At 1:04 in the clip below, CNN’s breezy narrator describes Watts murdering Bella in her bedroom. Really? Is that where Bella was murdered?
Let’s be clear, it’s been the contention of TCRS from the start that no one was murdered in their beds. Not Shan’ann, not Bella and not Ceecee. We’ve gone to some trouble thus far to discuss the ground zero of Shan’ann’s murder. Unlike the kids, Shan’ann’s shoes by the front door, the suitcase by the stairs, the Vivint alert and the doorbell camera footage, all provide a fairly clear glimpse of the final location of the 34-year-old saleswoman on Monday night.
Whether we postulate that Shan’ann was murdered immediately upon entering the home [at 01:48] or hours later [no later than 05:18], we still have a window of a handful of hours in which to definitively say Shan’ann was killed.
We don’t have anywhere near the same certainty about the children. The last time they were seen alive was Sunday afternoon/early evening. We’re not even clear about exactly when they were last seen, which is bizarre in itself.
The window of the children’s murders is anywhere from approximately 17:00 [depending on exactly when Bella FaceTimed with her grandfather] to roughly 05:00 the next morning. That’s roughly twelve hours of uncertainty about when. It’s also a very long period to be uncertain about where.
Did they have dinner? It appears Bella was snacking while she FaceTimed. It also appeared [again, strangely] that the kids swapped their snacks. Did they have dinner or snacks?
Were they bathed? [Watts claimed he gave his girls a shower and then put them in bed, Discovery Documents, page 584].
Did they watch tv before bed? Did they ever go to bed?
I recently discussed this aspect with a fellow true crime addict, and a new thought surfaced that I hadn’t considered before. While many of you may disagree with the details and the fineprint, try to take this in as a global hypothesis. It’s simply an idea or theory that came up during a discussion. The idea is to test, evaluate and explore some of the thoughts and ideas in it, and see where that might take us.
Ready?
The broad pattern of the murder and disposal was that it was a carefully premeditated attempt to blend a triple murder within Watts’ normal, everyday schedule. So when the rest of the suburb is asleep, he’s not, but if he’s up earlier or goes to bed later than usual [or the kids meet their death at bedtime] who is to know?
He wakes up pretty much on schedule, and leaves to work pretty much on schedule, and goes to work roughly corresponding to where work needs him. From an outsider’s perspective there is minimal deviation. It’s just Mr Watts heading out on a Monday morning as usual.
What impression is Watts working at here? Watts is trying to achieve plausible deniability. When his family disappears where was he?
I was just going to work…
I was at work…
I was out near Roggen all day…
I was busy…
Watts also used his work, indirectly, as a cover for where he was during the Rockies game [when he had dinner with Kessinger]. He said he was at a work function with colleagues.
Clearly the neighbor picked up that it wasn’t normal for Watts to back his truck into the garage, and his coworkers at Anadarko said it was odd for Watts to be calling on a Sunday, or to be heading out to a well site straight from home on a Monday.
But Watts was probably counting on folks being less savvy about silly little details like that. Besides, who would really notice his truck at that time of the morning, and if they did, who would care? And if they did care, he was just loading tools, so what? What other choice did he have? Load up the Lexus? And drive where? For what? And how did he explain that?
If the cops did suspect him the GPS data wouldn’t be of much use because he’d visited a number of wells that day, and the next. What, were they gonna search every well? And if he played it cool, they wouldn’t suspect him to begin with.
Whatever the details of his plan, it seems Watts felt he could bury the crime inside plausible deniability. Getting up, going to work, and acting nonchalant.
If we take this psychology and apply it to the crime scene, and the question about where the children were murdered, a new scenario unfolds.
And the scenario is this:
When Shan’ann arrives home the children are – plausibly enough – in their beds. They’re not asleep though, they’re dead, but Shan’ann won’t know that. She’ll simply quietly look in, see them lying there and presto – Watts has plausible deniability in plain sight with them.
I realize this scenario is at odds with the idea of Shan’ann not going upstairs at all, but let’s just explore it a little further, for argument’s sake. If the children were murdered early in the evening, and placed in their beds, by 02:00, roughly six hours after death, their bodies would likely be stiff and pungent. If Shan’ann entered the room, and approached them, or kissed them, there was a good chance she might notice their palor, or smell something. So perhaps Watts murders the children late at night, shortly after finding out Shan’ann’s flight would be delayed.
In this scenario when Shan’ann arrives the children are in bed, and less blue, stiff and smelly. Alternatively, Watts could commit the crimes within half an hour, or minutes before Shan’ann arrives home. In this scenario the children are asleep in bed when they are killed, and then left where they are. Once again, it’s plausible deniability. At face value, they appear to be asleep but actually they’re not.
In this scenario, Shan’ann arrives home and possibly enters their bedrooms. She somehow realizes something is wrong. They’re not breathing, and their skin is cool or cold to the touch. Perhaps Shan’ann notices they’re blue. Instead of strangling her own children, Shan’ann tries to resuscitate them. Thus distracted, Watts then attacks her from behind and murders her. Perhaps his original plan was to kill her in her sleep as well, but her finding the kids dead prematurely forces him to abandon his plan.
Taking the scenario further, Nichol Kessinger noted that Watts felt the children’s blankets were smelly in their conversation Monday night. This suggests the children were dead in their beds, which left a lingering odor. By Monday night Watts felt a sense of urgency to wash these blankets.
Watts also disposed on blankets, apparently, somewhere between CERVI 319 and the house on Saratoga Trail. So the blankets appear to be virtually the only items missing in this case. This suggests that the blankets have something to do with the crime. Either they were wrapped in them for transportation, or they died in them, and the blankets were removed as part of the cover up.
There also appears to be some reinforcement to this from the dog handler, who picked up some interest in an area below Bella’s bed.
Watts also indirectly references this psychology of death in the bed by referring to Shan’ann wanting to wash the airport out of her sheets, and off herself.
Although the above scenario is credible in some ways, it’s not the position of TCRS, which remains that none of the murders were committed in any of the bedrooms upstairs.
Because of the settings of Shan’ann’s Facebook profile, her last publicly accessible post is dated June 28th, 2018. The crucial final six weeks of Shan’ann’s life are missing from her profile.
This is why the post below is quite exceptional. Not only does it provide a peek into that crucial window, this video is the very last Shan’ann took – a simple, intimate portrait of a little girl with butterfly wings playing with a little dog that’s doing his best to jump up and lick her face.
The doll wrapped like a dead body in the twister mat feels like a message, doesn’t it? Given how close to the murders the doll was staged, and the ominous visual of the life-size doll, the wrapped doll is a material factor in this case.
In fact right at the time Watts confessed, his father Ronnie told FBI Special Agent Grahm Coder about the doll. He said it wasn’t the natural thing for a child to do, implying that Shan’ann had done it, perhaps as a taunt or a warning to her husband.
Ronnie’s theory to the FBI was that:
The murder of the children was planned [premeditated] by Shan’ann.
Shan’ann posed the image and purposefully chose the words “I don’t know what to think about this…” as a warning and a threat.
Shan’ann had lied that Bella had covered the doll in the sheet.
He felt Bella would never do such a thing based on his experience of her behavior.
Ronnie’s theory made some sense, but it shouldn’t be missed that it conveniently provided a theory for his son’s innocence precisely when he needed it most. Like many folks currently shrieking about shadows and shapes, a single image posted on social media isn’t proof of anything. It isn’t forensic evidence. At most it’s a piece of a larger mosaic. If the piece means something, it will help reveal the rest of the mosaic, rather than stand alone blinking a singular, disconnected message within the mosaic.
Often an outrageous conspiracy theory pokes through the surface of the water like a shark fin. It appears to be an incredible distinct possibility, except, beneath the surface of the water the fin doesn’t connect to anything. In other words, there’s a fin but no shark. Most conspiracy theories work like this – they talk a big game but end up being toothless.
The doll image isn’t quite as irrelevant as the shadow and shape-shifting stuff. The doll image involves everyone in this story, and is part of the dialogue of the most important people in this story: the murderer, the victims and the murderer’s #1 confidante.
Watts’ response to his father’s theory is important to note as well:
Watts doesn’t provide much information, except to say he was aware of the incident and recalled that Shan’ann made fun of the image, and thought it was funny. Watts doesn’t disclose what he thought, and as far as we can see, he made no comment on the image himself, or if he did, removed it when he deleted his Facebook account. We also know at some point close to when Shan’ann posted this image, Watts Googled how to delete his Instagram account.
When Coder asks Watts if Bella “did it” Watts answered he doesn’t know, because he “can’t recall”.
In effect, Watts – either by design or by default – is reinforcing the idea that Shan’ann was responsible for the picture. He doesn’t say he thinks Bella would’ve or could’ve or might have done it. There is a slight undercurrent to his reference of Shan’ann laughing in the face of the picture. It seems a subtle jab at her, undermining her as an undermining and sometimes mocking personality. If Watts murdered her to get revenge for her killing the children, then his lack of anger and mild response – his nonchalance – to Shan’ann’s supposed jeering isn’t appropriate.
They key to solving this mystery lies in Ronnie’s remark:
“I was around Bella and she would…never cover a doll’s head like it was a body…”
Due to the very special circumstances of this case, we’re able to be around Bella too and thus we can see how she behaves around dolls and toys. This is how we try to connect the shark fine to a jangle of possible dots below the surface. We don’t take the fin as evidence and run with it. Instead, we try to connect it to something bigger. Not one other image but a body of evidence that adds up to something.
Now, to begin with, the scene for the staging of the doll is the downstairs lounge. It’s on the couch against’s the wall, rather than the main living room couch. In other words, it’s not the couch in this picture.
It’s also not the couch in this picture.
It’s not the couch in this picture.
It’s the two-seater couch peeking out of the left edge of this picture.
This is a view of the television and of Bella from that two-seater couch.
This is a view of the couch from the main couch. Note the small table on the one side of the two-seater couch.
Here’s a view of the same couch from the floor. Notice the small table beside the couch.
Now that we know where the couch is, we can see it’s an area where Bella and Ceecee not only were likely to play, but also sit. And we can see that life-size doll was also located near this particular couch in several photos and videos.
Sometimes the doll is upstairs.
Other times the doll is downstairs closer to the front door lounge and dining room.
“I was around Bella and she would…never cover a doll’s head like it was a body…”
What was your knee-jerk, gut response when you first saw the doll wrapped in the twister mat?
Mine was that Watts had been intently watching a lot of true crime in the lounge on television while Bella played. Bella, taking her cue from what her daddy was watching, imitated something on television to get her father’s attention and approval.
Obviously this initial response was based on knowing [at that time] virtually nothing about Bella, knowing nothing about the ongoing nut anxiety, and knowing little about Bella’s habits and the family’s sense of humor. Does any of this really matter though? It does. These dynamics are important, but it takes a long time to figure them out.
When we take the time to try to understand the dynamics, a few things become apparent that begin to play into that mysterious image.
We see several instances of Bella imitating one or both of her parents.
It’s also debatable whether Bella wouldn’t cover the head of doll or toy.
In many of Shan’ann’s posts, she has pictures of her children in weird sleep poses, many from the baby monitor showing Ceecee in particular climbing under her blankets or sleeping face down.
As for the idea of covering up the face with anything, the children were often seen wearing masks, and at one point Deeter was also recorded crawling into the long sleeve of a sweater. During that recording Shan’ann says: “Bella would get a kick out of this…”
Since Chris Watts sent the image to Shan’ann, it’s likely he did so because Bella asked him to. Perhaps Bella wanted her mom to see it because she thought Shan’ann “would get a kick out of it” [and if that was the plan it worked].
It’s not likely Watts sent the image to Shan’ann either to implicate her, or himself. This is sort of the main thrust of the conspiracy shark fin – that either Shan’ann or Chris Watts deliberately staged an image as warning that they might commit murder unless X, Y or Z, and then went through with it despite the fact that it had been posted in the public domain, onto social media.
Was Watts wasn’t aware of Shan’ann posting this image to Facebook? It was posted at 11:46 local time. Less than two hours later on August 9th, Watts scrubbed his Facebook account.
An interesting question is whether he knew about the image and continued with his plan regardless [similar to the hitch of the flight delay], or whether he didn’t know. Another possibility is that he did know, and didn’t like the aftermath of the nut incident, where Shan’ann’s family started talking about a dead body and the kids having one another’s backs. We know shortly after deleting his Facebook his father asked him about it, to which Watts responded:
“Yes sir, liberated myself!”
This indicates the degree to which Watts felt exasperated with and perhaps imperilled by Shan’ann’s social media.
We also see many signs of Bella staging with toys, blankets and dolls, many of these instances are on the same couch as the life-size doll, and in the same room.
If Bella did stage the doll, what was she trying to do? One possibility is she was playing a game of imaginary hide and go seek with the toy and perhaps with Ceecee.
Another possibility is she was trying to communicate some message to her mother, either to amuse her as mentioned earlier or, possibly, to send some sort of urgent but unconscious message.
If it is the former, Bella may have learned that her mother got a kick out of seeing children, adults or dolls sleeping with or without blankets over their heads, and Bella simply wanted to share the joke with her mother.
The elder daughter had spent several weeks back-to-back with her mom, which was plenty of time for mom and daughter to develop a rapport, particularly around a particular subject.
Perhaps Bella had gotten in the habit of covering her own head with a blanket when the sun rose in the early summer mornings, or, if Shan’ann had cried herself to sleep over the past week, perhaps Shan’ann herself had covered her face in the mornings.
If it is the latter, and Bella wanted to share a more serious message, we know in the last days of her life, Bella was concerned that Ceecee might go to sleep and never wake up. That was an artifact of the nut debacle, which had clearly traumatized the older child.
We know Bella had confided in McKenna as late as the last night of her life that she was worried about Ceecee eating coconut and never waking up. Bella was so worried about this she couldn’t sleep when Ceecee went to sleep.
When Agent Kevin Koback spoke to McKenna he asked her if Bella had any concerns when she babysat her on Saturday night [August 11].
KOBACK: Was there anything that was concerning, that you heard?
MCKENNA: Um…Bella just…she sat by me and she was really concerned that…her little sister fell asleep before her, so she sat on the couch with me for a while. And she actually told me something. She said, ‘Can I ask you something?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ ‘My little sister has, like…’ She told me if she eats coconut she’ll never be able to see her again. So I’m guessing that the littlest one has a severe allergy. And that’s what they told her, that if she eats that she’ll never be able to see her again. She was really upset by that.
KOBACK: Bella was?
MCKEANNA: Yeah.
https://youtu.be/aVyIhosbNzI?t=769
We also know from Watts’ evidence that although Bella went to bed much later than her sister, she would up first and went to wake Ceecee up.
We also know that far from Watts sending images to Shan’ann, he was far more likely not to send images to her, and also less likely to post images to Facebook. In fact the final request made by Shan’ann to send images of the sleeping children wasn’t honored by Watts – instead he simply resent images he’d sent of the girls eating and playing from earlier in the day.
So the likelihood that Watts staged the doll and took the photo is slim. It’s more likely Bella demanded that he send the image to Shan’ann, perhaps as a message to her mother that she was worried about her sister and needed to confide in her, and be comforted [just as she needed that from McKenna].
We also know that Watts was cold and standoffish to his children, so Bella “reading” something unsettling in the ether was based to some extent on real and mythical undercurrents,. The nut emergency was [arguably] overblown, just a case of the older sister picking up on her mother’s paranoia. But the other aspect that was unsettling was she wasn’t getting the soothing she needed from her father when he mother was away.
Perhaps in a sense the doll covered up was a kind of self-portrait, a sculpture of suffocation and agony that Bella couldn’t explain or give voice to, but nevertheless felt. It’s difficult to imagine her father, given his murderous premeditations right then, didn’t see any symbolism in the doll turned into a mummy. Perhaps he sent it on because he knew what it meant: that Shan’ann had unnecessarily traumatized both his children, turning them against his parents, and ultimately declaring them unfit parents while expecting him to babysit.
Bella’s concerns about Ceecee would also have made her difficult to babysit, and difficult to put her to bed, something that would have irritated the adulterer when he wished to have long conversations with his mistress.
Conclusion
When the FBI asked Watts if he thought Bella staged the doll, Watts answered that he couldn’t recall. Since he sent the image to Shan’ann at 11:44 on August 9th, and since Shan’ann’s response was that Bella did it and she couldn’t explain it, it means Shan’ann didn’t do it. And since Watts was home, and the doll was staged in the most communal room in the house, how could he not know who did it? If he didn’t do it, and Shan’ann didn’t do it, who’s left?
In the same way that Watts “implicates” Shan’ann in the staging of the doll, he also implicates her in the staging of crime, and murder of his children. It’s the coward’s way out – to accuse or manipulate by not providing evidence to the contrary, evidence only he had.
On August 8th, the day Shan’ann arrived home from North Carolina she texted her friend Taylor Welch:
“Chris said we are not compatible anymore. He refused to hug me. Said he thought another baby would fix his feelings…he refused couples counseling. Before I left [we couldn’t] get enough of each other. He said he had a lot of time to think…I’ve cried myself to sleep over a week now…“
A week prior to sending this message Shan’ann, Chris Watts, the girls and Shan’ann’s father Frank were unwinding at Myrtle Beach. They spent 4-5 days at Myrtle Beach, the venue where the couple spent their third date, where Watts proposed and where they went on honeymoon.
At the time, when they got married, Watts was under the impression Shan’ann might not be able to have children.
We know that during the week Watts spent with his family in North Carolina, Kessinger was Googling wedding dresses, checking Shan’ann and her husband’s Facebook accounts and constantly sending nude selfies of herself to Watts, and Watts was hiding these in his Secret Calculator app.
In the video below the sky above the beach is cloudy and grey. On the sunless shore the disconnect between the parents is palpable. The magic is gone. Watts is there, looking tanned and toned in his orange beach shorts. He’s there but also not there. He’s stiffly trying to do what he’s supposed to be doing, but he’s wishing he could be somewhere else. As small waves wash in Bella runs away while Ceecee tentatively faces the lines of approaching foam. Bella keeps getting away from him. She’s afraid of the water.
Shan’ann’s father is also there, perhaps also aware of the iciness between his daughter and her husband. He seems to maintain a discreet distance, hoping it will sort itself out.
Watts stands in the wet sand for a long time, seemingly in a delirium, wishing he could somehow make all this unpleasant conflict go away.
Las Vegas concert shooter Stephen Paddock may have been seeking a “certain degree of infamy” when he carried out the worst mass shooting in recent US history, but no single or clear motive has been found for the 2017 attack, the FBI said Tuesday.
The conclusion was reached in a report released by the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, which looked into the October 1, 2017 massacre.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said a panel of experts had conducted an analysis of Paddock’s life and behavior leading up to the attack. Paddock acted alone and was not motivated by any ideological or political beliefs, the FBI said.
“There was no single or clear motivating factor behind Paddock’s attack,” the report said. “Throughout his life, Paddock went to great lengths to keep his thoughts private, and that extended to his final thinking about this mass murder,” the FBI said. It said no suicide note or any other communications related to the planning of the attack were found. “However, an important aspect of the attack was Paddock’s desire to die by suicide,” the FBI said.
3 pages? Worst mass shooting in history of USA. FBI releases 3 page report saying nothing. Zero. They have no clue. Sgt Schultz: "I KNOW NOTHING, I SAW NOTHING, I HEARD NOTHING." Biggest pathetic embarrassment in US law enforcement history. https://t.co/Ta2aCDd4lm
NPR colleague @LeilaFadel reports FBI concluded its report on Stephen Paddock & the Vegas shooting & determined he acted alone to plan a mass shooting over the course of a year, but there is still no discernible motive. All investigations now complete. We will never know why.
“Sunflowers” journeyed to 79 exhibitions between the end of World War II and 1973 when the Van Gogh Museum was established. After that, the painting was lent out just six times, traveling as far as Chicago and Tokyo. Its last journey, a trip to London, took place in 2014.
Some of the paints used by van Gogh that have naturally faded or darkened in the last century have also impacted the brightness and coloration of the painting. Over time, the colors will change even more. While there’s little that can be done to reverse the trend, when the painting goes back on display in late February, the museum will reduce the lights shining on the painting down to 50 lux, one-third the amount previously illuminating it…
6. In other news, Chris Watts Conspiracies are now the order of the day…
https://youtu.be/yWNPyLlkkQk
https://youtu.be/_suhdZ79_Tc
January 29th, 2019
1. Drilling Through Discovery is now a #9 Amazon Bestseller.
Hi Nick, I purchased Drilling through descovery last night.. couldn't put it down…I only had 3 hours sleep…I blame you…😁
Madeleine’s twin brother and sister Sean and Amelie, who are both aspiring amateur athletes, will have one special wish as they turn 14 on Friday – for their sister to come home.
A family friend said: “The twins have spent so much of their lives without their big sister but they never forget her and they pray for her. They just want her to be found safe and well after such a long time.”
2. In the mood for some Chris Watts conspiracy theory?
January 24th, 2019
1. When Agent Tammy Lee asks Watts what should happen to the person responsible [if his wife and children were murdered]. Watts’ voice breaks as he answers, “The worst possible thing…”
Elsewhere in the confession he sobs and wails for an extended time. He also fails the polygraph miserably. A psychopath would not show this kind of obvious emotion, and would be far more likely to pass a polygraph. Psychopaths are also skilled at deceiving people in general. They know how to act.
Watts has some social awkwardness issues, and he is something of an oddball, but he’s not even close to a psychopath. Many take comfort that he did what he did because he felt nothing. It’s the opposite. He did what he did because he was overwhelmed with emotions – including for his mistress, and the tangle of their financial mess, among many additional dynamics.
Notice the very long, very demonstrable answer Watts offers when Agent Lee asks him the simplest question: “How did you wake her up?” Also, note the many gestures he makes.
Get the True Crime Rocket Science take on the Amanda Knox case, arguably the most globally talked-out criminal trial in true crime history, at this link.
Ashley Cogburn told CBS News’ Nikki Battiste her friend had a lot going for her: a dream job, a baby and a fiancé. But she said Berreth also often appeared to be upset, and she believes, it had to do with Frazee.
“The moment that I found out that she had been missing, the first words that came out of my mouth were, ‘He did something to her,'” Cogburn said.
Cogburn said she saw red flags in their relationship, including that he was always “mad about something. She couldn’t win … the things that he would say to her were somewhat demeaning … I remember one time in particular she came to me and she was just crying. And Kelsey is this – she’s a tough girl … and I can’t remember specifics, but I just remember gathering, ‘This person is borderline emotionally abusive to you right now.'”
“During the Chris Watts case, it was made public that Chris’ alleged mistress also followed the group, sending screen shots of posts to local, state and federal authorities on the case.”
1. Sent in my one of the members of the Facebook group.
This video is one of many which show just how innocent these little girls were. I also noticed Ceecee’s nappy and underwear. The evidence says she was dressed in a nappy, underwear and nightgown – watching this video shows it must be part of her toilet training, putting on her pull ups nappy but also getting to wear big girl underwear. You also get to observe Ceecee’s care free nature, her bad cough and their strategy to keep her from running out of her room.
Greed, debt and a gambling problem drove a Southern California man to kill his business partner’s family with a sledgehammer and bury their bodies in the desert, prosecutors said Monday.
But the defense said authorities are charging the wrong man and the real culprit is another business partner.
Opening arguments were held in the trial of Charles “Chase” Merritt.
Merritt, 61, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Sean Daugherty, supervising deputy district attorney for San Bernardino County, told jurors that Merritt wrote checks for more than $21,000 on his partner’s online bookkeeping account after the family was last seen alive in February 2010, the Sun newspaper of San Bernardino reported.
“Greed, and greed’s child, fraud” were the motive, Daugherty argued.
When skeletal remains of the McStays were discovered last month near Victorville, detectives started taking a closer look at people associated with the Fallbrook family of four.
One of those individuals is Charles Ray Merritt, also known as Chase Merritt, a metal worker and former business partner of Joseph McStay.
Merritt, 56, is a hard man to find. CBS News 8 affiliates checked four different addresses and came up empty. We also left telephone messages and emails with Merritt and his associates, but received no response.
Merritt worked for Joseph McStay’s fountain design and manufacturing company in February 2010, when Joseph, his wife Summer, and their two young sons mysteriously went missing from their Fallbrook home.
Days after the McStay bodies were discovered on November 11 by an off-road motorcycle rider in the desert near Victorville, Merritt was interviewed by the online tabloid, Daily Mail, which quoted Merritt as saying:
“I was the last person Joseph saw. He came to Rancho Cucamonga on February 4 to talk to me about a huge business deal we had going on in Saudi Arabia.
We met for an hour-and-a-half for lunch. He was so excited. We had the Saudi Arabian project and a few other things going on. The business had never been so good and we were looking forward to the future. He did nothing to suggest there was anything wrong or untoward.
We both left and went home and I spoke to him on the phone about two or three times on his drive back to Fallbrook, all standard business stuff. The last time I spoke to him was around 6 o’clock.”
Opening statements are set for Monday, Jan. 7, in the death penalty trial of Charles “Chase” Merritt, accused in the 2010 slaying of the McStay family, and one more pretrial hearing Friday, Jan. 4, may decide whether to unseal a search warrant declaration used to collect DNA from Merritt’s brother.
A motion filed by defense attorneys said the DNA swab was taken from Bennett Merritt on Dec. 20, after jurors for the trial had been selected.
Defense attorneys want to know why, and suggest in court documents that prosecutors are turning their attention to Bennett Merritt as “somehow complicit in the McStay murders,” and were pushed by independent defense DNA investigations in the case.
“We want to see what the detective wrote to a judge,” defense attorney Rajan Maline said in a brief phone interview. He said any named source in the warrant declaration can be redacted, “but what did they say in the affidavit? We’re dying to see it.”
Join me on Daily Mail TV today as we investigate the cases of killer dad Chris Watts and accused killer dad Patrick Frazee. What's at the heart of both of these cases? Check your local listings! #ChrisWatts#kelseyberreth
Durst — whose past was detailed in an HBO documentary series — is set to go on trial Sept. 3 at the Airport Branch Courthouse in Los Angeles in connection with the killing of Susan Berman, 55, who was found dead in her home in Benedict Canyon on Christmas Eve 2000.
During a hearing Tuesday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham agreed with the prosecution’s contention that jurors should hear evidence about Morris Black’s killing in Galveston, Texas.
Deputy District Attorney John Lewin told the judge that the 75-year- old defendant “beat a murder in Galveston.”
“… He got away with it. … He’s not going to get away a second time,” the prosecutor said, referring to Berman’s shooting death.
What absolute nonsense. Jayme Closs was found after 3 months. Madeleine McCann has been missing more than 11 years. No comparison. >>> parents take hope from rescue of US teenage girl https://t.co/Zik1c6HYWa#McCann
Durst has been long estranged from his real estate-rich family, which is known for ownership of a series of New York City skyscrapers — including an investment in the World Trade Center. He split with the family when his younger brother was placed in charge of the family business, leading to a drawn-out legal battle.
According to various media reports, Durst ultimately reached a settlement under which the family paid him $60 million to $65 million.
“We went and looked at houses together in Fort Collins,” Bolte claimed, noting that he was about to move from his residence and Watts expressed an interest in moving in with him.
“I was planning on getting a two-bedroom apartment,” he said. “But Chris was like, ‘No, I’m going to be divorced. We need to look at three-bedroom houses and the girls can have a room.”
So Watts was going to go apartment hunting with Bolte, then with Kessinger?
The couple said they spoke to KMVT after their employee received threats and harassment on social media. They said Frazee was arrested four days after they called the FBI.
KMVT says that in the next interview segment, airing Friday, the Rockstahls discuss what was said in their conversation with the feds. In an interview slated for Sunday, the couple will share what they were told about Lee’s alleged trip to Colorado that prompted police to swarm Twin Falls, Idaho.
On Facebook, KMVT reporter Kelsey Souto said the Rockstahls believe that Lee was in fear for her life when Frazee allegedly solicited her to kill his fiancée.
After his release, Echols spent years avoiding talking about the spiritual practice that he now admits helped saved his life.
“I was really, really gun-shy. Whenever I’d talk about it, I’d always look over my shoulder to check and see if anyone could hear me,” recalls Echols, who now travels the country teaching “magick” workshops and is busy working on a follow-up book on the subject. “But I eventually realized I had to get over that hurdle—because if you give up the things you love out of fear then you’re not really alive.”
Scotland Yard’s investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance from an apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007, aged three, has so far cost £11.75million.
January 9th, 2019
1. Kelsey Berreth’s human remains still missing.
We've received a number of media calls about the human remains located in Aguilar (near Trinidad). While the coroner has not made official identification, CBI agents do not believe the remains are Kelsey Berreth. https://t.co/Bg2M2hhfq7
After watching the video clip above, do you think Investigation Discovery answer or address the question why [which is the title of the clip]? If so, what answer do they provide?
An online register of actions in the case shows that Judge David A. Groner signed an order of dismissal on Wednesday, and that a settlement conference set for March 20 has been canceled, with the notation “case disposed.”
A clerk in Groner’s office on Friday said the order declares that the claims against those producing the documentary “are dismissed with prejudice and without costs or attorney fees. This is a final order and the case is closed.”
After handling many defamation cases for them over the past 20 years, hopefully this is my last defamation case for this fine family. https://t.co/1DMBuSNxyS
In a ruling dated Dec. 10, Boulder District Judge Thomas Mulvahill granted the Boulder department’s motion seeking to quash that subpoena and granted a protective order.
Mulvahill’s ruling noted that the murder case “remains open and has not been completed,” and also states that Boulder is not a party to the ongoing litigation between Burke Ramsey and producers of the controversial documentary.
But the judge also cited the fact that, with dozens of books and movies and television shows having picked at the bones of the beleaguered investigation for more than two decades, there aren’t a lot of secrets left.
Mulvahill’s ruling stated “…there is a tremendous amount of information available in the public domain such that Defendants can obtain the subpoenaed information from other sources or through discovery.”
In a separate filing, court records show that Burke Ramsey’s lawyers in November moved to withdraw their subpoena to the Boulder Police Department and dismiss their action.In a one-line ruling, Mulvahill granted that motion on Nov. 13.
The subpoena to Hunter had targeted a broad range of material, including every document relating to JonBenet’s death that he might have retained since leaving office.
Court records show that subpoenas in recent months also had been served on numerous other players in the Ramsey drama, including onetime Ramsey private investigator Ellis Armistead, former Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy, Boulder’s High Peaks Elementary School — which both Ramsey children attended at the time of JonBenet’s death — as well as Dr. Francesco Beuf, JonBenet’s pediatrician.
Divorced mother-of-two Krystal Lee is being investigated over her role in the mystery of the disappearance of Kelsey Berreth. Lee, 32, is believed to have been having an affair with Patrick Frazee who has been charged with Berreth’s murder even though her body has not been found.
Lee, who lives in Twin Falls, Idaho, has not been formally identified by police as the woman they are investigating, but sources confirm she is the woman involved.
Now DailyMail.com can reveal that that person is Lee, who works as a pre-op nurse at the St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls. She has now been placed on a leave of absence, the hospital confirms.
A friend of Patrick Frazee whose granddaughter was a frequent playmate of the accused killer’s daughter Kaylee shared shocking new details about his relationship with missing mom Kelsey Berreth.
Tamra Freeman told CNN that Frazee and Berreth had split back on New Year’s Day in 2018, just three months after the couple welcomed daughter Kaylee.
That contradicts comments made by Berreth’s aunt suggesting that her niece had broken up with Frazee on November 22, the day she was last seen in public.
3. Police bodycam footage in Chronological order the day Chris Watts’ family were reported missing
Will Chris Watts survive prison?
4. Animated video shows how Robert Durst could have murdered Morris Black in new court filing
3. Jayne Zmijewski, the dog handler in the Chris Watts case, appears in this trailer:
January 3rd, 2019
1. Rocket Science has been somewhat on the fence about Watts’ possible bisexuality. I’ve been unwilling to say he was definitely bisexual, but also unable to rule it out either. From the beginning there’s been smoke, but is there really fire? Like agent Coder, it was difficult to take Bolte seriously in the beginning, but over time, Bolte’s story seems to have some credibility.
Notice how CNN carefully refers to Bolte as Watts’ “alleged” gay lover even now. So they’re not 100% convinced either, yet interested enough to put Bolte on their platform a second time.
The Twin Falls nurse is suspected of ditching Kelsey Berreth’s cellphone in Idaho, sources told ABC News, which is declining to identify the woman until law enforcement releases her name.
The charges indicate authorities believe Mr Frazee tried to persuade another person or multiple people to kill Ms Berreth on at least three occasions between September 1 2018 and November 1, 2018.
Police allege she was slain on or around November 22 — the last day she was seen alive in public — almost three months after Mr Frazee’s first alleged attempt to arrange her murder.
Stephen Longo, an attorney with McDivitt Law Firm, helped explain the charges.
“It suggests to me that he probably asked the same person three times to either help or commit the crime individually,” Longo said. “It’s always possible, based on the three counts, that he asked three separate people.”
“It’s documented somehow, right? Whether it’s email, text message, recorded phone call, something where we have specifics where we can trace the date,” Longo said.
A person could also have supplied that information, he said.
Meanwhile, prosecutors still are not releasing evidence, including the probable cause affidavit to Frazee, citing the ongoing investigation. They did, however, ask the judge to allow consumptive evidence testing. News 5 asked Mark Pfoff, a former detective in the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office who worked on more than 50 homicide investigations, what that testing means.
“You’re usually looking at some form of body fluids, whether it’s blood or saliva or something like that,” Pfoff said. Pfoff said the amount of evidence is so small, it’s likely not visible to the eye — meaning testing that evidence once would prevent any follow-up testing moving forward.
Judge Linda Billings-Vela will decide on the motion for consumptive testing, as well as another motion on whether to allow Frazee himself to see the probable cause affidavit, in a Friday motions hearing.
Frazee is due back in court Thursday for a custody hearing. Both Berreth and Frazee’s mothers are vying for custody of the couple’s 1-year-old daughter.
January 2nd
Which shirt was hung on the hanger? An orange shirt, or a white shirt?
Looking at a video from the Watts home search w/ K9 cadaver dogs. both female officers clearly heard a child like laughter from S.W closet. Both verbally acknowledge hearing a kids laughter on video but not written on reports!!😫😫😫 #chriswatts#shanannwatts#wattsmurders 👻
It was Berreth however who had been hesitant to move in with her fiance because he still lived with his mother. She instead decided to get her own home after moving to Colorado from Washington to be with Frazee. In May, Berreth paid $184,900 for a two-bedroom home in Woodland Hills, where she lived with her daughter.
A family member claimed soon after Berreth went missing that she had split with Frazee on the day she was last seen, but that has never been confirmed by investigators. There were a number of details that had puzzled the public in the wake of Berreth’s disappearance, including the fact that she had just baked fresh cinnamon buns before she went missing.
Frazee also failed to report her missing, despite [having] their daughter Kaylee that entire time.
…the murder solicitation charge means that someone else was involved in the crime – but so far Frazee has been the only one who has been charged.
District Attorney Dan May said that to be charged with solicitation, the suspect would have to have done more than just ask someone to commit a murder on their behalf,the Post reported…
The narrative for the solicitation charges indicate Frazee had been trying since Sept. 1 to persuade another person to participate in the killing, and the first-degree murder charge involved an accusation of robbery in connection with the killing.
Thus far, the arrest affidavit, which lays out the facts of the case that are the basis from the charges, has been sealed. Even Frazee and his public defenders have been prevented from seeing it.
As to consumptive testing planned by DA, it's hard to say what evidence is. Only that it's so small testing will destroy it. @csgazette#KelseyBerreth#Frazee
Quick explainer on #Frazee's five felonies. Two are first-degree murder under different theories of crime. One theory alleges Frazee killed #KelseyBerreth with intent and deliberation. Other alleges she died during commission of separate felony. @csgazette
The 59-year-old former Saudi insider turned criticwas strangled before he was cut up into pieces by a team of 15 Saudis sent to Istanbul for the killing, according to Turkish officials, with media reports suggesting the parts were dissolved in acid.
A-Haber said the bags and suitcases were put into a minibus which travelled the short distance from the consulate to a garage at the residence. The men are then seen taking them inside.
Question: Were his body parts in the garbage bags, in the suitcases or both?
On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.
CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.
The fact that Shan’ann was murdered the day before she was due to be paid by Le-Vel.
Although Chris Watts had told the cops on Monday he didn’t know their bank details, according to Nickole he knew how to log into Shan’ann’s checking account.
The audio for the above transcript is available here.
The post below is from a local who lives in the Frederick-Boulder area.
I have just finished reading Drilling Through Discovery and I had no intention of sending you these comments until you posted this: “For true crime to be any good it has to be accurate. If any of the facts are wrong, if small details are slightly off, the whole narrative becomes unreliable. In this respect I sincerely value feedback from readers or critics who point out material inaccuracies.” I wholeheartedly concur so below are a couple of observations.
I noticed three inaccuracies in the book. Two I don’t consider “material” but the third might qualify.
1. The green cigarette lighter was found in the passenger side pocket of the work truck not the Lexus. 2. I could be wrong but I don’t believe Nick Atkinson found Shan’ann’s watch if in the book you were referring to her Apple watch. It’s ambiguous as to who actually did find it. (Discovery Document page 411). I cannot find any statement indicating Nick Atkinson found it. 3. Nickole Atkinson did not know the passcode to Shan’ann’s iPhone. Nickole was on a conference call with Sandra Rzucek and Cassie Rosenburg. Nick Atkinson states in his interview that Cassie suggested the babies due date as a possible passcode. On Coonrod’s bodycam footage you will see Chris Watts ask Nickole if she knows the code and her reply is no. She then talks on her phone and suggests the baby’s due date.
#2 might be considered material due to the question of why Chris Watts would leave her Apple watch there if that’s where he hid it. Along with the sheets in the trash I am unable to sort out why he left those things to be found on 8/15. Need a Rocket Scientist to determine if there’s any significance.
Lastly and not related to your book, I continuously read people stating that the only bruises on Shan’ann’s body were the on right side of her neck. That’s inaccurate. Chris Watts attacked her from behind, his left hand around her throat and his right hand covering her mouth and nose. Shan’ann’s Autopsy Report states, “There is a linear array of variably sized, purple black circular defects which extend from the inferior aspect of the chin, along the jawline, up the left aspect of the face, towards the left temporal area”.
He had to be gripping her face pretty damn hard to leave fingerprint bruises along the left side of her face. The attack was pure power and violence. If I’m interpreting the autopsy correctly he effectively smothered and strangled at the same time but I never see this mentioned anywhere so maybe I’m wrong or maybe it’s not significant.
I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that I still don’t agree with your theory of how this murder played out but your insight as to why Chris Watts committed this atrocious act is absolutely captivating. At first I was so focused on “how” the murders happened (it’s the pointy-eared logic that drives me) but I’ve become so much more focused on the “why”. That’s the question that really has significant value. That’s the question I can’t answer. You can. It’s why I still follow.
My response to #2 is that logic suggests Nicolas Atkinson found the iWatch if he found the iPhone, and if the iPhone and iWatch were both below the cushions on the loft couch [Discovery Documents, page 468].
It also stands to reason that the cops would not be forthcoming about the fact that two crucial items of evidence weren’t found by them, but rather by a teenager who was doing a better job “investigating” the scene than they were.
There is also the issue that the discoveries of evidence items by a minor on a crime scene could be considered inadmissible in a criminal trial, and the initial processing of the crime scene regarded as “botched” as a result.
In terms of #3, one could argue the point, but the fact remains that it was via Nickole that the cop was able to unlock Shan’ann’s phone, not because Watts volunteered the code.
In an “upstairs in bed smothering” attack, it would be unnecessary to put hands around the neck or throat, as the head could simply be squashed face first into the mattress, and also covered with a pillow. The focus then would be on gripping the back of the head and neck to prevent it from turning and getting an unimpeded gulp of air.
The problem with a bed attack, besides that a bed is like a giant sponge for body fluids and tissue [none of which were found], is that someone writhing on a bed is much harder to subdue than someone pressed against a harder surface. Limbs can slip downwards out of the vertical grip whereas on a hard floor, that’s not possible. Hands can also reach for the edge of the bed, get a grip, or for a weapon on a bedside table. This is particularly likely if the victim is laying on the side of a double bed.
Given that Shan’ann was pregnant and big busted, it seems unlikely that she would be lying on her stomach when attacked [if attacked in bed] which means she’d have to be turned, which means she would be woken up, which means she should have had the opportunity to scream and the opportunity to begin to fight back. This calls into the question of a surprise attack in bed.
On the night of August 14, CBI agent Greg Zentner was dispatched to Boulder to interview the most crucial witness in the Watts case. The transcript below is an excerpt from a 72 page document spanning 3223 lines of text.
CrimeRocket is the first to reproduce and analyze this critical transcript in-depth. The entire transcript has been broken down into 15 sections.
Listen to in-depth analysis of part 12 on Patreon.
While the whole Watts family was in North Carolina in early August, Nickole collected the mail. She was surprised by how much it was, most it apparently bills and expenses. It’s possible when Shan’ann was in North Carolina without Watts, he collected the mail and he was unpleasantly surprised.
Shan’ann saved around $2 500 during the five weeks the kids were in North Carolina and not in school.
Curiously though Shan’ann often claimed she was a stay at home mom during her promotions, Nickole suggests both girls were at school five days a week.
The audio for the above transcript is available here.
The thirteenth part deals with Shan’ann buying Watts a book and writing him a love letter.
Some people wake up in the morning and check their notifications on social media. Since I have about 92 titles out there [including several series], and since I earn a living from true crime writing, I like to stay on top of the reviews. Am I hitting the mark with readers or missing it?
Are the Jerry MaGuire moments that I experienced while writing translating in people’s minds? Are they seeing some of the insights I’m seeing, is some of the obscurity around this case beginning to clear in their minds too?
Today was a pleasant surprise. A dude called Joshua found the signal in the noise and reflected on it. We’ll get to Joshua in a moment.
For true crime to be any good it has to be accurate. If any of the facts are wrong, if small details are slightly off, the whole narrative becomes unreliable. In this respect I sincerely value feedback from readers or critics who point out material inaccuracies.
One of the strong points of my books [and CrimeRocket] is the consistent quality and accuracy of the research. One can only be on top of a case by sitting on it day in and day out, and applying one’s mind consistently. It can take a long time to unearth what’s hidden. As tough as true crime is, it becomes unnecessarily harder when conspiracies are added to the stew. They’re easy to foist away when they’re fresh. If, however, one comes to a case like the Ramsey case 20 years later, there are often so many myths and conspiracies, it can feel pretty daunting finding a tangible thread to draw on when the case is so littered with chaff and nonsense.
At this site conspiracy theories are avoided like the plague unless they’re considered serious and important enough to be debunked.
While precision needs to one of the highest priorities in true crime, what precision is not, and isn’t trying to be, is this:
The “error filled” criticism suggests that the research is at fault, when in reality, the gripe seems to be about spelling mistakes. The Discovery Documents are rife with spelling errors, and a few factual inconsistencies too. Does that mean the entire file is trash?
The above reviewer’s most useful contribution is in the color of the suitcase. He’s right. The suitcase Shan’ann traveled with to Arizona wasn’t a neon pink-orange as described in the first TWO FACE book [published in mid-September 2018], in fact it was black.
Of course, complaining about this in January, four months after the book was written [and with the benefit of the bodycam footage] is playing johnny-come-lately to this case, piggybacking on one set of data at one point in time in order to poke holes in another set, writing at another time. Not exactly fair, is it?
That said, it is worth mentioning, and it has been mentioned here several times. This issue was broached on November 25 [a week after the Discovery Documents were released] in this post:
What makes the reviewer’s point feel a tad disingenuous is the contention that the “errors” were made recklessly, rather than the fact that when the first book was written the color of the suitcase, as pointed above, was unknown.
When I described Shan’ann exiting Nickole’s vehicle in the narrative and entering the front door, I wanted as realistic an account as possible. So I went looking through Shan’ann’s social media for her suitcases and initially found this one.
Ironically, this narrative description hasn’t been trumped by actual video footage from the doorbell camera of Shan’ann arriving at the door as she was recorded arriving. So we have to visualize that until the evidence is released [if it ever is].
The point of writing the first book barely a month after the crimes was to demonstrate [and test] how much we could know and extrapolate based on publicly available knowledge, as well as observation and insight.
In the scheme of things the color of the suitcase doesn’t matter as much as the suitcase narrative matters [where it was, where it moved to subsequently, and what was removed from it without the permission of law enforcement]. The suitcase is also an important marker in that theoretically it points to Shan’ann’s movements inside the house. She’s at the door, she removed her shoes, she enters and gets to the staircase. After that there is arguably no way to track her final moments.
The reviewer also seems to take great exception to the assertion in the first book that Shan’ann was a qualified nurse. Wasn’t she? What student loans was she repaying?
The accusation that the book was published “too soon” misses the point. It was purposefully researched and written quickly and published first. This is one of the mission parameters of Rocket Science as per the TOOLBOX tab on CrimeRocket:
To deliver accurate, accessible true crime narratives quicker, better and more effectively than anyone else.
The logo of TCRS depicts a journalist riding a rocket, holding a camera in one hand, blasting the latest story into the public domain. So to accuse Rocket Science of researching and/or publishing too quickly is like accusing Coca Cola of being sweet.
As for the reviewer’s complaints about spelling, Dieter with a small letter is dieter, and like many in the news media, I took an executive decision and “corrected” the spelling. It’s true that Shan’ann and others spelled the dog’s name Dieter, but my own journalistic standards balk at the spelling. What can I say, sorry about that.
The spelling of Shan’ann’s name is a different story, but at least on this point the reviewer agrees.
The name of Thayer’s daughter was taken from audio interviews made to the news media following Watts’ arrest. Her name was not published in any news media, but was subsequently found on Thayer’s Instagram account.
The reviewer seems to care about these details, and of course they matter, but how they play into the material aspects of a triple murder are questionable. What about the big theories presented in the first book? What about the order of the crimes, the timing, the location, what about the core issues to this case?
The final point to make is about a regular accusation made by true crime critics of true crime writers. By writing a book about a case one is being “greedy”. I used to be a full-time journalist. Now I’m a full-time true crime author. I do it for a living. It’s work, it’s work I care about and I daresay harder work and longer hours for each dollar earned than most regular jobs. When folks working regular jobs receive their paychecks for work they did are they greedy too?
It’s tempting to think that the criticisms mentioned above aren’t even sincere, but rather that – for whatever reason – the reviewer simply wishes to score points. But it may be that they are sincere, which is a shame, because he completely misses the point of what these narratives are trying to do.
Far from just writing to pay the rent, I have a sense of mission about justice and true crime. And a few people do get it, like this guy.
In POST TRUTH, the 100th True Crime Rocket Science [TCRS] title, the world’s most prolific true crime author Nick van der Leek demonstrates how much we still don’t know in the Watts case. In the final chapter of the SILVER FOX trilogy the author provides a sly twist in a tale that has spanned 12 TCRS books to date. The result may shock or leave you with even more questions.
SILVER FOX III available now in paperback!
“If you are at all curious about what really happened in the Watts case, then buy this book, buy every one he has written and you will get as close as humanly possible to understanding the killer and his victims.”- Kathleen Hewtson. Purchase the very highly rated and reviewed SILVER TRILOGY – POST TRUTH COMING SOON.
TCRS MERCH available now – just in time for Christmas!
Book 5 – ALL NEW! “I have thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook…” – Connie Lukens. Drilling Through Discovery Complete Audiobook
Read the entire 9-Part TWO FACE series, the most definitive book series covering the Chris Watts Case
Visit the TCRS Archive of 100 Books dealing with all the world’s most high-profile true crime cases.
Join the TCRS Community on Patreon for as little as $1 per month. Multiple daily posts, interesting discussions, amazing audiobooks narrated by the author, ongoing series and powerful, informative weekly podcasts.
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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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