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Tag: Chris Watts (Page 8 of 47)

Was the plea deal coerced? The biggest revelation from FAMILY MAN, FAMILY MURDERER

June 4, 2019 / / 5 Comments

The kindgarten-level of true crime reporting and true crime analysis in Family Man, Family Murder – which aired on Investigation Discovery on Sunday night [June 2nd, 2019]  – was shocking.

This is a channel that specializes in true crime, so they do know how to do better.  It’s not a case of laziness or recklessness. The episode is meant to be exactly as it is.

Jenn H. left an excellent comment on the review post comparing the speed at which the prosecution put everything in a box and tied it with a neat bow to the documentary doing the same thing.

The documentary is narrated entirely from a prosecutorial perspective. We literally see two prosecutors doing all the heavy lifting and not really anyone else. There are zero witnesses, and virtually nothing new in the episode. No parents are interviewed, nor any of the public defenders. Virtually no new faces, besides those of a few reporters, appear. No prison guards, no friends of Watts or Shan’ann, no co-workers. From beginning to end the word ANADARKO is left out, though Thrive and Le-Vel are mentioned once or twice. It’s really an incredible achievement.

But before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, let’s have a look at something that may – may – be revelatory. It’s this:

It appears to be an email written to Steve Wrenn regarding the most crucial aspect of this case – the plea deal. That the prosecutors would simply hand this snippet of information over is interesting. Perhaps they don’t want to be caught with their pants down, and perhaps like the episode itself [coming out in early June] it’s another attempt to pop the balloon that is the Watts case, and control – that is, suppress – the narrative.

This case had all the ingredients to become the most high-profile trial in America’s true crime history [and still does]. While that’s unlikely now, if this email is genuine and not simply staged along with the other dramatizations [and it might be] then we can see just how quickly the screws were tightened on the Watts case.

The email is dated August 26th, 2018 at 11:58. The email reads:

To: Steve Wrenn

Subject: Chris Watts

Dear Detective Wrenn

The defendant, Christopher Watts, is willing to agree to waive his right to be indicted and to plead guilty to all charges of first degree murder charges if our office is willing to remove the possibility of the death penalty.

Best

John Walsch

To be honest I thought the “our” in “our office” was a typo. Shouldn’t it have been “your” office. Of course the public defender and the public prosecutor’s office is theoretically the same legal apparatus. It’s just a little strange, isn’t it?. Imagine Jodi Arias’ lawyer or Casey Anthony’s lawyer contacting the prosecutor and making suggestions for what “our office” might be willing to do?

Since the interview with Wrenn [detective Wrenn?] is held within his office, and the email seems to be pointed out on a laptop or iPad, it’s implied that Wrenn is simply pointing it out.

Well, why not be more explicit about it?

Many pundits, TCRS included, felt the Watts case was rushed even when the case was basically over by November 19th, barely three months after the incident. But according to this email, the case was over within two weeks.

Had the news of the plea deal been released then, there would have been overwhelming outrage. Justifiably. Wasn’t that why it’s been staged the way it has, to allow the public to calm down and the outrage over the crime to blow over? A year later, has it blown over?

Even the discovery documents were handed over very quickly after the sentencing, and the folks associated with Watts washed their hands off the case. They weren’t going to talk about it again, it was over and done with.  But then a few niggly bits emerged in that massive tranche of mostly meaningless discovery. Like this:

When the media wanted to verify the date of Kessinger’s search – was it really September 2017 – the district attorney didn’t really want to talk about it. He’d moved on. The case was over as far as he was concerned.

NOVEMBER 28, 2018:

CrimeOnline reached records supervisor Amanda Purcell on Thursday after repeated inquiries made to multiple Colorado law enforcement agencies to confirm the accuracy of an entry in the Phone Data Review included in the discovery documents connected to the Chris Watts murder case, released by the Weld County District Attorney’s office late last month.

Asked if the entry in the Phone Data Review showing that Kessinger, who was involved in an affair with Chris Watts when he murdered his wife Shanann Watts and two young daughters, showing that Kessinger performed an internet search for “Shanann Watts” on her cell phone on September 1, 2017, was typographically correct, Purcell said it was a typo in the report.

Purcell was not able to provide additional clarification about another section of the phone data review that indicates Kessinger searched for Chris and/or Shanann Watts prior to beginning her relationship with Chris Watts in the spring of 2018, and referred our inquiry to the Weld County District Attorney’s office. CrimeOnline will provide further updates when more information is available.

DECEMBER 10, 2018

As the discovery documents and audio of a police interview with Kessinger show, the 30-year-old woman who reportedly met Watts at Anadarko Petroluem, where they both worked at the time, was aware Watts was married but believed he and his wife were headed for certain divorce. She told investigators she was unaware Shanann Watts was pregnant before the missing persons case made the news, and that she didn’t know Shanann’s name until a while after she became involved with Chris Watts.

The discovery documents released by the Weld County District Attorney’s office in late November include reports that indicate Kessinger may have been aware of Chris and/or Shanann Watts prior to when she is believed to have met Chris Watts at work.

CrimeOnline made repeated inquiries with the Weld County District Attorney’s office, the Greeley Police Department, and the Frederick Police Department for clarification about multiple entries in the “Phone Data Review,” included in the discovery documents, which show that Kessinger searched for Shanann Watts and Christopher Watts in 2017.

Following a series of email exchanges and phone calls with the Weld County District Attorney’s office regarding the reports, CrimeOnline spoke by phone to Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke on Monday. Rourke said that the reports reflect what was shown in the forensic analysis of Nichol Kessinger’s phone.

“The dates to which you are referring — in 2017 where it appears she Googled or otherwise searched Shannan — was data that came off her phone,” Rourke said.

“It’s not a typographical error in the report. [The detectives] are reporting what was contained in the data from her phone. I don’t know the answer to the question of why or how those dates ended up in her phone.”

Asked if the District Attorney’s office questioned or planned to question Kessinger about data suggesting she was aware of Chris and Shanann Watts for up to a year before the murders, Rourke said that Chris Watts’ guilty plea precluded any need to further probe the results of the forensic analysis of Kessinger’s phone.

Why is Kessinger’s first Google Search for “Shanann Watts” becoming a Shifting Goalpost? [UPDATED]

But now they’re back. And what they’re talking about is everything we already know, back to front.

The other aspect to note is if the date is right, and the plea deal was offered on August 26th, consider how long the media and public were strung along. The plea deal was only acknowledged in a surprise announcement on November 6th.

And Watts’ parents at the time complained that the deal was coerced, and that they didn’t have access to their son to talk him out of it.

Now, of course, several months later when it’s all done and dusted, Watts has communicated his intention to appeal his conviction. TCRS predicted this outcome way back in November, less than a week after the “shock announcement” of the plea deal.

Chris Watts Plea Deal – things aren’t what they seem!

Chris Watts Will Change his Mind about Pleading Guilty

So what are we really talking about? For starters, an argument could be made that the First Confession was coerced, in the sense that Watts was tricked [and to some extent placed under duress] into making admissions. Personally I have no problem with that, prosecutors have to play certain cards, and use card tricks, with slippery, tricksy criminals.

But a defense lawyer would have a lot to work with here. Others with less to work with – like Amanda Knox – have had a lot of success arguing coercion. Bear in mind at the time this email was apparently written, Watts had only admitted on tape to murdering his wife. So where did the enthusiasm arise to admit guilt on all charges?

What changed in 12 days?

Who was really pushing for a plea deal?

Who was really pulling the strings?

A Critical Review of FAMILY MAN, FAMILY MURDERER

June 3, 2019 / / 9 Comments

The 42 minute documentary starts off with a very dark, poignant scene. We see a man with his truck [headlights on] shoveling sand. The voice-over is Shan’ann’s, saying how the man digging her grave is “the best thing that’s ever happened to me…”

It’s powerful. It’s not a bad start, but from a technical perspective, it’s not a great start either.

In the opening montage, a man is digging in a nondescript landfill-type setting. It’s not the well site; it looks nothing like it, and there appears to be a big tree somewhere in the picture. Going into the documentary I was wondering whether Anadarko would be mentioned, and if so, how? This very first scene seems to answer that question. The Anadarko stuff will be blacked out and pushed out of the frame.

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Now, I like true crime dramatizations. They remind us to think practically about a particular crime scene, and they force us to consider what’s plausible and what isn’t. In the above image the shirt might be close to the right color [pink…orange], and the jeans and boots are right, but it’s doubtful Watts would have dug a grave with the car lights shining on him. There was enough ambient light right then, just after dawn, to know what he was doing without artificial light.

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The Trinastich video footage also confirms just how light it was out when Watts pulled out of his driveway, and remember, it was going to be almost another hour after he left before the head of the shovel in the truck nosed into the sand at CERVI 319.

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We see a montage of images from Shan’ann’s social media, and a clip from the Sermon on the Porch where Watts speaks into the camera asking Shan’ann, Bella and Ceecee to “just come home…” An image of Watts with Kessinger appears onscreen within the first minute,  then some strange dude appears, and then District Attorney Michael Rourke is the first heavy-hitter to make  an appearance. Rourke says Watts was saying all the right things, he just wasn’t saying them right. He was just too cold.

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Next the program promises to “explore the transformation” Watts made from family man to monster for the next hour [well, 40 minutes and change].

I like the way Diane Dimond refers to Watts early on as “a dichotomy of personalities”. Another way of saying that is a TWO FACE, right? Next large red text appears above another montage.

DOUBLE LIFE REVEALED

After showing the title [at the 2 minute mark], the scene opens with a pump jack and a well site. It’s August 13th, 2018 according to white text superimposed over a local traffic scene.

And then Dimond begins taking the viewer through the spiel – from Nickole Atkinson’s point of view.  We see another strange and rather unattractive interloper [playing the role of Nickole] and then we see Steve Wrenn, fingers folded, baseball on his desk, apparently in his office.

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Wrenn provides a scintillating insight. “Things weren’t right.” Think about this for a moment. You have the District Attorney appearing in the first minute to say Watts wasn’t acting right, and that everyone could see that [well yes, they could]. Not his deputy is confirming that things weren’t right [yup, that’s what Nickole thought, and…?]

Next the narrative reverts to Rourke. Rourke provides a little insight now. Nickole worked with Shan’ann, for the same company, and they sold the same product. Which company was that? Which products were those? Rourke doesn’t say. This documentary has promised to show how Watts has transformed into monster, right?

A voiceover [flashing to an aerial shot of Phoenix] mentions a business trip and Le-Vel, but that’s it. Nothing about the kind of company, or that it’s a MLM.
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Next the narrative deals with the pregnancy and health issues. Now we have another reporter, this time from the Denver Post, providing more overview. Then it’s back to Rourke. Rourke explains what Nickole was doing. Checking her phone, wasn’t Shan’ann supposed to be at a doctor’s appointment, this and that. There’s a lot more to it than that, but this is just lightly ticking the narrative boxes – and 4 minutes have already blown by.

Where’s Nickole though? Is she not giving interviews?

Then there’s a dramatization of Nickole arriving at the Watts home. The Watts home isn’t used, and Nickole’s son and daughter aren’t in the frame. The make of the car [Hyundai Elantra instead of a Mazda GT] looks wrong, where its parked is wrong, but the color is right.

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The clothing the Nickole stand-in is wearing is similar to the camouflage shirt Nickole wore, the white glasses propped on her forehead are a match, and the busy-on-the-phone vibe, but where’s her son Nicolas?

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Just before 5 minutes, Wrenn is back to tell us Chris Watts worked in the “oil field industry”. Wow. Nice and vanilla.

“He was a supervisor and typically visited various well sites…throughout the day.” Cue a nondescript pump jack.

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So far no mention of Anadarko, or the fact that Watts work involved the maintenance of fracking batteries. So far, we’re still getting the vanilla version, an ultra superficial version simply recapping the basic case, with prosecutors interspersed with reporters doing the job of a narrative run-through. Some of the reporters are not terribly affiliated with this case.

Next Nickole’s actual 911 call is played. It’s not the first time it’s even been on television but kudos for at least having something authentic and not necessarily easy to get hold of onscreen.

Then we dive into bodycam footage, with Nicolas appearing but his face smudged out. At 6 minutes, Rourke is back to provide some insight. Coonrod can’t just kick down the door and walk in, and so on and so forth. So far there has been zero reference to any actual text messages or the times they were sent. That’s 6 minutes, that’s enough. Let’s hear some of your thoughts and observations, and if need be I’ll post a follow-up on the rest of the documentary.

Moments before the murder, was there an emotional conversation or wasn’t there?

June 3, 2019 / / 22 Comments

A major area of disagreement between TCRS and the mainstream media version of events [and Chris Watts’ 1st and 2nd version of events] is this idea that there was an argument, or an emotional conversation, that either played out just before or led directly to the murders.

The idea of an argument makes sense. God knows there was a lot to argue about. She was pregnant, he was having an affair, they were losing the house, his parents had been booted out of the family circle and there was that $68 charge he still had to explain…

It also makes sense that something very real had to trigger a triple murder. It seems less likely on the face of it that Watts would out of a silent scenario simply decide to kill his family.

At 4:49 in the clip below Watts is confronted with the idea of an argument. This happens roughly 24 hours after the incident, on the morning of August 14th, a Tuesday.

It’s worth hovering the cursor over 4:49 and playing it back a few times to catch the subtlety in the answer, and all the micro-expressions.

You’ll notice Watts looks up at the ceiling and also sways and smiles while saying they had didn’t argue, they had an emotional conversation “but”, then he smiles openly when he says, “I’ll leave it at that…and I just want them back.”

You either believe him on this score or you don’t. If you believe him, then you’re part of the crowd who believe the crime was a sort of a rage murder, an impulsive crime of passion. Something crazy happened in his head and he just snapped.

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If you don’t believe him, then you’re figuring Watts as a coward who didn’t have the balls to confront his wife. Not about an affair, nor about a divorce. He just couldn’t do it.

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And if that’s the case, the murder was premeditated. If Shan’ann’s murder was premeditated, so were the children. On this hinge, everything changes.

“I’m sick to my stomach” – who said it, why, and about what?

June 3, 2019 / / 3 Comments

It’s not science, it’s semantics, and it’s what Rocket Science refers to as “colorful language”. Colorful language is intuitive, so to one person it kicks up a red a flag, to another its meaningless. In OBLIVION I discuss the significance of “walking on eggshells”. But here’s another.

The term “sick to my stomach” occurs four times in the Discovery Documents, and I seem to remember Watts saying something similar during his flaky Sermon on the Porch. It’s a telling aphorism because pregnancy would make a woman sick to her stomach, and so would drowning in oil. If Watts felt sick to his stomach he didn’t look it. So where did the expression come from?

On August 8th, the same day Watts told Shan’ann he didn’t want the baby, Shan’ann tearfully offloaded to Sara Nudd how [understandably] sick she felt. She desperately tried to have sex with Watts in a bid to smooth things over and sort things out. His rejection confirmed her worst fears, hence the sickening feeling [which proved totally justified] in the pit of her stomach.

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On the afternoon of August 13th, Watts used the exact same expression to describe how he felt about his missing family.

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Even then Watts claimed to be “praying”. It does make one wonder whether Watts picked up the phrase from Shan’ann’s iCloud and adopted it as the “right-sounding” way to express concern, or alarm. We know throughout the aftermath Watts not only failed to shed a single tear, but seemed unable to muster the appropriate emotion. When reminded of this after his failed polygraph, Watts melodramatically sniffed [just once] – his version of showing grief.

Watts also used the term [twice in rapid succession] when FBI agent Coder reminded Watts that what they were doing was looking for his family. In the context of Watts worrying about how things looked, and how he looked, he fielded the terms – as if using the right words was like waving a magic wand [like the Thrive promoters did], and that was enough.

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“Chris Watts has not told the whole story – until now.” – Uh, I don’t think so.

June 2, 2019 / / 2 Comments

In the preview of Family Man, Family Murder [Murderer?] [the cover is either a misspelling or the tweet is] Diane Dimond can be heard saying off camera that we haven’t heard the truth from Watts “until now”. In other words, the Second Confession is finally the truth of what happened.

Really? It is?

What’s the truth? That the murders weren’t premeditated. And after having sex with Shan’ann, Watts murdered her but she didn’t struggle, she just sort of silently prayed?

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That’s how ridiculous these documentaries are.

For the harder, more difficult truth, look to someone who has made a consistent effort to cover it.

Scott Reisch’s Video on Nichol Kessinger Removed from YouTube – let’s talk about it

May 29, 2019 / / 14 Comments

On May 23rd, criminal defense lawyer and Chris Watts YouTuber Scott Reisch posted a video about Nichol Kessinger. I was in the Netherlands at the time, and not paying the usual amount of attention to the Watts case [or Crime Rocket for that matter]. But this particular video did blip on my radar, sufficiently so that I passed it along to another Watts case follower via WhatsApp.

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The video has since been completely removed from YouTube.

I’m not surprised. In the video, Reisch [I can never remember how to spell his name] records himself in his vehicle doing a little undercover detective work. If I recall correctly Reisch – sporting dark glasses – also flashes briefly to the brand of his vehicle on the steering consol. I won’t repeat the brand here, but it’s not a VW beetle, let’s put it that way.

While driving he suggests he has the address of Kessinger and is simply going to see – firsthand – whether she’s home, whether she answers the door and what she has to say.

Reisch records himself knocking on a door, and soon after, driving away. The apartment complex can be imputed from the rear view behind Reisch as he drives slowly away.

Now it’s possible Reisch himself subsequently removed the video from YouTube. It’s also possible that Kessinger’s legal machinery kicked in because of a perceived violation of her privacy. Whether or not Kessinger is under witness protection, and whether or not she lodged an objection to the video, the video did feel like it crossed an invisible ethical boundary. That was my perception. Irrespective of Kessinger’s role in the Watts case, she has every right to want to protect her privacy.

When I covered the Van Breda case, I praised a tabloid reporter who had snuck into a complex and done the same thing Reisch did, except someone [I won’t say who] opened the door, saw it was a reporter and slammed the door. The reporter then wrote an article not only identifying the complex but providing a glimpse of who and what she saw when the door opened, and even what she smelled – if you can believe that. Someone related to the Van Breda case later contacted me [I won’t say who] and complained about me praising the mischief of the tabloid reporter.

I explained that as a journalist, I have respect for those who go the extra mile as it were. On a recent trip through Europe I jumped off the train platform to take a photo at track level of some poppies while a train was slowly approaching [and while a station policeman was hollering at me].

So that’s really what I’m getting at. When a journalist exercises the courage of his convictions it resonates with me, because I know how much it has cost me.

At the same time, speaking to this person directly, I felt ashamed. I could see how such behavior [the tabloid journo spiel] was a total violation of privacy. In true crime there is a sort of consensus that everyone involved is fair game. While that is true to an extent in terms of investigating the situation, it doesn’t mean there are no boundaries whatsoever. It’s not a case that the innocent have total rights and that the guilty [and those related to them] have no rights.

Personally I was surprised by Reisch’s video before it was taken down. Going to the premises and finding someone not there is hardly content. It’s what journalists and editors call a “non-story”. Although Reisch never gave the details of the address, he did seem to hint that it was in Colorado and near to where someone he knew [I won’t repeat specifically who] was based. This potentially opened the door for others to figure out the address and possibly harass Kessinger.

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There have been many lines crossed in the Watts case, none more so than the line crossed by Watts himself. Kessinger also crossed a line, but infidelity is hardly a face melting misdemeanor. It’s not classified as a crime, although certain legal and financial obligations can follow as a result. The point is it’s not behaviour exclusive to or monopolized by Kessinger, in fact it’s disturbingly common. When we talk about rights to privacy, and the way Facebook penetrates into the home, and onto a spouses’ phone for example, we can see how Facebook can ruin marriages. Ironically, Facebook seemed to play little role in the machinery or chicanery of the Watts case, certainly at face value.

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What Watts did  plunged many into a nightmare, including Watts himself.  He soon saw his own privacy literally evaporate, and found himself completely out of his depth in trying to deal with it. But as troubling as Watts is a character [a man doomed by his own weaknesses and failures] what’s even more troubling is the Watts spiel as a whole. When we start to see the whole theater and all the players, something doesn’t sit well with us.

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While I was in Europe, Anadarko started sewing up major merger talks with Occidental.  The Chris Watts case had simmered down just in time for billion dollar deal-making. Was that accidental? Coincidence? Or is this whole strange, suffocated legal procedure – the hushed, rushed plea deal – part of much larger shenanigans?

The Watts murders, diabolical as they are, is it simply the tip of an enormous glistening black asteroid, invisible and unseen, but nevertheless hurtling towards us?

I find the social-cultural aspect of true crime interesting, because as tempting as it is to believe, Watts didn’t emerge in a vacuum. He also didn’t cross those ethical lines when he committed this crime, in a vacuum.

When we explore these ideas, they invariably reflect back at us, and our approach to ethics, often in areas we know about but don’t particularly care about. Like privacy. Like industry, and the approach of corporates to the protection of information and their casual if not reckless attitudes to society and ethics.

Although we don’t particularly care about these aspects, they seem to care about us as a voting bloc, or a portion of the marketing pie. They affect us. So maybe we should care.

While in Europe I did some research during intervals of leisure reading. The subject matter had to do with the source of man’s alienation.

Is it from other individuals that alienation springs, or from society? Who is to blame? Another way of putting the question is:

Who is to blame for crime? 

It may seem a ridiculous question. Obviously the individual [the criminal] who commits a crime is responsible for it. While that’s certainly true, what’s underappreciated is the impact, or perhaps influence is a better word, of culture in who individuals ultimately become in our society.  Do we simply let the chips fall where they may, and if Chris Wattses are part of that equation, so be it…? Or should we have a hand, some kind of say, some kind of sway, in the kind of society that we’re part of?

At the same time that we raise this question, we can also ask a slightly more targeted inquiry.

What impact does the culture of the workplace have on people, and their attitudes to other people?

In effect, what impact does the attitude of corporates have on society – on people, on us – and how does that trickle down to the workers who work there? Is it mostly harmless? Is it worth caring about or only worth caring about when there’s an annihilation?

What we’re really addressing in this Reisch scenario is the idea of privacy. How much should we care about it? Do we expect our privacy to be respected? Should the privacy of others be respected too?

Privacy laws while necessary can also be used to nefarious ends – to protect those who have something to hide. Just think about the Mueller report and Trump’s financial statements [protected because he was supposedly under audit]. Privacy is a real issue of our time, and social media and true crime provide a fascinating fulcrum, a nexus, in which to examine it.

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What does it mean exactly to respect privacy?

When someone is involved in some way in a crime, especially a high-profile crime like this, do the same standards of privacy apply? For my part, I thought Nichol Kessinger was treated very mildly by investigators, given the time-sensitive circumstances and scale and scope of what happened [a triple murder, adultery, the pregnancy etc]. Even when she appeared to be less than completely forthcoming, there didn’t seem to be any threat attached to either withholding critical information, or – arguably – delaying the release of it. So privacy does work both ways.

By the same token, if we look at Shan’ann’s Facebook profile [which is still public], should the victim’s privacy be treated in a special way, perhaps even counter to their own wishes [in terms of social media]?

Are our modern laws – especially those pertaining to the online space – up to date in terms of the rational and reasonable rights citizens ought to have in terms of privacy?

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In general, our obsession with cases presupposes a level of access to the information particular to criminal cases, but how much access is in the public interest and how much is intrusion?

A Game of Thrones over the Permian and the baby dragon in an egg that was the Chris Watts Criminal Trial

April 25, 2019 / / 10 Comments

US oil companies are locked in a real life Game of Thrones over the Permian basin, specifically Anadarkos assets there. It’s an area described by the Financial Times as “the thumping heart of the US shale oil boom.”

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But what do the takeover bids circling through the media now for Anadarko Petroleum Corp have to do with Chris Watts?

Put on your thinking caps. You don’t need to know economics to understand the context of what follows; you just have to compare and contextualize dates and big numbers to other names and dates.

Worth playing for?

On June 15th, 2018, Anadarko signed a purchasing agreement with Centrica and Tokyo Gas for the rights to extract liquid natural gas [LNG] from the massive Mozambique field off the Southern African coast.

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While this deal was still in the offing, and before it had been finalized, an obscure employee at an obscure site in Colorado [CERVI 319] used one of Anadarko’s fracking batteries to dispose of the remains of his murdered family. The case soon made local, then national then international headlines.

Bodies of two Frederick girls found inside oil and gas tanks, sources say – Denver Post [August 16th, 2018]

Father ‘stuffed daughters’ bodies in oil tanks so they wouldn’t smell, police say – New Zealand Herald [August 16th, 2018]

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Had the Chris Watts trial been allowed to fulminate in the public space, and a full-blown criminal had played out, it would have been the equivalent of burning down the entire marketing apparatus the Anadarko brand had spent millions setting up and putting in place.

It wasn’t good timing for bad publicity. Barely six months earlier, Forbes reported on  a consolidation wave sweeping the oil and gas industry. Majors were gobbling up oil minors and minnows at bargain basement prices. Deals were being made left and right with explorers that were going bust, pulling out or losing their nerve. A public relations implosion could burn away billions…

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One of the big players in this push for the Permian Throne was Anadarko. And after a pause between August 2018 and March 2019, and Anadarko making itself prettier by December 2018, by April 2019 the game for the greasy black Permian Throne was back in full swing.

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[E&P = exploration & production  company]

So what caused the pause in the game, in August until April? Well, headlines like this on August 21st, 2018, just 8 days after the Watts Family Murders rocked Frederick Colorado.

Anadarko: Mounting Risks, National Headlines, Inept Management, And Terrible Tragedies

Frederick is close to ground zero for Anadarko’s impressive Platteville run fracking portfolio.

But one assessment described Anadarko in the summer of 2018 as “becoming the foremost public enemy for anti-oil [anti-fracking] activists.” A disastrous home implosion at Firestone [neighboring Frederick], lead to several deaths and prompted political moves [known as Proposition 112] to regulate the oil and gas industry across Colorado, and beyond.

Had the proposals been implemented, they would have cost the entire industry dearly, and Anadarko in particular.

Anadarko spent almost $7 million in campaign finance to lobby the community to vote against Proposition 112, far more than any other entity, and more than triple the total raised by supporters of the proposition.

In sum, the oil-funded opposition raised almost $32 million in campaign funds, the biggest chunk as noted from Anadarko itself. The opposition barely raised $1.5 million.

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Despite disproportionate campaign fundraising, Proposition 112 was narrowly defeated, with just over 55% of voters voting “No”.

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From October 2018 [one month prior to the first hearings in the Watts criminal trial] Anadarko’s share prices fell, and continued to fall until the spring of 2019. What Anadarko were faced with, and what they had to do at all costs, was tame the dragon. And they did.

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At the time the new environmental safety proposals were voted on, in fact the same day, Chris Watts’ “unexpectedly” took a plea deal in a rushed status hearing.

The status hearing itself was strange for its suddenness. It was announced late on a Friday afternoon [at 16:20 on November 2nd] when the District Attorney filed an innocuous sounding notice of a status hearing. It caught many off guard.

Chris Watts: Deal or No Deal? [Novembert 5th, 2018]

So did the hearing itself. What was dressed up to appear as a mere formality turned out to be quite shocking. A plea deal was announced.

Watts admitted guilt on all charges essentially shutting down the prospect of a high-profile criminal trial, one that was set to eclipse the liked of OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias.

Chris Watts reaches plea deal to avoid death penalty in deaths of pregnant wife, 2 daughters

DA addresses Chris Watts’ guilty plea in the murder of his pregnant wife, two young daughters

Chris Watts Cried in Court, Wore Bulletproof Vest While Pleading Guilty to Murdering Pregnant Wife, Daughters

That was November 2018.

A lot of discovery had to be dealt with over the following weeks and months, over Christmas, and into the first few months of the new year. Chris Watts’ mistress, a safety officer was interrogated on social media. The media however, was almost completely silent on Nichol Kessinger, as was Kessinger herselfFullscreen capture 20190425 152553Fullscreen capture 20190425 152626.

Then, when the dust had finally settled on the Watts case, this, on April 24th, 2019:

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Anadarko Petroleum (APC) Stock: Climbing On Takeover Offer

A bidding war breaks out as Occidental Petroleum makes $38 billion offer for Anadarko, topping Chevron’s 

Anadarko Changed CEO’s Potential Payout Before Chevron Deal

Occidental Petroleum tops Chevron’s deal for Anadarko

Occidental seeks to outbid Chevron with $57bn offer for US explorer Anadarko

Occidental makes competing offer for Anadarko Petroleum

Cramer: Chevron’s Anadarko merger won’t be the only oil deal this year

And remember that exploration purchasing agreement Anadarko was pursuing off the Southern African coast? In February 2019 Anadarko was still pursuing it, and apparently “closing in” on the supply deal.

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Then, on February 5th they finally signed their deal.

Anadarko inks new Mozambique LNG supply deal

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More: Black Sunday and the demise of the American shale oil industry

The “Death Practices” of Chris Watts

April 20, 2019 / / 5 Comments

Most people – whether murderers or not – engage in ritualistic “death practices”.  What the hell is that? Well, it’s something like this:

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Most of us are less extreme in our rituals. You don’t have to climb Mount Everest or use a parachute to play games with fate. Smoking a cigarette will do. Eating foods you know you shouldn’t is what most of us try to get away with.

Some “death practices” are life affirming. They remind us we are alive, and encourage us to appreciate being alive, and perhaps being with someone else. But some “death practices” are less controlled, and more self-destructive. They may start as disassociation or disconnection, and ultimately lead to a downward spiral.ecba5bb7c9de2cb810dfa0aa8f793242

To understand the mind of a murderer, and the the mechanism of “death practices” for someone like Chris Watts, think about some of those things that you consider crossing the line, in terms of rituals, especially risky rituals. Let’s call them forbidden fruit. It might be cheating on a partner, or stealing from your business partner, or doing things on your phone or computer you probably shouldn’t. It might be having sex at work, or sex with a prostitute, or sex with someone who is married. Or indulging in an addiction of some kind. Whatever it is, a would-be murderer starts to feel the same temptation – about murder.

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Wherever the thought emerges, it becomes progressively reinforced or stimulated by circumstantial and subjective factors. Eventually the stimulation becomes self-sustaining. At that point the “death practice” slides into the background, because the time has come to execute on the fantasy of killing.

There is much more to say on the subject, but a blog post is not the place to do it. It deserves a chapter and a lot more context. But to give you some idea of the context we’re talking about, in terms of Chris Watts, some of the factors stimulating the idea of “death practice” [even only in a theoretical sense] included:

  • the pregnancy, and the realization at some point that he didn’t want this living thing to come into the world. In other words, he wanted the baby not to exist. This was one of the most powerful psychologies that framed many of the others that followed.180817063954-colorado-woman-pregnancy-video-full-169
  • the sicknesses of the children. Bella and Celeste were less healthy than the average children. It may have had something to do with their mother being a Lupus sufferer.
  • the life-size doll wrapped in the twister mat.0_Chilling-final-photo-Chris-Watts-pregnant-wife-took-of-their-childrens-barbie-doll
  • the “near death” spiel that was Nut Gate. This was a real test case for Watts to feel out the psychology of serious harm coming to his youngest daughter, and then experiencing some of the emotions firstly in himself, and in others around him. It’s likely this “death practice” reinforced or even awakened his feelings about needing to get rid of his other child – the baby.
  • the bankruptcy in 2015, and the financial malaise that overshadowed the enormous brown house hulking over Saratoga Trail.memorial-colo1a-abc-ml-180816_hpMain_4x3_992
  • Bella’s trauma after being told her sister might not wake up after eating coconut is another example. When exposed to this, Watts may have entertained the idea of one or both children surviving the death of someone else, and deciding against it.maxresdefault
  • other “death practices” include the sequestrating of data on his phone, including nude photos and data into his Secret Calculator app, closing himself emotionally [and sexually, and in terms of general communication] from Shan’ann. Shutting down his Facebook account.
  • going to work and working with dangerous chemicals, and being reminded on a daily basis of life-threatening aspects at work, would also nudge him further and further forward into the miasma of murder that was gradually forming in Chris Watts’ mind…

 

Chris Watts: Are Expert Psychologists Qualified to Prognosticate on Criminal Psychology?

April 15, 2019 / / 19 Comments

At 2.11 in the clip, two expert psychologists from Colorado are shown a clip of Chris Watts sobbing into his hands with his father’s arm over his shoulder, and the two agents [both with their hands against their chins] looking on silently off his opposite shoulder.

The assessment of the psychologist is triumphant:

“It’s up! [Smiles]. He’s caught. Now he’s upset. Because he’s caught.This is the first time you see emotion…Because now he’s caught. You didn’t see emotion when his family was killed, you see emotion now that he’s caught…”

At the time Watts was “confessing” to Shan’ann murdering the kids [in the house] and himself reacting to this in a mindless rage. Are the agents in the room also thinking:

It’s up! He’s caught. Now he’s upset. Because he’s caught. 

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If the agents were thinking that, why go back and interview him a second time for almost five hours?

And clip goes on to say “why?” will likely never be answered. With that attitude, why even bring in psychologists? The “we’ll never know why” cop out is kindergarten true crime analysis. The assessment that a criminal is “evil” is schoolyard level criminal analysis.

It’s hardly a case of never. It’s more a case of applying one’s mind on a particular for weeks, months or longer on end. Put some effort in. Study the case. Think about the case. When one does that the why becomes clearer, if not entirely obvious.

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There’s also a postscript calling Watts a “master manipulator”. Yes, the guy you saw swaying next to the television and not fooling anyone there, apparently did fool someone.

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I discuss and analyze the psychology of Chris and Shan’ann Watts in detail in the TWO FACE series, as this latest review of Book #7 illustrates:

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Chris Watts claims “Rage” was the operative emotion that made him wipe out his family. But this is what a genuine “Rage” Annihilation looks like…

April 14, 2019 / / 32 Comments

The word “rage” appears only twice in the 29-page CBI Report documenting Chris Watts’ Second Confession. The first instance is at the top of page 8:

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The second instance is at the bottom of page 12:

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I won’t be doing any long lectures explaining why the “just snapped” scenario is bogus and bullshit, because that would be repeating tired arguments fielded months ago. If you haven’t read them yet, be my guest.

“Chris Watts Just Snapped”

Chris Watts describes the reason he killed Shan’ann Watts: “I just snapped” [AUDIO Part 1+2]

In the Discovery Documents there are a couple of additional instances of “snapping”, “losing it” and “rage”:

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Although Watts tries to paint a portrait of himself as overcome with emotion, and the crime as a crime of passion, we had virtually zero evidence of anyone else – including Shan’ann – experiencing Watts’ rage. There’s no sign of it at work, nor in his background. There’s none of it in his marriage, and his mistress never mentions any anger issues either. On the contrary, if anyone is somewhat petulant or irritable it’s not Watts, it’s either Kessinger or his wife. That’s not necessarily a compliment to Watts, to say that he was extremely cool and even crushed in on himself. This may have made him seem suave and mild-mannered to Kessinger, but pathetic, and meek – at times – to Shan’ann, who was more extroverted than he was.

The Watts Family Murders weren’t committed in a fit of rage. Premeditation by definition takes the emotional dimension out of a crime and replaces it with cool, calculated, precise execution, disposal of bodies and covering up of the crime scene.

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If anything, both Shan’ann and Kessinger describe Watts as sweet-natured, Shan’ann realizing he was a “really nice guy” because he let her lay in his lap for 2.5 hours on a drive back from Myrtle Beach. Kessinger, in her exclusive with the Denver Post said although she barely knew him, he was a good listener. So the whole rage monster deal doesn’t work even if Watts would like it to. It’s just not who he is.

So what does an authentic ANNIHILATION driven by rage look and feel like?

Well, like this:

Phoenix man who suspected wife of an affair kills her and 2 kids, spares youngest: police – Fox News

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Fox News describes the Smith Shooting appropriately as a murder rampage.

The Smith case involves the murder of his two children [while sparing the third] and two adults, one of them a random bystander who happened to be at his brother’s apartment when Smith arrived there. Two other people were shot at the apartment, but the 47-year-old woman and 33-year-old man both survived. Smith’s shooting arguably qualifies for the definition of a Mass Shooting since four people were killed indiscriminately and spontaneously.

Although the Smith Shooting more closely resembles the “He just snapped” scenario, it’s obvious he didn’t just snap out of the blue either. The trigger was the notion that his own brother had betrayed him with his wife, and vice versa. There also seems to be a religious aspect, with Smith feeling emasculated not only as man but by what he may have felt justified regarding as “forces of evil”. The point is, it’s reductionist to boil down in a crime like the Smith Shooting as motivated by rage and a man snapping. That said, the Smith Shooting more closely fits that definition [if one insists on applying it] than the Watts case does.

This begs the question – if rage wasn’t the operative emotion in the Chris Watts case, what was?

What was it?

I don’t want to argue that zero anger or zero frustration was at issue here. There had to have been. Murder itself is a violent, aggressive act. But we’re trying to make the case for some other emotion – far more significant than anger – being the operative feeling in Watts’ murderous and mendacious heart.

What was it?

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