GUILTY CO - Shanann Watts (34), Celeste"Cece" (3) and Bella (4), Frederick, 13 Aug 2018 *CW LWOP* #69

[ab01]

I re-watched that yesterday too and that statement about the mess they made popped out at me.

THEY WERE MISSING and he's telling a story about a mess they made?! Who cares?? He wasn't even looking. Wouldn't you be looking behind doors, in baskets (my daughter fell asleep in a laundry basket when she was a toddler and I was frantic looking for her. I found her because 1) she wasn't missing and 2) I actually looked for her until I found her).

Most people would be tearing the house up and shouting their name, and LE would have to be calming them. In this case, it's like LE had to prod him into kinda-sorta-not-really caring.

He definitely was not acting like a father of missing girls....he wasn't even acting like he was missing them at all.

jmo

Like the investigator in his interview said, “Chris you aren’t a very good liar”.

 

[MassGuy]

Sadly he had already called the school to un-enroll the girls.

He called the school on the morning of the murders (hours after killing them), to un-enroll the girls.

Not prior to the murders.

 

[Only4Justice]

I think they're going after the actual killers in both cases. Not the bigger one.

True. Thanks @gitana1. Both bear culpability IMO but they weren’t the killers.

 

[PommyMommy]

(Hi fellow giraffe )

(ETA: @PommyMommy, how do you do that adorable giraffe emoji you did that one time?)

I still wonder if the girls ever got to see Dobby (see avatar) at the Denver Zoo.

I don't remember it.

(Yeah that article sucks)

(ETA: from one giraffe to another )

(ETA2: They must’ve read my mind because they just made an additive key clause (see BBM) which was missing:

“Christopher Watts, the Colorado man who is serving a life sentence for killing his pregnant wife and two daughters, drove the girls along with their dead mother's body on a 45-minute drive to a secluded oil field where he smothered the youngest with her favorite blanket and killed his 4-year-old after she watched her sister die and pleaded with her father for her own life, BBM an attorney for the wife’s family said.”

—-

@PommyMommy or anyone, have you found a transcript yet for yesterday’s show? DO’s archcive links are all wonky...

It's not up yet, but it should be here if they publish one: Results/transcripts | Dr. Phil

 

[simplymadness]

Awww so sorry for your loss. I guess it's just what separates "Us" from "them"

Thank you.
And I guess you're right. It's been said we aren't meant to understand evil such as this because thankfully most of us don't carry it within ourselves.
It's just so d*mn senseless and heartbreaking. Selfish human entitlement on display in all its ugly glory, Chris Watts style, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[cvaldez1975]

I think Dr.Phil was clueless about the controversy regarding where the kids were killed, and how explosive the revelation (believe it or not) that he drove them for 45 minutes with their dead Mom before he methodically murdered them.

DP could have eked out another whole show, had he paid attention to the case along with the rest of us. But I'm glad he was oblivious.

It’s a hormonal time for me ahem I literally sat in the car and cried thinking of how scared Bella must have been. My husband was like are you ok?

 

[Heaven Leigh]

He called the school on the morning of the murders (hours after killing them), to un-enroll the girls.

Not prior to the murders.

Ohhh my bad..thank you.

 

[MassGuy]

Ohhh my bad..thank you.

No worries. I just wanted to clear that up, as it would prove without a doubt that the murders of the kids were planned in advance.

It would have also destroyed his latest “confession.”

 

[Thinker Belle]

It’s a hormonal time for me ahem I literally sat in the car and cried thinking of how scared Bella must have been. My husband was like are you ok?

Agreed. Just when I thought the wounds were slowly starting to heal a bit here they are ripped open again and bleeding. I can’t wrap my mind around all of the suffering and death that CW has caused.

 

[ZsaZsa]

You would be surprised how many parents of murdered children find they need the details, no matter how bad, to quiet their constant nightmares of what might have happened. It is apparently something very common to discuss at the support group meetings many go to who have lost family members to murder.

What agony! Which is worse, knowing or not knowing? You would never be able to get the images out of your mind.

 

[they'll get you]

What Drives a Man to Kill His Own Family? Inside the Psychology of Family Annihilators
The Christopher Watts case is a chilling reminder of just how little we can ever truly know about our spouses

What is family annihilation?
Family annihilators is a term used to describe men (mostly white males in their 30s) who murder their entire families. The technical term is “familicide, which basically refers to the killing of one’s partner or spouse and one or the more of the children, [often] followed by the suicide of the perpetrator,” explains Dr. Neil Websdale, director of the Family Violence Institute at Northern Arizona, who published a 2010 book on the subject.

 

[ReckoningDay]

There is no there there. I am paraphrasing another poster, but I believe it too. First he was Mom's kid and then her mechanic son, after all she "made it happen" that he went to mechanics' school. She approved of his skater look and hair grease. He was happy being approved of, and Dad was the one refuge. He meets Shan'ann, becomes what he thinks she wants, works, is kind to his kids, affable and obedient to her, calm, capable and nice to his co-workers. Yet so far, no one attributes any particular personality to him, and he cuts off the original Mom's boy Chris, cuts off Mom, too. Then 8 years later he transforms into studly Chris, NK's vision, what he thinks she wants him to be, with the heady rewards of hot experimental sex possibly for the first time in his life. Trouble is, instead of having core values to see him through these different stages, he basically sheds his skin, like a lizard, but emerges as something else, incompatible with the previous persona. Thus in becoming studly Chris he has to shed his current family. (One reason I doubt they had intercourse Monday morning).
This is not rare, I know many ppl who transform partly into their new love interest, picking up hobbies, slang, attitudes, etc. I have even done it myself a bit but without losing my core.
Hard to explain, I don't think there really is a Chris Watts, just whatever shape shift he thinks he should be at a given phase. Now, basically a prisoner with only a bible to approve of him for 23 hours a day, he is transformed into what he thinks the bible wants him to be, and is shedding the old non-religious Chris.

Definitely no offense meant to people who really do live according to the bible's principles.

Wow...some great (but sad) insights!

 

[ReckoningDay]

I wonder if NK sat down with CW and calculated his current finances and what they might look like if he got a divorce and had to pay alimony and child support. There are online calculators for that sort of thing. She was already in charge of his diet and apartment hunting. It stands to reason, to have an estimate for an apartment, she had to have helped him do the math and have a tentative budget. In which case, it plants the seed in his head that his family is a burden and he can live so much better if he removes the financial obligation they present. I am fairly confident NK wasn't actively involved. I do believe she helped create the mindset in him that his family had him saddled down.

Sounds about right.

 

[kiwilaura]

Guys, I just can't. I feel like everything has been torn open again. Just seeing this news in New Zealand now, after trying to avoid dwelling on this case again.

So, do people believe he is telling the truth? I would be really interested in hearing a statement from DA Rourke about this new confession. I trust that man and his opinion would mean a lot.

 

[Best of What's Around]

Guys, I just can't. I feel like everything has been torn open again. Just seeing this news in New Zealand now, after trying to avoid dwelling on this case again.

So, do people believe he is telling the truth? I would be really interested in hearing a statement from DA Rourke about this new confession. I trust that man and his opinion would mean a lot.

I actually think we will be able to tell a lot about what LE thinks by the audio files tomorrow. Tammy Lee and Grahm Coder were there as they were before and they would press CW on points they thought were untrue. They know him quite well now in terms of his lies. That said, I would not be surprised if the DA does give additional interviews. My gut is they will find it to sound mostly truthful with lies sprinkled in to make himself sound better, if that is possible. I don’t believe any of them will buy any attempts to make it sound like he didn’t want them to die and disappear beforehand nor will they believe anything that doesn’t fit the evidence they already have. MOO.

 

[Colorfuel]

I thought it was interesting how the mention of “money” wasn’t included yesterday, unless I missed it which is entirely likely.

My initial theory was that when Shanann found out about the affair, she would threaten him financially. I wonder if this is part of all this as well.

—

If she did threaten him that he wouldn’t be able to see the kids, then perhaps this falls directly into the category of FA who’s mindset is “If I can’t have them, nobody can”.

However, it seems to me that he maybe didn’t even want them, that they were a nuisance, idk...

He had just spent several weeks without the kids while Shanann had the girls in NC and experienced being free to explore a wild, exciting affair. Two little kids are just not conducive to pursuing the kind of relationship he was having and wanted more of. Two little kids that would have no mother to do the heavy lifting of taking care of them. And a girlfriend who had no interest in or connection to his kids, and no experience as a parent.

If he’d truly wanted the girls to live, he either would have needed to keep their mother alive so he’d be free to play bachelor a lot of the time, or he would have needed to find a way to murder Shanann and get away with it, and find a new woman who was into raising someone else’s (traumatized) kids (who lost their mom). But he didn’t want either of those things, he wanted to erase his past and have no obligations.

There is no way his killing of the girls was just an afterthought. All three murders were part of the same gesture, with the same motivation.

 

[dancinunderthemoon]

I don't think NK coerced him to kill his family, but I do think his determination to be with her may have influenced his decision. I'm not sure if he would have gone through with it if he didn't have a "replacement" lined up. Imo

Yes, that's what I am trying to say.......it wasnt HER fault......he DID it not NK, but the fact he wanted to be with her and whatever she mightve said to give him ideas or hope too, in a future for them......

 

[dancinunderthemoon]

Seems to me his whole life has been "putting on a show" for whoever he is around at the time. The last month before the murders the mask slipped and he was showing his true self. As far as CW "finding God" I find that absolutely absurd and I suspect God does, as well. CW and God do not exist on the same plane, in the same universe IMOO. Not remotely.

chameleon........he doest know who he is

 

[pocketaccent]

Can CW appeal after taking a plea deal? Probably difficult but possible? (my guess only) It seems to me his new confession enables him to two things.

1. He despises prison life. His miserable life makes him despise Shanann's family even more. He wants to cause unimaginable pain to them.
2. Preparation for an appeal- he wants to claim the killings was a crime of passion.

I do not believe one word from his new confession.

 

[Best of What's Around]

Can CW appeal after taking a plea deal? Probably difficult but possible? (my guess only) It seems to me his new confession enables him to two things.

1. He despises prison life. His miserable life makes him despise Shanann's family even more. He wants to cause unimaginable pain to them.
2. Preparation for an appeal- he wants to claim the killings was a crime of passion.

I do not believe one word from his new confession.

As I understand it, he has virtually no chance to appeal.

Re #1, IMO he cares more what his only family, whom he reportedly talks to daily, think of him and his new confession does nothing good for them at all. He is risking their support and he is devestating them.

Re #2 he can’t claim under this new confession that the children were a crime of passion, even if his case could be reopened by this, which it can’t. His new confession makes it indisputably premeditated. No sentence change.

At this point he is never getting out of jail IMO. He has been advised of this undoubtedly. There is no hope. And his only outside family and friends who still talked to him did not believe he murdered his girls at all before this confession. I am not saying it will be the full truth...just that it does not help him in the ways you theorize IMO.