Very interesting!! I’ve alway had the opinion that SW was capable of harming her children. She actually did harm her children everyday already. Something extremely wrong and tragic happening to a person does not grant them saint hood. IMO.
CW was always a follower, told what to do and did it. Until NK.
There is NO way SW could live in a small apt, give up her fake online life and fake perfect marriage. She even have her friend gathering the mail so CW wouldn’t see the extreme trouble they were in. Her financial secrets would’ve come out. Other secrets as well.
IMO she raged at times. Absolutely she did. CW telling it’s over for sure, zero hope, no chance could’ve put her to that point.
It is a very interesting post/article and relevant to be discussed here, although personally I’m pretty comfortable in my belief that Mr. Peanut did them all. I think that the problem is that a lot of people (not most of the regulars here) won’t even objectively entertain this as a remote possibility, as they refuse to acknowledge the many many instances (of SW’s own video evidence) of her being abusive to her family and exhibiting signs of being mentally unstable. It’s an honest and not unreasonable discussion to have.
Actually I 100% believed it was Chris who killed them all until just a few months ago, when I started looking deeper into what the mainstream documentaries didn't report. When I saw all the videos, pics and social media posts as well as her texts to her friends I started to wonder if the official narrative was not true. That's why I keep coming back here.
I appreciate you think that, but it's not the case, I have repeatedly stated I do not know which one did it and so have many other people here. To clarify, this post is not an absolute slam dunk she did it , he is innocent. People who do not accept the story of how CW was convicted is not because they are batting for CW they are looking for answers, reasons and are considering the behaviour of SW. There are facts about her behaviour prior to her death that are not explained as just an innocent video. This is a discussion of how it could be possible, in the theme of using case evidence, medical history and background of behaviour which would all need to be considered during a trial.
I see your argument for sure and think it would probably have been pretty easy to create reasonable doubt had it gone to trial. I’ll acknowledge that it exists, and looking at the totality of evidence that it seems MUCH more likely that she would’ve been to do it. Irrational or not, my sticking points are the callous disposal and the fact the he admitted to it. I can’t fathom a parent admitting to having taken the lives of their children if they didn’t do it, ever. Anyway, not trying to debate or persuade, just explaining where I’m coming from.
I totally agree with your assessment. The problem for me is, if she did it, why did he take the blame and to this day doesn't seem interested in promoting his innocence. To answer my own question, he might believe that killing her makes him entirely guilty regardless of the rest. Or he's a moron.
I was watching a crime show, can't recall which one where the father says "Brandy killed my kids because she wanted to hurt me" or something similar. Anyway, this man knew his wife killed his kids and she was either arrested or killed herself, I honestly can't recall.
So, let's say she killed the girls and he killed her. He sure was giddy during his interview or more commonly known as the sermon on the porch. It could be argued that he realized he was free of her and subsequent obligations but I think he's a moron either way. But you present a good argument. I so wish there'd been a trial.
I understand, he is very strange and ultimately I think he is very emotionally backwards. There are possibly many theories as to why, but he has a very strange way of behaving, he has absolutely no autonomy it seems. He will just go with the flow and fails to acknowledge that he makes others lives around him worse, due to his lack of action. His parents suffer to this day because of it. It's a weird kind of selfishness, he is almost priding himself in being quiet and making excuses.
He knew that SW was abusing those girls, appeared to see it, yet he just fucking sat there looking gormless.
In the Santa video, God does that video piss me off, he knew Cece was really upset and said so, but just sat there like a stuffed prop as SW sat on his knee, she sat Bella on his knee and he did nothing!
He is a loser, even picked an equivalent diva bossy boots little miss no it all Kessinger to replace her with. She was already dictating about selling her ring, getting a 2 bed flat and bunk beds.
You are so right about all that. Emotionally backwards, gormless, great adjectives!
And yes, the Santa video, he had no balls, SW was recording and he didn't dare rock that particular boat. Ergo, he allowed her to mistreat, abuse and torture his kids.
Which explains his lack of connection and empathy for his own children. His lack of action shows he didn't bond any more with them than she did. They were props in the Shanann Show. He knew it and didn't care, he may even have believed this was making them money, contributing towards her "job" with Thrive bc he clearly believed she made as much if not more than he did (during his interview). I don't know if she did their annual taxes or he did but it appears she did, otherwise wouldn't he have known there was nothing but loss on her side of the financial column.
I think he did empathise with them and care for them though. Sometimes it's hard to understand as he seems quite stunted and fake in his application and sometimes how he speaks about them sounds like he is parroting what others say about their kids, it does seem contrived at times, so it does absolutely give me cause to question if he actually loved them and if he didn't, could he have just snapped and killed them all?
What leads me to think he did actually care for them is that even though he sat there and took it all as previously discussed in the Santa video, he did quietly voice his concerns for Cece being upset, I feel he was too scared of SW to outright stick up for Cece in the appropriate way, which should have been to take control of the ridiculous situation that just went on and on, her sitting on his lap and grinning for the photo to me was utterly pathetic all the while a 2 year old in a shitty nappy is fast crawling, loud bawling in absolute terror and distress around the next room.....head blown for me.
He also gives encouragement and praise to Bella in the equally fucked up cookie show...... he even tries to quietly coax SW to give Bella a spoon, ( she of course doesn’t even hear him or acknowledge the issue) to me this is evidence he cared about her not getting the spoon ect. If he was so numb alongside his absolute fear of that woman, of which I am of no doubt whatsoever, he did try, but imo was totally inadequate, with no back bone.
I hate to write no backbone because he is a man and it would never be allowed to be a reason if he were female. I don't say it as an insult, but as an observation. He behaved in the same way all battered/abused spouses act when under complete control.
Very interesting case this one.
I think every mother is capable of harming her children under the right set of circumstances. (I’m sure I’ll get pushback there, but…hear me out.)
Unless you’ve experienced it, you wouldn’t quite understand what can happen to a brain in a bout of antenatal or postpartum mental illness. It can happen during pregnancy, and after birth. If left untreated, it can last for years. It’s terrifying and so unspoken.
I’m not a psychiatrist, but it doesn’t take a medical degree to acknowledge that she had some neurosis. The spotless house, the perfectly painted family broadcast on social media for the dopamine hits, really just perfection in general. Now relax, there’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist, but one can acknowledge the line. When it starts interfering with your daily life, there’s something wrong with being a perfectionist. When you’re living so far beyond your means simply for the optics, you need therapy.
With that being said, I do not believe Shannan killed her girls. I believe she was the victim of a man who is either the dumbest or craziest man on the planet. Perhaps both. I do believe she had moments of intense anger. I don’t believe she was capable of controlling it. However, I believe it was directed pretty faithfully at Chris. No, I don’t believe Chris snapped because of that. I’m basing this opinion on absolutely nothing but my own knowledge.
An overwhelming need for perfect means there will be an overwhelming response when perfect is exposed.
But why wouldn’t Chris take it to trial, if this really were the case? He cared a good bit about his image, too. That would be his last attempt to save face. Everyone would understand the mistress, right? If he was living with a psychopath? Unless he were a complete idiot he’d be able to prove she had anger issues in the past with a scroll through his phone. A good legal team would have been able to make the same case you are. Reasonable doubt could have been proven, I think. If nothing else - to put him in the same place he is now. No death penalty would have been given in a case with that much uncertainty involved. (Hell, ask Casey Anthony about that.) I can’t imagine anything a truly innocent man in his situation could have been told to sway him away from a trial. Nothing. EVEN IF NK WERE INVOLVED. He would have rolled the dice.
Bottom line, he killed them. That’s why.
Another argument for the case that she didn’t harm the girls is this: sympathy sells. Being a single mother of two who escaped a cheating husband - she’d have done alright for herself. She had a place to fall back to. Friends to support her. Imagine the comeback story.
I believe there is so much more to this, but the person who needs to fess up is dead. Her life was stolen from her - and it is truly tragic. However, I’d pay an embarrassing amount of fake money to get her alone in a room with a world renowned therapist for an hour or five. Something is going on, and I’d love the whole story if not entirely for my own entertainment and curiosity.
But we’ll never know much more than we already know.
She created an entirely fictional life and she went through incredible stress to hide the truth.
She had her demons.
But there is a reason the number one cause of death in pregnant women is homicide.
And there is a reason the most dangerous time for a woman in any relationship is while that relationship is ending.
And there is a reason the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is immediately after they leave.
And these are only among a few of the reasons why women picked the bear.
The whole damn thing is tragic. These people needed a financial planner, a few therapists, and to take off those fucking patches.
No pushback here! Well said!
I went through post-partum depression and it was terrifying. Many people associate this as the “baby blues” and nothing could be further from the truth. It was very sobering to discover how strongly hormones can affect your thoughts and behaviors.
I believe everyone involved in SWs life knew she had it in her to hurt the children. If CW was going to end up with the children anyway, as I believe he would have due to the CPS case and he was the primary carer, on top of everything else she was about to lose, I could definitely see her committing filicide.
Her morbid fascination with SIDS and her need to show the children sleeping while unable to breathe properly has always made think it's possible too.
On a different note, I read a post of hers recently that said, in jest, that she literally holds their arms and legs with her thighs, or something like that, to clear a blocked nose. I felt like that was totally unnecessary force for a blocked nose.
Great post OP. It really got me thinking again as to why I always thought hmmm, maybe...
The things she did were awful, I have read some comments here minimising every thing she did as if it were OK normal. But you mentioning her pinning them down like that is a perfect example of really bad boundaries with young children. She doesn't need to do that, its abuse, you are absolutely correct.
The rain machines were over used, but again explained away as normal. It's not normal to blast a 2 year old ears with that God awful noise for hours on end, they are supposed to be used intermittently and for minutes, not hours.
Repeatedly using an anal thermometer, every day is also apparently 'normal' especially coupled with the munchie doctor shopping in disease help groups to fish for symptoms of unusual diseases is perfectly normal behaviour.
I find that multiple people knew she was wrong, I agree with you, yet everyone just called her 'bossy' nobody dared to take her on, except Jeana and Cindy and she banished them both. Her huns were just as dumb and fake as she was.
If more people, especially medical professionals questioned these things, children wouldn't die from munchies antics like they do.
Yes, I think she was an awful person and a terrible mother. I know she did not kill the children and he did because I believe he thought he could not leave them alone with her. I think everyone was on high alert that morning because they thought it was she who may have done something drastic to the children. SR saying "check the knives" was either a sick joke or her thinking ....? What ? And her calling the school to see who dropped them off. I think that has something to do with the CPS plan, as I think the panic came from certain people knowing she is on a family plan.
I think the plan was in place due to her repeated visits to doctors and hospitals or inappropriate behaviour towards a minor.
I don't think SW killed her children or deserved to die, I do believe she was a ticking timebomb.
I think most people are willing to look into this objectively but I don't think SW would have killed the children, that day. There are a few reasons for this.
CW only started telling this narrative once Tammy implanted it as an idea. "Chicks are crazy". I don't think that is a coincidence. It's a police technique to get the offender to admit to a lesser crime in order to get the ball rolling. Why after hours of interrogation would CW then admit this, and only once the police tried to give him a story. You may think that's just a coincidence, but I just don't.
CW had a mistress. NK was a big reason as to why this happened (I don't know how much she was involved) but it's a huge motive that I feel is a bigger motive or supersedes SW. Just as a more likely scenario to me is CW had an affair and wanted out, seems like a more clearer reason to SW was suffering from a mental break, and it was an act to get back at CW for cheating.
What was SW's plan once she killed the kids? I don't think she would have thought kill the kids, then CW will automatically kill me, win, win. Did she just want to go to jail? Kill herself? I'm curious to know what her end game would have been (plan), other than she just lost her mind and she wasn't thinking. CW had a plan, from video footage, and his movements, he had an idea of what to do with the bodies. He tried to conceal his crimes, he changed clothes, went to Cervi before anyone else etc.
I have lot's of reasons why it seems like CW killed them but this post would become massive, the last one I'll give for now, is why would he dispose of the bodies, and lie about it, if SW killed them? He said he just panicked and wasn't thinking, but come on.
I think a big reason why there is speculation that SW killed the kids is because people don't think CW planned it. It doesn't look premeditated to them. However I think he did plan it, he just executed his plan poorly, because he did such a bad job it looks as though his crime of passion story has some validity. When NA turned up that morning it quickly spiralled.
I do wonder if anything NK said to him spurred it on. we know she was good with money and super organised, right? Like she was even finding him an apartment and whatnot. I really think something was said to Chris to make him think divorce wasn’t an option and KILLING was the more sensible option.
NK was probably the only person he really spoke to about it so I wonder if she’s said something about Shannan having a good chance of getting the house, the money etc.
Maybe just a throwaway comment like “Yeah, statistically, Shannan will probably get the kids, house and payments from you for whatever but at least you’ll be free\we’ll be together, right?”
I don’t think she was actively malicious but NK was thoughtless with her words. Like the ridiculous “I want to give you your first baby boy” thing (so weird to me that a grown woman would say that, like what does it matter?)
People say it’s because he wanted to hit “reset” and just start fresh with NK but honestly I dunno.
I think NK was in his head, in some way shape or form. What is so damning about NK to me is that in her police interview she could have gone one of two ways.
If she was completely harmless, never said anything that could make her look bad in relation to the crime, then her interview could have been completely open and honest, people who saw it would not look into her.
However she chose to be unbelievably difficult, deleted messages, and didn't answer a question in any normal frame or manner.
There's a few interviews with co-workers and friends on both sides (CW/SW), and they recount things in a normal straight forward manner when you compare them to her it's insane the way she is answering the questions. If she is completely innocent she really did not do herself any favours with that interview.
Of course he planned it. It's so obvious.
Even Chris dropped his bullshit Crime Of Passion story and moved on to another.
There is literally nobody with any sense who thinks that Shanann murdered her children.
I don't know about Kessinger. I know that she was a terrible person but that doesn't make her a killer or even close to helping. There are a lot of rotten people out there. Very few of them become killers.
I hope that Kessinger took a good look at herself and decided to devoted as much time to her insides as she did to her outside. Keeping yourself up is important but being a good person is more important. A
After the murders, I've read, but not claiming to know for certain.
[https://people.com/crime/chris-watts-mistress-google-amber-frey/](https://people.com/crime/chris-watts-mistress-google-amber-frey/)
Haha yeah I know what you mean. Either way I'm sure she was no Virginia Woolf.
Chapter 1 - The Lazy Dog
Like, you know, like em, you know, it's just like, I don't remember.
The End
Someone claiming to be her friend Charlotte left a YouTube comment 2 weeks ago, saying that NK is married and has a baby now. I can't verify that it's actually NK'S friend but the same account was all over the comments defending NK. If anyone wants to look it up it's the first video that comes up if you search "Nichol Kessinger interview". You would have to go through the comments but it's in one of the top ones with lots of replies.
Again imo, the Tammy told him to say it, is highly simplistic as are every other motive given for CW to snap and strangle SW. I personally hold zero weight to this and Tammy's skills as an investigation expert. When anyone considers that she provided this excuse for him, is it not pertinent that she uses yet another case study to explain a previous act of maternal fillicide to prompt him? Why did she use a previous case study was it because she understood that SW could have done it and she wanted the information out of him? When you consider that, as with everything in this case it opens up more questions than answers.
The plan for SW imo would have been suicide, she had no plan that is the altruistic motive, it is a game over, I have no place left to turn, CW says she didn't fight back, that seems more in tune with her not wanting to carry on, if you read the case study above, it is included to make you think through the scenario as if it was your reality, the case study here lived to tell the tale, she explains that she decided to kill her children and herself. To me there was no plan by either of them to kill the children, absolutely no evidence of premeditated murder, it's definitely a case that happened quickly in the heat of the moment.
One of them did it, but why? Who had the most to lose? These are the questions, the only reason people do not consider SW imo is because he signed the plea agreement and LE didn't investigate SW role , these are facts that are difficult to ignore, especially as plea deals are the basis of major miscarriages of justice in the USA.
The point when an abused spouse decides to leave the relationship is statically the most dangerous time for the spouse and the children.
It is easily explained that he used somewhere familiar to him to dispose of the bodies, it does not prove premeditated murder. Most crimes are committed in a surprisingly small area radius to the crime, there are many reasons for this, familiarity being the main one.
I respectfully challenge your reasoning that it seems like a more clearer reason that CW did so because of having a mistress to SW suffering from a mental break, and and was an act to get back at CW for cheating. CW was cheating, had a mistress etc, he was not motivated to kill owing to this, to me he had a motivation and a way out to leave. This actually the seed that was spun to many by LE, as mentioned above, many believe the simplistic version that he wanted to wipe his family out because he met a new woman? This is simply not backed up at all by evidence or case study history. Yes this is a consideration, but a thin one. I
All fair points. I've read the case study, I'm not denying filicide is a thing. In this case I do not think it happened.
There are a lot of circumstances where you go by what CW says, which is fine. I go by his actions more than how he explains what he did that night.
The interrogation was more to do with CW's actions he was in there for hours before he spins this yarn. Not because Tammy is a great investigator it's the timing. His timing.
He had an affair, and he disposed of the bodies (his actions). Without the camera footage I think your opinion holds more weight, however with the footage/evidence I think it's hard not to think he did it (killed the kids as well).
I don't think it is a simple argument to say the affair was the motive, the reasons I give are not a simplistic - he had an affair that's it, kill everyone. I think that is the baseline, and then it gets complicated from there.
With the plea deal, I don't think it's a case of he pleaded to it therefore he did it. As I mentioned before I don't go by much of what he says. I do think it's odd that he goes with SW killing the children, and then changes his mind. Why do that? Stick to your story, he's already going to prison for murder.
So why not be what he did.. equally as valid and with evidence to support it.
SW phone shows her arriving home and after the autoshop rejection message absolutely nothing.
So within this 'plan' you imagine she thought to first immobilise her phone and make it look like she was sleeping all night?
That she thought to leave suitcase downstairs, to have him being recorded by Nate putting both her and at least one girl in to the truck.
There is no logical reason to that... and that she allowed him to strangle her without moving in any way, without inflicting a bruise or panicking for air.
Just too much doesn't match what we saw in evidence.
Nothing happened in the girls bedrooms. So she kills them where and persuades CW to take the blame for all 3. In what type of time frame?
There were no deceased bodies in there for over an hour, there was movement for CW exactly matching his account of events.
Just being possible does not mean that something happened that way.
CW took the plea imo to protect the wife he had murdered. To protect her from what would come out during a trial.. that their marriage and life was a sham. That he didn't love her, wasn't best thing to happen to her because she had just recreated marriage #1 relationship wise... but added bankruptcy, more lying and those precious baby girls in to it.
All that evidence of both munchausens and by proxy too.. imagine illnesses dismissed by medical specials, unnecessary treatments put upon the girls, the lack of parenting like she loved them vs them being a nuisance in her perfect life.
All this was his motivation to fall put of love, to want the separation and possibly have been pushed to the limits that Thursday night and during phone calls because a woman like SW threatens to do everything to stop a father seeing his children. She makes him penniless and sleeping on someone's sofa/basement. Lies to make them unsuitable for visitation. He "the best thing ever" was about to destroy her "perfect life".. you imagine she would have let him? I heard all the things my friend had planned if her downtrodden weak husband ever threatened to leave.. she was evening planning to accuse him of sexually abusing their sons. Because she was so similar to SW I saw the same manipulation from even before their marriage,, I heard what she said and claimed about her MIL and it was practically the same as the threats SW had knowingly used.
So Thursday through sat sw thinks her threats have worked, then goes off on him about the lazy dog, not answering phone, maybe whether he let them speak to his parents... I imagine their phone conversations sat her a car alone to have been extreme threats... and that being what tipped him over that night.
Shd was proving nothing was going to change but he needed more from life than "being okay" with her.
I have no doubt he was the one with more to lose if a divorce occured.. she now had him running scared, out of options.
Sw seemingly had it all sorted, move in Cassie and family, keep the house, make a fortune off Thrive, she had support from friends.. CW had NK and the threat of nothing else..
Yes plus NK made it clear she wasn’t happy about his ongoing entanglement with Shan’ann (about to get a whole lot more entangled) and the idea of having to deal with his kids. She feigned that she was happy to some but was honest with LE and her friend that it bothered her he already had kids
Plus no “beautiful life” if Shan’ann and girls were going to be dipping into the assets and income. My bet is she played the revenge dating card again and was open about her sleep overs with her male buddies She had two male friends spend nights at her place while she and Chris were hot and heavy, clearly she was letting him know she had options
This is a very interesting post. In 1985, I lived in San Diego, and then husband wanted a divorce. To self file, you had to go to at least 2 counseling sessions. In one, the therapist was speaking to me alone and kept asking about self-harm or harm to my child bc of the impending divorce. I strongly denied (bc I hadn't thought of that). I watched the news the next morning and discovered a young mother had jumped (with her 3 yr old child) from the high point of the Coronado Bay Bridge. The child survived, the mother ddidn't. The husband had recently filed for divorce.
So what the article states is absolutely true.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-29/woman-survived-fall-san-diego-coronado-bridge-meets-rescuer
It is a thought provoking post. The part that I just don’t get is putting the girls in tanks if SW was guilty of filicide. I can certainly see how she was capable of it though.
Thanks for saying that as that was my objective in posting some uncomfortable facts around this subject topic. I have seen that the way he disposed of them being a sticking point and it is totally disgusting. To add some fuel for thought in this topic, I feel that because of the fact it was a very unusual way to dispose of their bodies it makes the act of disposal very jarring.
I would like pose a couple of possible considerations/explanations to this for this discussion.
1. Is it any worse than the 'usual' way that we dispose of human remains, once our loved ones have passed away, buried in dirt or burned in a furnace?
They both sound absolutely horrible if you think about it too deeply, but we understand it because human remains need to be disposed of, so we accept it and allow our loved ones to be disposed that way. It feels absolutely awful writing this but I do think it's in the uncomfortable reality that we can consider the human phycology to have many facets that we ordinarily wouldn't think possible.
2. Pure fear, he was definitely scrambling to 'get rid of the evidence' that he killed SW, in the event he did not actually kill the girls, is it not possible that he could have acted completely irrationally and would later regret his actions once the enormity of what had just transpired sunk in. If he was in a disassociated state his thinking and reasoning skills would be massively impaired.
3. I did see research some years ago that mothers who kill are compelled to submerge their children in water to replicate the womb and safety, it's a bit out there, and CW is male, so not sure how phycologically it would fit that narrative, but it is a thing for females convicted of fillicide. So worth a mention for consideration.
4. Once he buried SW, why not place the girls with her? Much easier than the effort of going up to the theif hatch of the tanks and putting them in there to drop down into crude oil. If LE found the grave of SW it would be all over anyway, so why not bury them together?
There are definitely more questions than answers in this case.
Point 1: I think it’s way worse to put them in those tanks than any burial or cremation could be. Their little bodies were flammable, they had to be put in special caskets for their funerals. There’s probably not any wonderful way to dispose of human remains, but stuffing them in those tanks seems like the work of a cold hearted killer. Point 2: That seems very plausible. Point 3: I’m not sure how that correlates to this case. Too far fetched, but I appreciate the effort. Point 4: I have no idea why he barely even buried Shanaan. Seems almost like he ran out of time and planned to return to the scene later to dismember her and make her fit. (This shit is so gruesome I may have to quit this conversation for now.)
This whole comment seems like you are reaching so very hard to squeeze pieces to fit this puzzle, but they just don’t. As to #4: he has said that he separated them all on purpose and he doesn’t know why. My guess is that subconsciously he knew seeing his entire family together in one grave would have forced him to come back to reality and face what he had done. I don’t think he was possessed by demons when he killed them, but I do think he was out of his mind. I think one would have to be.
My best guess is that CW didn’t think anyone was going to believe him. So he went into panic mode/clean up mode. I also believe the R’s were involved in the hiding of the bodies as well. Recall the red vehicle seen that morning? I fully believe they were there. They may even have convinced CW to hide the bodies and not call police. They couldn’t have their daughter go down for this. Imagine the shame to their family.
I know that Shanann had told her and a friend that she didn’t feel safe around her husband, but she planned to have friends moving in soon. Sandie told her not to go but Shanann said she needed Chris’s health insurance for the pregnancy. So the idea of a threat to Shanann was already planted. As for knives? Idk, that matches nothing I’ve seen mentioned. Possibly because CW not being a gun owner, and they’d been home together (and Sandie being a keen cook, even) knives are the next cliche.
Yes these studies are to prevent future occurrances and divorce is a major trigger, the questions come from studies such as this one that seek to understand the reasons behind these crimes, fillicide is a main cause of death in children, it's covered up and when you dare to suggest it is even possible in this case that SW was vulnerable to being in this position we are villified by shiners, they are not objective enough to understand the danger children are in then and now imo.
It's very interesting, I'm going through some up to date reports currently and I thought it would be a great way to open up a more genuine discussion into these findings and how they 'could' correlate or explain the phycology behind the reasons SW 'could' have been in the mindset of suicide ideation and altruistic fillicide with the 'Revenge' part and taking the girls away from CW and his new SO. There is another sub where someone who comes in here regularly is citing absolute crock of how we have folks here that believe she killed them because of her mlm, saying we are stupid.
That person cites a post that really simplify the situation CW, may have found himself in following the incident, if anyone believes she could have killed the girls.
I am yet to find a convincing phycological motive, for CW, the motive of he wanted a life with NK, just too simplistic for me. The evidence prior suggest to me he planned to co parent and that he had finally found confidence to break free from his abusive and weird relationship with SW. The evidence for me is extremely compelling that she had more to lose, had more reasons to breakdown and previous and subsequent crimes of this nature are case studies that back this conclusion strongly.
I have also looked at male fillicide and CW does not fit the norm, he could however fit into the altruistic reason for murdering the girls, if he snapped and killed SW through anger, then following that then decided to kill the girls to prevent their suffering loss of SW. This is entirely possible. I don't know for sure which one did this, but what I do know is that SW behaviour was 100% a catastrophic backdrop to the end of this family. I consider him snapping that night without the stimulus of her killing those children and I can't see it, what after years of abuse and finally telling her it's over, I have someone else, he's in the best health since he met her and has a light at the end of a long tunnel, tells her so repeatedly and then snaps?
The case against him is so thin.
We have all heard of Rebel without a cause?
Chris Watts was the family annihilator without a plan!
When he gets home from work he looked like Publisher's Clearing House was standing on his lawn with the big check!
Shannan Watts had a lot to lose. Her entire world that she had carefully curated was falling apart. Plus, with her being pregnant, she didn't have a safety net. When people are in desperate situations, they sometimes do desperate things
Very interesting and informative post and comments! Would not surprise me if Chris killed all three. When he found out about their exceptionally dire financial situation, compounded with 8 years of her continuous abuse, sent him into a complete meltdown, a fucking huge one. In that state killing SW was easy, and he also took the girls because they were all she had left, and he wanted her to have nothing left as she left him with nothing. I don’t believe NK was even relevant to him at that moment. This was about Shanann.
I do believe SW was capable of murder, just not sure she did it.
Chris still seems not to have recovered from his trauma, he gets weirder in prison every day.
THANK YOU!!! I absolutely, 100%, without a doubt believe SW planned to kill her children, possibly CW, and then off herself. She was about to lose her marriage, her house, her sham career peddling Thrive, and she no longer wanted the baby she was pregnant with. She couldn't cope with all the losses, especially considering that her lifestyle was going to change so drastically. She would have felt humiliation, and she couldn't live with that. Her persona was everything to her. She WAS her persona.
> Her persona was everything to her. She WAS her persona.
Well put. Yes, her online persona was everything to her. After spending so much time building up her perfect life, for people to find out that it was anything but would have been pretty humiliating. About to be 0-2 in the marriage dept with another child on the way and your husband leaving you for another woman regardless would have been devastating. Then SW likely having to move in with her parents once they lost house in Colorado would have been another major dent in her whole faked life.
I remember she made a comment on one of her videos that she wouldn't have been a good mother or wife had it not been for Thrive. Something about it enhancing her life. Geez.
While SW was annoying, crazy, a shitty mother, I still think he snapped and killed them all. I believe he wanted a new life with NK and something inside of him went haywire that fateful day. Good info though.
Another point to consider... when these horrible crimes occur, I think it is something like 90% are committed by the husband rather than the mother.
Why would this case differ considering it would have taken so much extra to manipulate the evidence to make it appear different.
If he were to take the blame for her actions then why would he tell his dad she had done it, Tammy's prompt would have sent him firmly back to denying that she did anything, he's supposed to be taking the blame.
Do you realise that until the autopsy reports reached the defense team and CW he was 100% going to trial..that he cried about having to plea because he knew there was no prospect of her being blamed.. and that was because of what he said to his dad.
That SW had strangled them. That he'd seen it from impossible angles on a camera that would never show normal coloured skin or blue discolouration because it was night vision, that he threw her off Cece and strangled her in a perfectly laid out bedroom(when police arrived). Those autopsy reports have the absolute proof he lied!
For starters they were smothered, Bellas autopsy proving that completely and utterly. The test shots in the bedroom by LE checking the angles of what he said he saw, the grey night vision camera images that apparently alerted him to BW being deceased, not being able to see Ceces neck and SW hands from his view. The neat and tidy beds that looked like those that they climbed out of themselves were seen Monday afternoon, where he claims he sought revenge.
So what happened in their room? It was more than just removing a sheet.
No one lies about a lie... so no one on a jury would be without doubt he lied about saying SW hurt them first.
He'd go to death row, ultimately be downgraded but still same penalty.
Plea deal was created by him and defense team, they took it to DA.. they knew he was guilty from day 2 apparently because he'd told them that, and now, with the autopsy they couldn't prove SW was involved..
So how could you imagine it happening, in light of the evidence at the house, and how if fails to match what he claimed in defense? I cannot match any notion of her hurting them first to what the evidence confirmed....
My several bits as the survivor or attempted filicide when I was three:
1\] my mother is sociopathic, no doubt
2\] she no longer wanted me and stated so to my father the day before she attacked me
3\] she also wanted to harm him by taking away his only child
4\] she held me hostage for an hour with scissor points pressed into my neck
5\] she lifted her arm
6\] a cop tackled me out of her arm, saving my physical life
7\] she damaged four men that night, two cops, my father and me
8\] she has no remorse and preyed upon me after the fact emotionally
9\] few on this planet know or understand my living nightmare, and I am happy abou this because nobody should know my truth through experience and I am sad about this because my trauma makes for a unique lonely
10\] please don't pity me, this trauma victim, survivor and soldier only wants understanding and acceptance.
Chris murdered Shannan and his daughters to get a “clean slate”.
In cases of women murdering their children, revenge is a main driver. I watched a case about Elaine Campione. She drowned her two daughters when her husband left her. She tried to claim insanity but she was found guilty
There are many cases such as this and unfortunately SW had several markers for fillicide.
Not sure I have seen that particular case, but seems like an interesting case.
Probably most females do have the “markers”if jealousy is a factor. I can’t see Shannan prioritizing her husband before the girls. She would’ve taken him through the wringer in court though.
SW’s Facebook posts all say what a wonderful husband and father Chris Watts was. It would be hard to walk that back in court unless you’re making up accusations. Nobody could say a bad thing about Chris and if the murders hadn’t taken place, many of the Colorado people would have sided with Chris Watts.
Chris Watts was the easy winner in a divorce. He had a good job, no judge was going to make him pay 100 percent child support and he had a future with someone who had her own apartment and educated.
He had the wind on his back. He wouldn’t have cared what her friends thought because men care more about what other men think (sadly) and his family, friends and his Anadarko coworkers were all Team Chris.
If he killed the kids, he not only wiped out an entire family but effed up his own future.
She said that before she was aware of him cheating and lying to her. I doubt CO still has adultery as a divorce “reason”, just irreconcilable differences. It probably would’ve went joint legal custody with SW as primary parent and she’d get child support.
I recall a video of Shannan saying her family is her priority, her girls.
Aside from the question of who cheated first, CW asked SW for a separation in 2018 before SW went to North Carolina. SW said no. So he was completely checked out of the marriage and was done with her and the marriage.
He should have prepared to end the marriage while SW and the kids were in NC.
Colorado doesn’t care who cheated. They care about who can best provide for the children. Chris was the primary caretaker and sole provider for the children. If he wanted custody, he would have won hands down.
Especially if he showed the judge how she was on Facebook all day and sending the kids to day care, causing the family finances to collapse.
And I’m of the opinion SW cheated first.
Where did you find that information about Chris asking for a separation before she went to NC?
The texts from Nc indicate she was thinking they were “good” and she was wondering why he was ignoring her and not FaceTime his kids.
Re: cheating, in divorce world it’s pretty insignificant nowadays.
Chris asked SW for a separation in early 2018 and SW was asking a divorce lawyer all kinds of questions at a restaurant in early 2018. Chris’ friend Mark Jamison said Chris told him in San Diego that he was over SW and wouldn’t care if SW found someone else. This was prior to the trip to NC.
SW was in NC and was telling the hairdresser she was getting a divorce and looked forward to being single again. Google that.
SW knew the marriage was on the rocks. She had a lot more to lose than Chris if the divorce happened. Chris had the world to gain.
It was SW’s mother that sold the fairytale that SW and CW were madly in love and he couldn’t wait for her to return.
Chris ignored SW’s FaceTime because she was calling him at 5 am in the mornings on weekends, demanding he talk to the kids. I myself would have blocked her. She’s with the kids. If there’s an emergency, she can text him. Plus she was badgering him with multiple calls a day and he was checked out on her.
The marriage was essentially gone and Chris Watts should have filed the minute SW went home on the plane.
Here's the source for what the hairdresser said.
https://www.wral.com/shanann-watts-murder-case-friends-family-recall-life-of-slain-nc-native-/17774026/
Shanann did not tell the hairdresser she was getting a divorce. The hairdresser said SW's mom said they were going to separate. She doesn't say specifically when Sandi said that.
Shanann and Chris were both at that salon. She wasn't happily chitchatting about being single soon to that hairdresser. The hairdresser never claimed that.
Also, Chris did not tell Mark they were separating in San Diego. He said they seemed normal on that trip. Chris told him they were separating a week or so before the murders.
https://preview.redd.it/sc72wt7a0n4d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be0135eed17706b0d110a541fce222a74a311106
I said Chris Watts told Mark Jamison that he, Chris would not be jealous if SW got with someone else.
Edited to add: Kathleen Hewston in her book Blood and Marriage says that Mark Jamison said SW was texting him in the same car as Chris Watts.
She does remind me of Darlie Routier,who is on death row in Texas for killing her two boys supposedly for insurance money. I have doubts as to her guilt but that is a whole nother conversation.
Very interesting!! I’ve alway had the opinion that SW was capable of harming her children. She actually did harm her children everyday already. Something extremely wrong and tragic happening to a person does not grant them saint hood. IMO. CW was always a follower, told what to do and did it. Until NK. There is NO way SW could live in a small apt, give up her fake online life and fake perfect marriage. She even have her friend gathering the mail so CW wouldn’t see the extreme trouble they were in. Her financial secrets would’ve come out. Other secrets as well. IMO she raged at times. Absolutely she did. CW telling it’s over for sure, zero hope, no chance could’ve put her to that point.
Great points here and imo she was 100% capable.
I thought she was gathering mail because for a week both Chris and Shan’ann were in NC
It is a very interesting post/article and relevant to be discussed here, although personally I’m pretty comfortable in my belief that Mr. Peanut did them all. I think that the problem is that a lot of people (not most of the regulars here) won’t even objectively entertain this as a remote possibility, as they refuse to acknowledge the many many instances (of SW’s own video evidence) of her being abusive to her family and exhibiting signs of being mentally unstable. It’s an honest and not unreasonable discussion to have.
Absolutely. And while I personally think SW was certainly capable of doing that, I believe CW completely snapped and killed them all.
He didn’t snap. He premeditaded it
Actually I 100% believed it was Chris who killed them all until just a few months ago, when I started looking deeper into what the mainstream documentaries didn't report. When I saw all the videos, pics and social media posts as well as her texts to her friends I started to wonder if the official narrative was not true. That's why I keep coming back here.
I appreciate you think that, but it's not the case, I have repeatedly stated I do not know which one did it and so have many other people here. To clarify, this post is not an absolute slam dunk she did it , he is innocent. People who do not accept the story of how CW was convicted is not because they are batting for CW they are looking for answers, reasons and are considering the behaviour of SW. There are facts about her behaviour prior to her death that are not explained as just an innocent video. This is a discussion of how it could be possible, in the theme of using case evidence, medical history and background of behaviour which would all need to be considered during a trial.
I see your argument for sure and think it would probably have been pretty easy to create reasonable doubt had it gone to trial. I’ll acknowledge that it exists, and looking at the totality of evidence that it seems MUCH more likely that she would’ve been to do it. Irrational or not, my sticking points are the callous disposal and the fact the he admitted to it. I can’t fathom a parent admitting to having taken the lives of their children if they didn’t do it, ever. Anyway, not trying to debate or persuade, just explaining where I’m coming from.
I totally agree with your assessment. The problem for me is, if she did it, why did he take the blame and to this day doesn't seem interested in promoting his innocence. To answer my own question, he might believe that killing her makes him entirely guilty regardless of the rest. Or he's a moron. I was watching a crime show, can't recall which one where the father says "Brandy killed my kids because she wanted to hurt me" or something similar. Anyway, this man knew his wife killed his kids and she was either arrested or killed herself, I honestly can't recall. So, let's say she killed the girls and he killed her. He sure was giddy during his interview or more commonly known as the sermon on the porch. It could be argued that he realized he was free of her and subsequent obligations but I think he's a moron either way. But you present a good argument. I so wish there'd been a trial.
I understand, he is very strange and ultimately I think he is very emotionally backwards. There are possibly many theories as to why, but he has a very strange way of behaving, he has absolutely no autonomy it seems. He will just go with the flow and fails to acknowledge that he makes others lives around him worse, due to his lack of action. His parents suffer to this day because of it. It's a weird kind of selfishness, he is almost priding himself in being quiet and making excuses. He knew that SW was abusing those girls, appeared to see it, yet he just fucking sat there looking gormless. In the Santa video, God does that video piss me off, he knew Cece was really upset and said so, but just sat there like a stuffed prop as SW sat on his knee, she sat Bella on his knee and he did nothing! He is a loser, even picked an equivalent diva bossy boots little miss no it all Kessinger to replace her with. She was already dictating about selling her ring, getting a 2 bed flat and bunk beds.
You are so right about all that. Emotionally backwards, gormless, great adjectives! And yes, the Santa video, he had no balls, SW was recording and he didn't dare rock that particular boat. Ergo, he allowed her to mistreat, abuse and torture his kids. Which explains his lack of connection and empathy for his own children. His lack of action shows he didn't bond any more with them than she did. They were props in the Shanann Show. He knew it and didn't care, he may even have believed this was making them money, contributing towards her "job" with Thrive bc he clearly believed she made as much if not more than he did (during his interview). I don't know if she did their annual taxes or he did but it appears she did, otherwise wouldn't he have known there was nothing but loss on her side of the financial column.
I think he did empathise with them and care for them though. Sometimes it's hard to understand as he seems quite stunted and fake in his application and sometimes how he speaks about them sounds like he is parroting what others say about their kids, it does seem contrived at times, so it does absolutely give me cause to question if he actually loved them and if he didn't, could he have just snapped and killed them all? What leads me to think he did actually care for them is that even though he sat there and took it all as previously discussed in the Santa video, he did quietly voice his concerns for Cece being upset, I feel he was too scared of SW to outright stick up for Cece in the appropriate way, which should have been to take control of the ridiculous situation that just went on and on, her sitting on his lap and grinning for the photo to me was utterly pathetic all the while a 2 year old in a shitty nappy is fast crawling, loud bawling in absolute terror and distress around the next room.....head blown for me. He also gives encouragement and praise to Bella in the equally fucked up cookie show...... he even tries to quietly coax SW to give Bella a spoon, ( she of course doesn’t even hear him or acknowledge the issue) to me this is evidence he cared about her not getting the spoon ect. If he was so numb alongside his absolute fear of that woman, of which I am of no doubt whatsoever, he did try, but imo was totally inadequate, with no back bone. I hate to write no backbone because he is a man and it would never be allowed to be a reason if he were female. I don't say it as an insult, but as an observation. He behaved in the same way all battered/abused spouses act when under complete control. Very interesting case this one.
Good observations.
I think every mother is capable of harming her children under the right set of circumstances. (I’m sure I’ll get pushback there, but…hear me out.) Unless you’ve experienced it, you wouldn’t quite understand what can happen to a brain in a bout of antenatal or postpartum mental illness. It can happen during pregnancy, and after birth. If left untreated, it can last for years. It’s terrifying and so unspoken. I’m not a psychiatrist, but it doesn’t take a medical degree to acknowledge that she had some neurosis. The spotless house, the perfectly painted family broadcast on social media for the dopamine hits, really just perfection in general. Now relax, there’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist, but one can acknowledge the line. When it starts interfering with your daily life, there’s something wrong with being a perfectionist. When you’re living so far beyond your means simply for the optics, you need therapy. With that being said, I do not believe Shannan killed her girls. I believe she was the victim of a man who is either the dumbest or craziest man on the planet. Perhaps both. I do believe she had moments of intense anger. I don’t believe she was capable of controlling it. However, I believe it was directed pretty faithfully at Chris. No, I don’t believe Chris snapped because of that. I’m basing this opinion on absolutely nothing but my own knowledge. An overwhelming need for perfect means there will be an overwhelming response when perfect is exposed. But why wouldn’t Chris take it to trial, if this really were the case? He cared a good bit about his image, too. That would be his last attempt to save face. Everyone would understand the mistress, right? If he was living with a psychopath? Unless he were a complete idiot he’d be able to prove she had anger issues in the past with a scroll through his phone. A good legal team would have been able to make the same case you are. Reasonable doubt could have been proven, I think. If nothing else - to put him in the same place he is now. No death penalty would have been given in a case with that much uncertainty involved. (Hell, ask Casey Anthony about that.) I can’t imagine anything a truly innocent man in his situation could have been told to sway him away from a trial. Nothing. EVEN IF NK WERE INVOLVED. He would have rolled the dice. Bottom line, he killed them. That’s why. Another argument for the case that she didn’t harm the girls is this: sympathy sells. Being a single mother of two who escaped a cheating husband - she’d have done alright for herself. She had a place to fall back to. Friends to support her. Imagine the comeback story. I believe there is so much more to this, but the person who needs to fess up is dead. Her life was stolen from her - and it is truly tragic. However, I’d pay an embarrassing amount of fake money to get her alone in a room with a world renowned therapist for an hour or five. Something is going on, and I’d love the whole story if not entirely for my own entertainment and curiosity. But we’ll never know much more than we already know. She created an entirely fictional life and she went through incredible stress to hide the truth. She had her demons. But there is a reason the number one cause of death in pregnant women is homicide. And there is a reason the most dangerous time for a woman in any relationship is while that relationship is ending. And there is a reason the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is immediately after they leave. And these are only among a few of the reasons why women picked the bear. The whole damn thing is tragic. These people needed a financial planner, a few therapists, and to take off those fucking patches.
Well said. 👍
No pushback here! Well said! I went through post-partum depression and it was terrifying. Many people associate this as the “baby blues” and nothing could be further from the truth. It was very sobering to discover how strongly hormones can affect your thoughts and behaviors.
I believe everyone involved in SWs life knew she had it in her to hurt the children. If CW was going to end up with the children anyway, as I believe he would have due to the CPS case and he was the primary carer, on top of everything else she was about to lose, I could definitely see her committing filicide. Her morbid fascination with SIDS and her need to show the children sleeping while unable to breathe properly has always made think it's possible too. On a different note, I read a post of hers recently that said, in jest, that she literally holds their arms and legs with her thighs, or something like that, to clear a blocked nose. I felt like that was totally unnecessary force for a blocked nose. Great post OP. It really got me thinking again as to why I always thought hmmm, maybe...
The things she did were awful, I have read some comments here minimising every thing she did as if it were OK normal. But you mentioning her pinning them down like that is a perfect example of really bad boundaries with young children. She doesn't need to do that, its abuse, you are absolutely correct. The rain machines were over used, but again explained away as normal. It's not normal to blast a 2 year old ears with that God awful noise for hours on end, they are supposed to be used intermittently and for minutes, not hours. Repeatedly using an anal thermometer, every day is also apparently 'normal' especially coupled with the munchie doctor shopping in disease help groups to fish for symptoms of unusual diseases is perfectly normal behaviour. I find that multiple people knew she was wrong, I agree with you, yet everyone just called her 'bossy' nobody dared to take her on, except Jeana and Cindy and she banished them both. Her huns were just as dumb and fake as she was. If more people, especially medical professionals questioned these things, children wouldn't die from munchies antics like they do.
Yes, I think she was an awful person and a terrible mother. I know she did not kill the children and he did because I believe he thought he could not leave them alone with her. I think everyone was on high alert that morning because they thought it was she who may have done something drastic to the children. SR saying "check the knives" was either a sick joke or her thinking ....? What ? And her calling the school to see who dropped them off. I think that has something to do with the CPS plan, as I think the panic came from certain people knowing she is on a family plan. I think the plan was in place due to her repeated visits to doctors and hospitals or inappropriate behaviour towards a minor. I don't think SW killed her children or deserved to die, I do believe she was a ticking timebomb.
I think most people are willing to look into this objectively but I don't think SW would have killed the children, that day. There are a few reasons for this. CW only started telling this narrative once Tammy implanted it as an idea. "Chicks are crazy". I don't think that is a coincidence. It's a police technique to get the offender to admit to a lesser crime in order to get the ball rolling. Why after hours of interrogation would CW then admit this, and only once the police tried to give him a story. You may think that's just a coincidence, but I just don't. CW had a mistress. NK was a big reason as to why this happened (I don't know how much she was involved) but it's a huge motive that I feel is a bigger motive or supersedes SW. Just as a more likely scenario to me is CW had an affair and wanted out, seems like a more clearer reason to SW was suffering from a mental break, and it was an act to get back at CW for cheating. What was SW's plan once she killed the kids? I don't think she would have thought kill the kids, then CW will automatically kill me, win, win. Did she just want to go to jail? Kill herself? I'm curious to know what her end game would have been (plan), other than she just lost her mind and she wasn't thinking. CW had a plan, from video footage, and his movements, he had an idea of what to do with the bodies. He tried to conceal his crimes, he changed clothes, went to Cervi before anyone else etc. I have lot's of reasons why it seems like CW killed them but this post would become massive, the last one I'll give for now, is why would he dispose of the bodies, and lie about it, if SW killed them? He said he just panicked and wasn't thinking, but come on.
There is no chance that Shanann killed the children. Zero. No reason. No evidence. Nobody accusing her. No sensible reason to believe that she did it.
I think a big reason why there is speculation that SW killed the kids is because people don't think CW planned it. It doesn't look premeditated to them. However I think he did plan it, he just executed his plan poorly, because he did such a bad job it looks as though his crime of passion story has some validity. When NA turned up that morning it quickly spiralled.
I do wonder if anything NK said to him spurred it on. we know she was good with money and super organised, right? Like she was even finding him an apartment and whatnot. I really think something was said to Chris to make him think divorce wasn’t an option and KILLING was the more sensible option. NK was probably the only person he really spoke to about it so I wonder if she’s said something about Shannan having a good chance of getting the house, the money etc. Maybe just a throwaway comment like “Yeah, statistically, Shannan will probably get the kids, house and payments from you for whatever but at least you’ll be free\we’ll be together, right?” I don’t think she was actively malicious but NK was thoughtless with her words. Like the ridiculous “I want to give you your first baby boy” thing (so weird to me that a grown woman would say that, like what does it matter?) People say it’s because he wanted to hit “reset” and just start fresh with NK but honestly I dunno.
I think NK was in his head, in some way shape or form. What is so damning about NK to me is that in her police interview she could have gone one of two ways. If she was completely harmless, never said anything that could make her look bad in relation to the crime, then her interview could have been completely open and honest, people who saw it would not look into her. However she chose to be unbelievably difficult, deleted messages, and didn't answer a question in any normal frame or manner. There's a few interviews with co-workers and friends on both sides (CW/SW), and they recount things in a normal straight forward manner when you compare them to her it's insane the way she is answering the questions. If she is completely innocent she really did not do herself any favours with that interview.
100%
Of course he planned it. It's so obvious. Even Chris dropped his bullshit Crime Of Passion story and moved on to another. There is literally nobody with any sense who thinks that Shanann murdered her children. I don't know about Kessinger. I know that she was a terrible person but that doesn't make her a killer or even close to helping. There are a lot of rotten people out there. Very few of them become killers. I hope that Kessinger took a good look at herself and decided to devoted as much time to her insides as she did to her outside. Keeping yourself up is important but being a good person is more important. A
She Googled book deal. Two children have just died and she was looking to see if she could make some money out of it.
Was that before or after? I always thought it was before.
After the murders, I've read, but not claiming to know for certain. [https://people.com/crime/chris-watts-mistress-google-amber-frey/](https://people.com/crime/chris-watts-mistress-google-amber-frey/)
I can’t decide which would be worse, honestly!
Haha yeah I know what you mean. Either way I'm sure she was no Virginia Woolf. Chapter 1 - The Lazy Dog Like, you know, like em, you know, it's just like, I don't remember. The End
Someone claiming to be her friend Charlotte left a YouTube comment 2 weeks ago, saying that NK is married and has a baby now. I can't verify that it's actually NK'S friend but the same account was all over the comments defending NK. If anyone wants to look it up it's the first video that comes up if you search "Nichol Kessinger interview". You would have to go through the comments but it's in one of the top ones with lots of replies.
It's probably some mentally ill person lying and fighting for attention.
Again imo, the Tammy told him to say it, is highly simplistic as are every other motive given for CW to snap and strangle SW. I personally hold zero weight to this and Tammy's skills as an investigation expert. When anyone considers that she provided this excuse for him, is it not pertinent that she uses yet another case study to explain a previous act of maternal fillicide to prompt him? Why did she use a previous case study was it because she understood that SW could have done it and she wanted the information out of him? When you consider that, as with everything in this case it opens up more questions than answers. The plan for SW imo would have been suicide, she had no plan that is the altruistic motive, it is a game over, I have no place left to turn, CW says she didn't fight back, that seems more in tune with her not wanting to carry on, if you read the case study above, it is included to make you think through the scenario as if it was your reality, the case study here lived to tell the tale, she explains that she decided to kill her children and herself. To me there was no plan by either of them to kill the children, absolutely no evidence of premeditated murder, it's definitely a case that happened quickly in the heat of the moment. One of them did it, but why? Who had the most to lose? These are the questions, the only reason people do not consider SW imo is because he signed the plea agreement and LE didn't investigate SW role , these are facts that are difficult to ignore, especially as plea deals are the basis of major miscarriages of justice in the USA. The point when an abused spouse decides to leave the relationship is statically the most dangerous time for the spouse and the children. It is easily explained that he used somewhere familiar to him to dispose of the bodies, it does not prove premeditated murder. Most crimes are committed in a surprisingly small area radius to the crime, there are many reasons for this, familiarity being the main one. I respectfully challenge your reasoning that it seems like a more clearer reason that CW did so because of having a mistress to SW suffering from a mental break, and and was an act to get back at CW for cheating. CW was cheating, had a mistress etc, he was not motivated to kill owing to this, to me he had a motivation and a way out to leave. This actually the seed that was spun to many by LE, as mentioned above, many believe the simplistic version that he wanted to wipe his family out because he met a new woman? This is simply not backed up at all by evidence or case study history. Yes this is a consideration, but a thin one. I
All fair points. I've read the case study, I'm not denying filicide is a thing. In this case I do not think it happened. There are a lot of circumstances where you go by what CW says, which is fine. I go by his actions more than how he explains what he did that night. The interrogation was more to do with CW's actions he was in there for hours before he spins this yarn. Not because Tammy is a great investigator it's the timing. His timing. He had an affair, and he disposed of the bodies (his actions). Without the camera footage I think your opinion holds more weight, however with the footage/evidence I think it's hard not to think he did it (killed the kids as well). I don't think it is a simple argument to say the affair was the motive, the reasons I give are not a simplistic - he had an affair that's it, kill everyone. I think that is the baseline, and then it gets complicated from there. With the plea deal, I don't think it's a case of he pleaded to it therefore he did it. As I mentioned before I don't go by much of what he says. I do think it's odd that he goes with SW killing the children, and then changes his mind. Why do that? Stick to your story, he's already going to prison for murder.
So why not be what he did.. equally as valid and with evidence to support it. SW phone shows her arriving home and after the autoshop rejection message absolutely nothing. So within this 'plan' you imagine she thought to first immobilise her phone and make it look like she was sleeping all night? That she thought to leave suitcase downstairs, to have him being recorded by Nate putting both her and at least one girl in to the truck. There is no logical reason to that... and that she allowed him to strangle her without moving in any way, without inflicting a bruise or panicking for air. Just too much doesn't match what we saw in evidence. Nothing happened in the girls bedrooms. So she kills them where and persuades CW to take the blame for all 3. In what type of time frame? There were no deceased bodies in there for over an hour, there was movement for CW exactly matching his account of events. Just being possible does not mean that something happened that way. CW took the plea imo to protect the wife he had murdered. To protect her from what would come out during a trial.. that their marriage and life was a sham. That he didn't love her, wasn't best thing to happen to her because she had just recreated marriage #1 relationship wise... but added bankruptcy, more lying and those precious baby girls in to it. All that evidence of both munchausens and by proxy too.. imagine illnesses dismissed by medical specials, unnecessary treatments put upon the girls, the lack of parenting like she loved them vs them being a nuisance in her perfect life. All this was his motivation to fall put of love, to want the separation and possibly have been pushed to the limits that Thursday night and during phone calls because a woman like SW threatens to do everything to stop a father seeing his children. She makes him penniless and sleeping on someone's sofa/basement. Lies to make them unsuitable for visitation. He "the best thing ever" was about to destroy her "perfect life".. you imagine she would have let him? I heard all the things my friend had planned if her downtrodden weak husband ever threatened to leave.. she was evening planning to accuse him of sexually abusing their sons. Because she was so similar to SW I saw the same manipulation from even before their marriage,, I heard what she said and claimed about her MIL and it was practically the same as the threats SW had knowingly used. So Thursday through sat sw thinks her threats have worked, then goes off on him about the lazy dog, not answering phone, maybe whether he let them speak to his parents... I imagine their phone conversations sat her a car alone to have been extreme threats... and that being what tipped him over that night. Shd was proving nothing was going to change but he needed more from life than "being okay" with her. I have no doubt he was the one with more to lose if a divorce occured.. she now had him running scared, out of options. Sw seemingly had it all sorted, move in Cassie and family, keep the house, make a fortune off Thrive, she had support from friends.. CW had NK and the threat of nothing else..
Read post to next person here, I wrote long response i meant to direct to you OP.
Yes plus NK made it clear she wasn’t happy about his ongoing entanglement with Shan’ann (about to get a whole lot more entangled) and the idea of having to deal with his kids. She feigned that she was happy to some but was honest with LE and her friend that it bothered her he already had kids Plus no “beautiful life” if Shan’ann and girls were going to be dipping into the assets and income. My bet is she played the revenge dating card again and was open about her sleep overs with her male buddies She had two male friends spend nights at her place while she and Chris were hot and heavy, clearly she was letting him know she had options
This is a very interesting post. In 1985, I lived in San Diego, and then husband wanted a divorce. To self file, you had to go to at least 2 counseling sessions. In one, the therapist was speaking to me alone and kept asking about self-harm or harm to my child bc of the impending divorce. I strongly denied (bc I hadn't thought of that). I watched the news the next morning and discovered a young mother had jumped (with her 3 yr old child) from the high point of the Coronado Bay Bridge. The child survived, the mother ddidn't. The husband had recently filed for divorce. So what the article states is absolutely true. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-29/woman-survived-fall-san-diego-coronado-bridge-meets-rescuer
It is a thought provoking post. The part that I just don’t get is putting the girls in tanks if SW was guilty of filicide. I can certainly see how she was capable of it though.
I agree with you. The disposal of the girls is damning. I don't think she would've ever thought of something in that manor
Thanks for saying that as that was my objective in posting some uncomfortable facts around this subject topic. I have seen that the way he disposed of them being a sticking point and it is totally disgusting. To add some fuel for thought in this topic, I feel that because of the fact it was a very unusual way to dispose of their bodies it makes the act of disposal very jarring. I would like pose a couple of possible considerations/explanations to this for this discussion. 1. Is it any worse than the 'usual' way that we dispose of human remains, once our loved ones have passed away, buried in dirt or burned in a furnace? They both sound absolutely horrible if you think about it too deeply, but we understand it because human remains need to be disposed of, so we accept it and allow our loved ones to be disposed that way. It feels absolutely awful writing this but I do think it's in the uncomfortable reality that we can consider the human phycology to have many facets that we ordinarily wouldn't think possible. 2. Pure fear, he was definitely scrambling to 'get rid of the evidence' that he killed SW, in the event he did not actually kill the girls, is it not possible that he could have acted completely irrationally and would later regret his actions once the enormity of what had just transpired sunk in. If he was in a disassociated state his thinking and reasoning skills would be massively impaired. 3. I did see research some years ago that mothers who kill are compelled to submerge their children in water to replicate the womb and safety, it's a bit out there, and CW is male, so not sure how phycologically it would fit that narrative, but it is a thing for females convicted of fillicide. So worth a mention for consideration. 4. Once he buried SW, why not place the girls with her? Much easier than the effort of going up to the theif hatch of the tanks and putting them in there to drop down into crude oil. If LE found the grave of SW it would be all over anyway, so why not bury them together? There are definitely more questions than answers in this case.
Point 1: I think it’s way worse to put them in those tanks than any burial or cremation could be. Their little bodies were flammable, they had to be put in special caskets for their funerals. There’s probably not any wonderful way to dispose of human remains, but stuffing them in those tanks seems like the work of a cold hearted killer. Point 2: That seems very plausible. Point 3: I’m not sure how that correlates to this case. Too far fetched, but I appreciate the effort. Point 4: I have no idea why he barely even buried Shanaan. Seems almost like he ran out of time and planned to return to the scene later to dismember her and make her fit. (This shit is so gruesome I may have to quit this conversation for now.)
This whole comment seems like you are reaching so very hard to squeeze pieces to fit this puzzle, but they just don’t. As to #4: he has said that he separated them all on purpose and he doesn’t know why. My guess is that subconsciously he knew seeing his entire family together in one grave would have forced him to come back to reality and face what he had done. I don’t think he was possessed by demons when he killed them, but I do think he was out of his mind. I think one would have to be.
My best guess is that CW didn’t think anyone was going to believe him. So he went into panic mode/clean up mode. I also believe the R’s were involved in the hiding of the bodies as well. Recall the red vehicle seen that morning? I fully believe they were there. They may even have convinced CW to hide the bodies and not call police. They couldn’t have their daughter go down for this. Imagine the shame to their family.
I’ve always found the “check the knives” comment made by SOR very, very hard to explain.
I know that Shanann had told her and a friend that she didn’t feel safe around her husband, but she planned to have friends moving in soon. Sandie told her not to go but Shanann said she needed Chris’s health insurance for the pregnancy. So the idea of a threat to Shanann was already planted. As for knives? Idk, that matches nothing I’ve seen mentioned. Possibly because CW not being a gun owner, and they’d been home together (and Sandie being a keen cook, even) knives are the next cliche.
Yes these studies are to prevent future occurrances and divorce is a major trigger, the questions come from studies such as this one that seek to understand the reasons behind these crimes, fillicide is a main cause of death in children, it's covered up and when you dare to suggest it is even possible in this case that SW was vulnerable to being in this position we are villified by shiners, they are not objective enough to understand the danger children are in then and now imo. It's very interesting, I'm going through some up to date reports currently and I thought it would be a great way to open up a more genuine discussion into these findings and how they 'could' correlate or explain the phycology behind the reasons SW 'could' have been in the mindset of suicide ideation and altruistic fillicide with the 'Revenge' part and taking the girls away from CW and his new SO. There is another sub where someone who comes in here regularly is citing absolute crock of how we have folks here that believe she killed them because of her mlm, saying we are stupid. That person cites a post that really simplify the situation CW, may have found himself in following the incident, if anyone believes she could have killed the girls. I am yet to find a convincing phycological motive, for CW, the motive of he wanted a life with NK, just too simplistic for me. The evidence prior suggest to me he planned to co parent and that he had finally found confidence to break free from his abusive and weird relationship with SW. The evidence for me is extremely compelling that she had more to lose, had more reasons to breakdown and previous and subsequent crimes of this nature are case studies that back this conclusion strongly. I have also looked at male fillicide and CW does not fit the norm, he could however fit into the altruistic reason for murdering the girls, if he snapped and killed SW through anger, then following that then decided to kill the girls to prevent their suffering loss of SW. This is entirely possible. I don't know for sure which one did this, but what I do know is that SW behaviour was 100% a catastrophic backdrop to the end of this family. I consider him snapping that night without the stimulus of her killing those children and I can't see it, what after years of abuse and finally telling her it's over, I have someone else, he's in the best health since he met her and has a light at the end of a long tunnel, tells her so repeatedly and then snaps? The case against him is so thin.
That's fair enough, but this hinges upon if CW did indeed snap with rage, he could be lying about that.
Exactly I agree, which is entirely possible
We have all heard of Rebel without a cause? Chris Watts was the family annihilator without a plan! When he gets home from work he looked like Publisher's Clearing House was standing on his lawn with the big check!
God the publishers clearing house check part is so real. He was bubbling over.
Shannan Watts had a lot to lose. Her entire world that she had carefully curated was falling apart. Plus, with her being pregnant, she didn't have a safety net. When people are in desperate situations, they sometimes do desperate things
This is an interesting point, from the outside looking in I think it's fair to say SW had more to lose than CW.
Very interesting and informative post and comments! Would not surprise me if Chris killed all three. When he found out about their exceptionally dire financial situation, compounded with 8 years of her continuous abuse, sent him into a complete meltdown, a fucking huge one. In that state killing SW was easy, and he also took the girls because they were all she had left, and he wanted her to have nothing left as she left him with nothing. I don’t believe NK was even relevant to him at that moment. This was about Shanann. I do believe SW was capable of murder, just not sure she did it. Chris still seems not to have recovered from his trauma, he gets weirder in prison every day.
THANK YOU!!! I absolutely, 100%, without a doubt believe SW planned to kill her children, possibly CW, and then off herself. She was about to lose her marriage, her house, her sham career peddling Thrive, and she no longer wanted the baby she was pregnant with. She couldn't cope with all the losses, especially considering that her lifestyle was going to change so drastically. She would have felt humiliation, and she couldn't live with that. Her persona was everything to her. She WAS her persona.
> Her persona was everything to her. She WAS her persona. Well put. Yes, her online persona was everything to her. After spending so much time building up her perfect life, for people to find out that it was anything but would have been pretty humiliating. About to be 0-2 in the marriage dept with another child on the way and your husband leaving you for another woman regardless would have been devastating. Then SW likely having to move in with her parents once they lost house in Colorado would have been another major dent in her whole faked life. I remember she made a comment on one of her videos that she wouldn't have been a good mother or wife had it not been for Thrive. Something about it enhancing her life. Geez.
There is certainly a lot of evidence of her disgusting treatment of the family and finances in life. Her world was imploding most definitely!!
While SW was annoying, crazy, a shitty mother, I still think he snapped and killed them all. I believe he wanted a new life with NK and something inside of him went haywire that fateful day. Good info though.
Another point to consider... when these horrible crimes occur, I think it is something like 90% are committed by the husband rather than the mother. Why would this case differ considering it would have taken so much extra to manipulate the evidence to make it appear different. If he were to take the blame for her actions then why would he tell his dad she had done it, Tammy's prompt would have sent him firmly back to denying that she did anything, he's supposed to be taking the blame. Do you realise that until the autopsy reports reached the defense team and CW he was 100% going to trial..that he cried about having to plea because he knew there was no prospect of her being blamed.. and that was because of what he said to his dad. That SW had strangled them. That he'd seen it from impossible angles on a camera that would never show normal coloured skin or blue discolouration because it was night vision, that he threw her off Cece and strangled her in a perfectly laid out bedroom(when police arrived). Those autopsy reports have the absolute proof he lied! For starters they were smothered, Bellas autopsy proving that completely and utterly. The test shots in the bedroom by LE checking the angles of what he said he saw, the grey night vision camera images that apparently alerted him to BW being deceased, not being able to see Ceces neck and SW hands from his view. The neat and tidy beds that looked like those that they climbed out of themselves were seen Monday afternoon, where he claims he sought revenge. So what happened in their room? It was more than just removing a sheet. No one lies about a lie... so no one on a jury would be without doubt he lied about saying SW hurt them first. He'd go to death row, ultimately be downgraded but still same penalty. Plea deal was created by him and defense team, they took it to DA.. they knew he was guilty from day 2 apparently because he'd told them that, and now, with the autopsy they couldn't prove SW was involved.. So how could you imagine it happening, in light of the evidence at the house, and how if fails to match what he claimed in defense? I cannot match any notion of her hurting them first to what the evidence confirmed....
My several bits as the survivor or attempted filicide when I was three: 1\] my mother is sociopathic, no doubt 2\] she no longer wanted me and stated so to my father the day before she attacked me 3\] she also wanted to harm him by taking away his only child 4\] she held me hostage for an hour with scissor points pressed into my neck 5\] she lifted her arm 6\] a cop tackled me out of her arm, saving my physical life 7\] she damaged four men that night, two cops, my father and me 8\] she has no remorse and preyed upon me after the fact emotionally 9\] few on this planet know or understand my living nightmare, and I am happy abou this because nobody should know my truth through experience and I am sad about this because my trauma makes for a unique lonely 10\] please don't pity me, this trauma victim, survivor and soldier only wants understanding and acceptance.
Chris murdered Shannan and his daughters to get a “clean slate”. In cases of women murdering their children, revenge is a main driver. I watched a case about Elaine Campione. She drowned her two daughters when her husband left her. She tried to claim insanity but she was found guilty
There are many cases such as this and unfortunately SW had several markers for fillicide. Not sure I have seen that particular case, but seems like an interesting case.
Probably most females do have the “markers”if jealousy is a factor. I can’t see Shannan prioritizing her husband before the girls. She would’ve taken him through the wringer in court though.
SW’s Facebook posts all say what a wonderful husband and father Chris Watts was. It would be hard to walk that back in court unless you’re making up accusations. Nobody could say a bad thing about Chris and if the murders hadn’t taken place, many of the Colorado people would have sided with Chris Watts. Chris Watts was the easy winner in a divorce. He had a good job, no judge was going to make him pay 100 percent child support and he had a future with someone who had her own apartment and educated. He had the wind on his back. He wouldn’t have cared what her friends thought because men care more about what other men think (sadly) and his family, friends and his Anadarko coworkers were all Team Chris. If he killed the kids, he not only wiped out an entire family but effed up his own future.
She said that before she was aware of him cheating and lying to her. I doubt CO still has adultery as a divorce “reason”, just irreconcilable differences. It probably would’ve went joint legal custody with SW as primary parent and she’d get child support. I recall a video of Shannan saying her family is her priority, her girls.
Aside from the question of who cheated first, CW asked SW for a separation in 2018 before SW went to North Carolina. SW said no. So he was completely checked out of the marriage and was done with her and the marriage. He should have prepared to end the marriage while SW and the kids were in NC. Colorado doesn’t care who cheated. They care about who can best provide for the children. Chris was the primary caretaker and sole provider for the children. If he wanted custody, he would have won hands down. Especially if he showed the judge how she was on Facebook all day and sending the kids to day care, causing the family finances to collapse. And I’m of the opinion SW cheated first.
Where did you find that information about Chris asking for a separation before she went to NC? The texts from Nc indicate she was thinking they were “good” and she was wondering why he was ignoring her and not FaceTime his kids. Re: cheating, in divorce world it’s pretty insignificant nowadays.
Chris asked SW for a separation in early 2018 and SW was asking a divorce lawyer all kinds of questions at a restaurant in early 2018. Chris’ friend Mark Jamison said Chris told him in San Diego that he was over SW and wouldn’t care if SW found someone else. This was prior to the trip to NC. SW was in NC and was telling the hairdresser she was getting a divorce and looked forward to being single again. Google that. SW knew the marriage was on the rocks. She had a lot more to lose than Chris if the divorce happened. Chris had the world to gain. It was SW’s mother that sold the fairytale that SW and CW were madly in love and he couldn’t wait for her to return. Chris ignored SW’s FaceTime because she was calling him at 5 am in the mornings on weekends, demanding he talk to the kids. I myself would have blocked her. She’s with the kids. If there’s an emergency, she can text him. Plus she was badgering him with multiple calls a day and he was checked out on her. The marriage was essentially gone and Chris Watts should have filed the minute SW went home on the plane.
Here's the source for what the hairdresser said. https://www.wral.com/shanann-watts-murder-case-friends-family-recall-life-of-slain-nc-native-/17774026/ Shanann did not tell the hairdresser she was getting a divorce. The hairdresser said SW's mom said they were going to separate. She doesn't say specifically when Sandi said that. Shanann and Chris were both at that salon. She wasn't happily chitchatting about being single soon to that hairdresser. The hairdresser never claimed that.
Also, Chris did not tell Mark they were separating in San Diego. He said they seemed normal on that trip. Chris told him they were separating a week or so before the murders. https://preview.redd.it/sc72wt7a0n4d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be0135eed17706b0d110a541fce222a74a311106
I said Chris Watts told Mark Jamison that he, Chris would not be jealous if SW got with someone else. Edited to add: Kathleen Hewston in her book Blood and Marriage says that Mark Jamison said SW was texting him in the same car as Chris Watts.
Plus if Chris had gone the divorce vs family annihilation, he would not have fought for primary physical custody. His only concern was NK
Adding that women who murder their kids tend to view them as property versus an individual
She does remind me of Darlie Routier,who is on death row in Texas for killing her two boys supposedly for insurance money. I have doubts as to her guilt but that is a whole nother conversation.
Yes that's another weird one!