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

Discovery Documents Contextual Timeline – August 14th, 15th, 16th [49th Tranche]

Tuesday August 14th, 2018

fullscreen capture 20190120 035454fullscreen capture 20190120 040013


Wednesday August 15th, 2018fullscreen capture 20190120 040555fullscreen capture 20190120 040301fullscreen capture 20190120 032152fullscreen capture 20190120 041113

fullscreen capture 20190120 040216fullscreen capture 20190120 041120fullscreen capture 20190120 041135fullscreen capture 20190120 040843

https://youtu.be/ER9BcQUbVk4

fullscreen capture 20190120 040856fullscreen capture 20190120 035947fullscreen capture 20190120 040622fullscreen capture 20190120 035415fullscreen capture 20190120 040231fullscreen capture 20190120 041052fullscreen capture 20190120 035344

fullscreen capture 20190120 040800


Thursday August 16th, 2018fullscreen capture 20190120 040037fullscreen capture 20190120 072313fullscreen capture 20190120 041219fullscreen capture 20190120 041549fullscreen capture 20190120 041712fullscreen capture 20190120 041728fullscreen capture 20190120 041749fullscreen capture 20190120 041814fullscreen capture 20190120 041848fullscreen capture 20190120 042210fullscreen capture 20190120 042331fullscreen capture 20190120 042459fullscreen capture 20190120 042521fullscreen capture 20190120 042551fullscreen capture 20190120 042614fullscreen capture 20190120 042633fullscreen capture 20190120 042725fullscreen capture 20190120 042806fullscreen capture 20190120 042839fullscreen capture 20190120 043540fullscreen capture 20190120 043553fullscreen capture 20190120 043609fullscreen capture 20190120 043643fullscreen capture 20190120 043659fullscreen capture 20190120 043734fullscreen capture 20190120 043800fullscreen capture 20190120 043820fullscreen capture 20190120 072322fullscreen capture 20190120 072330

15 Comments

  1. Clean Queen

    While I am waiting for the fifth book, “Drilling Through Discovery” to be released, I have been reading Nick’s books on Jodi Arias. They are just so incredibly good! Revisiting the case after all this time, through Nick and Lisa’s writing has been fascinating.
    One thing that I have noticed as I read the fourth book regarding Jodi is that Travis Alexander and Shan’ann Watts have A LOT in common. This is especially true when it comes to their involvement with MLM’s. (Travis with Pre-Paid Legal, and Shan’ann with Thrive.) There is a quote in the book that says something along the lines of: “Travis was Pre-Paid Legal, and Pre-Paid Legal was Travis”. This is probably even more true if you replace Travis‘s name with Shan’ann’s. The similarities in their personalities and personal situations that ultimately led to their downfalls are uncanny!

  2. Nick

    Glad you’re enjoying that series.

    Magical thinking is a bitch, isn’t it?.

    I’ve noticed Nickole Atkinson, like Jodi, is a big proponent of The Secret hogwash. If you speak it you can have it. If you lie (in a murder trial, in a relationship or to your diary) you can change your reality, find love and control your fate. Except you can’t.

  3. Sylvester

    I asked a friend today if I could conduct a little experiment on her bed – no, not that kind of experiment. I wanted to see what shapes would show up on the mattress cover after I removed the sheets. I could see what side of the bed she slept on – it had the same sort of indentation and wrinkling as on Watt’s bed. Then she laid on the other side of the bed curled up, and again, same as Watt’s mattress cover. I believe Watts yanked the bedding off his bed and just as he said, used the contour sheet to transport her to the burial site.

    It’s also possible that her face may have come into contact with the pillow cases, as after testing her makeup in the purple makeup bag didn’t they say there was some kind of glitter-like substance on one of the cases? That would be consistent with her eye shadow, and the other pillow case looks to me like smeared mascara. This does not mean she went to bed with her makeup on and was killed in her sleep. It only means, to me, it was a resting place as he was packing her up. Or he could have used a pillow case over her head to muffle sounds. Afterwards there would be no reason to keep those sheets, and so into the trash they went. There they may have picked up other debris from the trash, or something that drained on them (like that Starbucks container).

    Wherever he killed her he had to lift her up onto the bed, more hard work for him, as he then had to carry her back downstairs and into the truck, but he was fit, and up to the task.

    I also didn’t know there was another scratch or mark on his neck. They said he had no signs of a struggle on him but if they identified two marks on his neck that says struggle to me. May have come from either Shan’ann or Bella.

    • nickvdl

      Great detective work Sylvester. It may be he stripped the sheets to hide the imprint [as you put it]. But it may also be that he did it to hide the fact that she never slept in the bed. There’s also a 3rd possibility. He simply needed something to carry her corpse in.

      There are few “receptacles” in the home that can easily be used to transport an adult human body. Bins etc are too big and bulky. It’s possible he used the sheet to cover her with to sequestrate her [and evidence of himself] from the crime scene. Something similar happened in the Ramsey and Amanda Knox cases. This sheet performed the same function when he transported her – it separated her body fluids from him and vice versa. Also hairs and fibers. When the sheet is removed it can be flapped vigorously into the air and a lot of the touch DNA would simply float away.

      If it was a windy day at Cervi, it’s possible the sheet did blow off and he lost track of it. Imagine him digging and raking and when he looks again, the sheet is not there…

      It may also be that he never revisited the thought of how he was going to explain the bed narrative simply because she was supposed to have arrived much sooner that night, and so it would have been obvious [or seemed obvious] that she’d gone to bed and also obvious that they probably would have had a confrontation given what went down Saturday and so on. What many folks don’t give Watts credit for [and I use this term loosely] is for operating in an extremely sleep deprived state. Most who imagine Shan’ann slept that night naturally imagine he did too. But the alternative is that he didn’t sleep at all because he was committing murder and actively managing the crime scene [and the bodies] right through the night. As time went by, if he was suffering from sleep deprivation, his sense of psychological compromise would simply have increased.

      When Shan’ann arrived much later he still stuck to the original game plan including his story, except it didn’t work very well. Probably he was too tired to see that.

      According to the Discovery Documents, Nickole Atkinson said Shan’ann herself expected to be up by 5 when Ceecee woke up. Three hours sleep is very little, and according to Watts it’s even less than that – just two if he woke her up at four.

      If your partner was cheating on you would you get into bed and be able to sleep next to them without saying a word? Without confronting them about any of the shit that’s been going down? Personally – could you? Some people could but I know I couldn’t.
      In Watts version after he told Shan’ann he wanted to a separation, she lay back and went to sleep. This is just as unlikely as the contention that she went to sleep in the first place.

  4. Sylvester

    Oh I agree wholeheartedly – and it’s always better when you analyze it (to me anyway) I enjoy your point of view on everything. Yes, who in the world could have the kind of tumultuous weekend she just had, walk in the front door, and collapse into bed and to sleep. No one. You would want to have a conversation. At the very least if he was asleep she would have woken him up. She would not skip merrily off to sleep. She did not remove her makeup or her bra because she didn’t have the chance to. As for her nightgown – well, he did know right where her “airport” clothes ended up – in the laundry bin as he pulled them out of the hamper before the dog search.

    There is one thing he mentions to Coder – that he didn’t tell her about the affair but “she just knew.” Then he says there were alot of “F you’s.” Since I don’t think they had an emotional conversation that night could it be he’s referring to an earlier previous argument – one in which they may have had just before she left for Arizona? Afterall, they had a few nights in between returning from NC and her going off to Arizona. Knowing what we have read about her it’s likely she brought it up, and didn’t let up.

  5. Sylvester

    Something else kind of interesting. When Ronnie Watts says he wants to make a phone call it’s Chris’s sister he wants to call – not his wife.

  6. Cate

    If I found my child dead in bed I would be on top of them too, trying to revive them, What if Chris’s description of Shan’ann on top of Celeste is true with the exception that the children were already dead? And then everything else that followed is as he described? Would that not be simpler, from the liar’s point of view?

  7. Cate

    Imagine if you will that Chris is waiting in bed for Shan’ann to come home. He knows the first thing she’ll do is check on the kids. If she comes into the master bedroom first he’ll just pretend to be asleep. He’s watching the baby monitor….she lifts Celeste’s arm and it drops as he describes, She is on top of her trying to shake her awake, and then he attacks Shan’ann as he states. Would any of the evidence disestablish that scenario?

  8. Sylvester

    I can’t see it though. Imagine checking on your kids. Do you go to their bedside and feel for a pulse? Or do you just look in on them from the doorway. Also his claim Bella was sprawled out and blue, which he saw from the monitor – the whole thing is blue. How could he make the distinction?

  9. Cate

    I don’t think that particular claim was true – it was just what he remembered himself from earlier on in the evening after he’d killed her. But I do think it could be feasible that he saw Shan’ann and the girls on the monitor.

  10. Cate

    My understanding is that a common approach by parent’s if their child is not breathing is to shake them in a panic. Feeling for a pulse is more of a medical approach.

  11. Cate

    Shan’ann would have noticed something was wrong immediately even if she’d just looked at them through the door – they would have looked strange, contorted and possibly blue.

  12. Sylvester

    Was she wearing night vision goggles?

    I’m sorry, it’s been a long day

  13. Cate

    When I come home and check on my kids I usually enter the room and look at them. The light flows in from behind me and I can see their faces. Night vision goggles usually not required! (although many mothers do have special powers!). This is not meant to dismiss the ‘killed at the bottom of the stairs’ theory – it just struck me that when Chris talks in this part of his confession he appears to be blurring lies with truth. I’m interested in what bits might be truthful. Good night (it’s daytime in this part of the world!).

  14. laralovesandrew

    Interesting that Chris describes Shan’ann’s mascara running down her face–she was meticulous about hygiene and habit–she would have taken off all makeup before sleeping. She was dressed for bed, but had not had the chance to wash her face when she was murdered.

Leave a Reply to Sylvester Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *