According to the Second Confession, Shan’ann was killed in bed, and both children killed one-by-one inside Watts’ work truck, on the back seat, while it was parked at CERVI 319.
When Coder says, “And what was Bella doing…” does he sound like he’s buying any of it?
It’s natural to feel emotional hearing these disclosures, but what’s really missing is Watts’ emotion. We should compare his demeanor and tone of voice here to how he “confessed” to his father in the cubicle at Frederick Police Station in the late afternoon of August 15th. That was a false confession too, but when he gave that confession he had his head in his hands, and he sounded tearful as croaked out a few words at a time, with his father rubbing his back.
A few minutes later when his father left the room, and he was asked to explain how he disposed of the children’s bodies [which ought to have been the most traumatic moment of all], Watts was completely nonchalant about it. When asked if he had difficulty pushing them through the hatches, he answered evenly, with no trace of emotion:
“Not really.”
It’s natural for us to feel emotion listening to this and reading it, but we ought to guard against letting emotion or sentiment cloud our perceptions. If Watts’ isn’t getting emotional about killing his family, if he’s not shedding a tear then there’s no remorse. And where there’s no remorse there’s no honesty. When a person shows genuine contrition, they are humble enough to tell the truth, as humiliating as it may be. We don’t see any of that here.
A few hours after skimming through the transcript and listening to a few pieces of the audio I couldn’t help thinking back to Shan’ann’s Thrive videos. The whole thing was a house of cards held to together with words. His confession, and Watts’ seemingly enjoying selling it, feels a lot like a super long Facebook Live promo, except instead of selling powders and shakes to make a living, Watts is selling a formula for a crime to save his soul.
Is anyone buying?
Although most of what he’s saying isn’t true or credible, not all of it is lies. Probably some of the words, feelings, sights and sounds are true, the trick is knowing which is which.
We should also take note of the capacity of this guy to delude himself. Lying to others on a scale and scope like this begins with lying to oneself. And that’s what a Two Face is. It’s someone whose entire life is a lie.
“What is the Matrix? It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth…”
“I think it was more anger from me and more like desperation from her.”
After Shan’ann is “gone” Watts is in a daze. If he snapped when he murdered Shan’ann, he doesn’t snap out of it when she’s dead. He continues to murder her by getting rid of her body [as well as killing the poor children] and then lies to media and the cops about it.
So it’s a very long SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP.
Watts also says repeatedly he didn’t know what to do, but then what he does next is very deliberate. The drive, the phone calls, the burying, the dumping, the return to Saratoga Trail to hide the phone and show Officer Coonrod the ring…
A few things that have stood out reading through the release are Nichol Kessinger being bi-pilor [according to Watts] and her “getting pissed” when he left her to go home. Watts also acknowledges it was possible Kessinger knew Shan’ann was pregnant [via Facebook], but says if she knew she didn’t say.
According to Watts his relationship with Kessinger “contributed” to the murders, but she never asked him to do anything.
Also:
-Watts denies knowing Trent Bolte
-Watts indirectly denies knowing Amanda McMahon
-Watts doesn’t want either of them charged for making false claims against him -According to Watts he met Nichol Kessinger on June 1st 2018
-Kessinger saw a picture of his family on his computer at work [according to Watts] and so she knew he was married…
-Kessinger talked about meeting after his trip with Shan’ann to San Diego [in late June] -He wished he’d worked more in the field so he’d never gotten close to Kessinger
-He felt like Kessinger pursued him, which was unusual…
-Watts seems to regret his relationship with Kessinger, and now has pictures of his wife and daughters in his cell [and talks to them every day] -He stayed at Kessinger’s home almost every night while Shan’ann and the kids were in North Carolina
– He slept over at Kessinger’s house almost the entire month of July
-Being away from home made him entertain the notion of not being a father and husband
-He never had a girlfriend during high-school
-The longest relationship he had before Shan’ann was about 6 months REGARDING SHAN’ANN’S MURDER
-Shan’ann lay face down. She turned onto her back. He straddled her [sitting on top of her] and spoke to her for 20 minutes. She initially thought he wanted to have sex with her.
-She said he was hurting the baby
-He asked if they could cancel their trip to Aspen
-He asked if they could move to Brighton
-He told Shan’ann he didn’t think their marriage was going to work
-He also felt like when he used their credit card with Kessinger on Saturday night, this was “the last straw”
-Shan’ann hadn’t taken off her bra and had mascara running down her face. She asked him “what about last night?”…
-He still couldn’t bring himself to tell her about Kessinger
-He told Shan’ann he didn’t love her
-Shan’ann told him: “You’re never going to see the kids again…get off me…don’t hurt the baby…”
-He immediately put both hands around Shan’ann’s neck and strangled her.
Doesn’t exactly resonate with truth, does it?
Although officially 34 pages, 31 pages were released. This is it. Page 26 deals with Kessinger’s involvement [or lack of] in the murders.
Analysis to follow.
The Greeley Tribune has thus far released one photo – this photo – of Chris Watts. He doesn’t look as pudgy as the last photo, does he? If anything he looks strangely rested.
According to the Tribune another photo was also released, as well as two audio files totalling 5 hours, and a 37 page CBI report. It should be noted CBI Agent Tammy Lee’s original report, including polygraph, was 34 pages long. Any chance Watts was polygraphed on his answers this time round?
This page will be updated throughout the day.
—FIVE HOUR CONFESSION—
I’ve obtained a 5.5hr audio recording, which contains new confessions from convicted family murderer Chris Watts.
FOX31 and Channel 2 has a team in the newsroom reviewing everything that was released. We will be making careful decisions on what content we report on-air and online. While the interview and documents are now public records, we are working to be thoughtful in our coverage and considerate to all those involved with and touched by this case. This story will be updated with additional information throughout the day.
In the clip below, Dr. Phil describes the girls sitting in the truck with their feet on their mother’s body.
Interestingly, although Dr. Phil kicks off Part One of his two-parter on Chris Watts “on location” in Pinehurst, North Carolina, where the actual boardroom spiel takes place sounds like it was in Denver [with the family’s law firm].
Listen to the rest…
As someone on TCRS recently commented, does Watts not care now what Kessinger thinks about him cheating on her now [which I for one don’t believe], or does he care, and he said it to settle a personal score?
This guy’s mind is sounding like a bag full of cats at this point.
According to Thomas Grant, one of the four lawyers sitting in on the Dr. Phil exclusive, Sandi Rzucek never heard Watts’ account firsthand, but it was relayed to her by law enforcement. She then relayed it to her lawyers.
According to CBS: …lawyers say Shan’ann was the only one who died in the house. Lambert said Watts killed his wife in their bedroom, after she threatened to take his children away because he wanted a divorce. “In that fight he confessed to having an affair,” Lambert told Dr. Phil. After Shanann was strangled, Lambert said Bella Watts walked in the room, to find her father wrapping Shanann’s body in a blanket.
One thing that gives a certain amount of credibility to the idea of Shan’ann being the only one killed in the house is the minimal cadaver traces picked up by the dogs. So from that perspective, there is not necessarily confirmation but some reinforcement for this story. In my view, however, the Trinastich video footage doesn’t indicate that the children weren’t killed in the house, but the opposite. It tends to suggest they were.
Interestingly, according to the lawyers Watts hasn’t been offered any incentive to confess, but has done so because he is remorseful and has found God. Obviously if this statement isn’t true, it casts doubt on whether the remorse or newfound religion is true.
It’s also difficult to believe no incentive was offered. What does Watts have to gain by putting it all on him, when he felt determined to murder his wife, bury her and lie about it especially over the course of those first three days.
Now he wants to protect her and protect her reputation? Out of the goodness of his heart? It may be that he does want to protect someone – Kessinger. And that this version while taking the blame off Shan’ann, also takes it off his mistress. Tomorrow we will have a clearer picture.
Cognitive Bias. That’s what it’s called when people see things in the dark. Let me illustrate it with an example. My wallet is on a desk right in front of me and in a moment, it’s going to be stolen. I think I hear someone behind the door. The next thing the lights go out, I feel a slight brush and a thud, and when I turn the light on and open the door, my wallet’s gone and so is whoever took it.
The cognitive bias here is through the non-neutral word “stolen”, and that there is a someone, and that that someone came into the room when I couldn’t see and stole the wallet in the dark, and then disappeared.
The bias is there because the wallet’s disappearance is connected with the idea of someone in the dark before you’re lead into that scenario. So you start to fill in the blanks ahead of time.
Here’s the same thing without cognitive bias. My wallet is on a desk right in front of me. I hear a noise and turn towards it. The lights go out. I feel something and hear a thud. When I turn on the light the wallet is gone.
It turns out the wallet is on floor. It never left the room. When I turned in my seat, and was momentarily blinded by the power going off, I happened to knock it off myself. When I turned the light on and didn’t see it, I first assumed [through cognitive bias] that someone took it.
The missing key to unraveling this micro-mystery is the sound and light of the door opening and closing behind the imputed thief. There is no sound and there is no opening and closing of the door. But we don’t think that far because we’re trying to connect the wallet to the imagined someone.
Now let’s apply this to the shadows moving and coming to life on the Watts driveway. Cognitive Bias on the Watts Driveway
I’m certain law enforcement were made aware of the hysteria over shadows and mark my words, they probably asked Watts about it. Perhaps they showed him pictures of the shadows as well and asked him to explain when he was loading who, where, and when. This was them offering Watts essentially the somewhat plausible possibility that his children were still alive, just as they once offered him the possibility that Shan’ann did something.
True to form he took that baton [I suspect] and ran with it this time as well. The first time I heard about the surveillance footage I assumed it was from the dashcam of a car directly opposite the Watts home, and I assumed it was essentially “smoking gun” evidence. In other words, I assumed the footage clearly showed Watts backing up his truck, loading three bodies and driving off. As it turns out, the backing up is fairly clear and the driving off is clear. The middle part with dead bodies isn’t. The second reference to the surveillance footage came from Frank Rzucek on November 19th at the sentencing hearing.
https://youtu.be/t3pICdg1WZc
“You take them out like trash” is a clear reference to Frank imagining not only dead bodies, but dead bodies in garbage bags or bins. Frank’s description seems authentic because I don’t believe he saw anything, he simply assumed from what he did see and what he’d been told that dead bodies were loaded into the truck, and trash bags were recovered at the dumping site. The third reference came from District Attorney Michael Rourke a few minutes later.
Rourke described Watts going back into the house and to the truck “three times”. I remember this very clearly, and the message was very clear. Three trips to the truck equals three bodies.
At 04:54 Rourke describes that moment in the clip below.
ROURKE: The defendant then methodologically and calmly loaded their bodies into his work truck. Not in a hasty, or disorganized way. He was seen from the neighbor’s doorbell camera backing his truck into the driveway, going back and forth into the house and back out to the truck three different times. One time for each of their bodies.
And that sketched a particular picture as well. Quite a clear picture, one should say.
When the surveillance video was released, I was shocked by not only the poor quality of it, but also that it was so difficult to make out anything. It was also abundantly clear that at no time could you distinctly or even indistinctly see anything being loaded besides – in one instance – a red gas can. What I was suffering from, when I saw this disappointingly bad footage, is known in psychology as cognitive dissonance.
It’s similar to watching an incredible movie trailer only to find all the best scenes are in the trailer, or being led to believe some product is fabulous, but then it turns out to be a mediocre con job.
It should be noted that Rourke’s statement was factually incorrect in several respects.
1. It wasn’t the neighbor’s doorbell camera that made the recording [although there is a doorbell camera and recording in this story]. After an incredible amount of searching I eventually located a decent shot of the Trinastich camera. It’s a kind of motion detecting camera positioned just under the eave of the porch, and directed towards and over his own driveway [and coincidentally, towards Watts’ driveway]. 2. Watts didn’t go three times to the truck, each time carrying a different body. It’s difficult to say how many times Watts did go back and forth, but one thing is clear, he sometimes approached the truck with nothing in his hands, and on one occasion he loaded a red gas can on the neighbor’s side.
In the strict interpretation of Rourke’s words, if Watts went back and forth three times, each time to load a body, then it means each time Watts came out of the garage he had to have been carrying/loading a body, right?
But that’s not what happens.
3. In Rourke’s description it seems pretty cut and dried. Watts came out, methodically loaded bodies, made three trips, then drove off. In fact it was a lot more disorganized than that.
After backing up his truck Watts later moved the truck forward in the driveway [behind the tree] and then made another trip back and forth, again with nothing in his hands.
Although Rourke’s point is mostly accurate that Watts was fairly methodical in how he executed the crime and disposal, it wasn’t quite as seamless and neat as this impression suggests.
So, what all these scenarios did to most of us was sketch an idea in our imaginations, while at the same time indirectly muddying it and leaving some room for error and interpretation. And so that’s what we did – we interpreted.
When the surveillance video came out it was virtually useless, but that didn’t stop many out there – because one could see whatever one wanted to, and that’s cognitive bias.
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own “subjective social reality” from their perception of the input.
Now I want to deal with the public’s response to the video, especially in light of the second confession, and then I’ll deal [briefly] with the lights and shadows themselves. Public Perception and Cognitive Bias
Yesterday I received this tweet.
For a split second I assumed what this meant was that new video surveillance had just been released proving/showing the girls were alive. One possibility I considered was that Watts went through a drive-through or something similar on the way to work, and CCTV footage showed his daughters sitting next to him.
In fact this is precisely what happened in the Patrick Frazee case, except the CCTV footage in that case proved [or strongly suggested] Kelsey Berreth was dead [and inside the black tote].
Surveillance’s from an ENT Credit Union shows #PatrickFrazee truck and a “black tote” in the bed of the truck. Commander says that tote plays a significant role in #KelseyBerreth disappearance. Hoping to find out what was inside it. @KKTV11News
I’m not the first person to assume…was there some additional surveillance footage floating around about the Watts case? Is there a second video?
When someone says “video evidence proving” it sounds pretty solid, doesn’t it? So when I asked to see this new evidence, it turned out to be [surprise, surprise] the very same Trinastich footage, this time with social media’s spin on it. Now a shadow is a child running around, or a shadow is a dead body being dragged or loaded etc. etc.
This is the dictionary definition of evidence.
Evidence means something is irrefutably, definitely true. Evidence is not “I believe this very strongly, it looks accurate and also thousands agree with me…”
Evidence is absolutely clear and demonstrably, self-evidently, scientifically authentic and accurate. It’s fact versus fiction.
But that’s cognitive bias for you. The world today feels like a war between what’s real and what’s not. Today enough people campaigning for something that’s not real seems to make it real, and that’s good enough for them.
Cognitive bias blown up by legions of social media dullards all echoing the same mindless fucking nonsense is a force to be reckoned with.
I’ve been fairly strident in the past to say TCRS doesn’t entertain or discuss conspiracy theories, especially not moronic conspiracies unless it’s to debunk them.
Unfortunately, because of the import of the Second Confession, it becomes unavoidable to not acknowledge this “kids were alive in the driveway” theory. And by acknowledging it it gains credibility it really doesn’t deserve. TCRS cannot disprove the ghosts in the driveway conspiracy, but…
The bad news is TSRS can’t disprove the theory of bodies rising from the dead and running around the driveway leaving behind a shadow here and there. What we can do is what any good defense team does in a difficult, and frankly untenable situation, as regards an imputed reality: raise reasonable doubt.
So let’s get practical and go to the driveway at night, and make the case not for why the conspiracy is objectively false, but why other reasonable possibilities exist. We will then argue that these other possibilities are more reasonable than the conspiracy. Worth playing for? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in the image above we see the Watts driveway at night. I believe this photo was taken on Tuesday night [August 14th], when the house was vacant. Watts was interrogated by the FBI and then spent the night with the Thayers. The following day his father arrived, and he was interrogated again, he failed a polygraph and was later arrested. Hours after his arrest the body pf his wife was exhumed at a well site. Now, in the nocturnal image of the driveway [below] note the three primary light sources on the pillars of the garage. For our purposes, the most important light sources are the two in the middle and on the right respectively. When looking through the Trinastich camera only the light source on the far left, on the wall on the outside of the Watts’ garage is visible. But this light source isn’t the operative light source for the shadows, because the truck itself is blocking the left-hand hand light source. It’s also not the small light on the ground on the other neighbor’s side that’s flaring directly into the Trinastich camera. What we can say with certainty is that at least two bright, elevated light sources are the primary illuminating agents. Both shine towards Watts and the truck from different angles. Is that a fair statement? I think it is. Now, as soon as there are two light sources and different angles, then an object moving between them will cast two sets of shadows. Depending on the movement and the angle vis-a-vis each light source, these respective shadows will naturally vary. Is that a fair statement? So, for example if one approaches a light source directly from the front, then the shadow will be thrown directly behind the object, and this angle will remain directly behind as long as the trajectory to the light source remains the same. Is that a fair statement? But if the angle to one light source is consistent, and the object is moving, it means the angle to the other is not only different but also changing at the same time.
We don’t need to refer to hypothetical examples, however, because we see these same distortions in ordinary photos of the Watts driveway at night. We also see these double light distortions when Shan’ann approaches the doorbell camera. When she’s almost right in front of the camera her shadow strengthens then swoops around her as she passes the light source on her left. [You can watch that here]. In photos of Watts on the driveway there are some in which there appear to be no shadows at all. This is a combination of the shadows being diluted by multiple light sources. It’s also very easy to reproduce the effect. Simply visit the property, turn on the lights, and study the impact, effects and distortions and how they are represented on camera. In conclusion, it’s not necessary to prove that the shadows weren’t children, or whether they were alive, because no proof exists that the shadows were children, or that they weren’t dead. In effect, reasonable doubt exists as to what the shadows are either way, or to put it even more plainly: Reasonable Doubt Exists.
I hope this will be the last word on this nonsense, but if this case has proved anything, it’s that saner heads have not prevailed. Given the enormous numbers of views [and support] for the conspiracies [Armchair Detective’s “Shadow” videos have been viewed 200 000 times, far more than his other content], it’s clear that people prefer to believe what they want to believe, whatever titillates them, as opposed to thinking for themselves.
Before signing off on this area of analysis, there’s a final aspect to address in terms of the notion that the children were in the cabin of the truth with Watts, and Bella supposedly had her seat belt on. This is what the interior of Watts work truck looks like – the front seat.
In a scenario where they’re “taking Mommy to the hospital”, one’s cognitive bias sketches the family sitting together in the front, or at least Mommy is in the front where Daddy can keep an eye on her. But there’s virtually no room for anyone, especially not on the floor of the front passenger seat.
Then there’s the issue of car seats. If the children were alive and going to hospital, or anywhere else and their safety was a concern, where are the car seats?
If Watts didn’t intend to go to the well site with the children, and sort of made it up as he went along [it wasn’t premeditated] then why did he put three people [dead or alive] in his work truck, and go to the effort to back up his truck, rather than go in the Lexus which had the car seats? Had Watts ever driven with his entire family to a work site [or anywhere else] before this date?
Why would Watts need to make several trips back to load living people if at least one of his children was running out to him?
And why would he need extra tough garbage bags?
Why were two garbage bags found on the well site? “You took them out like garbage” is exactly right.
One of the impressions and cognitive bias I’ve tried to emphasize over the course of six book covers, is no matter how the text, colors or distracting mosaics surrounding the central character of Watts changes or distort, the central image – of a TWO FACE – remains.
This central pillar premise is thus a lot like two light sources shining on an object, throwing up different, deception shadows. The message of the TWO FACE series is this: We are fools if we look to the trick of the shadows for answers, rather than the man responsible for throwing them. Look to the man to find out why, when, how and why.
The TWO FACE 6-part series is available exclusively on Amazon Kindle at this link.
Why was – and is – public and community safety even an issue in Colorado?
Let’s be clear, Proposition 112 is all about Safety…
Versus Jobs.
A lot of money was raised ahead of the election with two groups lobbying the community. Dirty tricks and propaganda were alleged…
Why was – and is – Proposition 112 such a controversial issue?
When did Colorado vote to accept or reject Proposition 112?
The answer to the above question [in case you missed it] was that the vote to decide on Proposition 112 happened on November 6th, 2018.
The outcome of the vote was that the proposition was rejected, in other words, Colorado voted to allow fracking to continue close to public infrastructure and neighborhoods in Colorado.
Guess what else happened on that very same day?
So what does “Proposition 112” have to do with the Chris Watts Case? Nothing, or everything?
On March 5th, two days ahead of Weld County’s official release of the 5-hour interrogation tapes, Dr. Phil jumped the gun and provided his exclusive. According to Weld County, they were surprised by this early release.
According to People: A spokeswoman from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation [Susan Medina] tells PEOPLE the office plans to release more information on the case Thursday, adding that the office was taken by surprise by the Dr. Phil interview.
For me the show isn’t meaningful so much for how it cuts to bone of this case [because it doesn’t] or because it sheds new light onto any new insights or real revelations. What I find fascinating is the stage management and the PR craft that’s playing out right in front of our eyes. The scale of it is impressive. Besides America, news of the show has been reported around in the world, as far as the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
When the first episode opens, our first shot is of Dr. Phil on location in Pinehurst, North Carolina. He did the same when he interviewed Burke Ramsey on the 20 year anniversary. On that occasion he was in Boulder, standing outside the house with JonBenet’s brother.
So the show starts off providing that impression. It’s investigative. Dr. Phil is speaking to family firsthand, he’s in their back yard, digging for the truth. Right?
When I covered the Ramsey case, I noticed that although the impression is created that Burke and Dr. Phil are in Boulder together, standing outside the historic, gabled house, and later talking inside, on closer inspection I found that wasn’t true. While there is footage of Dr. Phil himself in front of the actual house, we never see Burke and Dr. Phil together in front of the house, although we do see them in front of another old house. Ditto the interiors. The interiors feel like the inside of the Ramsey home, but it’s not.
In the Watts case, Dr. Phil indicates he’s on location in Pinehurst, North Carolina? But why Pinehurst? The Rzuceks live and work in Aberdeen, about 10 miles south of Pinehurst.
We know Shan’ann’s funeral service was held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Pinehurst, but the woman and her children are buried at Bethesda Cemetery, near the old church, in Aberdeen. Shan’ann attended Pinecrest High School in Southern Pines, which is closer to Pinehurst than Aberdeen. In any event, the Pinehurst location feels a little off. During his opening spiel Dr. Phil, while standing under a tree and blooms, talks about “they reportedly recorded” [they being law enforcement] ” a five-hour long confession where Watts revealed what really happened in his wife and daughter’s final moments”.
The keyword here is “reportedly”. If Dr. Phil had said and the same thing and left “reportedly” out, this is how it would have played: They recorded a five-hour long confession where Watts revealed what really happened in his wife and daughter’s final moments Reportedly is hidden in the beginning of the sentence, because to say “reportedly confessed” or “reportedly revealed” weakens the sentence, and also reveals that this confession isn’t the glossy blockbuster exclusive it’s being made out to be. Reportedly is a word journalists use when referring to hearsay. It’s a story about what someone else said, and what they believe was said yada yada yada.
“Today, before it [the audio of the interrogation] is released, we are exclusively revealing the devastating details of…” He’s not exclusively revealing the confession, or the truth, but “devastating details”.
And then the show cuts to Dr. Phil at the seat of a table somewhere, surrounded by four lawyers. All four are people none of us are familiar with, and none of them are introduced by name. One of them, the ginger fellow with the goatee, we know is Steven Lambert – the Rzucek family lawyer. Lambert also does virtually all the talking regarding the confession, but he admits he didn’t hear it himself, but was told about it by Sandi Rzucek. And then they say who Sandi heard it from is “speculation”. So in effect the broken telephone looks like this:
Watts ->three interrogators -> [blank] -> Sandi Rzucek -> Steven Lambert -> Dr. Phil
Now lets drill into a few segments of the first show. 1. Fuzzy Storytelling + Fuzzy Logic = Fuzziness
“From our understanding, uh…Bella did not witness the actual killing of her mother, Shan’ann, it was not until Chris was in the process of trying to dispose of Shan’ann’s body, essentially wrapping her up in the sheet, while she was doing that…Bella walked in. And asked, ‘What are you doing with Mommy?'”
What’s immediately clear from this scenario is how fuzzy and vague it is. There’s no time given, no location, and when Lambert describes it he simply refers to “the night in question”.
Next Lambert refers to Watts’ answer to Bella. He tells his daughter, “Mommy is sick, and we need to take her to the hospital.” Again, we’re not told where in the house this conversation takes place, where Shan’ann is wrapped, or where Ceecee or Deeter are when all of this is happening. CNNreported on the interview Lambert gave Dr. Phil as follows:
“She’s 4, what we’ve been told she’s quite smart — was quite smart — and knew something likely was up. And what he said was that, ‘Mommy is sick, we need to take her to the hospital to make her better,'” Lambert said. Lambert said his understanding is that Chris Watts put Shan’ann’s body in his truck and then put his children, who were alive at the time, into the truck. He took Celeste’s favorite blanket and smothered her, Lambert said. “At this point, Bella had unbuckled herself from the vehicle,” Lambert said. Watts walked back to the truck and that’s when Bella made the plea for her life, Lambert said.
Now when I read that, as narrator, it seems to be suggesting Watts smothered Ceecee in the car, in the driveway, and then Bella pleaded for her life inside the car, while it was still parked in the driveway.
As others have mentioned before, Armchair Detective must be having a field day with this hokum, doing a song and dance about how his prescient conspiracies have turned out to be true!
I don’t want to argue whether it was here or there, because the whole spiel is baloney. What I do want to do is expose the baloney in the psychology of the spiel.
What Lambert and all those who are fielding this supposed confession are trying to convince everyone of is that a little girl wakes up and interrupts her father when he’s wrapping her mother in a bed sheet. Fair to say? So on the night Shan’ann returns home after a weekend away, Bella doesn’t wake up during the first fight, nor does she wake up during the second fight, and she doesn’t wake up while her father is murdering her mother.
We may imagine smothering or strangling is a silent kill. It is one of the more silent murder methods, far quieter than a gunshot, and potentially more silent than a knife wound. But strangling isn’t silent. Put a pillow over your face mouth, stuff a cloth in your mouth and shout, and that sound is still very audible, and can travel quite far inside a house. And yet we’re expected to believe after three separate noise disturbances, when there is no noise, that’s when Bella walked in.
We’re not told where she walked in, but the walked in implies she’s in the home, in spite of the way CNN have reported on it. The point is, it’s fuzzy, confusing and clearly contrived. And you xan sort of see it on the expressions of some of the lawyers, who appear at times as if they’re trying not to laugh on camera.
There are few additional nitpicks to get through. In this version of their argument, selling the house doesn’t even come up. There’s also something patently inadequate about this setup of four lawyers gathered to exclusively reveal DEVASTATING DETAILS, but then we’re ultimately given is Shan’ann saying “something to the effect of…” So we don’t even know in this spiel what Shan’ann’s last words were, just approximately what they were.
How and where Shan’ann was strangled simply isn’t mentioned, and the spiel is fuzzy about where the children were smothered. The most detail is given about Ceecee smothered in her favorite blanket, and to some extent Shan’ann being wrapped in a sheet.
Although I believe it is fictional, the words: ‘Mommy is sick, we need to take her to the hospital’ have a certain ring of truth about them. Because Mommy was sick, and Mommy was pregnant, and was not feeling well that weekend, and she was intending to go to a clinic that day.
But even though the words are fiction, the psychology is sound: Mommy is sick, we need to take her to the hospital…
Becomes… Shan’ann is sick, I need to take her out…
And if this is his scenario, it’s the same scenario of using what’s plausible to lie. That’s what this confession is, as well. 2. CERVI 319 – Things Get Really Iffy
LAMBERT:…on the floorboards [of the truck]. Loads up Bella and Celeste into the vehicle. And drives 45 minutes or so to where the bodies were eventually found.
Notice how vague this is. No mention of Roggen, GPS co-ordinates, CERVI 319, well site. Just the generic “to where the bodies were found…”
LAMBERT: He takes Shan’ann body, still in the sheet [sighs], and throws it in the dirt pile next to the truck.
No mention of where Shan’ann body was, or himself digging the grave [which ought to have taken 20-30 minutes].
LAMBERT [Blinks]: And…uh…he walks over…and takes Cee’s favorite blanket and uh…smothers her. To death. And then he takes her body, takes it out of the vehicle…uh at this point Bella had unbuckled herself from the vehicle. And uh, he went back to the vehicle and uh-uh-uh at that point, Bella said, ‘Please Daddy, do not do to me what you just did to Ceecee’.
Notice how Lambert doesn’t mention what Watts did to Ceecee after smothering her. There’s no mention of tanks, or putting her in the tanks.
LAMBERT: And uh…and then he killed Bella. From what we’ve been told by Michael Rourke and the DA’s office, and that was revealed in his uh, sentencing hearing, there was a struggle, from Bella, I believe. There were signs that she had fought [sighs] for her life. And uh…I think of the things that have been hard for the Rzuceks to comprehend, to accept in this reality, what happened to Bella in those last moments have been the hardest.
Once again, without actually referring to Watts’ story, Lambert now jumps to Rourke’s. Does Watts actually admit Bella fought back? It’s implied by her saying ‘Daddy, please don’t do that to me’ and then Watts does do that. It will be interesting to see how this aspect plays out in Watts’ own words in the five-hour interrogation.
3. “What does your gut tell you?”
DR. PHIL: Do you get the sense that Chris Watts is telling the truth at this point? Does your gut-level tell you that?
Instead of a simply yes or no answer, Lambert glances down and to the right, and carefully rephrases the question.
LAMBERT: If you’re asking us, if, based on our conversations with him, based on what we’ve heard of this recounting if [pauses] we believe it is authentic and accurate, on what actually happened that day, I have no reason personally to doubt it.
I’m sorry but I find Lambert’s response here quite funny. Really? You have no reason to doubt Watts’ version of events? What – were you born yesterday?
But then Lambert adds a little disclaimer.
LAMBERT: The slight concern that we’d have, is the only reason he might lie about is if he was protecting somebody.
So maybe he wasn’t born yesterday, just the day before.
And then the other anonymous lawyer talks about an alternative reality, where Watts might have had something else in mind.
In a real scenario about coming clean about an affair, the first question the wife is going to ask is who is it, and where did you meet her, how long has it been happening and where has it been happening. The word Anadarko is never mentioned once during this hour-long interview, and neither is Thrive, for that matter.
Nichol Kessinger is briefly referenced, though, including a clip where she refers to herself as a potential catalyst for the crime. Of course in this scenario, Watts’ makes the catalyst about custody, not about her.
Let’s move on.
When Lambert refers to technical aspects of the Anadarko well at CERVI 319, he makes sure to describe it without naming names.
LAMBERT [Speaks slowly, looks down]: Right…we had been told…um…that the job site…where the…bodies were eventually found of Shan’ann, Bella and Celeste, that there were supposed to be other people at the job site.
Scene cuts to shots of the Anadarko fracking tanks.
Job site? How generic can you get. It was a well site, a very idiosyncratic location particular to this case. 4. Dr. Phil offers some meaningful insight
LAMBERT: There were supposed to be other people at the job site that day, and Chris had called them off. And so [glances to the right] there is some speculation, like Tom is saying here, that this might have had some forethought to it.
DR. PHIL [Raising his pen]: Yeah, that’s why I want to look at that tape of Bella…you know, singing in the backseat…you know this is a little girl. This isn’t a statistic. This is a little girl…
So just as the conversation is getting somewhere, it’s steered back towards sentiment. That these were real people with real feelings. Instead of dealing with the premeditation aspect, or the specifics of it [and there are many, from photos, to texts, to the affair itself as a catalyst to Watts’ increasing standoffishness to Shan’ann] let’s have four lawyers talk about the humanity of the victims.
TOM: This was our daughter. These were our grandchildren. We loved them. They were real people. And to watch him, it’s incredibly scary to see how composed he appears to be, and that he can stand there and lie.
Ironically, this moment of reflection anchoring the narrative to “real people” actually produces a real result. Dr. Phil points to an image of Watts on the screen and makes an excellent point.
DR. PHIL: You look at his forehead, and around his eyes, there’s no stress in this man’s face at all. [Several lawyers nod.] And, what I’m saying is if this had not been premeditated, and he was having to put all this together in real time, that’s when it’s…cognitive overload. And he’s not [overloaded] here, which is why I don’t believe this was a crime of passion, and you say that…there is some indication that he may have called people off of this job site ahead of time. How does he call people off? Does he…?
LAMBERT: From my understanding of it, there were multiple people working the job site that day, there was something that needed to be done at the job site, and so he essentially said, ‘No-no guys, I got this.It’s fine, you don’t need to come around. I can handle this’.
This was an opportunity to dive into the actual case file, rather than float into “my understanding of it” and what he “essentially” said.
This is what he said, when he said it, who he said it to and what it was regarding: Morning, Friday August 10th: Preparing his alibi for his date with Kessinger, and organizing a babysitter. Notice Watts did this less than 45 minutes after Shan’nn told him she’d landed in Arizona. Midday, Friday August 10th: It’s not clear whether Watts’ getting Shan’ann involved in discussions about realty and selling the house was done on purpose, to make it seem like a mutual decision prior to the murder, but it’s certainly possible. It was during Watts’ meeting with Troy McCoy at 13:34 that McCoy mentioned issues at CERVI 319. This occurred as a result of a call made by Kodi Roberts to McCoy while the Anadarko operators were standing side by side in a Safeway parking lot. So Watts overheard this call, and moreover, knew to contact Roberts because of this call. It’s not clear whether Watts also told McCoy he intended to volunteer to fix the leak at the well site. Evening, Sunday August 12th: If it was a premeditated murder, and if Watts had entertained a preference for CERVI 319 as a dumping site over the weekend, then the “all clear” for the site and the murders occurred at 18:09 when Kodi Roberts handed over the job to Watts. Morning, Friday August 13th: Many of Watts’ calls to Roberts that morning where to ask him where he was, where he was going and how long he was going to be. TWO TAKEOUTS FROM DR.PHIL PART ONE
There are two primary takeouts from Part One of the Dr Phil examination of the Second Confession, one not much of a surprise, but the second of some significance.
Firstly, Watts’ version shifts his narrative from one of Shan’ann killing her children, and him killing her because of it, to him killing her over custody issues, and then killing his daughters [for reasons unknown]. Put simply, the second confession absolves Shan’ann.
Secondly, and this is important, Watts’ tries to sketch Shan’ann’s murder as a crime of passion, and the murder of the children [at the well site] as an almost afterthought. He tries to make it about Bella having an argument with him, or freaking out because of what he’d done to Shan’ann and her sister [burying them] and so Watts kills her as part of the passion surrounding that. What he’s doing his utmost to achieve is convey a scenario where the crime isn’t premeditated [the murder of Shan’ann isn’t and neither is Bella’s].
But the murders were premeditated. This is what the TWO FACE series has maintained all along.
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
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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.”
What we can say with certainty is that at least two bright, elevated light sources are the primary illuminating agents. Both shine towards Watts and the truck from different angles. Is that a fair statement? I think it is.
It’s also very easy to reproduce the effect. Simply visit the property, turn on the lights, and study the impact, effects and distortions and how they are represented on camera. 
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