To understand the Watts case, and to further understand why, we have to understand the Emotional Narrative surrounding this case. Not our emotions – theirs. Although this is an important conversation, it’s also important to have this conversation in an intelligent and reasonable way.
Whether we admit it or not, everyone interested in the Watts case is extremely interested in Nichol Kessinger. If there are those who hate Chris Watts, there seem to be legions more who despise the mistress, many putting all the blame on her for what happened.
On CrimeRocket, the stats speak for themselves. Stories or analysis featuring Kessinger are far more popular than the other stories, and those simply featuring footage or photos of Chris’ mistress are the most popular of all. Why? People want to see what she looks like. People want to get to know her, and try to understand what Watts saw in her.
Many have looked scornfully at the footage, comparing Shan’ann favorably to Kessinger, or Kessinger unfavorably to Shan’ann. In this episode, we want to provide some intelligent analysis to a debate that I believe is important, but it’s important we conduct it intelligently, which is to say, using objective facts, using logic, using intuition and sensitivity – in sum True Crime Rocket Science.
Now please understand this. We still do need to be mindful that Shan’ann is no longer with us. And we do want to be mindful that no matter what the problems were in her marriage, no one deserves to be murdered for whatever reason. That’s not what we’re talking about here. So when we’re having this conversation, we’re not even thinking about that. We’re thinking about the relationship dynamics when Shan’ann was still alive, going back several years into their marriage. What made Chris Watts fall out of love? What attracted Watts to Kessinger, and Kessinger to him? And who, ultimately was the more attractive partner?
In the video posted recently about motive, we looked at the short, thin-slicing answer to this question. And then we looked at the longer version. We’re going to do the same here, but in a lot less detail on both counts. Let’s start with the longer, more general version of why couples break up and marriages don’t last, examine the stressors on the Watts family and then move on to Kessinger versus Shan’ann.
1. American Couples – Blumstein and Schwartz
Money, work and sex. This the trifecta that couples need to get right in order to have a longer marriage. In the Watts case, speaking in general terms, both seemed to have screwed up their money situation, and neither had stellar careers. If they had, the money situation wouldn’t have been as bad as it was. They’d gone bankrupt in 2015, but somehow they hadn’t learned the lesson from that catastrophe.
There are seven references to bankruptcy in the discovery documents. Most of them come from Nichol Kessinger.
In the CBI Report the word bankruptcy comes up twice.
At 5:45 Chris Watts quotes Blumstein and Schwartz:
“When a relationship breaks up, it’s normally the more attractive one that leaves…”
Watts then shrugs, saying he’s not sure whether that’s true. What do you think?
This also raises another prickly question – between Shan’ann and Watts, who was the more attractive part of the couple?
The three ”sexiest” areas when it comes to couples: money, work and sex.
the couples who are happiest are those most equal in power, in the freedom to initiate sex, in decision-making…
”Husbands and wives who do not believe that marriage should be forever are less willing to pool (their money).” ”Married couples who disagree about the wife’s right to work have less stable relationships.” ”When heterosexual women are attractive, they have more varied sex lives.” ”For all types of couples, possessiveness escalates when one partner fears the other might have a meaningful affair.” ”A fixation on beauty makes it difficult to create a stable relationship.”
(So important is a balance of power to lesbians that they are the group whose members are most likely to have split up, to resent being put in a more powerful role. Indeed, they are the group that has sex least often, since a common lament among them was dislike for being the one to ”always initiate sex.”) Men, homosexual or straight, want to preserve their power and dominance; they care about the partner’s looks; they are still less ”relationship-centered” than women.
Philip Blumstein and Dr. Pepper Schwartz were sociologists at the University of Washington in the late 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. Blumstein and Schwartz had begun studying sexual behavior in 1972. Eleven years later the researchers collaborated on a book simply titled American Couples.
On October 23rd, the New York Timespublished the following review of the book.
[Blumstein was a] social psychologist skilled at analyzing everyday encounters, friendships, and business relationships, Philip was hired as a sociology professor at the University of Washington in 1969 and became renowned for his research in human sexuality and relationships. He had a reputation for fastidious methodology and a talent for interpreting data.
Dr. Pepper Schwartz is an Americansociologist and sexologist teaching at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is the author or co-author of numerous books, magazines, website columns, and a television personality on the subject of sexuality. Schwartz is notable for her work in the 1970s and early 1980s that culminated in the book, with Philip Blumstein, American Couples: Money-Work-Sex which surveyed lesbian couples, gay male couples and heterosexual couples. Schwartz also… writes the column The Naked Truth.
“When a relationship breaks up, it’s normally the more attractive one that leaves…”
Is that what happened in the Chris Watts case? Was Chris Watts becoming “the more attractive one”…?
When 21-year-old Nicholas Ninow was caught in flagrante delicto – covered in blood – after raping a 7-year-old child in the restroom of a restaurant, it made national news that horrified South Africans. Now, a year later Ninow is in court confessing what he did. He’s admitted in court that yes, he raped the little girl. So why shouldn’t we believe him?
Because there’s an even worse scenario, and it comes from the little girl herself. But what could be worse than Ninow admitting to raping the girl? To ask this question in the context of true crime is naive – there is always a worse case scenario.
Ninow’s version, while appalling is that he spontaneously, impulsively saw the child while he was “innocently” snorting drugs, and “just snapped” in the sexual sense. He got off the toilet to let her urinate, and helped her undress so she could. In this scenario he sketches himself as a caregiver right until the moment he violates the little girl.
The little girl’s version provides an even more disturbing impression of what happened. Ninow followed the child into the restroom, like a predator, and carried out the attack in a premeditated fashion. The fact that he flushed her bloodied panties down the toilet confirms just how quickly Ninow recovered himself, and started to dispose of crucial evidence.
What is the clearest evidence of premeditation? It’s the where of the crime. It didn’t happen because the little girl got lost and walked into the men’s toilet, Ninow followed her into the ladies toilets. Ninow was where he shouldn’t have been, not the other way round. And if Ninow acted in a premeditated way, it’s possible this wasn’t the first time he’d acted as a pedophile predator, and the court [when it imposes sentence] ought to make sure it’s the last.
Interestingly, about 10 months ago when the child rapist first appeared in court, his defense argued “mental illness”.
The defense added that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2013 and had spent time in rehab for substance abuse. The alleged rapist had attempted suicide several times due to depression caused by the bipolar disorder, said his defense.
What is the opposite of mental illness, or “just snapping”. It’s making the calm, calculated decision to commit a crime, while having the self-possessed confidence that one might be able to escape the consequences.
Intertextuality
Just like Ninow invents a fictitious scenario where he pretends himself in the role of the child’s guardian [even though in the same version he rapes her], Watts does the same. He has sex with Shan’ann before killing her. He has some tender moments with his children before killing them.
Chris Watts’ latest versions include him 1) “finding God”, 2) God extending forgiveness to him, 3) Shan’ann praying to God while he’s murdering her, and 4) taking his kids to the well site [because he had no idea what he was going to do] . All four of these fictions contrive to do the same thing. It’s an effort to minimize his crime. In the minds of many, perhaps most, he’s succeeded.
On September 10th, the day after this video [which has since been removed] was posted, a concerned reader contacted me on Facebook. It referred to a 40 minute video posted on YouTube, in which Mary Marlowe read out the contents of the following blog post:
Although Marlowe credited CrimeRocket as her source, and mentioned a “Crime rocket” in the video’s description, she also read the entirety of the blog’s contents. What do you guys think of that? Is it time to put CrimeRocket behind a paywall, or, instead of writing up posts, put them up as YouTube videos or podcasts?
In the meantime, please keep your eyes peeled for those who lift the content that’s provided in this archive
TCRS:It does seem suspicious that on July 31st, the day Watts arrived in North Carolina, he was not only off towards Shan’ann, but Shan’ann immediately felt sick…
Please note not all the views expressed in this post reflect those of TCRS.
GUEST POST
Let’s talk about Chris’s first attempt on the life of his wife …
Shan’ann, at that time, was wary of Chris’s emotional state regarding her and their future together, but she obviously still trusted him, as did his in-laws, or they never would have let him in their house . And they shouldn’t have!
Chris had come bearing, unbeknownst to Shan’ann, some of her Oxycontin, an opiate derived from heroin and therefore a potentially lethal drug, which Chris referred to more benignly as “Shan’ann’s Lupus medication.”
He arrived in Aberdeen and proceeded to mix an unknown amount of ground-up Oxycontin into Shan’ann’s Balance formula. Balance is a supposedly digestive support supplement that can be taken in either capsule or powder form, and that can be added to juice, or whatever.
We don’t know when Chris ground up the Oxycontin, but we know that he had it with him when he left Colorado. After all, the basement of their house was full of the stuff. So, bringing the Oxycontin with him from Colorado shows that it was not was not a spontaneous decision on his part to feed it to his wife. He arrived in North Carolina fully prepared.
Recently [in mid-2019], he called up his sister, Jamie, and ‘confessed’ to something he had done, informing her that he had placed ground-up Oxycontin into Shann’ann’s Balance that night “hoping she would miscarry. It was only two pills and I felt so bad I threw the rest of them out.”
No doubt he did indeed try to poison her, but I refuse to believe he saw the Oxycontin as a possible abortifacient (who ever has?), nor that he only used two pills. And I don’t think he threw the remaining pills away. Why would he do that? Oxycontin, by that stage, was as familiar to him as M&Ms.
What he wanted was for Shan’ann to appear to die from an overdose, and if she did, well, the prescription was in her name, and she was known to be beside herself over her failing marriage – suicidal, even.
As for Bella and Celeste, they were right there safe with the Rcuzeks who could then raise them, and Chris could then use the money from Shan’ann’s life insurance policy to clear up some of his more pressing financial problems.
Of course, the insurance would pay: after all, hers was an accidental overdose, wasn’t it?
Then, once Chris obtained enough money from Shan’ann’s life insurance policy to catch up on the mortgage of his vanity house in Colorado (nose-to-nose with the neighbors and with a team of derricks in the yard), he could sell that white elephant of a house, collect over a hundred thousand dollars in equity from the sale, and ride off into the sunset with his beloved Nikki (well, she might not be his “beloved Nikki” for long, as it turned out).
He probably even told himself that he would go and visit the girls from time to time when he happened to be visiting North Carolina. They’d be fine with the Rcuzeks. He just loved the Rcuzeks (always had), calling them “Mom” and “Dad,” and reminding his own mother that these people understood him so much better than she did, and that they never questioned him in the annoying way that she constantly did.
Sadly, from Chris’s viewpoint, all poor Shan’ann did was spend the night convulsively hugging a toilet bowl and blaming it all on her being pregnant. She never connected Chris’s arrival on the scene with this sudden volcanic onslaught of vomiting – no one did until Nick made that post.
Certainly Chris’s sister, Jamie, didn’t. Jamie had kept well out of Chris and Shan’ann’s life for years, since they’d kicked her out of their wedding, in fact. Happily married with two kids and a husband she loved and a career she enjoyed, she never wanted to hear from her mother about Chris and Shan’ann’s latest dramas out of Colorado. The first time she’d seen Shan’ann since forever was when she showed up to pick up her children one day in July 2018 [Nut Gate] and walked into the maelstrom of an epic Shan’ann scene. Wanting no part of that, she immediately grabbed the kids and ran for it.
Her mother was upset about the turmoil Shan’ann had caused that day, and she was sorry about that, but Jamie had been saying for a long time that those two were going to do what they wanted and that it was best not to get involved.
When Chris called his mother the day after this incident and accused Cindy of trying to poison CeeCee with ice cream, Cindy decided she had finally had it too. She told Chris that their relationship had become too toxic to continue, and while she wished all of them well, she was agreeing with her daughter: Don’t involve me ever again.
That’s the way things still stood when Chris arrived in North Carolina a month later in early August of 2018, and if he had successfully killed his wife that night, that might have put an end to it.
But Shan’ann lived, and so Chris moved on to Plan B.
Jamie and her family typically spend a week at Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, in August every year, and they, her parents, and her mother-in-law, were at that beach the day after Chris’s attempt on Shan’ann’s life with the Oxycontin.
Out of the blue, Chris arrived. He was all smiles, and it was as though he and Jamie had been seeing each other daily for years; as if he had never accused his mother of attempting to murder his children and subsequently ended all contact with them yet again.
Why, here I am, nice Uncle Chris, come to visit my niece and nephew (two strangers to me), and my brother-in-law (who barely gives me the time of day). Let’s all take a group photo, and while I’m here I want to tell you that I’m leaving Shan’ann. I’m afraid of her, in fact.
Predictably, his family welcomed him back, the poor, beleaguered prodigal son, and when his mother said, “Son, you should put what you’re afraid of in a letter and leave it with us in case anything happens,” he greeted her idea with enthusiasm. Indeed, he’d been hoping she’d say that. Finally, the mother he’d always disliked had said something right.
He wrote and sealed a letter to the effect that he and the children were in eminent danger from Shan’ann’s homicidal ways, and left cheerfully.
By the next morning he’d probably already come up with his next idea: I know, I’ll kill her and make it look like she killed the girls, and then my family will remember that letter, and everyone knows how mean she was to me. And if they find her, I’ll say I killed her because I lost my mind and was so angry that she’d just killed my children. Yeah, that could work!
Of course, there are no foolproof plans when it comes to murder. He probably used a little more Oxycontin the night of August 12, 2018, to kill the girls hours before Shan’ann was due home, but for poor Chris, the success of his cunning plan was contingent upon Southwest Airlines being on time, proving, if nothing else does, that he isn’t half as smart as he thinks he is.
Shan’ann was three hours late! Damn her, now no one will believe that these cold dead little bodies just got killed by my psycho wife. That’s where Plan C came in … But that’s another story and best for you to read about in Nick’s next book.
One last thing: Why did Chris want Jamie to hear the story of his first attempted murder? I think I can answer that one: He hates his mother, she dearly loves her daughter, and what hurts Jamie hurts her … and, besides, Chris has a book coming out, one just filled with more grotesque stories. And he thought it might be entertaining to let his sister, the happy one, the non-murderous one, the one his mother likes best, to have a preview to disturb her peace, to make her shame deeper, even to try to implicate her in his hideous crime. She now knows what I tried to do last August, the first time I tried to kill Shan’ann. Will she tell?
Jamie has never wanted any part of Chris’s secrets; she hasn’t trusted or felt close to him since childhood. And Chris remains every bit as dangerous as he ever was. He comes up with one story, then the next story, then the next story – all mutually contradictory – that what he did was everyone else’s fault.
Well, at least he cannot implicate Jamie in his first attempt on Shan’ann’s life: she hadn’t seen either of them forever, and Chris and Shan’ann’s house was already Oxycontin heaven. It is the very definition of redundancy.
But I’m sure he’ll try … I’m sure, by the time he is finished, everyone in the entire world will have murdered Shan’ann, and Bella, and CeCe – or at least have been in a conspiracy to do so. Only Chris will be innocent of all wrongdoing … in his head, at least.
We can go through these names and there is a fair amount of information in the discovery about each and every one of them. Who’s missing? How about Jamie, Chris Watts’ sister? Think about how much we know about Shan’ann’s younger brother Frankie, and how little we know about Watts’ older sister Jamie. Jamie is the only one who wasn’t interviewed for the discovery.
We know Frankie was in Shan’ann’s corner, and had her back. Did Jamie have her brother’s back?
Chris Watts’ trademark move is to appear cool and calm. He wants others to see him as suave and have a positive impression of him. He tries not to get flustered. Unlike Shan’ann, Watts is uncomfortable admitting to his emotions, and reluctant to show when he is upset or irritated.
This is what makes the FBI interrogation of Watts fascinating to watch. It’s a delicate dance between law enforcement and triple murderer, where both sides are trying not to antagonize the other. The main difference between the two sides is the longer law enforcement can get Watts talking, the more information they get on him, and the more they can wear him down.
This is why Watts finally “confesses” right at the end of several hours of questioning. Once he gives them what they want, he thinks it will be over, and that will be the finish line. But once he confesses, well, they’re relentless, they’re only getting started.
It should be noted that there isn’t so much a single moment when Watts gets angry, but several moments. Many of them, if not most, happen right at the end of his second day of brain-numbing grilling by two expert agents.
At 9:11 in the clip below, which is Part 9 of a total of 7 hour-long clips, Agent Tammy Lee asks Watts if she can ask him “another tough question”. She doesn’t just ask him. She doesn’t hit him on the chin with it; she asks him gently if she can ask, then she asks.
At this point Watts is fairly open about himself “losing it” but also “feeling so numb”. He refers to the children appearing “blue and limp”, something he admits he’s never seen before in his life. Seeing dead people, and killing them, is traumatic, even if it’s intentional. But it’s during this critical period where he is admitting to his emotions [regardless whether these admissions are true or not] that he starts to become emotionally authentic in the interview. He has his head down, now not even making eye-contact with his interrogators. His voice sounds weary, and somewhat high-pitched. This is not to say Watts is being truthful, just that a lot more is being leaked out here than in the rest of the interrogation.
We see this as he increasingly starts to cut Lee and Coder off. When Lee asks Watts if he thought about calling an ambulance [this is in the first version here the children were killed inside the home] Watts answers that he didn’t know what to do; they appeared completely dead to him, he says. But Lee doesn’t buy it. She tells Watts she’s been doing this job a long time, and knows something about [criminal] psychology and how people think; Watts cuts her off, telling her, “I know.”
WATTS: None of this makes sense. Nothing…like…[gestures] WHY SHE WOULD BE THERE…[raises his voice]…any, any of this makes sense.
Watts checks himself, then raises his hand over his face, blocking Lee off. Lee persists with another question, and Watts cuts her off again, telling her, “my God, no!” For Watts, this is as confrontational as he gets [when he’s not committing murder]. And then Coder takes over.
CODER: We’re pretty cynical in our jobs, right, and tonight we’ve had to talk a lot about a lot of things, and…[dips head]…don’t get mad, but what it looks like, is that [brushes aside his notepad, gestures to the desk]…you found a new life, and the only way to get that new life was to get rid of the old life.
We know Coder is 100% on point right here, and we know Watts knows it too. The hairs at the back of his neck ought to be standing on end. How did it make him feel, after hours of questioning, to be presented with the truth? Watts doesn’t answer. When confronted with the truth, he withdraws.
CODER: And I think that you killed these girls…before their mom came home…and then killed Shan’ann…
WATTS [Whispers]: God no.
Look at Watts’ body language. He’s shifting in his chair, he’s wiping at the left side of his face with the palm of his hand, like he’s in a nightmare he can’t get out of, can’t wake up out of.
Watts doesn’t directly answer or respond to the merits of Coder’s question. These are HUGE accusations by Coder. Watts has nothing to say, so Coder continues.
CODER: That’s what we’re left with; that’s what we have to believe. Because…it just doesn’t make sense [referring to what Lee has just said]…I mean, gestures to Lee…
This is where the subtle [but not so subtle] strategy of having two interrogators versus one suspect starts to really count. They’re just having a conversation, right? Well no, actually it’s two people from law enforcement. They’re on the same team. They’re working together, and when Watts dodges or balks at an answer, the other interrogator can say, “Hey, what she said was reasonable. Try again.” There’s no place to hide, especially when the interrogation is kept “gentle”.
CODER: To her point, if I walked in and my kid was decapitated, I’d call an ambulance….Right? It just, it just doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t add up. So, either you’re this monster [holds up one hand]…
WATTS [Interrupts]: No.
CODER [Persisting]: I just want this young, hot girlfriend, so I’m gonna kill everyone and hope it works out, or…[holds out hand over his notepad] something. So, I think we’re very, very close to the truth, but not quite there yet.
Watts shakes his head, seems to splutter something, but is incapable here of saying anything. He has no game. He’s worn out and the anger is rising.
CODER [Pushing]: So, if you’re not that monster…
WATTS [Jumping in]: I’m not a monster. I didn’t [chops down on the table with the side of his right hand] kill…my babies.
CODER: Okay. So…tell us what actually happened.
WATTS [Under his breath]: I told you…what happened.
CODER [Gently]: I know…but…we’re getting later in the day. We’ve done this a few times and…we…we talk… then we show you a little bit of what we’re working with and the facts that we know…and then we kinda make our way to the truth.
WATTS [Choking on his words]: Everything I’ve told you is the truth.
Coder, stroking his chin, then hits Watts with a few punches to the gut. He asks Watts what’s going to happen when the cause of death comes back to him?
WATTS: It’s not going to.
CODER: You’re sure?
WATTS: I’m 100% positive…it’s not gonna come back to me.
CODER: Well, who’s it gonna come back to?
WATTS: Shan’ann was on top of Ceecee.
CODER: Okay.
WATTS [Sounding as if he’s smiling or sighing with frustration]: What do you want me to say?
CODER: I just want the truth.
WATTS [High pitched]: That is the truth.
CODER: What about Bella?
WATTS [His tone of voice sounds annoyed]: Bella was…[waves his hand] laid out, …sprawled on her bed.
CODER: Okay.
WATTS: I saw…Shan’ann on top of Ceecee so I ran in there.
CODER: Okay.
At this point both agents have their heads in their hands.
CODER [After a moment’s thought]: And then what happens when the coroner looks and sees fingerprints on her neck?
Coder gestures with his hand, against his neck.
WATTS [Murmuring softly]: They’re not gonna find my fingerprints.
CODER: Okay. What’s it gonna be?
WATTS [Sounding tearful]: It’s gonna be Shan’ann’s!
CODER [Reaches out his hand towards Watts]: Are you sure? But we don’t know about Bella, right?
WATTS [Sounding choked up]: Bella…she [speaking loudly]…that’s the commotion I heard upstairs.
CODER: Okay. [Thinks for a moment]. Why take their bodies out of the house and bury ’em?
Watts throws up his hands.
WATTS [Speaking loudly]: I was scared. I didn’t know what else to do.
CODER: Okay.
WATTS [Still speaking loudly]: Nothing-nothing…nothing was gonna…[gestures, whispers]…I didn’t know what to do.
CODER [Sighs, sits back]: Yeah.
And then Watts starts to lash out verbally. They’ve been contradicting him again and again, and now he snaps. He doesn’t just snap, it’s been coming a long time.
WATTS Loudly]: I didn’t know what everything was gonna look like! [Watts gestures to the ground as if referring to the bodies]. My two babies were gone. And I just did that to my wife.
Notice the order in which he says this.
My two babies were gone.
And I just did that to my wife.
WATTS: And I was the only one left in the house. [Shakes his head, juggles with his hands]. What do you expect is gonna happen?
This is a covert admission of premeditated murder. This was the scenario Watts asked himself before the murders.
I was the only one left in the house.
What do you expect is gonna happen?
CODER [Evenly]: It did look bad, right?
WATTS [Sounding emotional]: It looked [stutters]…I mean…a nightmare.
Watts withdraws, puts his head in his hands. This was a flash, but more is in store.
CODER: Kay…kay…
Then Lee takes over, and wheedles Watts right where it hurts.
LEE: She [Shan’ann] was a pretty good mom, right?
WATTS [Sounding tearful]: I was a pretty good dad as well. I mean you know a person until you don’t know a person.
This is also a massive concession from him, psychologically. Again and again Shan’ann said she no longer knew who Chris was, and her friends said the same.
This is because Watts had changed, he was becoming – or trying to become – a different person.
Lee gently refers to Shan’ann, Bella and Celeste being vulnerable, and if Watts isn’t being truthful about who took their lives, then “that’s on them, too”. It’s a nice way of saying if he murdered them once, then by falsely accusing Shan’ann of the murders, he’s murdering them all again.
WATTS: Uh-huh. I know.
LEE: And you don’t wanna do that to them.
WATTS [Countering, looking Lee in the eye]: I’m not doing that to them.
Well, you are.
LEE: I’m just saying-
WATTS [Interrupting loudly]: NO-NO…I’m not doing that to them.
As Lee backtracks a little, conceding that perhaps Shan’ann and Watts were good parents, Coder hits Watts with the Bad Cop routine. And this is how they successfully extract information. Push, then when he reacts, pull back, then push again, repeat, repeat, repeat.
CODER: Why didn’t you put Shan’ann in the tanks?
Long seconds tick by.
WATTS [Wearily]: I didn’t know what else to do.
Next Watts talks about how far down into the ground he buried Shan’ann. He’s able to be quite casual talking about this. He estimates maybe he dug a hole two-feet deep, and maybe it took him 20-30 minutes.
WATTS: That was the location I was going to that morning…I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know what else to do.
LEE: So you weren’t thinking that far ahead.
WATTS: No.
Clearly law enforcement believe he was thinking that far ahead [in other words, premeditation], but they let the point go.
Coder takes up the baton, and once again, he’s not pulling any punches. He backtracks to their discussion the day prior, where Watts had described what had happened to his family as an act of pure evil.
CODER: What does that mean?
WATTS [Contemplates for a moment, then, when he speaks, his voices croaks]: I guess…it’s the evil that I saw when…I walked behind Shan’ann...and she was on top of Ceecee. And I felt evil for what I did to Shan’ann.
The answer to Coder’s question is that the evil was him. It was the evil he felt when he walked behind Shan’ann. In some cases Watts describes himself running behind Shan’ann. Ironically, this contradiction speaks deeply into the crime scene psychology.
CODER: So…one other thing that doesn’t make sense to me…[glancing up at the ceiling]…is…well…uh…can you walk me through again, when you walked in, what did she look like? What did Shan’ann look like? All you saw was her back. Was it the same shirt that you buried her in? Same underwear? Does she wear pajamas?
WATTS: Shan’ann? No, that’s what she sleeps in.
CODER: So when you grab her, just as is, that’s how she gets to the truck, and how she gets to the site.
Watts doesn’t answer, and Coder – unfortunately, inexplicably – leaves it at that. I’ve seen this a lot in interrogations. Instead of leaving a question hanging in the air, the interrogator answers it for the suspect, which allows the suspect not to answer. This was a precious opportunity to get Watts to respond to each question, but ultimately squandered. One could also argue that of course Shan’ann wasn’t buried in the clothing she wore when she arrived home. It’s unfortunately Coder mentioned pajamas, as this line of questioning afforded Watts a way out of answering all the other questions.
And then this moment happens. Lee asks if Shan’ann ever went to bed. It’s a simple enough question. It’s a yes or no question.
Then, in quick succession Watts is asked whether he poisoned Shan’ann, whether he killed her because of the money situation and whether he tried to use her credit card to buy hair-care products [or whether she did].
Then it’s on to the next tough question.
LEE: What were you talking to Nikki [Nichol Kessinger] about before your wife got home?
This is a reference to their 111 minute conversation roughly between 21:00 and 23:00. This is something both Watts and Kessinger have in common. They have very little to say about that crucial, crucial conversation on the night of murders.
Not a straight denial, is it? It’s also an uncharacteristically cocky remark from Watts.
LEE: How come you didn’t tell her?
WATTS: I was scared to. Felt like…you know…she wouldn’t even have gone on a date with me…if she knew that…so…
CODER: Did she know you were married with kids?
WATTS: Yes.
CODER: Okay. But just not pregnant…
WATTS: I told her that we…we actively tried…before we met.
CODER: Oh, tried to get pregnant.
WATTS: So she knew that.
CODER: What’s gonna happen when Nikki says, ‘We were planning on killing everyone and run off together’?
WATTS [Mumbles softly]: She’s not gonna say that.
At 18:24: 40, Coder and Lee tell Watts they’re going to be talking to Kessinger [they already are], and Watts rubs his face with chagrin. This is clearly a sign of distress, and how he shows it.
It’s interesting that Lifetime will be chronicling the months leading up to the crime, in an effort to piece together the motive. It remains to be seen how closely the script will follow the #1yearagotodayCW timeline, but if it does it may well clarify rather than cloud the premeditation narrative.
Sean Kleier (Odd Mom Out) has been cast as Chris, Ashley Williams (How I Met Your Mother), as Shanann and Brooke Smith (Bates Motel, Ray Donovan) as FBI agent Tammy Lee. Sony Pictures Television is producing the film for Lifetime.
Have a look at the trailers below for an idea of what to expect from Lifetime.
Nickole Atkinson talks about the incident as if it were a bad dream. Cassie Rosenberg refers to a nagging voice in her dead telling her something was wrong. She also remembers Watts begging her not to call the police.
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.
Join the TCRS Community on Patreon for as little as $1 per month. Multiple daily posts, interesting discussions, amazing audiobooks narrated by the author, ongoing series and powerful, informative weekly podcasts.
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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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