops. That’s who people should have looked at. The real crime wasn’t someone stabbing Kercher in the throat [burying the blade so far into her throat it stopped at the hilt]. The real violence were the two SLAPS Knox received while the cops were talking to her.
And the police are to blame for the fact that the suspects didn’t call their lawyers. Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s boyfriend at the time, was offered legal aid by a family member and rejected it. Knox’s aunt also repeatedly advised her to contact the embassy/consulate. It seems it’s okay if family make these advisements and the suspects reject them, but it’s not okay if the cops don’t [or allegedly don’t].
Knox’s father appeared to hire a PR firm at the same time lawyers were hired to clean up the mess. How the narrative is configured: The police should have told the suspects that them being questioned in the police station about a murder in their home meant they were potentially at legal peril [otherwise they would have no way of knowing].
We know in the Watts case that he was repeatedly told he could leave the interrogation at any time, and he also received advice from friends and family [Nick Thayer and his father Ronnie Watts respectively] to get a lawyer. Despite his dumb refusal to get legal advice, Watts could have a lawyer plead the case that like Amanda Knox [and Brendan Dassey], Watts was tricked, coerced, tortured, manipulated and confessed under duress.
While there is some evidence to support this defense, what’s all clear is Watts did commit murder in his own home, and did tamper with evidence, and did move the bodies. Nevertheless, his best defense isn’t to defend the merits of his case, but to attack the police interrogation and investigation.
Theoretically he could also claim that a minor, Nicolas Atkinson, contaminated and compromised the crime scene [framed him, set him up etc] and that the officer on the scene [Coonrod] was negligent or reckless in “allowing” this to happen.
I wonder what #AmandaKnox thinks of the Watts interrogation>Interrogation 101: The Good Cop, Bad Cop Routine worked like a charm with Chris Watts https://t.co/Wo7RGoefFa#ChrisWatts
In the Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson cases, there is muddiness around the moment of arrest, and whether the suspects knew they were being arrested, whether they were arrested, and whether the right procedures were followed. As soon as a suspect is arrested, ironically, they win a series of inalienable rights, while at the same time, law enforcement must follow strict protocols. Top defense lawyers are experts in finding loopholes in where or whether these protocols weren’t followed to the letter.
When a murder is committed, and a suspect emerges, the cops have a right to question that person [whether they are a witness, a person of interest or an “official” suspect]. It’s in society’s interest that law enforcement exercise this right to question or interrogate, otherwise everyone would get away with murder. Also, the sooner they can question the better.
We often see when a suspect is guilty, their main tool is not only to deceive, but also to delay. The more time that passes [especially where bodies are missing], the more it plays into their favor.
As mentioned, the process of arresting and interrogating is tricky though. While the cops have the rights to ask questions, the person they wish to question also has rights, including the right to remain silent.
It all becomes muddy when the suspect gives up the right to remain silent and the cops may pretend or manipulate the situation, basically playing along that they know less than they really do, or don’t really believe the person in their custody is guilty [when they do, or have strong reason to].
If both sides are trying to manipulate the other side, even if the suspect is lying, the legal case tends to favor the defense side. It’s seen as unseemly that law enforcement would use deception or underhandedness to catch their killer, and to some extent this is justified.
The flip side though, is this:
A murderer is a liar. If the cops were 100% upfront about everything, there would be little point in having an interrogation. Just give the suspect a clipboard to tick off a few questions and let them go. But in the grey area of true crime, a suspect has to be able to explain and reason their behavior to the cops, and this can become a game of psychological warfare. Who decides when that line is crossed, or where it is?
In the Knox case, a big part of her accusation that she was misled lay in her claim that she couldn’t speak Italian, and thus was in the dark about what was really happening to her. While we can clearly hear her speaking fluent Italian in the video clips below [one months after her arrest], and while it’s clear her boyfriend at the time was Italian [and he could hardly speak English], the onus does fall on the cops [even though they were Italian], to have made provision for an interpreter. So while the actual argument is probably not sound [or true], the legal argument is another matter.
When Watts took the polygraph test, he was given a demonstration where he was told to lie, and shown the results. This test was meant to provide unambiguous proof that he understood the English language, understood the difference between right and wrong [telling the truth and lying], and took the test anyway.
The Knox PR camp successfully turned a criminal case into a political one. This meant Italy [the country] had more to gain by not convicting Knox than by convicting her.
It also became a lot more difficult to execute on the confessions on Knox when the interrogation and the police were being undermined in the media.
Now, at the zenith of the #MeToo movement, we see a European court – more than ten years after the criminal trial – upholding Knox’s “human rights”.
In theory, had Watts taken his case to trial, a top defense lawyer could have surfed this wave of his clients rights being violated at every turn. In addition to that, if he admitted to being bisexual, he could also question the motives of the imputed murderer of the children, and the rush to judgement by the cops to be a form of conscious or subconscious discrimination.
In the OJ Simpson case the acquittal wasn’t for lack of evidence, but because the jury sympathized and identified with the race of the defendant, and further, wanted revenge against an allegedly racist detective [Mark Fuhrman].
In true crime, and criminal law, we want the criminals to be evil and absolutely guilty, and the cops chasing them to be completely good, and completely innocent in their police work and interrogations.
Defense lawyers know the cops are only human, and as far as the law is concerned, that can trump the guilt of the defendant. If there is no reasonable doubt by way of the defendant, the methods used by the cops can be used to manufacture it. There’s no doubt that Watts was manipulated and misled during his interrogation. There’s also no doubt that he was actively manipulating and actively misleading about three murders and a recent burial of all three bodies. Sometimes the manipulation of the cops can turn a case, and a verdict, as we see in the Knox case.
Sometimes a degree of play-acting by law enforcement seems necessary and even justified. As they say, it takes a thief to catch a thief. In the Watts case we see how it takes the same foxy thinking to outwit and catch a liar and a murder, especially as they are doing everything they can to avoid telling the truth, being caught or held to account for their crimes. Ultimately, just as in the Knox confession, even when Watts did confess, the confession was a lie.
During their respective interrogations, the cops finally offered both Watts and Knox a way out, an exit, and both took it and ran with it. Both took the bait of blaming and implicating someone else.
In the Watts case, what this revealed was that his “disappeared” family were dead, all of them murdered, and he knew it. He’d known it all along. The fact that he could nonchalantly play act with the cops for hours on end, with a straight face, knowing they were dead is what horrifies us.
But at the moment he acknowledged the lie the cops offered him, that Shan’ann had killed his daughters, he admitted a) that he knew they were dead and b) that he was there when they died. Then, automatically he became the prime suspect not in a missing person’s case but in a homicide investigation.
In the Amanda Knox case, the moment she acknowledged hearing Lumumba murdering Meredith, she also admitted being at the scene during her murder. But the outcome of that bogus confession has since favored her, hasn’t it? Perhaps in due course Watts will appeal along this very same tenuous line of defense. Do you think he’ll win or that he should?
I don’t usually discuss dynamics here simply because it’s not something you can come to lightly, and it requires a lot of focus, concentration and backstory to understand. The other issue with discussing dynamics on an open forum is it attracts the most biased and closed-minded folks of all.
These types are likely to rush in and begin lecturing on why their opinion is just as informed if not more so, and in fact better. So that’s why I don’t discuss dynamics here. It’s not about who is right, or who is more right, it’s about figuring out the true nature of this crime and why it happened. So we want to see where the insights take us, not bicker about whose insights are best.
Relationship dynamics are a sensitive subject. Whatever we say tends to reveal our own views of others, and ourselves, and it may expose others and make them feel judged or otherwise uncomfortable. That’s why this discussion sits better in a narrative that one has to pay for and will spend time with – pondering it in private.
What I will say, as I reach the finishing stages of the fifth book in the TWO FACE series, is that the dynamic between Chris Watts and his mistress will never be understood as long as people continue hating and throwing stones. If you wish to feel good about how awful Chris Watts is – go on. It seems some people don’t tire of this pursuit after weeks, months, perhaps even years. If you think Kessinger deserves to be lambasted and accused and insulted till kingdom come, don’t expect to ever understand the dynamics of why the crime happened. You can’t have both. You can’t have emotional/ego satisfaction and expect to gain any intellectual insight or understanding.
One can’t hurl insults one day and on another, innocently go: “Why? Why don’t we know why?”
To understand their emotional dynamic we have to put our emotional dynamic [our projection, transference, bias] aside. Are you ready to do that? If so, then read on.
An Inferiority Complex
Chris Watts felt inferior in his marriage. His overall introversion suggests a crisis of confidence in general. It’s clear from the videos, he played second-fiddle most of the time to a domineering wife.
Initially he probably liked that she took control and perhaps it worked very well for both of them. Maybe he wanted to take the back seat, wanted her to be in control. But after a while it got old. He tired of being told what to do and how to do every damn thing. That’s not being unkind to Shan’ann – she was OCD so it was natural for her to be antsy about everything. The problem was that he probably allowed it to get out of hand. Instead of setting boundaries, he allowed her to walk all over him, and when he wanted to stand up for himself it was too late. He didn’t know how to and perhaps even if he did, she wouldn’t let him.
With “three girls” in the house, over time he felt increasingly impinged in some way. Probably, over time, the spark did start to disappear in their marriage and probably, at the time, the idea of having a third child made sense to bring them back together.
It’s clear to me that shortly after mutually deciding to have a child, Watts had a change of heart. This may have been because he had an epiphany then about their finances, or because he realized he’d developed feelings for someone else, or both. It may also be that he had the idea but hadn’t thought through what it actually meant, and what consequences came with it [just as occurred with the affair, and the murders].
Rediscovering Himself
It could also be that at the same time the spark was fading in their marriage, Watts’ sense of inferiority was changing. Even though his wife still had him in a box [she thought], a part of him was starting to escape and rediscover himself. His work life was one area where he was growing and enjoying respect. Of all the Thrivers in this story, Watts was arguably Thriving the most – he looked the part, he was developing in his career, he was also living the part [including with the hot mistress from work].
But despite Watts’ newfound freedom [to cheat, to go camping, to eat out and hire a babysitter], the other aspect was that because Shan’ann was in total control of everything, she was also in total control of the finances. Her control of the finances meant at the end of the day she was in control of Watts’ ability to conduct an affair [especially once she arrived home].
Whether you wish to believe Watts was bringing in 100% of the income, 90%, or 50%, whatever is the case Shan’ann was the one controlling the money and also spending a lot of the money. Besides the mortgage they couldn’t afford, a lot of the money was going to medical expenses for Shan’ann and both children. Watts had virtually zero medical expenses; he didn’t even spend money on a gym. If Watts was contributing most of the money to the household [and I believe he was] but spending hardly any of it, then this was cause for massive resentment when he found out how little money they actually had.
Realizing the True Scale of their Financial Debacle
Throughout this case people have pooh-poohed the financial situation. Even the District Attorney did at the sentencing hearing. A triple murder happened, no one knows why. And the finances weren’t really that bad. Really? Watts must have felt they were really that bad for him. Three months behind on their mortgage, a mortgage payment due the day prior to his arrest, hefty private school bills that he did his damnedest to avoid on the day after dumping their bodies, about $10 000 in credit card debt [all credit cards maxed out]and another $25 000 still outstanding on Shan’ann’s neck surgery.
How was Watts going to continue to conduct an affair with no money? And why had they fallen behind on their mortgage in the first place? Who was supposed to be paying for that? And where did the money for the house go if it didn’t go to the house? Did it go to San Diego, North Carolina and the flights to and from Arizona?
Giving Away Control – Then Taking It Back
Watts had given control over many things to Shan’ann, and one of those included control over the finances [including his money]. Possibly he discovered the true extent of their financial woes while Shan’ann was away. He took some time off and maybe opened a few bills, looked at their account online, looked at the accounts in her office.
I believe a huge area missing in the Discovery Documents and the text messages on their phones, are arguments about money. Put otherwise – why are there no arguments about money given their disastrous financial situation?
When Watts bought a meal for two for $62 on Saturday, August 11th, Shan’ann immediately alerted to this expense. What about all the others? That conversation leads somewhere, and somewhere very serious, but I won’t be discussing that dynamic in any more detail here either. Let’s deal with one dynamic at a time.
Inadequacy
At some point in 2018, Watts found himself in an affair that allowed him to be someone else. He wasn’t being ordered around any more. He was being listened to. He had become someone again. Moreover, he was interested in and wanted to know about the woman he was with, and wanted to converse with her, and be with her. But he also felt incredibly inadequate around her.
He had good reason to feel inadequate. She was better educated, solidly middle class [whereas he was blue-collar trying to be middle class], and probably better paid than he was. Kessinger’s finances were clearly in far better shape than his were but besides that, his wife was pregnant, and their finances were eating them alive. Plus he had two children to take care of as well.
So there was no way on paper he “deserved” Kessinger unless he lied to her. He knew that. If he told the truth he knew wouldn’t have been “good enough” for her. He wanted to be good enough. He didn’t want what he had in his marriage, which was to be relegated to an ATM, errand boy, video prop and baby maker.
So all things being equal, Watts found himself in an affair with someone who liked him, and whom he liked, but nevertheless wasn’t right for him. She was smarter, she was available but in a sense, was out of his league. Most of us can’t see just how out of her league he was because we can’t stop demeaning her as the wicked mistress.
But if we look at them as people on paper, he wasn’t as smart as she was, he wasn’t as available as he pretended to be, and financially he definitely couldn’t afford to be in a romantic relationship [with all its ancillary expenses] with anyone.
In order to be in a relationship with Kessinger, he needed to be divorced. But if he divorced he’d likely lose the house directly or indirectly in terms of alimony and many other mutual debt obligations.
He would have calculated that in order to be with Kessinger he needed the house.Not to keep or to live in, to sell. To be engaged in a relationship with a woman, especially one a man feels is better than he is, he’s going to feel he needs a lot of “spending money” as the old George Harrison song goes.
To understand the dynamic between Watts and Kessinger, we must understand how and why he felt inferior to her and with her. His appearance counted in his favor. She found him sexy and attractive, and obviously his Thriving and jogging and working out at home had imbued him with a good physique. So that part was good.
But the rest wasn’t. He needed to be divorced and he wasn’t [hadn’t even discussed it]. He needed there not to be a pregnancy [but there was]. And he needed money [money that wasn’t there unless he sold the house soon, and at a profit].
Murder was Watts’ way of balancing out the equation, at least in his mind. Of course, as soon as he committed the murders his inferiority to Kessinger became manifestly clear, both to her and to him.
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!
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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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