Crime Weekly - S1 Ep1: The Watts Family Murders

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

It was the early morning of August 13th, 2018, when Shanann Watts approached the front door of her house in Frederick Colorado. She had just returned home from a weekend business trip in Arizona, and before that she had spent six weeks in North Carolina catching up with family and friends. As she approached the house with her suitcase it was still dark, she was three months pregnant and all she wanted to do was get inside, kiss her sleeping daughters and then get off her feet and fall asleep in the arms of her loving husband. She had no idea what was waiting for her on the other side of that door. Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

It was the early morning of August 13, 2018, when Shanann Watts approached the front door of her house in Frederick, Colorado. She had just returned home from a weekend business trip in Arizona, and before that, she had spent six weeks in North Carolina catching up with family and friends. As she approached the house with her suitcase, it was still dark. She was three months pregnant, and all she wanted to do was get inside, kiss her sleeping daughters, and then get off her feet and fall asleep in the arms of her loving husband. She had no idea what was waiting for her on the other side of that door. Hello and welcome to Crime Weekly presented by i-D. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. On this podcast, we do talk about difficult subjects. We're talking about real crimes and real people. And due to the graphic nature of some of this content, listener discretion is advised. Derek, before

we get started, have you been following this case with Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell? They're still in court, even after the children's bodies were found and all the evidence has been stacking up. No, I heard a little bit about it, but I don't know the details. What's it all about? Okay, well, we won't dive into it just yet, but I will tell you that it's an insane case. I've been following it every step of the way. It involves a doomsday cult,

two missing children, and a lot of lies. Now, if you want to know more before we cover it on the podcast, check out Doomsday, The Missing Children, premiering Sunday, December 20th at 9, 8 central, only on ID. This week, we are talking about the murders of Shanann Watts, Bella Watts, CeCe Watts, and Nico Watts. As a YouTuber, I really saw this case discussed nonstop.

It just seemed to hit a chord with so many people, and I really think that's because it seemed like they were the perfect family and Chris Watts seemed like the perfect husband and father. So it made everyone incredibly sad, of course, but also uncomfortable. It made us side-eye our neighbors and friends and significant others wondering what they might be hiding. Now, Derek, what was your feeling when you first heard about what happened to this family? I know you have two little girls. Yes. Yes, I do. You can't help but think about your own daughters when you see Bella and Cece's faces. It's terrible.

As a detective, all murders are tragic in some way. But for me personally, whenever children are involved, even before I had kids, it just hits a little different. And, you know, my, my daughters are seven and four now, so they're a little bit older, but it's definitely tough to look at Bella and Cece and see what could have been and know their lives were cut short. Exactly, exactly. And, and when this first came out, my daughter, who's also Bella was about the same age as same age as little Bella was. So it was really tough. Now, Shanann met Chris Watts during what she referred to as a dark period in her life. She had previously been married and divorced, a relationship that took everything

from her, and it left her feeling really insecure. She began feeling unwell, like she always had the flu. She had no energy. So she went to the doctors and she was diagnosed with lupus. After this, her life began to change rapidly. She quit her job of nine years and she began to drift away from people that she'd been close to because they couldn't really understand what she was going through. They couldn't understand that she could look perfectly fine, but still feel sick and horrible. Then she gets this Facebook friend request from a man she'd never met, and that's where it all started. Now, Derek, I remember reading about Shanann's struggles in her life and thinking to myself, this is not the best time to get into a relationship when you're at a low

point, when you're vulnerable and feeling a really low level of self-esteem, isn't this usually a risk factor for getting into a relationship with someone who might take advantage of you or prey on that vulnerability? I mean, it really does raise a lot of red flags, right? Like Chris just came out of nowhere when he clearly knew Shanann was going through some things. And there's no doubt about it. Offenders usually look for individuals who are in a fragile state of mind because they're easier to manipulate. But to me, it looks like they both might've been going through some things and it was kind of a fresh start for both of them. It doesn't sound like Chris had a ton going on either before he met Shanann. So he probably needed her just as much as she needed him. Yeah, I agree. It felt like they were both

two people who were looking to fill a hole. And Chris and Shanann, they started dating and he was there for her. You know, he was there for her and he understood what was happening. He was going to her doctor's appointments with her. He was, you know, seeing her at her worst. So he deserved her at her best. The old Marilyn Monroe quote. And they end up moving from North Carolina to Colorado after taking a trip there and falling in love with the state, which I totally get because it is absolutely breathtaking there. But I have noticed that there's been a lot of infamous true crime cases that have come out of Colorado. You got JonBenet Ramsey, Gannon Stokes, Suzanne Morphew, who's still missing. The list really goes on. What do you think is going on over there? Is there something in the water? Is it the elevation?

No, no. Colorado is beautiful. I love Colorado. I've only been there once. I went there for a case on season one of Breaking Homicide. It's an incredible place. But unfortunately, regardless of how beautiful a place may be, there's evil everywhere. That is true. That's true. But with this case, I'd really like to focus on the investigation, right? Especially after seeing the Netflix documentary, American Murder, The Family Next Door, which had a lot of footage I had not previously seen. And I kept looking at Chris during this footage that was in the documentary. And I was wondering if he just looked suspicious to me because I already knew what he did, or if an

actual law enforcement official on this case would have felt the same way. And luckily, you have experience in this, so I get to pick your brain. Lucky you. Yes, I watched the special as well. Very interesting. I do see how knowing what happened could definitely make you look at Chris through a different lens and say, look, of course he's guilty. But for police, a case like this is a slippery slope. Obviously, it's running through the back of their minds that he could be involved, but you don't want to be perceived as insensitive to a guy who may have just lost his pregnant wife and two daughters. But there were definitely some indicators that he was being deceptive. And I think police picked up on that right away. I'm sure we'll dive into that a little bit more later. Yes, we will. We will dive into that a little bit later.

But what kind of triggered this whole investigation to happen was Shanann's friend, Nicole Atkinson, had dropped her off at her house a little before 2 a.m. on the 13th of August after the business trip. And the next morning, Nicole began texting and calling Shanann, you know, just to see how she was feeling, to check in. But Shanann wasn't answering these calls and texts. And knowing that Shanann was pregnant and had some health issues, also knowing that Shanann was somebody who needed her phone to work from, you know, Shanann did thrive and she was on social media a lot. So she always had her phone on her. Nicole became very worried and called the police to request a welfare check. During this 911 call, Nicole had mentioned that she'd been with Shanann over the weekend and that Shanann had been extremely distraught. So initially, if you get a call like this, are you automatically going to assume something is wrong

or is there more of a feeling of, you know, let's just get over there and make sure she's fine so we can set our friend's mind at ease? If I'm being honest, I think it's more of the latter for sure. I mean, these types of call happen way more than you think. So yes, you want to check it out, but usually it turns out that there's a reasonable explanation. That said, you can't be complacent and you have to take every situation seriously until the matter is resolved. So the police arrive and they meet Nicole and her son who are waiting outside of Shanann's house. They contact Shanann's husband, Chris, who says he'll be right there, but they have to wait for him to enter the house. And they say this in the footage, you know, I think the police officer said

at one point to Nicole, like you can go inside, but I can't go inside. Can you explain this to me a little more? Why the law enforcement officials would have to wait for the homeowner when checking on another inhabitant in the house who's not responding to calls or texts? It always just makes me nervous. Somebody could be in there having a seizure or not being able to breathe and they're just kind of standing out there. What's the deal with that? Yep. No, I get this question a lot. Every homeowner has an expectation of privacy. And in order for a police office to enter your home, there needs to be consent from the owner, a warrant

signed by a judge, or exigent circumstances like the ones you just mentioned. If we're going to enter because we fear that there could be harm to someone inside or someone's in a medical situation, or if we feel that the failure to enter could lead to the destruction of evidence. That's another reason. For example, I ran into a house in 2017. There was a fire and I wanted to get the family out. I didn't ask for their permission. I went in because of the circumstances that were presented, but that's an extreme circumstance. But in this case, the cop did the right thing. You want to do it by the book. Let's say he went into the house without consent and finds Shanann's ring or something of value as far

as evidence is concerned. All of that could be ruled inadmissible in court due to an illegal search and seizure under the fruits of poisons tree doctrine. So you really want to be careful because although you may think you're doing the right thing in the moment, if you go in there and you find something that happens to be the smoking gun, it could all be for nothing when it finally goes to trial. I completely understand that. I would hate to have that job because you have to make a decision. Do I go in and possibly ruin a crime scene or mess something up? Or do I wait out here and hope that nothing's actually wrong inside? Chris does finally arrive and he lets the police come in. And the first thing I noticed about this home is how immaculate it was. And it made me feel really inadequate as a housekeeper. I know Shanann's three months pregnant. She had two young children, but she was also known to be very particular about the way her house was kept. And honestly, I don't even know where she found the time, but there was

another reason the house was so clean on this day, as we will soon find out. I noticed as the police officers were walking through the home, through their body cam footage, they went into the master bedroom. The bed was stripped. Now, to me, that would have been a red flag. It's early in the morning. A mother and her two little girls are missing. Chris has been at work since very early that morning. I think he claimed he left a little bit after 5 a.m. and the bed had been stripped. What do you think about that, Derek? I mean, I see where you're coming from. I saw that as well. I think this is one of those things where in hindsight, it all adds up, right? Like house is perfect, but the bed is a mess. Has to be a murder, right?

But there could have also been a reasonable explanation. Maybe she threw the sheets in the wash before she left. But again, as we just talked about, great job by the police officer to get consent first. And I'm sure that the body cam footage of this initial crime scene was a huge help to the investigators and eventually to the prosecutors. And once again, still talking about that body cam footage, I noticed how incredibly stressed Chris Watts seems. At times he's sweating profusely. And when he speaks to the police officers, he's almost like a bit too earnest, a bit too eager, if you know what I mean.

He barely blinks. He's wide eyed. He thinks the bigger his eyes get, the more innocent he seems, you know, like he's a cartoon deer or something. Now, Chris is the one that notices Shanann's phone is left behind. Chris is the one who finds Shanann's engagement ring that she apparently left behind. Or at least I think that's the picture he's trying to paint. That's the narrative he's trying to paint for these detectives. If you're a detective on the scene and this guy looks like this and he's acting like this and he suddenly becomes Sherlock Holmes, he's finding all these clues that helps to paint the picture of a woman who just got fed up and left. What are you thinking? I actually didn't have a problem with him finding the items. I thought his reaction to the phone was a little underwhelming, but not too obvious. I also thought him bringing the ring out I thought his reaction to the phone was a little underwhelming, but not too obvious. I also thought him bringing the ring out for everyone to see like a prop as opposed to just telling them it was in the room was a little odd. It's interesting because offenders will sometimes leave evidence in obvious places so the cops can find it and then they can react. Maybe Chris felt

the cop wasn't moving fast enough. I don't know. It did seem like the police officer wasn't going too in depth as far as the search was concerned. At that point, I think he was just concerned about Shanann and the kids. But this is why it's important to never assume. You never know what you might see or hear that could become a critical piece of the puzzle later. What you just said, he brought it out like a prop. That's exactly what it felt like. And I never even thought maybe he, because I definitely think he had planted it there. He had left it there himself,

especially considering what we end up knowing about this case. But he brought it out and he sort of looked at it like he's just a bad actor and he kind of holds it up. It was almost like he wanted to lead the police into this direction of my wife was upset with me or she's going through a lot. And she took the girls and left and she left behind her wedding ring. And you're right. I don't think the cop was even at that place in his head yet. He's still thinking she could be at a friend's house or she could be just driving around. And now you've got Chris who's like, no, don't look over here. Look over here. We're fast forwarding in this investigation. I need you to understand that she probably left. And that's kind of just where it struck me as odd. But keep in mind, Chris hasn't even told

the police that his wife Shanann is pregnant yet. They ask if she has any medical conditions. He says he thinks she has high blood pressure, but he mentions nothing else. He gave that information later, almost as if it was an afterthought. And then at some point, he begins suggesting to the police that maybe he should leave. Maybe he should drive around to the places she might go and see if he can find her and the girls. And at this point, Shanann's car is still at the house. Bella and Cece's car seats and medicine are still at the house. Shanann's purse, car keys, cell phone, still at the house. So unless she took off walking with a three-year-old and a four-year-old, no money, no phone, I'm not sure where she would be that he could find her. And I feel that if your family was missing, remaining at home would be the best thing you could do in case they return.

You want to be there. Do you think he was just trying to get out of that house and like out from under the eyes of law enforcement? It's a great point, you know, and I mean, you know, I'm not a psychologist, but you can look at it a couple of ways. For me, I think he was trying to put on his best performance of looking concerned. Like what would a father and a husband do if you really didn't know where his wife and kids were? Obviously he did. And I can tell you that if it were me, I wouldn't have asked anyone what I should be doing. They wouldn't be able to keep up with me. That's just it. So yeah, it definitely looked like he was, it was contrived and he was trying to look concerned when in reality,

he knew what had happened. So you don't think he was just trying to like escape the police officers? Like I can't sit here sweating all wide eyed in front of them? Possible. And just to get them out of his house, you know, like, hey, I found the ring. I found the phone. I don't need him. There's the narrative. I want them to believe now get out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I never even thought of that because that is the scene of the crime, you know, as we discover. So maybe he's like, go look for her outside of the house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Well, so next the police and Chris go over to his neighbor's house because his neighbor has security cameras, which happened to point right at Chris's driveway. Now, this is where I believe Chris's stress level reached a

critical point. He refuses at times to even look at the screen where the footage is being played. He's rocking back and forth. He keeps bringing his hands to his head. He's trying to hold his brain inside his skull. He's clearly in distress. When the video's done, it changes to regular television and it's the Discovery Channel. Some documentary is playing and on the screen in this body cam footage, you can see a baby in utero for a brief moment and you can see Chris looking at it and something clicks in his head. He immediately looks up and says very quickly, well, she's pregnant as well. As if he had completely forgotten that little fact until that very moment. I know you saw this footage and you had some thoughts about it from a law enforcement perspective. What did you think? Yeah. For me,

this was the turning point. This was the first real moment where something occurred that Chris had not planned for, the neighbor's security footage. Everything up to this point had gone according to plan, he's stumbling all over the place. If it's not a big deal, he would have let the video play and maybe said, yeah, I was loading up my tools and be done with it. But he knew that this video could come back to bite him later. So he was trying to diminish the importance of the video before the cop had a chance to even process the video himself. And if I'm the cop, the first thing I'm saying is, why didn't Chris think of this video when I first got here? That's one of the first things that if I were Chris would have done. If I really wanted to know where my wife and kids were, you check the video right next door. Truthfully, I don't think Chris knew that the camera was there, or maybe he thought that the camera didn't have a view on his driveway.

You're going to hear me say this a lot as we do these podcasts, but I've always said it. If criminals were smart, we probably wouldn't catch a lot of them, but it's their mistakes that ultimately do them in and allow us to apprehend them. And you saw the part where his neighbor, Chris is like, oh yeah, I was doing this and I always pull my truck up. And his neighbor's like, you never pull your truck up. Yeah, no, it was, there's a lot of little micro, you know, behaviors, a lot of little

micro expressions throughout this whole interaction where you're like, yeah, you know what? That looked like he was guilty right there. Like you were saying earlier. But to me, the really one obvious moment where it's like, you see one guy when he pulls up to the house and Chris, and then this demeanor completely changes at that moment. Not only that, he's like sweating profusely as his video is playing. So for me, whether it's knowing what happened afterwards, whether you're a detective or not, I think anybody watching this video would look at his reaction to the video itself and

say, well, wow, he doesn't like this. This is uncomfortable for him. And many people did do that on the internet where everybody does everybody. But now after the video is played, right, Chris can't wait to get out of that house. He cannot get out of that house fast enough, but the detective stays behind and the neighbor tells him, you know, something's not right. He doesn't normally act like this. He's usually very low key. He's usually calm. He's rocking back and forth. He's talking a mile a minute. Chris usually is very soft-spoken. Something's not right here. Do you think this was

the first time the detective realized that Chris might be more than just a worried husband and father, or do you feel like they'd maybe already been suspecting that? First off, kudos to the neighbor. Very impressive. Great job by him picking up on the change in behavior. It's always easier to do that when you have a baseline of how a person normally acts and cops usually don't have that luxury initially. This is why it's always important to talk to friends, family, and neighbors. I mean, if there is a change in behavior, the person who knows them best is going to pick up on that. As far as the cop, I honestly don't know what the police

officer was thinking. He appeared to kind of justify Chris's behavior and even downplay it a little bit. But again, I'm sure he made a mental note. And as other things were uncovered, I'm sure Chris's behavior in that moment made a lot more sense to him and the other investigators. Well, I do this on my channel sometimes, too, because I know that there's always a jump, you know, to blame the husband. So, and I've seen sometimes where it is the husband, but sometimes it's not. And then this person who just lost a loved one who's, you know, traumatized has to deal with also having the finger pointed at them and being just dragged all over the internet. So I will preemptively, anytime there's a case like this, I'll say, you know, everybody acts differently. Nobody behaves the same when they're grieving. Nobody behaves the same when they're stressed. We can't judge somebody's, you know, behavior or the way they're acting under certain circumstances because we don't know how we would act or we don't know if we would act the same way. So I think that's what the cop was doing. It's almost like to just stop something before it starts rolling downhill. You don't want it to start getting around the neighborhood that the

cop told the neighbor, oh yeah, he is suspicious. And then all of a sudden there's like pitchforks and, you know, torches coming at the Watts house. So I think that's really, in my opinion, what the police officer was doing, just trying to like keep a lid on everything. Now you got to stay impartial. You know, he's an investigator. He's there to observe the facts and circumstances, not interpret them. And again, like you just said, you don't want to be accused of coming to a conclusion before you get the facts. Listen, we always want to let the facts and circumstances guide our, you know, opinions, not have an opinion and then make the facts and circumstances fit it. That's a bad cop. And so I think it's important to stay in the middle and just let the evidence take you where it takes you. Yeah, let the evidence speak for itself. I completely agree. Well, the next day on August 14th, Chris gives multiple interviews outside his house while police dogs are inside the house. This was the first introduction most of us had to Chris Watts, him talking to reporters while his pregnant wife and two young daughters were out there somewhere.

Now, everyone who knows me will tell you, like, I'm the last person who would ever judge someone who's in the throes of tragedy. I know there's a big push on social media to analyze body language, count how many tears are shed, but I have seen husbands and boyfriends, like we just talked about, of missing women get dragged through the mud on the internet. And in the end, they had nothing to do with what happened. They were just trying to process everything under a spotlight. So I never want to judge how someone grieves or how they behave under a great amount of pressure because everyone's different. However, when I first saw these interviews, I remember calling out to my husband who was in the other room and saying, this guy did something to his wife and kids. He knows where they are. And I don't credit

my sharp sense of observation for this one. There were a lot of red flags when Chris Watts decided he was camera ready. He repeats himself a lot. At one point, he referred to his daughter Bella in the past tense, saying something like Bella would have been starting kindergarten or Cece loved a certain pair of shoes. Now, CBI investigator Tammy Lee later wondered why Chris would start talking about his family in the past tense if he was hoping that they would return. And it's a valid question. Remember, there were police dogs inside the house as he's giving these interviews. And at one point, they start barking and his face looks like he just saw the ghost of Christmas past, present and future all together in front of him. He's clearly terrified.

Now, Derek, do you think this was a strategic play on the part of the police? I've always wondered if they had done this on purpose, you know, had him outside on camera getting all of his reactions recorded while trained police dogs are inside searching for evidence of murders that he knows were committed in that house. It's possible. There's one thing for sure. The police knew a lot more than they were saying at that point. But that's a thing for sure. The police knew a lot more than they were saying at that point. But that's a common police tactic. Make the suspect feel safe and that you're on their side so they are more willing to cooperate. But by that point, the police probably had all of his phone records, knew he was having an affair, and knew that his actions after her

disappearance slash death didn't line up. So they may say, hey, Chris, you go outside and play nice with the media while we stay inside with the dogs and build our case against you because we know you're lying. Simple as that. They're still looking at other avenues, but they're probably starting to hone in on what they perceive happened. And at this point, they're just stringing him along. He thinks he's the puppeteer, but he doesn't realize he's being played by the professionals. That's very true. What you just said, he, he thinks he's pulling the strings the whole time. He, he had this false sense of security. I think he felt like he was in control. I imagine him the night before laying in bed and just going over these lines that he's going to say to the

cameras. Cause he repeated the same thing over and over again. I just want them back. I want them back. I want them back. And I think he probably rehearsed these lines. They sounded rehearsed to me. But these media interviews are also when Chris mentions that he and Shanann had gotten into an argument early on the morning that she went missing. I'm sorry.

It wasn't an argument. What did he call it? An emotional conversation. And we get more information about the state of their marriage when he's interviewed later at the police station. The detective interviewing him picks up on the fact that Chris has gotten into shape recently. You know, he's lost some weight. He's been working out. And the detective suggests that it might be because of a girlfriend or like another woman. And Chris is vehement when he declares that he did not cheat on his wife, but he admits that they have been drifting apart. Now, as a police officer interviewing the husband of a missing woman, you notice he started to care a great deal about his physical appearance.

He tells you, you know, things haven't been great with the missing wife. The thrill is gone, all that jazz. What do you think? How do you approach it? I think the detective did a great job. I really, I really do. It was textbook. He was calm, collected, and he came off as a friend, even though he probably knew that

Chris was lying through his teeth. That's how you have to do it, though. You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar. And you want to keep it cordial so that the suspect doesn't get nervous and ask for a lawyer because that's the end of that conversation. But I watched the interview and it was extremely interesting. We're trained to detect signs of deception through body language. And as you mentioned, when he was talking about his appearance, Chris opened up towards the detective. He looked him in the eyes. He straightened right up. But when it got to the more pertinent questions about his wife and

children, he closed off his body. He was bladed towards the detective. And it looked like he was kind of looking away and down to the ground as he was speaking on multiple occasions. So you can definitely see just that little dramatic change in, hey, you're asking me about something I'm comfortable talking about. But when you go to the questions that could be incriminating, he may not realize he's doing it, but subconsciously his body is telling a different story than what his mouth is saying. So this whole good cop, bad cop thing, is that just something from movies or do you kind of look at a suspect and ask yourself based on who this person is, what you know about him or her, what does this person need, a good cop or a bad cop? Right. You definitely do. You're profiling

them the minute you walk in there to see what's the best approach. Some people need the kid gloves on and some people need to be, you know, they have to be shown who's the alpha in the room. And I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I actually thought Detective Lee and this detective did a great job of that good cop, bad cop later in this whole story. But yeah, no, they, honestly, I don't want to keep saying it and I'm not one to just give credit when it's not due. They did an excellent job throughout this whole investigation. They really did. So as I mentioned earlier, though, before Shanann's business trip to Arizona, she had taken Bella and Cece to North Carolina for six weeks. Since she worked from home and she could

therefore work from anywhere, Shanann had the freedom to do this, but Chris needed to stay in Colorado for his job. But he planned on flying to North Carolina on the sixth week so that he could fly back home with his wife and daughters. Both Shanann's parents and Chris's parents lived in North Carolina, so it was initially the plan for Shanann to bring the girls there because they didn't get to see their grandparents often, but it also appeared there was some bad blood between Cindy and Ronnie Watts and their daughter-in-law Shanann. According to Chris, during an interview with the police later, he claimed his family didn't really ever like Shanann, specifically his mother and sister. They thought that she'd basically taken him away from

them when they moved to Colorado, but it seems to me as if they didn't really like her from the start. That's just my opinion. It was kind of just an immediate dislike or an immediate friction since Chris's parents didn't even attend their wedding, right? So right off the bat, your son's getting married to a woman. You don't like her. You don't even make an attempt to go to their wedding. According to Nicole Atkinson, who was Shanann's best friend who'd been with her the previous weekend in Arizona, while in North Carolina, Shanann and Cindy Watts had gotten into a huge fight, and it actually ended with Cindy asking Shanann to leave. Apparently, Shanann had reprimanded Cindy for buying ice cream that her youngest daughter Cece was allergic to, and they'd argued about it. Now, while in North Carolina, Shanann and her family celebrated Cece's birthday party, and although the Watts had been

invited, they did not attend. Shanann had texted Chris about this, stressing how dangerous it was for Cece to be around nuts with her allergy. And it's a very strange dynamic because Shanann is concerned about, you know, real things. She has legitimate reasons to be worried since apparently Cindy Watts had claimed she hadn't known about Cece's allergy. And the whole time she was in North Carolina, Shanann is texting Chris, asking what's wrong with him. Why isn't he responding to her texts or answering her calls? And he just keeps reassuring her that everything's fine. We are going to be all right.

Of course I love you. Of course I miss you. And he's got every excuse in the book for why he's missing her calls. The FaceTime went to my work phone. I fell asleep early, etc. Now we soon find out the real reason he can't be bothered to talk to his wife is because he's busy with someone else. So Chris is asked to take a polygraph and he agrees. And they continue on with collecting evidence. You know, they're knocking out on doors. They're handing out flyers. They're trying to figure out exactly what happened to Shanann and her children. And at this point, what would detectives be most concerned with? Getting warrants for cell phone records, talking to people who knew Shanann and Chris, like what's their priority?

I think it's all of the above at the beginning, especially. They're exploring all possibilities in the beginning as they collect more information and they're slowly ruling out the different scenarios, allowing them to narrow their scope on what actually happened and who was responsible for it. And by the time they conducted the polygraph with Chris, I can promise you this, they already had a lot of the information they needed and were pretty confident that Chris was involved in the disappearance and possible deaths of Shanann and the kids. Well, Detective Tammy Lee actually gives Chris his polygraph test and she's my hero. I love her.

She's such a badass. Before the polygraph test even begins, Detective Lee essentially like psychs Chris Watts out. It was such an impressive display of like mind gamery. He goes into this room with her. He's all charming and confident. And she just takes the air out of his balloon. I want to read from the transcript just to illustrate. She says, quote, I hope you know that if you did have something to do with their disappearance, it would be really stupid for you to come in and take a polygraph today. And he says, you know, right, right. Yeah, of course it would be, you know, and she responds exactly. It would

be really dumb. Like you should not be here right now sitting in this chair if you had anything to do with Shanann and them little girls disappearing. So she does this like to drive in the point, you know, she's like, it would be stupid for you to take this polygraph. He's like, yeah, yeah. She's like, no, I mean, it would be really stupid for you to take this polygraph. He's like, I know. And she's like, really stupid, Chris. It was awesome. And you can see him sort of shrinking in front of her as she's doing this. And at this point, he's got to be thinking like they know something. And they sort of chat for a while after, you know, she lets him know that he can get water if he needs it. She understands he's going to be nervous. And at some point she says something like, right now there's only one person in this room who knows the truth, but in about five minutes, there is going to be two. Isn't that cool? So it felt to me like she was trying to psych him out and she's like, I'm going to know the truth soon. Isn't that cool? And she's making him nervous. Is this common practice during a polygraph? Yeah. I mean, again, you want the person to feel comfortable. You want them to feel like you're on their side.

But I'd be lying if I said that Detective Lee wasn't patronizing Chris a little. She was having fun with him. There comes a point as an investigator when you realize you got someone. And I felt that in her demeanor. She was asking questions she already knew the answer to. I'm pretty confident in saying she thought at that point that Chris had killed his wife and kids. She just needed to get that out of him. So you talk about that conversation they were having where she was saying, you would be'm dumb. You think you're going to get away with this. So before I crush your hopes, I'm going to give you a polygraph and show you how dumb you are for taking it. And I'm going to get you to confess right here at this table. You ready? Great. Let's start the polygraph.

That's pretty much exactly what happened. She's like, let's get started. Yeah, no, it was great. And again, I can't say it enough, and I'm sure we're going to have cases where it's not always going to be like this, it was reported that he scored a negative 18. And I read that the normal score to indicate someone is lying is a negative four. So I'm aware the polygraphs are not usually used during a trial as evidence, but they are a great tool for detectives to use in order to elicit a confession. Would you agree? And how do you feel about the negative 18, negative four thing? Is that, am I pretty correct with those numbers?

Yeah, I'm not a polygrapher. I believe that's at the lower the number. That's where you want to be, obviously. But yeah, absolutely. They're super beneficial. They're usually not admissible, but there have been cases where they were let in as evidence. I know that. And although I wouldn't base my entire case on the results, they're an extremely valuable tool for investigators and can really solidify the opinions of the investigators based on the results, they're an extremely valuable tool for investigators and can really solidify the opinions of the investigators based on the evidence they've already collected, right? So, you know, I wouldn't go either way with it. There's been situations where

the evidence suggests it's one person and the polygraph, they come back clean. And then there's been other cases where, you know, you think that they're not guilty and they fail the polygraph miserably. So it's, again, not the end all be all, but it's definitely something that I think should be implemented whenever you can. after this. His one request was that he be allowed to talk to his father before giving the police anything concrete. And I was always curious as to why he wanted to do this. Before he talks to his dad, Detective Tammy Lee, she plants something in his head. She asks him, you know, did Shanann do something to those kids? And then, you know, you felt like you had to do something to Shanann because she did something to your kids. And I truly don't think that this narrative had occurred to him at this point. And when she said that, he saw an out, a way that he could still, you know, admit to what had happened, but get out of it and look as if he'd only done what any other father would have done after finding that their wife had killed his children. A crime of passion is much more understandable to the general public than a premeditated one. It also carries much of, you know, lesser of a prison sentence. Now, did you

have the same opinion? Was this tactic used by Lee to make Chris feel comfortable or to kind of lure him into a false sense of security? Yeah, again, absolutely. Both detectives, we talked about it a little earlier, how they played off of each other. I thought it was great. It was a brilliant interrogation. They really did play off each other so well. And yes, detectively used a classic technique where you don't give the suspect an option to claim their innocence, but you do give them an out. So for example, we know you committed this crime, but this is why you did it, right? And the only goal here is to get them to bite on that. And once you do, then you have them on the hook. Now you break down how the reasoning and the alibi you just gave them that out, you just gave them doesn't really hold up either. And then all you're left

with is the facts, which is, so you killed your wife and kids because you wanted a new life with this woman you were having an affair with, right? And that's the goal is to start broad and then kind of, you know, narrow it down to the truth. Yeah. And because you brought it up, I do want to talk about Nicole Kissinger a little as well. She was the woman that Chris had begun seeing. She was a coworker of his.

They'd exchanged numbers and, you know, story as old as time. It kind of went from there. While Shanann was in North Carolina, Chris was with Nicole as much as possible. They spent time at the Great Sand Dunes. They took videos and pictures while they were there. They went to sporting events. They went out for dinner. She was sending him lingerie pics.

They had sleepovers. He was living the life of a single man with no responsibilities, with no one else's needs to meet besides his own. Now, once they found out about Nicole, police brought her in for an interview and they questioned her about how she and Chris had met and what the nature of their relationship was. She claimed that she'd known he had two kids, but she thought that he and Shanann were getting separated. And she also claimed that she had no idea Shanann was pregnant until the media reported it after her disappearance. And I do want to ask what your opinion is on this. Shanann used social media for work. So she was very present on Facebook. Her page was not private. If I'm dating a new guy and I know he's married, even if he's going through a

separation, I know he's married. He's got a family out there somewhere. Just out of curiosity, I'm going to look this woman up on Facebook. I want to see her. I want to see almost what my competition is or what kind of woman he likes. I want to see how happy his family looks. I think this is a pretty normal thing to do. And Shanann's Facebook made it really clear, not only that she was pregnant, but also it wasn't the Facebook page of someone who was going through a separation or a divorce. You know, she was talking about how great her husband was, how much she loved him, what a great father he was. So in my opinion, Nicole was not being completely honest with the police during the interview. That's just my opinion. Why do you think that would be? I mean, I think you might be right. I think it's definitely

possible. And I, and, and to be fair to her, I think it would be for the obvious reasons. She didn't want to be lumped in as an accomplice to murder. I also think she didn't want to be viewed as the reason why Chris did what he did. I'm sure she was complaining about it behind the scenes. I'm sure she was complaining about him still being with her. But she clearly didn't want to be associated with the deaths of a pregnant woman and two children. So I think this was her way of kind of separating herself from Chris. Yeah. Yeah. You're probably right. It just, you know, she was also searching for wedding dresses and things like that. So she clearly thought that this relationship.

Oh yeah. Yeah. She thought it was going somewhere, right? Oh yeah. And again, I think you're right. I think she's looking up her competition and she's definitely, you know, passively and probably more overtly like putting the timer on him. Like, what are we doing here? Like, when's it going to happen? I'm ready now. Like I want to live my life. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm sure that was happening. But again, she's not going to say that because it's more of a reason for why Chris did what he did and who wants to be associated with that. Now that said,

even if she was doing that, you know, from a legal perspective, that's, you know, there's no issue there. But again, I think psychologically she's like, nope, not touching it, you know, don't want to be involved. And I also think that's pretty normal behavior, you know, not, I'm not saying like you should go out and get in a relationship with a married man, but if you are in a relationship with a man who has a previous relationship or is at the tail end of his relationship where he's telling you he is, yeah, you're going to be kind of putting the timer on him. You're going to be saying, you said you were going to leave her. When's it going to happen? And that doesn't make you a bad person. It just means you don't want to put your life on hold

for an undetermined amount of time while this person decides to leave his old baggage behind him. So I completely get that. I don't think that she ever meant for this to happen. I want to be clear about that. But Chris talks to his father, Ronnie, in the interrogation room. And I believe that he was using his father as a sounding board to determine how believable his new story was, how much people would accept it. He told his father as a sounding board to determine like how believable his new story was, how much people would accept it. He told his father that he discussed with Shanann the possibility of ending their marriage. And then she had gone into her daughter's rooms and smothered them. So then he did the same thing to her. And I also felt like Ronnie knew previously going into this that Chris had been seeing someone else because the way Chris poses it to him, he

says, I told her about having an affair. And it kind of sounds like it wasn't the first time they'd spoken about it, but that's just my opinion. But when he's talking to Ronnie and telling him what happened, Ronnie's obviously horrified and taken aback, but he also is comforting his son. And so did the detectives when they came back in the room. They both rubbed his shoulders. They asked if he was okay. And it appeared to me that they were being so nice to him because they simply wanted him to reveal the location of the bodies of his wife and daughters. Absolutely. They needed him to cooperate just a little more. So as much as it probably killed them that they had to play nice with them,

they needed that last piece. They needed the bodies, right? It's going to make the case a lot more secure for prosecution purposes. So yeah, I've had to do it many times. I've been in the rooms with child molesters and you're sitting there trying to get them to confess and you're giving them outs or justification as to why they would do it. And you understand where they're coming from, but inside you're boiling. You just want to get up and say a lot of things and maybe do some things. But again, this is where being a professional comes into play. And so that little extra acknowledgement, that physical touch to them as they're leaving and coming back in, it's all part of the show, right? It's all part of the game. And they did it. They executed it perfectly. And I, and I think that they, they read him. They read Chris Watts perfectly.

He seems like the kind of person that needs acceptance, needs validation. That's why he brought Ronnie in. That's why he was like, let me run this trial run of the story on my father. And Ronnie, like I said, was upset and horrified, but then he began to comfort Chris and Chris was like, okay, okay. People are going to believe this. People are going to buy this. And he began to comfort Chris. And Chris was like, okay, okay, people are going to believe this. People are going to buy this. And he just seems like the kind of person that if you act like you like him, if you act like you accept him, if you act like you understand him, he would pretty much do anything for you. And that kind of makes me sad a little bit. But once he'd shown them on what appears to be a drone photograph of the oil site that he'd been working at the day that Shanann and Bella and Cece went missing, the detectives left the room. And Chris tells his father that he's not even sure, you know, they believe him. They believe his story.

So he must have sensed that he was kind of in a game of cat and mouse, so to speak. And that once he'd given them like what they wanted, they left really quickly. And he's like, OK, I think I just I I messed up. This is, you know, my last chance to save myself. If he could convince everyone that he'd only murdered his wife because she'd killed his daughters, he would probably still go to prison, but obviously not for as long. And he'd certainly be more sympathetic to a jury and he might even get a plea deal. But all of these hopes had to be contingent on the detectives believing his story, which they did not. Because when they came back into the room

after he revealed the location of the bodies, they basically told him, you know, the gig's up. We don't believe you at all. Did you get that same impression? Yep. It was the final nail in the coffin for Chris. And what was interesting about the whole interaction is that Chris didn't shed a tear this entire time until he finally confessed. But those tears, in my opinion, were not for Shanann or the kids. They were for himself. He knew it was over. He knew that he'd been caught. He knew that that happy life he was planning for him and Nicole wasn't happening anymore. And as it has been for this entire story, it was never about anyone else. It's always been about Chris. Chris Watts eventually took a plea deal anyways,

which had him plead guilty to five counts of firstdegree murder, unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. In return, he would be sentenced to life in prison but would avoid the death penalty. It's worth noting that Chris still at this point was claiming he had not killed his girls, that Shanann had been the one to do it, and this drove me crazy, I have to admit, because it wasn't enough that he'd taken her life. It wasn't enough that he had taken the lives of her children, but now he had to kill her memory as well. And it wasn't until several months later in February that Chris finally revealed what had actually happened that day. While Shanann was on her business trip in Arizona, Chris hired a babysitter to stay home with his daughters while he took his girlfriend, Nicole, out to dinner.

Chris had told Shanann he was going to a sporting event, so when she looked at his bank activity and saw the charge for dinner, she questioned him about it. Chris told her he'd gone to eat by himself and that he had a salmon and beer, and she looked up the menu for the place and saw that what he claimed to have ordered would have only come to about 30 bucks and he'd spent over 60, so he had a bill that amounted to dinner for two. Chris claims that this was when he knew that she knew he was seeing someone else, that she knew for sure. She'd been suspecting it. She'd asked him about it before. He'd always denied it, and he felt like this was a test.

Now, over the past couple of weeks, she'd been writing to her friends and texts and saying he won't even touch me. I try to have sex with him and he just wants to do sit-ups or work out or he pretends to be asleep. He doesn't want to even touch me. So if this is true, it could have been a test on her behalf where she was trying to see, is there something still here with us? But after they were done having sex, he asked himself, what am I doing? Being with her hadn't felt right, and he felt compelled to tell her it was over. When he woke up for work a few hours later, he claims he woke Shanann up so that they could talk. And in order to do this, he claims he got on top of her and straddled her, remaining in this position for roughly 20 minutes while they talked,

because this is a completely natural position to be in while you're talking to your wife about your marriage ending. He told her that he no longer loved her, and he claims she yelled at him that he was never going to see the kids again, at which point he snapped and strangled her to death. I don't believe this, by the way. Shanann didn't seem like the type of person who would want to hurt her kids in order to get back at her husband. That's just my opinion. She felt it was very important that her daughters had a father, and she was always talking Chris up to her daughters and having them send him little messages and singing songs to him. So I don't think this is true.

I don't think he straddled her so they could talk. But that's just my opinion. I'm with you. I think it's more likely that she might have been asleep while it happened. Again, nothing to substantiate it, but it seems like, you know, from what her father had said in some of the interviews, his daughter was a fighter and she wouldn't just sat there and taken it. And so you would expect to find more scratches or bruising or signs of an altercation if she was fighting for her life. So I tend to agree with you. Again, it's our personal opinions, which is it's just that just an opinion. And Chris Watts claims that she didn't fight back. And he doesn't know why. But I agree. Her father, Shanann's father,

thinks that she was asleep when this happened. And it's very possible. Well, during his sentencing hearing, the prosecutors had pronounced that it takes two to four minutes to strangle someone to death, and Shanann's face was not covered when this happened, according to Chris. She was looking up into the face of the man that she loved, the man whose child she was carrying, and she knew that he was killing her. That's what Chris said. He said something like, I don't know what she saw when she looked into my eyes. I don't want to know what she saw. Then after she was gone, he claimed Bella came into the bedroom holding her little blanket

and asking what's wrong with mommy. Shanann was dead face down on the bed. Chris told Bella that mommy was sick and he wrapped Shanann's body in a sheet and began bringing her downstairs. At one point, he lost his grip on the body as he was dragging her down the stairs. And Bella began crying when she saw this and asked again, what's wrong with mommy? And again, Chris told her mommy wasn't feeling good. But he felt that Bella, being a smart girl, knew that her mother was gone.

And she never attempted to touch Shanann or to wake her up. Chris then backed his truck into the driveway close to the garage, which we saw in the surveillance footage from the neighbor, and loaded Shanann into the truck in the back seat on the floorboard. That's where he put her. When he got back into the house, Cece was up as well, most likely due to the noise of her father dragging her mother's lifeless body down the stairs. Chris put both Bella and Cece in the back seat of the truck, where their mother's body was laying on the floor at their feet. At one point during the almost hour ride out to the oil field, Bella said, Betty, it smells. Most of the ride was spent in

silence, according to Chris, as he contemplated how this had happened and realized what he had to do next. Chris buried Shanann while Bella and Cece stayed in the truck, and when he was done disposing of their mother and unborn brother, he returned to them. He claims he took Cece's blanket and put it over her head, after which he placed his hands over the blanket and over Cece's mouth and nose, and he did this in the back seat of the truck as Bella sat right next to her little sister. After he had strangled his youngest daughter to death, he brought her over to a large oil tank and shoved her through the tiny hatch. He then returned his truck where Bella sat, and when she saw him open the door, she asked softly, what happened to Cece? Is the same thing

going to happen to me as Cece? According to Chris, he's not sure if he said yes or not. He then put the same blanket over Bella's head that he had just used to smother Cece, and the last thing she said to him was, Daddy, no, which he claims he will hear every day for the rest of his life, which isn't even close to the kind of torture that he deserves, in my opinion. And then he shoved Bella's body through the hatch of another oil tank. He had to shove Bella through. She was a little bit bigger. The opening was very small.

And strands of her hair were later found on the tank. Even hearing you talk about it, and I've read about it, I've watched the specials, it hurts my heart. It hurts my heart. And honestly, after we cover this episode, I never have to hear it about again, I'll be perfectly fine with that. I mean, as you're saying it, it doesn't sound possible. It doesn't sound like this is something any human being could do. And you guys don't know this, but we can see each other. Stephanie and I, I can tell

how emotional she was getting just reading it. And in turn, it makes me emotional. So it's tough. It's tough. But the reason why we do this is to learn from it. So that's why we got to kind of go through it. We got to go through it together. Again, I said it earlier. My daughters are a little older than these girls, but I can't help but think about them every time I hear these details. Think about how afraid these two little girls must have been. It kills me. I don't care how many cases involving children I've been a part of. You never get used to it.

You never should. These girls were so innocent. And this animal killed them for his own gain and then dispose of their bodies. Like they were trash. Um, just thinking about them being alone in those tanks, I'll just, I'll just refrain from what I really want to say about Chris. Um, because I know the lawyers will just, we'll just cut this out of the, they're going

to have to cut this out of the episode anyways, but I don't think very kindly of Chris. I don't think anybody really does Chris. I don't think anybody really does, but you definitely have some thoughts crossed your own mind about individuals like this that you didn't know you were capable of. And we'll just, yeah, we'll leave it at that. Yeah. It is unbelievable. And I think that they asked him, the detectives asked Chris, you put your daughters in these oil tanks. Why didn't you put them in the same oil tank? Why didn't you put them together? And he was like, I don't know. I don't know why I didn't do that. I mean, there had to have been a reason

why he didn't. I'm not sure what it could be because you really don't even want to get into the mind of somebody like this and start speculating and going down all these side paths and wondering why he did this or why he didn't do that. But it was the least he could have done to at least have them there together. And to imagine Bella, especially what she went through, seeing what happened to Shanann and then having to sit there and watch her sister be murdered and knowing it was going to happen to her. If only she'd run, if only she'd gotten out of that truck and run. I think about it all the time. But there was actually an even worse version of this story.

Another story after this that differed from Chris's official interview. Author Sherilyn Caddy, I believe her name is, or Sherilyn Cattle, wrote a book titled Letters from Christopher. The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders, and she claims that she had spoken to Chris Watts and he told her the true story. He told her that he actually smothered his daughters at home before he killed Shanann, but they survived the first attempt. Cattle in her book says, quote, they argued a little and he murdered her. So then he was wrapping her in the

sheets and both girls got up and saw him and started questioning what's wrong with mommy. What happened to mommy? Bella, the oldest one, was crying. She had obviously been traumatized. She had bruises above her eyes. You could tell she had been traumatized. Also, Cece was more confused. She was awake, the younger one, end quote. Chris Watts has not disputed this version of events as being true. So it's not as if this author wrote whatever she wanted and put it out there because he's had ample opportunity to say, no, that's not true. That's not what happened. So I mean, I guess we can only assume that this is exactly what happened, which makes you wonder, what was he thinking? A normal person would never have done this to their own children. And then he killed Cece in front of her

big sister. And then he snuffed out the last remaining light of his beautiful family. So that is pretty much where we will end it. Yeah, absolutely. And it's again, we cover it because, and we're going to do this in every podcast, you know, yes, we're going to cover these cases. And we're not saying that there's not some level of I hate to even use the word entertainment, you know, but, but we want to do something a little different and, you know, we want to make sure that at the end of these stories, we can kind of touch on, you know,

if there's anything that could have been done to have a different outcome. And in this particular case, and Stephanie may feel differently, but we're going to do this every case, is I don't know if there really was anything that Shanann could have done. And I'm not in the business of victim shaming anyways. I mean, I'm not going to re-victimize the family. I think in this particular case, if the scenario that Chris laid out is even close, you're trying to reconcile, rekindle a marriage with your husband. Yes, you may have suspicions that he's having an affair, but other than that, he's never shown any signs of being abusive or having this inside of him. So, I mean, there was no signs of even like physical abuse leading up to this. So,

um, what could she have done? What would, what would have suggested that he was capable of this? I don't think there is a scenario. I think this is just an unfortunate part of the world we live in. There are people out there who are monsters from the minute they're born, and it just takes one particular thing to unleash that monster on the world. In this case, my opinion, Chris was an overweight kid, nerdy kid. I watched his wedding videos. He was not a cool guy by any means. I think he never really got any attention in life from women specifically. He started losing some weight, getting in shape, and he had this woman show interest in him. And

it was the first time that he's really felt like a cool guy. And he was willing to do anything and everything to be with this girl, to be with this woman, including kill his pregnant wife and kids. So it just goes to show you the human mind is capable of a lot of things and they're not all good. And I think that our listeners should take away from this that whether you're religious or not, or whatever it may be that the family, Shanann and the kids and Nico, they're all together now. And Chris, the irony in all this is he was doing this so he could go on and live this happy life with this new woman. And the reality is that he's going to spend his life behind bars having to replay that scenario

over and over every single day until he dies inside those prison walls. So if you take anything from it, take that. So here's my thoughts and I have some, I don't think there's anything Shanann could have done differently. There's a lot of, you know, I've never seen such victim shaming as what, what happened with Shanann Watts online and the amount of women who, who write Chris Watts while he's in prison and tell him he's handsome and, you know, he's loving it. As far as I'm concerned, this is the most attention he's gotten from women in his entire life. And he's loving it. Not to mention that, you know, the kind of women as far as I'm concerned. This is the most attention he's gotten from women in his entire life. And he's loving it.

Not to mention that, you know, the kind of women who would write to a man in prison who killed his wife and exterminated his entire family are probably not the kind of women you want to bring home to mom. But he's still getting a lot of attention from these women. I think with Shanann, people have said she's nagging. She was nagging him all the time. Nothing he did was ever good enough. I get it. I get it. Not everybody is for everybody else. Some people start off really great in a marriage. They're compatible. People change as you get older. People change as different things happen in life. And maybe there was a point where he was like unhappy with her. And that's fine. Nobody's saying you have to stay married to somebody you're not happy with. But there was multiple times. And I saw the texts. I read her texts to him, to her friends, to her family.

What's going on with Chris? And she would ask him, what's going on? How can we make this better? And he kept saying, everything's fine. Everything's fine, Shanann. I love you so much. I'm so happy. I'm so very happy.

Everything's amazing. Whyann. I love you so much. I'm so happy. I'm so very happy. Everything's amazing. Why did he do that? He had ample opportunities to say, I'm not happy and I don't want to be with you. He had ample opportunity even before the weeks leading up to what happened to her and Bella and Cece to tell her, this isn't what I like. I don't like when you nag me. I don't like when you make me have the house be a certain way and I want it to be a different way. I don't like when nothing I do is good enough for you.

I don't like when you talk, you know, shit about me on the internet, on Facebook, when you think you're kidding around with me, but really it hurts. He never said any of this. He never communicated with her. He just held it all in and one day thought, well, this is the solution. I'll end her life. It's ridiculous. So there's nothing she could have done differently. She was just being herself. Whether you like who that person is or you think that she was a great person or not, she was just being herself. He should have done a million things differently. He should have

spoken to her, told her that he wanted to be talked to in a certain way, or he didn't like when she undermined him. And maybe that marriage could have been saved, or maybe they would have just split up. Why do you think, Derek, he didn't get a divorce? Why do you think that he chose this route? I mean, you're asking me to get into the mind of an absolute sociopath, but I mean, I would say it's from what I've seen, it almost felt like he was hedging his bets. Like he was building this relationship with this new woman in the hopes that it would eventually take over his life, but he didn't want to give up on Shanann and the kids yet because he had that fatherly, you know, you know, happy white picket fence life just in case things didn't work

out with Nicole. Right. Like, cause it was very, it was probably, you know, hot, heavy, sexual, you know, the, all the things you've seen in initial relationship, but he wasn't ready yet. Cause again, this is, you know, a guy who's very insecure and probably couldn't understand why this woman, Nicole was interested in him because he's always been like the goof, but you know, I think he was hedging his bets. I really do. I think he was trying to have his cake and eat it too. Honestly, man, I just don't, I don't understand it. I don't understand it of all the options of all the avenues. This is the one choose. And it almost makes me wonder, like you said, did this man even ever care about anybody or love anybody? Nope. Well, he seemed like the

perfect husband. He seemed like the perfect father. You see him in videos. He's laughing with his daughters. He's hugging them. He's throwing them up in the air. They loved him so much. And he seemed like he loved them too, but he could not possibly have loved them. And everybody's like, oh, you know, he's where he belongs now in prison and he gets to relive this every day. Yeah. Well, you're assuming that this is upsetting for him. You're assuming he feels guilty about this or regrets this, that his punishment is reliving what he did every day. That's a big assumption that he even cares about what he did and that it's going to be some sort of punishment for him. Yeah. I think, I think the takeaway for our listeners from this one, because this is a very unique situation should be, you know,

if you're in a situation or a relationship with someone and there's a lot of flags, there's a lot of signs that this person's not into it anymore. get out. Get out before it escalates. And if you're in a relationship where in addition to them, your partner not being responsive to you wanting to rekindle things, but there's also a level of verbal abuse or physical abuse, get out. Because I can tell you from my experience that these things usually start minor, whether it's arguments and verbal jabs, and they escalate over time to a point where it's like, I can't believe that that happened. I can't believe he killed her. So if you're in a situation where the signs are on the wall and you can tell that it's not going to get better, don't waste your time. Don't waste his time. Don't wait, you know,

whatever the relationship may be, get out of the situation, move on with your life and start the healing process because it's not going to go anywhere good. It may not always lead to something like this. Um, but don't even give it the opportunity. Yeah, I think you're right. Uh, Shanann really, she noticed something was wrong and off. And I guess my advice would be just trust your gut, you know, listen to, to what your heart is telling you. And, you know, not actually your heart, obviously your heart's not speaking to you, but you know what I mean? That little voice inside of you, that's like, something's not right. This isn't normal. Listen to that voice. Absolutely. Yeah. Our

thoughts are, our thoughts are with Shanann's family and everyone affected by this. You know, I, we appreciate that they've been so open about it. They allowed for the Netflix special as well. So I know it's something that they're never going to get over, but I'm hoping that they're able to move on with their lives to the best you can in a situation like this. And we're all thinking about them. So thoughts are with them and hopefully the healing process can begin. So guys, that's going to conclude our first episode. Maybe a little shorter in the future. We're just trying to get the, you know, trying to get the gist of this.

But, you know, if you guys want to check out our social media, which is at Crime Weekly Pod on both Twitter and Instagram, also on Facebook as well. If you also want to check out our website, www.crimeweeklypodcast.com there's not a lot up there right now but what you should see is a contact page and what we want to use that for initially is for you guys to comment on and and tell us what you think um there is an option as well for speak pipe where if you want to leave a message uh stephanie and i will be listening to these messages we'll be reading them and we want your constructive criticism as well. If you think there's something we can do better to improve the episodes, by all means, let us know. And if you have any questions or concerns, things that are affecting you in your life,

if we have the time in the next episode, we'll get to them. So make sure you check it out again at Crime Weekly Pod on all social media platforms and www.crimeweeklypodcast.com. Make sure to check us out. We'll be releasing new episodes every Friday. So make sure if you haven't already, you subscribe on whatever podcast platform you use. And we appreciate you tuning in. We'll see you next week. Crime Weekly, presented by i-D, is a co-production by Audioboom and Main Event Media.