Chris Watts looked chirpy when he gave his infamous press conferences from his porch. Although that was a stilted performance, he was expressive with his hands, his eyes and even flashing a few surreptitious smiles.
When he was arrested, he was like why bother with an act? The cops processing him were reportedly surprised by how emotionless he was. According to a police source Watts showed zero emotion “the entire time”. And it is surprising. You’re being charged for triple murder of your own flesh and blood, your freedom is being forcibly taken from you, you’re experiencing a social death from which you’ll likely never recover – and you’re not overwhelmed? You’re not sorry? You’re just going through the motions?
There is method in the madness, however. To us this seems twisted and weird, but to a murderer he knows his emotions have given him away, and it was his emotions [whatever they were] that caused him to commit murder in the first place. Strong emotions.
Now, facing punishment, facing the full might of the law, it’s only natural that a guilty person would clam up and reveal as little as possible. Emotions have compromised him, and he is emotionally compromised. The lesson then is to batten down the hatches – reveal nothing.
SPOCK: I can tell you, I just lost my planet. I am emotionally compromised. What you must do is get me to show it.
On his face, in his words, in every way possible. And we can see him already backtracking to minimize the damage. He killed his wife, sure, but she killed the kids. So maybe he was justified [is how he’s already arguing his defense case in his mind].
It would be illuminating to see his confession, assuming the Colorado cops recorded it.
#SHAKEDOWN 
Didn’t he say that he discussed leaving his wife, then he sees that she has strangled one daughter and he catches her strangling the other so he flies into a rage and strangles her but if he interrupted her whilst in the throes of strangling the other girl, couldn’t he have saved her? He’s going to have a lot of trouble getting his story sold to a jury. And yes, I’d love to see his confession. I imagine he delivered it with his same flat emotion-less delivery.
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Good point – if he saw his wife strangling he could have saved his child. Did he try CPR or was he too busy concentrating on his own murder?
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Since we’ve been doing a lot of comparing of Watts and Scott Peterson, doesn’t it seem like Scott did a lot more pre planning? He decided to go through with it long before Christmas eve, he bought a boat, he hid it in his warehouse, he told no one, he checked the tides and had to check them the night he took the boat out. He did some clean up with the bucket and bleach, went back to the Marina and got his ticket time stamped, etc. Does anyone think Chris Watts did a lot of planning? He balls up the sheets and tosses them in the garbage, leaves a sheet from the set at the dump site, and the dump site he chooses is where he works. In fact as his story collapses he confesses – sort of. He’s also giving a porch interview where his neck scratch is on full display. And no wedding band on his hand. If he did very little planning, do we still need to dig a bit further into his motivation? It couldn’t have all been about money or having a mistress. Watts says he flew into a rage and strangled Shannan when he sees her strangling his daughter and the other one lying on the bed blue. It’s possible it was a rage-killing, and if so, not premeditated. And why would he wait until his wife comes back after an exhausting trip out of town, for which her flight has been delayed 3 hours to have a discussion with her about leaving? That’s definitely a lie.
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Saw “Cervi Ranch” in the photo above and found this:
https://www.greeleytribune.com/news/local/weld-county-rancher-works-around-oil-gas-drilling/
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Scott planned his murder to the finest detail. Left virtually no evidence and handled the media quite “well” compared to Watts. When I researched that case, the evidence led me to believe Laci was murdered before Christmas Eve morning, and that he used the warehouse to process her body. I have a strong suspicion that in this case, the autopsy results haven’t been released yet because the bodies were also processed.
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I don’t think you can say that. We know almost nothing about the Watts case. We have no digital traces either. I doubt whether he came up with the plan that weekend. Probably it had been stewing in his mind for weeks. What’s more pertinent at this point isn’t when he started planning, but why it was so important that she had to die when she did. The fact that her flight was delayed and she was murdered anyway, to me, suggests he was quite invested in the original plan and time frame. I think it has something to do with their upcoming court appearance, which was the following week I believe. The seed to kill may have started to germinate at around the same time he started his affair, if it was only one affair. But you couldn’t divorce that – because it clearly had something to do with their financial position as well. Especially his. When he found out Shanann was pregnant the third time, he looks kinda dark to me. He says the right stuff but you have to wonder whether the plotting then got more urgent.
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Yes, when she’s announcing she’s pregnant, tells the girls, the dog runs down the hall, Chris comes around the corner and she shows him the pregnancy “stick” he says something like “that’s what happens when you want something badly enough” or when you want something to happen – but he means she wanted it to happen, he didn’t necessarily want the same thing. He looks like a combination of resigned, but also like well, it’s not going to matter anyway. He’s disengaged.
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When you are in arrears for homeowner’s dues it’s a small claims court case. If you cannot prove any good reason why you haven’t paid, a judge may render a default judgement for the homeowner’s association. You have 30 days to pay. You can still try and work it out with the association – making smaller payments to satisfy the judgment. However, if you fail to come to an agreement, they have to go back to court and your checking account can be frozen. His wages can be garnished. There are ways around this – you can take all of your money out of your checking account, close the account, and start using money orders to pay bills or cash. You can request that your employer pay you in cash (not likely the oil company would do this). $1500 is not that much to satisfy, and since she was making more money they could have handled it.
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$1500 is a lot if you don’t have it, and he didn’t have it. I read somewhere that they had $864 in their bank account total. I also think her doctor’s appointment that day where she would see and hear the baby’s heart beating was another deadline. The gender reveal party on the Saturday following the murders was another deadline. If Chris wasn’t happy when Shanann announced her third pregnancy, you can bet the idea of her celebrating it with her pals felt like a pressure cooker starting to whistle…
I seem to remember Laci was still going to have a baby shower before she was murdered too. From the LA TIMES:
They were expecting their first child, a boy, in a few weeks. It was Christmas Eve and the invitations to the baby shower were in the mail.
In Scott Peterson’s mind, Christmas was his deadline, as it also represented almost full term in Laci’s pregnancy. In the Casey Anthony case, Caylee was killed within 2 months of Caylee’s 3rd birthday. In Casey’s mind she probably saw it as a very late abortion. Just saying, when there’s premeditated murder, there’s a schedule involved and it’s very clearly tied to important life events. They may not be that significant to us, but they’re extremely significant and symbolic to them.
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Yes, that is very astute of you, and we have to think too that how we would respond normally to a situation where we might feel trapped, is just not in the consciousness of the criminal mind. So you are right. All of these situations made for an out of control decision.
I have another thought about Casey’s journal, next page.
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Also the management company that represents the home owner’s association can put a lien on your house if you don’t pay your dues. That lien would show up on title. It alerts a new buyer.
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