True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek
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.
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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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Idk why that letter is giving me creepy vibes.
Not a well written letter. But it does show that the weeks away, and CW’s own aloofness, had fully alienated CW from Shannan and Bella and Celeste. It was mutual.
My thoughts exactly. Was this Shan’anns brother or her father? Either way, they don’t seem very intelligent. The grammar, tenses, sentence fragments and punctuation make the letter difficult to read. Shan’ann appeared to be the way she was due to the fact that her parents handled everything for her, yet they don’t seem all that capable themselves.
I feel like the parents in this story acted more like children then functioning adults. Sad.
I believe it was her father. Yes, very unfortunate.
WTF? what do you know from reading a short letter…They are DEAD
Parents acting like children,” they” lost their CHILD…..The watts didn’t and cindy watts was the most childish moron of anyone…… and YOU don’t seem very intelligent yourself..have a great day
It was Shanann’s Dad who wrote that painful letter.
I have to say I’m astonished at some comments regarding the Rzucek family. While Frank Rzucek may not have been a Rhodes scholar, he isn’t guilty of murdering anyone either. Who would you rather have as a neighbor? Moral matter, higher-ed achievement, not so much.
The letter was written by the father.
What’s creepy about it is no one talks to each other. No one asks “what’s going on with you two?” Or to Chris “why are you acting this way?” The family just seems to observe, take mental notes, and wonder.
Good observation.
You’re right. It’s because everyone tip toed around Shan’ann, from Chris to her parents. Her parents were clueless when it came to Shan’ann’s marriage and finances because Shan’ann wanted it that way and no one dared to question her.
Eerie. And the children sensed something wasn’t right with him as well. It’s tragic they were left alone with Chris during that fatal weekend in August. However, despite his uncharacteristic behavior, who would have imagined he would murder all of them. Along these lines, I still find it perplexing that Chris’s behavior toward Shan’ann and the children seemed to change so abruptly during the five weeks he was on his own in Colorado. It’s as if a lid had been lifted off a simmering pressure cooker, the heat turned up to high, and the water was finally free to breach the pot onto the stove. There were likely signs that preceded the more noticeable ones in August, but the same lack of familial inquisitiveness noted by Sylvester may have informed a blindness to them.
I think you must be right because presumably he was having the affair with NK prior to those weeks away.
On the other hand in light of that, one wonders why Shannan texted him to the effect: “How do you fall out of love in 5 weeks? Before I left you couldn’t keep your hands off me.” That would seem to indicate that he didn’t fall in love with NK until those weeks that his family was in NC.
Good points. However, prior to the five-week love fest, he was likely experiencing a growing attraction to NK, resulting in sexual tension and arousal, ergo not being able to keep his hands off of Shan’ann. Moreover, what Shan’ann interpreted as “love,” could have been Chis’s using her sexually to enact the erotic fantasies he was probably having about NK. Sometimes “making love” is more about proximity and projection than a deep-seated desire for the one you’re with.
Interesting, and a good point. Sad for Shannan. I can see that happening though, and I suppose once they spent more time together and he realized he was in love, he now lost all interest in Shannan and obviously the children as well.
And why were the girls left alone with CW that fateful, fatal weekend? Purely because of SW’s MLM addiction and obsession with putting her “Thrive” scam ahead of everything else in her life, including her family.
Don’t be ridiculous. That was her job and obviously they needed the money. Also, what’s wrong to leave your children with their own father whilst you are at work, considering that Shanann worked from home and spent all the time with them.
No. You’ve missed the point. SW was off on an expensive MLM boondoggle that weekend, that she/they had to pay for, that she was required to attend or lose her bonuses. The Watts had to pay for all those trips, you know, and they were flat broke. It was outrageously irresponsible for SW to take off to Phx for a Thrive rah-rah weekend, especially after just getting back from a 6-week vacation. She was not making any money; if she had been, they wouldn’t have been drowning in debt, all credit cards maxed, several months behind on their mortgage (again), SW taking $10K out of CW’s 401K retirement account just to try to catch up the mortgage payments in arrears a few months earlier, over a year overdue on their HOA dues to the point that the HOA was scheduled to take them to court within days of SW’s murder – she was not making any money! If she was actually pulling in earnings, it would have been reflected in the family’s financial situation – the fact that it was so dire shows that her “job” was a sham, a fraud.
There is something to blame for all of this: our dependence on social media, cell phones, computers, devices. And of course LeVel, which plays a big part in all of this. In a 1958 interview Aldous Huxley talks about the enemies of freedom. He draws a parallel between Hitler’s use of propaganda to sway a whole population of people – to television (which in 1958 would have been relatively new. In his opinion television does not create anything but instead “drums in” a singular idea over and over to distract too many people all of the time. Isn’t our reliance on social media, pitching products on social media pitching ourselves on social media and preoccupation with our phones turn us more insular and do the opposite of what they are intended to do for us – make us dependent on them, remove talking to others as a preferred method of communication and allow us to be able to hide behind our lies and enslave us and perpetuate the notion that all is well when it isn’t.
Good point, and you have to wonder how the Watts marriage and family would have functioned prior to iPhones and social media.
I’ve considered this as well. I listened to an interview today with a woman who formerly worked for Le-Vel, and claimed she was on Shan’ann’s team. She was new to selling Thrive, and she talked about how many of Shan’ann’s (and many others) Thrive spiels are scripted by the up-line.
More interestingly, she mentioned that they were all supposed to use the “80/20” rule. 80 percent of what you put on social media was supposed to be about your “lifestyle”. This would include sharing family moments on a regular basis. 20 percent was to be specificly promoting Thrive as a product.
This woman discussed how eventually, her husband intervened and told her it was ruining their family life. She said she was constantly interrupting genuine moments to grab her camera so she could film them and share them with the world.
It is obviously not just Shan’ann who is guilty of this kind of over-sharing, but she definitely took it to an extreme. (The Santa video is a prime example.) And of course, MLM’s are about the worst thing you could bring into your life in this day and age if you want a healthy balance between real life and social media/the internet. I think Chris really seriously despised all the Thrive nonsense, and I think he ultimately blamed that on his wife. I can’t help but believe this played a huge roll in the downfall of the Watts family.
Yes, I would find it intolerable. She needed a normal job and to just be done with all that foolishness. I think Chris was able to kill his daughters because in his mind Shannan had already turned them into Thrive sales pitches and had cut off normal access for him.
Not the only thing to blame, didn’t mean to imply that.
Understood.
Kids are very intuitive but these little girls seem to really be expressing that they are feeling something is different with Watts. Not only here but way Mr Rzcuek explained in his interview how the girls would scream for Shan’ann in the airport instead of for Chris. I don’t think Chris liked Shan’ann at all by the time he killed her and I believe that by this time he has also grown quite a dislike for the little ones. I believe he thought they were acting too much like Shan’ann and certainly beginning to treat him the way she did. I feel like this may have been a missed opportunity for Mr Rzcuek to give up a lot more information since he was on the inside. He said it was strange for Chris to go out and lay on the floor so either Shan’ann literally told them nothing of what was going on or he was not paying attention. That was certainly nothing like the letter Sandi wrote
Karen, I agree. As I stated above, I think Chris had come to downright despise Shan’ann.
Her name is Shanann not Shan’nan
If you’re going to correct someone you’d better make sure you’re right
I assumed her name was Shan’ann but I find it easier to just type Shannan 😂
What about the role of maternal instinct? What about the red flags flying that Spring/Summer? It seems as if no one was paying attention to blatant signals that July/August. Shan’Ann felt worried about the girls when she was in Arizona, but not before she left for that trip. Chris’s behaviour became very unusual and Shan’Ann suspected an affair, but carried on as usual.