Was Shan’ann a *genuine* person?

/ nickvdl

She looks attractive here, even sexy. She’s showing more cleavage than usual and what’s more, she’s aware that she is. She’s flaunting herself.  And as she starts off, there’s a smoldering quality about what she’s saying. As she tucks in her recently coiffed hair, the tone of her voice initially feels like this is going to be quite a deep session. The subject is:

“What if…”

But it’s: “What if you tried Thrive?”

And: “I didn’t believe in…feeling better.”

And: “I’ve never had something change everything…about how I looked at things…how I felt…um…getting up [early in the morning].”

We all feel terribly for Shan’ann and her children. But the more we get to know her, the more we’re discomforted by her absence in many of these videos. She’s there alright, but she’s also not there. She’s selling. She’s become a drone for a MLM company and the real Shan’ann is missing.

It makes one wonder what she’s like as a person. Is she a genuine person. Is she nice to live with? Or is she annoying, her own worst enemy?

She’s clearly very attached to Thrive, happy to attach herself hook, line and sinker to it. It’s Thrive that makes her happy, just as Chris is the best husband she could ever wish for.

We’ve criticized Chris Watts for his lack of credibility, but should we believe everything she says? And if we don’t, where does that leave us?

27 thoughts on “Was Shan’ann a *genuine* person?”

  1. I’m starting to think she wasn’t a very good sales person. Or setting a very good example for the product she’s pushing. Isn’t Thrive supposed to be about “thriving”? yet she never sounds really happy, and I would suggest she was using her video sessions and group calls like therapy sessions. This lady was a wounded bird.

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    • I’ve been lucky enough to stumble upon this website as I began to try and untangle this case and soaking in every blog AND comments. I hang on both Nick and Pauline’s thoughts and comments and it’s helping me navigate through this web of utter dismay from start to finish (that we know of). My current micro-obsession with this case is the MLM piece. For one who is actively incorporating meditation, mindfulness, and letting go of the ego as much as I can (me) I find this MLM part the most assualting (murders aside) as it’s ALL ego, show, and look at me (thrive and you not). Sad because in reality all one has to do is notice all they have already in life is largely enough and the world around you becomes beautiful and fulfilling again–in my humble opinion: Thrive was the beginning to the ultimate end.

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    • I think they suffered from inauthenticity. I don’t know that Shan’ann knew that was what was wrong with her marriage … her personality type seems like it would be good at sales and you can make good money in sales. Or say -a realtor. Why she chose a MLM scheme is a question. Yes, you can do it from home but i know sales people who work from home and realtors mostly show houses after work and on weekends when their other half is home -plus she had a daycare. Possibly it was the lupus etc that made her require work she could do when she could. But it seems something drew her to it in a big way – a scheme that most people draw back from getting involved with.
      Chris was clearly feeling that although I doubt he could put his finger on it – the argument that “look at all we have, we’re living our best life” rang hollow. Your best life is sunk in debt and the things are not important. Especially if you can’t make mortgage payments and are being sued by HOA etc.
      It took him getting involved with someone else to make the decision to undo this lifestyle. And did he ever throw the baby out with the bath. Much built up rage or just the sociopath’s boredom of this current “mask” ?

      At some point maybe Shan’ann would have realized the scheme was not getting her where she wanted to be in her life but I doubt it. The obvious clues were not sinking in. For someone who wants a drama free life choosing a mlm as an income source is really odd. Bankruptcy is drama. Marital drama is often part of a financial issue. Having to chase your family around to be part of your sales pitch is drama. We do that once a year perhaps for a family photo shoot but not every few days.
      Making things and the having of things your identity leaves people unsatisfied. There are always more things to put in that hole where a complete, full emotional inner life should be.

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    • I received some hate messages on Reddit based on this post. Understandable on the one hand. Of course Shan’ann was an innocent victim. But if true crime analysis begins and ends with the murderer, we’ll never know why these crimes happen. That sort of schizophrenic attitude to reality is exactly why crimes happen and why so often we don’t know why.

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      • Keep doing what you’re doing Nick. This is the only site that’s asking the tough questions and where I can find some insights, which is ironic, as you’re a man 😉 ( Not intending to be sexist here.) I just went and had a look at websleuths – it is both tribal and hysterical, as if a whole gang of people aggrieved from following the Casey Anthony trial are projecting all kinds of strange onto this case and getting stoked on tenuous information from Ashley Banfield. This case seems to get curioser and curiouser.

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    • It’s hard to tease out why I feel down watching these posts because we know she’s dead; however, when I remove that part as best as I can, I liken these Thrive posts to someone who is held hostage and just going on video to act like they’re ok when it’s beyond obvious it’s all forced and they’re trapped with no way out but to play along. I don’t care how “extroverted” one is–that daily grind will figuratively kill your spirits. Couple that with massive debt that only grows and sinks one further down the rabbit hole? I’m already overwhelmed thinking about it so of course she is totally defeated/down/sad/flat……I would be at every turn as well and I can ASSURE you my husband would be, too. In 28 years, he has made mention on more than one occasion that being the assumed breadwinner of the house (all society’s doing), it’s a significant amount of pressure to not let the family down by providing financially so not to have feelings of failure and guilt. Such a heavy burden for all….

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  3. That live make-up removal/Younique sales promo? is also interesting. The dynamic between them even though her husband is just moving around in the background. ( The wine, the charger, finally he’ll get the mud face pack too because one of her friends wants it.) Also strange details like where she says she has only had three glasses of wine in three years but she’s having one tonight for no particular reason. That’s some memory.

    Shan’ann also mentions that they could not afford a honeymoon nor family holidays. I think that’s pretty sad to talk about “making memories” for your children, yet as a couple you’re frequently on Thrive get-away. Why not treat the kids to camping in Colorado if you’re so broke, to make some memories? (Those Thrive get aways can’t be all free, she says herself she’s “working on getting my air-fare paid.”)

    Fact that he started Thrive the same date as her is a surprise. 25th January 2016 she says. How would he reach his car bonus if he was not able to promote during work hours? Did she recruit his downline and post on his behalf? Also what happens if they were to separate, would he continue with Thrive or drop it? Think that this was going to be one very messy break-up, even without the co-worker affair. Besides finances & custody, all that PR that they have done as a couple. ( Early summer they were in the corporate magazine.) Plus the goal to reach 200k sales, so focussed that a reminder is stuck on the back of the front door.

    In the same clip she says that she has already done one team call. Next she does the video I just watched ( 30 minutes) She has 2 more 3-way calls to do with her team that evening. That’s a lot of input in an evening, even if she is enjoying it. Furthermore if it’s a actually aYounique promo, why do that if Thrive pays so well? None of it makes sense.

    As I said curioser and curioser.

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  4. We have to keep on going here, because there will be other husbands who murder their wives and children and women who murder their children and we can’t just pass it off as sociopathic behavior or someone snapped. There are reasons. We may not agree with the reasons, or be able to relate to them but we have to understand them and protect someone we might know who is in danger, or better yet, be able to predict behavior. And I also appreciate here how we are giving others a ringside seat into the dark truth about these multi level marketing companies.

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  5. Shan’ann frequently employs hyperboles and hyperbolic phraseology, such as “amazing” and, I paraphrase, “Thrive has totally changed my life and my family’s life,” to promote various Thrive products. She does this to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish between Shan’ann and Thrive, between Shan’ann and what she is selling. I believe this is what makes her seem disingenuous (at least from my perspective), because I have very little sense of her core humanity, other than a just-beneath-the-surface sadness, remorse, and desperation. Moreover, in anchoring her personal experiences to Thrive, she sinks her (and her family’s) humanity under the pretty package weight of various product lines–all promising to not only improve lives but also to substantially change them. In doing this, she elevates the business of selling to an exalted mission for improving others’ lives. As a result, Shan’ann’s attachment to Thrive displays a religious zeal that is reminiscent of what Eric Hoffa called a True Believer, whose faith in a holy cause, in this case Thrive, becomes a means of reclaiming a lost faith in oneself. This is evidenced in one of the videos where Shan’ann points to a new Thrive patch that is scripted with various motivational words: “determination, confidence, success.” She goes on to say that because of her involvement in Thrive and the use of its products, she finally has confidence–a newfound confidence that is providing her with the determination to succeed, and, according to her, “[she] will succeed.” She further states her appreciation of the newest patch with its positive words now emblazoned on her arm–as if simply wearing the words will address or resolve all of life’s challenges. In her efforts to promote Thrive and by extension herself and her family, I sense a desperation that exists in people who travel to extremes to determine a direction and, ultimately, a meaning for their lives–a safe harbor. However, this sense of security will elude those seeking simple answers if they don’t have the courage or the gift of introspection, which is what devotion to a “cause” like Thrive avoids. It is in this desperate struggle for identity, meaning, and security that I see Shan’ann’s humanity, and it makes me sad.

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  6. What strikes me as odd the most Cheryl, is that her whole world seems to be oriented around recording those videos. She’s home all day, with two active rambunctious children, who seem to get in the way of a good recording session. I’m sure by the time Chris gets home from work she’s irritated, cranky, worn out and bossy. Someone on this blog said there is a requirement of the company that you submit a certain amount of videos a day. Imagine how limited your world becomes! And could it be rather symbolic that her phone ends up between two lounge cushions in the loft area? Perhaps whoever tossed it there was sending a message – ENOUGH!

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    • Overall, I think Shan’ann was pretty limited as a person. My sense is she was most comfortable flitting about on the surface of life, ergo her attraction to the simplistic Thrive ethos and her inability, I believe, to understand Chris as anything other than an introverted, pliable mate in service to her demands. Honestly, a good part of me has difficulty dealing with extroverted people like Shan’ann, because they are so blinded by their own light they fail to see the life that exists in the shadows .

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      • I’m currently reading a book called Quiet (The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking) by Susan Cain–my oldest presents as an introvert while the rest of us in the house gravitate toward the extrovert personality. The beginning of the book goes into how society really celebrates extroverts while in reality it’s the introverts that do the deeper thinking and do have incredible things to add but feel overshadowed by the talkers and rarely contribute so society misses out. My son often observes he has things to say and talk about but the “loudness” of others’ personalities tend to quiet him even further as he notes those extroverts “never really listen, anyway, mom”

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  7. Kelly, as a lifelong introvert, you’ve described my experience perfectly. My mother was a narcissistic extrovert who dominated the family—she demanded attention. Although she was a very intelligent woman, she lacked depth. Despite this, she commanded people’s attention, because she knew how to entertain. The rest of us wandered around behind the curtains of her brightly lit stage. Being an introvert, I didn’t suffer my marginalization, but I was always amazed at how easily people confused style with substance.

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    • Cheryl, Thank you for your candid account of your family dynamic and your experience as an introvert. Since becoming more aware of my son’s nuances, we’ve opened dialogue to make sure that very thing does not happen in our household as many like the limelight here. We’re all just trying to understand each other to keep the extra-extroverts humble and chill while the introvert has the space and time he needs to be just as forthright with his thoughts and ideas (at his own pace). It’s helpful for both parties to be able to appreciate others’ personalities and work with them in a comfortable manner for everyone. Not easy and takes a good deal of work/awareness at all times, hence my belief of how this tragedy (SW/extrovert and CW/introvert) plays into this horrible situation!!!! I appreciate this very much!!

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  9. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.

    Disclaimer- I think Shannan was a lovely person and great mom however, she was married to Chris Watts. And she boasted about just how wonderful he is.

    A woman that can get behind a product like she did, and tell people “it will change EVERYTHING in your life” and seem to mean it, is a woman who doesn’t want to scratch beyond the surface.

    That’s how she stayed enamoured with Watts. He checked all the right boxes, and he looked pretty hot doing it, that’s all she needed.

    I see the typical North American consumer driven 2.5 children house that can be envied run of the mill person.

    I’m not surprised she didn’t recognize the monster who slept beside her. But get it straight HE was the MONSTER she the distracted patsy.

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  10. Ok, I have read hundreds of things on the subject of this woman, this man and this horrible crime about this family and here is what I think: I hope everyone takes this with an honest view of an opinion and doesn’t jump all over me for thinking these things. First, I think this was a beautiful family with a beautiful wife, a handsome husband and two really cute little girls. But I think wHat really happened this man got tired of going to work everyday and putting in his hours on the job, while his wife put on makeup and performed for a camera while sending her children to expensive childcare. Shannan, although did appear to be good mother was not a really a good wife. She probably went to bed at night exhausted from her what she had done all day and said no to him tine and time again when he wanted sex. Her whole life appears to be tha job and those children, she never really set aside anytime for her husband And I think he became sick of it and thought this wAs the only way out. Just my thoughts.

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