When Goodman calls Chris Watts [several times] at around 02:00 in the morning, Watts is there, and initially it sounds like he’s talking to someone else in the background.
We know at around this time Watts and Kessinger were talking, and possibly communicating on FaceTime during Goodman’s call.
When Watts calls Goodman back it doesn’t sound like he’s been sleeping, or that he’d just woken up. He’s also very matter-of-fact as he runs through the weight, height etc of his three murder victims. He’s sufficiently awake to know these numbers off the top of his head.
Goodman notes the following in his report [Discovery Documents page 67]:
It should be mentioned that once I had made contact with Christopher, he did not ask me if I had been calling because I had any information concerning his missing wife and daughters, or if I was calling because they had been found.
Earlier on Monday afternoon, while standing in the alcove near the stairs with Deeter sitting in a pool of sunlight behind him, Officer Mark James offered Watts his card and suggested Watts call him if anything came up.
[Scroll down to the bottom for the video of the call.]
By 21:00 that evening Watts hadn’t called the cops to report anything, or to ask for anything. So Officer James called him.
This call was made prior to Watts’ Sermon on the Porch the next morning. It was effectively Watts’ first version where he explained both the trip to North Carolina and how that may have led to their “separation” taking effect that morning and Shan’ann’s disappearance shortly afterwards.
When Watts refers to separation we assume he means separation, but Watts is really using this word symbolically [in terms of his own psychology] as a euphemism for death. He knows it’s a permanent separation. But in his own mind, separation is a nice safe term to acknowledgesboth worlds, the fictional world he’s selling and the reality change in his circumstances [wrought by him].
He uses the same symbolic euphemism to the FBI when he tells them “I only hurt her emotionally…” and later, when acknowledging the murder itself: “She hurt them so I hurt her.”
She hurt them -> I killed her -> [Father does a double-take at the word kill] -> I hurt her
Intuitively Watts seems to be talking about his parents here. She hurt them [during the tree nut meltdown] and so he killed her. He’s telling his father this, and saying because she hurt them, he “hurt” her. It sounds reasonable except when you replace the word “hurt” with murdered, and the fact that he murdered both his daughters too, it’s not reasonable in the least.
But this sort of bald-face lying, tailoring and customizing of a version to make it sound just right isn’t new to true crime though. It’s classic to true crime.
What this shows is how a murderer tries to minimize his actions, and his words, by softening them, just as evidence is softened, minimized, concealed, covered up or lawyered into oblivion.
Interestingly, during the almost seven minute long phone call, the first number Watts gives Officer James is Addy Molony’s. These are supposed be friends Shan’ann may have left with the kids to be with. But Addy doesn’t even live in Colorado. The third name he gives the officer is Cristina Meacham. She’s in Hawaii!
In the end he only gives James four names, and each name is like pulling teeth. Officer James nevertheless follows-up by calling each of the four names Watts has pulled out of a hat. Through them, a portrait of what’s really going on gradually pixelates into something sharper and more specific.
An affair. Facebook deleted on Thursday. Did not want baby.
In the phone call Officer James also asks Watts to elaborate on their marital problems. Watts makes three very big statements in response to James’ open-ended question:
“I could never really be myself…”
“She could never see me…”
“Right now it’s hard to be in this house right now…”
This footage confirms something that’s been frustratingly difficult to establish for sure. It may seem like a silly detail, but I wanted to know where Deeter was and why no one heard him when Nickole Atkinson came knocking.
Thanks to this footage, that mystery has been solved. Deeter was in the basement, which from the neighbor’s perspective, was virtually soundproof. From someone standing at the front door, you can just barely hear the dog barking when Officer Coonrod shouts Shan’ann’s name [see second Instagram clip below].
What this also shows is the lack of detail and holes in perception even when there are three different people on the scene. None of them made note of the dog because they didn’t think it was important. But locking Deeter in the basement should have been the first sign that Shan’ann wasn’t at a friend’s house. She wouldn’t have left the dog there when she went out, she’d have let him outside in the back garden [most likely]. Or, if she left the house, the dog would have free run of the main level, assuming the motion detectors were turned off or tuned to ignore doggy-sized disturbances.
The other aspect is leaving Deeter in an almost soundproof basement shows a) that Watts didn’t want the dog attracting the attention of nosy neighbors [remember, after the murders he was completely on his own for almost nine hours, from 05:00 to 14:00, and if everything had gone according to plan, Watts would only have arrived home at 17:00 or 18:00. 13 hours is a long time for a dog to be left on its own, especially for a dachshund. It also shows b) Watts’ postmeditation. How he “took care of the dog” demonstrates the amount of meticulous thinking [only some of which we’re aware of thus far] that went into the premeditation.
Notice this outside porch light [below] was left on; unless it’s motion activated, it may be further sign of Watts’ hasty exit earlier that morning.
It’s also worth noting that the neighbor also had a dog, which means if Deeter was barking for a length of time, the neighbor’s dog would start barking “in sympathy”, something Watts would want to avoid.
Even when Coonrod scoots down to peer in the basement, he doesn’t see or hear Deeter. This may be because Deeter was sequestered in the basement stairway, assuming there was a door or barrier of some kind at the bottom as well.
It’s also possible Coonrod simply didn’t see the dog in the darkness and clutter inside. But it’s unlikely the dog didn’t see the officer. If he did, he’d have scampered around and barked at the would-be intruder.
Final point. Notice how when Watts opens the front door he immediately turns away, towards the wall, and walks quickly to the kitchen. Once Coonrod is in the kitchen he strides quickly to the basement. Coonrod is still trying to get his attention, talk to him and catch up. When Coonrod asks if he can look around, Watts says yes, appears to go somewhere, but then abruptly reappears. Watts had a lot of on-scene cleaning up and picking-up to do that he hadn’t anticipated when he left that morning.
This is another version of what probably happened in the Ramsey home for seven hours while the cops were in the house, and the friends they’d invited into the crime scene, while JonBenet lay dead inside. Crimes aren’t just covered up immediately after they’re committed, when they’re premeditated there is covering up before [removing data from phone and other devices, deactivating Facebook], at the scene with officers present, and Watts was still in clean up mode on the night of August 13th.
Where did the crime take place inside the house? The District Attorney can’t say where or when. But there is someone [if dogs can be called “someone”] who can. And that’s why I called the TWO FACE series the K9 series. Because they cracked the case before any human’s did.
Which is why I followed their lead.
In the TWO FACE narratives [published on September 10, October 1 and November 12 prior to the release of the Discovery Documents on November 21] I’ve maintained that the murder of Shan’ann Watts occurred at the foot of stairs, right where her suitcase was originally found. Chris Watts attacked her from behind after hiding behind a central pillar.
This theory was based on a number of factors which I explained in detail and in-depth in the TWO FACE books [and I won’t go into those explanations here]. In my view the scenario that Shan’ann arrived home, spoke to her husband [maybe looked into the children’s rooms], went to bed and fell asleep, and then was murdered in bed is nonsense and nonsensical.
One obvious reason for this is a murderer who is acutely aware of getting rid of evidence [and Watts went to a lot of trouble to go to CERVI 319 to get rid of them], he wouldn’t want a crime scene in his own bedroom. That would immediately and directly implicate him. His first, original version, if you remember, wasn’t that he’d attacked Shan’ann but that she and the children had simply vanished. Even in his statement when he finally “confesses” to Shan’ann’s murder, he’s not specific where he attacked Shan’ann, but it’s not in his bedroom.
I knew it would come down to the cadaver dog evidence to either prove or disprove the theory. Now the cadaver evidence is available
The evidence from Officer Lines is incredible. Not just the observations of the laundry, and Watts claiming to have gotten his dirty paws on all the clothing [except the shoes] but Watts’ dodgy demeanor too.
Lines even noticed the strong odor of cleaning chemicals [which no other investigators seem to have remarked on] and vacuum lines still embedded in the carpet. The laundry and vacuuming also show how painfully aware Watts was of leaving behind traces of himself or anyone else.
It’s unfortunate Officer Lines doesn’t specify exactly where she observed these vacuum lines.
The cadaver alerts in the basement are also worth noting.
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.
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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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