On November 19th, Chris Watts accepts a plea deal allowing him to avoid the death penalty and the blinding spectacle of a criminal trial, likely to have been America’s most high profile possibly ever.
In early December Chrs Watts is transferred to a prison out of state “amid safety concerns”. Three months later his discussions with law enforcement are national news, and become fodder for a two-part talk show in which the in-laws of his victims and a scrum of four lawyers participate – for cash.
Now Watts finds himself back to square one at Waupun, facing the same abuse he faced in a Weld County prison. His fellow inmates are wise to the high-profile visits of the FBI, CBI and the cops trying to unravel his criminal mind. Now those inmates want him – a baby, child and wife killer – to kill himself too.
Don’t be surprised if “out of safety concerns” Watts is transferred again. But one has to ask, was he really transferred out of safety concerns to begin with if no one blinked at the thought of giving Dr. Phil his exclusive, and someone getting a handsome payout? No one objected. According to the Denver Post the District Attorney simply said:
Rourke said Thursday he had chosen not to read the report or listen to the audio of Watts’s confession, but had been briefed on it by investigators. “When I got the briefing, it was the day after the interview was done, I was absolutely sickened, I was horrified,” he said.
He said that he and his office had thought of multiple scenarios of what could have happened during the case’s prosecution, but that this was so much worse. “What boggles my mind and baffles me is why did he have to kill those little girls?” Rourke said. “Did he think they would rat them out? Did they become a nuisance? No words that come out of his mouth will ever answer that for me. I hope his life is miserable.”
I saw in the media somewhere that Weld County claimed they had no advance knowledge of the first Dr. Phil interview, but they didn’t protesteth much or at all about the second interview being shown. [Maybe Watts and his family didn’t either]. As a result Watts’ safety and privacy concerns are blown, so if something happens to Watts now who would be responsible?
TRUE CRIME ROCKET SCIENCE
True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek
Page 30 of 79
True Crime Rocket Science is about discernment. How to tell the difference in the fog, in the smoke and mirrors, between what’s real and what isn’t? How to intuit psychological artifacts from the misleading miasma?
Many have accepted Watts’ version of taking the children to the CERVI 319 site [alive], and apparently also having Bella sort of run around at his ankles while he was transferring Shan’ann’s body from the bed, down the stairs, then backing out the truck and loading her body. Bella was sort of scampering around like puppy, and that was fine.
Some have found reason to doubt what to me is a the more likely of the two crime scene scenarios. It’s this idea of Shan’ann arriving home at almost 02:00, making up and having sex, but never taking a shower. Shan’ann ultimately never removed her make-up.
That’s one version of how that happened. Another possibility was that she was murdered before she could wash up and remove it. Presumably, had she been given a few extra minutes of life, that’s the first thing she would have done.
It seemed like it was longer than two to four minutes. I just felt like time was standing still. I just couldn’t let go. It was like something else had taken over and I just couldn’t let go. I feel like I was in a rage. That is the only way I can describe it. Strangulation is a passionate type of thing but I don’t know how it could be passionate. It felt like someone was behind me. I just couldn’t let go…
It’s interesting how Watts describes the crime as some shadowy persona pulling his strings from behind him. Also the words he uses… He can’t let go as if he’s holding onto something.
The last time he slept with Shanann, it all became very clear to him. “I felt like that last time sex with Shanann was a trigger point. So I woke her up and I told her that I don’t feel compatible.
This is very likely true. At some point having sex with Shan’ann triggered something in him where he realized he no longer wanted to have sex with her and be with someone else. Though this probably happened, it’s doubtful it happened on the night in question.
“I just wish I could take it all back” sounds like the sort of thing you say about something you said, that you wish you hadn’t, rather than something you did, that you wish you hadn’t. He doesn’t say:
“I just wish I could have them all back.”
https://youtu.be/APTjxdSHnkQ
Is this it?
Next year – 2020 – will be the 130th anniversary of the death of the great artist Vincent Van Gogh. Just in the last five years, huge swaths of the historicity of Van Gogh’s life story have been called into question, analysed and fine-tuned.
A few critical areas where we’ve seen significant shifts from the original story are in the way Van Gogh suffered a gunshot wound and died, as well as the Ear Narrative [how much ear was cut off, and the events surrounding that bloody incident].
Ironically, both these shifts apply directly to what one might call the True Crime Elements of the Van Gogh Mythology. The suicide narrative now feels more like a typical true crime scene, and the ear incident has a similar scenario now too also invoking motive, blood evidence, witnesses etc, in fact all those staples we associate with the true crime genre.
What this shows is that the history around Van Gogh is still changing, still evolving. As wildly famous as Van Gogh is today, one of the most expensive artists in the world, if you had to ask who murdered Van Gogh – and why – good luck getting a straight answers. Even expert historians can’t agree. Even the mainstream media and researchers dedicated to his life story can’t explain what really happened.
‘At Eternity’s Gate’ star, Willem Dafoe, says ‘history lied’ about Van Gogh – iol
New film claims Vincent van Gogh was murdered – Citizen
Van Gogh: it was suicide, not murder – The Art Newspaper
So when Willem Dafoe stepped forward for his role in At Eternity’s Gate I was looking forward to seeing the most modern rendition of the Van Gogh story; a retelling with all of the latest research spun together into something more cogent, coherent and authentic. That was the hope, the expectation.
Dafoe’s casting also meant the reach of this film would be greater, and so it was. After publishing The Murder of Vincent van Gogh, my book on the popular Dutch artist, in May 2018, I made Vincent van Gogh one of my Google alerts. It’s fair to say that I get more alerts on Van Gogh on a daily basis than for any of the other high-profile true crime cases on the list.
Around the world Van Gogh is not only popular but often top of mind. When manmade spaceships notice whirls of a certain kind on Jupiter, it reminds them of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Van Gogh is as part and parcel of the modern zeitgeist as Christmas, the Oscars, Facebook and The Big Bang Theory. But how much of the popular mythology is even true?
New photos from Jupiter look like a van Gogh painting – CNN, February 2019
When psychologists and creatives try to unlock or fathom the keys to creativity, they turn to Van Gogh as both an example and a cautionary tale on how “madness” can inspire art.
World Bipolar Day: Honoring Van Gogh—Are Creativity and Madness Linked? – bphope
The real Van Gogh: A genius not driven by madness but crippled by it – BBC
Exploring Artistic Creativity And Its Link to Madness – The New York Times
If the suicide myth and the ear incident are two legs of the three-legged chair that is Van Gogh Lore, then the third leg is the myth of the man as a mad artist. In my book I investigated all three “legs”. I wanted to see how At Eternity’s Gate fared in handling these subjects.
Before dealing with the Good, Bag and Ugly of the film [ranked 6.9 on IMDb], let’s start with the name. At Eternity’s Gate is a giddy-sounding title for a rather different take by the great artist himself. Van Gogh painted various iterations of the same setup, an old man or woman bent over in despair beside a roaring hearth.
Since I knew the portent of the art, and since I’d seen the trailer, I sensed an immediate mismatch between the context of Van Gogh’s own words and sentiments [in terms of the specific “At Eternity’s Gate” artwork] and how the filmmaker was misinterpreting it.
Intuitively I was interested to watch this film but went in with low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised.
The Good
The film opens with a black screen, and Dafoe talking simply, humanly, yet profoundly as Van Gogh. It rings true and elements of his opening gambit, such as “I wish they would only take me as I am”, resonate with words written in Van Gogh’s letter to his brother Theo dated [15-27 April 1882].
So it’s a good start. Using the artist’s own words [and he wrote hundreds of letters in his life] is a smart way to achieve the authentic man through the authentic voice. It’s been done before, of course, in the excellent Painted with Words film starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
The first visual of the film is jarring – appropriately – throwing the viewer into a random farm field, and the artist approaching a maid leading a flock of sheep. He approaches her and asks her if her can sketch her. She’s confused by this and so are we.
The colors are washed-out and desaturated, which suggests Van Gogh hasn’t quite found his eye on his canvas just yet, and needs to start seeing the world – well – differently.
Jump to Paris and a difficult art crowd where Van Gogh still isn’t well-known and can’t sell a damn thing. There we encounter Paul Gauguin, an artist who is better known in 1888 than Van Gogh, and who’s having better luck selling his wares to the same crowd.
Even so, the two strike up an unlikely friendship. Naturally it doesn’t do Gauguin any harm that Vincent’s brother is an art dealer.
The next jump is to a windblown house in Arles, in the south of France. It’s cold, and Van Gogh – forced to stay indoors – is getting stir crazy. He removes his shoes and we’re offered a floor eye-view of his flea bitten socks with toes poking out of holes. This is far and away the most authentic moment in the whole film, because more than painting or writing letters, Van Gogh was a rambler. Every scene he painted he walked to, and he walked a lot. When he lived in London as a youth he rambled from London to Brighton, a distance of 53 miles. On another occasion he walked over 80 miles from London to Ramsgate.
It’s also the depiction of Van Gogh doing his thing that feels real. The glint of the oils on the palette, the sound of the brush lightly scratching on the canvas. The way the white canvas begins to fill up, almost magically, with those boots on the floor.
But this is where the first signs of trouble creep in. The boots are based on reality, and the photography isn’t a bad match for the painting. The problem is the art that is created on camera looks nothing like the painting Van Gogh executed, a detail one would expect more care and consideration in a biopic about a world famous artist and how he sees the world.
Since Willem Dafoe fancies himself as something of an artist, this may be license taken [or given by the director] to give him free reign to “interpret” Van Gogh. Well, fine, to each his own but as misinterpretations go, this one isn’t little. It’s also quite vulgar. It’s doesn’t look for feel anything like a Van Gogh you’ve ever seen, and that’s a problem.
It’s a shame, because the optics and atmosphere of everything else is just about right. It’s just the most important thing, how he looks and represents his boots on the floor that are misrepresented.
As a freelance photojournalist who wrote a series of articles on artists, and went out into the field to find the landscapes they painted [including of my own great grandfather, the Dutch artist Tinus de Jongh], I found this clumsy approach to Van Gogh’s work inaccurate and thus unacceptable.
Of the “three legs” to Van Gogh’s story, At Eternity’s Gate gets the most important part right – the lore. The basic stuff. The look and feel. To be fair, that shouldn’t be hard to do. It requires simply placing the artist where we know he was, and contextualizing the art we know he painted with real places. Incredibly, At Eternity’s Gate begins this process, but leaves out all the seminal works Van Gogh painted – from Starry Night painted at the asylum of St. Remy to Wheatfield with Crows, painted just prior to his death in Auvers.
Why?
The Bad
Of course, part of what the filmmaker was trying to demonstrate through his own photographic palette was the arc of Van Gogh’s psychology, and part of that arc was simply showing how the landscape [and the man] transformed and came to life, vividly and colorfully. It’s a great premise, but sadly the filmmaker executed on it poorly, that is to say, not very “artfully” or “creatively”.
An excellent artistic and creative telling of the story through Van Gogh’s art work is successfully achieved through Loving Vincent [ranked 7.9 on IMDb].
Not only is the animated version viscerally and visually authentic, it’s also narratively and factually a masterpiece. In fact it was Loving Vincent, and the detective-story-plot, that inspired me to investigate Van Gogh’s story as a possible true crime case, and it turned out it was.
‘At Eternity’s Gate’ Review: The Definitive Portrait of Vincent Van Gogh – Rolling Stone
Although the portrait of Van Gogh in this film has its moments, it’s not a definitive portrait, not even close. Many others have tried, many have failed, and a few have come closer, a lot closer than this film. Simon Schama’s Power of Art series [IMDb rating 8.6/10] is a credit to the Van Gogh story, even with the miscast Andy Serkins playing the tortured artist.
[vimeo 100156306 w=640 h=352]
As the Good Times reviewer Lisa Jensen put it:
But for all of Schnabel’s determined technique, nothing in his movie ever quite achieves the emotional clarity of a single Van Gogh painting.
One rather has the impression the filmmaker so hastily put together his film he forgot to actually study a painting and feel the artist’s own idiosyncratic message. In other words, what we’re seeing isn’t Van Gogh but Director Julian Schnabel’s Van Gogh.
The Ugly
At Eternity’s Gate Shows Us the Vincent van Gogh We Never Knew – Time
If only Schnabel had shown us the real Van Gogh, his movie would likely have one best picture, and possibly best actor. Perhaps someday if my book is turned into a movie that will happen [hey, crazier things have happened].
For me the worst part of the film was the final third, which deals with the seminal moments of Van Gogh’s life. My impression was that Schnabel read a few newspaper articles and excitedly, feverishly sticky taped them into his script.
The ear narrative is nicely woven into the film, especially the sketch of the ear by the doctor, and the “interview” with Van Gogh post mutilation. But this is where Schnabel exposes himself for failing to figure out his own story. As the ear narrative plays out the director finds himself unable to account for it. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Ah well, we’ll leave it the viewer to figure out.
Julian Schnabel Spent His Whole Life Preparing to Make His Most Personal Movie – IndieWire
And then we’re left with the biggest mystery of all. How Van Gogh was shot, and by whom? Once again Schnabel has taken a little information [that there’s evidence the wound wasn’t self-inflicted] and then ran with it.
Once again, he finds himself unable to account for the dialogue that must have followed this shooting incident in the little room where Van Gogh suffered for over 30 hours, and then died.
Here Schnabel walks out on his own story, providing a few seconds of screen time as a way to cheat the real questions haunting Van Gogh’s final hours. It’s the ultimate cop out, and the reason this film went out with a whimper amongst critics and audience alike, despite a tsunami of press and PR, and a top notch cast.
The biggest, most glaring omissions for me in the film was the absence of the word “syphilis” in the context of Van Gogh’s mental and physical health, or lack of. His brother, who died just 6 months after Van Gogh [of syphilis] is a picture of health in this story, another indication the director simply didn’t do rudimentary research, or think logically about his story.
A runner-up to the medical aspect is Van Gogh’s reputation as skirt chaser. There is virtually zero attempt to dramatize any of Van Gogh’s infamous dalliances, and as such, it’s no surprise that at the very end Schnabel’s story collapses in on itself.
So who killed Vincent van Gogh, where and why?
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. – Vincent Van Gogh
Part One of Dr. Phil was hearing Chris Watts’ “Second Confession” 4th hand [via law enforcement, the Rzuceks, then their lawyers] a few days before the official release thus giving Dr. Phil exclusive first bite at the cherry.
Part Two was hearing the Second Confession again, this time from Frank, while the cameras tried to capture the emotional responses of the family.
Let’s be clear, any time there is grief expressed in the context of true crime, it’s redeeming, it’s necessary and it’s meaningful. Grief is a genuine acknowledgement of loss. It’s how we come to terms with the loss of life, and the pain of losing someone that was loved and cared about. This message is one that matters most in true crime – that life is precious. Whether the victim or victim’s family expresses it, or the perpetrator, grief provides a moment of authentic humanity. Is that what we see on Dr. Phil?
Is that what this is?
Almost five minutes of the Dr. Phil show deals with a sentimental spiel worthy not of an adult, but of a small child. Not only did we see an infantile response to a triple homicide but the level of wish fulfillment that’s being made a spectacle of on national television [even reported on CNN] is extraordinary.
Sandi [that’s actually how Shan’ann spelled her mother’s name on Facebook, and how Sandi did] took viewers through around three or four fictional scenarios.
The first was that Sandi experienced a “visitation” from her daughter, telling her she was at peace, and she was sorry. If you were murdered, and your children murdered, and your husband had blamed you, and you were dead, robbed of everything, and all you were ever going to be, would you be at peace? Ever?
The second visitation was from Ceecee, who told Sandi what a great grandmother she was, and kissed her. The third was from Bella, telling Sandi, “I can go to Walt Disney World anytime I want.” The final scenario was that Shan’ann handed her mother the fully formed boy child, and everyone lived happily ever after.
Obviously by today, Niko would have been born, but at the time of the “visitation” he was the size of an orange. This illustrates just how desperate and unrealistic the wish fulfillment actually is. It not only ignores reality, it defies it.
Some may feel it’s in very bad taste to criticize these visitation experiences because they’re personal. Dr. Phil didn’t, and seemed to think it was all in the name of joyful and peaceful closure, and healing.
But such sentiment is the antithesis of true crime. We often see sentiment used in true crime by defendants, and by defense teams, to evoke sympathy. And it works. It worked and continues to work with Steven Avery. When you feel sorry for someone in the context of true crime you don’t think. What happened no longer matters.
I can assure you if Shan’ann could climb out of the dirt of the graveyard where she’s buried and speak for herself, and if Bella could, neither would be resigned to what had happened six months later, and what’s more, they’d resent others manufacturing words and scenarios that have nothing to do with their reality as it stands now, or as it did when their lives were snuffed out. Imagine yourself being murdered, yourself fighting for breath and then the world being told you were praying and died peacefully with no struggle.
In this day of mansplaining, whitesplaining, minimizing murder by having victims act out pleasant sounding fictions and aphorisms ought to have a meme too. It’s just in extremely poor taste to be euphemistic about the death, especially when the manner of death is homicide.
This crime took place for a combination of reasons, some that had to do directly with sentiment [Watts’ romantic, schmaltzy feelings towards his mistress] and some that had to do with the opposite. He was able to kill his family because he no longer felt “sentiment” towards his family. And so, trying to understand Watts’ motives through the prism of sentiment is a double-edged sword, except only one side of that sword cuts to the bone of this case.
What about the other side?
Sandi’s schmaltz was surprising after her tough testimony during the sentencing hearing. Out of everyone who spoke that day, perhaps not including Rourke, Sandi sounded the strongest, the most in control and the least sentimental.
Not here on Dr. Phil. Suddenly in the face of terrifying information [which probably isn’t accurate either], there’s this mythical barrier where the laws of the universe and nature simply don’t apply. Now everyone is resurrected and magically set right in the blink of an eye. Suddenly everyone is living happily ever after and on their way – apparently – to PleasureLand.
But how is that so different from the lives they were living on Earth? In fact just before their deaths, the children were playing on a playground in Myrtle Beach [while their father was floating off somewhere else], and around this same period they were on the beach for the first time ever. Frank was with them, but apparently not paying too much attention to trouble brewing in paradise right in front of him.
In a more general sense, the fairy tale scenarios of the Watts family promoted endlessly on Facebook [to make money], is exactly the same brand of magical thinking and wish fulfillment we see from Sandi. The urge to deny mortality is the root of untold evil in the world, which is why this crime happened, and why what Sandi is doing is absolutely not helpful.
Hiding from reality in fantasies does Chris Watts a huge favor, especially when the version he’s given is just another hastily assembled house of cards. Hiding in fantasies is the reason this crime happened, and the key to preventing it was waking up from these delusions.
How do we lie to ourselves? How does society lie to itself? Right here. Like this.
It’s so consistent, it’s a default setting. We are a society geared to lying to itself, not only collectively, but individually. We also actively lie to ourselves. And if you really want to talk about narcissism, talk about narcissism in the context of damaging magical thinking like this. Talk about handcrafting fairy tales and promoting fairy tale potions and powders, while your home is about tumble into a crater of debt. Talk about concocting fake fictions in order to feel better about the trauma tearing at the world, and your own heart.
More: Frankie Rzucek arrested in October 2015 for assaulting a two-year-old child
There was a second gay man who claimed to have a relationship with Chris Watts [well, except there wasn't]
According to the Daily Mail, there’s a second gay fella who claimed to have met Chris Watts in rehab. The Daily Mail is so brazenly confident in this assertion, they have the allegation in their headline.
A second gay dude would certainly add fuel to the bisexual fire, except that the Daily Mail have gotten their lines crossed. Chris Watts was never in rehab, Trent Bolte was. Uh-oh, it looks like some journalists and editors haven’t done their homework…
But this line of inquiry, though not as sensational as the Daily Mail would have us believe, isn’t a complete waste of time. Have a look at this snippet from the article.
Interesting, isn’t it, that Watts knew that detail? It suggests he’s taken a keen interest in what’s been said or written about him. Now why would that be…?
The mainstream media, and most [but not all] covering the Chris Watts case on YouTube are referring to big chunks of Watts’ Second Confession as if it’s fact. When CNN’s headline [on Google Search] reads Chris Watts’ 4-year-old pleaded for her life, attorney says it reads as fact.
When People report on Bella’s “last words” – ‘Daddy, No!’: Chris Watts Hears Daughter’s Haunting Last Words ‘Every Day’ in Prison – and Dr. Phil does a show PREMISED on these last words [words Watts’ tells us are her last words – and enough in media and on social media recycle this premise, then it begins to appear as fact.
Is it fact?
We must remember this hasn’t been tested, examined, argued or verified in court. A judge and jury haven’t ruled on it, or even thought about it. Evidence hasn’t been led in the proper forum in support or to contradict it. And let’s be clear, a Dr. Phil show or a confession from a man who murdered his family, lied to that family, lied to his witness, lied to the media, lied on a polygraph test [about everything], and lied throughout his first “confession” including to his own father, this hardly constitutes evidence. It’s testimony. It’s a version. That’s all it is.
But what if it is true? And what if there is convincing evidence to prove that it is?
Isn’t there convincing evidence in the “living shadows” conspiracy? Was the conspiracy never a conspiracy at all, instead civilians and armchair detectives stumbled on a game changer that law enforcement [and everyone else] missed?
If this is the case why hasn’t the mainstream media reported on the shadow theories? If it’s such a game changer, why hasn’t the media said anything about it? Why hasn’t law enforcement released a statement?
On the one hand, Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke has referred to this as part of his contention, his assumption, that Watts’ confession is legitimate, or mostly truthful. According to USAToday:
Rourke said some pieces of evidence match Watts’ most recent confession, including footage from a neighbor’s security camera that shows another shadow aside from Watts’ by his truck when he was loading Shanann’s body into the back seat.
In the video released by the Weld County District Attorney’s Office, Watts is seen standing by his work truck when another shadow appears to be moving toward him, and Watts leans down to pick something up, likely one of the girls.
That video “would be consistent with his statements that the girls were alive when they left the house and walked out to the truck,” Rourke said.
What Rourke is saying is that Watts’ statement is consistent with the “appearance” of a shadow which doesn’t seem to be Watts’ moving towards him. Separately Rourke says, “I’m assuming what he is telling is truthful”, which suggests he believes the shadow theory as well. But he doesn’t say that. He says the scenario is consistent with the appearance of the shadows.
The article goes on to emphasize that Watts has never testified under oath, with the threat of perjury. In other words, whenever he’s spoken – other than the polygraph test where he had to authorize it – there haven’t been legal consequences – arguably, attached to his spoken words, as crazy as that sounds. And Rourke has maintained, even after the Second Confession Watts’ consistency in another area – his lack of real remorse:
“I don’t think that everything that came out of his mouth during those interviews was the truth because I honestly don’t believe that this monster has the ability to have remorse at all.”
None of the bold text [referring to the commission of the murders of Shan’ann and the children respectively] resonated with me, although certain aspects certainly stood out [such as Shan’ann feet thudding on the stairs]. What did stand out for me was this, and it comes at very end of the marathon interview. When I heard Watts’ answer, for the first time I considered the scenario of the children alive and taken to CERVI 319 as a real possibility.
The area circle in red can be heard at 1:05:39 in the last half hour of the five-and-a-half-hour interview [Part 2 of the Enhanced Audio Clip].
LEE: So do you think if we would have said…what do you think…?
Lee is asking what should they have said to him that would have gotten Watts to tell the truth, or do so sooner.
WATTS [Long pause]: If you would have said…if…the video had showed them in the truck…you probably would have had to have lied…You said you saw the kids in the truck…I mean, you’d have to lie to get me to say it…but, it might have been that.
EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF “LIVING” SHADOW/S
The best evidence in support of “living” shadows is at exactly 1:00 in the clip below. In order to get the full effect, it’s better to view the video in real time, as it were, but to hover the cursor over the 1:00 mark and click repeatedly back to it.
https://youtu.be/qmhlmdCxkc8?t=60
When viewed again and again it does seem convincing. It does appear as if a shadow is approaching Watts and he bends down to pick it up. I won’t do a complete analysis of that here, that deserves a complete chapter in a separate narrative [TWO FACE: ANNIHILATION], but I will spend a little more time dealing with the evidence against it.
EVIDENCE AGAINST “LIVING” SHADOWS
Those who claim the surveillance video is “clear”, “convincing” and “unambiguous” are looking through a tiny keyhole, fuzzing out the background, and making the case that tiny shapes within the fuzzy keyhole area are absolutely clear evidence of an extraordinary game changer.
If a UFO and an alien is ever positively identified and confirmed, that will be a massive game changer for our understanding of the universe, the existence of God and our place in the cosmos.
The shadows are a little like that. A single moment that could be something that changes everything. And this is the size of the viewfinder.
Seeing frozen images doesn’t do justice to the claim and most important, one doesn’t see the shadow advancing from the left of the frame, while Watts moves in and bends down from the right.
What I want to emphasize here is just how blown up that little circle [above] is in these screengrabs. It’s so big Watts is almost reduced to stickman, and his body becomes jagged and irregular.
This is the original view. When I first viewed this footage I mistake a “tail” under the right rear wheel of the truck as a cat flicking its tail. I only connected the tail to the idly flapping flag after watching it several times, and especially when the lighting increases as the dawn breaks.
In one of the videos, even the shadows are ascribed identities. One shadow is Bella, and the other is Ceecee because it’s “shorter”.
it’s interesting that the shadows “move” towards Watts in both instances when he’s bending down. This suggests the possibility that the two elements are contingent; in other words if he wasn’t bending down there would be no shadow moving towards him.
Again, I don’t wish to explain or elaborate on this in more detail right here, right now, but I will do so in ANNIHILATION.
Is Watts “settling” his children, who are both alive, inside the truck? If one of the children was murdered with a blanket, why don’t we see this blanket? Doesn’t it have a shadow too? Or was Ceecee “wearing it”, but it was so titled wrapped around her it had no cape to throw a shadow?
Let’s face it, settling living children and settling dead bodies could take a similar amount of time. While the one scenario would involve making the children comfortable in sleeping quarters without their car seats, and arguably in a vehicle they’ve never been in before, the other scenario would involve making dead bodies not visible, concealing them from casual view.
We also have some useful footage to examine, in terms of how the shadows spool and watercolor, when Watts pulls the truck away and walks back. We can see the shadows splaying out on his approach as well as on his return to the truck.
In the image below Watts shadow moves outward in a triangular shape, with the narrow point of the pyramid ending under his heel.
As he moves right beside the light source, his shadow whips around to the side. It’s not completely clear in the screengrab, so have a look at the shadow dance in the video as well at 4:53 and again at 5:09.
This is Watts stepping back out onto the driveway for the last time. Notice the shadows are dragging to his right, towards the surveillance camera, and there appears to be a double-effect. Also the shadow isn’t long but kind of a squat, puddle-shape.
Just one short step later and one shadow already swoops around and begins to stretch out ahead of him. Meanwhile a second shadow [is there someone else floating in the air?] smudges vaguely to his right.
Watts went to a lot of trouble to hide three bodies at CERVI 319. In theory he could have dumped the bodies on the side of the road somewhere, and it would have been much more difficult to connect them to him, except for the problem that doing so would let the world know immediately that a triple homicide had just happened.
The effort Watts made to move his wife so far from the scene of the crime, and the cleaning effort in the aftermath, and the many lies, these are all a mismatch to the glib suggestion that Watts casually took his children along for the ride, had no idea what he intended, and casually killed both of them, allowing one to witness the death of the other. There also just happened to be two oil tanks, one for each child, a thought that apparently didn’t occur to Watts on his way there, and apparently not when he was planning to go there first thing early on Sunday evening [and arguably the machinations for that plan was set in motion as early as Friday midday].
We know Watts changed his clothing, possibly not once but twice, before returning home, and we also know Watts used “plausible deniability” to stage this crime. The staging of the wedding ring is a good example inside the home, the claim that he was “loading tools” and that’s why he backed into the driveway was his plausible account for that scenario and Watts work detail at CERVI 319 was a cover for what he was actually doing out there early on Monday morning.
He uses plausible deniability to suggest things that aren’t true, and in this case it includes many technical things, such as the Vivint evidence, GPS data, cell phone logs including calls and texts to Shan’ann after she was dead.
None of this data proves Watts did anything. Instead it tends to prove he didn’t. Now we can apparently add the technical addition of discombobulated shadows in the surveillance video that “proves” the children were alive. This is “proof” that Watts didn’t kill them in the home, and supposedly casts doubt on the premeditated nature of the murder.
What can we extrapolate from the psychology of this approach? What sort of criminal psychology may be at work here? Well, it’s quite simple.
If the shadow/s isn’t Bella or Ceecee, and if they weren’t alive, then the entire scenario about a murder at CERVI 319 is just another fiction in a long list of lies. Make no mistake, an awful lot hinges on what we’re seeing [or not seeing] in those shadows on the driveway. So the #1 Reason Watts may be telling the truth may also be the #1 Reason he’s lying.
Way back on August 18th, when I wrote the first blog on Watts case at the sister blog to this site, I listed 20 obvious “tells” suggesting Watts was lying during his Sermon on the Porch. Stuttering was #4.
On the face of it, Watts’ stuttering doesn’t match who he appears to be. He’s fit, muscular, confident, good looking [to some], suave, smart, and cool, calm and collected. But when on the spot, such as when he made his speech about relationships, or when he was confronted by the cops in his home, he revealed himself as a poor speaker. He’s not a convincing talker.
This put Watts extremely at odds with the whole Thrive MLM deal which required him to be in front of the camera, talking a big game and selling himself. Watts hated doing that, he said.
I dealt with another stutterer in the Van Breda axe murder case. Henri is a lot like Watts in some ways. Mild-mannered, gentle, soft-spoken and apparently an introvert. When Henri decided to testify, he asked the court not to televise his testimony because of his stutter. The court eventually overruled the request, and Henri testified to a packed court, with cameras trained on him, and he hardly ever stuttered. Not never. But so seldom it was hardly the speech impediment he’d made it out to be.
And yet when Henri was nervous, the stutter did come out. Not a Fish Called Wanda level stutter, but one that raised its slippery head nevertheless.
The stutter isn’t just a nervous artifact floating around, it’s connected to something deeper. Trauma is one reason, and it’s possible Watts felt either excessively dominated and controlled by an overbearing mother, or outshone by his outspoken extroverted older sister. According to brainblogger:
Stuttering is increasingly becoming recognized…as a deep psychological response to an increasingly alienated world….It is during this time as the child is adjusting to modern human life that it will often encounter an environment in which it is overwhelmed or variously adjusting to inconsistencies or abnormalities to what it expects. It is this avalanche of learning and stimulus and adjusting that is occurring that can lead to a certain level of internally generated subconscious insecurity and anxiety. This self-doubt that develops can manifest in many physical forms, with the main verbal expression being to stutter when attempting to begin speaking.
Stuttering is essentially a verbal expression of a child’s insecure and uncertain reaction to an overwhelming world.
And so in the context of true crime, the thing that elicits the stutter is often [not always, but often] heightened anxiety brought on by a particular line of questioning. Right alongside Watts’ stutter is another nervous tick, the inward lip curl. Ironically, Henri van Breda had the same involuntary movement of his lip, but instead of it curling inward, it snarled upward, something he often tried to hide during his testimony.
What this reveals is that far from these criminals being cool, their anxiety is greater than it is for the average person.
An Infamous Psychopath From Colorado Who Committed Murder in 2018 – but it's not who you think it is
This site is called True Crime Rocket Science for a reason. True crime isn’t simple, or easy. Even experts [especially experts] and FBI agents with decades of experience can be totally out of their depth when it comes to a particular case.
The secret to understanding true crime is like true crime itself, simple – but not easy. It requires truckloads of time to become familiar with a case, with the case file and most important, to get to know the true face of the criminal and the victims involved.
As so often happens in true crime, this most important information – who the murderer really is – is carefully hidden from view or missing. It’s not there, it may not be visible, but it does exist. It takes a long, long time to carefully find those missing, concealed, covered up, manipulated and misleading distortions and know how and where these point away from reality.
True crime is like assembling an enormous puzzle made up of many tiny pieces. It takes a lot of time just to develop a cogent picture in one area, never mind the crime itself as a global whole.
The media, who like to rush in and with a snap of their fingers, reveal the secrets no one else can, treat true crime as a cash cow that one can approach lightly, apply one’s hand and voila, there’s the milk. And there’s the money. And the media think they have a foolproof formula for milking their cash cow: Send in the clowns experts!
Experts are often like journalists and reporters, they jump from cases to case like butterflies to the next flower. They nourish themselves by visiting as many flowers as they possibly can in a given day and they think this gives them expertise. I say it again – true crime is simple, but not easy. One develops mastery, and becomes a master – at anything – by devoting significant amounts of time and effort getting to know that thing. So by that token, those people who have immersed themselves for the longest time, consistently focused on only one case day by day are going to know the most about it. Who do you think qualifies according to these standards of expertise in the Chris Watts case?
Even detectives investigating crime and lawyers prosecuting them have to visit other flowers while doing their jobs. One of the few people who stick with a case from beginning through the middle right through to the bitter end is the narrator. This is why journalists covering a true crime case at the scene, in court, all the way to the verdict, are often the best sources. They know how it all ties to together and can intuit the subtleties. And if true crime is one thing it’s subtle.
This is why labels are so irksome in true crime. Labels are like giant rubber stamps, simplifying a crime and criminal psychology, and almost always OVERSIMPLYFYING it. And here’s a case in point from the reputable and reliable [?] Rolling Stone magazine.
I’m always interested to read about the psychology of crimes and criminals, because it’s typically the Undiscovered Country of true crime. Everyone asks about motive, everyone wants to know why, and yet often even with the benefit of dozens of investigators, cops, lawyers, even a court case going on for years, cases come and go and the why remains unanswered. It doesn’t have to be this way, but such a simple question requires a lot of work, a lot of effort, and a lot of the most difficult thing – thinking – to drill towards anything resembling a worthwhile answer.
Now let’s drill into this analysis into the imputed psychology of Chris Watts.
Apparently Watts “fits squarely” into the square psychology box for family annihilators. Actually, he doesn’t fit squarely at all. The article goes on to describe the typical traits leading up to a family annihilation: an inciting incident [such as a job loss], scenarios for long term strife in the home [wife’s infidelity] and/or a history of domestic violence. And most prototypical of all, the perpetrator tends to commit suicide after the act.
In effect the family annihilation exposes a family that is breaking a apart against the will of the perpetrator, and the sense of despair is so chronic and threadbare, there are clear signs of desperation and depression. The killing of the family is almost an attempt to preserve the family so the family can “be together” in the afterlife. In effect the perpetrator feels hopeless, wants to kill himself, but can’t bear the thought of his significant other and children being with someone else, and so he “takes them with him”.
It should be obvious that none of this is present in the Watts case. The inciting incident isn’t infidelity from the wife, but the perpetrator although one could argue Shan’ann’s pregnancy and her MLM work in general was the equivalent of a job loss, or a scenario that rendered his income null and void. Still, it’s not quite the same as losing one’s job and facing despair and hopelessness. If anything, Watts’ job was going well, and Shan’ann’s appeared to be going well. Strife at home isn’t completely absent, but if there’s one thing that stands about about the Watts case it’s the impression that they were a happy and perfect family. And far from Shan’ann being a victim of domestic violence, she wanted to stay married and wanted to make it work and wanted to fix things in spite of her suspicions.
The other aspect to note is that Watts wants his family to break apart, and wants a divorce, and wants another life with someone else. This is completely opposite and counter to the psychology of annihilators.
The impressive sounding Dr. N.G. Berrill [“a forensic psychologist and director of New York Forensics, a private consulting group in New York City”] is right that a family annihilation is “the culmination of a very bad situation that’s festered”, but before awarding Noddy badges for this brilliant insight we ought to remember that ALL CRIMES take place as a culmination of bad, festering situations.
Even a car accident isn’t accidental, but tends to happen at the end of a long period of recklessness, whether in terms of driving, or taking risks in terms of driving when drowsy. Far more car “accidents” are narrowly avoided, and people tend to learn and adapt from these near misses. So even car accidents at the end of a long road of festering un-roadworthiness.
Berrill’s references to patterns misogynistic behavior are also off, unless the references to Watts’ “animalistic sex” have some truth to them, which isn’t impossible. Watts’ clearly is on the more “repressed” side of Berrill’s continuum, but it’s a stretch to conflate Watts’ introversion and crushed-in personality with depression. If anything Watts had been happier than he’d ever been when he committed triple murder, and in addition to that in the shape of his life.
If that isn’t a disqualifier from the typical annihilator pattern – a deliriously happy Romeo – I’m not sure what is. There’s also no indication that Watts committed these crimes as part of a psychotic break [in the way Berrill implies], because a premeditated murder is by default a meticulously planned and executed crime. It’s the opposite of a psychotic break caused by trauma or despair.
Interestingly in Watts’ Second Confession, he seems to suggest exactly this, that his crime wasn’t premeditated and that it was a kind of psychotic break from reality.
When Watts says “if something like that happened” – well it DID happen. It’s not hypothetical although his fictional confession [for him] clearly is, just as the first was also hypothetical, and was presented to him by the investigators as a hypothesis.
Watts refers to this idea of “rage” many times in the Discovery Document. A filtered search shows 191 instances of the word “rage”, although many also include “garage” and “encourage”. In the 30+ page Second Confession report, there are just two references:
I’m sure Watts did feel anger and resentment, and his childhood and marriage, and introverted non-confrontational approach certainly provide fertile soil for some of those feelings. But does Watts strike one as the “enraged” type? Did he appear angry at any time when the cops were searching his home? How about during his Sermon on the Porch? During the hours and hours of his first two interviews and polygraph test, did he come across enraged then? When he was finally arrested did he appear irritated or flustered? When he appeared in court and was told what a monster he was, did he look up and glare at his accusers? After months in prison, does he appear angry or enraged now?
Did we see any traces of Watts’ rage in any of Shan’ann’s dozens of Live videos where he appears?
And in Watts’ version of events, when he murders Shan’ann and the children, does something trigger this rage? He has sex and makes up wih Shan’ann [supposedly] in one version, and in his spiel regarding the snuffing out of the children in the truck at CERVI 319 there is zero trigger.
Watts’ first confession, in contrast, is all about triggers. Shan’ann kills the kids and this sets off a rage in him. He tells Shan’ann he wants a divorce [in this version she doesn’t know about an affair], and this triggers her to kill the kids.
I don’t think rage is the operative emotion in the Watts case. It’s not irrelevant, because there was a long fuse effect [also referred to as the “slow burn” in the Oscar Pistorius trial]. I won’t say here what the operative emotions are, as I deal with them in the books. I doubt whether rage is the operative emotion in the typical annihilation either. There, even though I haven’t studied it as a category, I’d assume the operative emotion is despair. I say this because I suspect it’s similar to the operative emotion in mass shootings where the killers shoot themselves after making a huge statement. Once again in these scenarios, which I studied and profiled extensively in SLAUGHTER, while rage is present, the operative emotion which is even greater is despair, which is itself a function of massive humiliation and diminishment over a long period of time.
Back to the Rolling Stone “expert” psychological analysis. After describing the Watts case as fitting squarely into the pattern of family annihilator, the writer seems to readjust his view and describes Watts as “somewhat unique”. Ya think?
Then another expert weighs in, Dr. Neil Websdale, director of the Family Violence Institute at Northern Arizona. After Berrill puts Watts into the prototypical Family Annihilator Box, Websdale takes him out and puts him into the Narcissism Book, and closes the lid. This version of Watts is a self-centered, entitled, aggressive narcissist. And of course that’s who we see in all the Facebook videos. Watts taking center stage aggressively, and being entitled to his own paychecks throughout his marriage, and always only thinking about himself. Except…ahem…this isn’t an entirely accurate representation from the director of the Family Violence Institute. Besides the murders there is virtually zero family violence to speak of in the Watts case, so getting a Family Violence Institute expert on the show may appear to be good journalism, but it’s shockingly out of touch with the true crime merits of this case.
Steven Lambert, the Rzucek’s family lawyer is referenced next providing the insight that Shan’ann’s threat to fight for full custody is the real reason for the murders. Really? So Watts killed his wife first, and then having achieved custody, killed his children…?
Once again we have an extremely poor application of the facts of the case, but of course if it’s a lawyer or an expert it must true.
A good example of murder in order to “win” an actual custody dispute, where custody is a central motive took place just up the legal road in Colorado, in the Patrick Frazee murder of his fiance Kelsey Berreth. I want to deal with that case as a possible poster for the psychopath label.
In the Frazee case there was literally the bludgeoning to death in front of his daughter, and then the removal of the little girl from the scene, and then in the weeks following, a civil trial for custody playing out alongside the criminal trial for murder. That’s what a murder with a custody motive looks and feels like.
Before moving onto a proper comparison with Frazee, there’s a final aspect to deal with in this article about psychology from the so-called experts. Websdale signs off by describing intimate partner homicide as a weird sort of psychological enigma where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted. It’s all sort of random, you see. Websdale confidently notes that each time he’s asked about this issue he tells people there are no signs; you can’t predict it at all. That’s hogwash.
The same signs that were in play in the Scott Peterson case are in play in the Watts case, and for that matter, the Frazee case as well. There’s a period of standoffishness that precedes the crime. There is disenchantment, withdrawal and disinvestment. There’s an attempt to extricate one life from another that’s both explicit and tacit. If there’s loving behavior and consideration at one point, this pattern shifts noticeably towards its antithesis. We see the same thing with mass shooters and people who commit suicide. Any premeditated murder that goes on for any length of time is preceded by psychological and emotional preparation. It’s the cooling, the breaking of psychological and emotional attachments before the culling. And all of this plays out over again, like a movie clip set on repeat, in the soon-to-be murderer’s mind. Murder becomes a fantasy, but how that fantasy plays out in the real world is through real world disaffection with his intended target.
In the Watts case the signs were plentiful, from his sudden uncharacteristic lack of communication in general to his expressed fear and anxiety about having the third child as well as his resistance to announcing the gender reveal.
Besides this, the debt monster was a clear and present wolf howling at the front door, just as was the case in the murder of Laci Peterson.
So if we’re to conflate these cases with those of family annihilation, then we see unique signatures emerging from the ether: a pregnancy or newborn child, severe financial limits and an affair all providing an entirely different dynamic.
It may be better to refer to these kinds of crimes as Pregnancy Annihilation because at its center that is what it is, and probably how it starts. The murder is a dramatic way of enforcing an abortion in circumstances where the husband and father feels too inadequate [financially and otherwise] to broker or negotiate with his spouse the way a normal husband or father would. Murder, in effect, is the “easier” way out for them [because they’re cowards with weak social currency but strong/resilient connections to their own parents].
What Drives a Man to Kill His Own Family? Inside the Psychology of Family Annihilators – Rolling Stone
Now I want to address the biggest bugbear, for me, in this case. The only label more ridiculous for Watts than the Narcissist label is Psychopath. To understand why it’s such a misnomer, let’s look at what a truly psychopathic crime and criminal feels like.
Kelsey Berreth’s fiancée, Patrick Frazee, is a ‘monster,’ ex-girlfriend says – NBC
Without going into a lot of detail, we can see how the circled text doesn’t apply to Watts. He has empathy for his family right up until the time he kills them. He even has empathy for the investigators interrogating him, apologizing to them afterwards for lying.
Watts is also terrible at reading people, from his mistress [and her anticipated response to Shan’ann’s disappearance] to law enforcement to the media. His Sermon on the Porch is one of the least convincing misrepresentations to the media in the history of high profile true crime.
Watts thinks he’s clever, and a good liar, doesn’t he? He vastly overestimates himself on both counts, perhaps due to several years of MLM playing loudly in the background, with the Criticism and Fact Checking button permanently set to mute. But it would be overstating things to suggest Watts is a dummy in every respect.
Certain technical aspects of the crime were brilliantly executed, and plenty of evidence has been permanently lost, which is no mean feat in a “hastily executed flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants” crime as some believe it to be. We still don’t have any independent proof for where the crimes took place in the home which is virtually unheard of in high-profile true crime.
Curiously the Scott Peterson case shares this idiosyncrasy with Watts – we can’t be sure where Laci was murdered or when either, but there is evidence plenty of bleach was used on the scene.
In the Amanda Knox case, there is less uncertainty about where the crime to place, but it appears there was a significant amount of cleaning up of the crime scene, and it appears bleach, household cleaners and doing the laundry suddenly became priorities that morning. In the Steven Avery case, bleach is also prominent, and evidence of the victim almost entirely absent.
There’s virtually no evidence Watts was emotionally abusive, to anyone, nor that he was cruel to animals. But if Watts doesn’t fit the profile of a psychopath, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few psychopathic traits in Watts.
Like Frazee, Watts put his wife on a pedestal [and she did the same to him in some respects]. By doing this, the perpetrator idolizes his partner, which is the first step in distancing and disconnecting himself. Tearing down and burying is the final step.
Another aspect of Watts that conforms to the classic psychopath scenario is his “second face”, a secret identity hidden from the world which is nevertheless present. Scratch the surface, peel away the veneer, and there he is. But this trait is one true of almost everyone. On social media, and Facebook in particular, most avatars present a second, fictional face to who we really are. What this shows is a link between narcissism, psychopathy and social deception, and something else: as much as we believe Watts to be an alien monster that is nothing like us, he is very much a product of our time. He is us.
The 6-part TWO FACE series is available on Amazon at this link.
When the investigators asked Watts if he thought he’d ever fall in love again, Watts demurred, and then made a specific reference to another inmate whose name is redacted.
If Steven Avery could get engaged, and Damien Echols got married while in prison, the odds of Chris Watts finding love in the slammer are pretty high, I’d say.
More: Who Is Lynn Hartman? Steven Avery’s Ex-Fiancee Had A Major Change Of Heart Shortly After Their Engagement – Bustle
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.
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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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