TRUE CRIME ROCKET SCIENCE
True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek
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TRANSCRIPT
Hello, and welcome to True Crime Rocket Science.
Today’s episode deals with three huge breakthroughs in the 6th hour of the 7 hour interrogation. We’re going to play Devil’s Advocate. What happens when we do that? We do we see when we look at the interrogation from the perspective of a defense case? Had this ultra high-profile case ever gone to trial, we will see there’s a moment, a precise moment where Watts still had the upper hand against law enforcement. If he had called a timeout then, he would have kept the upper hand. But he didn’t. Instead he voluntarily gave that advantage away. He threw in the towel on his own story, on his own elaborate effort to get away with murder.
Now, although we’ll be looking at this mostly out of context, we need to review a skeletal framework as a bare minimum for how things got to where they did. We’ll start by simply acknowledging that by Wednesday afternoon, following the polygraph, law enforcement had the goods on Watts affair. They knew he had a girlfriend, they knew she was a co-worker of his at Anadarko, they knew it was a recent affair, they knew the pair had been intimate, and they knew he’d been lying to her as well.
Nichol Kessinger deserves credit for this. She sat down for her first interview with two FBI agents at around midday on Wednesday, August 15th. It was as a result of this interview that the Feds were able to pass their intel on to Coder and Lee, and they had the confidence to exert some real pressure on Watts. They’d been buttering him up for hours, letting him waste time and have their say. They gradually nudged him here and there, but they had no idea how much Watts was hiding. Kessinger’s statement provided them with a least a little certainty in this regard.
1st Breakthrough
The first breakthrough happens at around the 7-minute mark, in the 6th hour on the interrogation. We’re going to spend some time dealing with the first ten minutes leading up to the breakthrough, and the three minutes following.
Now, in order to get to the finish line, in order to get Watts to willingly volunteer information, rather than recoil, withdraw and lawyer up, they had to play nice, but also get him to admit to the affair. If they told him they knew, some trust that had developed would be lost. By Watts admitting, he was able to save face and in a weird way, as law enforcement they could seem almost graceful in their beneficence. They could also extend clemency for the affair, which would make Watts wander if they’d be okay with him having done worse stuff.
The first breakthrough comes immediately after the polygraph, when Coder and Lee return to the cubicle together. Unbeknownst to Watts, while he has been stuck in the room – at that stage for around 5 hours – both agents have been appraised with more information, and have been able to refresh themselves with a change of scenery, and also consult with each other, and others, on the way to approach Watts during the next phase, bearing in mind what they know now about Kessinger.
Probably, they agree to be firmer, but not too firm. They decide to step it up a gear, while being prepared to back off if Watts gets too riled up.
Let’s start at 16:00 sharp, and listen in to the first 105 seconds when the agents start off for their next session, immediately leading up to the breakthrough.
INTERROGATION AUDIO 1
It takes another five minutes of softening Watts up to get him to admit to the affair after this point. Let’s take a look at some of the dialogue in that conversation before listening to it directly.
LEE: But you know they’re not coming back home…
WATTS: I know in the back of my head, I hope they come back home.
LEE: But you know they’re not.
WATTS: I hope they come back home.
LEE: Mmm.
WATTS: I don’t know they’re not coming back home.
CODER: Chris, Tammy and I are confused, and this is what we’re confused about. We’ve told you that we’ve done some work overnight, we’ve got a lot of leads, okay. We know a lot more than you think we do. And here’s where we’re confused. You’re this great guy. I’m not just telling you that, okay. I’m telling you that because everyone tells us that. We can’t find anyone to say anything bad about you. “Chris is a great guy. He’s a good father. He’s a good man.”
LEE: Mmmm.
CODER: We’re confused as to why you’re not taking care of your beautiful children…
WATTS: How I’m not taking care of them right now…?
Here, Coder is seeding the thought in Watts’ mind. He know it’s triggering Watts, and he knows it’s triggering Watts in terms of guilt – about the affair. But he needs Watts to acknowledge it. Watts does want to acknowledge it, he just doesn’t want to get into trouble. The agents must soothe him, appear as therapists temporarily rather than cops trying to nail his ass to post.
CODER: Where are they?
WATTS: I don’t know where they’re at. I honest – I do not know where they are at. If I could have my babies back home right now, I would. I want them back. I want everybody back. [With emphasis] And that’s the God’s-honest truth.
Then, incredibly, 55 long seconds tick by. These have to be seen, and felt to believed. This is ratcheting up the pressure. Two agents staring at Watts, Watts rebuffing them, and then the clock ticking out the time as the standoff continues. In a sense, this moment speaks volumes for the interrogation. Watts isn’t giving them anything, so it’s pointless even talking if he’s going to continue pontificating. This protracted silence not only indicates his resolve, but theirs. And we know ultimately who would win the standoff.
The amazing thing is Watts wanted to take them on; he thought he could outwit them just as he had outwitted his wife, her friends, Kessinger to an extent, and even his colleagues. If Watts wasn’t so pigheaded, he could have looked at the situation differently, and simply registered that they were onto him, and called the whole thing off.
There’s a reason, a few reasons actually, that Watts didn’t lawyer up.There’s also a reason Watts thought he could bullshit his way out of a sticky situation. Maybe one at a time, Watts was an agile liar. But not like this. Not one against two, for hours, and with the disadvantage of others providing crucial intel on him there and then.
At 6:42, after Coder hits Watts with the Two Chris’ speech, he finally confronts Watts as on the chin as he dares, about Watts “lying about something else”. But instead of denying it, Watts admits it.
Watts couldn’t admit to the cops he was having an affair. He couldn’t face Shan’ann on the same issue either.
2nd Breakthrough
The second breakthrough starts happening at about 16:34, about 24 minutes after the first. It involves Watts talking to his father, but it’s not just that. First of all, Watts was so worn down by the interrogation he was close to saying, “Please stop”. Instead, the interrogators skillfully offered Watts the opportunity to talk to his father as an exit.
Even after this idea was mentioned, the cops spoke to Watts for a further ten minutes, holding the offer of talking to his dad – a friendly face – as a psychological carrot.
Even so, this strategy was an enormous risk. They’d been piling on the pressure, and so, if they stepped out of the room, they ran the real risk of Watts catching a breather, getting a second wind, and worse, shutting down or putting a stop to the interrogation. There was also an arguably even bigger risk that Ronnie might talk some sense into his son, and as we’re about to see, that’s exactly what happened.
AUDIO WITH CODER AND LEE PRIOR TO RONNIE ENTERING THE ROOM
The second breakthrough has two layers, the first is Watts talking to his father, and the second, the real breakthrough, is that Watts elects to confess to his father right out the gate. Coder and Lee did such a great mindjob on Wwatts, that they framed Watts talking to his dad as a conversation about what happened. And then, that’s precisely what he did. He didn’t have to.
At about 16:38 the agents leave the room, and as they do, Watts removes his glaves and digs his face into the left shoulder of his shirt, wiping away tears. These are real tears. This is real emotion. Watts doesn’t want his father to see it.
Five long minutes tick by. Watts’ father doesn’t enter the room immediately. Watts is given five long minutes to stew under the intense ticking of the clock, still stuck inside the claustrophobic cubicle. Clearly, during this 5 minute interval Watts’ father is also being given instructions. Ronnie is also being told what to talk about, and expressly that his son is ready to tell him, wants to tell him what happened.
They may also tell Ronnie that he can only talk to his son on condition that they talk about what happened. It’s late in the day, it’s urgent, it’s important they find out what happened to the girls, to Shan’ann, and so Watts needs to tell him.
It’s not surprising then that Ronnie’s first words to his son are:
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on…or?”
AUDIO OF FATHER AND SON
The style of the “interrogation” between father and son is quite different. Both speak in low tones, almost conspirationally, perhaps hoping what they say won’t be recorded. Ronnie is quite much of the time, making short, simple, leading type statements and often simply repeating what his son says. What the agents hadn’t been able to achieve in over five hours, Watts’ father achieved in five minutes.
Curiously, and this has been overlooked by many speculating over the case, when Watts tells his father – volunteers – about the affair, his father isn’t surprised. It’s as if Ronnie already knew about it. Watts also tells his father:
“I told her about the separating…and everything about that…”
He’s implying he told Shan’ann about the affair, and that this is why Shan’ann freaked out. And then when she freaked out, he freaked out.
What’s incredible about this moment, this second breakthrough, besides the contents of it, is that, in effect Watts defaulted from the enterprising Romeo to a zombie simpleton who did as he was told. He was used to taking orders, and in this instance, he did just that. He confessed to his father that all three of them – Shan’ann, Bella and Ceecee were dead, and what’s more, all three had been murdered.
Breakdown/3rd Breakthrough – The Critical Moment
The first breakthrough – Watts voluntarily admitting to the affair – took place at about 16:07. The second – Watts admitting to his father that he killed Shan’ann, and that his children were both dead – took place 36 minutes later, from 16:43 onwards. But the real breakthrough was the third, when, after confessing over a span of eleven minutes, the agents worst fears were realized, and Ronnie started advising his son to get a lawyer.
The agents scrambled. Within about ten seconds of Ronnie telling Watts-
“Well, you gotta get a lawyer…see…what we can do…I could arrange [garbled]…”
-the agents were back in the room. In fact as Ronnie uttered the word “arrange”, Watts lifted his head slightly and made eye contact with his father.
Lee barged in first, but was also careful to ask permission. Ronnie reluctantly accepted the intrusion, saying, “Come on in. ” This was a fatal mistake made by Watts father. He could have said, “Give us a minute.” Instead, Lee advanced, and reached out to Watts. At this time Ronnie had his hand on Watts left arm, or shoulder, while Lee placed her hand on his right shoulder.
By doing this, Lee immediately broke the connection between father and son. For the first time during the entire interrogation, she leaned over Watts and rubbed his back just as she’d seen his father doing.
This may not seem a big deal, but consider the facts. Watts has just admitted murdering his wife. Lee then enters, and comforts a man she is likely repulsed by, and perhaps even afraid of. But she can’t show it. She has to hold her nerve, and keep Watts in the game, and on their side.
The part that’s easy to miss is this.:
If Watts had called it; if the interrogation had stopped at this point, his confession would likely not be admissible in court, simply because most of it is barely audible. Also, since no law enforcement officer was in the room, even if the audio was admitted as evidence, Watts and his father could agree between themselves that certain words captured on audio weren’t what they had actually said to one another.
In short, Watts’ confession was a giant leap forward in terms of the investigation, because he’d just admitted firsthand knowledge that three members of his family were dead. But the confession itself, at this point, was legally worthless. What Lee and Coder needed to do was get Watts on the record. They needed him to forget about getting a lawyer, and get back to talking to him, while playing the delicate game with Watts’ father still in the room. So they had to reassure him as well.
When Lee sits down, she sits directly beside Watts, her elbow almost touching his. Coder sneaks in and sits down silently in the corner. And then immediately, Lee asks Watts the vital question:
“Will you tell us what you told your dad?”
This is the critical moment. If they’d asked Ronnie to step out of the room, perhaps Watts would have had a moment to regain his composure. Perhaps without his father in the room he may have felt the wall return, and balked. But with his father’s hand on his shoulder, and Lee staring in, and Coder in the room, Watts probably felt like he had no choice.
He did have a choice. Had he said no, at this point, the defense could have had a field day with this case. Incredibly, just because Lee asked him nicely, and treated him – now a self-confessed murderer, with warmth – he did what he thought was reasonable. He lied about Shan’ann killing the children, but admitted the “lesser” evil in his mind – killing Shan’ann. What he was describing was a kind of involuntary, justifiable homicide. If, in his story, he’d claimed he’d tried to rescue the children, tried to perform CPR, this too could have saved him. It certainly helped Oscar Pistorius when he claimed the same thing.
Oscar Pistorius ‘carried dying Reeva Steenkamp downstairs and tried to resuscitate her’ – The Telegraph
Oscar Pistorius Tried To Resuscitate Reeva Steenkamp After He Shot Her – Jezebel
In a recent episode of Homicide Hunter, a guilty suspect sitting in a lounge, while the cops searched his home, explained his reluctance to ask for a lawyer. He said he preferred to let the cops search, because the other options was worse:
If you hire a lawyer you look guilty.
Appearances can be deceiving.
Of course, in a situation like this, if you don’t hire a lawyer – and you’re guilty – you can get yourself into a world of trouble, and end up looking even worse.
We know now that Watts had also lied to his father here, telling him he’d “only” killed Shan’ann. So at this stage he thought he had the upper hand, and when agent Lee soothed him, it reinforced this notion. He decided to stick to his game plan, because pinning the crime on Shan’ann seemed like a better idea than getting a lawyer. Watts’ brain was so scrambled by now, he forgot that whatever the details, he’d just admitted to committing murder, to his father, and now he was about to do the same with the two agents, on the record. He may have figured admitting to Shan’ann’s murder wasn’t a big deal, after all, when he admitted it, everyone understood, and hell, he understood why he’d done it.
But he’d made a very crucial error. If he could fool them with appearances, they could do the same to him, and they did.
We will review the crucial third breakthrough here. Listen out for Watts and his father mentioning the affair and Watts repeating that Shan’ann knew about it anyway…
Watts couldn’t admit to the cops he was having an affair.
He couldn’t face Shan’ann on the same issue either.
Just as he couldn’t face the truth in this moment about what he’d done [killing the children], he couldn’t face Shan’ann with the truth either. And so, in the same way he sneakily blamed the deaths of the children on Shan’ann, when he confronted Shan’ann after she arrived home from the airport, he did it in the same sneaky, underhanded manner.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, and welcome to True Crime Rocket Science.
For most people, their first introduction to 33-year-old Chris Watts was on Tuesday, August 14th, 2018, during his seven-minute Sermon on the Porch. We watched as a well-groomed man, a Silver Fox, stood in charcoal shorts and a t-shirt, and spoke casually about his missing family.
Where were they? He wasn’t sure – he was concerned – but he also seemed unperturbed. Maybe they were safe, maybe they weren’t. The game of psychological cat and mouse was underway.
Over the course of these first few minutes we saw Watts for the first time, but most of us missed the first wave of telltale micro expressions. It didn’t really matter, because overall, what we did see was loud and clear. We could all see that his affect just wasn’t right. While many of us didn’t know what it meant, we suspected something bad had happened, and most of us were right about that.
Since then, dozens of experts have analyzed the footage recorded by media, media that incidentally Detective Baumhover made sure were there when Shan’ann and the children didn’t turn up over night, nor early the next morning. At around 07:00 in the morning the media were contacted, and by around 10:00 they were gathered around Watts’ porch – on 2825 Saratoga Trail, in Frederick Colorado.
From Dr. Phil to the District Attorney, from YouTubers to the millions around the world who started following this case , we all saw the same thing. We saw – before any forensic evidence was located, before any bodies were found – that Watts simply didn’t appear as we expected him to appear. As strangers, and even the reporters only met the Anadarko field worker for the first time that day, we knew something was off, we just didn’t know how off.
But someone did. The neighbor knew. And Shan’ann’s best friend knew. The detective and police knew. And then, once Watts was interrogated, and his interrogators got to know him, they realized just how oddly he was behaving, and the alarm bells started clanging.
This getting to know a suspect takes time. And we never really finish the job of assembling an identity that the perpetrator is doing his damnedest to conceal from us.
In this episode, True Crime Rocket Science will take you through the audio of these actual conversations, and deal with his affect in a new way. Firstly, we have to bear in mind what we don’t know, and what True Crime Rocket Science says about that. Secondly, we have to take our cues from those on the ground who knew Watts, but bearing in mind their context is limited too. Thirdly, we have to break into Watts’ mind and see why he was playing his cards the way he was playing them.
Finally, we want to take all of this, and apply it where it hasn’t been before, which is to ask whether – after a year and countless hours studying this particular killer – whether we’ve become effective not just at lie spotting, but putting together a personal profile. In other words, do we know who Watts is one year later?
Let’s begin at the beginning, with the Sermon on the Porch.
- The Sermon on the Porch
What we didn’t know when we saw Watts was how he really felt about Shan’ann. This really lay at the cruz of it. How did he really feel about his family? We know now that Watts would have wanted to conceal this, and also to minimize it when he dealt with it. Why? Because his enmity with his wife went directly to motive. The state of his finances, went directly to motive. The pregnancy, went directly to motive. The new love of his life, went directly to motive. So, if you were Watts, you wouldn’t want to draw attention to any of those things.
Meanwhile, you’d want the media and everyone watching, including and especially Nichol Kessinger, to think Watts cared about his family, but [given his schema], not that much.
SERMON ON THE PORCH AUDIO CLIP
He couldn’t be too traumatized, you see, or that might put his mistress off. After all, she needed to believe most of all that Shan’ann had just had enough of everything, taken the children, and left, and as it happened, initially at least she did believe this.
KESSINGER AUDIO CLIP
If we were encountering Watts for the first time during the Sermon on the Porch, we may have already seen photos of Shan’ann, and of the children, including on Facebook. That sketched a picture of harmony, even perfect harmony, but we couldn’t be sure how they were really getting along.
It was only when I researched the first book on the case, when I studied the transcript of the Sermon on the Porch in detail, that I realized what had been left out. Watts never mentions that Shan’ann was pregnant. He never mentioned the word divorce or a mistress. He never mentioned Shan’ann’s doctor’s important. He doesn’t mention Shan’ann’s plans for a gender reveal and why her disappearing then, given that context, was weird. Instead he spoke lightheartedly about his children throwing him with chicken nuggets, and how he missed them not getting their dessert after dinner.
When he was asked about the emotional conversation he had with Shan’ann Monday morning, he said it wasn’t very emotional. When he spoke to Coder and Lee about it, he said it was, and that they were both crying. Why the different statements in front of the camera and in the interrogation cubicle? Because when he was on camera Kessinger could listen in, when in the cubicle, she was essentially out of the game.
While the symbolism of many of his statements, and other colorful language was [and still is] a minefield of information, Watts’ affect was what stood out loud and clear. This raised the question – didn’t he know to act more concerned than he was? Didn’t he know that by acting more concerned Watts would be more convincing as someone who was innocent? Was Watts stupid? Because he didn’t show emotion and seemed to be enjoying being interviewed, was he a psychopath, or a narcissist?
But despite what the pundits said, Watts wasn’t a psychopath, or a narcissist, and neither was he being as stupid as he seemed to be. The critical thing was he wasn’t being himself, his affect showed a man portraying an appearance – a lie – and this clearly indicated he was hiding something.
This was an open question, and members of the public had their ideas, some on track, and some way off. Like these:
it was very obvious that this man committed this horrific crime from viewing this interview the first time I saw it.How anybody can do this to their own family, is beyond my comprehension.
I think you have completely misread what I have written. It is beyond my emotional and moral comprehension as to why someone could commit a heinous crime against their own family.
His affect is flat, he keeps grinning where a distressed person’s mouth would be downturned — if you didn’t know the subject matter and turned off the sound he would look like a guy talking about his preferred yard service.
HE is gay,he does not have another woman.I told my friend the first time I saw him”he is queer as a two dollar bill
2. Am I my Neighbor’s Keeper?
TRINASTICH AUDIO CLIP
It probably bears repeating that Nate Trinastich is very aware that Watts isn’t acting right. He tells the police, with Nickole Atkinson and her son Nicolas present, and both appear to be in consensus with the neighbor’s take on Watts. Trinastich role plays Watts rocking back and forth, something we noticed but perhaps not immediately. Trinastich pertinently says:
“He doesn’t look worried…He looks like he’s trying to cover his tracks.”
This is an excellent, and effective assessment for so early on. Then he provides reinforcing information.
“He’s normally quiet, more subdued.”
So for those of us who didn’t know Watts at this point, we couldn’t tell if he was being more talkative or less reserved than usual, but his neighbor could. Nickole Atkinson could. And giving out extraneous information, just being a lot more talkative than usual, is a classic symptom of lying.
Coming from a guy who didn’t talk much, this was difficult to see. When he was being interrogated by the FBI, and during his polygraph, Watts was trying very hard to appear like a regular guy. Open, talkative, transparent, not himself. He was doing this to hide the fact that there was an awful lot he was hiding. And it took a while for his interrogators to latch on this.
Let’s move on to the cubicle.
3. Interrogation Room
This is the late afternoon of August 15th, at around 16:15.
INTERROGATION AUDIO CLIP
Is affect important? How important is affect? Right here, we hear how forcefully Watts was confronted by both agents here, on his affect. And then, what happened after this? This confrontation took place about a minute before he asked to see his father. When that happened [20 minutes later] the game was over; that’s when Watts admitted to him for the first time, in a very low tone, that all three of his family members were dead. The ruse that he was hoping they were still alive was finally over.
We can see how, in an interrogation scenario, telling a suspect how his affect is raising suspicion, is a clear way of riling him up, but also potentially shutting him down. We know shortly after the agents told Watts his emotions weren’t right, he wanted to shut down the questioning and talk to his father. He knew he’d failed in his game, and needed an exit. He felt panic and wanted to fix his situation.
But coming back to this notion of hoping his family are safe, he’s not hoping. He knows they’re dead. What he’s doing is pretending to hope, pretending to not know what happened, pretending to be unaware of his own actions. And through this lack of caring, what he’s trying to do is fool them into believing he’s innocent. Ironically there is some truth in his ability to pretend not to care – he didn’t care, that’s why he killed them.
I hope it’s clear from this that by acting unemotional, Watts wasn’t stupid. It did initially lead many to think maybe Shan’ann had run off, and maybe she’d be back the next morning. Let’s face it, even Shan’ann’s mother gave him the benefit of the doubt until the next morning. So did Kessinger, and Nickole Atkinson [who went to work], as well as law enforcement. While law enforcement bided their time on Monday night, Watts cleaned and vacuumed the crime scene. Why, because he had succeeded in infecting them with false hope.
4. True Crime Rocket Science Assessment
If Watts’s affect was unemotional, that isn’t to say actually committing the murder wasn’t emotional for him, or traumatic, or difficult. He likely felt a range of emotions, from reluctance, to resistance to relief, and even joy when it was over. Perhaps, as the knowledge flushed through his veins that his family were “taken care of”, perhaps he felt exhilaration…because now nothing – hopefully – stood between him and his happily ever after with his mistress.
So, what’s the takeout from all this?
It’s very difficult for any person to be objective about their own subjectivity. So when Watts is confronted about his affect, he instinctively and immediately ratchets his affect up a notch. He sniffles. They want to see it [otherwise they’re suspicious], and he quickly obliges.
When he talks to his father his demeanor and his voice changes. When he lies about Shan’ann killing the kids, Watts also makes his voice sound strained and anguished, but this is all an act too. What this shows is the scale and scope of not only Watts’ deceit, but his capacity towards sadism. It’s one thing to lie, it’s another to implicate on something he did, while pretending to care.
Affect is a primary giveaway in true crime, but it’s difficult to interpret. One might say it’s the best tool of True Crime Rocket Science, but it’s also the one that we can almost never use because it’s so difficult to use correctly. This is why it’s seldom used in court, and when it is, the flip side of the coin can just as easily be used to argue innocence.
In the Madeleine McCann case, the insistence from Madeleine’s parents has also been that they remain hopeful. Why? In the alternative, if it turns out Madeleine didn’t disappear, but died, then suspicion turns to someone. This is why pretending to hope is a red flag. In the McCann case, as in the Watts case [early on] the question was always: is the pretense to hide what he did, or is it simply human weakness?
A year later, many people feel they are experts on Watts, but I’m not so sure we are. A year later, many people feel they are experts on Kessinger, but I’m not so sure we are. A good True Crime Rocket Scientist never knows all there is to know – instead he always suspects that there is more, perhaps a lot more, he doesn’t know.
A year after we studied his body language, counted his tells, figured out his psychology, and became experts at lie spotting, the followers of this case are split into two camps.
1. Children murdered first, at home; premeditated murder. There are those who believe Watts killed his children at home before Shan’ann arrived home in a cold, callous, calculated fashion – a premeditated crime and an introverted criminal who defaults to premeditation.
2. Children murdered last, at the well site; Watts “just snapped”. And those who believe Watts. Who believe him when he said he didn’t know what to do, he snapped, and he killed one or both of his children at the well site.
If Watts fully intended to get away with murder, and he did, he would never have taken the enormous risk to take his children – alive – to the well site and murder them there. True Crime Rocket Science allows us to use the psychology and identity of a person to see what they won’t allow us to see, and to see their shadowy intentions for what they really are, rather than what they want us to believe. The shadows on the driveway that some see as a child brought back to life, is the same hopefulness blinding us to the truth.
When we get to know Watts inside out, we can see he tried to leave nothing to chance, and in the next episode, we’ll see just how close he actually may have gotten, to getting away with triple murder.
The Reelz documentary claims to include “more than 200 hours of never-before-seenfootage…” Maybe not on television, but likely it has been on YouTube by followers of this case.
Also, no way a single TV movie of no more than two hours is going to do credit to “200 hours of never-before-seen” footage. What the Watts case really needs – deserves – is a documentaries series.
What new insights will REELZ one-off movie bring to the table?
“I don’t believe Chris Watts’ First Confession. I do believe his Second Confession. Why would he lie about something so horrific…?” Here’s Why
When 21-year-old Nicholas Ninow was caught in flagrante delicto – covered in blood – after raping a 7-year-old child in the restroom of a restaurant, it made national news that horrified South Africans. Now, a year later Ninow is in court confessing what he did. He’s admitted in court that yes, he raped the little girl. So why shouldn’t we believe him?
Because there’s an even worse scenario, and it comes from the little girl herself. But what could be worse than Ninow admitting to raping the girl? To ask this question in the context of true crime is naive – there is always a worse case scenario.
Ninow’s version, while appalling is that he spontaneously, impulsively saw the child while he was “innocently” snorting drugs, and “just snapped” in the sexual sense. He got off the toilet to let her urinate, and helped her undress so she could. In this scenario he sketches himself as a caregiver right until the moment he violates the little girl.
The little girl’s version provides an even more disturbing impression of what happened. Ninow followed the child into the restroom, like a predator, and carried out the attack in a premeditated fashion. The fact that he flushed her bloodied panties down the toilet confirms just how quickly Ninow recovered himself, and started to dispose of crucial evidence.
What is the clearest evidence of premeditation? It’s the where of the crime. It didn’t happen because the little girl got lost and walked into the men’s toilet, Ninow followed her into the ladies toilets. Ninow was where he shouldn’t have been, not the other way round. And if Ninow acted in a premeditated way, it’s possible this wasn’t the first time he’d acted as a pedophile predator, and the court [when it imposes sentence] ought to make sure it’s the last.
Dros rape: Child gives a different sequence of events to Ninow’s – News24
Interestingly, about 10 months ago when the child rapist first appeared in court, his defense argued “mental illness”.
The defense added that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2013 and had spent time in rehab for substance abuse. The alleged rapist had attempted suicide several times due to depression caused by the bipolar disorder, said his defense.
Source: The Citizen
What is the opposite of mental illness, or “just snapping”. It’s making the calm, calculated decision to commit a crime, while having the self-possessed confidence that one might be able to escape the consequences.
Intertextuality
Just like Ninow invents a fictitious scenario where he pretends himself in the role of the child’s guardian [even though in the same version he rapes her], Watts does the same. He has sex with Shan’ann before killing her. He has some tender moments with his children before killing them.
Chris Watts’ latest versions include him 1) “finding God”, 2) God extending forgiveness to him, 3) Shan’ann praying to God while he’s murdering her, and 4) taking his kids to the well site [because he had no idea what he was going to do] . All four of these fictions contrive to do the same thing. It’s an effort to minimize his crime. In the minds of many, perhaps most, he’s succeeded.
On September 10th, the day after this video [which has since been removed] was posted, a concerned reader contacted me on Facebook. It referred to a 40 minute video posted on YouTube, in which Mary Marlowe read out the contents of the following blog post:
Although Marlowe credited CrimeRocket as her source, and mentioned a “Crime rocket” in the video’s description, she also read the entirety of the blog’s contents. What do you guys think of that? Is it time to put CrimeRocket behind a paywall, or, instead of writing up posts, put them up as YouTube videos or podcasts?
In the meantime, please keep your eyes peeled for those who lift the content that’s provided in this archive
TCRS: It does seem suspicious that on July 31st, the day Watts arrived in North Carolina, he was not only off towards Shan’ann, but Shan’ann immediately felt sick…
Please note not all the views expressed in this post reflect those of TCRS.
GUEST POST
Let’s talk about Chris’s first attempt on the life of his wife …
Shan’ann, at that time, was wary of Chris’s emotional state regarding her and their future together, but she obviously still trusted him, as did his in-laws, or they never would have let him in their house . And they shouldn’t have!
Chris had come bearing, unbeknownst to Shan’ann, some of her Oxycontin, an opiate derived from heroin and therefore a potentially lethal drug, which Chris referred to more benignly as “Shan’ann’s Lupus medication.”
He arrived in Aberdeen and proceeded to mix an unknown amount of ground-up Oxycontin into Shan’ann’s Balance formula. Balance is a supposedly digestive support supplement that can be taken in either capsule or powder form, and that can be added to juice, or whatever.
We don’t know when Chris ground up the Oxycontin, but we know that he had it with him when he left Colorado. After all, the basement of their house was full of the stuff. So, bringing the Oxycontin with him from Colorado shows that it was not was not a spontaneous decision on his part to feed it to his wife. He arrived in North Carolina fully prepared.
Recently [in mid-2019], he called up his sister, Jamie, and ‘confessed’ to something he had done, informing her that he had placed ground-up Oxycontin into Shann’ann’s Balance that night “hoping she would miscarry. It was only two pills and I felt so bad I threw the rest of them out.”
No doubt he did indeed try to poison her, but I refuse to believe he saw the Oxycontin as a possible abortifacient (who ever has?), nor that he only used two pills. And I don’t think he threw the remaining pills away. Why would he do that? Oxycontin, by that stage, was as familiar to him as M&Ms.
Nichol Kessinger wasn’t the only one actively deleting her browser history…
What he wanted was for Shan’ann to appear to die from an overdose, and if she did, well, the prescription was in her name, and she was known to be beside herself over her failing marriage – suicidal, even.
As for Bella and Celeste, they were right there safe with the Rcuzeks who could then raise them, and Chris could then use the money from Shan’ann’s life insurance policy to clear up some of his more pressing financial problems.
Of course, the insurance would pay: after all, hers was an accidental overdose, wasn’t it?
Then, once Chris obtained enough money from Shan’ann’s life insurance policy to catch up on the mortgage of his vanity house in Colorado (nose-to-nose with the neighbors and with a team of derricks in the yard), he could sell that white elephant of a house, collect over a hundred thousand dollars in equity from the sale, and ride off into the sunset with his beloved Nikki (well, she might not be his “beloved Nikki” for long, as it turned out).
He probably even told himself that he would go and visit the girls from time to time when he happened to be visiting North Carolina. They’d be fine with the Rcuzeks. He just loved the Rcuzeks (always had), calling them “Mom” and “Dad,” and reminding his own mother that these people understood him so much better than she did, and that they never questioned him in the annoying way that she constantly did.
Sadly, from Chris’s viewpoint, all poor Shan’ann did was spend the night convulsively hugging a toilet bowl and blaming it all on her being pregnant. She never connected Chris’s arrival on the scene with this sudden volcanic onslaught of vomiting – no one did until Nick made that post.
August 1, 2018: Chris Watts’ First Day in North Carolina #1yearagotodayCW
Certainly Chris’s sister, Jamie, didn’t. Jamie had kept well out of Chris and Shan’ann’s life for years, since they’d kicked her out of their wedding, in fact. Happily married with two kids and a husband she loved and a career she enjoyed, she never wanted to hear from her mother about Chris and Shan’ann’s latest dramas out of Colorado. The first time she’d seen Shan’ann since forever was when she showed up to pick up her children one day in July 2018 [Nut Gate] and walked into the maelstrom of an epic Shan’ann scene. Wanting no part of that, she immediately grabbed the kids and ran for it.
Her mother was upset about the turmoil Shan’ann had caused that day, and she was sorry about that, but Jamie had been saying for a long time that those two were going to do what they wanted and that it was best not to get involved.
When Chris called his mother the day after this incident and accused Cindy of trying to poison CeeCee with ice cream, Cindy decided she had finally had it too. She told Chris that their relationship had become too toxic to continue, and while she wished all of them well, she was agreeing with her daughter: Don’t involve me ever again.
That’s the way things still stood when Chris arrived in North Carolina a month later in early August of 2018, and if he had successfully killed his wife that night, that might have put an end to it.
But Shan’ann lived, and so Chris moved on to Plan B.
Jamie and her family typically spend a week at Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, in August every year, and they, her parents, and her mother-in-law, were at that beach the day after Chris’s attempt on Shan’ann’s life with the Oxycontin.
Out of the blue, Chris arrived. He was all smiles, and it was as though he and Jamie had been seeing each other daily for years; as if he had never accused his mother of attempting to murder his children and subsequently ended all contact with them yet again.
Why, here I am, nice Uncle Chris, come to visit my niece and nephew (two strangers to me), and my brother-in-law (who barely gives me the time of day). Let’s all take a group photo, and while I’m here I want to tell you that I’m leaving Shan’ann. I’m afraid of her, in fact.
Predictably, his family welcomed him back, the poor, beleaguered prodigal son, and when his mother said, “Son, you should put what you’re afraid of in a letter and leave it with us in case anything happens,” he greeted her idea with enthusiasm. Indeed, he’d been hoping she’d say that. Finally, the mother he’d always disliked had said something right.
#34 August 6th, 2018: “This has been the worst week of my life” #1yearagotodayCW
He wrote and sealed a letter to the effect that he and the children were in eminent danger from Shan’ann’s homicidal ways, and left cheerfully.
By the next morning he’d probably already come up with his next idea: I know, I’ll kill her and make it look like she killed the girls, and then my family will remember that letter, and everyone knows how mean she was to me. And if they find her, I’ll say I killed her because I lost my mind and was so angry that she’d just killed my children. Yeah, that could work!
Of course, there are no foolproof plans when it comes to murder. He probably used a little more Oxycontin the night of August 12, 2018, to kill the girls hours before Shan’ann was due home, but for poor Chris, the success of his cunning plan was contingent upon Southwest Airlines being on time, proving, if nothing else does, that he isn’t half as smart as he thinks he is.
Shan’ann was three hours late! Damn her, now no one will believe that these cold dead little bodies just got killed by my psycho wife. That’s where Plan C came in … But that’s another story and best for you to read about in Nick’s next book.
One last thing: Why did Chris want Jamie to hear the story of his first attempted murder? I think I can answer that one: He hates his mother, she dearly loves her daughter, and what hurts Jamie hurts her … and, besides, Chris has a book coming out, one just filled with more grotesque stories. And he thought it might be entertaining to let his sister, the happy one, the non-murderous one, the one his mother likes best, to have a preview to disturb her peace, to make her shame deeper, even to try to implicate her in his hideous crime. She now knows what I tried to do last August, the first time I tried to kill Shan’ann. Will she tell?
Jamie has never wanted any part of Chris’s secrets; she hasn’t trusted or felt close to him since childhood. And Chris remains every bit as dangerous as he ever was. He comes up with one story, then the next story, then the next story – all mutually contradictory – that what he did was everyone else’s fault.
Well, at least he cannot implicate Jamie in his first attempt on Shan’ann’s life: she hadn’t seen either of them forever, and Chris and Shan’ann’s house was already Oxycontin heaven. It is the very definition of redundancy.
But I’m sure he’ll try … I’m sure, by the time he is finished, everyone in the entire world will have murdered Shan’ann, and Bella, and CeCe – or at least have been in a conspiracy to do so. Only Chris will be innocent of all wrongdoing … in his head, at least.
Who is the most MYSTERIOUS woman in the Chris Watts case [it’s not who you think]
Who are all the woman involved in the Watts case?
Shan’ann.
Nickole Atkinson.
Nichol Kessinger.
Amanda Thayer.
Sandi Rzucek.
Cindy Watts.
Jennifer Lindstrom.
Mellissa Parish.
FBI Interview with Melissa Parrish, Chris Watts’ co-worker at Anadarko [55th Tranche]
Agent Tammy Lee.
And then there are the Thrive crowd, Addy Molony, Cristina Meacham, Cassie Rosenberg and so on and so on.
We can go through these names and there is a fair amount of information in the discovery about each and every one of them. Who’s missing? How about Jamie, Chris Watts’ sister? Think about how much we know about Shan’ann’s younger brother Frankie, and how little we know about Watts’ older sister Jamie. Jamie is the only one who wasn’t interviewed for the discovery.
We know Frankie was in Shan’ann’s corner, and had her back. Did Jamie have her brother’s back?
Author’s Note: One of the idiosyncrasies of the Quoirin case was the unprecedented length of the autopsy. It dragged on and on for hours, and then into a second day. When the results finally came out confusion persisted. After the marathon autopsy it still seemed hard to tell exactly how the 15-year-old had died. Except it wasn’t.
Marathon Autopsy
At 14:30, the Malaysian police cordoned off the access road to The Dusun Resort with yellow police tape. Initial access to the scene was slow. Getting her body out of the area wasn’t going to be quick, or easy. A local offered an officer a ride closer to where Nora lay on the back of his scooter.
But the message behind the fluttering, bright yellow tape was clear. The authorities had recovered a dead child, bruised and naked from a streambed, and the area was now a crime scene. But was it?
As mentioned earlier, the Quoirin family arrived in the area in a black sedan at 16:07. It’s not clear why they were summoned to the scene, or whether they were taken to where Nora lay in situ, or whether this delayed the transport of Nora’s body to a nearby hospital.
At 18:26 local time [11:26 London-time] and about an hour before sunset, a red, blue and white helicopter buzzed over the scene. Once in position over a densely forested gyhll [or ravine] the chopper lowered a basket down to cops and rescuers workers gathered below.
BBC news crews recorded the chopper winching up a basket with Nora’s body, supported by a police officer. As the dead child and officer spun upward, a warm, impenetrable forest hovered thickly behind it. Finally, the chopper turned and clattered off towards Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital, the biggest hospital in Negeri Sembilan.
The government hospital is just 25 minutes’ drive by car, southwest of The Dusun Resort. By chopper no more than half that time. At 19:07 the chopper drifted down, out of the sunless sky, towards a single traffic controller wearing an orange vest and military fatigues motioning within both arms on the ground. The chopper landed softly on a wide swath of green lawn adjacent to the hospital. Once the rotors had wound down around a dozen personnel in blue fatigues, orange berets and wearing surgical masks [and gloves] stormed the chopper.
An ambulance approached swiftly and parked near the edge of the rotors. A stretcher was hauled out and wheeled to the open doors of the chopper. A large, green canvas bag was pulled out of it. One of the personnel near the front of the stretcher pulled out a phone and snapped a photo. Nora’s body was transferred to the stretcher, while the same individual with the phone snapped more photos, and then lifted into the ambulance.
The rear hatch was closed, and the ambulance quickly headed to the Jabatan Perubatan forensic section of the hospital, a nondescript, somewhat rundown building.
Meanwhile, the Quoirin family who had rushed to the scene, were rushing back to the hospital, trying to catch-up to their daughter’s body. Other family members were alerted. It’s not clear whether the media were instructed not to photograph Nora’s parents and siblings, or whether…
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” .
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.
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
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.”
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