Hello, I've been lurking since the start of this horrific case began, and have been reading all of your ideas & theories. I thought I'd share a few of my own since we will likely be finding out more soon in the upcoming week.
1. Chapter 7 Bankruptcy wipes away all debt, with the exception of student debt. The debt is completely discharged, so the Watts would have been literally getting a financial "fresh start" after 2015. This is different than a Chapter 13, in which payments are made to settle debts, wages are garnished, etc. So, with CW's company car (his truck) and SW's Thrive Lexus, they had no car payments, no debt (with the exception of student loans), and no mortgage (see below). I think they would have been doing fine by 2016 & beyond, although I do believe her SM posts were about promotion/sales and should be taken with a grain of salt. My point is, I think this crime is less about finances than what might be initially implied when you see they declared bankruptcy 3 years ago, although I do believe the pressures of appearances (and the financial stress that entails) definitely plays into this heinous crime.
2. When declaring Chapter 7 protection, they would've had the option to include the house in the filing or not. If they did not, they could live there without making mortgage payments for years. I have seen this happen. They live there for free until the bank forecloses, which can take years. HOA dues are tied up in escrow (or a lien can be put on the house so the HOA is paid upon sale of the house); either way, the bank will have to pay the HOA any unpaid dues upon foreclosure/sale. If the Watts knew that they were forfeiting the house and the HOA dues were tied up in that, they would not pay them. They had an upcoming court date on August 24th with their HOA, so it's more than likely they were being sued for unpaid dues, which would be paid upon foreclosure (HOA probably did not know this yet).
3. I think the fact that SW and the children went to visit her family in NC for 6 weeks very strange and a huge indication here that the couple was separated. I know that she did not portray it this way on SM, but perhaps a final decision regarding their relationship status had not yet been made. I do think this was something like a trial separation, and I think this his a major factor in CW's later actions. I believe that SW returned to CO because of the aforementioned upcoming court date with her HOA. She had to appear in court in CO, and her business trip the weekend before was in AZ, both of which required her to return from NC. I believe her friend knew SW & CW were separated, and SW was planning on staying with her friend after she picked the girls up from their weekend with their dad. CW basically states that they were going to be staying with a friend in his interview. SW was probably dreading going back and confided in her friend.
4. My guess is that SW's friend was to pick here up for her OB appt and either watch the girls at the doctor's office or watch the girls at home while SW went to the doctor. That's how she knew SW missed her appointment. I think she also knew SW was supposed to collect her things and the girls and she were to come stay with her, so alarm bells went off when they "disappeared" right before doing this.
5. I think for the most part, CW was a loving husband and father. Was he as great as SW portrayed on SM? Probably not. Obviously there were problems in the marriage, though I won't assume what those problems were at this point. Anyone who could ultimately do what he did has-at the very least- a personality disorder, all the way to a full-blown sociopathic mental illness. However, I think SW had no qualms about having their children stay with him for a weekend while she went on her business trip, especially since he hadn't seen them in weeks.
6. I don't think he planned it days in advance, but I do think he had the intent to murder his family before he began the act. To me, even if he isn't the most intelligent of men, certain details would have been planned better had he thought about it a bit more. I think he was stewing while she was on her business trip, thinking, "You've had my girls away from me for over a month, I need them here with me, I can't let you do this to me again." He mentions this feeling in his interviews in a roundabout way, stating that he couldn't stand to be alone in the house, he "needed" to have the girls there with him, telling them to eat their dinner, watching TV snuggled up on their couches, etc. It's interesting when you think that he's been alone without those things for weeks and weeks. It's not like that night he's referencing was the first time he'd been without them in days. So he's telling us, I could't bare that. In his mind, this crime was about love. He loved them too much to lose them again. F-d up, I know. It's hard to comprehend why someone would murder their own innocent children. But: they were about to be foreclosed on (my assumption), she was planning on leaving and taking their children (perhaps permanently, but at least for a while as she'd already been gone 6 weeks and was planning to go to a friend's that day), and (in his mind), he was going to lose everything because of her. So, he had to keep that from happening, in one fatal act of control. He loved them too much to lose them again.
7. I tend to think he killed the girls first, then killed his wife. I think he was having this emotional reckoning while she was away on her trip, and killed the girls to keep them from being taken away by SW upon her return. I think their "emotional conversation" was him wanting her to know that she'd lost--not him. He let her know what he'd done, then killed her.
His intent was to put all 3 bodies in the oil wells, which he was extremely familiar with. His job was to check those wells as an operator for Anadarko. More than likely, he knew what ones would be best/most obscure/less used. I think he had no trouble lifting his babies up into the tanks, and he had thought he could get Shannon in as well. At the last minute he realized her dead weight was much harder to hoist up and in than he had thought, so he panicked and quickly buried her in a shallow grave nearby with the intention of getting her into a well when better prepared/more time.
I definitely think he panicked and acted hastily, at least with SW's murder. I think he expected her to return at 11 PM, but she did not come home until 3 hours later. They had a confrontation, she put up a fight (as evidenced by his scratches/bites), and he was left with very little time to dispose of the body/bodies. Add to that her friend showing up at lunchtime, and like many of you have surmised, he had no time to return home and "set the scene."
Like many of you, the most disturbing thing to me about this crime is how such a seemingly normal man could commit such horrendous crimes, and show zero emotion about what he had done.
