CO - Shanann Watts (34), Celeste"Cece" (3) and Bella (4), Frederick, 13 Aug 2018 *Arrest* #16

[Thepoet]

Just want to vent. I belong to a couple of “groups” and notice increasing negative rhetoric about SW.
I am not so naive to think that it’s impossible for a wife to kill her children out of rage at their philandering husband who now wants a separation.
But in this case, for this woman to kill her children while being pregnant, would essentially mean, she would never have a relationship with that baby as well.
I just cannot see that much rage overtaking her to kill not just one child but two. Whether by suffocation or strangling which is what CW claims.
She does not appear suicidal to me at all either.
If she was that ferociously enraged, why not attack him ?
My point is that I suspect I am witnessing the beginnings of a CW fan club. Reminds me of the JA case.
Yes, everyone deserves a fair trial....but common sense should not be thrown out the window.

Definition of rage Merriam Webster;
1 a : violent and uncontrolled anger
b : a fit of violent wrath
c archaic : insanity
I believe that flying into a rage would, most often, involve blows with hands, feet or a blunt object. Or a sharp object or gun. Strangulation is personal and used for power and/or control and is often used in "domestic abuse". Don't mothers more often smother their children? Or drown them, like Andrea Yates?

I think CW is a classic case of "projection"! He accused SW of doing, what he had, in fact, done! That is classical sociopath behavior, by the way!

 

[Ronso]

More on hair banding-

"Although it has been generally accepted within the forensic hair community that decompositional changes in the form of an identifiable banding pattern can occur in the root area of hairs after death, little detailed information with regard to this phenomenon is known (e.g., rates at which this occurs and conditions that cause this banding). Hairs were collected daily from bodies placed in water, an air‐conditioned environment, an enclosed vehicle, on the surface of the ground, and buried at the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center. The hairs were examined microscopically and the level of change documented for each environment. The onset of the banding was observed to have been delayed in water, air‐conditioning, and cold weather and was hastened by warm weather and within the vehicle. This study provides validation that decomposition does produce varying effects on hair at the proximal portion of a hair root, including a dark band."

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2012.02271.x

So, yes, rate of decomp can be shown with hair banding. I'm not sure how far it's come since this study. However, safe to say it's more advanced now since it was used in the CA case since years have passed.

 

[MerryB]

LEO probably knew CW was guilty before he did his "15 Minutes of Fame" press release. It was just more icing on the cake.

The complete lack of planning and disorganization makes me think that this happened, out of control, and it just kept spinning. So he decides to just carry on like nothing happened and go to work, what is done is done.

SBM. Agree!!

 

[Layla123]

That's what I'm thinking. The defense has two options. One is to pose an affirmative defense, that is an alternative to what happened. The other is to just poke holes in the state's case. Which I don't think they can do. They're going to run with an affirmative defense, or at least preparing to do such.

And if they were lucky enough to find any of SW’s DNA on the children’s necks they would use it to create reasonable doubt.

 

[x_files]

Notice the change in appearance and speech in Chris Watts,from this video and the subject of his presentation.Yikes This was back in 2012.

Almost completely unrecognizable and his accent disappeared in the newest videos.

 

[MyBelle]

One thing I can say I believe about him is that he wouldn't falsify his findings in Court. I think based on the story told, he is hoping to verify if C.W. story is true. He will reconstruct the crime as best he can. And if no evidence is found to support it, he won’t be making it up. As far as meds and violence we don’t know what if anything C.W. has been taking.

That's my take on it as well.

 

[nwmouse]

It is almost as if he was pointing the finger at himself with all the clues he left behind.

1. He made his alibi the same place the bodies were found
2. The sheet he left behind
3. The sheet and pillow cases in the kitchen garbage
4. Numerous bizarro media interviews
5. SW's cell phone, keys, and car found at the house
6. If he was aware of the neighbor's security cam, he didn't apparently think through as it would also record that SW and the girls never left the house that day
7. SW's shallow grave that was detected by a drone

That's probably for starts, and I may have missed something. Perhaps he ran out of time because of the flight delay and N alerting police, or could it be that he is just plain stupid?

ETA: #7

It will be interesting to know if he has been tested for drugs and to find out what was in his system.

 

[Layla123]

I think he landed on that, too. Problem is, there doesn't appear to be a gate in the back yard so would have required pregnant SW and her two little girls to scale a six foot tall privacy fence, or for a kidnapper to force them to scale the fence. JMO.

He said during the interview there was a road back there. He did suggest that that’s how they left.

 

[borndem]

She was too heavy to carry up the ladder?

That was my thought, too. If he put the girls in the tank first (what a horror, having to actually put this into written words), maybe he was tired, and he may not have been able to haul her up there quickly. Maybe he tried, couldn't do it, so he halfway buried her, with the intent to come back and finish that night.

 

[MerryB]

A sound murder plan might look like this (If CW premeditated prior to SW arriving from AZ trip):

-Contruct a believable storyline that SW left voluntarily, taking the girls, without his consent.
-Write (type in this case) a good bye note 'written' by SW.
-Think carefully about how he will carry the bodies out of the house. Investigate possible cameras in the neighborhood, possible witness. Turn off cell phone. Don't use company truck (GPS).
-Procure a good burial site. For heaven's sake, don't ditch them at a place that has a strong ties to him. However, if decided upon oil tanks, make sure all three will fit and that he is able to carry out the task.
-Have a good plan to stage the scene. A lot of SW's and children's items should be gone. SW's car gone. Maybe leave her car at an airport parking lot, train station, whatever.
-There would be so much more to do, but the above is only some I thought of for now.

Well, he didn't do any of those above. Doesn't matter if SW's plane was on time or delayed. Also doesn't matter if NU showed up too early for him or not showed up. CW didn't do any of the above and those tasks take time to accomplish.

IMO, he did think about how good it would be if his family didn't exist anymore for some time. Then something happened when SW arrived home from AZ. Then he decided to kill all his family. Still premeditation. Just an unprepared one.

Agree that if this was planned, CW don’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain, as my grandmother would’ve said.
It’s just too sloppy for even the most daft of murderers.

 

[Thepoet]

And if they were lucky enough to find any of SW’s DNA on the children’s necks they would use it to create reasonable doubt.

IMHO What he did to the children, and admitted doing, will throw "reasonable doubt" way out the window!

 

[Inthedetails]

At first I thought CW was a psychopath. I think I gave him too much credit. JMO.

My thoughts exactly. I think he's passive-aggressive, and the murder was done as an avoidance mechanism, along with seething anger against SW and/or the life she created for them. Getting caught seems like the natural progression in this case. It certainly didn't take much to catch him.

Doesn't really matter how I label him, but I don't think he has the steely interior to be a narc or psycho/sociopath. Instead, I think he's weak.

It's as if this is a case of delayed "failure to launch" that lead to rage and frustration rather than a calculated case of selfishness.

jmo

 

[Rayleengale]

Agree that if this was planned, CW don’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain, as my grandmother would’ve said.
It’s just too sloppy for even the most daft of murderers.

But only because SW’s friend raised the alarm much sooner than anticipated. It’s possible this case might have been much more difficult for LE the longer it was pursued as a missing persons case. SW’s friend nipped that in the bud!

 

[MerryB]

Possibly. She was petite though and he looked to be pretty strong. The photos I saw showed stairs, not a ladder. I would expect him to have no problem with stairs.

There were 20+ stairs & carrying dead weight is much different than carrying your bride over the threshold IMO.

 

[Jennifer17]

And if they were lucky enough to find any of SW’s DNA on the children’s necks they would use it to create reasonable doubt.

But wouldn't a mother's DNA be all over the children, their clothing and their bedding?

 

[searchinGirl]

That's my take on it as well.

The Denver Crime Lab has been making considerable strides lately that I’ve been reading about. All areas of criminology and forensic science. Particularly in the development of DNA sciences. Former DA Mitch Morrissey and Crime Lab Director Gregg LaBerge were instrumental in building a new State of the Art Crime Lab as well as software to support the use of Familial DNA Searching, a process that has recently resulted in the charging of a suspect for the 1984 Bennett Family murders.

 

[MerryB]

From following many trials here and seeing such, of course it would be. Unless his father is a lawyer or a minister or somebody protected by law. Imho

@Gitana?

His father is not any of those things.

 

[Jennifer17]

There were 20+ stairs & carrying dead weight is much different than carrying your bride over the threshold IMO.

I agree, and although she wasn't overweight, she appeared to me to have quite a large frame.

 

[Layla123]

IMHO What he did to the children, and admitted doing, will throw "reasonable doubt" way out the window!

Poor defense, huh? Don’t have much to work with, do they? I’m of the opinion I don’t care if they can’t prove who murdered the children. What he did with them afterwards crosses every line of human decency. He should get life in prison just for that. Even if she did murder the children he is responsible for what he did after, and he should pay.

 

[Layla123]

But wouldn't a mother's DNA be all over the children, their clothing and their bedding?

Of course, but the Defense has to work with what they’re given, and they didn’t get much.