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

Category: Chris Watts (Page 4 of 16)

Sermon on the Porch #2? Lie Spotting: Test your true crime lie detector nous with the Fotis Dulos case

“Why didn’t he just get a divorce?” Feels like deja vu, doesn’t it? In the three videos at the link below, also the first video, there are a few signature statements by Dulos that are carbon copies of what we heard by Chris Watts during the Sermon on the Porch. Can you pick them out?

See if you can, then leave a comment below. Then scroll down to the end of the videos to get the TCRS assessment.

Husband of missing Connecticut mother says he thinks she’s still alive

https://youtu.be/F73CFfSYXTs


TCRS ASSESSMENT

It doesn’t take Rocket Science to match Dulos’ words to Watts’ words. It simply takes a working memory. We can thin-slice the semantics by simply matching them, word for word. For example:

1. DULOS [When asked if he had anything to do with Jennifer’s disappeartance]: I’d like to leave it at that…

WATTS [Asked if he got into an argument]: We had an emotional conversation, but...I’ll leave it at that.

2. DULOS: It depends, the people who do not know me, probably look at me as a monster.

Strictly speaking, Watts didn’t use these words during the Sermon on the Porch, but he did refer to himself during his First Confession as”not being a monster” .

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#FotisDulos

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3. DULOS: When it first started, I seriously pinched myself a couple of times. And I said, this cannot be true. I’m dreaming. I’m wearing orange [smiles], and I’m in a cell…

Although not verbatim, Dulos is mimicking the same psychology as Watts who told the media it didn’t feel real.

WATTS: It’s just earth-shattering [appearing to smile]…I don’t feel like this is even real right now. It’s like a nightmare [glances left] that I just can’t wake up from. 

That’s three, that’s enough. There are other similarities, such as the attitude of pretending to have faith in the authorities while not necessarily assisting the authorities, meaningfully, in their investigation.

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A major difference between the Watts case and Dulos case is what appears to be the active involvement of Dulos’ girlfriend as as an accessory of some sort. Another major difference is that Dulos wants custody of his children.

It remains to be seen what the financial circumstances were surrounding this debacle. For those following this case, please feel free to share links, news and comments on this thread as this case unfolds.

Lie Spotting: Test your true crime lie detector nous with the Chris Watts case

Malcolm Gladwell reckons we have a hard time recognizing the truth – about Amanda Knox

Many of Malcolm Gladwell’s techniques are highly applicable to true crime. Thin-slicing is one. An example of just how brilliantly effective thin-slicing can be is in the hugely complex quagmire of serious relationships and marriage. How the heck does one thin-slice that? And yet, we can.

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When couples show one particular trait the relationship is predictably doomed. That trait is Contempt.

This is a fascinating insight into perhaps the most complex of all human and social dynamics – romantic relationships. How often have we all been stung, misled, betrayed and lied to? How often have others felt that way way – and often misunderstood – those traits in us? When couples first engage, whether on Tinder or at the altar, what everyone wants to know including them is: is this fucker going to last?

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Contempt provides the litmus test. If there’s any contempt in the beginning, a relationship is not likely to see a very good, very happy or very long run. Contempt cuts through the crap of what the Terminator once referred to as “the dynamics of human pair bonding”.

Is a marriage going to end in divorce? If there’s contempt in the beginning, middle or end, it surely will.

Now, we can apply the same Gladwellian techniques almost across the board with true crime. These are just a few examples of thin-slicing tricks that work more often than not in true crime:

  1. The absence of evidence is also evidence. I’ve heard prosecutors in court phrasing it slightly differently – the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. What this means is where there is no evidence, where we would expect to see it [regardless of whether there is a crime or not] this in itself is evidence of something. A good example is deleted cell phone data, or a crime scene that has recently been vacuumed, or laundry done in the middle of a murder etc.
  2. Not all liars are murderers, but all murderers are liars. Just as contempt is a quick route to check whether a relationship will stand the test of time or not, if a suspect – or potential suspect – proves to be even a little economical with the truth especially during an interrogation, this tends to be a red flag. There are exceptions, Nichol Kessinger being a current example. But in true crime it’s usually not hard to find out whether someone is telling the truth or not. Invariably it’s not a little white lie here or there, it’s a case of living a lie.
  3. Social death of the perpetrator as a precursor to murder. This is more difficult to recognize, and thus tougher to thin-slice, because it’s symbolic, and this is really the area we miss when trying to figure out other people. What matters to us matters to others in different proportions. pinocchio-ears
  4. The Temptation of PleasureLand. Whether it’s Oscar Pistorius or Amanda Knox, OJ or Chris Watts, what crimes invariably involve is a PleasureLand calling from a distance. The crime is intended to make sure access is not denied to an imagined PleasureLand. PleasureLand both tempts the perpetrator, and numbs their sense of reality.

Once one gets the hang of Gladwellian thin-slicing, it feels like everything can be thin-sliced.

There’s a lot of thin-slicing going on in true crime, especially in the media coverage. It’s inevitable that talk show hosts will try to reduce high-profile crimes that have been bumper-to-bumper for weeks, months, sometimes years, to a golden nugget. Do they get it right?

True crime is a complex psychology, and tends to have very complex gears and machinery driving antisocial behavior. The identifies of people are complex, the dynamics between them even more so. And since so much of this machinery is deliberately hidden, while some of it is freely disclosed, this challenges and tests our ability to discern truth from reality. Most of us can’t, and no one can without doing their due diligence, spending time getting to know the people involved.

Just as identity isn’t the same as character, truth isn’t the same as reality.  While identity is constant, character can be refashioned, rebooted, reimagined. Truth isn’t interchangeable with this or that reality. Reality is whatever we believe, or say it is. Truth, the TRUE in True Crime Rocket Science isn’t a matter of beliefs, it’s scientific.

In true crime, typically when an expert says it that’s the new reality. When an influential person prognosticates that becomes true crime gospel. But that’s not truth. That’s thin-sliced reality. Thin-sliced truth is harder and far more difficult to do properly, especially in true crime. It takes a mind practiced in criminal psychology, and saturated with knowledge of the case, to come close to getting it right.

We see it when Dr. Phil thin-slices Chris Watts’ Sermon on the Porch, and assesses him as guilty because he’s a narcissist. And then the true crime forums are flooded with people repeating that word.

Dr. Phil Covers Chris Watts – and uses the “N” Word

When an ex-FBI profiler on Dr. Phil calls Watts a psychopath, the true crime world shudders with new revelation. That’s why this crime was committed!

When an ex-FBI profiler, the legendary John Douglas [AKA Mindhunter] says he thinks Amanda Knox is innocent, that’s enough – apparently – for Gladwell.

Wrongfully Accused

Douglas was paid handsomely for his expert opinion in the West Memphis 3 case,  basically applying the same thin-slicing to Damien Echols as Amanda Knox. It goes like this: “Just because you behave in a weird way after a vicious murder [in Echols’ case the triple murder of three eight-year-old boys], doesn’t mean you were involved in a crime.”

Douglas was also called by John Ramsey’s defense lawyers within two weeks of JonBenet’s murder. Douglas famously bragged that after two hours of talking to John Ramsey [who appeared “appropriately sad and depressed”], Douglas told Ramsey’s lawyer Bryan Morgan – of Haddon, Morgan and Foreman –  “I believe him.”

A Grand Jury two years later did not, and the results of that hearing were kept secret for the next 13 years.  And then? The public thin-sliced the then District Attorney’s statement that “there’s not enough evidence to have a trial” to mean that’s what the Grand Jury thought. It wasn’t.

Thin-slicing can be used just as easily to manipulate. In Amanda Knox’s case, if you were trying to influence public opinion [after her original conviction], where would be the obvious place to start? Start by undermining the Italian justice system. That’s what they did and it worked.

But let’s look a little closer at the way Gladwell thin-slices the Knox saga, and why Knox got her way in the end.

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From the New York Times:

In “Talking to Strangers” he asks why we are “so bad” at understanding people we haven’t met before. We often can’t tell when a stranger is lying to us (“Puzzle Number One”), and meeting a stranger face-to-face doesn’t necessarily help our understanding of who they are (“Puzzle Number Two”). 

Amanda Knox has always been an enigma. One might say the same of Damien Echols, Oscar Pistorius, Casey Anthony and Chris Watts. These men and women aren’t the average. Look closer, and at the time they were accused of murder, they were both on the fringes of society and trying to break into PleasureLand.

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In true crime, thin-slicing can be a double-edged sword. Just as weird behavior can be used to say someone isn’t necessarily guilty of something, weird behavior can be used to say someone is. When Douglas met John Ramsey and Ramsey appeared appropriately sad, there was nothing weird about that. When Knox was photographed outside the villa where Meredith lay dead, having been brutally attacked and bled to death [she drowned in her own blood], Knox was kissing her boyfriend. This strange behavior persisted at the police station, where everyone else was grief-stricken and shocked, while Knox continued to flirt and giggle with her Italian lover. And Knox seemed to play the goofy excuse in court, as a ploy to explain her strange behavior at the scene.

When Knox appeared in Italy most recently, she’d learned to portray a different look:

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Obviously, Gladwell and Douglas are too busy giving lecture tours on expert lie-spotting to spend any time on one particular case, or they would see the not so subtle way they, and many are being manipulated.

Knox was recently caught out trying to solicit funds for a wedding that had already taken place.

Whether we want to call that a lie or just sneakiness, it’s one of many instances, going all the way back to Knox framing her boss Patrick Lumumba when the walls moved it. It seemed like she knew a little too much then when she fingered a black man, her boss, when the suspect turned out to be a black dude who’d hung out with Knox and her pals at home.

The  critical aspect Gladwell, Douglas and the Thin-Slicing crow have missed, is the most obvious. If someone is weird, just in their daily behavior. If they’re loud and attention-seeking, this and that, what are they like to live with? And how does that translate to Knox’s roommate getting murdered over a long holiday weekend when everyone in the villa had decamped to their families, except the expat American student and her expat British neighbor, right next door [who was trying to study].

The New York Times does it’s often version of thin-slicing. Firstly it thin-slices Gladwell’s book, then thin-slices his book’s version of the Knox case. It all comes down to 1) the overwhelming evidence that someone else was guilty and 2) Knox didn’t grieve when her friend died.

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Overwhelming evidence pointing to another culprit.

If we apply the logic of the Knox case to the West Memphis 3 case [officially unsolved], then we could also say only one of the West Memphis 3 committed the murders, why should all three take the fall? It’s nonsense. In the Knox case there were originally three convictions: Ivorian Rudy Guede, who had smoked and sold marijuana on previous occasions with the girls in the house. Knox’s boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito who it was said had been caught viewing bestiality porn and used cocaine, and Amanda Knox.

The Pro-Knox site has been explicit in trying to debunk the drug narrative as a myth.

The Cocaine Dealer Relationship Myth

Of course just as behaving in a weird way may be a sign that you’re just a weirdo, it may also be a sign of habitual drug use, with all the associated Pinocchio behavior and stringing others along, thrown in. Once again, if you’re two students sharing space in a far flung villa in Italy, and you’re not both equally caught up in Pinocchio goes to PleasureLand, why wouldn’t conflict ensure?

Knox was guilty because she didn’t act like the prototypically grieving friend

It wasn’t just that Knox didn’t act right at the crime scene, or at the police station. It wasn’t that someone else had to smash down Meredith’s bedroom door, even though Knox was at home. It wasn’t the half a dozen confessions Knox gave, each one contradicting the other. It wasn’t her boyfriend withdrawing his alibi.

It was after Meredith was dead, she expected life to continue as usual. She expected to stay in her room, and continue to go to classes. All of Meredith’s British friends left Perugia immediately after the murder. They suspended their studies and went home. They attended Meredith’s funeral. They gave their statements and almost all had alibis.

Knox wanted to stay in Italy. She told her parents as much. She told them she didn’t want to go home. Her friend had just been murdered in the room next door, and the murderer [at that stage] was still out there, and she wanted to continue with her life? That only makes sense if you thin-slice it one way.

Thin-slicing has its limits, but apparently, so do ex-FBI profiling legends.

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Who do you despise the most in True Crime? Damien Echols is my pick [WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES]

 

CBI Agent Kevin Koback: Have you seen this? Kessinger: Yeah I saw that.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and those at the center of the Watts case, have been actively reading these blogs. Here’s how we know.

Between 09:45 and 10:09 on the morning of August 29th, 2018, a Wednesday, Nichol Kessinger sends Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Kevin Koback the following text:

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This is in reference to news circulating in the media about Watts possibly being involved with another man [Trent Bolte], and which I was covered in a post the day prior on Shakedown.

Was Chris Watts having an affair with another man? UPDATED [August 28th, 2018]

Koback answers that yes, he is aware of the news, and asks Kessinger if Watts ever mentioned anything “about that?”

KESSINGER: Not at all. I don’t know if I believe this yet but he fooled me into thinking he was a much different person than he is, so anything is possible.

As an afterthought, Kessinger added that she might have some reinforcing information.

KESSINGER: But I do have some dates for things he said that I think [are] in line with some things that other man [Trent Bolte] claimed. I already had them on my list to talk to you about.

Koback answers with a single word.

Okay.

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And then Koback sends Kessinger a follow-up question with a link to a blog post I authored on Shakedown, dated August 23rd, 2018. This link:

https://shakedowntitle.com/2018/08/23/is-she-chris-wattss-mystery-mistress/

I posted that blog two days after Watts appeared in court for the second time, based on information presented [and later removed/redacted] from the Warrantless Arrest Affidavit.

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Since the affidavit explicitly mentioned Watts was actively having an affair with a co-worker, it didn’t take a Rocket Scientist to figure out who she was. All one had to do was go through the list of female names on the affidavit, exclude those involved in law enforcement, and cross-reference those affiliated with the oil industry. More likely than not the likely candidate would be reasonably attractive and probably, though not necessarily, close to Watts’ age or slightly younger.

In the end there was only one name, one likely candidate that stood out. A certain Nichol Kessinger was one of a handful of names listed as “address pending”. The others included Frank Rzucek Junior, Nickole Utoft Atkinson [spelled incorrectly], Jeremy Lindstrom [spelled incorrectly], Cristina Meacham [spelled incorrectly], Addy Molony [spelled incorrectly] and Sam Paisley. None of these individuals had connections to the oil industry, and half of the women weren’t even resident in Colorado.

There was also another compelling reason why it probably was Kessinger. Because there was almost no evidence of her online. By as early as August 23rd, Kessinger had scrubbed virtually all traces of herself online, but not everything. This photo, for example, came up.

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Google cache still had a reference to Kessinger working for Halliburton, a company associated with the oil industry.

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And with a little digging, it turned out Kessinger’s father lived in Arvada and was also affiliated with the oil industry.

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Arvada, incidentally, is where Kessinger and her father [and her dog] had their very first interview with the FBI at around midday on August 15th, 2018.  It was the same day Watts failed his polygraph and by the end of it, he’s partially confessed to the crime.

Kessinger’s response to Koback’s text asking her, “Have you seen this?” and the link to the Shakedown post Is SHE Chris Watts’s Mystery Mistress? was yeah, she had seen it.

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KESSINGER: Yeah I saw that. Those people are grasping at straws. That picture is very very old and they don’t have my last few employers or my correct address. Or even my last few addresses for that matter. I’m really doing my best to stay under the radar as long as possible. Do they release more information about his case at his hearing on November 19?

But “those people” weren’t grasping at straws. It turned out it was Kessinger all along, and while the media only disclosed her identity in an “exclusive” published by the Denver Post on November 16, three days before the final sentencing hearing, the real scoop had been published by me almost three months earlier, as early as August 23rd, just ten days after the incident.

In late August, Kessinger was right about one thing. People were grasping at straws because tight control was being managed around the information in this case. Some of the less intuitive argued in the months that followed that Kessinger wasn’t necessarily the mystery mistress, because there wasn’t absolute proof that she worked at Anadarko.

The media remained strangely silent on the matter while going crazy about Trent Bolte as well as another dubious mistress Watts supposedly met on Tinder. In hindsight, both of these charlatans appeared to be either random attempts by individuals to hog the limelight, or someone was purposefully and strategically trying to misdirect attention and speculation away from Kessinger [and Anadarko] in the run up to the trial in November. 

Did they succeed?

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More:  More Photos of Chris Watts’ Mystery Mistress [Updated] [October 17, 2018]

Text Messages Between Nichol Kessinger and CBI Agent Kevin Koback – includes a reference by Koback and Kessinger to #SHAKEDOWN

You haven’t seen these photos of Shan’ann and Chris Watts

CrimeRocket to do a Documentary Series on the Chris Watts Case

CrimeRocket.com ‘s coverage of the Chris Watts’ stands apart as the most comprehensive, accurate and compelling version of what actually played out on Sunday night and Monday morning in 2825 Saratoga Trail, Frederick Colorado on Agust 13th, 2018.

The TWO FACE book series is the definitive account of the Watts Family Murders. In spite of these efforts, the mainstream version of events continues to echo Watts’ dubious version . Weld County also appears content to recycle Watts’ doubtful version of events.

True crime documentaries like HLN’s Killer Dad and ID’sFamily Man, Family Murderer thus far have not even begun to scratch the surface, or interrogate the evidence, of what actually happened in the Watts case .

Isn’t it time a proper documentary, from someone with expert knowledge, covered the Chris Watts case?


MY PITCH

Since covering true crime as a full-time author, I’ve become increasingly appalled at the documentary coverage of high-profile cases. From cold cases like JonBenet Ramsey all the way to the latest documentaries on Chris Watts, the quality is invariably shabby. The producers seem to do little more than a tip-of-the-hat to the actual meat-and-potatoes of these cases.

A few years ago, I approached filmmakers and had several high-level discussions with a view to converting many of my crime narratives to the medium of television. In some cases they offered contracts to buy the rights to some of my books. In the end, I turned these down because I didn’t have confidence that any of these producers had close to a gut feel for how to go about rendering these narratives. The bigshots in the industry, with experience in the genre,  seemed to lack confidence in my work because it was self-published.

I also negotiated with a producer based in New York, affiliated with HBO. In 2018 a major American network stole major elements used in a narrative series. When confronted with these infringements, the network offered a licensing agreement, and agreed to credit my work, but refused to pay for their appropriation.

I’ve also spent some time reaching out to part-time podcasters and videographers. Thus far it’s been very stop-start. Some aren’t au fait with true crime, others who are have other jobs they do fulltime.

The best solution seems to be to write, produce and direct a documentary myself. I have photographic experience as former professional photojournalist for mainstream magazines.

I recently watched the excellent series on Netflix called The Family. All of it is based around the narrative of investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet. Sharlet produced the series and also appears in it to narrate the often complex backstory.

The way to go will involve starting up a GoFundMe with a goal of $50 000 in seed capital. This will involve travelling to the US, purchasing equipment and filming on location for 3-4 weeks. The documentary will be rooted in the research found on CrimeRocket, and throughout the TWO FACE series.

Who’s with me?

Share and spread the word at this link.

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Chris Watts: How bad journalism fucks up the true crime time machine

Over at CrimeRocket II I’ve been doing a day-by-day recap of this case [follow #1yearagotodayCW or on Twitter at #yearagotodayCW]. The time machine is a useful, and powerful methodology to analyze these cases, in particular the hard-to-see family dynamics.

Journalism is great when it’s providing reports at the time, especially in the hours and first few days after a crime. But then the media gets afflicted with its typical ADD and it becomes lazier and less effective over the long term. Over the even longer term, this laziness can lead to a lack of accuracy, and eventually can start to distort or impinge on the facts as they happened. Here’s a case in point.

Chris Watts Update: Neighbor Says They Seemed Like A ‘Normal, Everyday” Family – International Business Times

Going by the headline alone, this looks like a topical update, doesn’t it? Some new news on the Chris Watts case, right? The article is dated July 31st, 2019. In fact the article is recycled from an interview conducted more than six months earlier. CrimeRocket blogged about it at the time.

Dr Oz Interview with Chris Watts’ Neighbor Nate Trinastich: 5 Key Insights

Oxygen also covered it in mid-January 2019:

The Neighbor Who Suspected Chris Watts From The Beginning – Oxygen

And the source is here, which refers to the “original” airing in mid-January 2019:

What Drove Chris Watts to Kill His Family? – Dr. Oz

So what, you might say. An article was resuscitated and recycled six months later, what’s the big deal?

Just this:

In the interview, Trinastich explains that the Watts family seemed like a “normal, everyday” family.

“Shanann was always really friendly. She came over, welcomed us to the neighborhood. The girls were always running around laughing, having a great time,” Trinastich said on the show. Watts, on the other hand, had a different demeanor than Shanann, Trinastich explained. He said, Watts was “real quiet” and sometimes was somewhat “standoffish.”

“There were times where he just didn’t want to wave or didn’t want to say anything, but usually he was nice.” Trinastich told Dr. Oz that Watts and Shanann “didn’t fight any more than any other couple,” but because his home was close to theirs, he could often overhear their arguments.

“They had a couple confrontations that I happened to see, but it was never him being a big, huge monster,” he said. On the day that Shanann and her daughters were murdered, Trinastich can be heard telling police on bodycam footage, according to KCNC-TV, a CBS affiliate in Denver, that he “heard them full out screaming at each other at the top of their lungs.” Trinastich tells the police that Watts “gets crazy.” The couple reportedly was fighting over Watts’ wanting a divorce so he could be with his mistress.

Going by this article, apparently the neighbor thought it was normal for Watts to be standoffish. But it wasn’t normal. He was introverted, yes, but he only became standoffish towards his wife in the first week of August, a week before the murders, while he was in North Carolina [when the neighbor wasn’t present].

It’s also a misappropriation of the facts to say the couple “was reportedly” arguing because he wanted a divorce to be with his mistress. Shan’ann never knew about Kessinger. That was why she murdered – to prevent her from knowing.

In terms of the neighbor’s appropriation of the term, what’s more likely is that by January Trinastich had read some of the discovery, and perhaps heard some of the media reports himself, and so adopted this term standoffish.

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The term first enters the media narrative around August 21st, 2018 when Michelle Greer – who saw the couple in Myrtle Beach – thought Watts appeared standoffish.

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Then the Daily Beast [citing the Greer account], repeated it ten days later in an excellent article dated August 31st.

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There’s also Nickole Atkinson who, though she never uses the term standoffish, refers to the general theme of Watts not acting in a loving manner towards Shan’ann. The way ABC frames it [1:30 in this video], Shan’ann either told her this [which she did, and we know when she did] or Atkinson observed it firsthand [which she likely didn’t]. It’s unfortunate ABC aren’t more clear on the circumstances surrounding Nickole getting this insight.

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But there’s also another fairly obscure reference to standoffish. Guess where it comes from?

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The standoffish reference in WRAL.com’s account is from Aberdeen, North Carolina, and comes from inside Hair Jazz, the hairdresser where Shan’ann’s mother worked. Ironically it’s Sandi’s co-workers who’re telling the media that Watts appeared standoffish, not Sandi herself.

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The date of this article from WRAL.com is August 16th, just three days after the murder and a few hours after Watts’ arrest. It precedes all the media references mentioned above by at least 5 days.  It’s even possible Michele Greer, who lives in North Carolina, read or saw the local content and adopted the term herself. Other media rebroadcast this term, some swapping the word standoffish for aloof.

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In criminal psychology semantics matter, and there is a world of difference between standoffish [which is distancing] and aloof [which can mean arrogant, which Watts was not, certainly not in an obvious way].

Taken together, what does this all mean? It means the standoffishness took root in North Carolina. This also suggests the premeditation began to germinate there. By quoting, misquoting or appropriating these words, the media collaborate in muddying the timeline, and making it harder to see when things happened. Eventually the narrative becomes so polluted by this mixing process, it requires a True Crime Rocket Scientist to unravel it.

Chris Watts: One Year Ago Today

Tomorrow will be exactly fourteen days prior to the triple family murder that shook the sleepy town of Frederick, Colorado last year, and rocked America.  I’ve been tracking the timeline of the case in real-time since July 4th this year, and we’re now up to 26 separate timeline posts. You can view them chronologically at this link or use these:

#1 – #6

#7 – #16

#17 – #26

If you have any comments or observations, please make use of the #1yearagotodayCW hashtag on Twitter.

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Two Possible Cadaver Dog Alerts that have been Overlooked

We know for a fact that Watts disposed of items – including at least one blanket – in a dumpster at or near 6507 Black Mesa, which was under construction at the time.

In the K9 search below, the dog is barking throughout the time they’re in Black Mesa road. At 06:10 in the clip below, the dog handler says: “He’s picking up scent from the house,” which we now know was true.

Notice all the red dumpsters lining the side of the road going down Black Mesa.

At this time when the dog is barking, they’re standing right beside a large, red construction dumpster. They’re also standing right beside a house that’s under construction. The cops don’t seem to know or inquire about the schedule for when the dumpsters are emptied, but it was each Tuesday, possibly in the morning prior to or after the search.

The red arrows denote the route Watts took on August 13th. The green is the route he should have taken home.

In retrospect it’s unfortunate that law enforcement weren’t able to coordinate with the K9 unit while they were out there to specifically look at 6507 Black Mesa, based on the GPS data. From the discovery [page 555] it appears the GPS data was only provided in the late afternoon or early evening of August 14th, by Tony Huskey, Anadarko’s regional security manager.

It appears the cops only inspected the scene properly on August 22nd, more than a week after they’d received the data. Officer Lines’ report neglects to mention the activity along Black Mesa, or the dog handler Jayne Zmijewski ‘s comment about the dog picking up scents from the house.

There appears to be a second alert, or certainly interest, in Bella’s bedroom. It’s at about 19:30 in the clip below.

https://youtu.be/xGdsE86giA4?t=1164

More: On his way back to the crime scene, Chris Watts first went to look at a house recommended by his realtor… [Updated]

Cadaver Dog Alerts inside #2825 Saratoga Trail [29th Tranche]

Remember the Lindstroms? They say Ceecee fell at the birthday party on the swingset in the garden.

At 1:15 in the clip below, the Lindstrom couple talk about the last time they saw Bella, Ceecee and Chris Watts. Jeremy describes the Watts family as “perfect”. His wife Jennifer sketches a moment on the final, fateful Sunday when Ceecee fell off the swingset and Watts rushed to comfort her “like any normal father would”.

JENNIFER: They were just here, and they were just playing and they [eyes brim with tears] – they didn’t deserve it.

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YouTuber Releases Tranche of New Photos from Weld County

Since November 2018 Weld County’s lips have been pretty much sealed on a slew of discovery artifacts. We still don’t have access to the Watts’ recent financial records. Perhaps some folks are holding onto information with a view to releasing it “when the time is right”. Plunder’s release on July 5th suggests more might be in the works.

But 93 minutes it a heck of a long time to go through the archive of photos and video. I’ll be posting a few slides minus the lyric graffiti on CrimeRocket II in due course. This will allow readers to view the images at a glance.

Update: The Plunder Channel on YouTube has since been taken down.

How to navigate this site – and what’s coming soon at CrimeRocket II

If you’re consuming content on this site on your mobile phone, chances are you’re only sampling a small fraction of the content. Let me show you the mobile view of the home page [left] compares to the desktop view [right].

You’ll notice the mobile view only appears to offer a single drop down menu.

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Whereas the desktop version offers 10 separate tabs.

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TCRS is a lot easier to navigate using a desktop view than on mobile settings. This is probably because the blog is written on a PC and formatted on a PC. It’s also intended to be a meaty online read rather than a short, vacuous news snack. So reading the content is also going to be easier on a larger screen, just as reading a book is easier in the larger format.

For those looking for the latest updates on the Chris Watts case, simply click on the drop down tab. New posts are added to the top of the tab below the permanent heading: CHRISTOPHER WATTS: What else do we know? This uppermost tab contains a summary of news and evidence as recorded chronologically in real time.

Although new posts are added to the tabs periodically, some are added after several days or longer.

In the desktop view, a quick way to navigate to the latest posts is by scrolling down the right margin until you get to the Top Posts section.

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These 8 top posts are ranked from most popular at the top left. They’re also visible in the mobile mode but it requires a lot of scrolling to get there.

Another useful section in the right margin is the Recent Posts section. This section records the 12 latest posts as they happen.

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Once again, Recent Posts are also visible in mobile mode but require a lot of scrolling down to get there. If you prefer reading on your phone or mobile device, a simple, easy way to stay updated is by following TCRS’ coverage on Twitter and Facebook.

Most of the latest blogs and book announcements are posted to Twitter and Facebook. Another easy way to keep track of TCRS content posted to Twitter is to search the #ChrisWatts hashtag on Twitter, and also on Instagram. The same applies to other cases on social media – #AmandaKnox #McCann #JonBenetRamsey #CaseyAnthony #RebeccaZahau #JodiArias #VanBreda.

It’s also recommended to click on the “Latest” section on Twitter’s hashtag search to get the latest posts. For those wishing to discuss Rocket Science related True Crime, use the hashtage #TCRS.

The TCRS Your Comments section provides the latest feedback on the most current aspects, and a chance for you to get to know the TCRS community. It’s also a chance for us to get to know you.

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Another easy way to stay in the loop is to simply subscribe to posts as they are posted. Each time a post is published a message will notify you in your email inbox.

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CrimeRocket II

One last thing. As from mid-August 2019, all Watts coverage will move to CrimeRocket2. This is also to facilitate navigation, and also to sequestrate the coverage of various cases, including the Rebecca Zahau case. For those interested, I’ve already spent a lot of time putting up the Case File archive at CrimeRocket 2. I’m still trying to get hold of the depositions and trial footage. If any of you out there are able to source it, please pass it on. I’ve contacted some folks close to the case but thus far they don’t wish to share.

Besides ongoing coverage of the Watts case, CrimeRocket2 will also cover new cases such as Kelsey Berreth and dig deeper into The Murder of Vincent van Gogh. In May 2019 I did an extended tour of France and the Netherlands following a few lines of inquiry. I’ll be blogging about The Last Journey of Vincent van Gogh, and writing a second book on the series, in due course.

It’s also likely that a YouTube channel will be coming soon where short discussions will be posted online about TCRS-related topics. Hope to see you all there!Fullscreen capture 20190623 110229

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