Shan’ann Watts wastes no time alerting everyone about her debacle. She starts off Wednesday morning venting almost hysterically about her situation. She tells Sara Nudd she tried to have sex with her husband [presumably after they arrived home from the airport], and Watts rejected her. Again, this event will later play into the psychology of his fictional versions after-the-fact. It’s also a major blunder of the cops that they didn’t question Watts at length on exactly what happened when he arrived home with Shan’ann on the night of August 7th, in order to set a general precedent.
Shan’ann’s admission that she’s not “cried this hard ever” provides perspective on just how emotionally compromised she was, and who wouldn’t be, given the stakes: drowning in debt, battling her in laws, pregnant, sick, husband possibly cheating and he doesn’t want the third baby, and two temperamental young children to look after…
The tantrums aren’t pleasant either. Shan’ann has fought back by reviewing her own phone data and holding this up as evidence; interrogating him, asking him to explain it. This too is going to turn the lights in his cockpit red.
Shan’ann refers to 12 separate texts where she begged him to talk to her but instead he was “asleep” at 19:00 or 20:00. In fact, he wasn’t asleep, he was at Kessinger’s home throughout the month of July.
Shan’ann sending him “evidence” off her phone would also have vividly alerted Watts to a narrative – about him – that he had very little control over. And this was the thing he was becoming increasingly anxious about – how to make sure he stayed on top of his narrative. It was important his mistress didn’t get a different impression of him, especially not from his pregnant wife.
The arguing between the two also doesn’t sound as mild as it was in North Carolina, when they shared their living quarters with her folks. With them out of the way, Shan’ann is free to let rip on Watts, and she does:
“I tried talking to him after rejection last night, and me crying alone for an hour on the couch – he slept. I kicked his sorry ass out of bed and I refuse to sleep on the couch anymore this week. Told him to not come home today if he can’t tell me the damn truth on what the hell is wrong!”
Make no mistake, this is Shan’ann no holds barred, passive [crying] aggressive [threatening], putting her foot down, laying down the law. It’s unclear where Watts was sleeping in bed, whether it was the basement or in her bed. If he was in the basement why would she be on the couch?
Consider the irony of her telling him “not to come home if he can’t tell me the damn truth” and what he elected to do with her. He made her disappear, not come home, so that she couldn’t tell anyone the truth.
Also, consider the irony of Watts – for five weeks prior – having the run of “his house”, and the first night back his wife bullies him, threatens him, kicks him out of bed, all the while wishing he could be with Kessinger, but knowing he can’t because she’s around. In these emotionally fraught moment, the thought has to be clanging in his head:
I just wish I could get rid of her.
Shan’ann also acknowledges for the first time that it’s not just a case that Watts doesn’t want the baby, he’d be prepared to kill the child – through an abortion.
At 08:06 we get a peek on Shan’ann’s intuition regarding the affair. It’s on her mind, but she’s not certain. One of the reasons for this is a pretty good reason Watts offers in his defense:
And hence, Shan’ann also told Amanda Thayer she wasn’t too concerned about an affair, because she knew, and he knew, “he had no game”. But this was a critical error on her part. It was also a neat psychological manipulation from him to goad her towards her own familiar contempt for him.
When Josh Rosenberg [Cassie’s husband] contacted Watts to ask about the baby’s gender, Watts must have felt his ears burning. Clearly, Shan’ann was waking up the neighborhood talking about them, and the baby.
Cassie would later tell the cops that Shan’ann only texted her because she didn’t want Watts to hear her talking about him. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be discussing their problems with others. More than likely, Watts have been clear that he didn’t want her to air their dirty laundry in public, especially after what happened during Nut Gate with his folks. Shan’ann agreed, but then went behind his back and communicated anyway. Josh asking him about the baby proved that Shan’ann had broken her word to him, and this made him vulnerable in his affair.
This…I have to put a stop to this. How do I put a stop to this?
At 15:11 Watts made a change to Shan’ann’s contact details, perhaps to prevent Kessinger from seeing anything on his phone. Given what was happening, there was likely to be a flurry of histrionic traffic between him and his wife.
At 19:25, Kessinger Googles “marrying your mistress”. This day was also a rendezvous with her at the office, and a break at long last from the loveless drama and bitter feuding after the last week. Watts also apparently told her then – immediately after arriving back – we’re getting a divorce. At this point, he had told Shan’ann that they were incompatible and didn’t want the baby. It’s also on this day that she tells Nickole Atkinson and Cassie Rosenberg she will fight for full custody. August 8th is thus the first time he mentions divorce, but also tells her he’s not in a hurry.
In the Phone Data Review cursory remarks are made about a critical conversation Shan’ann has with Nickole and Cassie at 22:19 on August 8th, littered with expletives. Part of this conversation includes Shan’ann asking for the pregnancy reveal Taylor Welsch is organizing, to be cancelled – as per Watts’ instructions. This is obviously an issue for him. Shan’ann also asks her friends not to post anything on Facebook. [This is the day prior to Watts scrubbing his Facebook profile].
I have mentioned in the past that if Watts saw this particular exchange, where both Shan’ann and Cassie say “fuck him” and conspire to take his house, this more than anything else would have prompted him to take the gloves off. It’s also possible he did see it if they had shared access to the iCloud, as many couples do. From the discovery we know that at a certain point they did share access.
It’s unfortunate that Shan’ann was indiscreet about the private issues of their marriage. Watts had only just confided in her, and he did so reluctantly and with difficulty. She could be discreet about certain issues when she wanted to be, such as their money troubles. If it suited her, Shan’ann could keep secrets. But even if her husband asked her to do so Shan’ann didn’t seem to have any qualms about going behind his back, after all, fuck him, she wore the pants, she was the one in control. Below is a sample of some of the actual text messages sent between Shan’ann, Nickole and Cassie on August 8th.
After a long day of venting and whatnot, by the end of it Shan’ann seemed to have a change of heart. She realized she didn’t have a choice in the matter. She couldn’t afford to be a single mother without his full salary, and three kids to raise in Colorado. The in Colorado bit is especially telling. It suggests she’d considered living with the kids elsewhere, where it was cheaper.
Presumably that night Watts slept in the bed in the basement. Bear in mind Shan’ann had told him earlier that day not to bother to come home unless he told her the truth that night. Well he had. He wanted a divorce. Didn’t want the baby. And didn’t want her to do a baby reveal, or talk about it on social media. They also discussed the house and their financial constraints. Maybe Shan’ann provided a sticky solution. If the Rosenbergs moved in, they didn’t need to move out, did they?
Probably that same day at work [and later that night, from the bed in the basement] he let Kessinger know how serious he still was about her. How serious was he? He was getting a divorce and loved her, and wanted to marry her. Shan’ann – he told her – had already called the realtor. It’s happening. For her part, Kessinger elected to help find him an apartment to facilitate the separation/divorce.
Page 570 of the Discovery Documents appears to refer to this aspect of the timeline – August 8th. Kessinger started looking for apartments from this day, the day after his return from North Carolina.
At 23:08, a few hours after returning from the Ultrasound, Shan’ann is alone in bed, looking for reading material for her husband. He just needs therapy, and some counselling.
More: “Fuck him!” “Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you.”
True Crime Rocket Science II 
I could be wrong here. He may not have been thinking death to all just yet. Of course he could be thinking I wish they would all just disappear. That’s natural given the last week and now that they are home. He seems like sort of a leave it to the last minute type of guy. So I guess for me, I’m still waiting for that epiphany-type of moment where he puts a plan together. Also if she tells him not to come home until he has a change of heart – did he not come home? Doesn’t sound like it. Sounds like he did come home, but slept down in the basement. One last thought, if he thought the screws were being tightened in NC, he must have felt he was in a vice once he got home and she began making threats. Moving in another couple to harangue him further or engage in long marital type counseling sessions in Shan’ann’s behalf, must have turned his mood black.
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I like to think about this sort of thing as being analogous to the world’s first flower blooming for the first time. Realistically, there’s never a moment when there are no flowers or no precursors to flowers and then the next day, suddenly, there’s a flower. And yet after the fact we must acknowledge that flowers do exist, and once upon a time they didn’t, so how and when did it happen? It happens via an evolving process. Many of us have appropriate and inappropriate impulses that occur to us at various times, and sometimes we elect to act on them, other times we sit indecisively on our impulses for a while, others we discard. This is why the idea of mental preparation is the thing that causes ideas to evolve and for the psychological ducks to start lining up.
I tend to disagree with you though. Him announcing to Kessinger as soon as he got back that they were getting a divorce, and selling of the house is unusual for Watts. It’s unusual for him to be this decisive and this forthcoming. He’s also very clear that he doesn’t want the gender reveal announced. So if he’s not committed to the idea it’s nevertheless there, and it’s gaining reinforcement. There also seems to be strong reason to believe he made a possible commitment to marry Kessinger, or expressed the intention that day.
It’s also important not to look at this day in isolation. It’s one day among many days heading in a particular direction. It’s up to him to decide which direction he wants the tide to take him.
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These year-ago-to-the-day reports are interesting and at times illuminating, but I hope everyone is not forgetting that much of the analysis here, while often based on educated deductions, still has a large element of speculation. We will never truly know what went on in either Shan’ann’s or Watt’s or their families’ lives.
I’m also somewhat uncomfortable with the continued lopsided focus on Shan’ann’s annoying personality traits and behaviors. Sure, she may very well have been a control freak, been dismissive and contemptuous of her husband, been reckless with money because she had a Pollyanna-ish belief that everything would work out, but you know what…a LOT of people can be that way AT TIMES.
The Shan’ann-and-by-extension-the-girls-bashing seems to have gotten a little out of hand in the quest to figure out Watts – as if being able to EXPLAIN why he did what he did will somehow, in some way, make it more “understandable.”
I’m not saying other people’s behaviors didn’t contribute to his mindset, and therefore ultimately to this tragedy. Deciphering SOME of the reasons behind his crime (e.g. his upbringing, parent-child relationships) may allow some insight, but looking to partly blame his wife, his mistress, MLM – or for heaven’s sake, his CHILDREN – for him having an affair and killing his family doesn’t mean a hill of beans in the long run. That’s just society’s way of trying to make a situation fit a normal person’s way of thinking.
The bottom line is people in their in right minds do not kill other people. We all know that NOTHING Shan’ann or her daughters did in any way warranted or justified his barbaric acts, but oddly it sounds like several commenters here are changing their thinking a bit, especially regarding Shan’Ann, and beginning to have some sort of weird empathy for “poor, down-trodden, hen-pecked Chrissy-poo!”
The fact is, Christopher Lee Watts is not a sane person. He was, is and always will be a colossal liar, he possesses possible psycho/socio-pathic tendencies, and he spent 34 years honing a false persona that everyone believed was real.
And that’s what will remain among the saddest parts of this story — that a young mother and her children had to die before anyone realized that not only was he beyond sick, but that he always had been.
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I’m also somewhat uncomfortable with the continued lopsided focus on Shan’ann’s annoying personality traits and behaviors.>>I’ve been waiting for someone to bring this up. It’s victim blaming, victim bashing, and all that, isn’t it? We should instead focus all our attention on the narcissist monster. And most have. And by that we simply call him a narcissist monster over and over again, and that’s the total of our getting to know the dynamics. How cogent true crime analysis works is we try to look at every angle, rather than taking sides. And while we are sympathetic to the victims, we don’t allow emotions to cloud analysis. In other words, we try to be as neutral as we can be towards everyone. Ironically, it’s the most biased who find this unacceptable.
One of the irreducible realities of this case is the fact that Watts was an introvert, deleted his texts and scrubbed his Facebook account. So there is no escape from the fact that there is very little out there on him. Although his interrogations provide a lot of information, most of it is deceit and unreliable.
Shan’ann was very communicative and her Facebook is set to public, and is a treasure trove of insight. I find it disappointing [but predictable] that any analysis of that – what we have – is regarded as off limits. I really wonder, if you were dead, you were murdered, and you could speak down to earth, wouldn’t you want people to know what really happened to you?
The Shan’ann-and-by-extension-the-girls-bashing seems to have gotten a little out of hand in the quest to figure out Watts – as if being able to EXPLAIN why he did what he did will somehow, in some way, make it more “understandable.”>>>As you say, as if being able to EXPLAIN what he did makes it more understandable. Maybe it will be more understandable if we don’t try to explain it. Maybe it’s completely unnecessary in true crime to figure out a motive? I mean, why the heck do we need to know or even care who these people are, right?
We will never truly know what went on in either Shan’ann’s or Watt’s or their families’ lives.>>>Every time I hear that I want to vomit. I think if folks in law enforcement, in court, cops or lawyers believed that, there would never be any justice, no need for trials, judges or juries, no need for a site like this, nor any books. The fact is we can find out an awful lot if we try. That’s actually what true crime is all about. What it’s not about is an uncritical roll over and give-up because it’s too difficult mentality.
I’m not saying other people’s behaviors didn’t contribute to his mindset,>>>That’s exactly what you are saying. Please be my guest and don’t read analysis if it’s so upsetting to you. There’s a lot of other stuff out there I’m sure you’ll find more entertaining.
The fact is, Christopher Lee Watts is not a sane person. >>>That’s the difference between him and the rest of us. We are nothing like him, and he nothing like us. This of course is a comfortable, fanciful lie, and its fuel is ignorance.
Criminals hope and pray that you are right:
“We will never truly know what went on in either Shan’ann’s or Watt’s or their families’ lives.”
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It’s not about trying to work out if what he did is ‘understandable ‘. It’s about ‘understanding ‘ the context in which it happened and what the view from the tunnel was like for those involved. Understanding crime is actually what contributes to prevention in the future ,- recognising triggers and risks.
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@Sylvester I am trying to figure out the same thing you are.
I am waiting for whichever day it was where he started making nice with Shan’ann, having a good talk (i think thats how Shan’ann put it), and agreed to work things out and go to Aspen with her. I want to rehash how that all went down because I think at that point he turned a corner and decided it was go-time.
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It’s the next day. But it’s a good point, this little switcharoo in tactics from him.
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I think shannan at this point thought maybe a one night stand or at worst a mad weekend. Which she’d have made him suffer for but ultimately ‘forgiven ‘. I think she tried to initiate sex to test whether they were basically ok in the light of that.
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“The bottom line is people in their in right minds do not kill other people.” (Graciefield) I would tend hear someone say that and quickly agree, however, I’ve been thinking differently, lately, owing to something I heard in a lecture from (Canadian psychologist) Jordan Peterson. He talks about people who do terrible things, things beyond the pale. He says (paraphrasing) to consider, for instance, the Holocaust… We nearly always cast ourselves as an Oscar Schindler (good guy) rather than one of the camp guards. But who were all those camp guards, et al? They were formerly ‘normal’ people under just the right set of circumstances, the right combination of elements. Peterson has long exhorted his students (University of Toronto) to view themselves ‘as the camp guard’ when considering the world. When we are able to do that, we lose our naivete, in effect we lose our blinders. I am appreciating (enjoying isn’t the right word) these entries from VDL quite a lot. Very interesting parallels and insights here.
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Thanks, some nice insight there.
There’s *some* truth in that idea of not being in one’s right mind. He was in love, possibly also sleep deprived, and potentially concerned about money. Take these stressors away and he may have acted differently. Conflating madness with criminality is a mistake, because what we do is we dismiss everyday situations everyday people find themselves in and I can’t handle. By dehumanizing crimes and conjuring completely innocent victims and completely diabolical monsters, we buy into the same bogus fairy tale that drove the dynamics to begin with. And if we can’t learn from the past, we [you and me] are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
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And don’t forget Nickvdl, he was ‘thrived’ up to the max wearing two patches and hardly sleeping (nickole even said they would be chatting and all of a sudden chris would just drop off to sleep then wake up 10 minutes later).
God knows why he was wearing two patches. even Level was stating only wear one patch.
In one of Chris interviews he said about the thrive patches made him ‘go for longer without resting’. he also noted that even at rest his apple watch showed he was working out.
so if that Thrive crap had that effect on his body, what about his mental abilities ?
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Yeah he was clearly more wired on the double dose of DFT patches on a daily basis. He “wasn’t himself” in another sense as well – he’d lost a lot of weight and was probably looking better than he’d ever looked. This made him physically attractive to Kessinger. And from there – vanity.
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In response to him nodding off for ten minutes mid-sentence and then waking back up, that’s usually indicative of opiates. Wasn’t there a search regarding either oxycodone, or oxycontin on the home computer? Oxycontin wasn’t very easy to get a hold of, especially after 2012, however if Shan’Ann had a back surgery she very well could’ve gotten them. My father got them for his hip replacement and I had to keep asking the live in maid to not leave them around. Even 5-10mgs of Oxycontin (different from oxycodone, which is percocet) will knock an in shape man on his butt if he’s not used to it. Not to mention it will give you energy as opposed to making you sleepy, it’s a paradoxical effect that happens in 30% of people who take it – if a doctor notices they’ll take you off as it’s a precursor to addiction. They refer to it as an “allergic reaction” ironically. Opiates and heroin both can do this, you’ll get the rush and shortly after nod out. He could’ve been using it on occasion in conjunction with the patches, perhaps hoping it would make him sleep? Now of course it could be sleep deprivation, those Thrive patches are loaded with aspirin/willow bark (thins the blood) and caffeine which combined would make you a bit more wired than just caffeine alone. However, usually if someone falls asleep due to sleep deprivation, it’s not just for 5-10 minutes, they usually crash pretty hard. It’s very odd that he would nod off mid sentence then wake up few minutes later and continue talking. Ive only ever seen that in opiate/heroin addicts, and unfortunately I know first hand. (I’ve been clean for years though)
In some of Shananns videos, she comes off as almost manic, sweating, talking fast etc.. it could be the patches, but it could also be opiates. Add to that the fact she picked certain diseases to use in her malingering that couldn’t really be proven (soft tissue injuries in her back and neck, fibromyalgia, lupus etc.. ) and that is often treated with opiates and muscle relaxers like soma. She throws up all the red flags when it comes to “pill seeking” right down to moving often, and any doctor worth their salt would’ve noted that in her med records. She comes off as a textbook ER pill seeker, it’s all very questionable. I wonder if that’s why Chris was so quick to ask that the med records be sealed?
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I briefly toyed with the idea that Watts could have had some indistinct mental illness as how can you go from marital discord to family annihilation. But if he had some mental illness it would have showed up long before August 2018. He had virtually no reported incidents of disturbance in high school, in technical school, or in his friendships with others or at work. For all intents and purposes he was just a regular Joe, working out, going to work, picking his children up from daycare, doing the laundry, reading them a story, for years. If no one can identify with him, that’s fine. None of us have had his exact circumstances in life. But as a child I was badgered senselessly by a family member. As it turns out it was my grandmother. I couldn’t watch television without being told how to sit, what to do with my hands, not to drop crumbs, sit up straight, don’t touch my face, don’t scratch my skin. I was granted permission to see my friends for an overnight, but then I would get picked up after I had only been there a few hours as she was too nervous having me be gone overnight. My mother left me with her every summer when she went off on her numerous teaching sabbaticals. I started to develop little nervous ticks and humming to myself. Remove me from her household and I was 100% fine. Put me back there and it would start all over again. I was a child. I had not the social skills or coping mechanisms to humor her or let it roll off my back. I wished her gone.
One day she was chasing me around the kitchen table with a “switch” she had cut from a tree. Of course I could outrun her but it occurred to me that if she just fell from chasing me and broke her hip (as I had heard how often this happens with elderly people) then my troubles would be over. But then I realized I would be blamed, and I didn’t want her to get hurt. So I slowed down and allowed her to catch me, but I made a vow that when I was in charge of my own life, I would never visit her again.
If any of us has any of these dark thoughts or have felt completely cornered then we do know what Watts felt. We’d like to think we wouldn’t manifest those thoughts, but some do, and he did.
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Wow Sylvester, this caught me on a visceral level. I can so relate to all of it.
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This entry was super charged. Love it
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