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Month: July 2019
#4 July 7th, 2018: Watts takes Kessinger to the late show of Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, and Shan’ann can’t reach him… #1yearagotodayCW
July 7th was a Saturday. Just after midnight, Nichol Kessinger called Watts and spoke to him for almost two minutes. This was the first call recovered between Watts and Kessinger. Watts added Kessinger’s number as a contact on his work phone on June 14th.
Shan’ann called Watts twice between 05:00 and 06:00, for a total of eight minutes.
Watts appeared to be wining and dining Kessinger, especially Saturday night. They visited two restaurants and went to watch a movie at the Orchard Town Center, in Westminster. [It’s also possible his phone merely connected to nearby routers, rather than the couple actually eating at the restaurants].
Westminster is labout 10 miles due south of Saratoga Trail.
Since the 19:00 show of Jurassic World* was sold out, Watts and Kessinger sat on a bench and talked for two hours, then attended the 21:00 show.
Although the discovery refers to the movie as Jurassic Park, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom released in Mid-June 2018.
The delay in watching the movie would prove to be dangerous. While watching the film Shan’ann would repeatedly try to get hold of her husband but be unable to reach him. By the time he came out of the cinema, close to 23:30 [Jurassic World has a 2 hour 10 minute running rime] it was too late to call her back, and had he done so, it would be difficult to explain calling her back so late. Instead he elected to leave damage control to the next day.
Interestingly, Watts first date with Shan’ann involved him taking her to a movie.
Presumably Watts made sure he dressed appropriately, or perhaps he knew with Kessinger how he was dressed wouldn’t be such a big deal.
Movies features significantly in Watts’ reference field. When his boss asked about the disappearance several weeks later, Watts told him it was like something out of a movie or television show. When CBI Agent Tammy Lee asked him about ways a person could make someone else disappear, Watts specifically referred to the movies. It’s possible Watts got the idea, or fuel for what he would eventually do, from movies and/or television.
At 3:15 in the clip below, when Watts was standing on the driveway and asked to explain the circumstances of his family vanishing, he also said:
“I’ve-I’ve never seen something like this in my lifetime, unless it was on TV, or a movie. And this-this doesn’t seem real at all.”
The plot of Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom involves a threat to the dinosaurs, and the protagonist deciding that they should not be saved. In the trailer the question is pertinently raised:
Should they be left to die?
The voice-over in the trailer also states:
Life cannot be contained.
Life breaks free.
Life finds a way.
New Photos of Chris Watts and Nichol Kessinger released by Weld County
#3 July 6th, 2018: Sort out the Vivint sensor BEFORE I FLIP, plus pizza in Spring Lake #1yearagotodayCW
On July 6th we get a peek at the sort of day-to-day chores they’re discussing. One of the things on Shan’ann’s mind is the dodgy security sensor at the garage door. Clearly this ongoing issue had gone from aggravating Shan’ann to infuriating her.
It’s possible, even likely, that Watts purposefully damaged the sensor, or wanted it to remain “on the blink”, so that he could explain why the security system wasn’t picking up his movements. [Remember, he was spending a lot of time, almost every night at Kessinger. So how did Shan’ann not know this? Either she wasn’t getting the Vivint alerts to begin with, or she wasn’t being alerted because of an intentionally ‘erratic’ sensor’].
If Watts was deliberately frustrating Shan’ann’s efforts to track his movements into and out of the house, and getting away with it, Watts may have developed the confidence that he could pull the wool over everyone else’s eyes – in a more serious scenario if it came to that.
On July 6th Shan’ann calls Watts four times and Watts called her three times. Total chatting time on the 6th: approximately half an hour. The tone of Shan’ann’s ALL CAPS “BEFORE I FLIP” suggests she was shouting at him while giving him orders from North Carolina. Exactly a month later she would experience him as a different man: non-communicative, disassociated and cold.
In the above photo from Shan’ann’s Facebook page, her smile looks slightly forced. We also get a glimpse of what sort of food she feels is appropriate for her children [as opposed to icecream with nuts].
It’s likely Shan’ann bought pizza on her way to or from her in-laws home in Vass Road. There’s a pizzeria just around the corner.
#2 July 5th, 2018: Bella and Ceecee in Aberdeen, playing in a summer rainstorm #1yearagotodayCW
On July 4th, Nichol Kessinger went to a Rockies baseball game without him. This must have stung, enough to make an impression, because Watts used the idea of going to a Rockies game alone [or with work colleagues] as his “alibi” to Shan’ann on Saturday night, August 12th.
In Aberdeen, the 4th of July was a washout, and so was the 5th, as the video below illustrates.
Despite their argument on the 4th, Watts spends the night at Kessinger’s. By 14:24 the next day, a Thursday, Shan’ann is on the phone. Watts was likely about to return home from the oil fields when he received the call.
In all Shan’ann and her husband spoke for a total of almost 23 minutes on July 5th. The telephone conversations between Watts and his wife are one of the few areas we know virtually nothing about.
It’s possible Shan’ann’s brother Frankie or her folks may have caught snippets of these conversations, or at least seen her demeanor before or after the calls. What would they have talked about? Was it all small talk? The girls did this or that today? Or was there a regular theme, such as the state of their finances, and finding ways to scrimp on money?
On July 5th Shan’ann calls her husband twice and he calls her once.
I analysed this particular video in some detail in TWO FACE TWO POLLYANNAS. In it one can see Shan’ann’s still wearing her Thrive patches [despite being pregnant]. In a forum discussing using Thrive while pregnant, one user noted that certain ingredients like ephedrine in the DFT [Thrive patches] could be linked to heart defects in fetuses.
The more than five minute video above provides an extended view of how Shan’ann interacts with both daughters. Early on Shan’ann refers to “things coming out of the sky [in Colorado] that beat you death…” She’s referring to hailstorms.
Did Watts watch this particular video? At about 4 minutes remaining Shan’ann tells her children, “Daddy’s on here watching you.” What was he thinking on July 5th, watching them from Colorado?
#1 July 4th, 2018: Chris Watts and his mistress have a flaming row #1yearagotodayCW
For the next 5 weeks, CrimeRocket II will be doing a recap of the Chris Watts case timeline during the summer of 2018 based on references in the Discovery Documents and the CBI Report.
On July 4th, Chris Watts’ mistress visited his home in Frederick for the first time. At this stage, Shan’ann and the kids had been in North Carolina for just over week.
July 4th was also one of the first times Watts fought with Kessinger. When he took a call from Shan’ann, Kessinger was upset and felt she would always be playing second fiddle to Watts’ wife.
Meanwhile, it was raining in Aberdeen, North Carolina.
Seeing Double? Rebecca’s Height at the Door
What is it with doors and crime scenes? Doors seem to feature almost as characters of their own in many high-profile cases. In the Oscar Pistorius case the door is elevated to a kind of time machine.
Bullet holes marked with steel rods, from bathroom side of door
Through the 4 bullet holes, when lined up to the trajectory of the shooter and the bullet wounds from the autopsy, the entire split second shooting can be reanimated. I bought a door and measured the recreated the exact ballistics as research for Justice Eventualis, my final book on the Pistorius case.
In the McCann case there was a lot of confusion about front and rear doors in the beginning. Was the front door locked or the rear? Did Gerry McCann do his check through the front door or the rear? Was Madeleine’s bedroom door open or closed? How many degrees was her bedroom door open? How much light was visible insight the room through the partially open door…
PICTURE FROM MA CANN CASE FILE. INSIDE THE APARTMENT…..
A bathroom door also features prominently in the Jason Rohde case. I remember attending two court cases within a few months of each other in South Africa, and both the Pistorius case and Rohde case had the doors removed and reassembled in the court.
In the Rohde case the door was discolored with fingerprint dust and other stains. So many questions surrounded the white hotel door from Spier hotel where Susan Rohde was found bound and dead against. Was she actually hanging behind the door or just sitting? Was it possible to hang from the flimsy bathroom hooks? Would anyone hanging from those hooks not kick around and awaken someone snoozing in a bed immediately opposite the door? And what sort of maximum weight might one of those bathroom hooks actually hold?
Rohde Crime Scene Schematic: What else are we missing? [ANALYSIS]
5 Key Difficulties for Jason Rohde’s Defence [and they’re all unexpected]
Would a CEO really not know how to manually unlock a hotel door with a spoon or a coin?
Interestingly, in the Pistorius and Rohde cases, the height of the victim was critical to figuring out the forensics, and in the Pistorius case, his height without his prosthetics was also vital to figuring out the ballistics.
In the Amanda Knox case, a locked bedroom door, and broken windows and broken door latches all played a prominent role. Ditto the Ramsey case.
With Rebecca Zahau there’s not just a door but a message explicitly painted in bold, black ALL CAPS on the door. The San Diego Sheriff’s Department take a simplistic, reductionist view by simply imagining Rebecca in front of the door and painting the message. In their version she’s the right height, it’s painted with her paint, so it has to be her, right?
In the civil trial counsel for the Zahaus very cleverly did handwriting analysis on the seven word message, something the cops and experts for the defense did their best to scoff at.
But handwriting aside, if we look closely at the model used in the Sheriff’s PowerPoint presentation, she’s wearing shoes with a slight heel, and the door is slanted very slightly away from her. This simultaneously raises the model at least an inch in vertical height, while the slanting of the door lowers the message at least an inch. The model in the image also demonstrates painting her message on the lower line of text.
It’s easy to model the scenario yourself. Stand in front of a door with a pen and pretend the door is a piece of paper. Where would you automatically, naturally start writing your message? Go do the experiment quickly and then come back.
Where would you automatically, naturally start writing your message when standing right beside a vertical door?
Answer: In line with your shoulder, and looking down approximately 45 degrees [mirroring somewhat how one would write on a flat horizontal plane, in a line parallel with one’s bent elbow].
Keith Greer’s exhibit shows the height of the message a few critical inches higher than the police exhibit. The text on the bottom line is clearly above Rebecca’s shoulder level, and the word HIM virtually eye-level or slightly higher.
Sometimes, on these tiny nuances, the height of a message on a door, a trial or an investigation can turn – for better or worse.
Officer who left boot print on balcony testifies
Greer asks the anonymous officer if he’s sure, if he knows, the boot print was his.
Listen at 0:36 to his strange answer.
Two Sides to the Tugboat Captain
When Adam Shacknai appeared in court he was impeccably dressed in a polished suit. His answers were polite and mild-mannered.
When he testified Adam spent some time cleaning his glasses when he was asked to examine photos of the crime scene and the victim – arguably his own handiwork.
This was his demeanor when the 911 call was played back in court.
On Adam’s final day in court, he appeared completely different – dressed casually in black, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and compared to everyone else in the room, under dressed, especially for January in California.
Outside court Adam was less polished, and so was his statement to the media. 
As the retinue left the premises, Adam stood out as something of an oddball, even from a distance. 
Apparently on the same day as the civil trial concluded, Adam sat down for an interview, still dressed in the same clothes. The interview appears to be in a hotel room.
This same wardrobe change from brown-grey suit to brown-grey shirt repeatedly itself in 2018.
DEATH AT THE MANSION – The Final[e] Analysis [Part 3 of 3]
Significantly, two different pairs of gloves are identified in crime scene reports, and crime scene photos. In one instance what appears to be a single black latex glove was found in the dirt in the crawl space under the stairs. The second glove seems to be missing.
And then there’s this pair, found in plain sight upstairs on the living room table.
This same pair, or a similar pair, appears in Greer’s “War Room” resting on a packet of cream-yellow Multi-Purpose Latex gloves.
In the above image we see the gloves stored beside the ski-rope in Greer’s War Room. The possible use of the gloves raises a few possibilities. Were they used to grip the rope when lowering Rebecca? A ski-rope is by its very nature slick and slippery. Were the gloves used to intentionally transfer black paint onto Rebecca’s hands, to make it seem as if she painted the message? The gloves in question appear to resemble gloves associated with watersports, including boating.
Only one of the two pairs has potentially the sort of “skin pattern” that may have left the characteristic imprint on Rebecca’s fingernail. But if a glove made this imprint, why was no black paint found on either of the gloves?
Finally, why are we talking about two pairs of gloves?
Who did the gloves belong to?
It makes almost no sense that no DNA was recovered from two pairs of gloves, especially because gloves would essentially serve as a receptacle for hairs and skin cells. But apparently only minute partial and mixed DNA traces were found, and the San Diego cops were pretty good at not doing much with the little they did find.
The finale does a good job to undermine the amateurish efforts on the San Diego PD side, both in terms of the original investigation and the so-called “reinvestigation”. One of the presenters hits the hammer on the head when describing the reinvestigation as “not a true investigation”.
Crazy as it sounds, apparently whoever tested the plastic bag on the floor by the bed, and even the entire door, used a single swab in each case. That’s a little like using a toothpick to measure the size of a football field.
But even without DNA analysis to guide us, we have one pair of those same gloves appearing in a series of crime scene photos. At the bottom of the stairs on the railing.
Who did they belong to?
True Crime Rocket Science II 