Now you don’t see me. Now you do. Through the excellent and seamless bodycam video of Officer Coonrod – the first responder – entering the home with Chris Watts, we’re provided with our best first look at the crime scene just after 14:00 on August 13th.

Watts leads a small retinue reluctantly in his home. He isn’t quite done with tying the loose ends of his crime scene, and he didn’t expect the cops to be inside this soon. Even so he’s had the time before departing to work, and about 1 minute before letting them into the door, to do most of the heavy lifting. Most, but not all.

The handbag was one of the things Watts didn’t get around to dealing with.

On Officer Coonrod’s first flyby through the crime scene, Watts leads him, Nickole and Nicolas straight to the kitchen, wheels around and scoots off to the basement [to let Deeter out].

The first time I watched this footage I was looking out for Deeter, the suitcase, the basement, the setup of the windows and the carpet at the base of the stairs. What I missed was the trash can in the kitchen and – yes – the handbag.

On Coonrod’s first entry into the kitchen it’s not there.

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But when Detective Baumhower and Officer Matthew James arrive, the handbag has miraculously floated to the island in the kitchen [apparently from Shan’ann’s study], and the counter itself has sprouted a theme of its own – a red and yellow flower in a vase, a red water jug, a jar of pickles and the handbag.

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The book from Amazon is subsequyently fished out the trash, and the sheets and pillow cases pulled out as well.

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The busy kitchen counter reminds me, frankly, of the kitchen counter in the Ramsey home, which also saw objects coming and going during the course of “kidnapping phase”. The devil is in the detail.

Credit goes to TCRS commenter JC for picking this up.