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

Month: January 2019 (Page 2 of 8)

Guest Post: Pondering the financial angle

In true crime we often don’t see the wood for the trees. It’s always useful to get some perspective on what we’re looking at, and to make sure we’re not too close to or familiar with our case, by looking elsewhere [either the real world or other analogous true crime cases].

This post by Ralph Oscar does that. It not only humanizes Shan’ann and Chris Watts financial circumstances, but personalizes how they may have responded to them:

I was pondering the financial angle, which I feel is the wild, drunken elephant in the room in this case. I was talking to a new acquaintance online, who revealed that he was twice divorced. Something he said brought to mind the Watts case, and so I’ve been quizzing him about the finances of divorce 

He and his first wife divorced in a state with *permanent* alimony. Even though his ex now has a really good tech sector job, he still must pay her alimony. He’s asked if they can change this; she says no. Who would turn down free money? He remarried, had two daughters. His financial situation has never recovered – he’s been unable to set aside anything for his two daughters’ college. He lives paycheck to paycheck, and meanwhile, there sits his first wife, who is earning good money, receiving permanent alimony. He describes the two divorces with child support/alimony leaving him with “virtually nothing”. Some of his observations:

“It’s virtually impossible to stop or modify the alimony as long as she wants it. I’d attempt to talk to her and she’d say things like ‘would you stop taking money if you didn’t have to?’”

“It can get pretty bad financially when you’re busting your ass at work and doing well but still taking home as much as if you were working for minimum wage. The wife getting alimony … lives in a paid off home with her mom.”

“Meanwhile I can’t save to retire although I can modify or stop the alimony when I’m ready to. The catch 22 is that I can’t save to retire but that’s the only way to stop it.”

“Many angry men and a few women in my shoes. Very frustrating but you need to make it work somehow.”

“I can’t honestly relate to the idea of killing someone to avoid giving them money but I do understand how another might get there. I also can’t honestly say I’d mourn her passing if that did happen. I’ve joked about loosening the lugs on her car wheels but that’s just out of frustration, etc.”

“I haven’t been able to recover financially. I’ve gotten raises at work and the dollar amount of my commissions increase but never enough to pay bills without having anxiety about next week or next month.”

“I had two daughters with my second wife and haven’t been able to save anything towards college.”

“The person making the payments becomes nothing more than a source to enable the other to be ok with no consideration regarding its affect on the payer.”

“The ex who receives the alimony seems to feel fully entitled to my money to this day. If I bring it up in any shape or form she will move away or discontinue the conversation immediately.”

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While Colorado is not a permanent alimony state, in 2014 a new law went into effect that prescribed a formula for how to determine spousal maintenance payments: 40% of the higher-earning spouse’s income minus 50% of the lower-earning spouse’s income. Shan’Ann would finally have incentive to come clean about how much she was *not* making on her “business”, or at least there would finally be an accounting of just how much it was *costing* her to make that income amount (which means that’s not the actual income). If she’d been making $80K/yr in actual income, they’d have been paying their bills. That’s all there is to it.

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While my acquaintance would never countenance murder (he has two daughters from that first marriage), he is clear that the financial fallout of his two divorces, particularly that first one with the permanent alimony, has changed his life for the worse. His perspective is that the financial situation for the Watts family was likely a very important factor in Chris Watts’ deciding to do what he did.

If Chris and Shan’Ann had won the lottery the day before the murders, I’m confident there wouldn’t have been any murders.

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The Atkinson Transcripts – Nickole describes Shan’ann and Chris Watts “screwin’ like rabbits” before her trip to North Carolina [#7 of 15]

On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.

CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.

The seventh part includes:

  • Nickole describes Shan’ann and Watts “screwin’ like rabbits” before she left for North Carolina
  • A strange initial denial that there weren’t any relationship problems between Shan’ann and her husband
  • Nickole describing a “falling out” between Shan’ann and Watts’ parents
  • Nickole making the obvious comment about “of you wanted to leave someone why wouldn’t you take your bag that was already packed…

Listen to the analysis of this excerpt for $1 on Patreon.

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The audio for the above transcript is available here.

The next excerpt deals in more detail with the dynamics of Shan’ann and Watts’ relationship from Nickole’s perspective.

Coming soon…

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GUEST POST: Did the murders happen in the bedroom or the basement?

The post below is from a reader who asked to remain anonymous. Thank you for your thought provoking contribution!

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…did Shan’ann, not seeing her husband immediately as she entered the home, decide to head downstairs where Chris Watts had admittedly been sleeping and working out the last several weeks or months to find him and speak with him face to face?

Anxious and with blatant and bold determination to wait not a moment longer to confront him right then, an argument could have taken place over something as simple as Chris’s last credit card charge that Shan’ann had been alerted to on her phone.

Could it have been an argument in the basement of their Saratoga Trail home, near the foot of the downstairs steps and across from Chris’s bed where Shan’ann was killed; rather than by a totally unexpected, surprise blitz attack from behind her at the foot of the stairs? There are two main reasons why neither of these possibilities should be discounted.

The first reason is the fact that the dogs that were brought into the Saratoga Trail home on the 14th of August trained to sniff for possible trauma or traumatic events alerted that some sort of event, such as an argument or possibly even an altercation may have occurred in a few places within that house.

Curiously, one area where a trauma dog provided an alert was in the basement, near where the bed in which Chris Watts slept was situated.

Eager to talk to her husband and find some resolution to the tumult that had become their lives in the months leading up to the murders of her and her children, it’s a definite possibility that after entering her home if she did not see Chris Watts at first, Shan’ann proceeded down the stairs leading to the basement to talk to him. Perhaps an argument began downstairs. Shan’ann, oblivious to the fact that her children MAY have been deceased at that point in time, would not have thought twice or worried about talking loudly or even yelling in her interaction with Chris if they were way down in the depths of their home because she knew it was highly unlikely the children could hear anything or be woken up by noise that far down from where they slept.

If she went downstairs to find and or confront her husband after arriving home in those early morning hours and an argument did ensue in the basement, the possibility that she was murdered there cannot be ruled out. Then however, we are still left with the how of the logistics of her strangulation. The autopsy report for Shan’ann Watts states that she died by means of strangulation/asphyxiation. Yet, one of the biggest mysteries in this case that still requires much in depth questioning and examination, must be how absolutely no visible defensive marks or wounds were found on Shan’ann. The only thing found were finger shaped bruises on one side of her neck. That begs the question once again of how could her murder have been carried out in a way that essentially left her completely disabled to fight back in any manner?

Is it possible that given the supremely high state and level of extreme fitness Chris Watts had worked diligently to commit himself to by the time these murders took place, coupled with the fact of an almost guaranteed physiological adrenaline surge while committing the murder, that he was able to lift his wife right off of her feet; off of the ground and continue to hold her up, one hand firmly held to one side of her neck, compressing her caryodid artery in precisely the right location for the necessary length of time to end her life? If this is possible, it’s also possible the murder really could’ve taken place either downstairs or on the main level of the house at the foot of the stairs. If her murder took place in this manner, the location of her murder becomes less important in a sense.

The reason this premise is even a possibility is because not only were there no defensive wounds or marks found on Shan’ann, but even with Shan’ann’s perfectly groomed and religiously upkept long fingernails, there were absolutely no obviously visible scratches, bites, cuts or even minor abrasions found on Chris Watts either. Even further; to the public’s knowledge, no trace of blood, urine or other bodily fluids were found on any carpeted areas in the Watts home.

If Shan’ann was killed down in the basement and some form of bodily fluid or excretions were present during or afterward her being killed, wouldn’t a more comprehensive and effective clean up on a concrete surface be even a little bit quicker, easier and more efficient than attempting to remove all trace of DNA evidence from plush, medium depth, light colored carpeting found on the main and upper levels of home? We do know from the discovery documents in this case that it was noted the home smelled of bleach and cleaning fluids when first entered by the Atkinsons and law enforcement the afternoon of August 13th.

Obviously, swabs for DNA can be collected and tested from almost any surface. Therefore, if when Shan’ann was killed, her face was pressed directly against carpet, possible bleeding from her nose or mouth due to pressure being exerted on her head, cheeks or some area of her face, while up against even a carpeted surface should leave blood/fluid stains that would be quite difficult to get rid of in all traces, especially in a very limited time period in terms of clean up. However, the same thing would have occurred if Shan’ann was in fact strangled at the bottom of the basement stairs. If her head or face was pressed up against any surface really while her heart was still actively pumping blood through the organs of her body, there would have been evidence of bruising in and around her face and yet, apparently, there was absolutely nothing. Are we to believe this strangulation occurred in midair? Extremely difficult, yet perhaps not impossible.

The Second Reason

After reviewing all of the discovery evidence available, I concur with Nick’s view that a premeditated murder would almost guarantee Bella and Celeste were already dead when their mother returned home. This scenario would also indicate that Chris Watts would not want to risk his wife heading upstairs to check the girls first thing after arriving home. If one goes with this train of thought, perhaps the possibility of Shan’ann being murdered in the basement must be abandoned.

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Yet once again, given the limited amount of evidence that we have to indicate anything to the contrary, the thought must at least be explored that Shan’ann could have met her end in the basement.

I think her feelings and internal drive of extreme anxiousness and desperation at that point in time in terms of her need to confront and immediately speak to her husband, cannot be entirely discounted.

Therefore, unless she happened to see Chris Watts almost as soon as she walked in the front door of that house, I believe it’s quite probable that Shan’ann’s first thought was to locate and confront Chris Watts.

She had likely finally realized Chris had to have been lying to her for months and she wanted, needed to hear the whole truth once and for all and to hear it directly from him. If that was her final wish, it’s highly unlikely her husband granted it. 

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This is the moment Watts admits for the first time: “I cheated on her”

It happens on the second night of the interrogations, at roughly seven minutes into the fifth hour [after seven total hours including the previous night]. Interestingly, Agent Coder doesn’t ask Watts at this point if he’s cheating. He does the opposite.

For several minutes leading up to this moment, both agents reinforce Watts’ ego, telling him what a good man and father he is, and how much everyone likes him. Coder, choosing his moment, then tells Watts there is something they know he is lying about [besides the polygraph].

That’s when Watts says barely audibly at 06:52:

I cheated on her. 

 

It’s a significant moment, and even a breakthrough, not because Watts has told them anything they don’t know, but because it was the first big step in getting him to tell the truth, a big truth, after countless hours of back-to-back lying.

Once the truth of the affair was revealed, and it was important to have him “confess it”, it was easier to lead him towards volunteering more information about his family.

The Atkinson Transcripts [#6 of 15]

On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.

CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.

The sixth part includes:

  • A description of the couch in the loft where Nicolas Atkinson retrieved Shan’ann’s phone.
  • Nickole Atkinson can’t confirm after the phone was turned on, if only text messages were coming through, or if notifications were coming through as the phone connected to the WiFi [if it did].
  • Nickole also describes the suspicious situation surrounding Shan’ann’s purse. It seems she found after she returned from the Trinatich house after initially searching for it and not finding it.

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The audio for the above transcript is available here.

Deeter goes to Hospital, Baby Monitor Footage, Bella putting doll under Green Blanket, Shan’ann mocks her husband and the Trip to Punta Cana – Watts Family Photos February/March 2017

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Notice in the image below, the sheet in the background is of the same type used to dispose of her body.

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Here we see Bella wrapping her father and her doll in a blanket, which goes some way to showing that it is possible she wrapped the doll in the twister mat. 

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If Watts was a dutiful husband, this sort of thing couldn’t have been very encouraging especially posted on social media. Scroll down to read the comments.

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The Atkinson Transcripts [#5 of 15]

On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.

CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.

The fifth part includes:

  • The fact that it was Watts job to do the laundry [all the laundry].
  • The obvious assessment that Watts couldn’t strip the bed if Shan’ann was still asleep in it [and Shan’ann would never have thrown the sheets on the floor].
  • Nickole’s response to Watts announcing that he’d “found” Shan’ann’s wedding ring.
  • The unusual circumstances around the discovery of the phone.

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The audio for the above transcript is available here.

Note: TCRS provides video commentary and analysis of the Atkinson Transcripts, including clips from the actual audio of Nickole’s interview, in a companion series to these blog posts available on Patreon.

At 34:35 in the clip below, Watts heads into the master bedroom and comes out holding Shan’ann’s ring.

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This is how an elite Defense Lawyer could take on the Watts case, and win…

The case against Amanda Knox is a useful reference case for the Chris Watts case, particularly in the area of the interrogation. Watts’ interrogation was long and exhausting. It involved three hours on Tuesday night [August 13] followed by seven hours the next day [August 14]. It could also be argued that he was informally interrogated for four additional hours, between 14:07 until around 18:00 when the cops were at his home.

If one adds the various phone calls, including several very early in the morning, the numbers on the clock really start adding up.

There are more than just a few glaring similarities between the Chris Watts case and the Amanda Knox case. For starters:

  • Both confessed [and both confessions were bogus but derived to some extent from the true facts of the crime and crime scene
  • Both implicated an innocent third party
  • Both spoke at length during their interrogations, believing [or presenting] themselves to be “helping” investigators.
  • Both went to elaborate lengths to obstruct justice [Watts by disposing of the bodies and removing evidence. Knox false accusation against Patrick Lumumba – to name one example – meant he was jailed for two weeks before he was finally cleared].
  • Both were at the scene of the crime the next day, spotted by the media and behaving not a little inappropriately, but very inappropriately. This included not just physical behavior and demeanor but many statements made to various witnesses.
  • Amanda Knox claimed “I wasn’t there” because very little evidence was found of her in Meredith Kercher’s bedroom. Although never tested in court, Watts also seemed to claim he wasn’t there [he was at work, or barbecuing] when his family disappeared or were murdered, even though they lived in the same house.
  • Both Knox and Watts suggest some unknown intruder came into the home, committed murder, took virtually nothing and left no traces of themselves.

The list goes on…

Amanda Knox Says ‘Coercive’ Police Interrogation Led Her to Change Her Story – Time

Chris Watts mother says he didn’t kill daughters Bella and Celeste; claims he was coerced into taking a plea deal – CrimeOnline

Amanda Knox tells court police hit her during interrogation – Guardian

Italy Wrongly Deprived Amanda Knox of Legal Counsel, Court Rules – New York Times

How Foxy Knoxy changed her tune about the night Meredith was murdered – Daily Mail

Amanda Knox’s Confession

The Illegal Interrogation of Amanda Knox

To understand how easily a top defense lawyer could have mounted a successful defense in the Watts case, we need only take a casual look at the Amanda Knox case, and how she was able to beat almost all the charges against her over the course of a multi-year court battle against the Italian courts. [Knox was convicted of slandering Patrick Lumumba, and later Knox and her parents were accused of slandering the police but not convicted].

A key part of Knox’s defense was to undermine, invalidate and challenge the police interrogation against her. So despite living in the house opposite the room where Meredith Kercher was stabbed to death, the real criminals – the real suspects – weren’t her and her boyfriend. It was the dodgy, abusive cops. That’s who people should have looked at. The real crime wasn’t someone stabbing Kercher in the throat [burying the blade so far into her throat it stopped at the hilt]. The real violence were the two SLAPS Knox received while the cops were talking to her.

And the police are to blame for the fact that the suspects didn’t call their lawyers. Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s boyfriend at the time, was offered legal aid by a family member and rejected it. Knox’s aunt also repeatedly advised her to contact the embassy/consulate. It seems it’s okay if family make these advisements and the suspects reject them, but it’s not okay if the cops don’t [or allegedly don’t].

Knox’s father appeared to hire a PR firm at the same time lawyers were hired to clean up the mess. How the narrative is configured: The police should have told the suspects that them being questioned in the police station about a murder in their home meant they were potentially at legal peril [otherwise they would have no way of knowing].

We know in the Watts case that he was repeatedly told he could leave the interrogation at any time, and he also received advice from friends and family [Nick Thayer and his father Ronnie Watts respectively] to get a lawyer. Despite his dumb refusal to get legal advice, Watts could have a lawyer plead the case that like Amanda Knox [and Brendan Dassey], Watts was tricked, coerced, tortured, manipulated and confessed under duress.

While there is some evidence to support this defense, what’s all clear is Watts did commit murder in his own home, and did tamper with evidence, and did move the bodies. Nevertheless, his best defense isn’t to defend the merits of his case, but to attack the police interrogation and investigation.

Theoretically he could also claim that a minor, Nicolas Atkinson, contaminated and compromised the crime scene [framed him, set him up etc] and that the officer on the scene [Coonrod] was negligent or reckless in “allowing” this to happen.

In the Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson cases, there is muddiness around the moment of arrest, and whether the suspects knew they were being arrested, whether they were arrested, and whether the right procedures were followed. As soon as a suspect is arrested, ironically, they win a series of inalienable rights, while at the same time, law enforcement must follow strict protocols. Top defense lawyers are experts in finding loopholes in where or whether these protocols weren’t followed to the letter.

When a murder is committed, and a suspect emerges, the cops have a right to question that person [whether they are a witness, a person of interest or an “official” suspect]. It’s in society’s interest that law enforcement exercise this right to question or interrogate, otherwise everyone would get away with murder. Also, the sooner they can question the better.

We often see when a suspect is guilty, their main tool is not only to deceive, but also to delay. The more time that passes [especially where bodies are missing], the more it plays into their favor.

As mentioned, the process of arresting and interrogating is tricky though. While the cops have the rights to ask questions, the person they wish to question also has rights, including the right to remain silent.

It all becomes muddy when the suspect gives up the right to remain silent and the cops may pretend or manipulate the situation, basically playing along that they know less than they really do, or don’t really believe the person in their custody is guilty [when they do, or have strong reason to].

If both sides are trying to manipulate the other side, even if the suspect is lying, the legal case tends to favor the defense side. It’s seen as unseemly that law enforcement would use deception or underhandedness to catch their killer, and to some extent this is justified.

The flip side though, is this:

A murderer is a liar. If the cops were 100% upfront about everything, there would be little point in having an interrogation. Just give the suspect a clipboard to tick off a few questions and let them go. But in the grey area of true crime, a suspect has to be able to explain and reason their behavior to the cops, and this can become a game of psychological warfare. Who decides when that line is crossed, or where it is?

In the Knox case, a big part of her accusation that she was misled lay in her claim that she couldn’t speak Italian, and thus was in the dark about what was really happening to her. While we can clearly hear her speaking fluent Italian in the video clips below [one months after her arrest], and while it’s clear her boyfriend at the time was Italian [and he could hardly speak English], the onus does fall on the cops [even though they were Italian], to have made provision for an interpreter. So while the actual argument is probably not sound [or true], the legal argument is another matter.

When Watts took the polygraph test, he was given a demonstration where he was told to lie, and shown the results. This test was meant to provide unambiguous proof that he understood the English language, understood the difference between right and wrong [telling the truth and lying], and took the test anyway.

Another aspect that made it difficult for Knox to be prosecuted was the huge amount of negative PR coming from America [and later from Britain] directed at the Italian police and justice system.

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The Knox PR camp successfully turned a criminal case into a political one. This meant Italy [the country] had more to gain by not convicting Knox than by convicting her.

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It also became a lot more difficult to execute on the confessions on Knox when the interrogation and the police were being undermined in the media.

Now, at the zenith of the #MeToo movement, we see a European court – more than ten years after the criminal trial – upholding Knox’s “human rights”.

In theory, had Watts taken his case to trial, a top defense lawyer could have surfed this wave of his clients rights being violated at every turn. In addition to that, if he admitted to being bisexual, he could also question the motives of the imputed murderer of the children, and the rush to judgement by the cops to be a form of conscious or subconscious discrimination.

In the OJ Simpson case the acquittal wasn’t for lack of evidence, but because the jury sympathized and identified with the race of the defendant, and further, wanted revenge against an allegedly racist detective [Mark Fuhrman].

In true crime, and criminal law, we want the criminals to be evil and absolutely guilty, and the cops chasing them to be completely good, and completely innocent in their police work and interrogations.

Defense lawyers know the cops are only human, and as far as the law is concerned, that can trump the guilt of the defendant. If there is no reasonable doubt by way of the defendant, the methods used by the cops can be used to manufacture it. There’s no doubt that Watts was manipulated and misled during his interrogation. There’s also no doubt that he was actively manipulating and actively misleading about three murders and a recent burial of all three bodies. Sometimes the manipulation of the cops can turn a case, and a verdict, as we see in the Knox case.

Sometimes a degree of play-acting by law enforcement seems necessary and even justified. As they say, it takes a thief to catch a thief. In the Watts case we see how it takes the same foxy thinking to outwit and catch a liar and a murder, especially as they are doing everything they can to avoid telling the truth, being caught or held to account for their crimes. Ultimately, just as in the Knox confession, even when Watts did confess, the confession was a lie.

During their respective interrogations, the cops finally offered both Watts and Knox a way out, an exit, and both took it and ran with it. Both took the bait of blaming and implicating someone else.

In the Watts case, what this revealed was that his “disappeared” family were dead, all of them murdered, and he knew it. He’d known it all along. The fact that he could nonchalantly play act with the cops for hours on end, with a straight face, knowing they were dead is what horrifies us.

But at the moment he acknowledged the lie the cops offered him, that Shan’ann had killed his daughters, he admitted a) that he knew they were dead and b) that he was there when they died. Then, automatically he became the prime suspect not in a missing person’s case but in a homicide investigation.

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In the Amanda Knox case, the moment she acknowledged hearing Lumumba murdering Meredith, she also admitted being at the scene during her murder. But the outcome of that bogus confession has since favored her, hasn’t it? Perhaps in due course Watts will appeal along this very same tenuous line of defense. Do you think he’ll win or that he should?

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