CO - Shanann Watts (34), Celeste"Cece" (3) and Bella (4), Frederick, 13 Aug 2018 *Arrest* #9

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MeLlamaLikey said:
And that is fair. I don’t claim to be some sort of spokesperson. All I am trying to do is bring a theory into light.

I’m learning so much as I catch up. My mind isn’t closed or otherwise made up. I want that to be clear.
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I don't think any of us had made up our mind before we started looking at things. And I think when it's a relative, we not only start out with the assumption that the person had nothing to do with the disappearance/death, we also have to fight an emotional sense that we don't want a relative/loved one to be responsible...especially when there are dead children.
 
MeLlamaLikey said:
Here is where I’m at. I’m so sorry for the length, but I’m wordy by nature. I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not your typical true crime follower in the sense that I almost always start off with the “innocent until proven guilty” mentality, and operate from that space when evaluating a case. I would annoy most people in that some of the most notoriously “so guilty” high profile cases? I probably believe the defendant is innocent of what they were charged with.. or with the prosecutions version, anyway. I work in legal defense, so this is actually a positive attribute IMO to my clients, but I digress. What has me shook about this case is, for all intents and purposes, even *I* am struggling here to find my defense for CW. I think that is what adds so much to my obsession with it all, but the more I think about it—and try to think from all sides as is healthy—this is what I have as far as speculation if CW has any truth to his confession (which I know is very very UO here)..

He was a victim of emotional or psychological dv by SW. Not in a cold calculated way, but in that she was an alpha female type and he was more the meek and patient kind. My husband and I have the same dynamic. I come off to the world as a go-getter, and he is DEFINITELY laid back. This gives him patience I don’t have, and he is an amazing father. He also puts up with my crap. I am not proud of myself to admit it, but I think it is relevant and important to admit in this context, that I can be ruthless when we are fighting and I’m not getting the reaction out of him that I think a person should have when someone is literally trying to push every button they know how to in order to elicit an emotional reaction to show there’s some sort of care involved. If I’m going to be miserable, you are too. I know this sounds awful, but I’m just trying to paint a picture. My husband is the most doting and amazing father.. he has a gift with our kids that I am in awe of. They are the luckiest girls in the world (very very close in age to SW’s girls which is why this hits home so hard) to have him as a balance. I could never imagine killing them in general—let alone to spite him—so this is where the whole story he tells loses me, BUT.. let’s just say she was still the abusive spouse she admits she has been in the past (and holy woah to admitting that!). The emasculation it is going to cause an already fragile ego is real. Just like women, men can be emotionally and physically abused. I am not saying she was a continuous abuser, but she has herself admitted to being abusive (if I’m misremembering the video here, please correct me). Their marriage certainly comes off as she wears the pants, and he follows her lead. Perhaps the AP gave him a reason to believe that all of her taunts and ruthless threats/comments in an argument (while used to cause pain in the moment, and not as an overall abusive pattern .. so like just her way of “fighting dirty”) weren’t inherently true. Kind of like a kid who is taught by their parent that they are ugly, dumb, worthless, etc by a parent and then eventually snaps as they gain physical strength and autonomy. Or like there’s no chance anyone could be better than them. We don’t know their “fighting style” but every couple has one. I’ll admit I can be very mean if I feel like that dig will get a rise out of my otherwise even keeled husband. Why? Because to me, based on how I was raised, emotional responses indicate the person cares.

Moving along. If I want to play defense theorist, I can only come up with that his story is true..and here is why. She came back confident in herself. He was simultaneously confident in himself with his AP and her new affection/affirmations. He’d confided in AP about the emotional knock downs that had just worn on him, and AP (with no malice other than to promote their relationship promoting) shot down SW’s comments and told him how he didn’t deserve it. Maybe even told him she was awful and he needn’t deal with it anymore. This would affirm his internal belief that being a nice guy doesn’t mean you have to be treated like crap when your wife is mad at you. He gets confident enough to confront her. She gets home late. The late thing is only important due to the fact that tiredness is a marital counselor’s top rec as the worst time to have a heated convo. Whether the topic was the affair or the separation is irrelevant. Something was discussed that caused them to fall into their argument pattern. She gets verbally abusive, and he’s done. She escalates because she’s not getting the reaction she’s hoping for. She strangles Bella, hoping he’d see it and come and react. He doesn’t bc he’s downstairs. She panicks. One is gone, and the other either is still awake or he will DEFINITELY see this one. He sees someting whether over the monitor or when coming into the room. At this point, both parties are more entrenched in their dysfunctional pattern of marital conflict than they are in recognizing their children need help. She’s just actually “gone there” and came through on a threat. She’s screaming at him how worthless he is, how she’s going to tell everyone that he killed them, how she’s going to ruin him, how that b**** (AP) is not going to mother her kids (hence ripped off raged sheets). He snaps because he believes her and because the girls appear to be dead. After taking out years of pent up emotional abuse out on his abuser, he “comes to” and panicks. There’s no manual for this. He has to be at work. It’s another day. Can’t call out for killing your wife. She won’t ruin him if he has any say in it. He’s got to “show her” she’s wrong and rise above it all. So he puts together the sloppiest of plans we’ve ever seen to clean up after a murder, and then goes into straight up denial.

I don’t believe he is innocent here. I don’t necessarily believe Shanann was a consistently emotionally abusive spouse. BUT she has admitted to being abusive in the past (which says a lot considering most abusers would never admit it, so likely her account is a glossed over version) and you truly don’t know what happens behind closed doors. I think, for me, it’s a combo of my defense law brain as well as my intimate knowledge of just how nasty we can actually be with our words and attempts to poke buttons on otherwise hard to make react people. Sometimes though, they react. That is, IMOO, what happened here. She pushed enough buttons and he reacted. The dumping of the girls in those wells was unforgivable and incomprehensible, but I think it was out of fear of her taunts coming true vs him sitting there with an excel spreadsheet for months planning this out.

I also know that premeditation can be formed in an instant. So let’s say my theory (or something similar) sticks.. these murders were still premeditated by the sheer fact that he had time between supposedly seeing her from a completely different room, running upstairs, entering the room, and then the time it would take to render her unconscious. From a legal standpoint, him killing her was “planned” .. it just, IMOO, was not premeditated in the cold calculated way people who aren’t familiar with legal jargon tend to think it was. I think this was a tragedy all around, and for all involved. I also think that in working in law, I’m exposed much more to the very very real existence of woman on man domestic violence. It is a thing. A very underreported thing due to stigma, but it does exist. I can’t help but wonder if the tables were turned if there’d be a different reaction from everyone? Again, NOT defending him.. just putting additional thoughts out there for everyone to contemplate.

I just want to say that the above was a combo of speculation, MOO, and an attempt to try and find some sort of logical pattern in what has been the most shaken to my core cases I’ve ever come across. I think it makes for useful discussion if people can think logically for a second while we continue to await more facts. Lord knows that our false conviction rate reflects the lack of that in our system.
Click to expand...
I appreciate the time you took to post your thoughts. My main concern and cause for confusion is your premise that SW 'admitted to being abusive'. To my knowledge, she spoke of thwarting his initial romantic advances, but that is in no way abusive! Am I missing something here??
 
My speculation on her pushing CW away in the beginning is that the possibility always stands that her illness was one of the reasons her first marriage didn't work out. Not everyone sticks around for a sick spouse. She could've been pushing CW away because she didn't wanna go through getting involved with someone who would dump her at the first flare up.
 
MeLlamaLikey said:
Here is where I’m at. I’m so sorry for the length, but I’m wordy by nature. I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not your typical true crime follower in the sense that I almost always start off with the “innocent until proven guilty” mentality, and operate from that space when evaluating a case. I would annoy most people in that some of the most notoriously “so guilty” high profile cases? I probably believe the defendant is innocent of what they were charged with.. or with the prosecutions version, anyway. I work in legal defense, so this is actually a positive attribute IMO to my clients, but I digress. What has me shook about this case is, for all intents and purposes, even *I* am struggling here to find my defense for CW. I think that is what adds so much to my obsession with it all, but the more I think about it—and try to think from all sides as is healthy—this is what I have as far as speculation if CW has any truth to his confession (which I know is very very UO here)..

He was a victim of emotional or psychological dv by SW. Not in a cold calculated way, but in that she was an alpha female type and he was more the meek and patient kind. My husband and I have the same dynamic. I come off to the world as a go-getter, and he is DEFINITELY laid back. This gives him patience I don’t have, and he is an amazing father. He also puts up with my crap. I am not proud of myself to admit it, but I think it is relevant and important to admit in this context, that I can be ruthless when we are fighting and I’m not getting the reaction out of him that I think a person should have when someone is literally trying to push every button they know how to in order to elicit an emotional reaction to show there’s some sort of care involved. If I’m going to be miserable, you are too. I know this sounds awful, but I’m just trying to paint a picture. My husband is the most doting and amazing father.. he has a gift with our kids that I am in awe of. They are the luckiest girls in the world (very very close in age to SW’s girls which is why this hits home so hard) to have him as a balance. I could never imagine killing them in general—let alone to spite him—so this is where the whole story he tells loses me, BUT.. let’s just say she was still the abusive spouse she admits she has been in the past (and holy woah to admitting that!). The emasculation it is going to cause an already fragile ego is real. Just like women, men can be emotionally and physically abused. I am not saying she was a continuous abuser, but she has herself admitted to being abusive (if I’m misremembering the video here, please correct me). Their marriage certainly comes off as she wears the pants, and he follows her lead. Perhaps the AP gave him a reason to believe that all of her taunts and ruthless threats/comments in an argument (while used to cause pain in the moment, and not as an overall abusive pattern .. so like just her way of “fighting dirty”) weren’t inherently true. Kind of like a kid who is taught by their parent that they are ugly, dumb, worthless, etc by a parent and then eventually snaps as they gain physical strength and autonomy. Or like there’s no chance anyone could be better than them. We don’t know their “fighting style” but every couple has one. I’ll admit I can be very mean if I feel like that dig will get a rise out of my otherwise even keeled husband. Why? Because to me, based on how I was raised, emotional responses indicate the person cares.

Moving along. If I want to play defense theorist, I can only come up with that his story is true..and here is why. She came back confident in herself. He was simultaneously confident in himself with his AP and her new affection/affirmations. He’d confided in AP about the emotional knock downs that had just worn on him, and AP (with no malice other than to promote their relationship promoting) shot down SW’s comments and told him how he didn’t deserve it. Maybe even told him she was awful and he needn’t deal with it anymore. This would affirm his internal belief that being a nice guy doesn’t mean you have to be treated like crap when your wife is mad at you. He gets confident enough to confront her. She gets home late. The late thing is only important due to the fact that tiredness is a marital counselor’s top rec as the worst time to have a heated convo. Whether the topic was the affair or the separation is irrelevant. Something was discussed that caused them to fall into their argument pattern. She gets verbally abusive, and he’s done. She escalates because she’s not getting the reaction she’s hoping for. She strangles Bella, hoping he’d see it and come and react. He doesn’t bc he’s downstairs. She panicks. One is gone, and the other either is still awake or he will DEFINITELY see this one. He sees someting whether over the monitor or when coming into the room. At this point, both parties are more entrenched in their dysfunctional pattern of marital conflict than they are in recognizing their children need help. She’s just actually “gone there” and came through on a threat. She’s screaming at him how worthless he is, how she’s going to tell everyone that he killed them, how she’s going to ruin him, how that b**** (AP) is not going to mother her kids (hence ripped off raged sheets). He snaps because he believes her and because the girls appear to be dead. After taking out years of pent up emotional abuse out on his abuser, he “comes to” and panicks. There’s no manual for this. He has to be at work. It’s another day. Can’t call out for killing your wife. She won’t ruin him if he has any say in it. He’s got to “show her” she’s wrong and rise above it all. So he puts together the sloppiest of plans we’ve ever seen to clean up after a murder, and then goes into straight up denial.

I don’t believe he is innocent here. I don’t necessarily believe Shanann was a consistently emotionally abusive spouse. BUT she has admitted to being abusive in the past (which says a lot considering most abusers would never admit it, so likely her account is a glossed over version) and you truly don’t know what happens behind closed doors. I think, for me, it’s a combo of my defense law brain as well as my intimate knowledge of just how nasty we can actually be with our words and attempts to poke buttons on otherwise hard to make react people. Sometimes though, they react. That is, IMOO, what happened here. She pushed enough buttons and he reacted. The dumping of the girls in those wells was unforgivable and incomprehensible, but I think it was out of fear of her taunts coming true vs him sitting there with an excel spreadsheet for months planning this out.

I also know that premeditation can be formed in an instant. So let’s say my theory (or something similar) sticks.. these murders were still premeditated by the sheer fact that he had time between supposedly seeing her from a completely different room, running upstairs, entering the room, and then the time it would take to render her unconscious. From a legal standpoint, him killing her was “planned” .. it just, IMOO, was not premeditated in the cold calculated way people who aren’t familiar with legal jargon tend to think it was. I think this was a tragedy all around, and for all involved. I also think that in working in law, I’m exposed much more to the very very real existence of woman on man domestic violence. It is a thing. A very underreported thing due to stigma, but it does exist. I can’t help but wonder if the tables were turned if there’d be a different reaction from everyone? Again, NOT defending him.. just putting additional thoughts out there for everyone to contemplate.

I just want to say that the above was a combo of speculation, MOO, and an attempt to try and find some sort of logical pattern in what has been the most shaken to my core cases I’ve ever come across. I think it makes for useful discussion if people can think logically for a second while we continue to await more facts. Lord knows that our false conviction rate reflects the lack of that in our system.
Click to expand...

So, to clarify, you believe that she strangled the babies to get him to react? She did it to get a rise out of him? A loving, doting, pregnant young mother, strangled her 4 yr old to get a reaction from her cheating husband?

I think you lost me there...
 
MerryB said:
@cottonweaver @CFlo
Did y’all get your question answered about WS TOS? I did not see your posts until the thread was shut down, so I could not respond.
It is my understanding that we can talk about what you saw on SW’s SM but unfortunately can’t post screen shots.
From rules:
  • Links may be used to direct members to posts made by a victim or a suspect.
  • Copying and pasting, or taking screen caps, directly from these pages is not allowed.
  • Paraphrasing is okay.
Click to expand...
Hiya Merry B,
I did but how you outlined it here makes it crystal clear. I took a ss to refer make to for ease should I get confuzzled. Thanks so much for taking to time to help. Mwah
 
Ronso said:
My speculation on her pushing CW away in the beginning is that the possibility always stands that her illness was one of the reasons her first marriage didn't work out. Not everyone sticks around for a sick spouse. She could've been pushing CW away because she didn't wanna go through getting involved with someone who would dump her at the first flare up.
Click to expand...
That's how I read it too. She tried to turn him down, turn him away, but he kept after her and in the end she was glad he didn't give up on her. I don't know if she did it to protect herself, but you are absolutely right many people put up a wall to keep people out to keep from being hurt.
 
Pi Thoughts said:
In relation to why Shanann had a Drs appointment I found this interview with her friend. It was to hear the babies heartbeat for the 1st time. This is such a sad, sad case.

Ms Atkinson was the one who called police when she didn't hear from Shanann the day after their business trip, when she was meant to go to a doctor to hear the heartbeat of her unborn child for the first time. She said she knew something was "seriously wrong."

Murdered mum feared hubby was cheating: friend
Click to expand...

This has to be an appeal at emotions. If she was under the care of a high risk doctor; zero chance she was hearing the HB for the first time at this appt. I heard and saw mine with both pregnancies at 6wks. Those were via my RE, but my MFM consult was at 12 weeks (where I was offered the NIPT, which she presumably had to know the sex this early).

With a high risk pregnancy, I’d expect she’d not only heard his HB multiple times, but had seen him on u/s more than once, as well. <modsnip>
 
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MeLlamaLikey said:
This has to be an appeal at emotions. If she was under the care of a high risk doctor; zero chance she was hearing the HB for the first time at this appt. I heard and saw mine with both pregnancies at 6wks. Those were via my RE, but my MFM consult was at 12 weeks (where I was offered the NIPT, which she presumably had to know the sex this early).

With a high risk pregnancy, I’d expect she’d not only heard his HB multiple times, but had seen him on u/s more than once, as well.<modsnip>
Click to expand...
I agree with this. How could they know the gender without having heard the heartbeat? That doesn't sound right.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ronso said:
My speculation on her pushing CW away in the beginning is that the possibility always stands that her illness was one of the reasons her first marriage didn't work out. Not everyone sticks around for a sick spouse. She could've been pushing CW away because she didn't wanna go through getting involved with someone who would dump her at the first flare up.
Click to expand...

What do we know about her 1st marriage to Mr. King? Anything?
 
ldbd said:
You got to be joking DAdocate. You say you can't understand why NU thought it was her business to call the police. Really? Sorry that NU called the police before CW could get back to the home and tidy up. <modsnip>
Click to expand...
Honestly I think she decided to call the police once she talked to CW on the phone and he told her they had separated and SW had left. If that didn't set off red flags on top of everything else then I can't imagine what would.
 
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