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

Month: October 2019 (Page 2 of 2)

Debunking Gladwell’s Analysis of Amanda Knox: #5 “Most of us aren’t very good at lie detection…”

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“Most of us aren’t very good at lie detection…”

Does this apply to true crime?

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“There may be a handful of “super-detectors”…

Yes there are, and folks like Joe Kenda [AKA Homicide Hunter] and John Douglas [AKA Mindhunter. Profiling isn’t a skill you’re born with, it’s one that’s honed, although one does need a knack for pattern-recognition and attention to detail.

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What-Time-Will-Mindhunter-Season-2-be-on-Netflix

https://youtu.be/zeKqD2g9-ic

 

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“What was Amanda Knox’s problem?”

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“Knox was confusing…”

It was pretty clear what was going on. Knox liked attention.

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“Knox was actually a bit of a misfit…”

No kidding. By the way, get this – most criminals are.

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“Mismatched are confusing and unpredictable…”

Unpredictable behavior is nevertheless predictable. df89950d148a48c56382be04e6d0bf2c

 

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The Basement Spiel and Contraindications around Shan’ann’s Immitrex – Analysis

Chris Watts slept in the basement on the last night he and Shan’ann were still together. And in North Carolina they slept apart for the entire week that he was there. In the latest book on Watts, he says he was read the riot act by Kessinger, and that although she said she wanted him to have a chance to sort things out with his family, when it came down it, she didn’t want him getting back together with Shan’ann while he was away.

If we accept this scenario, then it raises the question: when Shan’ann arrived back from Arizona, why would he sleep in bed upstairs? When he called Kessinger for 111 minutes, wouldn’t she have wanted to know the sleeping arrangements? What would he have told told her to reassure her?

At 23:52 in the video clip, Chris Watts is asked about the bed in the basement. Who is sleeping there? He stumbles over whether it was two or three nights ago. Given his spiel, that they were separating, and he was supposedly sleeping in the basement, why would he – on the night of the murders [the disappearance in his story] – sleep upstairs?

It actually makes sense given Shan’ann’s late arrival. All things being equal, had he not intended to murder her, and had they really been in the process of separating, then he’d have slept in the basement and neither of them would have seen each other the next morning. She would not have woken him up [and he wouldn’t have wanted to be woken up], and he would not have woken her up when he left [and she would not want to be woken after sleeping for two hours].

When we go through the Phone Data Review, we can see that the idea of separating, moving and selling the house had been broached before, which is why the spiel is so unlikely that he was desperate to talk to her then, at 04:00, about something she already knew. The reason he’s doing it, and the reason he’s not in his right mind [and why the whole thing doesn’t make sense], is because through this manufactured drama, he’s confirming to Kessinger that:

  1. They are separated [at the moment they’re reunited].
  2. He is moving [at the moment she’s back in Colorado for the long term].
  3. Nothing has changed [at the moment everything has changed, meaning now that the family are back to together, they’re not and he can still see her].

Through this Watts is essentially waving a wand and granting Kessinger [and himself] wish fulfillment, which makes total sense to him and her, but makes no sense to anyone else.

At 22:41 in the clip below, the officer asks about the children’s medications. Watts says Ceecee takes Singular every night for her allergies. Then there’s a minor slip.

OFFICER: She had the kids last night?

WATTS [Appearing very smug, his lower jaw hanging open in a dopey-sort of way]: Yes. 

OFFICER: Or you had the kids?

WATTS: Oh, I had the kids.

At 30:27 in the clip below, after the officer asks Watts if he has any questions [he doesn’t, but he mentions calling hospitals], he follows up asking about Shan’ann’s medical history. Did someone say she was diabetic, the officer asks.

In response Watts does a nervous lip snarl, and then starts off saying “she had” [past tense], then corrects himself. There is a lot to say here about Shan’ann health, including her pregnancy, but he doesn’t.

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The 111 minute call on the night of the murders included Phone Sex

There are several revelations in the new book about Chris Watts. Some of these revelations are apparently authored by Watts himself. I don’t believe the botched double attempted murders on his daughters [while Shan’ann was home], but I do think some aspects are true. Like the admission that the lovers had phone sex during their last 111 minute conversation on Sunday.

The 111 Minute Call on Nichol Kessinger’s Phone on the night of the murders

Why can’t Nichol Kessinger Remember her 111 Minute Conversation on the night of the murders?

#40 Sunday August 12th, 2018: The 111 Missing Minutes that Change Everything #1yearagotodayCW

This conversation was their last chance to be together before Shan’ann returned [and possibly ruined everything]. The phone sex claim certainly makes sense given the context that neither Kessinger nor Watts have previously said much regarding what that conversation was about.

Below are a few excerpts from the discovery dealing with that crucial final conversation. Given the rabid coverage of this case, it’s weird the phone sex claim hasn’t come up [as far as I’m aware] in the media.

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Coming Soon…

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Where did Chris Watts get the Oxy from? Answer provided exclusively to CrimeRocket [UPDATED]

On October 4th, 2019, Britain’s Daily Mail tabloid published an exclusive “preview” of a new book on Chris Watts, Letters from Christopher by American writer Cheryln Cadle.

Near the end of the article, the following information appeared:

Cadle asked him about the claims that Watts gave his wife Oxycodone and he responded with conflicting stories, saying he had given it to her twice – once at her parents’ home in North Carolina to try to cause a miscarriage, and then immediately before her death. He later contradicted himself and said he only gave it to her once in North Carolina.

‘I asked him where he got the Oxy, and he told me that is one of the things he will take to his death,’ Cadle wrote.

The moment Chris Watts said he used Oxycodone [the actual letter refers to Oxycontin] but wouldn’t say where he got it from, it set a cat among the pigeons. On the CrimeRocket forums people immediately begun to spread rumors and gossip. This prompted stern warnings – at least from CrimeRocket – for folks to cease and desist.

What they didn’t realize was by simply attaching a name to this new murderous spiel they were actually implicating someone as a potential accessory in triple murder.

I don’t think this was intentional, and I don’t think Watts or anyone else foresaw this possibility, but you can imagine what it felt like to be one of those names thrown in the hat, and there have been a few.

CrimeRocket has certainly been clear from the get go that Chris Watts alone is guilty and responsible for the Watts Family Murders.

Following this turn of events, a source close to the Watts family contacted CrimeRocket on October 5th and provided the following statement which is from Chris Watts himself. Not only was this statement transcribed and sent via email, but an audio clip of the conversation from Dodge Correctional was provided to CrimeRocket as well.

Furthermore, Chris Watts consented to this statements being sent to and published on CrimeRocket, so there was no underhand recording made without Chris Watts’ knowledge. Chris Watts and the Watts family would like to clear up any confusion about where he got the Oxy from.

The statement reads as follows:

“I gave Shan’ann the oxy on either July 30th or 31st, whichever was the first day I got into North Carolina.* I got the oxy from the bin [in the basement]. It was in Colorado and it was on the plane and I brought it from my house.”

*Watts first day in North Carolina was July 31st.

#28 July 31st, 2018: When Chris Watts arrives at the airport in North Carolina, an alarm can be heard sounding in the background #1yearagotodayCW

Debunking Gladwell’s Analysis of Amanda Knox: #4 “The police investigation was shockingly inept…the prosecutor obsessive and wildly irresponsible.”

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“The police investigation against her was revealed as shockingly inept?”

Is that why resources were summoned from Rome?

“The analysis of the DNA evidence supposedly linking her and Sollecito to the crime was completely botched.”

Supposedly? Knox wasn’t convicted because the DNA evidence was botched, she was acquitted because of dubious claims of contamination. Were it not for these claims, Knox wouldn’t be able to trumpet the supposed lack of evidence linking her to the crime.

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Knox’s current narrative relies on the public and the media having a short memory, and of not being informed about the details of the prosecution and defense. Including this one:

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“Her prosecutor was wildly irresponsible, obsessed with fantasies about elaborate sex crimes…”

This reminds one of the West Memphis 3. “Satanic panic got them convicted”- not them.

“It took eight years…for Knox to be finally declared innocent…”

Strange, how come she only served 4 years in jail of a 26 years sentence? Jodi Arias trial and Oscar Pistorius fizzled through court rooms for several years. Steven Avery case is ongoing – apparently.

“When Knox was freed from prison, a large angry crowd gathered in the Perugia town square to protest her release…”

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At 01:32 in the trailer for OJ Made in America you see and hear a small woman screaming at OJ in an airport:

“YOU UGLY MURDERER, YOU UGLY-ASSED MURDERER!”

Was she wrong?

What about the crowd baying for the blood of Casey Anthony, and Chris Watts. Are they wrong?

“The Amanda Knox case makes no sense…”

Well, it does make sense. But it requires a long attention span, and it requires the stamina to wade through the four separate hearings. Most people don’t have that kind of focus, even those – especially those – enthralled by the defendant.

Knowing about Knox’s backstory as a poor girl from a broken family helps.

Knowing about Sollecito’s backstory, as a rich boy from a broken family helps.

Knowing about Meredith’s backstory, as a balanced, hard working, well-mannered, well brought up child in a mixed family, helps.

Knowing about the Ivorian’s background helps.

“Let me give you the shortest of all Amanda Knox theories…Her case is about transparency.”

Actually it isn’t. It’s about PR. It’s about lost in translation. It’s about playing people for fools using both sides of the fiddle. First you rubbish the DNA experts, then you pretend there was no DNA and count on the media to collaborate in your PR induced collective amnesia.

The Judge was a civil Judge. Knox case was his first or second criminal case. He didn’t understand blood evidence.

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Let me give you the shortest of all Amanda Knox theories…

This is the problem. But it’s not the first time Gladwell has been accused of oversimplifying, and being reductionist. There’s effective thin-slicing, and then there’s cutting things too finely. Gladwell commits the latter sin with his loosey goosey interpretation of Amanda Knox. It’s not an interrogation, it’s simply an opinion, and it’s woefully under-informed and mis-representative of the basic history of the actual case.

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But if we’re going to insist on being reductionist, how about this. What if there is an explanation for Knox’s ongoing – in fact – infinite capacity for oddness, and goofiness…?

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Knox had an unusually strict, regimented, sheltered life. Sheltered is a word Gladwell uses as he tries to make the point that he can’t explain the Amanda Knox case in hindsight. In his view it’s “completely inexplicable”. It’s not!

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Amanda Knox seems to playing the narrative now that she’s suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder 12 years after the crime, when for the past decade, she’s become infamous for not showing any signs of trauma, for not acting emotional at the time.

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Even at her own murder trial, Amanda Knox always seemed to be smiling, as if she was enjoying being the center of attention, and regardless of why that was. Knox was conceived out of wedlock, an inconvenient fact her parents tried to cover up.

More: Look at me: why attention-seeking is the defining need of our times – The Guardian

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“The reason the medical examiner found Oxycodone in Shan’ann’s system is because I gave it to her” – Chris Watts

In Chris Watts’ Third Confession he claims the smothering of his children in their beds was botched, and that while murdering Shan’ann, after poisoning her with Oxycodone, the children came back to life – a scenario which angered him.

In this version, Watts murdered [or attempted to murder] his daughters while Shan’ann was asleep in his bed.

Watts’ words are italicized below.

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Source: Daily Mail

‘August 13th, morning of, I went to the girls’ room first, before Shanann and I had our argument. I went to Bella’s room, then Cece’s room and used a pillow from their bed (to kill them). That’s why the cause of death was smothering. After I left Cece’s room, then I climbed back in bed with Shanann and our argument ensued.

‘After Shanann had passed, Bella and Cece woke back up. I’m not sure how they woke back up, but they did. Bella’s eyes were bruised and both girls looked like they had been through trauma. That made the act that much worse knowing I went to their rooms first and knowing I still took their lives at the location of the batteries.

Watts also admits to concealing other facts from authorities that he would not talk about in phone calls from prison to prevent them from being recorded. 

‘I don’t like saying stuff like that over the phone because I’m never certain when they screen my calls,’ he wrote. He had previously claimed that it was a spontaneous outburst of rage that led him to kill his wife – who was 15 weeks pregnant with their son, Nico – and his daughters so that he could be with his mistress of two months, his co-worker Nichol Kessinger.

However, he admitted in the letter that he had been plotting the murders for some time.

‘August 12th when I finished putting the girls to bed, I walked away and said ”That’s the last time I’m going to be tucking my babies in.” I knew what was going to happen the day before and I did nothing to stop it!’ he wrote.

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He also confessed that he had slipped the potent painkiller Oxycodone to his wife in the hope of inducing a miscarriage.I thought it would be easier to be with Nichol if Shanann wasn’t pregnant,’ he wrote.

The 34-year-old described how he killed his wife in grisly detail and recalls how she looked moments before her death as he told her that he wanted a separation and no longer loved her.

‘Isn’t it weird how I look back and what I remember so much is her face getting all black with streaks of mascara? All the weeks of me thinking about killing her, and now I was faced with it. When she started to get drowsy, I somehow knew how to squeeze the jugular veins until it cut off the blood flow to her brain, and she passed out… I knew if I took my hands off of her, she would still keep me from Nikki. They asked me why she couldn’t fight back, it’s because she couldn’t fight back. Her eyes filled with blood; as she looked at me and she died. I knew she was gone when she relieved herself.’

Watts said that, to his surprise, his daughters came walking into the room while he was wrapping Shanann in a bedsheet and began asking what was wrong with their mom. He told them that she wasn’t feeling well.

Watts said that he tried to carry Shanann’s body downstairs but she was too heavy and he lost his grip. He ended up dragging her down the steps and then bundled her in the back of his truck.

Watts told Cadle: ‘The girls were just kind of running around the house, and watching me with scared looks on their faces. Bella started to cry and when she did Celeste started whimpering. What a nightmare this was. I realize now the girls getting up and walking around may have been God’s third attempt to stop what I was doing.’

He said that his overwhelming feeling was being ‘so mad they were still alive’.

He then drove with his wife’s body, her face and feet wrapped in garbage bags, and his two daughters to a remote oil field owned by his then-employer, Anadarko. He had packed his lunch, a shovel and rake, along with a gas can, which led the FBI to subsequently ask whether he was considering suicide.

‘The FBI asked me if I was going to take my own life, and I told them I thought about it but honestly no, I was not going to take my own life,’ he later told Cadle.

He recalled that it took him an hour to drive to the site where he methodically killed both of his daughters.

‘I dumped Shanann on the ground, then I walked back to the truck and with the blanket that Celeste was holding, I put it over her head and smothered her.’

Watts squeezed Celeste’s body through an eight-inch hatch in one of the oil tankers.

‘I couldn’t believe how easily it was to just let her drop through the hole and let her go. I heard the splash as she hit the oil.’

He then relived for Cadle, in appalling detail, how he killed his eldest daughter Bella after she had watched him murder and dispose of her sister. He spoke of his surprise that: ‘Little quiet Bella had a will to live.’

‘Out of all three, Bella is the only one that put up a fight. I will hear her soft little voice for the rest of my life, saying, ‘Daddy, NO!!! She knew what I was doing to her. She may not have understood death, but she knew I was killing her.”I had to put the girls in the tanks so they wouldn’t get up the second time,’ he said.

He then turned to the task of burying his wife in a shallow grave.

‘When I dug the hole, it seemed a lot deeper than it was. As I pulled on the sheet she rolled out and into the hole. I think she had given birth. She landed face down, I remember being so angry with her that I was not going to change how she landed,’ he said.

Cadle asked him about the claims that Watts gave his wife Oxycodone and he responded with conflicting stories, saying he had given it to her twice – once at her parents’ home in North Carolina to try to cause a miscarriage, and then immediately before her death. He later contradicted himself and said he only gave it to her once in North Carolina.

‘I asked him where he got the Oxy, and he told me that is one of the things he will take to his death,’ Cadle wrote.

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April 23, 2019

Dear Cheryln,

Hello again! I hope you are doing well! It has been awesome talking with you on the phone, but I know the 15-minute timeframe is a pain. Sometimes I can get right back on the phone but right now there are other inmates that like to be on the phone as much as I do, so I respect their time as well. How’s your dad doing, I’ve been praying on that every day.

Yes, that petition really blew my mind that people really want to make me suffer like that. Even if they did ever take my pictures, they can’t take my memories. An inmate from another institution wrote me about that subject and said, ‘If they take your pictures, they would need to take the pictures from the other 500-600 people that have their family pictures up on their cell convicted of the same act.’

Do I feel like I should be incarcerated? For the act I committed, I most definitely thinks so. Do I imagine myself ever doing anything like this or be a danger to society? I most definitely think NOT! If I were to ever be released, I know I would go straight to a ministry and start going to jails/prisons and help inmates. If God led me to be ordained, I would go that route as well; possibly even be a Chaplain. Maybe the laws will change one day. My attorney team could see I was different and knew that this was a one-time occurrence for me. They told me that in Europe, the law is I would serve 20 years or so for homicide, and in California, after 25 years of imprisonment, on a life sentence you can be released if you’ve had good behavior. So, there’s hope for everyone to live outside prison walls. I know physically I’m behind these walls, but my spirit is FREE with Christ!

If God keeps putting it on your heart that there is more to the story than what I told the FBI has, you’re correct. I don’t like saying stuff like that over the phone because I’m never certain when they screen my calls. I know I already told you the vision I had before August 13th, when I was lying in bed and all the lights were on in the loft and downstairs and I felt so alone. That’s exactly what happened April 14th when I was lying in bed.

I don’t know if you want this in the book or if God does but here are the things I left out.

1) August 12th when I finished putting the girls to bed, I walked away and said ‘That’s the last time I’m going to be tucking my babies in.’ I knew what was going to happen the day before and I did nothing to stop it! I was numb to the entire world. I had literally taken my kids to a birthday party, played with water balloons, had an amazing time, sang songs all the way home, gave them bath a shower, ate dinner, read bedtime stories and sang bedtime songs, and still nothing registered!! When Shanann had to be somewhere, I always enjoyed taking the girls places or playing outside because it was our opportunity to bond, and still the night before I couldn’t stop myself from what I knew would occur the next morning.

2) August 13th, morning of, I went to the girls’ room first, before Shanann and I had our argument. I went to Bella’s room, then Cece’s room and used a pillow from their bed (to kill them). That’s why the cause of death was smothering. After I left Cece’s room, then I climbed back in bed with Shanann and our argument ensued. After Shanann had passed, Bella and Cece woke back up. I’m not sure how they woke back up, but they did. Bella’s eyes were bruised and both girls looked like they had been through trauma. That made the act that much worse knowing I went to their rooms first and knowing I still took their lives at the location of the batteries.

3) The reason the medical examiner found oxycodone in Shanann’s system is because I gave it to her. I thought it would be easier to be with Nichol if Shanann wasn’t pregnant.

I don’t know if this was a spiritual visit, but I had a dream Cece was dancing next to the chair in my cell. When she was dancing, all of my folders on the chair started moving and I thought she was in trouble, so I said Watch out, get away, watch out! Then I woke up. I’m hoping she comes back! I hope everyone comes to visit me. I’m trying to see if I can clear my head better before I go to sleep to help.

I like that John 10:10 passage you sent. I wish I could’ve had an open ear to hear the Lord calling me back in June/July/August. If we run after sin, we won’t hear our Shepherd calling us. I couldn’t discern between the good spirits and the evil spirits and that eventually lodged me into a deep pit I couldn’t climb back out of.

Take care and God Bless!

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