The undiscovered country of true crime is undoubtedly social media. Ordinary people leave digital breadcrumbs of themselves online, willy-nilly, randomly, arbitrarily but also authentically. These are off-the-cuff but more important, timestamped and related to a key inner circle of people. These hidden networks reveal plenty about the true social dynamics of the key role players.
Once a crime happens, typically attempts are made to scrub compromising online activity. Kessinger did an impressive job in destroying her virtual identity, but as is typically the case, she wasn’t able to scrub everything.
The True Crime in Colorado channel has done some good work recently in developing the Kessinger narrative in a meaningful way [as opposed to the ongoing conjecture that has been mostly baseless].
They’ve followed a few leads using Venmo notifications,* and trying to connect these to the discovery as well as timeline-related texts sent between Watts and Kessinger. Fleshing out the timeline is integral to cogent True Crime Rocket Science, which is why there seems to be some – not a lot, but some – new insight here.
The bottom-line with these possible connections to Trent Bolte, Danielle and others, is it provides the cursory apparatus to interrogate the beginnings of “dark things” Watts suggested in his letters to Cheryln Cadle. Were these dark things sexual?
*Note: Venmo is a mobile payment service app owned by PayPal.
Here’s everything you’ve ever wondered about the payment app Venmo – Daily Dot
True Crime Rocket Science II 
The most intriguing payment, IMO was the one between NK and JG, annotated “pillow talk”.
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Personally I haven’t let go of the Trent Bolte connection to Watts. What are the chances that out of millions of people a Trent Bolte comes out of the blue with a story that he met Watts, interacted with him for a short while, and tells it to the FBI. He saw a side to Watts that was dark – said he wore sweat pants – gave him money but wasn’t much of a nice person. Maybe Bolte wanted some kind of notoriety but Watts doesn’t vehemently deny he met him, or Amanda McMahon either. Watt’s denials that he put the girls in the oil tanks alive or could ever hurt his girls are more forceful than his denials that he knew Trent Bolte or Amanda McMahon. Watts has to remain good in the eyes of the public, something he had been perfecting for a very long time. We all want to be thought well of, but with him it’s a requirement to who he is.
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The FBI took him seriously enough to interview him. That said, Coder initially didn’t believe him, and told him so. And then Coder seemed to change his mind somewhat…
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The NK quote from the interview seems to be about Daniel, a male friend she hung out with that weekend, and not Danielle (a female friend) that she sent money to on 8/12. Is the interview transcript wrong that she referred to her friend, Daniel, as “him”? Did she indicate that it was a male friend she was spending time with over the weekend?
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Love how smart my community is. Excellent question. One way to confirm is to listen to the applicable audio to hear whether she herself refers to a him or a her. Who wants to volunteer to do that? I would except I’m in the middle of writing and researching MURDER MOST FOUL [Patrick Frazee].
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“Danielle came over Friday. I hung out with him (referring to Chris is my interpretation) Saturday.” She talks so fast they made a mistake transcribing and heard it as Daniel – probably given the use of “him” in the next sentence. This is in response to Kobach asking what she did on Sunday. Her entire thought formulation comes out of her mouth rapidly and incoherently.
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Yeah very incoherent. Thanks so much. Do you have the link to the video and the exact second. I’d like to give it a listen too.
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1:49
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Congratulations on the Annihilation paperback edition! That will make a cool Christmas gift for someone.
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Just wanted to say something on your youtube video about NK and the condoms. I don’t buy Watt’s story that he bought them because sometimes his wife doesn’t like to get messy. And if true, then his second confession that he and Shan’ann had sex the night he killed her doesn’t hold up. If she didn’t like to get messy then she wouldn’t have had sex and just gone right to sleep. She would have showered and removed her eye makeup at the same time. I think he bought the condoms because he was trolling for dates (Amanda McMahon) and started something with Trent Bolte. He could have stored them out of sight in the basement in one of those containers. I also think NK was already having her suspicious doubts about Watts since he started his relationship with her with a lie to begin with. This is why she was researching his condom expiration date and date of manufacture. She didn’t believe his story.
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Sylvester, I agree with that. And I also think that the reason she googled the Saratoga address was to see if it was listed for sale (e.g., Zillow). From the discovery, we do know that both CW and SW had been in contact with a real estate agent to put the house on the market and find another. NK was doing her homework. She may have been trying to determine how much the house was worth, and how much the sale would bring. Just a thought.
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I’m late to the discussion but I think the Trent Bolte connection is interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that NK got in touch with him and fed him the story he brought to LE. She was more concerned with directing the media and LE focus away from herself than providing any meaningful assistance. I can’t make up my mind if NK is incredibly deceitful and conniving or incredibly vapid or a combination of all three. Her interviews with LE were beyond infuriating. I’ll never understand why they allowed her to tap dance around their questions and dictate what she would or would not provide?? I’d be willing to bet that if Shannan and the girls were not found within a few weeks, she would have been more than thrilled to move forward with Watts.
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