GUILTY CO - Shanann Watts (34), Celeste"Cece" (3) and Bella (4), Frederick, 13 Aug 2018 *CW LWOP* #59

[celticthyme]

Shanann Watts Pleaded with Husband to Stop 'Living the Bachelor Life' Weeks Before He Killed Her
“lf you are done, don’t love me, don’t want to work this out, not happy anymore and only staying because of kids, I NEED you to tell me,” she wrote.

“l just don’t get it. You don’t fall out of love in 5 weeks.” Minutes later she typed out, “How can you sleep? Our marriage is crumbling in front of us and you can sleep.”

Rourke said in court that in the weeks prior to her death, Shanann — who was 15 weeks pregnant — focused on saving their crumbling relationship, giving Chris books on self-help and relationship counseling. But Chris had already mentally checked out of the marriage and ignored them, said Rourke, even throwing one of the books “in the garbage.”

Rourke said at Chris’ sentencing, “While Shanann texted the defendant over and over again in the days and weeks leading up to her death attempting to save her marriage, the defendant secreted pictures of his girlfriend into his phone and searched and texted her at all hours of the night.”

And while Shanann was caring for her daughters and working at her part-time sales job, Chris spent the time going to bars, restaurants, car museums and sand dunes with his mistress, Nichol Kessinger, as well as “searching the internet for secluded vacation spots to take his new love — and researching jewelry,” Rourke said.

I have a woman friend who was an ordained minister. We had been together for a retreat and she was talking about how her husband had been acting withdrawn and different. She also brought up "the young blond floozie from the choir" he'd been hanging around with recently. Well, she got home and I got this hysterical phone call from her about her husband meeting her at the door with his suitcase saying he was leaving and in love and moving in with (floozie). I jumped in and said, "he's not in love, he's in LUST." In my humble opinion, there we have some kind of a difference between the sexes. Definitely MOO

 

[GraceVPrice]

I can't see why that needed confirming.

My only thought was bc CW claimed to Nikole that the baby was not his.

 

[MassGuy]

Please don't crucify me...I am truly curious of what other people made of this statement from SW?
23OO hours: Shanann asked Watts, "Would you stay with me if we didn't have kids?"

In light of the whole situation, that comment was really eerie and gave me pause when I read it. It just seems totally off base from everything else SW texted and I'm really curious as to what she was getting at with that question. Like not having kids is an option at that point? Or do you think she meant - you are only staying with me because we have kids, and

I also really disliked the characterization of her laugh as "creep" and "childlike" - why are they inserted such very obviously subjective opinions into a factual account? To someone else, that laugh might be cute or adorable. MOO

She asked that question because she wanted an answer to something that was bothering her:

“Do you love me anymore?”

She wanted to know if he was only staying around because of the kids, and if he was just going through the motions.

I think it was a completely natural question to ask under the circumstances, and even though it mentioned the kids, it had nothing to do with them.

This was about the health of their relationship, and her effort to figure out what the hell was going on.

As for the “creepy laugh.” I’m not sure. It may have been odd under the circumstances. It did sound like they were taking a bit of a shot at her though.

 

[Tippy Lynn]

I haven't made it through the PDF/Discovery doc so apologies for not seeing this and/or if this has already been discussed - but is it odd that Verizon doesn't list out pictures that are sent/received on the account? The invoice pages are numbered and in order so it doesn't appear as though they are missing. I've only ever used AT & T and T-Mobile, but both list this information within the bill. I just wonder if there's anything of interest that we don't get to see because they aren't listed (we KNOW NK sent pictures to CW).... JMHO/MOO

I noticed that as well. I have Verizon, but I do paperless billing. I can see detailed billing online (all calls, text and picture messaging).

 

[Gardener1850]

Can someone tell me what page the "creepy laugh" comment is on? TIA.

ETA: MassGuy answered me 2096.

 

[whisperOFwings]

I don't think I'll ever recover from reading how CW simply told SW, his 15 week pregnant wife, that they were "not compatible," and he didn't think he wanted the baby. If I didn't know better, I would never believe this was a conversation between a husband and wife together for 8 years. Unbelievable... (Discovery pg. 97).

Yes it's truly a kick to the gut and would have been an absolute awakening jolt to her psyche. I think that's probably why she was vomiting all night, not because of what she ate or sudden onset of pregnancy sickness.

She exclaimed 'I don't know him', just think about those words, that was her truth - her friend was so alarmed by that she asked 'what do you mean?' Her friend was momentarily scared and Shanann was terrified. That was THE moment she should have paid attention. She saw it, her body had a physical reaction to it, he showed her that he was not at all the man she thought she knew. Appropriate compassion and guilt and empathy for her was absent and in its place was brutal indifference and utterly cold heartless abandonment. He showed her he was dangerous to her emotional well-being. It's a step up for her to think she was in physical danger, but someone who can cast you adrift just like that doesn't deserve the chance to show you whether they are capable of physically harming you. He had already stuck the knife in her heart, the center that joined them.

It's natural IMO to want to push away such world shattering knowledge, I call it higher wisdom, and to want so badly to get back to the safety of the old world one inhabited, but if only she had done what she said she felt like doing - stayed in NC. I think there is a valuable lesson in this. Not a lesson in avoiding a murdering sociopath but in understanding when we are working against our higher wisdom. She saw the old Chris was just an illusion and while it was painful and shocking to accept that reality she also was terrified by what she had seen and she begged him to make her feel safe. That is the will kicking back against or interfering with the body's truth.

This just makes my heart ache so bad.
Omg, he was just so cruel to her, way before he killed her. Omg!
Great post Tortoise, but I'm crying.

 

[MassGuy]

Can someone tell me what page the "creepy laugh" comment is on? TIA.

2096

 

[daisy6441]

I found that interesting too. I wonder though was he lying to investigators, can’t imagine an angle but he is a liar maybe didn’t need angle, or did he lie to Shanann while they dated to make her jealous. Doesn’t matter really, but curious, I think.

Maybe he didn't want to look like a loser who never had other girlfriends?

 

[Tippy Lynn]

Can someone tell me what page the "creepy laugh" comment is on? TIA.

PDF page 1901, Discovery page 2096

 

[wyldcynic]

She asked that question because she wanted an answer to something that was bothering her:

“Do you love me anymore.”

She wanted to know if he was only staying around because of the kids, and if he was just going through the motions.

I think it was a completely natural question to ask under the circumstances, and even though it mentioned the kids, it had nothing to do with them.

This was about the health of their relationship, and her effort to figure out what the hell was going on.

As for the “creepy laugh.” I’m not sure. It may have been odd under the circumstances. It did sound like they were taking a bit of a shot at her though.

It makes sense to me...I actually didn't intend to post that first part (now edited) because I kind of thought it through and came to that conclusion on my own (and didn't want to sound like I was victim blaming). I think the wording just took me aback on the first read.

 

[Gardener1850]

2096

Thanks. I guess I need to hear the voicemail to understand that line.

 

[MassGuy]

Thanks. I guess I need to hear the voicemail to understand that line.

Hopefully we will! I keep checking for news of a release.

 

[BingoBongo]

I see a lot of people talking about Chris being a narcissist, and I agree. He is likely a narcissistic sociopath. Disclaimer: I’ve never met him and while I’ve worked as a professional for people with abnormal psychology, behaviors, mental health, and personality disorders for many years, I can no way diagnose ANYONE, let alone someone I’ve never met.

Above snipped by me for brevity.

This! In addition, there are some neuroscience studies that have been done re the make up of the narcissists brain and differences in the "insular cortex" portion of the brain. "The insulae are believed to be involved in consciousness, and play a role in diverse functions usually linked to emotion or the regulation of the body's homeostasis. These functions include compassion and empathy, perception, motor control, self-awarness, cognitive functioning, and interpersonal experience. In relation to these, it is involved in psychopathology."

Currently, narcissism is believed to be part nature, but mostly nurture.

Long, but great article describing NPD and possible brain differences:

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Narcissism | Insight Medical Publishing

 

[BingoBongo]

This is just scary! And it also sounds like Scott Peterson. So are sociopaths lower functioning individuals and psychopaths higher functioning than the rest of us? I have known narcissists but how does one spot a sociopath? Or is that possible?

Psychopath vs. Sociopath: What’s the Difference? | HealthyPlace

 

[PommyMommy]

RSABBM: I disagree. Unless we later find out that she was secretly a paid escort/prostitute and her seeing CW was only a business arrangement in her mind, she was having a relationship with him. She was researching wedding dresses. She was telling her friend that she wished he didn't have kids (this indicates to me that she really liked him and was weighing whether the relationship was worth putting up with his having kids from a previous marriage). She thought this was going somewhere. Why would she tell him to work on his marriage to SW? Unless by "work on your marriage" she really meant she told him "work on ending that marriage as quickly as you can"... She is 30 years old, not a horny teen who has never had a relationship and "just couldn't figure out how to stop sleeping with the married man." I don't care how good the sex is-- it is not a drug she couldn't refuse. She made the choice to keep seeing him and for that reason I doubt very much she told CW he should stay married and try to work things out with SW for the sake of his kids. That doesn't square with her texts, her photos she sent him and her talking to him on the phone constantly and seeing him 4-5 nights a week.

Again, I don't think NK had knowledge CW planned to murder his family. I don't think she helped him do it. But she doesn't get a pass on her lies and on knowingly having an affair with a married man with kids. I hope she doesn't do any kind of book deal and I hope she decides to quietly move on with her life and get counseling if she needs it. This could have ended badly for her too had he gotten away with disappearing his first family. I hope she realizes that. That is the only matter on which she has my sympathy-- as she must be horrified. I'm not seeing her in black and white terms only but I don't see her as any kind of hero either. She did cooperate but the DA indicated she had only been "mostly forthcoming".

She did things like refuse to tell the last name of her "house guest" named Jim. Who does that while talking to police in a murder investigation? What else was she hiding? We may never know and I'm not really interested in digging up more dirt on her. On the other hand, she is no paragon of virtue IMO for speaking with the police multiple times and being willing to testify against CW-- what choice did she really have about that anyway? They had evidence of her affair that didn't come from her (An employee contacted police and said he discovered emails between NK and CW on the company server). They could have gotten her phone records with a warrant without her permission. It was all going to be there for the detectives to read. She knew she had to come mostly clean about the affair. Of course she would paint herself in the best light possible. IMO the part about telling CW to work on his marriage was an attempt to salvage her image and nothing more. JMO.

BBM

This reads to me as if they already had Kessinger's phone records before they ever had contact with her.

Pg 640 (Discovery pg 723)

ACTION TAKEN: On 8/15/2018 I, Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Investigative Analyst JILLIAN GANLEY, created a Law Enforcement Support Packet for NICHOL KESSINGER. KESSINGER is the girlfriend of CHRIS WATTS. The support packet was created so CBI Agents, Frederick PD Detectives, and FBI Agents could locate and attempt to interview her.

I researched criminal and public data sources to determine current address of subject, current contact information, employment history and criminal history. I completed searches in CCIC/NCIC, TLO, CLEAR,LUMEN, ZTEXT, CO Courts, Facebook and Instagram. The information found was forwarded to AIC KIRBY LEWIS, FBI ANALYST LIZ DAWSON, and CBI AGENT KEVIN KOBACK and was further disseminated from there.

ATTACHMENTS:
Law Enforcement Support Packet, LPR Search for KESSINGER’S vehicle, KESSINGER’S phone records received from Verizon Wireless on an exigency request.

 

[jayjay54]

RSABBM: I disagree. Unless we later find out that she was secretly a paid escort/prostitute and her seeing CW was only a business arrangement in her mind, she was having a relationship with him. She was researching wedding dresses. She was telling her friend that she wished he didn't have kids (this indicates to me that she really liked him and was weighing whether the relationship was worth putting up with his having kids from a previous marriage). She thought this was going somewhere. Why would she tell him to work on his marriage to SW? Unless by "work on your marriage" she really meant she told him "work on ending that marriage as quickly as you can"... She is 30 years old, not a horny teen who has never had a relationship and "just couldn't figure out how to stop sleeping with the married man." I don't care how good the sex is-- it is not a drug she couldn't refuse. She made the choice to keep seeing him and for that reason I doubt very much she told CW he should stay married and try to work things out with SW for the sake of his kids. That doesn't square with her texts, her photos she sent him and her talking to him on the phone constantly and seeing him 4-5 nights a week.

Again, I don't think NK had knowledge CW planned to murder his family. I don't think she helped him do it. But she doesn't get a pass on her lies and on knowingly having an affair with a married man with kids. I hope she doesn't do any kind of book deal and I hope she decides to quietly move on with her life and get counseling if she needs it. This could have ended badly for her too had he gotten away with disappearing his first family. I hope she realizes that. That is the only matter on which she has my sympathy-- as she must be horrified. I'm not seeing her in black and white terms only but I don't see her as any kind of hero either. She did cooperate but the DA indicated she had only been "mostly forthcoming".

She did things like refuse to tell the last name of her "house guest" named Jim. Who does that while talking to police in a murder investigation? What else was she hiding? We may never know and I'm not really interested in digging up more dirt on her. On the other hand, she is no paragon of virtue IMO for speaking with the police multiple times and being willing to testify against CW-- what choice did she really have about that anyway? They had evidence of her affair that didn't come from her (An employee contacted police and said he discovered emails between NK and CW on the company server). They could have gotten her phone records with a warrant without her permission. It was all going to be there for the detectives to read. She knew she had to come mostly clean about the affair. Of course she would paint herself in the best light possible. IMO the part about telling CW to work on his marriage was an attempt to salvage her image and nothing more. JMO.

I agree. It may be that after Anadarko informed LE of the emails indicating a relationship, they may have informed her of this as a courtesy. This may be what prompted her to come forward.

 

[MassGuy]

BBM

This reads to me as if they already had Kessinger's phone records before they ever had contact with her.

Pg 640 (Discovery pg 723)

ACTION TAKEN: On 8/15/2018 I, Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Investigative Analyst JILLIAN GANLEY, created a Law Enforcement Support Packet for NICHOL KESSINGER. KESSINGER is the girlfriend of CHRIS WATTS. The support packet was created so CBI Agents, Frederick PD Detectives, and FBI Agents could locate and attempt to interview her.

I researched criminal and public data sources to determine current address of subject, current contact information, employment history and criminal history. I completed searches in CCIC/NCIC, TLO, CLEAR,LUMEN, ZTEXT, CO Courts, Facebook and Instagram. The information found was forwarded to AIC KIRBY LEWIS, FBI ANALYST LIZ DAWSON, and CBI AGENT KEVIN KOBACK and was further disseminated from there.

ATTACHMENTS:
Law Enforcement Support Packet, LPR Search for KESSINGER’S vehicle, KESSINGER’S phone records received from Verizon Wireless on an exigency request.

I’m not sure. I think the packet was created before they contacted her, but updated as necessary. Obtaining the phone records, even on exigency, would have taken some period of time.

The fact that the search of her vehicle was listed before the mention of the phone records, indicates that these things weren’t done before initial contact.

They wouldn’t have searched her car before meeting with her, and likewise, probably didn’t have her phone records at this point.

 

[celticthyme]

My sense is that Shanann spent several weeks in NC, trying to get some perspective on a marriage that had been going south. In this couple, I see 2 people who operated on 2 different tracks much of the time. She seemed to be the Alpha in the relationship, setting goals, keeping it all together and presenting an image she thought was important or necessary to portray. She also seemed OCD to me, which is a standard very few can live up to. It creates huge pressure. Lots of concern about image and "keeping up with the Jones." It also seems she was all consumed with this Thrive thing, regardless of the fact that it really did not bring in much $$. But she spent huge amounts of time and energy on this nonproductive endevour. This was a very young couple who wanted instant gratification. This IS MY OPINION, and I'm not victim shaming here, but they each lived in their own realities, which did not always converge. The whole 2.4 children and a house in the Burbs, fancy looking car. I'm going to get flack here, but in order for her to do this, she needed to have a real job with a real income. And I do think CW was doing his damndest to try and make this work. I also think this played a huge part (mounting debt) in creating stress and expectations which in the end, CW just could not meet, and he lost it. I in no way, am justifying his behavior, but as I've said before, I do understand it to a point. Such a very sad and tragic situation.

 

[PommyMommy]

SEE IT: Chris Watts sent unsettling photo of a doll covered by a sheet to Shannan Watts days before her murder — and his father tried to use photo to claim murdered pregnant mom ‘planned’ killings
A photograph of a doll covered by a bed sheet that Chris Watts’s father claimed Shanann Watts took was actually sent to her by her husband Chris Watts, just days before her murdered Shanann and her two young daughters.

At one point, Ronnie Watts appeared to suggest that Shanann may have even planned on hurting her little girls, directing detectives to a Facebook post a few days earlier, in which Shanann had posted a photo of a doll covered almost entirely with a sheet; only its feet were sticking out. Shanann reportedly said in the Facebook post that 4-year-old Bella had arranged the doll this way.



From the discovery documents:
“RONNIE said, ‘I’m thinkin’ this might have been planned. I don’t know.’ RONNIE said the caption read, ‘What do you say to this?’ RONNIE said the sheet covered the doll’s head and the only thing sticking out was the doll’s feet. RONNIE said SHANANN commented that BELLA had put the sheet on the doll. RONNIE said a kid wouldn’t do such a thing.”

The Phone Data Review includes an image of a doll covered by a sheet, which appears to be the same image referenced by Ronnie Watts. According to the report, the image was taken from Chris’s phone and he sent it to Shanann on August 9. She replied, “Don’t know what to think about this.”

The time stamp on the text message would suggest that Chris was at work when he sent Shanann the message, and the report does not state when the photo was taken. There is no further discussion about the doll photo in the Phone Data Review.

CrimeOnline has contacted the Greeley Police Department for clarification and confirmation of some items in the report, and are awaiting a response.

 

[Tricia]

My apologies if this has been discussed.

Did you all see that Shanann's family is suing Chris for wrongful death?

CLICK HERE for all the details