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

[dancinunderthemoon]

I think it was his supervisor who pointed it out to LE. He wondered if CW had buried evidence there, from what I remember. Imo

Must've been trying to use that excuse as some kind of decoy.......yeah i was out there but this is why, what other reason could there be Im wondering now, besides the obvious..........he's stupid

 

[mtnlites]

So, one of my dear friends is the sweeeeetest elderly lady and grandma in the whole world. She placed flowers and stuffed animals many times at the Watts’ home and lives in the same subdivision. She told me that she says a prayer for them every time she drives by the house. She is going to absolutely devaaaastated to hear all this. In fact, I hope she doesn’t hear all this. I really do hope this. I sure as heck am not going to tell her but I’m sure she’s heard by now.

I know the R’s had to hear all this. I’ve been thinking a lot about the clip from Monday’s DP where Sandy says (paraphrasing) “yeah hearing that my baby granddaughter begged for her life, that’s rough”.

Yes, if complete strangers and those just following the case are devastated by the news, just imagine how those who actually knew Shanann and the girls must feel right now.

 

[PommyMommy]

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.

CW told NK his budget for an apartment was $1,100 - $1,400.

PDF pg 504, Discovery pg 571

MOO

 

[Only4Justice]

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 don’t believe it.

 

[MJPeony]

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.

BBM

Well said. Because it seems so incredibly monstrous, I've had a really hard time accepting that he was going to kill the girls regardless (if Bella had not awoken), but the way you've laid it out here makes a lot of rational sense to me. In the end, I just can't make it work that he was intending for them to live. I do think his plan was that once SW was gone, the kids would go too.

Assuming his latest confession is the truth, I do think perhaps he couldn't muster up the will to actually carry out killing the girls right after SW and used the drive to Cervi to get back in that headspace.

 

[gitana1]

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.

Can you provide the link? I want to read it.

 

[nwmouse]

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.

SBM
BBM

You've nailed it, likes x 1000!

CW is hollow inside and takes on the personality and attributes of the dominant person he's with.
He doesn't know how to "be", he's like water that conforms to the shape of the vessel its in.

He's basically devoid of color, personality, empathy etc and has zero self-identity.

I think CW's "love" for NK was based on sexual attraction/infatuation and he was flattered that she was interested in him.
He likely would have lost interest in her too, after a few years and a new, dominant person entering his life.

He reminds me of Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon.

CW is like a golem: " A golem is a clay creature that has been magically brought to life. The name comes from the Hebrew word “golem,” which means something incomplete or unfinished".
He mimics being human but he's just a shell, and an evil, self-serving shell.

moo

 

[gitana1]

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.

He has no grounds. It's over.

 

[MemPat]

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.

I'm thinking you don't get to drive 45 minutes with your victims in order to commit a crime of passion and hide the bodies.

 

[cakegirl0905]

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.

This is where I land too. I don’t believe she did the actual killing. But she planted some seeds there and helped his resentment fester. She fanned the flames, so to speak, to get Chris to leave his family. She knew what she was doing. The end game might not have been death, but it was being Chris’s #1 priority by whatever means necessary. It’s apparent in the interview that she absolutely despised Shannan and was full of envy and resentment towards her, even though they never met. She wanted her gone - maybe not expressly dead, but, gone.

 

[nwmouse]

I think there's truth in there. Like many liars the tith is often mixed in with the lie. Bella likely begged him in some way. But I'm with Stella a little. I can never be totally certain that he's finally revealing all, accurately. Because he's a liar. And most liars who eventually confess, continue with some of the lies.

An example is Christian Longo. He initially blamed and intruder and then also blamed his wife saying she killed one of the kids so he killed her and the others.

He finally confessed to all the killings but the details remained questionable and self serving. Ahh as his wife didn't seem terrorized or surprised and "relaxed into it" as he strangled her.
Christian Longo Murders - Death Row Execution Policy

Suuuure.

These are people but they're not like you or me. They minds work differently. They won't make sense to us.

(On an unrelated note, the man who wrote the above-linked article, whose identity Longo stole, creeps me out. He's obsessed with Longo and much too sympathetic. I question what thoughts he's had about his own family, frankly.

Reminds me a tiny bit of Stephen King and his partial motivation for his family annihilator thriller, The Shining. How he said:

"Sometimes you confess. You always hide what you're confessing to. That's one of the reasons why you make up the story. When I wrote The Shining, for instance, the protagonist of The Shining is a man who has broken his son's arm, who has a history of child beating, who is beaten himself. And as a young father with two children, I was horrified by my occasional feelings of real antagonism toward my children. Won't you ever stop? Won't you ever go to bed? And time has given me the idea that probably there are a lot of young fathers and young mothers both who feel very angry, who have angry feelings toward their children. But as somebody who has been raised with the idea that father knows best and Ward Cleaver on 'Leave it to Beaver,' and all this stuff, I would think to myself, Oh, if he doesn't shut up, if he doesn't shut up... So when I wrote this book I wrote a lot of that down and tried to get it out of my system, but it was also a confession. Yes, there are times when I felt very angry toward my children and have even felt as though I could hurt them. Well, my kids are older now. Naomi is fifteen and Joey is thirteen and Owen is eight, and they're all super kids, and I don't think I've laid a hand on one of my kids in probably seven years, but there was a time..."
The Shining (novel) - Wikipedia)

Thank you for the CL link by MF, Gitana! I was finally able to sit down and read it through.

MF certainly does seem a little too sympathetic with CL.

I agree that CW will mix truth with lies because that's his nature. He has no authenticity whatsoever.

But as MassGuy has pointed out, CW cares about what other people think of him, due to his narcissistic tendencies.
For him to say Bella begged for her life before he murdered her rings true to me. Its just so chilling and evil that I don't think he made it up.

The Stephen King info is very interesting. It sounds to me as though CW had a pretty enmeshed upbringing with a controlling mother, but from what I understand he wasn't physically abused. Emotional control of a child is its own form of abuse and we've seen the effects with killers like Scott Peterson. I think some people are born defective and CW is one of them. He has no empathy and is supremely selfish. The only sadness he showed during his sentencing was for himself, he cried because his future is extremely bleak. It was all about HIM, never about his family who were murdered so horrifically.

Tomorrow's new info will be interesting.

moo

 

[Only4Justice]

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.
B
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.

I agree he never loved them in the traditional sense. In his first fake confession, when backing up why he murdered SW, he says at one point "I helped make those babies." I thought it was an odd thing to say for why you loved your children. Another point he says he was closer to CeCe because he didn't know what he was doing with his first child when she was born so she didn't bond with him right away. I totally understand not knowing what you are doing when you have your first child - but that doesn't affect bonding at all. He means he learned how to get his kid to depend on him enough to want him to put her to bed at night. MOO

God Bless Shannan.

 

[mickey2942]

CW killed his children because SW was not going to let him see them.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. After all, he did KILL THEM!

 

[Tigerlily75]

Can you provide the link? I want to read it.

I think this is it, Rolling Stone

Christopher Watts Murder Case: What Drives a Man to Kill His Family? – Rolling Stone

 

[Artis]

This is what I firmly believe. There is so much that shows he was prepping mentally to kill them and that he felt they were financial burdens and obstacles to a relationship with NK. The resentful anecdotes, the coldness, the way he could dump them in oil and still appear normal at work.

Even the interrogation footage where he was given their picture and it didn't cause him to burst into tears or show any kind of emotion. He stared at it blankly because he knew that was what was expected of him. Some even think he had stopped looking at it at one point but then realized he was being recorded and then picked up the photo again. It was for show. The good daddy act was for show. It was a role he was playing, especially near the end.

Besides, no matter how much you dislike your partner, you know how much they mean to your kids. Him killing Shanann, the girls' loving mother, for his own selfish gain shows he isn't a caring father. He would have to know how devastating that would be to them.

He was done with their allergies, their crying, the costs they incurred, all of it.

Have you ever seen the film, "I, Psychopath"? It's on YT, in nine parts. Look for the account by the name that starts with "Jerusalem", followed by a couple of letters (can't recall it, right now). The entire film is great but there are interesting brain scans done that show the true emotional lack in the brain of a psychopath. I believe CW is a psychopath in the truest sense. He didn't feel for his kids because he lacks the capacity, neurologically. He also had to be really psychologically screwed up with that creature of a mother and wimp of a father. You're so right that he role played. All of the cluster Bs have to mimic but psychopaths, especially. CW was able to keep up the husband and daddy facade until the combination of his frustrations (inner emptiness, financial problems, etc) collided with meeting NK. Whatever he thought he might like to be fit with whatever image he was projecting onto NK (and that would have soured, too) . That meant a new "role" and a new script. He didn't have the capacity to have two scripts going (divorced dad with those obligations and his new role). That was too many balls in the air so some just had to go. I believe he was probably mad at Shanann and the kids were really only an extension of her (in his mind) so they became collateral damage. He was done playing that role so they had to go, right along with their mother. I don't think he was mad at them. There was no place for them in his new script. He knew what he was doing was wrong and while murders present a lot of logistical difficulties, I'll bet, to him it was no more on the feeling level than ditching an old sofa.

I disagree with Dr Phil calling CW a malignant narcissist. CW, imo, is a psychopath (and they all have narc traits). One of the things that struck me when I first watched Shanann's videos was how CW seemed like nothing more than a prop. It was glaring, to me. He seemed like a robot or Stepford person. No normal man presents like that. Shanann couldn't see it because he was mirroring her and he probably mirrored everyone else he had contact with so to everyone he seemed like a good guy. There's a real lesson in this awful story about learning to recognize these people which is NOT easy. There is no answer to "why", in any normal sense (action-reaction). Murdering three innocent people has no logical reason. It happened because he's a psychopath. Further complicating things is that not all psychopaths are killers so I don't see any way anyone could have predicted that he would do this.

While it probably won't happen, I wish some use would be made of CW, as in taking this opportunity to study what he is, including all manner of tests and brain scans. Nothing can ever bring back the victims of these "people" (???) and the only way to help people not to be their victims is to begin learning how to recognize them. It might not be possible but it seems worth trying.

 

[Pasasana]

I also do not believe that he killed the girls at Cervi. There would be too much risk of them crying or making noise going to the truck. They would have been terrified about their mother's condition...if she was going to be o.k. We didn't see enough going back and forth to the truck to have two small children and a dead wife.

Sadly I believe that Bella was awake and saw her mother dead, and knew that it was her father would was killing her.

But does a 4 year old understand death? I don't have children, so I wouldn't know. If he did say that Mommy was sick and he needed them to be very quiet so they didn't wake her, I think that they wouldn't make much noise.

 

[izzies]

Have you ever seen the film, "I, Psychopath"? It's on YT, in nine parts. Look for the account by the name that starts with "Jerusalem", followed by a couple of letters (can't recall it, right now). The entire film is great but there are interesting brain scans done that show the true emotional lack in the brain of a psychopath. I believe CW is a psychopath in the truest sense. He didn't feel for his kids because he lacks the capacity, neurologically. He also had to be really psychologically screwed up with that creature of a mother and wimp of a father. You're so right that he role played. All of the cluster Bs have to mimic but psychopaths, especially. CW was able to keep up the husband and daddy facade until the combination of his frustrations (inner emptiness, financial problems, etc) collided with meeting NK. Whatever he thought he might like to be fit with whatever image he was projecting onto NK (and that would have soured, too) . That meant a new "role" and a new script. He didn't have the capacity to have two scripts going (divorced dad with those obligations and his new role). That was too many balls in the air so some just had to go. I believe he was probably mad at Shanann and the kids were really only an extension of her (in his mind) so they became collateral damage. He was done playing that role so they had to go, right along with their mother. I don't think he was mad at them. There was no place for them in his new script. He knew what he was doing was wrong and while murders present a lot of logistical difficulties, I'll bet, to him it was no more on the feeling level than ditching an old sofa.

I disagree with Dr Phil calling CW a malignant narcissist. CW, imo, is a psychopath (and they all have narc traits). One of the things that struck me when I first watched Shanann's videos was how CW seemed like nothing more than a prop. It was glaring, to me. He seemed like a robot or Stepford person. No normal man presents like that. Shanann couldn't see it because he was mirroring her and he probably mirrored everyone else he had contact with so to everyone he seemed like a good guy. There's a real lesson in this awful story about learning to recognize these people which is NOT easy. There is no answer to "why", in any normal sense (action-reaction). Murdering three innocent people has no logical reason. It happened because he's a psychopath. Further complicating things is that not all psychopaths are killers so I don't see any way anyone could have predicted that he would do this.

While it probably won't happen, I wish some use would be made of CW, as in taking this opportunity to study what he is, including all manner of tests and brain scans. Nothing can ever bring back the victims of these "people" (???) and the only way to help people not to be their victims is to begin learning how to recognize them. It might not be possible but it seems worth trying.

Brilliant!!!! Thanks for this analysis. It makes so much sense how his behavior was missed by so many and I also saw how 'off' his behavior seemed in the videos. No husband would go along with all of that. Thank you!

 

[Psychofcrime]

I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered already...

Does anyone have a link or an idea where to get a link to tomorrow's audio release? I would like to hit "Go" as soon as it is dropped.

I appreciate everyone at Websleuths so much! The variety of backgrounds and knowledge of everyone that comes together here is priceless. Thank you!

 

[Artis]

I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered already...

Does anyone have a link or an idea where to get a link to tomorrow's audio release? I would like to hit "Go" as soon as it is dropped.

I appreciate everyone at Websleuths so much! The variety of backgrounds and knowledge of everyone that comes together here is priceless. Thank you!

Are going to get audio, video or transcripts?

 

[kakadu]

What time UK will these new files be released tomorrow? I’m in UK are we 8 hours ahead?

If I am right it's 4 pm here in Germany and 3 pm in UK tomorrow.