True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek

Month: December 2018 (Page 1 of 11)

Shan’ann Facebook and Instagram on New Year’s Eve 2017, 2016 & Twitter 2011

Towards the end of 2017, Shan’ann encouraged her Facebook faithful to share the highlights of their last year. For Shan’ann it was quitting her full-time job as a pediatric call center nurse and becoming her own boss.

However, despite being “retired”, Shan’ann’s posts between Christmas and New Years are chock full of Thrive promotion, often several promotional posts per day, and many with few or no responses.

On Instagram Chris Watts features on December 23rd, and then again on January 26th, working out at 21:40 at night.

Close to New Years Shan’ann photographs Ceecee “overreacting” while wearing a t-shirt with the words: HOLD ON A MINUTE I’M BUSY OVERREACTING” printed on her chest.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdSaWF8nwMz/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdVYwvRnbHY/

Another image of the playroom seems to indicate more displeasure. There are no New Years posts of the family, or Chris Watts on Instagram, although there are Thrive-related messages.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdYWdN5nUrh/

2016

In the video below, Shan’ann, Chris Watts and two friends “toast” the New Year – 2017 – not with champagne, but glugging down Thrive Pure.

In the video below Shan’ann’s sales angle is to get a tax benefit by signing up to Thrive before the end of the year.

For Christmas 2016 Chris Watts gave Shan’ann a shirt with the words WIFE MOM BOSS emblazoned on it.

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2013

Shan’ann remembers New Year’s Eve in 2013 as “an amazing year” when she started a new job she loved [as a pediatric call center nurse].  She also refers to herself and her husband purchasing and building their first house together, that year.

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Shan’ann KNEW Chris Watts was deleting messages off his phone

If Shan’ann knew, or suspected, that her husband was cheating on her, when would have been the best time to confront him about it? Before her trip to Arizona was one possibility, except he’d already communicated to her that he didn’t want the baby. So consider the fine line Shan’ann may have felt she had to walk. If she confronted him too strongly, he may have dug in his heels and rejected the baby. What she was trying to do was sort of woo him back – by suggesting counselling, by have him read a book, by him writing a love letter to her.

Shan’ann would have felt some confidence, perhaps, that she could get the ship back on course. She was an influencer on Facebook, and she was used to controlling her husband and telling him what to do. So this would be just another version of that.

At 16:18 in the video below  Addy Molony, one of Shan’ann’s Thrive promoter pals, mentions Watts “coming around a little” immediately before her trip to Arizona. This made Shan’ann think she should stay and sort out her marriage. If she had, maybe the children would still be alive, and maybe Shan’ann would be too.

ADDY: Maybe he was willing to work things out. And she told him she didn’t want to go to Arizona, she wanted to stay home, and work things out with him. He said, ‘No, just go.’ Because, you know, she had the kids by herself for six weeks, so he said, ‘Go, go ahead and get away…and we’ll talk when you get back.’ So she was really anxious to get back when all the bad weather was happening, she was super nervous that she wasn’t going to get back…And she was looking forward to this coming weekend when they were supposed to go away [to Aspen].

So Watts also made Shan’ann think it was okay, even good, if she went on the last trip. Of course what this did was buy him more time with Kessinger, and provide him access to the girls while she was away.

During the weekend when she was in Arizona, the signs that something were afoot got worse. Things – literally – weren’t adding up. Addy suggested Shan’ann look through Watts’ phone to make sure.

But Shan’ann had already done that.

At around 09:00 in the video clip below, Addy tells the cops that Shan’ann knew he was deleting messages even before she left for Arizona on August 10th.

ADDY: She told me through a text that he was even deleting text messages with his dad…because she’d had a falling out with his parents.

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We ought to ask: why would Watts feel it necessary to delete messages to his father while Shan’ann was still alive? One possibility is that he was trying to minimize the fallout that was already taking place. Shan’ann had exploded about the nuts thing, and after that she wanted to some extent to shut out Watts’ family. So if he was communicating with them, this could set off a conflagration between her and him.

Another possibility is that Watts knew the argument she’d had with his dad could go to motive, and so he wasn’t just deleting messages at this stage [about 4 days before the murders], but destroying evidence.

What this demonstrates, though, is the first person Watts was trying to conceal, hide and deceive stuff from was his wife, and arguably he’d sort of succeeded in that until he made a credit card purchase on Saturday night [August 11th] at the Lazy Dog restaurant.

This purchase then alerted her phone, just as the hair care product purchase on the morning of August 13th immediately activated an email at 02:30. When it did, the penny dropped.

From the moment Shan’ann found out about the $62 charge, she was pretty sure he was having an affair and she was right – he was. That bill was proof that he was on a date with one Nichol Kessinger. But Shan’ann couldn’t very well confront him while on a business trip, nor could she do what she did to his parents on Facebook [name and shame] because by then his Facebook was no more. That meant she had to sort things out the moment she got home, or the next morning first thing.

In one of her messages she admits to temporarily “going with the flow” and hoping for the best. Watts was hoping she would do that, anything that could buy him some extra time with his mistress.

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This was an interesting change in the dynamic, because usually it was him going with the flow, not her.

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If Watts knew she was going to return home to confront him, and the murder is premeditated, why would he want to have that confrontation? Why would he let that happen? Remember, if he told Shan’ann he was having an affair with a co-worker, would Shan’ann want him to continue going to work? Would she try to confront Kessinger herself? What would happen then? 

Wouldn’t he prefer not to have a confrontation, or rather, to have a confrontation on his own terms?

https://youtu.be/WTYtvXKcr7o?t=536

Gates, Conoco Gas Stations and the Mystery of the Man in the Orange Shirt

When British tabloids reported that Watts – or someone that looked like him – was seen wearing an orange shirt and buying a breakfast roll at 08:00 on Monday morning in a convenience store, legions rose to debunk the footage. IT’S NOT HIM! they screamed.

I suspected it could be.

The fact that Weld County released the footage to begin with suggested the District Attorney thought so too.

Intuitively, in terms of the timeline,  I knew it was possible because there’s a gas station and convenience store right there in Roggen. The first time I came across it was while researching the drive to CERVI 319.

As part of that research I found this video; the visit to the gas station is documented at around the 13 minute mark.

When the videographer turns off the road to visit a Conoco gas station which is right in the area of CERVI 319, he mentions the station is right beside a Guttersen CERVI ranch gate.

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That gate is only just visible to the right of the grey pole in the screengrab below. It has small, white signboards attached to it. Fullscreen capture 20181229 174859

Below is the same scene zoomed in. The videographer assumed the area behind the gate is also part of the large Guttersen ranch, but it’s not. The large Cervi ranch borders the even more massive Guttersen ranch. Both ranches have hundreds of fracking pads scattered across the landscape.

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In order to get to the gas station and the Cervi gate, one has to exit the highway and take the overpass to the other side.

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Conoco’s Facebook page provides a handy map with directions to the gas station.

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While there are hundreds of Conoco gas stations in and around Denver, there’s only one in Roggen.

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The gas station is situated on Frontage Road, about 10-15 minutes drive to or from CERVI 319.

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The gas station is also clearly en route to CERVI 319 from Saratoga Trail, or conversely, heading back.Fullscreen capture 20181229 165858

The other aspect to consider: if it was Watts,  should he have been hungry by 08:00 on August 13th? If he’d last eaten at around 19:00 [during his chicken barbecue on the porch], and particularly if he’d been up all night committing and covering up three murders, then after the dumping, digging and disposal, he was likely to have developed quite an appetite when it was all over.

All over was likely to be close to 07:30-07:40, which gave him around half an hour to get back to the store for breakfast. That fits the timeline perfectly.4221396001_5974669446001_5974665781001-vs

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It’s important to note that the layout of this store is different to the one where he is wearing a white shirt. It’s not the same convenience store.

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The other aspect that stands out in terms of the orange shirt, was Officer Coonrod’s bodycam footage. When Watts is standing with his back to his wardrobe, the color coded shirts behind him show a hanger with nothing on it right by the orange shirts.

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At the same time, there also appears to be a gray or black shirt missing from the wardrobe. There’s another hanger missing there too.

This line of inquiry is interesting because it suggests Watts may have changed his clothing three or four times that morning. It made sense to change out of the black shirt and jeans, because these were likely to be dirtied by sweat, dirt and possibly other body fluids and fibers.

He may also have dumped clothing and/or materials on his way home at the dumpster at 6507 Black Mesa.

Watts making multiple changes to his clothes also implies he’d do the same to Shan’ann after her murder. The change of clothes is intended to get rid of evidence transferred to the clothing during the crime and/or dumping of the bodies.

In a way the many changes of clothing make sense. It’s like the leopard trying to change his spots, and that’s exactly what lay behind this crime. Watts was trying to craft a new life for himself. Putting on a new shirt was almost like becoming someone else. If anyone spotted a guy in a dark shirt running around CERVI 319, or standing atop the tall tanks, well, they wouldn’t think to link him to the guy in the orange shirt…

Far from not thinking his crime through, Watts was trying to think of everything. He arguably got many of the technical aspects right, but failed dismally at the social game. Not only could he not explain where Shan’ann had gone in a convincing way, he failed to predict  human behaviors, including how Shan’ann’s best friend and her son would respond to her disappearance.

He also seemed to overestimate his own social game, or as it turned out, lack of.

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Further reading: The Story Behind the T-Shirt Chris Watts was wearing during his Sermon on the Porch

Chris Watts: “Most Likely to Spend Daddy’s Money” and other T-Shirts

6771dd8dcccda2735e3ceb1180156abf1961-Conoco-Oil-Gas-Continental-Company-Ad-theVintage Conoco Gas Pumpdownload (3)

Above image courtesy Jamie Kripke.

Chris Watts caught on CCTV camera on the night of his last date, moments after his final tryst with Nichol Kessinger [Updated]

After their meal at the Lazy Dog on Saturday night [August 11th], Watts and Nichol Kessinger had their final intimate encounter.

From her home Watts drove to his home, but stopped at a gas station on the way to draw babysitting cash for McKenna Lindstrom.

Below is a map showing the route from Watts’ home to Kessinger’s place on Claude Court.

The closest gas station on that route is at 3768 State Highway 52.

McKenna described Watts that night wearing a white-t-shirt and black jeans.

The screengrabs below are from 22:19 to 22:22. McKenna and her mother Jennifer said Watts arrived home late that night, at around 22:30. He’d agreed to be home by 22:00.

At first glance the brunette on the right in the screengrab below appears to be Nichol Kessinger. But the label on her shirt and the fact that she appears later with her back to the camera, counting notes for him from behind the counter, suggests she was a convenience store worker.

Many thanks to a follower of CrimeRocket who brought this info to my attention, but asked to remain anonymous.

Shan’ann’s Last Love Letter to Chris Watts [UPDATED]

At 13:37 on August 9th, Shan’ann sent a photo of her final love letter to her husband. The letter is undated, and the pages following the first page are missing. The original letter, so far as we know, has never been found.

The text of the first page of Shan’ann’s last letter reads:

My Dearest Chris. [Heart] [Dearest was originally written “deerest” and the second “e” later overwritten with an “a”.]

I don’t know where to begin….I am so lost for words [at a loss for words]. I can’t even explain how hard this pain is. The last 5 weeks have been the hardest. I missed everything about you. I missed your morning breath, your touch, your lips/kisses, I missed holding you! I missed smelling you in the sheets, I missed talking to you in person. I missed watching you laugh and play with the kids. That I love so much about you. I missed seeing you naked and on top of me making love to me. OMG I missed having you around when I felt alone and upset. I just flat out missed the hell out of you. we haven’t been away from each other that long since 2012.

The second paragraph has a clear change in tone compared to the first.

I really don’t know how “we fell out of compatibility” or if that is someone elses words. the only thing that change this month was everything going down with you family.  IO can’t change what happened, but I can ‘ try to wor k thing s out with you with them. But there has to be a mutual respect for everyone. I definitely deserve an apology because of Celeste. I can suck up her going against everything I said to our kid. But our daughters life…

Shan’ann left the letter on the counter for Watts on August 10th, and asked him to write a letter back to her.

Further reading: Chris Watts Love Letters to Nichol Kessinger: “I love how your booty smells and tastes”

“She wants more marshmallows.” “Okay.” – More Insight into the Watts Family Dynamic

At 01:32 in the video below, Shan’ann absently tells her husband, “She wants more marshmallows.” Watts immediately responds and exits out of the background. The whole video is worth watching, if only to get a sense of how Watts is basically there but not there. He tries initially to contribute, but ultimately is excluded from the video, even though the two children are often addressed directly. Watts is never addressed. He’s never asked:

“Hey Chris, what do you think?”

Instead he’s often addressed in the third person, as if he’s not actually there.

At 5:02 Shan’ann turns the camera onto Bella and says, “You’re cuter than daddy. We’ll just have you…talk to the crowd.”

Cindy Watts has thus far been dismissed as little more than “the monster’s mother”. In some of the few interviews she’s given, she’s said she didn’t like the way Shan’ann spoke of him to her, and possibly didn’t like the way she spoke to him.

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#ChrisWatts

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At 03:48 in the raw video of Cindy Watts, she says:

Christopher was…[shakes her head with agitation] always seemed anxious. And he…er…when she needed something, I mean he would run. He wouldn’t walk, he would run. He would get it. He just always seemed to right there…a-at her beck and call. 

REPORTER: Did that seem odd to you?

Very odd. It was very odd. He just seemed nervous. 

Has Cindy highlighted something here that was a real issue for her son, or are her comments unreliable exaggerations?

Page 58 of the Discovery Documents highlights an insight from someone who actually lived with the Watts family for two months in 2017. That’s a lot of inside access. Cristina Meacham refers to Watts getting aggravated while hanging a picture by Shan’ann’s input. She also mentions Watts feeling Shan’ann was often putting the kids first, ahead of him.

In the video cited above, that appears to be the case, doesn’t it – the children brought forward while he is pushed to the background.

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