In the preview of Family Man, Family Murder [Murderer?] [the cover is either a misspelling or the tweet is] Diane Dimond can be heard saying off camera that we haven’t heard the truth from Watts “until now”. In other words, the Second Confession is finally the truth of what happened.
Really? It is?
What’s the truth? That the murders weren’t premeditated. And after having sex with Shan’ann, Watts murdered her but she didn’t struggle, she just sort of silently prayed?
That’s how ridiculous these documentaries are.
We're giving you an early look at Family Man, Family Murder: An ID Murder Mystery.
The word “block” appears 19 times in the Discovery Documents, many of these references to suburban address “blocks”, but also to Ceecee’s “blocked” tear duct and Shan’ann’s intention [on the day before her death] to block out family time for Watts to improve her marriage. There’s also the instance where Watts “was attempting to block…Officer Coonrod’s view of Nate’s TV when footage showed Watts walking around his truck.”
Shortly after the disappearance, Watts also tells FBI Agent Coder the house is a “concrete block” and doesn’t want to sleep in it – a symbolic reference to a millstone around his neck.
But what we want to address here are at least half a dozen references to blocking on Facebook.
Simple question:
Did Shan’ann block Watts’ parents, or did they block her?
According to Cassie Chris’ parents blocked Shan’ann.
According to Shan’ann Chris’ parents blocked Shan’ann.
According to the Rzuceks Chris’ family blocked them.
But Shan’ann also communicated the intention and the desire to block Watts’ parents, not only on Facebook but in real life.
Prison officials have “no legal basis for removing the photographs from Christopher Watts,” the Wisconsin Department of Corrections said in a statement obtained by People. Watts was transferred to Wisconsin late last year for safety concerns.
While arguably tasteless, the photos don’t technically break the rules.
There is a bleakness to the reality that many artists are valued more in death than in life; that what they offered the world was not truly cherished until it became preciously finite. It is hard to think of what the man who sold only one painting in his lifetime would thinkof the €40-60,000 predicted price tag on his suicide weapon. While many a person would jump at the chance to be one of Van Gogh’s posthumous patrons, the acquisition of the gun he chose to end his suffering with seems to be an entirely different desire. But perhaps not. Perhaps it’s not dissimilar to the purchasing or beholding of one of his heartfelt works- especially with the understanding of the emotional turmoil that swam through him- where one can sense the will of a troubled man in his journey to find and create beauty despite all his sorrow. Perhaps the prospective buyer wishes nothing more than to feel a closeness and an understanding of that intangible wonder: the will of Van Gogh.
Would a rusty weapon imputed as a suicide tool bring someone closer to knowing the “will of Van Gogh”? Perhaps. Perhaps the rust destroying reality over time is a code, after all, for something useful.
What would Vincent van Gogh think of this business of this gun fetching so much money, given his art when he was alive, could not? My guess is he would be hopping mad. More proof of that is in The Murder of Vincent van Gogh.
…director Julian Schnabel makes us feel what it’s like to live as his Van Gogh. As one might expect, it’s a stressful experience. All the more so since the film is shot on a handheld camera, its jerky motion mirroring the artist’s febrile state. The palette is polarised, either dazzling us with the bright colours of the south, pushed to the extreme, or subduing us with a melancholic blue-grey filter. No even keel for Vincent, or for us. When his ‘frenemy’ Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac) asks ‘What’s the rush?’ during another frenzied painting scene, Vincent’s answer is to reel off a list of masters – Franz Hals, Goya, Velázquez, Veronese, Delacroix – who all ‘paint fast, in one, clear gesture’. Long, continuous takes make the film feel correspondingly immediate and organic, even dizzying.
But the flip side to enduring the stress of being Van Gogh is of course the beauty; of seeing the world through his eyes (which the camera often simulates): the wind through wheat or a line of poplars; craggy rocks in a landscape; the texture of scuffed leather boots and terracotta tiles. We’re down in the dirt with him as he lies in a field, smearing earth over his face with relish. And this is the point of Schnabel’s film – why else the need for another Van Gogh biopic, of which there have been three notable versions already.
At Eternity’s Gate focuses on the tumultuous last two years of the artist’s life, spent mainly in Arles and in Auvers-sur-Oise.
Thirty-one seconds – that’s how long Oscar Pistorius was silent for when asked by Prosecutor Gerrie Nel if he heard Reeva Steenkamp scream after he fired the first of four shots that killed her. Late on the second day of what has been a sustained and brutal cross-examination, Nel said: “Are you sure, Mr Pistorius, that Reeva didn’t scream after you fired the first shot?”
Oscar slumped back in his chair and kept quiet for 31 seconds. Court GD in Pretoria was utterly silent. On the audio recording, all that can be heard is Nel again asking “Are you sure?” after five seconds of silence had passed. Eleven seconds later, a man can be heard taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling. Surprisingly, it is Nel who breaks the silence to come to Pistorius’ rescue, saying: “My Lady, I’m giving the witness time to console himself, he is distressed”.
“I wouldn’t have done that,” said an experienced former prosecutor. “I would have kept quiet and counted and then when he finally said something, I would have said: ‘That took you four and a half minutes. What were you thinking about?’’’
I thought that was the moment he was going to crack, the former prosecutor added. This piece of evidence is key. If Pistorius’ ears were ringing and he? couldn’t even have heard himself scream after the shots, as he had testified, then he can’t tell the court that three other witnesses didn’t hear her scream during the shots.
Saving Pistorius from his silence was a rare show of mercy from Nel, who during a turbulent two days of cross-examination compared a photograph of Steenkamp’s bloodied head to an exploding watermelon, called the athlete a liar and laughed openly at one of his responses. Before his 31 seconds of silence, Pistorius twice became emotional as Nel carefully picked apart the improbabilities in his story.
If Nel hadn’t have given Pistorius a break, Oscar would likely have become more emotional, allowing Judge Masipa a chance to call a recess. Nel didn’t want that to happen either. So it was a careful chess game between pushing the accused and getting him emotional, but not so emotional that the Judge intervened on his behalf…
What is the TCRS take on Oscar Pistorius’ Murder Trial? The 5-Part Book Series is available at this link.
April 11th, 2019
1. Give it until 2:30 for this video on Chris Watts to get going. Valid points raised regarding Watts being informed from the outside about what’s being said and vaunted on social media. Interesting that “Nut Gate” was a term first raised on social media as well.
During the Presidential election last year, he published tens of thousands of hacked e-mails written by Democratic operatives, releasing them at pivotal moments in the campaign.They provoked strikingly disparate receptions. “I love WikiLeaks,” Donald Trump declared, in exultant gratitude. After the election, Hillary Clinton argued that the releases had been instrumental in keeping her from the Oval Office.
Shortly after Trump’s Inauguration, I flew to London, to visit Assange—the first of several trips, and many hours of interviews, to better understand how he runs WikiLeaks, how he has been living, how his political views have changed, and what role Russia has had in his operation. Even as a new inquiry opened into possible collusion between Trump-campaign operatives and Russia, “the WikiLeaks connection,” as James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, put it last year, remained obscure.
Assange is not an easy man to get on the phone, let alone to see in person. He is protected by a group of loyal staffers and a shroud of organizational secrecy…
Julian Assange will be taken to Westminster Magistrates court this afternoon. He has been arrested under a US extradition warrant for conspiracy with @xychelsea for publishing classified information revealing war crimes in 2010.https://t.co/vvbZBOgCwL
NEWS: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in the UK, and UK authorities have confirmed he's also been arrested by the United States and is facing extradition https://t.co/y76fgnnVtL
As the catalogue for “Vincent van Gogh: His Life in Art,” a momentous new show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, puts it: “It was most likely a combination of deep disquiet that Theo might no longer be able to look out for him, a growing sense of loneliness, and fear that his nervous attacks would return that drove van Gogh to shoot himself in the chest on July 27, 1890, with the intention of ending his life. He died of his injuries two days later, with Theo at his bedside.”
The mainstream motive for why Van Gogh committed suicide is that he didn’t want to be a burden to his brother [who had just started a family]. Even the Van Gogh Museum support this idea. It makes sense except – how was committing suicide [and botching it up so he took 30 hours to die] lessening the burden? If Van Gogh didn’t want his brother to be troubled by his existence, then Theo rushing to his brother’s aid during a life-and-death emergency, only to watch his brother die, and have to pay for his funeral [suicide was regarded as disgraceful in 1890’s France] didn’t achieve that goal.
Van Gogh’s funeral and the disgrace around his suicide was a huge burden, financial, societal and emotional, that his brother and family had to bear.
A US private investigator who worked undercover at the holiday resort where Madeleine McCann vanished has made claims that appear to cast doubt on the controversial parental checking system Kate, Gerry and the Tapas 7 told police they were conducting on the night the three-year-old vanished.
In a remarkable interview on the Maddie podcast, Boston-based investigator Joseph Moura claimed a bartender and waitress who served the McCanns and their friends at the now infamous tapas restaurant on May 3 told him “nobody left the table that evening”.
Lauded as the “the most famous weapon in art history,” the corroded, legendary revolver was discovered in 1965 by a farmer in the field where then-37-year-old Van Gogh was struck in the stomach by the bullet that killed him on July 29, 1890, in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise north of Paris.
The seven-millimeter gun, reportedly kept by the family that owned the Auberge Ravoux inn where the artist lived for the final months of his life, was put on public display for the first time during the 2016 exhibition On the Verge Off Insanity at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The farmer who found it presumably gave it to the owners of the inn, whose descendants are now selling it.
“The severely corroded weapon is a Belgian-manufactured Lefaucheux pinfire revolver, which was among the most popular civilian handguns in the second half of the 19th century,” writes the Art Newspaper. “It remained in production until 1893.”
According to the auction house, there are several pieces of evidence to prove it was Van Gogh’s suicide gun. “It was discovered where Van Gogh shot it; its caliber is the same as the bullet retrieved from the artist’s body as described by the doctor at the time; scientific studies demonstrate that the gun had stayed in the ground since the 1890s.”
But is it – forensically speaking – the actual killing/murder weapon?
April 7th, 2019
1. Mitch Summers, an ex-classmate of Chris Watts in high school [now a video producer] released this prom photo of Watts.
Following an investigation by nine.com.au, a formal request from one of the world’s leading DNA scientists has been lodged with London Metropolitan Police for access to 18 complex DNA samples which are potentially loaded with vital clues about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
There is hope that Dr Mark Perlin’s powerful computational DNA testing methods could blow open the cold case by successfully cracking the 18 samples which frustratingly stumped a UK lab in 2007.
In Dr Perlin’s email to Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Wall, who heads up Operation Grange, the UK strike force investigating Madeleine’s disappearance, he confirmed he would conduct analysis of the 18 samples for no cost. Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange, launched in 2011, has cost British taxpayers more than $20 million and it has recently requested further funding from the UK Home Office.
The Sun pretends here to analyse seven different theories about what happened to Madeleine McCann. In the middle of the list of seven theories is the theory of the lead detective. The Sun refers to this theory as a “crackpot” theory, the only one of the seven theories to be singled out in this manner. Why do you think that is? An unlikely theory, or a newspaper pandering to their cash cow?
[Mrs Fenn] refers to the day of the 1st May 2007, when she was at home alone, at approximately 22.30 she heard a child cry, and that due the tone of the crying seemed to be a young child and not a baby of two years of age or younger. Apart from the crying that continued for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, and which got louder and more expressive, the child shouted “Daddy, Daddy”, the witness had no doubt that the noise came from the floor below. At about 23.45, an hour and fifteen minutes after the crying began, she heard the parents arrive, she did not see them, but she heard the patio doors open, she was quite worried as the crying had gone on for more than an hour and had gradually got worse….That night [Fenn] contacted a friend called EDNA GLYN, who also lives in Praia da Luz, after 23.00, telling her about the situation…
Recently, however, speculation that he was actually killed accidentally by two boys playing with the gun have been fueled by the artist Julian Schnabeland the screenwriter of Schnabel’s Van Gogh biopic At Eternity’s Gate. The pair believe that the number of paintings the artist produced in his final months does not match up to someone who was suicidally depressed, and their film shows this alternative ending to the troubled artist’s storied career.
But the auction house dismisses this suggestion. “The new theory about the killing is based on testimonies given several years after Van Gogh’s death,” the AuctionArt spokesperson says. “It has been deeply criticized by all the Van Gogh specialists, among them the Van Gogh Museum and Alain Rohan, who wrote a book about the gun.”
€40,000–60,000 is on the line if the weapon was used by Van Gogh in a self-inflicted gunshot. And if he was murdered? How much would the gun be worth then? Double? Or zero?
Art experts are squabblingover whether a set of previously unpublished drawings are the work of Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam says the sketches are complete fakes. Welsh-Ovcharov, a Canadian professor of art history and Van Gogh specialist, told reporters she was convinced the sketches were authentic, describing the discovery as an “OMG moment.”
“I started to look through all the drawings and each one had his fingerprint,” she said. But according to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, they are mere imitations and contain no trace of the Dutch master.
The heaviest hitter in the true crime special is deputy district attorney Steve Wrenn. This is him:
Although Wrenn seems to be a relatively unfamiliar figure in the Watts saga, especially given the prominent role of Michael Rourke, he was part and parcel of the prosecution team from the beginning.
We also saw him in court on the few occasions [just three in fact] when the case was actually heard within the protocols and prescriptions of a criminal trial. While Rourke addressed the court at the sentencing trial, and stood by while Frank senior and Frank junior read their statements [Rourke also read Frankie’s statement for him], Wrenn stood beside Sandi Rzucek when she read her statement.
The mini-series features interviews with those familiar with the tragedy and experts who have covered the case extensively. It also highlights body camera footage from the Frederick Police Department, as well as new details from the investigation following Watts’ jailhouse confession. Steve Wrenn, the Deputy District Attorney for Weld County who was interviewed for the special, told Fox News those who handled the case are still attempting to make sense of it.
A year after the family annihilation, almost everyone involved is still asking why. This suggests that the interrogations of FBI agent Grahm Coder and CBI agent Tammy Lee may continue until there is a better handle on Watts – at least from the perspective of the authorities and prosecutors.
Wrenn describes the “ripple effect” of the crime on first responders as being “phenomenal”. While those involved in the recovery of the Watts children from the tanks may be damaged psychologically, perhaps permanently, Watts himself seems to have emerged from his own handiwork relatively unscathed, and even upbeat.
Perhaps there is a world of difference between killing someone who is alive [even one’s own family] and the gruesome task of reaching into the dark to fish out their remains. This may seem a silly statement, but it’s one I’m grappling with as part of the research for OBLIVION, the 8th book in the TWO FACE series. In our rush to judge murderers, we ourselves tend to prefer them to be worse – sometimes – than they really are. And so when given the option of their committing a crime in a harsh and callous manner, that seems to fit better than a more subtle, strategic and painless [planned] taking of lives.
Even Watts – during the First Confession phase – seemed to wince at the prospect of being involved in fishing out the remains of his daughters. He was appalled at the notion of his coworkers being involved in the same operation. Not that this is absolute proof or proof of any kind, but when Coder prodded Watts on whether he shoved the bodies of Bella and Celeste through the thief hatches while they were alive, Watts was similarly aghast.
In the second interview the same issue came up and Watts again denied it.
Wrenn also describes his own feelings while watching Watts during his interrogations.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been more frustrated in my life watching something take place.”
When Watts casually describes doing the unthinkable, there is a sense that there is a serious screw loose with this guy, and only he seems unaware of it. Even so, he seems to be trying awful hard to be everyone’s pal. It’s this aspect that seems to distinguish Watts from other sociopaths. He does the unthinkable, and yet he seems to care very much what people think of him, and tries very hard to appear not as monstrous as he otherwise might. It’s not just that, what’s unnerving is his effort to be pals with law enforcement, when they know who and what he really is. His game seems to be making friends, which is precisely the ruse they use to extract more information from him. It’s done gently, painstakingly and the result is the cops get something for their trouble [maybe not very much] and Watts also gets something [ditto].
Wrenn refers to the post-conviction interview conducted in mid to late February 2019 [the so-called Second Confession] as providing “glimpses” into why what happened happened. It will be interesting to see whether Wrenn will take a firm position, or express himself clearly on Watts’ latest version of events.
Rourke seems to have accepted it, and the media as well, which suggests further towing of the lie line. But this version presents both Shan’ann’s murder and that of the children afterwards as spontaneous [in other words, unplanned].
The TCRS position on this has been clear from the beginning – the murders were all premeditated.
In Wrenn’s view the only possible explanation for the crime is that Watts is a sociopath. As labels go he’s not wrong. A sociopath can’t understand or quite get to grips with the feelings of others, and they don’t feel guilty about harming others. While this explains Watts within the confines of the crime, as well as the aftermath, it doesn’t explain why his wife loved him [and was fighting to stay married to him] until the moment he murdered her, or why a mistress fell in love with him and he with her. Are sociopaths lovable? Are sociopaths good fathers? Are sociopaths assets to families, desirable to singletons and beneficial to societies until they aren’t?
If the sociopath label works, it’s clearly reductionist and way too simplistic. See, it also rubs against the notions the Rzuceks shared of their son-in-law, as well as the community [including the Thrive Facebook community] who regarded the Watts family as the perfect family, and Watts himself as an ideal husband and father. The media and social media have been cooing about this aspect all along – but he [and they] looked so perfect and so perfectly happy! If sociopaths can only be identified by spouses, extended family and the community in the rear view mirror, then we as a society are in real trouble.
Our ongoing failure to understand this case – and Watts specifically – speaks to some kind of systemic failure in modern society, including our inability to see those around us for who they really are, or to simply fathom those around us [and perhaps ourselves].
Wrenn insisted that despite Watts’ tell-all to investigators,we may never truly know whyhe was willing to slaughter his entire family.
Curiously, although the documentary on Watts claims to [feature] interviews with those familiar with the tragedy and experts who have covered the case extensively zero contact was made with TCRS. This is either an indictment of TCRS and the seven books covering the Watts case [as the work of an amateur, and thus bogus and basically bullshit] or it’s an indictment of something else.
On May 23rd, criminal defense lawyer and Chris Watts YouTuber Scott Reisch posted a video about Nichol Kessinger. I was in the Netherlands at the time, and not paying the usual amount of attention to the Watts case [or Crime Rocket for that matter]. But this particular video did blip on my radar, sufficiently so that I passed it along to another Watts case follower via WhatsApp.
The video has since been completely removed from YouTube.
I’m not surprised. In the video, Reisch [I can never remember how to spell his name] records himself in his vehicle doing a little undercover detective work. If I recall correctly Reisch – sporting dark glasses – also flashes briefly to the brand of his vehicle on the steering consol. I won’t repeat the brand here, but it’s not a VW beetle, let’s put it that way.
While driving he suggests he has the address of Kessinger and is simply going to see – firsthand – whether she’s home, whether she answers the door and what she has to say.
Reisch records himself knocking on a door, and soon after, driving away. The apartment complex can be imputed from the rear view behind Reisch as he drives slowly away.
Now it’s possible Reisch himself subsequently removed the video from YouTube. It’s also possible that Kessinger’s legal machinery kicked in because of a perceived violation of her privacy. Whether or not Kessinger is under witness protection, and whether or not she lodged an objection to the video, the video did feel like it crossed an invisible ethical boundary. That was my perception. Irrespective of Kessinger’s role in the Watts case, she has every right to want to protect her privacy.
When I covered the Van Breda case, I praised a tabloid reporter who had snuck into a complex and done the same thing Reisch did, except someone [I won’t say who] opened the door, saw it was a reporter and slammed the door. The reporter then wrote an article not only identifying the complex but providing a glimpse of who and what she saw when the door opened, and even what she smelled – if you can believe that. Someone related to the Van Breda case later contacted me [I won’t say who] and complained about me praising the mischief of the tabloid reporter.
I explained that as a journalist, I have respect for those who go the extra mile as it were. On a recent trip through Europe I jumped off the train platform to take a photo at track level of some poppies while a train was slowly approaching [and while a station policeman was hollering at me].
So that’s really what I’m getting at. When a journalist exercises the courage of his convictions it resonates with me, because I know how much it has cost me.
At the same time, speaking to this person directly, I felt ashamed. I could see how such behavior [the tabloid journo spiel] was a total violation of privacy. In true crime there is a sort of consensus that everyone involved is fair game. While that is true to an extent in terms of investigating the situation, it doesn’t mean there are no boundaries whatsoever. It’s not a case that the innocent have total rights and that the guilty [and those related to them] have no rights.
Personally I was surprised by Reisch’s video before it was taken down. Going to the premises and finding someone not there is hardly content. It’s what journalists and editors call a “non-story”. Although Reisch never gave the details of the address, he did seem to hint that it was in Colorado and near to where someone he knew [I won’t repeat specifically who] was based. This potentially opened the door for others to figure out the address and possibly harass Kessinger.
There have been many lines crossed in the Watts case, none more so than the line crossed by Watts himself. Kessinger also crossed a line, but infidelity is hardly a face melting misdemeanor. It’s not classified as a crime, although certain legal and financial obligations can follow as a result. The point is it’s not behaviour exclusive to or monopolized by Kessinger, in fact it’s disturbingly common. When we talk about rights to privacy, and the way Facebook penetrates into the home, and onto a spouses’ phone for example, we can see how Facebook can ruin marriages. Ironically, Facebook seemed to play little role in the machinery or chicanery of the Watts case, certainly at face value.
What Watts did plunged many into a nightmare, including Watts himself. He soon saw his own privacy literally evaporate, and found himself completely out of his depth in trying to deal with it. But as troubling as Watts is a character [a man doomed by his own weaknesses and failures] what’s even more troubling is the Watts spiel as a whole. When we start to see the whole theater and all the players, something doesn’t sit well with us.
While I was in Europe, Anadarko started sewing up major merger talks with Occidental. The Chris Watts case had simmered down just in time for billion dollar deal-making. Was that accidental? Coincidence? Or is this whole strange, suffocated legal procedure – the hushed, rushed plea deal – part of much larger shenanigans?
The Watts murders, diabolical as they are, is it simply the tip of an enormous glistening black asteroid, invisible and unseen, but nevertheless hurtling towards us?
I find the social-cultural aspect of true crime interesting, because as tempting as it is to believe, Watts didn’t emerge in a vacuum. He also didn’t cross those ethical lines when he committed this crime, in a vacuum.
When we explore these ideas, they invariably reflect back at us, and our approach to ethics, often in areas we know about but don’t particularly care about. Like privacy. Like industry, and the approach of corporates to the protection of information and their casual if not reckless attitudes to society and ethics.
Although we don’t particularly care about these aspects, they seem to care about us as a voting bloc, or a portion of the marketing pie. They affect us. So maybe we should care.
Is it from other individuals that alienation springs, or from society? Who is to blame? Another way of putting the question is:
Who is to blame for crime?
It may seem a ridiculous question. Obviously the individual [the criminal] who commits a crime is responsible for it. While that’s certainly true, what’s underappreciated is the impact, or perhaps influence is a better word, of culture in who individuals ultimately become in our society. Do we simply let the chips fall where they may, and if Chris Wattses are part of that equation, so be it…? Or should we have a hand, some kind of say, some kind of sway, in the kind of society that we’re part of?
At the same time that we raise this question, we can also ask a slightly more targeted inquiry.
What impact does the culture of the workplace have on people, and their attitudes to other people?
In effect, what impact does the attitude of corporates have on society – on people, on us – and how does that trickle down to the workers who work there? Is it mostly harmless? Is it worth caring about or only worth caring about when there’s an annihilation?
What we’re really addressing in this Reisch scenario is the idea of privacy. How much should we care about it? Do we expect our privacy to be respected? Should the privacy of others be respected too?
Privacy laws while necessary can also be used to nefarious ends – to protect those who have something to hide. Just think about the Mueller report and Trump’s financial statements [protected because he was supposedly under audit]. Privacy is a real issue of our time, and social media and true crime provide a fascinating fulcrum, a nexus, in which to examine it.
What does it mean exactly to respect privacy?
When someone is involved in some way in a crime, especially a high-profile crime like this, do the same standards of privacy apply? For my part, I thought Nichol Kessinger was treated very mildly by investigators, given the time-sensitive circumstances and scale and scope of what happened [a triple murder, adultery, the pregnancy etc]. Even when she appeared to be less than completely forthcoming, there didn’t seem to be any threat attached to either withholding critical information, or – arguably – delaying the release of it. So privacy does work both ways.
By the same token, if we look at Shan’ann’s Facebook profile [which is still public], should the victim’s privacy be treated in a special way, perhaps even counter to their own wishes [in terms of social media]?
Are our modern laws – especially those pertaining to the online space – up to date in terms of the rational and reasonable rights citizens ought to have in terms of privacy?
In general, our obsession with cases presupposes a level of access to the information particular to criminal cases, but how much access is in the public interest and how much is intrusion?
2019 is turning out to be another lethal year in the climbing history of of the almost 9 kilometer high Mount Everest. The dead have reached double figures. Given the traffic jams the uptick in fatalities is hardly surprising, but given the sheer numbers climbing this year, it’s remarkable that more people [queuing for four hours in the Death Zone on the way up, and for almost as long on the way down] didn’t lose their lives.
Fortunately, this year the weather was both a boon and a bane. Narrow weather windows caused bottlenecks, but once the windows were there they stayed open long enough for the climbers to ascend and descend without having to worry about storms.
But why is the madness on Everest persisting, and if anything, becoming more popular?
Because it’s there? And if the trend continues, if the numbers aren’t managed in future, isn’t a disaster that will dwarf 1996 inevitable?
To address the possibility of a catastrophe means we have to understand the motivations for going there. Because it’s there is not why people climb mountains, and not an acceptable [or complete] explanation for why people climb Everest.
We all go to the mountain, some by choice [to test ourselves], some unwillingly. However we get there, and however high the mountain, the mountain reveals not only the scale of itself, but the smallness of ourselves in relation to our grand illusions.
And illusions are grand. Close your eyes and listen to the clip below for 90 seconds. This is what illusions feel like:
So what is the deal with Everest? Illusions or not, the world’s highest mountain is a symbol above all others. But is Everest a theater for heroism or a playground for the rich and privileged? Is it an arena for humans to express the best of themselves or a wrestling ring tilted near vertical designed to expose the worst in us? In effect, since people die on the mountain every year [and in increasing numbers] has Mount Everest become a crime scene?
Today marks the anniversary of the first summit of Everest in 1953 [although some claim even the first summit wasn’t the first]. In 1953 man’s ascent of the mountain the locals call Chomolungma felt epic. That achievement was trumped by an even more remote adventure – to the icy wastes of space and the moon in 1969.
But as Earth’s middle class have streamed to this world’s highest summit in droves, smartphones in hand, Instagram accounts and hashtags at the ready, motivations seemed to have plummeted. Why do they do it? For a hero badge? As the mob push for the summit, increasingly they push one another aside, and part of this selfishness involves stepping over dead bodies on the way to the Holy Peak and again on the way back.
One reason summit fever takes hold of so many is the “sunk cost” of climbing the mountain. Some commit their life savings to the trip, and some make several trips, often returning with fewer body parts each times. Besides the money [anywhere between $35 000 and over $100 000] is the effort involved. After weeks of climbing, with a summit so close, how many are capable of turning their back on the a titillating flagpole marking the world’s highest point, even if lives are on the line?
In an article posted today on CNNwe get a topical reply:
“Grinning climbers with frostbite, showing their blackened fingers but refusing to leave the mountain. Climbers who tried to keep going despite hacking coughs that shattered ribs. Those who were about to collapse, but kept going with the voice of their loved one crackling through a radio…”
We see them giving interviews with stubs on their arms that used to be wrists, hands and fingers. They smile below the mountain though their faces are blackened and destroyed as if by death itself.
Those who survive the mountain [like Beck Weathers, pictured above] tend to make speeches [often for money] and publish books. Weathers’ experience on Everest was triumphantly portrayed by the charismatic Josh Brolin, the handsome actor who played the all-powerful Titan Thanos in Avenger’s Endgame. Really? Was Weathers’ misadventure [he never reached the summit, but couldn’t admit to quitting his attempt either] a triumph of the human spirit? Is Beck Weathers a hero, or at the very least, a man with an indomitable spirit [again, he never made it to the summit…]
The poster child for this narcissism is arguably a socialite who was in the thick of the things during the infamous 1996 Everest tragedy. I’ve written three books on the disaster so far. But to get a real feel for the folks climbing Chomolungma today [a name that intuits lungs gasping for breath], read Pitons are served [since removed online].
Almost 130 years ago, Vincent van Gogh checked himself out of the asylum at St. Remy in the south of France, caught a train to Paris [where his brother lived] and moved into a small apartment above a restaurant in Auvers. Auvers is a small satellite town in the countryside set beside the river Oise. It’s about an hour by rail from Paris.
After researching a few lines of inquiry in Portugal, I travelled to Auvers in the south of France where Vincent van Gogh set up his “studio in the south” in the famous Yellow House. It’s also the setting for a violent and bloody act, perhaps even an assault. The ear incident.
From Auvers I journey along the same tracks north as Vincent did, to Paris, past the smouldering ruin of Notre Damme, and then Auvers where Vincent died at the height of summer, at the end of July 1890. I believe he was murdered, and in June this year, the murder weapon [or suicide gun] will be auctioned off.
How much that 7 mm Lefaucheux revolver actually sells for will be an indication of whether the world believes its authentic or not. How much of what we know about the world, and history, and the famous mythology of people like Vincent van Gogh is true? I’m here to find out. Follow #LastJourney on Twitter and Instagram to keep up to speed on where I am.
True crime never rests, true crime research never sleeps. If it seems like CrimeRocket is on hiatus, well, I’m sharpening the saw elsewhere.
For ten days I’ve been on the ground in a tourist resort on the Algarve known as Praia da Luz. I’m following up a number of lines of inquiry I first wrote about in the DOUBT trilogy, in 2017.
This year I wanted to be in the area at the exact time, and on the same date as the abduction. Follow the hashtag #DeepIntoDarkness on Twitter and Instagram to get a sneak peek on where I’ve been and what’s coming soon.
When we run scenarios in true crime, we’re not trying to commit murder, nor are we trying to commit the perfect murder. We’re trying to see the logic [or lack of] in heinous crimes, and why they were committed to begin with.We’re also doing a kind of True Crime IQ test, except what we’re testing for is criminal acumen and criminal logic, which is different to normal psychology and common sense. Chris Watts’ murder of his family was particularly heinous but within the context of criminal psychology, was it logical? Just how illogical was it?
The idea for this particular post comes from Sylvester’s comment [read it before reading further], and his idea of how the Watts crime could have been better executed. Could Watts have gotten away with it?
Murder is dumb as it is, but committing murder only to be caught a few hours later, and then to undo your own stupid schemes a few days after that is even dumber. No argument there. The question is: how dumb was the execution itself, and by extension, how dumb was Watts.
In Sylvester’s Scenario:
Wattsmurders his family and then goes to work leaving their bodies in the house. Perhaps he takes her ring and some jewelry. When enough time has passed he can call 911 and have them checked on. The idea when they’re found is a burglary gone wrong. Maybe they got in through the back door.
What’s good about Sylvester’s Scenario is it’s a better story than Watts’ story in the sense that Watts theoretically doesn’t really have to come up with any explanation of Shan’ann visiting a phantom friend or why she left behind her phone, car and medication.
The bad thing about this scenario is it doesn’t solve the original problem. The original problem was that the Watts home and the homes surrounding it were a kind of spider’s web of digital surveillance. There were layers and layers of digital security. So if it was tough to take bodies out of the house without being seen [and Watts almost succeeded], it’s equally tough proving anyone came in with malicious intent. It’s not just the doorbell cams that wouldn’t show approaches from the front and back, it’s the hi-tech Vivint system that wouldn’t show anything either.
In theory Watts could have disabled the home system himself and then failed to account for it [as happened in the Ramsey case].
When I first stumbled into the Watts case, I remember thinking if he had only broken a window somewhere in the house, it would have given the idea of an interloper [someone who had come in and taken the three of them] some credence. But it seemed Watts cared too much about the expensive house and maintaining it to break anything, let alone purposefully. But if he had, he would have set off the perimeter layer alarms. Probably the Vivint protocols would have automatically alerted authorities to check on the house. This is why Watts seemed to want to use the dodgy garage door sensor as his go-to explanation for how Shan’ann left on her own volition. It was a hole in the perimeter security.
The other issue facing Sylvester’s Scenario and effectively any scenario is, well, Nickole Atkinson. If Watts murdered Shan’ann at 05:00 or completed the execution of that phase of the crime [including washing up and removing bodies from the home] at about that time, then he only really had until 08:43 to get a headstart. Because that’s when Nickole contacted Shan’ann. If the bodies were in the home, the cops would have found them very early in the game, and would have provided [arguably] the best evidence against Chris Watts much earlier than they actually got it, and in a much better state of preservation. Time of death, cause of death, manner of death, crime scene, all provided to the cops on a silver platter.
If Watts had acted more like Patrick Frazee, and responded to Nickole’s message and perhaps even posted something on Facebook along the lines of…
SO UPSET! TAKING A TIMEOUT TODAY WITH SOMEONE WHO CARES ABOUT ME…
…maybe he could have bought himself some time. Probably not though because any response posted on her phone would have pinged from wherever he was, if he had her phone.
Posting a message on her Facebook while he was still home was another option, but it would be very unlikely Shan’ann would go to bed after 02:00 and be up at 05:00 posting declarations about her day. Not completely implausible, just something that might raise suspicion.
It’s important to remember, if this was a premeditated murder [and I believe it was], Watts himself also ran through many scenarios in his own mind. What was clever about the execution was he had the end result – the evidence – mostly taken care of.
He also hid almost the entire fabric of the crime within the plausible deniability of just going to bed, waking up and going to work like he always did. It didn’t quite work, because he didn’t typically head out to the well sites first thing, but only someone close to his colleagues would know that. Also, if caught, because of the flight delay he’d have to explain how a lot happened between him and Shan’ann in three hours instead of twice that time.
If Shan’ann had arrived on time, maybe Watts had a different plan involving the Lexus, and maybe it would have played out better. Maybe there would have been time for a late night fake Facebook announcement.
My view is that the technical aspect of the crime was executed fairly well, as heartless as that is to say. If Watts had the resources to afford an elite defense lawyer, and if he’d stuck to his first confession, who knows, he may have pulled a Casey Anthony.
It was all hidden in the fabric of the average work day, in plausible deniability, not only the digital traces of the home, but the GPS traces of the truck. Watts also went to some length to send fake messages of concern and make fake calls to Shan’ann’s phone. It shows he was ready to play.
But the social aspect of his game was abysmal. Maybe his mistress had led him to believe he really was a kind of Rain Man who could do [and get away with] anything.
But Watts was a bad liar and an even worse actor from the get-go. Even so, it took a massive law enforcement team several days, and many hours of continuous questioning and data analysis to crack him. Watts did crack, but not completely, not even close to completely. He didn’t spill the beans during the first round. He cracked and revealed a little information.
True to his introverted nature, he has never fully revealed what he did, when or how. And the fact that many of the people closest to the case and charged with prosecution it still don’t know what really happened suggests Watts wasn’t so dumb after all.
But what do the takeover bids circling through the media now for Anadarko Petroleum Corp have to do with Chris Watts?
Put on your thinking caps. You don’t need to know economics to understand the context of what follows; you just have to compare and contextualize dates and big numbers to other names and dates.
Worth playing for?
On June 15th, 2018, Anadarko signed a purchasing agreement with Centrica and Tokyo Gas for the rights to extract liquid natural gas [LNG] from the massive Mozambique field off the Southern African coast.
While this deal was still in the offing, and before it had been finalized, an obscure employee at an obscure site in Colorado [CERVI 319] used one of Anadarko’s fracking batteries to dispose of the remains of his murdered family. The case soon made local, then national then international headlines.
Had the Chris Watts trial been allowed to fulminate in the public space, and a full-blown criminal had played out, it would have been the equivalent of burning down the entire marketing apparatus the Anadarko brand had spent millions setting up and putting in place.
It wasn’t good timing for bad publicity. Barely six months earlier, Forbes reported on a consolidation wave sweeping the oil and gas industry. Majors were gobbling up oil minors and minnows at bargain basement prices. Deals were being made left and right with explorers that were going bust, pulling out or losing their nerve. A public relations implosion could burn away billions…
One of the big players in this push for the Permian Throne was Anadarko. And after a pause between August 2018 and March 2019, and Anadarko making itself prettier by December 2018, by April 2019 the game for the greasy black Permian Throne was back in full swing.
[E&P = exploration & production company]
So what caused the pause in the game, in August until April? Well, headlines like this on August 21st, 2018, just 8 days after the Watts Family Murders rocked Frederick Colorado.
Had the proposals been implemented, they would have cost the entire industry dearly, and Anadarko in particular.
Anadarko spent almost $7 million in campaign finance to lobby the community to vote against Proposition 112, far more than any other entity, and more than triple the total raised by supporters of the proposition.
In sum, the oil-funded opposition raised almost $32 million in campaign funds, the biggest chunk as noted from Anadarko itself. The opposition barely raised $1.5 million.
Despite disproportionate campaign fundraising, Proposition 112 was narrowly defeated, with just over 55% of voters voting “No”.
From October 2018 [one month prior to the first hearings in the Watts criminal trial] Anadarko’s share prices fell, and continued to fall until the spring of 2019. What Anadarko were faced with, and what they had to do at all costs, was tame the dragon. And they did.
The status hearing itself was strange for its suddenness. It was announced late on a Friday afternoon [at 16:20 on November 2nd] when the District Attorney filed an innocuous sounding notice of a status hearing. It caught many off guard.
So did the hearing itself. What was dressed up to appear as a mere formality turned out to be quite shocking. A plea deal was announced.
The fact that so many family members are here from both sides of the family [flying in all the way from North Carolina] suggests this is a big deal. It's not just a nothing preliminary hearing. It's not just scheduling. It's significant #chriswatts#pleadeal
@NancyGrace@medcolegaldeath Now, with #chriswatts guilty plea, will we ever hear any specific details of these horrific murders like in what order they were killed and how ? And Shanann’s phone upstairs, did it capture anything ? Also his actions in the days prior to the crime.
Want to understand the forces operating behind the scenes [& yes, underground], give this a read. I'm not sure this plea deal is good news. It's justice, but also suppression. The timing to coincide with mid-terms. All so cool and calculated. https://t.co/8qtm8XBv9w#ChrisWattspic.twitter.com/xJh1qO88Ji
Watts admitted guilt on all charges essentially shutting down the prospect of a high-profile criminal trial, one that was set to eclipse the liked of OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias.
A lot of discovery had to be dealt with over the following weeks and months, over Christmas, and into the first few months of the new year. Chris Watts’ mistress, a safety officer was interrogated on social media. The media however, was almost completely silent on Nichol Kessinger, as was Kessinger herself.
Then, when the dust had finally settled on the Watts case, this, on April 24th, 2019:
And remember that exploration purchasing agreement Anadarko was pursuing off the Southern African coast? In February 2019 Anadarko was still pursuing it, and apparently “closing in” on the supply deal.
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.
SILVER FOX III available now in paperback!
“If you are at all curious about what really happened in the Watts case, then buy this book, buy every one he has written and you will get as close as humanly possible to understanding the killer and his victims.”- Kathleen Hewtson. Purchase the very highly rated and reviewed SILVER TRILOGY – POST TRUTH COMING SOON.
TCRS MERCH available now – just in time for Christmas!
Book 5 – ALL NEW! “I have thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook…” – Connie Lukens. Drilling Through Discovery Complete Audiobook
Read the entire 9-Part TWO FACE series, the most definitive book series covering the Chris Watts Case
Visit the TCRS Archive of 100 Books dealing with all the world’s most high-profile true crime cases.
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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.”
Wrenn also describes his own feelings while watching Watts during his interrogations.
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