I tend to agree with MommyRamblings [see clip at bottom] that if you’re going to go to the trouble to shoot a reenactment, at least get the details right. Thin slicing the preview, Shan’ann appears to be buried in a sheet [she wasn’t].
And in bright daylight [not true either].
Even the “uniform”, the most basic aspect, is wrong. Watts wore dark blue jeans, a dark navy blue t-shirt and rubber work boots with no laces. He had one pant leg tucked in and the other out, which was unusual for the usually neat and snappy dresser.
In HLN’s coverage the boots don’t seem right either. Watts had two pairs, and likely wore the black pair while disposing of the bodies and working on the hatches.
The other pair of Red Wing boots were new, and brown.
While these details are important, and while documentary producers are supposed to get the basics right especially when it comes to executing high-profile true crime cases, it’s even more concerning when they simply regurgitate the killer’s own version as if it were gospel – with no analysis and no critical thinking.
Like this:
In the HLN trailer we hear one of Watts’ new girlfriends saying “he just snapped”. This is typical apologia in a case like this where the killer is trying to minimize a premeditated murder into a random moment where he inexplicably lost his head. The snapping also breaks all contextual connections. His snapping supposedly has nothing to do with the serious debt he was in, or his plans for the future. If it’s true and he did snap, it would make an unforgivable crime slightly more tolerable, but it’s not true.
We know it’s not true based on Watts’ cool as cucumber behavior on bodycam footage throughout August 13th and during the Sermon on the Porch on the morning of August 14th. If he snapped he would still be emotionally overwhelmed, even remorseful or regretful when he calmed down hours later. But there’s no trace of that. There’s no real grief.
We also know immediately after getting rid of the bodies Watts went into debt damage control mode – calling the school, calling Groupon about the hotel reservation and getting the ball rolling with his realtor.
He didn’t just snap, and so any documentary still spouting this nonsense a year after the fact is still at the kindergarten level of analysis. Are we simply going to accept what Chris Watts says, when he’s a liar and a fiend?
Even the District Attorney at the sentencing hearing on November 19th was absolutely clear that Watts “coldly and deliberately ended four lives, not in a fit of rage, but in a calculating manner.”
When are we going to start talking about that face – the second face – of Chris Watts?
More: “Chris Watts Just Snapped”
“It’s like a long fuse that finally just went to its end…” VS “I just snapped”
Chris Watts describes the reason he killed Shan’ann Watts: “I just snapped” [AUDIO Part 1+2]
Chris Watts: The Plea Deal Document and the Second Confession Don’t Jibe
Why the Second Confession Scenario as Dramatized in FAMILY MAN, FAMILY MURDERER is full of crap
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