The Watts Family Murders (Part 2)

Summary

Morbid Podcast: The Watts Family Murders (Part 2)

Hosts: Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Date: May 11, 2026
SUMMARY BY SEGMENT

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Main Theme

This emotionally grueling episode dives into the aftermath of the Watts Family Murders, focusing on the investigation, Chris Watts’ chilling demeanor, and the reactions of investigators, friends, and family. Ash and Alaina combine methodical research with empathetic commentary and occasional dark humor to process a truly horrific case of family annihilation.

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Table of Contents

1. Opening Remarks & Technical Hiccups
2. Emotional Toll & The Heaviness of the Case
3. Watching Chris Watts: The Body-Cam Footage
4. Key Details from Discovery Documents
5. Chilling Signs Before the Murders
6. Initial Police Response & Watts’ Bizarre Behaviors
7. The Investigation: Red Flags Mounting
8. Ash & Alaina’s Critical Discussion of Chris Watts
9. Shanann, the Girls & Watts’ Dissolution
10. Chris Watts’ Attempts at a Coverup
11. Unraveling: His Staged Grief & Polygraph
12. Confession, Plea Deal & Sentencing
13. Family Impact Statements
14. Aftermath, Incarceration, & Notable Oddities
15. Paranormal and Final Thoughts

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Opening Remarks & Technical Hiccups

[02:40-07:36]

• The recording for this episode was lost due to a tech glitch. Alaina and Ash recount their stress and efforts to recover a nearly three-hour episode before finally accepting it was gone.
• “This episode is brutal… energy wise, it was taxing mentally to go through it... cried four times during the recording.” – Alaina [04:13]
• The heaviness of the case leads them to take a break and return with renewed energy.

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Emotional Toll & The Heaviness of the Case

[07:36-10:48]

• Both hosts emphasize the immense emotional burden of the Watts case.
• Alaina notes the unique horror: “Being able to watch a family annihilator before he gets caught... pretending his family is missing... I don’t know if we’ve ever seen that before.” [09:54]
• The depth of body-cam footage adds a new dimension, intensifying empathy and disgust.

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Watching Chris Watts: The Body-Cam Footage

[09:09-11:45]

• Alaina reviews “hours” of officer body-cam from various angles, observing real-time deception.
• “You can see how they’re all looking at each other like they knew. They knew this guy was nefarious from the get go.” – Alaina [10:48]
• Officers attempt to empathize with Watts, but his vacant responses make their suspicions clear.

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Key Details from Discovery Documents

[13:04-14:57]

• Alaina combed through over 1500 of the 1900 discovery documents, including chilling handwritten notes.
• A psychic from Massachusetts, remaining anonymous, predicted stunning forensic details about the case before the bodies were even found [14:38].

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Chilling Signs Before the Murders

[15:05-18:30]

• Shanann fell violently ill (possibly poisoned) immediately after Chris arrived in North Carolina, which matches later admissions of him slipping her oxycodone to induce a miscarriage [27:51].
• Shifts in Chris’ behavior were so abrupt that Shanann’s friends and family felt something was deeply wrong.

“He took the mask off. It didn’t slip. It didn’t fall down. He took it off and he launched it into the ocean. It was gone.” – Alaina [16:11]

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Initial Police Response & Watts’ Bizarre Behaviors

[35:40-40:56]

• Watts reveals his lack of awareness, giving investigators irrelevant or misleading banking and credit card information to “help” with the search.
• Fails basic “dad” questions, like what shoes or PJs his daughters preferred, grinning inappropriately at officers [37:01].
• No emotion when leading police through his daughters’ rooms, and his explanations for things like a stripped bed are unconvincing.

“My body would not be able to form a smile during my family being missing. It just wouldn’t.” – Alaina [37:32]

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The Investigation: Red Flags Mounting

[43:02-47:52]

• Watts’ “cover story” rapidly falls apart; friends like Nicole Atkinson are quick to challenge inconsistencies and advocate with police.
• He makes casual, inappropriate comments (“but Nicole... she probably knows more because she’s a woman!”) [48:52].

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Ash & Alaina’s Critical Discussion of Chris Watts

[29:35-36:32 & Throughout]

• The hosts regularly reject armchair diagnoses but are adamant Watts’ lack of empathy, refusal to simply walk away from his family, and callousness point to psychopathy.

“He’s not even worth the molecules that build his body.” – Alaina [23:36]

• The detail that Watts drove Bella and Celeste, alive, for 45 minutes before killing them is a source of deep horror for both hosts.

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Shanann, the Girls & Watts’ Dissolution

[86:11-91:36]

• Friends describe a loving, affectionate marriage that “changed overnight”; after returning from a trip, Chris wanted nothing to do with Shanann or the children.
• His attempts to erase them: disenrolling girls from preschool within hours of the murders, asking about pawn value for Shanann’s wedding ring [83:15 & 89:36].

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Chris Watts’ Attempts at a Coverup

[81:44-85:43, 105:00-110:12]

• Chris performs staged calls and texts throughout the day, keeping up a veneer of concern.
• Fails a polygraph “so spectacularly the needle went off the page” (negative 18, where -4 or below is considered deception) [96:33].
• Obsessed with his mistress, rambles about her inappropriately during FBI interrogation [98:52+].

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Unraveling: His Staged Grief & Polygraph

[91:36-100:38]

• Watts’ emotionless public appeals (“Not too bad, not too bad [when his family is missing]” – [53:47]) are dissected.
• Investigators break down his facade by allowing his father into the interrogation room, where Chris finally confesses—but only to killing Shanann, still blaming her for the girls’ deaths [111:44].

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Confession, Plea Deal & Sentencing

[130:17-136:11]

• Watts finally admits to killing Shanann, Celeste, and Bella after learning prosecutors would seek the death penalty.
• Details of the murders: Smothered Shanann (pregnant), then CeCe and Bella (4 and 3), driven 45 minutes alive to oil tanks, where Bella “fought back really hard because she saw what happened.”
• Hosts struggle with the horror, choosing not to repeat specifics.

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Family Impact Statements

[136:36-139:14]

• Frankie, Shanann’s brother: “You don’t deserve to be called a man... Did you really think you’d get away with this? ... You took away my privilege of being an uncle to the most precious little girls I had ever known.” [136:38]
• Frank Sr. expresses heartbreak and disbelief.
• Cindy Watts (Chris’ mother) insists on loving and forgiving him, infuriating the hosts.

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Aftermath, Incarceration, & Notable Oddities

[140:02-142:36]

• Watts is serving three life terms plus 84 years, in protective custody, afraid for his life, and largely isolated.
• He receives “fan mail” and explicit photos from women, which the hosts denounce [105:09], and continues to blame women for his actions in a letter to God [142:07].
• Nicole Kessinger, the mistress, researched whether the “other woman” (Amber Frey, from the Peterson case) got a book deal [123:18].

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Paranormal and Final Thoughts

[142:42-147:11]

• Strange occurrences after the murders: Texts to Shanann’s mother about an open door; body-cam recording a mysterious child’s giggle and a breathy “This is our home” in Shanann’s closet [145:18]. The hosts muse on the chilling, possibly residual, energy in the house.
• Final thoughts: Chris’ attempt to blame Shanann for being “domineering” is rejected: “Even if she was domineering—get divorced.” [147:34]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the 45-Minute Drive:

“He had 45 minutes in the car with Bella and Celeste alive to change his mind while driving them.” – Elena [21:58]

On Watts’ Lies:

“He is diabolically stupid. Anybody who says this man was smart... If you blew in one of his ears and there was a candle at the other one, you’d blow the candle out.” – Alaina [31:29]

On the Lack of Parental Emotion:

“My body would not be able to form a smile during my family being missing. It just wouldn’t.” – Alaina [37:32]

On the Confession:

“He can’t even kind—he doesn’t even stumble into humaning at any point...” – Alaina [112:21]

On Aftermath and Justice:

“He’s a monster. He’s a disgusting, irredeemable, monstrous piece of shit. And if there is a hell, he will see it.” – Alaina [120:18]

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Timestamps for Crucial Segments

• [09:54] – Discussing the bodycam: “Being able to watch a family annihilator before he gets caught...”
• [15:05] – Shanann’s mysterious illness after Chris’ arrival
• [27:51] – Chris admits to drugging Shanann to induce miscarriage
• [23:36] – “He’s not worth the molecules that make him up...”
• [29:35] – Ash & Alaina: Why didn’t he just leave?
• [35:40-40:56] – Watts’ strange responses to investigators
• [81:44] – Chris calls preschool to disenroll his daughters the morning of the murders
• [96:33] – Polygraph score (-18, deception off the charts)
• [111:44] – Watts confesses to father, blames Shanann
• [119:15] – The details of Bella’s last moments
• [136:38] – Frankie’s impact statement
• [145:18 & 146:31] – Paranormal giggle/child’s voice in Shanann’s closet

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Tone & Style

• Empathetic, deeply disturbed, but laced with dark comedy and colloquial banter.
• Unafraid to call out monstrous behavior in blunt terms.
• Deeply respectful to the victims, always foregrounding the horror visited upon them, not giving the killer more attention than necessary.

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Closing – Hosts' Wishes & Fun Fact

[148:14-149:11]

• Hosts desperately need a palate cleanser; close with a lighthearted bird fact: “Birds get drunk on fermented berries, especially in late winter and early spring.” [148:22]
• Affirmation: “Hope you keep listening, and hope you keep it weird—but not that weird.”

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End of Summary.

Transcript

[Ash]

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[Elena]

Hey weirdos. I'm Elena.

[Ash]

I'm Ash.

[Elena]

And this. This is morbid

[Ash]

again.

[Elena]

We gotta tell you guys. Oh my God, guys. Before we get into this absolute horror. And I know it's hard because I've done this once before.

[Ash]

So yesterday we recorded a over two and a half hour episode.

[Elena]

Almost three hours.

[Ash]

We spent almost three hours recording. I went to export the file and something happened where it was just a. Not even a silent. You can hear me release the record button so it goes. And then the rest is just complete silence.

[Elena]

We tried for hours last night to get this thing back. We got a micro SD card reader to plug into the computer because we were trying to recover lost files off of it randomly.

[Ash]

Drew had a micro SD reader. I called him to see if our computer had like a space and he's like, oh, I have one. I'm on my way.

[Elena]

I was like, thank goodness.

[Ash]

What?

[Elena]

But then that didn't work. It was hours. Last night, after three hours of recording, we had. We had like hours of trying to do this because we were just. This is a. I'm. I'm still so stressed about this because I'm like, this episode is brutal. It's a brutal episode.

[Ash]

This is an awful case.

[Elena]

In the first one, I cried four times during the recording. In the first one, that's how brutal this episode is. So be. I don't go into graphic detail about anything but just the whole overarching thing of this because we're obviously going to get into what happened, how this ended. His complete nonchalant demeanor about the whole thing.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

And so it was like energy wise, it was very taxing mentally to go

[Ash]

through it because it's just so heavy.

[Elena]

And then to have that for three hours, which like I realize like, you

[Ash]

know, life could be worse.

[Elena]

Life could be much worse. Just listen to the episode. But it's so shitty when you do something like that for three hours, which I know other people understand. And then to have it just gone

[Ash]

and you're just gone like. We installed several different programs on the computer last night.

[Elena]

Today. Cuz yesterday I said I. After we went through the whole thing. I was like, we gotta walk away. We gotta walk away. Cuz one. I can't do this episode again right now. I don't have it in me.

[Ash]

No.

[Elena]

Like, I can't just sit here and go through the motions in this episode. It's too important and it's too heavy. And so we were like, okay, we'll do it tomorrow. Let's just come back tomorrow. So today we come back. And then I was like, let's just try one more thing. Just one more thing. Because I'm just not willing to say it was gone. And we. We ended up coding. We learned code coding. We coded in Terminal.

[Ash]

We don't even know what the.

[Elena]

That I didn't even know Terminal was part of a computer.

[Ash]

She was like, type backslash. Backslash.

[Elena]

Fff.

[Ash]

I'm going to wake up in the

[Elena]

middle of the night and we're putting all these command. And then finally, at the end of everything, we get this recovery file on the desktop. All of a sudden, it populates recovered wave. And we. We held hands.

[Ash]

We don't even, like, we don't hug. We're not. The only time we ever give each other a hug is if one of us is getting on a plane for

[Elena]

some reason or like, is upset.

[Ash]

We're not really upset, obviously. I literally go, hold my hand.

[Elena]

And we just held hands and we opened it and up popped a flat line again. And I fell to the floor. She did.

[Ash]

I can. I can confirm she fell to the floor.

[Elena]

We just tried. So it's one of those things where you're just like. Every time you try something, you're like, this is it. This is the one. Oh, God.

[Ash]

We are now recording on several different.

[Elena]

Yeah, this one's not going to.

[Ash]

I am currently monitoring the waveforms as this is going.

[Elena]

Because also, this also happened when it was just us recording with no producer, anybody in the room. So that there's that. Yep. So now we're staring at that wav file ourselves across the room. We have the monitor.

[Ash]

Literally, it's Mother's Day weekend. And Elena's like, we'll just do it on Monday. I'm like, but I don't want you to have to worry all day Sunday

[Elena]

because that after that last recording, I said, I am so glad to have Chris Watts out of my psyche. Like, I need to walk away from this. I need to get this out of my. It's gonna take me a minute to get away from this. Like when I tell you I cried four times during the recording. I literally cried four times during it. Had to stop.

[Ash]

And, like, just because it's all so

[Elena]

heavy, it's too much. And so I was like, I can't wait to just put this out. Put the. The information we need to put out, and then just clear it out of my brain because it's really bothering me.

[Ash]

I am setting a timer right now for an hour, and we're going to pause an hour into this and just make sure everything sounds good. It's looking good, but I just want to make sure. So we're starting timer right now.

[Elena]

Yeah, so there's. There's that. So that's. That's where we are.

[Ash]

All right, so you haven't heard part two yet, listener.

[Elena]

No, you haven't.

[Ash]

And just know that it's really fucking heavy. And this guy. I said. I said so many things yesterday that maybe there's a reason why we weren't supposed to.

[Elena]

Maybe we went to.

[Ash]

Maybe we went too hard at him.

[Elena]

I don't think we can go too hard at him. I don't think you can. But maybe. I don't know, maybe we said something that the universe was like, I don't know.

[Ash]

You don't want that out there.

[Elena]

Like, maybe you just don't want that kind of vibe out there. I don't know. I. I mean, I.

[Ash]

Things happen for a reason.

[Elena]

I maintain that he's a useless bag of shit, but I do, too.

[Ash]

I'll probably say all the same.

[Elena]

I probably. I was going to say. I'm probably going to say the same thing. I think maybe I was. You know, Trust me, we're going to get into it. Don't worry. I'm just stressed. Maybe it was just like yesterday I was a little, like, I felt a little nudgy.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

You know, sometimes you just feel a little nudgy.

[Ash]

There's been a lot happening.

[Elena]

And maybe that's what it was. It was. I was too nudgy. So maybe I was getting a little too.

[Ash]

Wasn't the right energy.

[Elena]

Yeah, maybe that's what it. I'm gonna go with it.

[Ash]

Today. We had a nice little morning together.

[Elena]

Yep. We had. We had dance class in the morning. Not us. Not our dance children.

[Ash]

Elena's kids. Dance class. But yeah. So we had new drinks this morning.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Oh, a blue jay just flew by.

[Elena]

Oh, that's a sign. I love blue jays.

[Ash]

And that correlates to my fun fact later that I've already found.

[Elena]

Oh. Because I already used it.

[Ash]

Oh, that's a beautiful one.

[Elena]

Yeah. Oh, we also had a Crow fly by, and that's good luck. So there's.

[Ash]

Crows are like our sign.

[Elena]

So there's that. And before I begin this whole thing, I. I went back and I watched, like, a lot of the body cam footage from different angles, different officers. There's a lot out there. So I think, like, honestly, one of the reasons, like the. Obviously the subject matter of this case will just shred you into pieces.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

But I think also what really made this, like, so heavy for me is, like, the subject matter and also the fact that we can see so much of the timeline in real time through body cam and all that.

[Ash]

And not only so much of the timeline, but so much of the nonchalance.

[Elena]

That's what it is. It's like what he was doing while this was going on, what he was acting like while this was happening.

[Ash]

Yup.

[Elena]

Being able to watch a family annihilator before he gets caught, like, in the aftermath, pretending that his family is missing. Yeah. Is something that I. I mean, I don't know if we have ever been able to see before. This is the first one that I know of.

[Ash]

I think it's one of very few

[Elena]

or the one that has the most that we can.

[Ash]

Footage.

[Elena]

Yeah. Because again, those discovery documents are just rife and horrifying. They really. I'd like to say right now. I think I said in the last one, like, they're out there. You can see them. And they are. But I'd love to caution you. Yeah. That they do include a lot of detail. There's autopsy reports. It's a lot. And it'll, like, really weigh heavily on you. So, like, I care about you guys and I don't want everybody spiraling into, like, a crisis here because, like, looking at those will fuck you up. They just will. So just do that at your own risk.

[Ash]

I think you're. Honestly, since I've heard this, I think you told us everything that. That people really need to.

[Elena]

Yeah. I think I'm giving you the. The facts, but there's more detail in there that I just don't think needs to be gone over because it's not. It's too much. It really is. But also when I was watching body cam footage, because, again, all the different officers have them, so you get the different angles. You get to see the other officer's reactions to his. His answers or him just talking, talking, talking and how he's acting. And it's. You can see how they're all looking at each other like they knew. They knew this guy was nefarious. From the get go, which obviously they're trained to do, but he did himself no favors. Well, I was saying it too, when

[Ash]

we were talking about it, just like amongst ourselves, these officers probably have partners of their own, kids of their own. And they're looking at this guy and they're like, you're not acting, right?

[Elena]

No, that's.

[Ash]

They know how they would react in a situation like that. At least they can kind of guess.

[Elena]

You know what's funny that you say that is there's actually an instance where a. Where an officer, Officer Perez, I believe it is, tries to empathize with him because he connects it to himself and his own situation that he is in charge of. And what he gets out of it shows him everything he needs to know. Yeah. So while I was looking at the body cam footage of, you know, them going in the house right after she was reported missing, I ran across this account and I don't know if they still do videos like this anymore. They did. They have uploaded a couple of. About this case actually recently. It felt kismet. And so I don't know if they're still doing it like full time or whatever, but I wanted to shout them out because their commentary, they go through the body cam footage like frame by frame and just kind of give their thoughts on it. They point out things. And I thought they were really insightful. I thought their. What they were saying, like their feelings about it matched mine so well that you feel very validated while watching it because you're like, yeah, fuck this guy.

[Ash]

And they have, they have such a good, like banter together. Yeah.

[Elena]

I think they're like best friends. Their names are Denty and Shaz. So it's De E N T Y and S H A Z. Again, I don't know if they're doing this full time anymore. So I don't know, like, what. But I recommend you go like, take a peek at what they have to say because I think they were just like really great to listen to about this.

[Ash]

Oh yeah.

[Elena]

And they have great accents. I love that. They just seem like people you want to hang around with and like talk through these theories and things with. Yeah, so like shout out to Denti and Chaz. Shout out for being a good channel. And I think they're on like Instagram and YouTube and other places. So let's begin. That one thing I found when I went back, because I went back into the discovery documents and like, you know, I think I went through 1500 of the 1900 documents.

[Ash]

Insanity.

[Elena]

And the only ones That I didn't go through were like a giant list of like there were things like, you know, evidence lists and stuff that I just like I had already seen.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Certain pieces of.

[Ash]

When there's so many pages like that, some of it is just like.

[Elena]

Yeah, there's a lot of handwritten notes that you can't really decipher a lot. I did see one handwritten thing that I thought was very interesting. And I looked around, I saw this person has never come forward with what. Who they are, which was kind of like a good thing. I think at the time I was like impressed by it. This psychic medium from Massachusetts, from our town wrote, called the police while they were missing. They had not even been like none of this had come out. They didn't know what happened to them, nothing. And told the police the most detailed version of events that they believed happened. And it matches up almost exactly. Really like she. They say that like, you know, they're gonna be found. I think they said like underwater or in liquid. Which is like how. What did you know that like.

[Ash]

Yeah, you didn't tell me this yesterday.

[Elena]

Masses of deaths. They knew the time period. They, I mean they just went. They really like. It was really shocking how accurate it was. And it's in the doc, in the discovery document. It's like a yellow piece of paper. It's the one of the only pieces of paper that is handwritten, that is legible to read in the document, shout

[Ash]

out to whoever transcribed that note.

[Elena]

Yeah, it definitely was legible. And it's. But it's a psychic medium from Massachusetts who wanted to remain anonymous.

[Ash]

Interesting.

[Elena]

Which I thought was interesting because usually

[Ash]

that's not always the case.

[Elena]

To me, if they're bullshit, then they want to slap their name on it. But if they're not, then they're just like, I want to give you this information because this is what I with it, what you will. Because they're not getting anything out of that. They're just trashing it along. I had like, I had a notion. I was like, I wonder if it's this person, but I won't say who it is. Cuz obviously they wanted to.

[Ash]

I.

[Elena]

But there's only like, you know, it's Massachusetts. I have my own notion too, but that was interesting. And then another thing I saw, which was horrifying because you know things are going to get really horrifying from here on out. While Shanann was in North Carolina on that five week vacation, she ended up getting very ill. Like very ill. Vomiting, like really sick. And it was when Chris had come to visit. So Chris, after the five weeks, or like during the five weeks at some point at the end, had come to stay with them for a few days. Okay. Then come home. It was when he got there that she got very ill. So that's suspect. And remember, he had flipped a switch. He had flipped a switch. Everyone had said that they were all over each other before he left and that it was those five weeks alone without his wife and children that he suddenly decided that that was the life he wanted. And he flipped. He took the mask off. It didn't slip. It didn't fall down. He took it off and he launched it into the ocean. It was gone. Because he was a totally different human. Right. Totally different man. Everyone around him, everyone around Shannan said they had no idea what happened.

[Ash]

That has to be, like, just such a scary thing to experience that in and of itself. Before you even get to the horrific end of this case, the end of it. That. Imagine that is your friend. And all of a sudden, this man that you've known, her husband for years and years and years, you know him as one thing. And now he's the complete opposite. While she's newly pregnant.

[Elena]

Yeah. And has two young kids. Like, I would be terrified. Yeah. And I think they were. And then all of a sudden, so fast.

[Ash]

Well, and then all of a sudden, now she's. He showed up. Well, or not even. I'm saying, like, while she's in North Carolina.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah.

[Ash]

He showed up. And she's violently ill suddenly.

[Elena]

Yeah. And when she's been fine, everyone thought it was strange. And one of the things that is in there that her family said, like, witnesses said she said, was that while she was sick, usually, because everybody did describe him as this. Usually he was pretty doting and pretty. Like he was caring. Yeah.

[Ash]

His mom said, like.

[Elena]

Yeah, that kind of bothered her. Oh, yeah. His mom. It was pissed her off.

[Ash]

He was so. So doting.

[Elena]

But even, like, her mother was like, yeah, he was normally, like, very attentive and, like, took care of her like a husband. Like, you know, like a partner. That's how he's always been. And, like, that's how her friends saw him, too. Like, and that's how she saw him. And suddenly she's 15 weeks pregnant and violently ill. And he. And she wrote in a text message that he just existed while she was like, that He. He didn't seem to care. And for someone to be. Because John, like, just using this as a personal example, like, John is a very attentive Husband, Like I can tell you he is. If I'm sick, he's going to take care of me. It's not going to be just go upstairs and go lay down. He's going to take care of me. Yeah.

[Ash]

He's going to order all the lights. He's going to make sure you're taking the toast.

[Elena]

He's going to like do all the things. Like he's a great.

[Ash]

He's going to take the girls out of the house so you can get some quiet. He's going to come back with like something for you to eat.

[Elena]

Exactly. Like he's that kind of husband.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

If I got sick one day and he suddenly just didn't give a. Just existed, that would throw me for such a fucking loop. And.

[Ash]

And it would actually. If you're pregnant, when you're like that's when your husband or your partner is a million times more.

[Elena]

Yeah. Attentive. Exactly like that.

[Ash]

They wouldn't just stop all of a sudden.

[Elena]

Like if I had gotten violently ill while pregnant, which like I was very lucky that I didn't have like any morning sickness while pregnant. I was not violently ill. All the.

[Ash]

Hopefully that runs in our family.

[Elena]

I know when my. I feel very lucky that way because I. I'm sure people listening are like, bitch, like, trust me, especially with twins, I should have probably gotten very sick. But I luckily didn't. But if I did and he just didn't care, I would feel so. And this is what bothers me. Like I would feel so alone.

[Ash]

Well, we were saying that yesterday, like the thing that so much of this case breaks my heart. But one of the biggest things that breaks my heart is like one, they were arguing at the end of their. Of Shanann and the kids lives.

[Elena]

She's suspecting that he was cheating.

[Ash]

She's suspecting that he's cheating. So that's a nightmare. They're fighting all the time. And it's not only a nightmare for her, it's a nightmare for the kids because they're hearing their parents, of course fight all the time when it doesn't really seem like they did fight all that often beforehand.

[Elena]

No. So it's sudden.

[Ash]

So it's like this weird change up that everybody's in this like turmoil and

[Elena]

tension at the end of their life. Like that's because I was saying this earlier when we talked about this yesterday, that I was thinking about it earlier yesterday and I was like, you know, we as humans at the end of someone's life, if we're lucky enough to know that someone's at the end of their life are across the board. We try to make that person comfortable. Comfortable and peaceful and happy. And we try to make those last moments the most peaceful, lovely, just special, just special moments ever. Like, we even do that for dogs. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, if we know that this is it, we try to give them a last, like, great memory. We just do that.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

And these people and every victim of a violent crime and I, I think it just never hit me in on this angle, is like Shanann and Bella and Celeste, what horror the end of their moments were. And it's like that is like really churning my stomach. Like, it's like killing me inside, like, to think about it. And it's always bothered me when we talk about, of course, you know, murder cases. Obviously, like, that is not lost on me. Something about this one and seeing him and how he acted made it even more real and even more like, hitting me in, like, this place. I didn't know I existed.

[Ash]

Well, and I don't think we've covered very many, like, family annihilator case. Like, like, and not like this when, you know, and specifically, like when the husband kills the entire family. Because in our minds, like, that's the person that protects the family. So for that to just be flipped on its head the way that it is in this case and kicked around in the mud and.

[Elena]

Well, in these, you know, the other thing. And we'll get to it towards the end, I think that's like really weighing on me with this one, is he had 45 minutes. Can I actually talk?

[Ash]

That was actually just wild that you said that when you did. I looked down at my phone and we have 45 minutes left on the timer before I check the file. That was wild.

[Elena]

That is very weird.

[Ash]

That just like, actually just gave me a chill.

[Elena]

That's weird because he had 45 minutes in the car with Bella and Celeste

[Ash]

alive to change his mind while driving them.

[Elena]

And he even said that he knew he had all that time and he said, I, I don't, like, why didn't I do it?

[Ash]

Did he say, like, what was going. Did, did he ever say what was going through his mind in those 45 minutes?

[Elena]

No, not that I read. I honestly don't want to read it too far.

[Ash]

I just, I'm like, I. How do you not change your mind

[Elena]

if you can sit in a car for 45 minutes with a 3 and a 4 year old little baby that's yours and do what he did to them after 45 minutes. I think that's the part that's like. Because every murder is horrific, every family annihilation is horrific. We've just never. I've never come across one with a person drill for 45 minutes with their babies in the car alive and still decided to do it. No, I think that's the part that's like really getting me about this case is like. I mean, they fell asleep. Yeah. Like the nothing. One thing, the amount of pictures on my camera roll of my kids asleep that I take creepily because when I go in their room to check on them, they look peaceful. The most angelic and sweet that they will ever look is when they're sleeping. Yeah, like, that just like will melt you if you are a human being. And he's not. No, he's a fucking concrete block of shit like he really is. He's nothing. He's nothing. He has nothing.

[Ash]

What did you say yesterday? You said he's not even worth the molecules that build his body.

[Elena]

Yeah, he's not worth them. No, he is not worth the molecules that. That make him up there. He's just not. He's a waste of those.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

Do you know that feeling when working out finally clicks? When you finally feel like you get in a routine when you can see the results not just physically, also like emotionally, mentally, all of it? I don't know.

[Ash]

Tell me about it.

[Elena]

I'm Gonna tell you about it because finally when it clicks for me is when I get that clear headed feeling I can. I actually look forward to my workouts because I feel like they're kind of like a reset for me.

[Ash]

Oh, heck yeah.

[Elena]

Heck yeah. It's honestly, it's worth it. You're. It's worth it. It's an investment in yourself, in every way that it can be. So I'm telling you, one way you can do this is with Peloton Pel Peloton helps you unlock all the expansive, joyful feel somebody gets through movement with the Peloton Cross Training Tread plus powered by Peloton iq. Oo Peloton IQ builds a workout road map that's completely yours so you can stop overthinking and just move, which is the hardest part.

[Ash]

I love that.

[Elena]

Peloton IQ provides intelligent strength coaching so you can stay in the moment. You can track every single rep, you can read every movement and guiding form in real time. So there's no second guessing because that's always my thing is I'm like, am I doing this right? And they're like, no you're not. This is how you do it.

[Ash]

Don't second guess yourself, girl.

[Elena]

Don't do it. So spin the swivel screen too and feel what's possible. Moving from running to strength seamlessly without breaking any flow because we don't want

[Ash]

to break that flow state.

[Elena]

Honestly, the clarity that comes when you stop negotiating with yourself. I'll just do it tomorrow. I'll. I'll start it next week. Maybe if I get in this routine, I'll feel better. Don't talk about it. Just do it.

[Ash]

Don't talk about it. Be about it.

[Elena]

And take it from me, because I'm the person who will continue negotiating with myself until I'm 80 years old that I've yet to step on any single exercise equipment. So finally when I stopped and I just got on my peloton, I'm telling you it's an investment. It's a worthwhile investment in yourself. So let yourself run, lift, fail, Try and go explore the new peloton cross training tread [e-mail] period.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

doesn't care she's sick.

[Ash]

He later admitted.

[Elena]

Yes, you were saying? This is the horrifying thing. He later admitted that he was slipping Shanann Oxys in her drinks and things and in her food to try to encourage a miscarriage.

[Ash]

And she's over three months pregnant. Yeah, she was 15 weeks pregnant.

[Elena]

He is trying to poison his pregnant wife without her knowledge to try to induce a miscarriage.

[Ash]

Like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

[Elena]

Which also. Miscarriages are horrendous.

[Ash]

Of course they are.

[Elena]

And to try to induce that in your wife and that far along is something I cannot comprehend. I'm like, that was the first step of evil.

[Ash]

Well, that's.

[Elena]

That I can't even comprehend miscarriage or not.

[Ash]

Miscarriages are not only horrific, but incredibly dangerous. Like, she could have died.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And he. Maybe that was the intention.

[Elena]

Maybe it was.

[Ash]

But it's like I said this so many times yesterday when we were talking. I don't understand why he didn't just. And this would have been shitty too, but I don't understand why he just didn't get in his car and drive away and start his fucking life with Nicole or whoever the fuck you wanted to just leave them. Obviously that's going to be tough for them, but there's tools and they have a community that surrounds them that they'll be okay.

[Elena]

That's the thing. Shannan and these girls had enough people around them that loved them deeply and had friends around them that loved them deeply. That they would have had a padding. They would have been. It would have been hard, but it

[Ash]

wouldn't have been the end of their fucking lives.

[Elena]

They would have better off for it. Yep. They would have been better off for not having this man in their life at all.

[Ash]

And how do you not sit there? Like, that's. That's where it's like, I don't. And we said this yesterday. Like, we hate to armchair diagnose, but he's a psychopath.

[Elena]

I don't even think that's armchair diagnosing. It's so. It's sloppy for that. Like, that's your business.

[Ash]

Like, I don't understand he's a psychopath. Absolutely. Because I don't understand that not occurring to him.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

Why can't. Why? Like, abandoning your family is, in your mind, worse than murdering them.

[Elena]

That's what.

[Ash]

Like, why didn't you just leave?

[Elena]

But you know why?

[Ash]

Because he didn't want his life to be interrupted. He didn't want to have to go away.

[Elena]

Well, and also, if he leaves, he knows there's a possibility they'll track you down. They'll track you down. You're always going to have this tie to this responsibility, no matter what it. Even if you're not taking that responsibility on, it's still there. But he wanted it wiped out.

[Ash]

There's a million dads that don't pay child support.

[Elena]

Well, and also, how's that working out for you?

[Ash]

Right?

[Elena]

How's that working out for you?

[Ash]

This work better.

[Elena]

How is that working out for you in prison where we now know that you are in fear of your life every minute of every day? Yeah. How's that working out?

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

You piece of.

[Ash]

It's unreal.

[Elena]

So, yeah, so there's that horrible fact. But I have to go back to some of the body cam, because in the interim, I found more and it's just too insane not to talk about. He is diabolically stupid. Diabolically stupid. Anybody who says this man was smart or this man. Because also, I don't think he's autistic. No. A couple of people were trying to. Not everybody who hyper fixates on something and doesn't show a lot of emotion is autistic. He's a psychopath. Yeah, he's an evil psychopath. And that does not correlate to autism. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Nowhere in anything I found said that he was. So we're not going to just label him autistic.

[Ash]

No.

[Elena]

And I. That was just something I saw that I was like, okay, we're not doing that. Yeah, you need.

[Ash]

We need a lot more evidence of

[Elena]

a lot more different things. And, you know, he's. It's much easier to call him a psychopath because that is clear as day.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

He is. But he's stupid. If you blew in one of his ears and there was a candle at the other one, you blow the candle out. Just a wind tunnel. So the investigators have him call the bank. And the credit card, like this is right after they get to the house, when they're in the house, when. Right now. The girls, Bella and Celeste and Shannan and unborn baby Nico are missing. That's. So they say, hey, you should call the bank. You should call the credit cards. See if she's made any transactions, anything's come out of her account. And he says. So he does. And you can see the wheels turning in his head, like, do I answer this? You know, truthfully or not? And they're like, hey, like, did they say anything on the phone? And he says, the last one was on August 12th, and it was a taxi. Now, it's pre. It's right now when we're talking to him. August 13th. They have been missing since that morning. August 13th. When he saw August 12th the day prior, she was in Arizona and the girls were in bed.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

So that's not relevant. And I'm not saying, like, he didn't. He said it like that. But then the way he says it is. He says it almost like, there it is. She got in a taxi, everybody. And it's like, do you not remember what day it is?

[Ash]

Because. Right.

[Elena]

And I don't think he did.

[Ash]

You saw her at 4am this morning

[Elena]

because she got home at 1:48am on August 13th today.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

And also, like, saw her this morning.

[Ash]

Her suitcases by the door. Her shoes are by the door.

[Elena]

She's been.

[Ash]

Her car's in the garage.

[Elena]

Here's the thing. I think he forgot what day it was.100. I also think, because he knew he was gonna do this kind of This. I don't know if he knew today was the day he was gonna. Actually, I do think he thought that through, because as we'll get, there was something happening that day that I think he wanted to make sure it didn't go through quite yet. Oh, oh, oh. And you remember it now. I shocked you yesterday with it.

[Ash]

I know.

[Elena]

So sad, though. We can't. That I can't.

[Ash]

There were so many shocking revelations yesterday by.

[Elena]

But now you know them. Yeah. They'll still just be. Horrifying. Yeah, I was gonna say. But I do think one of the main things that needs to be pointed out again and again is that Shanann's friends, like Nicole and Cassandra and Nate and all the people around her that made a big stink about this to make sure that he. That he got home, that the police were called, that this didn't go throughout the day, that they weren't waiting around to see if she showed up. All those people were the reason that he didn't get to formulate a better cover story, that he didn't get to cover up any of his tracks.

[Ash]

No, because they were blatantly out there

[Elena]

and that everyone was immediately suspicious of them. They are the heroes in this story. They Got. They came through for their friend. And everybody needs friends like these people. Yes. Like Nicole Atkinson. Everybody needs one.

[Ash]

I'm like, 100,000%.

[Elena]

And it's just. It. He's just. When you. And we're going to go through it, what he did during this day, that none of it makes sense. No, none of it makes sense. So they ask about the charge, and he's like, oh, yeah, August 12th, she got in a taxi. And they're like, does it say where or what time or like, what the taxi service was? Because they're still thinking, like, you know, at this point, maybe they don't know that he's claiming that she was home this morning. Yeah. So you. You would answer in this instance, because you know that that was yesterday. Yeah. You would probably answer, well, she was in Arizona, so that might have been to the airport or something. It's not from today. But he doesn't do that. He says, no, it just says taxi.

[Ash]

Like, oh.

[Elena]

Like, he says it. Like, I. I think we've got a lead here, fellas. And even the officer is like, well, that was yesterday. Yeah. So, like, let's move on. Like, he tried to use that. And you see him try to do this a couple of times. Try. Like, he takes something that someone says and he's like, oh, yeah, maybe that was it. And it's like, you're a dumbass because everyone is giving you little tethers to grab because they want to see how you react.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

It is smarter than you. Every single person around you is smarter than you.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

He also said there was a 27 charge at Target on August 13th.

[Ash]

I said, that's an act of self restraint.

[Elena]

It really is.27. But obviously by August 13th, we now know that Shannan was no longer alive.

[Ash]

Was it like a pending charge?

[Elena]

So it probably just took a bit to show up. But either way, he is so pleased to be able to say this because he makes it seem like, well, she must be out at Target. Like, she ran away with the kids and she bought something at Target.

[Ash]

It's like, yeah, her. She got her go bag and for 27.

[Elena]

Yeah. And didn't bring any of their medication. Yeah. With them. Or her purse, their car seats, anything she wore, any of their clothing. Nothing like that. Like her cell phone. Yeah. Her wedding ring. But the investigator calls him out. The investigator's like, yeah, those charges take a couple of days to show up. That probably wasn't from today.

[Ash]

Said, I'm a frequent flyer.

[Elena]

You can really see these investigators just going, good try. Yeah. Good try. Now they ask this. This one drives me crazy. And I got John to validate this one for me. He's on my side. I'm sure not everyone's going to feel the same way, but this personally irked me. The investigators ask if the girls had a favorite pair of shoes they like to wear a lot. Yeah. Said just a pair that they loved. Like a go pair of shoes. And he says no.

[Ash]

What the actual.

[Elena]

Lies. Lies.

[Ash]

I know all of those girls downstairs. I know all of their favorite shoes.

[Elena]

Yeah. Immediately you have two little girls. I know someone is inevitably going to tell me I'm wrong because their kid doesn't have a pair of favorite pair of shoes. And that's fine.

[Ash]

You're in the minority.

[Elena]

I think the likelihood of two gals with a fashion loving mama, which was clearly what Shannan was.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

Not having a go to favorite pair of shoes.

[Ash]

Incorrect.

[Elena]

That's crazy work to me.

[Ash]

Incorrect.

[Elena]

That alone. And it's the way he answers. I will say it a million times and I don't care. My body would not be able to form a smile during my. My family being missing. It just wouldn't. It would forget how to do it. I would just be in a state of absolute terror. I would be like Nicole Atkinson is. Yeah.

[Ash]

Which when she's seen on the body cam footage.

[Elena]

If you watch that body cam footage, you can see the moment that she sees that her medication is still there, that shenanigans clicks for her. And you can see that that is a real. That is someone who loves her. That's someone that is missing right now.

[Ash]

She grabs her heart and she starts kind of just like looking around like, oh, fuck, this is really happening.

[Elena]

She has the reaction of somebody who loves somebody deeply loved those girls, loved Shanann and now knows something is bad. And you can see it all over her face. And it shook me. Like watching human reaction and watching that one little clip, you feel like you shouldn't see it. I know because it's such, like a real moment. It's so raw of grief and. And it just. It sticks with me. I can see it in my brain. But what happens is when they ask about the shoes, he goes, no. And smiles like this big cheese smile. Like, no. What do you mean? I don't know about my kids. What do you mean? Like. And then he. So he brings them over to a closet and he's like, no. I just tell them to go get their shoes. And I'm like, okay. But they probably usually get the same shoes. That's how Kids work. But he stands in front of the closet and he goes, bellas are on this side. Celeste or in CC's are on this side. And just so sitting there looking down at these little baby girl shoes all over the floor, and there is nothing. There's nothing.

[Ash]

And we all know what he did to those. We all know what he did to have nothing.

[Elena]

Nothing.

[Ash]

Looking at, like, the remnants of their life.

[Elena]

Nothing.

[Ash]

How I would be sobbing, you're not a dad.

[Elena]

And especially even these people, he's trying to make them think that they're just missing. Even if they're just missing. I'm breaking down at the sight of their little shoes. Yeah, I'm breaking down.

[Ash]

You wouldn't even be able to, like, direct them to the closet. Like.

[Elena]

Like, I would just.

[Ash]

You wouldn't be able to walk over with them and look. You just feel like they're in the front closet.

[Elena]

I'd be like, I can't look. I'm gonna lose my mind. Like, I'm gonna lose my mind. Like, I'd be holding shoes. I'd be like. I'd be a mess. Like, a mess. He doesn't even have a slight. And it's these kind of things that when you watch this body cam footage will fly you up. It's just like. It's not graphic. It's not gruesome. It's not that it's him. It'll you up the psycho. Like, the psychologically damaging part of this is watching him, not. It's how vacant he is. It really is. And when he is lying or when he's getting asked something that's difficult for him to answer, he has a Tell a couple. Where he has a couple. He'll close his eyes, he'll blink a lot. He does this thing with his jaw where he, like, kind of does, like, an underbite. Rigid thing. Yeah. And he does it a lot. He does it a lot during the surveillance video, like, showing when Nate is there. Yep. He does it during the interview, and he does it here when he's trying. I think it's when he's trying to, like, calm his nervous system.

[Ash]

He's doing it right now, actually.

[Elena]

Yeah. But, yeah, I hope he is. Yeah. I hope he's in a permanent state of her.

[Ash]

Lockjaw.

[Elena]

Yeah, just straight up lockjaw. But it's very interesting. He does it here. They walk into the bedroom, the main bedroom, and they see that he has stripped the bed entirely. Now, remember, I just want everyone to remember at this point, he had not been home. He Left for work at what he said was 5:15, 5:30 in the morning, leaving his wife in bed. In the bed sheets and everything. And then he went to work the first time he got home. Why is the bed stripped? And where is everything?

[Ash]

And he says it's because she had airport on her.

[Elena]

Yeah. He said, well, she had gotten home last night straight from the airport, so she would have wanted to do that at 4 in the morning.

[Ash]

Well, he's trying to say, like, she would have washed them, but in that case, they would have found them in the wash. Everybody say it together in the wash machine.

[Elena]

Yeah. Instead they found them in the trash.

[Ash]

And they didn't even find all of them.

[Elena]

Nope. Find them.

[Ash]

They found the fitted sheet, Right.

[Elena]

And it was missing the top sheet. Yeah. And we will find out why later.

[Ash]

And the girls beds were missing their sheets too, right?

[Elena]

Yeah, the girls beds were missing certain sheets, and then later they end up being made.

[Ash]

Oh, really?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Elena]

Yeah, he. He switches that all up. What? Yeah. So he tells them that they had a discussion at 4am when he woke up. So he woke up. He woke her up at 4am after she got home at 1:48am so she had probably slept for less than two hours. Yeah. And he wakes her up at 4am to talk about separating and selling the house. Awesome. And he said. And when they were like, why did. Why'd you choose 4am? Like, what the day? So she got home from a trip less than two hours earlier and was asleep, and you woke her up to tell her, like, hey, you, Essentially. And they were like. And he was like, well, I didn't want to, like, text her or like, you know, that's. Or do it. Why would you have to text her? You live with her, Right? Just wait until you get home from work when you can actually, like, wait until you put the girls to sleep and then have a discussion.

[Ash]

He cannot put one and one together.

[Elena]

He is the dumbest I've ever heard. And. And again, kudos. Like, thank you to Shannan's friends for making it so he has to think on his feet. Because one thing Chris stupid ass Watts can't do is think on his goddamn feet. That's one thing that man is. I pick things up and I put them down, and that's as far as he can think.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

He's a true idiot. And it also has nothing to do with the fact that he likes cars or that he's an automotive technician or whatever he was. Because, guys, Drew also works with cars. And we never said that they were stupid.

[Ash]

No, Nobody ever said that.

[Elena]

Yeah, if I'm saying somebody is stupid, I mean, the murderer is stupid. Not the job he does. Not the. The industry as a whole.

[Ash]

I literally just said cars.

[Elena]

And that is.

[Ash]

And you guys took that.

[Elena]

And we're into it, and only a couple people did. But I was like, only a couple. Please just know that we are never personally attacking you when we're talking about a family annihilation.

[Ash]

No, it's not about you.

[Elena]

Yeah, don't make a fight. Family annihilation about you or about cars or anything like that.

[Ash]

About cars.

[Elena]

It's about this dumbass piece of shit. And what it is about is Shannan unborn baby Nico, Celeste and Bella. That's who it's about, period. But I just had to put that out there that we're not saying. If he works with cars, you're stupid. He is stupid by nature. That. Should he be born stupid. That's what he was tm. So, yeah. So he's an idiot. So they're like. They're like, that's crazy that you did that right before work. But they're like, sure. All right. Okay. People do stupid things, I guess, and they ask about. They're like, oh, you know what? We saw a bed in the basement.

[Ash]

What's that about?

[Elena]

And they said, this is kind of fitting. They said that, you know, you're saying that you were talking about separating. Like, I'm assuming she kicked you out into the basement a couple of times and you had to sleep there. And he's like, yeah, we had some marital problems, which, like, they did.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

This wasn't. When I say the. The switch was flipped before she went to North Carolina, they had some marital problems. It just wasn't, like, exploding. Yeah. And it was more, like financial stuff, and it was more, you know, things with his family and, like, that kind of, like, in the end, they always came together, and they always kind of, like, worked through it. The. The switch was flipped when it was like, he just stopped caring about her.

[Ash]

And he just, like, wouldn't entertain those

[Elena]

conversations, wouldn't go near her.

[Ash]

He wasn't even really arguing anymore.

[Elena]

So that there was some marital problems. But he said sometimes he would sleep down there. And they ask when the last time was he slept down there. Now he says, I sleep down there when we have marital problems. When I can't sleep in my bed with her. Yep. So she has to be in the house when we're talking about that. They say, when's the last Time you had to sleep down there. And he goes, probably two nights ago. Three nights ago.

[Ash]

Oh, why would you sleep down there when it was just you?

[Elena]

She was in Arizona during that time.

[Ash]

He also says, and that this is a whole other part of it. One, she's in Arizona. Two, he's always saying in this body cam footage that he's got to be upstairs when the kids are in bed because that's where the monitor is.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So the kids are in bed on the third floor and you're in the basement.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

What?

[Elena]

Because also you didn't even hear this part. He catches himself.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

He knows that that's not true. And he also knows that makes no sense.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

Because he just said he had sleeps down there when he's in trouble with his wife who is in bed.

[Ash]

You just slept there for fun.

[Elena]

Catches himself, he says, two nights ago, Three nights ago. Well, when she was here. So probably Thursday or Friday. So he catches himself mid lie realizes oops, I just up here. And then he's like, well, it was when she was here obviously, because I did just say that like. And you can see one of the officers, I think it's officer. He covers his mouth and you can tell he's looking at the other officers like this guy is not only a monster, clearly he's a fucking idiot.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

Like they're all like what? How does he.

[Ash]

Well, they're all looking at each other like, oh wow, we're standing in a family annihilator's house.

[Elena]

And I do wonder like when you watch it because you again, I'm gonna read some of the reports too where they put their own opinions and what they were feeling in there and saying like I thought it was strange that he acted this way. Like it does make you wonder while the officers are standing there like next to a play kitchen. Yeah. In the living room. Like a little pink play kitchen. If they're just looking at this guy and being like, oh, he might have killed his little girls. Yeah. And we're just sitting here having to listen to his dumb ass come up with every lie under the sun.

[Ash]

And you have to be like somewhat cordial to get the information out of him. To get like not even the correct information but to catch him in these fuck ups.

[Elena]

And you have to find proof. So it's like you can't even accuse like outright.

[Ash]

You have, you have to play a part for a while.

[Elena]

Yeah. It's like them that, that in this particular case I'm like, damn. But again you can, you can see it on their faces, especially because the next thing they say, which I thought was really cool, like a good idea, they were like, hey, okay, like, your marital problems are your business, like, whatever. And they're like, so maybe she just doesn't want to talk to you. Like, maybe she did leave and she's mad at you and she doesn't want to talk to you. So she, maybe her friends are covering for her and saying that, you know, she's not with them because she just doesn't like telling you your face. So they're like, so why don't you call your friends and tell them if she is with you, I don't need to know. But just please have her call the police so that we can know that she's okay. She does not have to talk to me. She can talk to the police, right? And he's like, got it. And then he's like, have you called all. All of her friends? You've called everyone you know? And he's like, yeah, I've exhausted all the friends I know. And then he goes, but Nicole, her friend, like, her friend, Nicole Atkinson, she probably knows more because she's a woman. What?

[Ash]

You said this the other.

[Elena]

And I said what? You know, women literally says Nicole, because, like, woman, like, we just know more people. We. I'm. I'm sorry. We have friends. Like, I, I don't keep track of our community, you know, us women always friend. Friends. Like, I don't. What does that mean? Always knowing people's names? Like, yeah, maybe. What is that? Like, I was like, you.

[Ash]

You can't.

[Elena]

What is that? And he says it like, you know, like, women, like, I don't know if that was. That was what you thought it was funny. Probably not in the police officers are even like, like, what was that? Like, are you trying to be like, what was that? Foreign.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

So they're like, hey. He's like, there is somebody else I can call. So he call. He makes a call to someone. This shook me to my core, because he says, now, if you are calling someone in this instance, you would say, hey. I'd be like, hey, it's Elena.

[Ash]

Like, this is urgent.

[Elena]

This is real. Like, I'm. I just need to tell you this. Like, John and the kids are missing. Have you seen them today? Yeah, I just need to know. Like, that would be. It would be like, hey, this is who I am. This is what's going on. Okay. Call me.

[Ash]

Right?

[Elena]

No. He calls and says, hey, it's Chris Watts. Not too bad. Hey, have you seen Shannan today?

[Ash]

Not too bad.

[Elena]

I didn't add the not too bad in there. That's exactly how he says it. It's on.

[Ash]

It's recorded.

[Elena]

Hey, it's Chris Watts, the person, obviously, that says, hey, Chris, how you doing? Not too bad, not too bad, Too bad, not too bad. Your whole family is missing. Your entire family is missing.

[Ash]

Not too bad.

[Elena]

Your entire family is missing. And there is no evidence that they left of their own volition.

[Ash]

I would love to see him on a good day.

[Elena]

I'm like, what did you. No human being acts like this. No, if they are innocent or even. Or if they're trying to act innocent.

[Ash]

Because that's the other thing. You're trying to act innocent. You're standing in your house full of cops, and they're watching you take this phone call and respond to, how are you? With, not too bad, not too bad.

[Elena]

And then he's like, all right, okay,

[Ash]

talk to you later.

[Elena]

Talk to you later.

[Ash]

And he's smiling. If you pause it, he smiles.

[Elena]

It is unbelievable. And it's in front of all these officers who are looking at each other like, did he just say not too bad?

[Ash]

Like, what the.

[Elena]

Like, what the is that? It's unbelievable. So even. So, again, this is when two. Like, Nicole points out, because she's a good friend, she's like, wait, she has medication. She takes all the time. And her purse is sitting on the counter where it shouldn't be if she left of her own volition. So she's like, let me check in her purse. So she checks in her purse, and she's like. You can see there's like this glimmer of hope. No, there's glimmer of hope in her face where she's like, maybe it's not in there. Maybe it's. If it's not in there, that means maybe she grabbed it, right? And she's looking, and then you can see it drop. And she just says, it's in there. And she's. And you can tell, like, she's like. And that's when she, like, grabs her heart. She's pacing around. Like, the other officers go in another room, and they're looking through things, and they're like, hey. Like, so these two little girls were on, like, nebulizers, and they had asthma and had, like, inhalers, and all of it is here. And these are things they would need with them. Like, you can see them all sitting there going, how is this guy trying to act like he too bad? And that's how, you know, like, he thought he was gonna get home from work that day. He was gonna be able to wipe that place clean. He thought he was gonna get rid of all the medicine. He was gonna get rid of her purse, maybe stash her cell phone somewhere. He was gonna get rid of anything that would have indicated that they couldn't have left on their own. And then his story was going to be that they abandoned him and that he could never find them and he could never see his girls again. That was going to be his story. And her friends said, off. I don't think so. Because not only that, her friends all say. Everyone around her says. And her family says they loved Chris. They did not. This wasn't one of those situations that were, like, we just tolerated Chris because, like.

[Ash]

Because he was always wearing his mask.

[Elena]

Mask. They loved him. He had the mask on the whole time. Yeah, but this is one of those unique situations where everyone loved him. And then when that mask was tossed

[Ash]

away, they said, well, I don't know who the.

[Elena]

They all said, we. That's too big to deny. Like, none of them could ignore it. So all of them said, I never would have thought this. But, yeah, now I do think he did it. Like, that's how bad he was and how he just let the evil just completely take over. When he did this, when he decided he was going to do this, he just let it leech out, and nobody could deny it, Even people who had loved him like a son. Yep. It's like his. It was. Honestly, his family was the only ones that it fooled. Yeah. But even while talking to officers the next day, because, remember when we were talking about the porch interview. The infamous porch interview that cooked his ass. He said the only memory he could come up with about what he misses about his children.

[Ash]

Finish your dinner or you don't get a treat.

[Elena]

Yelling at them about not eating dinner and not getting a dessert and shoving

[Ash]

them on their own couch to watch their own show.

[Elena]

Not. I miss snuggling them. I want to grab them and hold them and smell them with them, hear their giggles or lay with them when they sleep. I want to.

[Ash]

Running around them to wake me up in the morning.

[Elena]

Like, nothing like that. Just. I want to make. I want to tell. I want to disappoint them and tell them they can't have dessert today. He had a. He had another one. Oh, he said he just misses when they would throw chicken nuggets at him.

[Ash]

That took me out. That absolutely fried me.

[Elena]

Like, that's how you know. Like, he hated this. You have to try to human better in this kind of.

[Ash]

Because he's not safe. For some reason, these are the only memories that he can conjure because all he can think right now is, oh, man, I'm free of all that.

[Elena]

I don't have to do anything.

[Ash]

I don't have to tell them to eat their dinner anymore. I don't have to sit there and watch bubble guppies while they're on their couch and I can't watch my show. And I don't have to sit there and get pelleted with chicken nuggets even though it's hilarious.

[Elena]

Exactly. Exactly. He doesn't want. There's no.

[Ash]

He can't conjure an actual memory of him caring about them and having a sweet interaction with them because he just doesn't care. Because he's so happy to be free of them, which is so.

[Elena]

I'm glad he didn't know how to human in this scenario because he sunk his own shit. Because, like, whatever Google search he did to learn how to act like a grieving father, it failed him so spectacularly. I'm so glad it did.

[Ash]

He was too busy looking up lyrics.

[Elena]

He couldn't. He could not human in this moment. And he says. And then they're like, hey, what did the girls usually wear to bed? Like, what? Oh, my God. Now he's been a father of girls for four years.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

Fathers of girls out there or. Or just little kids who like to wear nightgowns. You know what a nightgown is? Correct. Because you have kids that wear nightgowns. Even people who don't have kids. I Think could say they know what a nightgown is. They're like, hey, does, like, one of the officers is like, do you know? Do they wear nightgowns? Do they wear, like, PJs usually? Like, what do they love to wear? What were they wearing last night? And he was like, they were like, they have, like, dresses that they go to sleep in.

[Ash]

A nightgown.

[Elena]

That's literally what a nightgown. It says it in the name. Night gown. That's what that is. Anonymous address that you sleep in at night. He's so stupid.

[Ash]

And, you know, like, Shannan was like, oh, can you grab me that nightgown? Or, like, hey, can you toss their knife down in the laundry?

[Elena]

Like, you know what it is? You know what it is? And then he's like, no, I don't remember what they went to bed in last night. And even one of the officers is like, you put them to bed, though. You said because Shanann wasn't home, you had to get them in the PJs

[Ash]

and you don't recall.

[Elena]

I always remember what the fuck they're wearing.

[Ash]

Yeah, like, you have three to keep track of.

[Elena]

Like, that you put them in the. In the pajamas. You remember what pajamas they're gonna be.

[Ash]

Not only that you put them in the pajamas. You also check on them throughout the night. You're sitting there later on, he's sitting there saying, each. He's upstairs because he's checking in on the monitor. I always check on the kids every so many pair. Maybe not 10 years old, but so many parents. I know your kids are at my house. I go in there three times through the night.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

If I wake up, I'm like, I should go check.

[Elena]

I should just go check on them.

[Ash]

And I know what they're wearing.

[Elena]

You know what they're wearing. Like, you put them in it. Like, it's like, come on. So that's stupid. He just doesn't want to give them anything. And when canine officers come, this is what the report says. Now, the K9 officer came in and says, while speaking with Chris about appropriate items such as shoes and clothing, the K9 officer stated the importance of the items not being touched by anyone else. Each time Deputy Koch asks Chris about specific items, he mentioned that he had in some way touched them. And you can see it in the video. She's like, okay, like, we're gonna need this so we can have, like, their scent on it. And he's like, well, I did touch that. Well, I did throw that in the laundry. Well, I Did rub my body all over that. Well, I did spit on that. Well, I did clutch that. Well, I did walk around with that. You touched every item in this house. Why would you do that after she

[Ash]

specifically told you not to?

[Elena]

And it's just physically not possible. You didn't touch everything that they own in the last. Because they're like in the last like however many hours. Like, you know, and he's like, yeah, last night I just touched the guy.

[Ash]

This house.

[Elena]

I literally touched everything in this house.

[Ash]

Tasmanian devil.

[Elena]

Because he doesn't want them to think that he can get it clear, they can get a clear scent. And he wants them to know my scent will be on everything. And not because I did it, but because I just touch things all the time.

[Ash]

Just like your scent is probably going to be on there anyway. Motherfucker. You live in the house.

[Elena]

Yeah. You're their dad. Hello. And husband. But one of the most egregious, and this is what I was mentioning earlier, was when Officer Perez tries to like empathize with him. Yeah. He's like, hey man, like I have a 7 year old nephew and I've. And I took him in and he literally says I'd be going batshit crazy if he was missing. And he says, I can't imagine two daughters. The entire time he is saying this, Chris doesn't look on at him. He's texting on his phone, which he is always texting on his phone. He's texting and not even paying attention. Doesn't say anything, Barely answers him. In the report that he wrote. He wrote Officer Perez commented to Chris that he can't imagine what he is going through while speaking with Chris. He showed no emotion and he did not seem to respond appropriately to the situation. Chris did not ask any questions or offer to help at any time. Chris's facial expressions rarely changed. However, when they did, he seemed to smile slash smirk inappropriately, displaying a lack of empathy, specifically when speaking about his children.

[Ash]

Why are you smiling?

[Elena]

His voice remained low and even toned. His non verbal cues were very apparent. Chris had a very erect and almost tense posture and his arms crossed. A majority of the time. Chris lacked eye contact and appeared to be nervous. Looking around constantly. That's them just looking at him. He.

[Ash]

Well, that's the other thing. Like with them saying he doesn't have any appropriate emotions. He doesn't cry once.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

In any interview with the media, in any body cam footage, interrogation, looking at

[Elena]

the security footage, looking at his baby girls, little outfits in their closets, walking into Bella's Purple room with butterflies all over it. Nothing.

[Ash]

What? Nothing is wrong with you.

[Elena]

Literally nothing.

[Ash]

How do you not have a single human emotion?

[Elena]

And I need you guys to see. And I. Maybe we'll be able to post it. The. The body cam footage of Officer Perez trying to engage with him. He barely looks at him. Barely looks at him. And when he says, like, I'm so sorry, like, I don't know how you feel. He never says, like, thank you, or like, I appreciate it. And I think it was like, our friends that I mentioned there before. Denti and Shaz. Yes, they mentioned. And I was thinking it too, at the end of all this, you see the. The canine unit leave, and they say, like, you know, like, if you need anything, give us a call. We're gonna work on this. We'll let you know. Blah, blah. Not once does he say, I appreciate it. Thank you. He's just like, yep.

[Ash]

Because he just wants everybody can live his life now.

[Elena]

These people are supposed to be helping you find your missing family. You'd be like, I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much.

[Ash]

Thank you. I'll be here.

[Elena]

I'll be right on. Like, if you need anything from me, I'm right here. Here. Like, you know where to find me. Like, one of them's like, do you have my number? And he's like, I don't know. And he's like, do you want it? Like, do you want. Do you want to have a connection? I can't imagine trying to find your kids.

[Ash]

I can't imagine being an investigator on the other end.

[Elena]

It must have been so infuriated.

[Ash]

It also just must have been the. Like, I don't know how to respond to people when they act strangely. Like, Like, I've never come across anybody quite like this, but just in a way where I'm like, what? Like, why are they having an appropriate respect response?

[Elena]

But I think that's what happened. I think. I think everyone was thrown. You can tell everyone's like, like, very put on, not even knowing how to react to him.

[Ash]

That's how I would feel.

[Elena]

An Officer Coonrod who has, like, a lot of. A lot of the body cam footages from him, his report is very telling. One part of it says, Christopher gave us consent to check Shannan's phone. It had an alert which stated the garage door was opened at 1242 hours. Detective Bombhover took the phone to the Frederick Police Department. Christopher showed me his phone, which shows alarm times when the doors are open. It sent an alarm at about the same Time stating he had left the open. Open the garage door. Christopher told me that at least three times, which felt unusual. Shannan's phone showed an alert at 1242 hours for the garage door, which is the only way someone could leave the residence. Christopher's demeanor was nonchalant. He asked one time if he should go look for his family. I advised him her car was at the residence and I needed him there for now. For now. And that was right when he got there? Yeah. He did not ask again about looking and he did not seem overly concerned. Nicole and Nathaniel said they both felt Christopher was extremely nervous. Nathaniel said he had heard Christopher numerous times in the past, yelling loudly at Shannan. Now, another friend, described as one of Shannon's best friends, spoke with investigators and said she lived with them at one point just for a short period of time, and she helped out with the kids, like that, that stuff. Her name was Christina. Chris, it says. Christina said their marriage began to change when Shanann was in North Carolina. Chris began to get aggravated with the kids around him all of a sudden, really. She said Chris used to put Shannan and the kids first. Chris began to not touch or ask Shannan about the baby. Christina said that they were when they were separated, for the five weeks she was in North Carolina, Chris came back to Shannan a different man. So, see, everyone's like, what the. Christina said Shanann had a routine and was a bit ocd. She advised everything was in order, even what she wore as clothes. Christina described Shanann as very protective of the kids. Christina did believe they struggled a bit financially, but Shanann wanted the marriage to work out, but said she couldn't fight for it without his help. Christina described the girls as being very light sleepers because of where the girls slept above the garage of the house. They wouldn't open the garage in the morning. Christina said Chris would usually go out the front door. She said if there was an argument when she got home, the girls would have woken up. So she's like, that doesn't make sense to me. Right. Christina used an example of when she lived with them. She said she had to leave early one morning. So they had parked the car outside the garage the night before, and Shanann was worried just turning on the car outside would wake the kids.

[Ash]

Wow.

[Elena]

So they're really, really. So they would have heard an argument document in the morning.

[Ash]

Of course they would have.

[Elena]

Now, this tells me the more time he spent with the mistress as well, without the responsibility of a wife and kids, the more annoyed he was by the responsibility of a wife and kids. He was getting more and more annoyed because he was getting what he wanted and he wanted to just snip it and start this new life. It also tells me that him pulling up to the garage that morning and backing halfway into the garage, Nate and his wife and all those people were correct. And Nicole and her son and everybody who said, no, he never does that. He's also never parks in the driveway with that truck because it will leak oil and he didn't want oil on the garage, on the thing. Not something he would do.

[Ash]

Well, also think about, like, starting a truck versus starting a car. Trucks are louder.

[Elena]

So they. He would park it, like, out front.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

So him saying, like, yeah, I would just pull it up like, no, everyone knows you don't do that. And there's several reasons why you don't do that.

[Ash]

And not only that, there's security footage showing that you didn't.

[Elena]

Exactly. Now, Officer Goodman called Chris several times during the next day to talk about, like, you know, physical traits of Shannan and Celeste and Bell.

[Ash]

To investigate.

[Elena]

To investigate. To try to send out to people, like scars they had, you know, like any.

[Ash]

Be on the lookout for this.

[Elena]

Yeah. Distinguishing features. He said he called him several times and he didn't answer. So investigators are calling him several times while his family is missing, and he is not answering. He's not at work, by the way.

[Ash]

And how are you not on standby?

[Elena]

He then called back and said, sorry, something was wrong with the phone. No, your first thing would be, hey, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. First of all, you shouldn't. That shouldn't even be a thing. But if it did, like, something was wrong with the phone. Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Did you hear from them? Have you found them? Do you know what's going on? Nope. Officer Goodman literally wrote in the report, it should be mentioned that once I had made contact with Christopher, he did not ask me if I had been calling because I had any information concerning his missing wife and daughters or if I was calling because they had been

[Ash]

found to be on his end of that phone call. Must have been. You must. He must have just been sitting there wide eyed, like, is this being so for real right now? You would have.

[Elena]

And I wonder if he did. I wonder if he was like, do you want to know if we have anything?

[Ash]

Yeah, I feel like you wouldn't be able to help yourself.

[Elena]

I would have to say it. I'd be like, do you want to know what's going on?

[Ash]

Do you want to or do you want an update?

[Elena]

No, never asked. That's psychotic.

[Ash]

It is psychotic.

[Elena]

So the day they went missing, he also spoke with Shannan's mother, Sandy. Chris did. And this is what it says in the report. Oh, God. So Sandy was upset. And this is like if from the investigator is writing this report.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

So he says Sandy was upset and told me that she and her husband believe that her daughter and granddaughter's disappearance involved foul play and that she honestly believes that her son in law was involved in the disappearance of her daughter and granddaughters.

[Ash]

I can't imagine.

[Elena]

That shook me.

[Ash]

I can't imagine. When we said yesterday, Ma, never for a second if either of us went missing, would never think. John would never think Drew.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

Not for a minute.

[Elena]

And it's not because, again, Christopher acted this way all the time. It's because she is seeing the mask on and she's calling it what it is. These are all people that have their fucking eyes wide open. And he is so unlucky that she was surrounded by people that have their fucking eyes wide open and that are also unafraid to take a quick little leap out. Because this is tough.

[Ash]

Of course it is.

[Elena]

This is a tough situation for anybody.

[Ash]

Nobody wants to say, oh, I think,

[Elena]

my friend, no one wants to accuse this man of killing his whole family. Right. That's not the first thing you want to do, regardless of what you're seeing,

[Ash]

especially when you've known him for years and years and years.

[Elena]

So that's. That's how bad it must have been and how bad the switch must have flipped for them all to go. I think he had something to do with it. And so she said that Christopher is acting weird and out of the ordinary. She said that Christopher is telling people he has to go to work. And that just doesn't seem right because why would you not be home if they show up?

[Ash]

Right?

[Elena]

She felt that he. And this. Okay, this is the part you should know ahead of time that Sandy and Shanann spoke every day. Yeah, they were very close. Mother, daughter. They were very connected. And this will tell you right now how connected she was to Shannon and how connected she was to Bella and Celeste. Because this gave me a full chill.

[Ash]

Know what you're gonna say, And I'm getting like pre chills.

[Elena]

She said she felt that he is going out to pour oil on the bodies, to dispose of them somewhere.

[Ash]

To be that in touch with the reality of this nightmare is some next level mama shit.

[Elena]

That is so unbelievably intuitive. But I don't even know. I hate that she even had to be that intuitive. I hate that she felt that. But how?

[Ash]

Like, she's spot on.

[Elena]

Spot on. She also said that she felt when Shanann had come home late from the trip and had been exhausted and that she and Christopher had argued, but due to Shanann's lupus, she would not have been able to put up a fight.

[Ash]

Which also. She didn't have any defensive.

[Elena]

No. And I didn't even think of that until I read this. I was like, oh, my God, you're right. She's been on a work trip, she's been on a plane traveling. She's pregnant. And lupus fucks you up. Lucas is a hard autoimmune disease to deal with, and it's stress will bring it on. And she's under enormous stress lately with everything.

[Ash]

And I'm Christopher putting her through it,

[Elena]

and he's been putting her through hell, up and down. So it's like that puts her in such a flare up. I'm sure. I just. It horrified me. Now, during the time going back to the day she went that they went missing, this loser was Googling song lyrics.

[Ash]

I cannot with this part. I literally cannot with this part.

[Elena]

Like, three hours after he had dumped them in an oil field. And what he was Googling was Battery by Metallica. Now, battery, by the way, is what those big oil, like, tanks and that, like, whole thing. It's called an oil battery.

[Ash]

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I didn't even know that.

[Elena]

Yeah. And that's so just to be clear, there's always going to be the person who's like, metallica made him do it. No. For decades, Metallica has had people loving their music and listening to their music. And one guy does this and then googles the lyrics. That does not make it Metallica's fault. No. And we cannot take this away from being Chris's fault and Chris's fault alone. But the. The actual lyrics are scary, considering. Not in this context. Obviously, Metallica did not write them about a family annihilation. But when you put it with him looking up these lyrics, it just also makes him such a loser. Yeah. Because it's like you're looking up lyrics

[Ash]

like, what, after you massacred your family?

[Elena]

So part of the lyrics are crushing all that cower. Battery is here to stay Smashing through the boundaries Lunacy has found me Cannot stop the battery Pounding out aggression Turn into obsession Cannot kill the battery Cannot kill the family Battery is found in me Cannot kill the family I was

[Ash]

gonna say you can't even say that Metallica made him do it because they

[Elena]

said, cannot kill the family. And he looked that up specifically so he could sit there and be like, yeah, like feel some, like, just rock out. They get me. They don't. They don't. I could. I'm speaking for all of Metallica right now. They don't get you. They don't get you. No. And they do not like you.

[Ash]

No.

[Elena]

I know that.

[Ash]

No one does.

[Elena]

And fuck you for looking at Metallica lyrics. Like, fuck you. After you kill your whole family, you look up Metallica lyrics.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

And when asked about this because obviously it showed up in his search history because he's an idiot, which is weird. He said he looked these up because Nicole Kessinger, his mistress, asked him about the lyrics to this song and wanted to know the meaning, she has Google

[Ash]

as we're well aware that she couldn't in her two hours of searching up wedding dresses, she couldn't just take a side quest to figure out what the meaning of this Metallica song was.

[Elena]

Yeah, I mean, look in those discovery documents. We know she had Google. Yeah, yeah, that's. She definitely had Google. She could have looked those up. And also, what are you trying to do?

[Ash]

Yeah, exactly.

[Elena]

What are you trying to do here?

[Ash]

Oh, she heard that song that I've never. What is Metallica?

[Elena]

He said, yeah, and also, if you look at the. The timeline here and you look at the transcript, like the text messages in going and outgoing and the phone calls during this time, they weren't talking during that little. They were talking during the day, don't get me wrong. But during that little period, she didn't ask him about it. That we saw that you can see. So.

[Ash]

So what's that?

[Elena]

Interesting. So they've gone through the house, They've talked to the friends, like the investigators have. They've talked to the friends, the neighbors, and they've watched Chris Watts have zero emotion about his family being supposedly missing. I honestly, again, I have no doubts that every officer who entered that house knew something nefarious that happened involving him. There's no way. Now, during the day, Chris had made several staged phone calls to Shannan as well, to try to. While he was at work, to try to make this trail of concern seem real. Yeah, because once I think he. This. This is how I feel like he. He definitely planned this and he thought it was going to go a different way because he did it. Then he went to work and he said, oh, gotta make a phone call and pretend that I called her. Oh, didn't get her. Okay, gotta send her a text message, say, where are you? Call her again. Lose that. Then the friends start contacting him and saying, we. We can't get it. And then he's like, oh, I didn't think about the fact that her friends talk to her and care about her, which is insane.

[Ash]

And also.

[Elena]

And that's when it unraveled.

[Ash]

Here's how crazy this is. He forgot that she had a doctor's appointment that morning or just.

[Elena]

Just didn't know. Yeah.

[Ash]

The man who had the mask on literally kept track of her doctor's appointment.

[Elena]

Yes. That version of Chris. Of Chris. How ironic existed.

[Ash]

How ironic.

[Elena]

How crazy that they both can exist.

[Ash]

It's next level, truly.

[Elena]

Now, this one, I hadn't heard this before, and when I read it in the documents, I said, this is what you said.

[Ash]

He made sure that it was this day. Right.

[Elena]

Like, because again, he's planning. He's. He thinks he's gonna go home and clear out all the things that make it seem like they couldn't have left on their own volition. And he still did this at 8:26 in the morning. That's two hours after he had just murdered his whole family and disposed of them in heinous ways. Yeah. At 8:26 he called Primrose School, which are the was Bella and Celeste preschool slash daycare. And it was like a really good school that Shannan had worked hard to get them into. Yep. He called that school at 8:26 in the morning to disenroll them, to take them out of school forever. He literally talked to the staff and told them his daughters would not be returning to school there.

[Ash]

How are like, I'm glad he's this stupid.

[Elena]

How was he ever going to explain that later?

[Ash]

How. And he just never thought he didn't account for that coming back up.

[Elena]

His answer later was just like, well, I thought that, you know, she had taken off with them. No, you had no evidence of that.

[Ash]

It also had been a couple hours since you'd last seen them.

[Elena]

Also, at this point, they're not missing. Right. That's where he really went wrong here. He said, I didn't think they were ever going to come back. Oh, no, baby. You didn't know they were gone. Wait a minute. You didn't know they were missing or

[Ash]

you weren't supposed to anyway.

[Elena]

You were still calling them, remember? Like, not only is this stupid, even if he had done it in the middle of the day after they were already quote, unquote missing, that would still be stupid because you would never disenroll your children. You would be like, they're coming home today and they're going to school tomorrow. Like, everything's gonna go totally normal and that is all gonna be a weird dream.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

You would never disenroll them, essentially admitting that they're gone missing. And then on top, that would be weird enough to do when you know that they're missing. To do it before they are even missing and then try to make it work is stupid on a level. This is what I'm talking about. This level of stupidity is something I have not seen in a long time.

[Ash]

No, we really haven't.

[Elena]

He cooked himself from every which, thank goodness. I will forever be grateful at this lack of neurons. Yep. But holy. And then that was next level.

[Ash]

I had never heard that before either.

[Elena]

Yeah, well. And then what's crazy is FBI agent Tammy Lee noted later that the payment for the month for that school was due that day. Wow. So he dis enrolled them so he wouldn't have to pay for them anymore. Because this truly was about eliminating every single tie to those. Those kids and his wife and take every responsibility off the table. He didn't even want to pay for a month of daycare for him just to keep. He wasn't even willing to put up with that. He said, I am disengaging from it all immediately. Talk about a disgusting beast. It's. It just makes beast.

[Ash]

Absolutely. I don't understand how people like this exist.

[Elena]

Truly. Such a pathetic waste of skin. Yeah, he's the most pathetic waste of skin and oxygen I've ever come across. He's so disgusting. He's despicable. He really is. Now, the former director of Primrose was interviewed because she was also friends with Shanann at one point. And she confirmed that before leaving for North Carolina, she said the same thing. They all said. Chris and Shanann were all over each other. Wow. Very lovey dovey. Very like pda. Very, like happy. And then suddenly it was gone.

[Ash]

Wow.

[Elena]

And this was again, everyone's. That you look through those texts between the friends and her, you look from her, it's all the same story. And she said when he came to. Back when he came to visit North Carolina and when she came home, he wouldn't touch her, wouldn't hug her. In fact, at one point, he said, I don't want to hug you. Wouldn't take photos with the kids. He wouldn't take photos with the kids. Wouldn't take family photos. Anywhere that they went. Like, wouldn't be involved in anything. What the. Yeah, he knows what he's gonna do.

[Ash]

That's crazy.

[Elena]

And I truly think that was part of it, was he shut it off because he saw what life could be like with Nicole. Yeah. And no responsibilities. And I think he had already decided what he was gonna do. I don't know if he had the full plan, but he knew what he was going to do. And he was. He was disengaging to make it easier on himself. Just leave. Just leave now. They interviewed Nicole Kessinger, obviously, and she gave a lot of info, including that on August 13th, the night. The day they went missing, at night that day. So he had gone through the whole day thinking his family was, quote, unquote, missing. They spoke, and he claimed Shannan, and he told Nicole that Shannan had just told him she was pregnant that morning.

[Ash]

There's literally a video that exists of when she told him that she was pregnant.

[Elena]

Huh.

[Ash]

There's a video.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So he didn't account for that.

[Elena]

Also, she was 15 weeks pregnant. It was pretty clear.

[Ash]

And she had had two children before she was showing.

[Elena]

Like, he knew what his wife looked like pregnant. Like, that's. And also, like, she also had a

[Ash]

doctor's appointment that morning.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Which, like, would have been one of multiple. That she had gone to recently.

[Elena]

Had ultrasounds, you all.

[Ash]

They had named the baby. Yeah, the baby was named. They knew that the. The sex of the baby.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

What?

[Elena]

Yeah. Also, he claimed to Nicole that not only did she tell him that morning, but she said, it's not yours. So now he's trying to paint Shannan as the one. Talk about projection. Truly projection. He projects everything onto Shannan because eventually he will project being a murderer on terror. Everything that he does, he makes it like her. She did it.

[Ash]

That's such a, like, pathology.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I feel like. Especially with cheaters.

[Elena]

Well, and what's even sadder is later, because Nicole found out that she was pregnant through the media. Right. Because at this point, she was like, I didn't believe him. Yeah. Like, I just thought he was being weird. Like, I just kind of was like, oh, okay, like, what? And so she said she found out, confirmed that she was pregnant and that it was his child and that they had known about it and they had named this child. She found all that through the media. And when she brought that to him and said, what the. He was like, yeah, I lied. And then he was like, does this affect our relationship?

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

Like, he was genuinely upset when she was like, hey, I just found out that your wife that's missing is pregnant with your child and that you knew this for 15 weeks and that you. And he was like, yeah, okay, I lied about that. Are like, are we okay, though? And that. And she said that was the point where she was like, I think you killed your family. Like, I need to go. Oh, my God. Like, this was days later, but also another conversation. On August 13, the day that they went missing, Chris told Nicole that Shanann had left her wedding ring at the house. Because, remember, he walked out with that wedding ring, saying it was on the nightstand.

[Ash]

I have a whole feeling about that.

[Elena]

Chris asked Nicole, how much do you think the ring is worth? Remember, his family has been missing for about 12 hours at this point. And she responded by telling him to pawn it.

[Ash]

Why would you pawn the ring?

[Elena]

And he told her he was going to get it appraised.

[Ash]

Why would you pawn the ring if you were expecting your wife to come home?

[Elena]

Why would either of you have responded that way? Why would he have said, how much do you think it's worth. And why the fuck did she even dignify that with a response? I would literally say, what the is wrong with you? Your wife is missing. And instead she says, pawn it. What? I got nothing. Like, get it together.

[Ash]

I got nothing.

[Elena]

And then his response, so much. But yeah, I got lots. I have so much, but I got

[Ash]

a whole bit back.

[Elena]

Yeah. Because you know what? Whatever. But yeah, I think what happened too was she did not leave that wedding ring on the nightstand. She didn't take it.

[Ash]

No. The room had been searched multiple times over by the time he out and was like, lookie here.

[Elena]

No, he took it off of her to sell later because also that was going to help him erase a little bit of the death that they were in so that he could move on with his. His new life with Nicole, debt free.

[Ash]

Well, and not only that thousand dollar ring. Exactly. Not only that too.

[Elena]

He.

[Ash]

I think you had. I don't know if you said it in part one, if we had just talked about it, but when investigators first got there, he didn't let them in right away. He was in the garage.

[Elena]

It took. Not even in the garage. He was in the house.

[Ash]

In the house.

[Elena]

He took two full minutes to go from the garage to the front door, like, which was literally a five second walk.

[Ash]

So what's that about? So I think he found it.

[Elena]

He went in the garage, he bent down and picked something up. And then he walked into the. The house. And he took two minutes inside the house. Yep. And I think what he was doing was making sure he had that ring. Probably taking a second to say, now I gotta come up with the COVID story quicker.

[Ash]

Yup.

[Elena]

And then he opens the door and he's a fucking wreck.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

Now, the next day, August 14, Chris was still completely nonchalant about this whole thing. And he kept. Anytime somebody asked him, like, how you doing? Like, what's going on? He was like, yeah, not too bad. Slept with the lights on, the whole house. I just kept all the lights on. And I was like, oh, slept. Wow, that must mean you're sad.

[Ash]

How would you.

[Elena]

I.

[Ash]

If my entire family was gone, I wouldn't get a wink of sleep unless it just happened to me.

[Elena]

Sleep would never come to me until my body shut down or I would die. Exactly. Like that would. Because there comes a time where your body's like, hey, buddy, you're gonna die if you don't go to sleep. And it'll just force you into sleep. Yep, that's when my body would sleep.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

And I would be sitting up all Night outside on my porch, just waiting for anything. For anything. By the phone. Yep. Calling people, calling the police. Every.

[Ash]

I'd have my phone plugged in.

[Elena]

I'd be the police's worst nightmare in that scenario because I'd be calling every 20 minutes.

[Ash]

Any update?

[Elena]

Anything. Any update? Can I do anything? Like heard from it or.

[Ash]

You'd be driving around looking for them. You wouldn't be sleeping with the light.

[Elena]

And Nicole, the mistress, even said a couple of times she. It bothered her that he was like, oh, I went to sleep at this time. And she was like, you slept? Like, what? Weird. But that's on August 14th is when he gave the infamous interview on the porch. We talked about last time where he showed no human behavior at all, just

[Ash]

swallowing, blinking and gritting his teeth.

[Elena]

Exactly. Now, later that afternoon, he had a press conference. He appeared at a press conference, too.

[Ash]

That was another mistake.

[Elena]

And to discuss the whole thing. And he said, I'm hoping right now that she's somewhere safe. It's not something I could ever, ever fathom would happen in my lifetime and I have no inclination of where she is.

[Ash]

Lie.

[Elena]

She said she was going to a friend's house with the kids. And that's the last thing I heard. And that was it. It was very vague.

[Ash]

Also.

[Elena]

That's another story he's clinging to. Is after he told her he wanted to separate and sell the house, they got into an emotional conversation, is how he described it. I was like an emotion. You haven't met those. And then he says that she told him that she was going to take the kids to a friend's house at 4:00am Yep. Okay. And that. And he loves to say. He says it several times too. Very vague. Like, she wouldn't give me the information.

[Ash]

If he was going to be leaving for work, she would have just stayed home with the kids.

[Elena]

Of course, because she's away from him,

[Ash]

she doesn't have to go anywhere.

[Elena]

Got up, you're going to work. Got them ready at a normal time, gone through the motions, and then got them out of the house before he got home from work.

[Ash]

Like, what are you talking about?

[Elena]

It doesn't make. And also, you know all her friends.

[Ash]

So weird.

[Elena]

Like, it's just. No.

[Ash]

And you didn't press her?

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

He's texting her. Where are you?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

You just said she told you you're at a friend's house.

[Elena]

Yeah. So. And also, you disenrolled your kids from school in the morning.

[Ash]

So you just think they're at her friends.

[Elena]

Yeah. Like you just Ended their education because they're at a friend's. They had a play date. So you ended their education right there.

[Ash]

Wild.

[Elena]

That's crazy. Now, everyone at this point, including myself, at this point in 2018, was it when it popped up on my TV screen and I said, that guy did it.

[Ash]

The husband did it.

[Elena]

Everyone was saying, this guy is. Everyone saw it. Everyone. Yep. Everyone was wondering how he was managing to show zero concern or worry for his pregnant wife and two young children. There is something to be said for not judging how people react in certain situations.

[Ash]

Of course.

[Elena]

But in this situation, there is not an innocent person on earth who would react even close to how he did or not react. No, there is just. I won't judge in certain situations. I'm judging so hard that my name is Judy, in this situation is not a human. There is no parent who would react this way if they were innocent. No. Just no parent on earth. You have to be guilty to act this way. No.

[Ash]

No family related to those babies on earth would act that way.

[Elena]

Nobody. Her best friend showed more emotion than her husband did.

[Ash]

Not even related to you?

[Elena]

Yeah. The next day, August 15, Chris agreed to take a polygraph. That was a mistake. Normally we say polygraphs are hot dogs in a trench coat. This one, I'm willing to say, was pretty effective.

[Ash]

You said yesterday, investigator in a trench coat.

[Elena]

Investigator in a trench coat, yeah. Once again, he ran through the story that he'd given the detectives the day before, and just before 3pm he sat down for it. Now, the polygraph session was pretty. It wasn't like, super long. It didn't have a lot of questions. And that wasn't because they didn't have a lot of questions for him. Him. He just failed so incredibly that they didn't need to ask anymore.

[Ash]

They were like, yep, he did it.

[Elena]

He failed so spectacularly that the needle went off the page.

[Ash]

And that's not hyperbolic. That's real.

[Elena]

Literally went off the page. Agent FBI agent Tammy Lee said, for someone who was a truth teller, we would consider them to be a grade two or higher. And we would consider someone to be deceptive if they were negative four or below.

[Ash]

Chris Watts scored negative 18 is almost five times over. A liar.

[Elena]

Yeah. What they normally see with someone, that's deceptive. He was so deceptive that he was almost five times off.

[Ash]

That's wild.

[Elena]

Like, that's. There's fibbing, crazy.

[Ash]

There's lion, there's bold face lying, and then there's Chris Watts.

[Elena]

And then there's Chris Watts. And he and all the questions were things that he simply, biologically could not lie about. Do you know where your wife is? No. Do you know where your kids are? No. Did you hurt them? No.

[Ash]

Off the page.

[Elena]

Like, off the page. So after this, they're reviewing the results, and agents Tammy Lee and Graham Koder confront him with the results and with the other evidence that raised a lot of questions about whether he was telling the truth or not. And eventually, Chris admitted to having an affair with Nicole. Not Nicole Atkinson, Nicole Kessinger.

[Ash]

Like, how'd we get there, bud?

[Elena]

But he said, I don't have anything to do with Shanann and the girl's disappearance. They didn't ask him about the affair. They also didn't polygraph him about the affair. The affair was literally never mentioned until they were like, hey, where is your family? And he was like, well, I am fucking a co worker. And they were like, why are you telling us this? Like, that has nothing to do with what we're asking. But he was so eager to gush about his side piece. It's actually so cringy. Oh, how this happens. And I think the agents were like, is this real? Like, you can see in the transcript that they're like, please stop talking about your mistress. Like, why. Why are you talking about this now? Chris says. So they're asking. They're like, where's your family? Because they were like, yeah, no, we don't want. We don't want to talk about your mistress, Chris. Where's your family? And he says, she. She was wonderful. Meaning Nicole, not his wife. What? He said she was a wonderful person. Who knew he was married. Oops.

[Ash]

That's contradictory.

[Elena]

And he was having issues in his marriage. Chris said he told her he was going to get separated from Shanann. Not that he was separated. He was going to. Yeah, planning on it, but he didn't know what that was going to look like. Chris said she took his breath away. And he never thought in a million years something like that could happen. Chris said he never felt the same way about anyone in his lifetime as he did about her.

[Ash]

So. Not the mother of his three children unborn.

[Elena]

So Agent Coder says, hey, we don't think your girlfriend hurt anyone. And then he says, could we leave her out of this and get back to talking about your wife and daughters?

[Ash]

Can we talk about maybe where your

[Elena]

kids are editorializing this? That is a transcript that I'm reading you. Oh, my God. Chris says, oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, we can get back to talking about that. And he says, cool. And he says, where are your wife and children located? And Chris said, I don't know. The affair was the only thing that I was holding back on, by the way. He can't stop talking about it. And Agent Coder, it literally says, reminded Chris that he was not questioned about the infidelity on the polygraph.

[Ash]

He's like, hey, bro, you don't actually even have to tell us about that right now. We haven't even got there yet. So we're still on the. Where's your wife and kids?

[Elena]

So that. This is literally how this happened. They said, hey, where are your wife and kids? And he was like, I did have an affair. And they were like, whoa, that's crazy. We are the FBI, though, so, like, we know that. And then he said, let's not talk about this. Let's talk about your wife. She's just. You know, my mistress is a wonderful person. She's great. Takes my breath away. She took my breath away. Never in a million years thought this could happen. I. I could never feel this, you know, in a lifetime about how she looks. And they're. They're like, oh, okay, can we not. I. We don't think she killed your family, so can we just talk about your wife and family? And he's like, absolutely. And they're like, where are they? And you're like, yeah, I don't know. I did have an affair, though, just so you guys know. And she is great. And I've never felt anything like I felt with her. And then at the end of it, Agent Coder says, chris, we know about your girlfriend. Here's her date of birth and where she lives. Oh, my God.

[Ash]

Because you don't have to tell us

[Elena]

anymore, because do you know everything that. We're the FBI.

[Ash]

Do you know what that stands for, Chris?

[Elena]

We're the FBI. Did you think we. One, didn't know you were having an affair. We have all of your records. We've been following you. And two, do you think I can. I. I know what Nicole is doing right now on the FBI.

[Ash]

He's like, we got a tail on her right now.

[Elena]

He's like, she was looking up wedding dresses a couple of days ago. Did you know that? I know that. I'm the FBI getting married. I know that. Like, you idiots. You're sitting there being, like, a fair affair affair. And they're like, your family's missing. Can we talk about that?

[Ash]

Affair, affair.

[Elena]

And. And they have to tell you, babe, we know.

[Ash]

And you still can't stop yourself.

[Elena]

And he's like, oh, like it's the cringiest interaction.

[Ash]

He's like, but my affair though. Getting scared is one thing. Getting a thrill is. Well, you want more of those in your Life. The Genesis GV70 is built to thrill, baby. A thrilling yet elegant design always makes driving the GV70 an exciting adventure. Its powerful athletic stance screams performance and turns heads. Everybody's looking at you, girl or boy or whoever. Command the road and experience a class leading standard 300 horsepower. Oh my God. Plus discover the different dynamic drive modes for all different terrains. Choose between the different terrain modes for whatever road conditions you may encounter. The Genesis GV70's award winning technology and performance lets you drive with comfort and drive with confidence all at the same time. It's an exciting SUV with intuitive tech that can make your ride smooth even when the road isn't. And its blind spot cameras allow you to see what's next to you. It's like having eyes on the side of your head. That's pretty iconic. Its performance, by the way, is measured not only in power, but in how it makes you feel, confidence, Sexy. The Genesis GV70 learn [e-mail] and feel the GV70. You know what's really terrifying? That unfinished college degree lurking in the background just sitting there waiting for you. That's where Southern New Hampshire University comes in. With flexible online degree programs. There's no commuting, no rigid schedule and no more excuses. Plus, they have some of the lowest online tuition rates in the us. Visit Snhu. Edu Morbid to learn more before your degree becomes just another story about what could have been. Did you know? Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers. They have all the plants that your yard or your home needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and houseplants. All grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. It's like your local nursery, but anywhere. You live with more plants than you would find anywhere else. Plus, get ongoing support from trained plant experts who can help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants and learn how to care for them every step of the way. If you watch the podcast on YouTube, you know that we just did a whole pod lab redo and part of that was bringing more plants into the space place. And fast Growing trees was nice enough to send us a bunch of plants we got. Right now we just have the spider plant, but we have two Monstera plants on the way and that grown with Karen, guaranteed to arrive healthy bit is so true. They are literally priming these monstera plants so that they are super healthy when they get here. And gorgeous, gorgeous girlies. I love our spider plant. Debbie's gonna propagate it to make her own spider plant. Everybody's jealous of our spider plant plant. So you should probably order a spider plant or a monstera plant or any kind of fast growing tree or shrub or flowering bush that you want because they have good stuff right now. They have great deals on spring planting essentials up to half off on select plants. And listeners to our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the code morbid at checkout offers valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply.

[Elena]

And it further shows you how much he doesn't care about his family. All he cares about is wiping that out and starting some new life with Nicole Kessinger.

[Ash]

Well, it's so interesting too, and sad.

[Elena]

We.

[Ash]

I don't know if we mentioned this in part one, but I saw something that said, like one of his former cellmates said he gets.

[Elena]

Oh yeah, this is disgusting.

[Ash]

Gets letters from women all the time.

[Elena]

And like, oh yeah, they're in the discovery documents.

[Ash]

They send him like bikini pics and

[Elena]

shit like that fucking freak. If you do that, like something's wrong with you.

[Ash]

You shouldn't have access. You shouldn't have access to the tools.

[Elena]

That letter writes he smothered his two babies and killed his pregnant wife and dumped them in an oil tank. If you do that shit, something is fucking wrong with you.

[Ash]

You're probably not fixable. Yeah, no, but sorry, you're just not. So that, that cellmate though said like he becomes so obsessed with one particular woman and he will like write her a 15 page letter back, talk non stop about her. And like literally it's like compulsive. So I feel like that was Shanann, because remember in part one, like, exactly. He pursued her. He was like, please give me another chance. La dee da do. He played the doting husband he had. I don't think he probably, who knows if he wanted to have kids, but Shannan did, so he did because that's what like he will just bend to be whoever they want. And then when he doesn't want to do that anymore and the next quote unquote in his eyes, best thing comes along, he.

[Elena]

That's why the mask dropped so quickly. Yeah, because he was like, he was conforming to what he needed to conform to. Which now he's cheating on his wife and his whole family. So he's like this Bad guy. So he's like, I'm gonna be a bad guy.

[Ash]

Let me play this role now.

[Elena]

I'm gonna play this role now.

[Ash]

But it's like, that's why the mask just, like, falls to the floor and shatters. Because he just attaches immediately to this next person.

[Elena]

Because he did. At one point, Nicole said in one of the interviews she did state that she always believed he was more into her than he. She was to him. I don't know about that because I

[Ash]

got Googling wedding dresses for two hours.

[Elena]

You were Googling, like, marrying your mistress and like, all that.

[Ash]

So, like, it sounds like you were pretty into him.

[Elena]

So I don't know about that. I'm not in the relationship, so I can't say it's. I'm just looking at context clues here, but I'm sure he probably was because there was like, he would give her cards where he would write these long, like, love letter things in there. And he always had lyrics in them. He's like a lyric guy.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

And that's not a bad thing.

[Ash]

Like, for nice people, it's a gross thing.

[Elena]

For Chris Watts, everything is gross. I just want to say that when it comes to Chris Watts, it's not necessarily gross for other people. It's just he makes it gross.

[Ash]

And that's the thing is I'm like, don't do that, because I don't want

[Elena]

that to be a gross. I know, because I'm like, I love lyrics.

[Ash]

I like lyrics.

[Elena]

But he would. He, like, gushed to her and like, spilled, like, so he was like. He was obsessed with her.

[Ash]

It's also just in like a railway. Like, like juvenile coded.

[Elena]

Yeah, he's very stunted. He is very, very stunted. And I. I wonder why. So I don't know why. So who knows? I have no idea. There's no evidence. None. So the agents continue to pepper him with questions for hours, but he maintained his innocence throughout the whole thing. Then as a last ditch attempt to get any truth from him, they start saying. They start doing this thing that I think is very, very smart.

[Ash]

But you have to explain, like you

[Elena]

did when you first watch it. You go, why the fuck did you do that? You just gave him an idea.

[Ash]

Because that was my response. But I'm glad that you explained this the way that you did.

[Elena]

These agents were really smart the way they did this. So they. They were telling him, you know, I can see it on your face, Chris. You know, I can tell that there's something you want to get off your chest. I Can see it in your eyes. I know it's hard to hold on to these things. People make mistakes. We're not going to judge you. We're here to help you through it. Like, things happen. Things can be tough, blah, blah, blah.

[Ash]

And that part I all got, like, I've seen that done.

[Elena]

But then they say, did she. Did Shannan do something to those girls?

[Ash]

And that's when I was like, why the. Would you even put that.

[Elena]

Now, the reason they did that, because he immediately. You can tell. It's like. He's like, no, no. But you can tell.

[Ash]

It's like, it's not emphatically.

[Elena]

He's like, just rolling it around in his head. And they keep kind of asking, like, did that happen? Like, you got to tell us. What they're doing is they're presenting an option that is more acceptable that if she did something to those kids, of course you were gonna kill her.

[Ash]

And he's the hero.

[Elena]

You're a father. You protect your kids. Of course you were gonna defend them. So they're presenting him with this. You can be the hero, Chris, while also admitting to murdering your wife. So just tell us that you did it, and we'll help you through it. And no one will call you a bad guy. In fact, people will probably love you because you protected your children from a monster.

[Ash]

Meanwhile, it's not occurring to Chris that another one of his children was in his wife's belly at this time.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah, that doesn't ever occur. I don't think he gave a shit about that in any way, shape or form. But the big thing here is that now that they get. If once they get him to say, yes, I killed her because she killed the kids, now they've pinned him with murder regardless of what was going on, they know that he's not going to be able to prove that. There is zero evidence to show that. And that once they got him there, then they can start pushing him down the. The alley of, okay, well, you already

[Ash]

admitted to killing her and just pulling little threads.

[Elena]

And we can start saying, well, we do have this evidence that says you did it, and we do have that. And it's much easier to push him down that alley once you've got him over the hump of, yes, I did murder someone.

[Ash]

Right, because then you can keep him.

[Elena]

It was smart. It could. It's a risk, and it can backfire. But I think it worked really well in this instance because he starts kind of cracking a little bit. He doesn't say it, and then they can See that? And again, another smart move is they go, do you want to talk to your dad?

[Ash]

Because they remember his dad is like, he felt the one person that truly understood him. And they're super close.

[Elena]

Yep. So they bring him into the interrogation room and they say, we're going to leave you two alone so you can talk. Shock.

[Ash]

Which like. And you're never alone in an entire being filmed.

[Elena]

So Chris talks to his dad and his dad is genuine in the beginning, like trying to be like, what happened? Like, just tell me what happened. And he tells his father that he had seen Shannan that morning before he left for work. And his dad is like, you know, because his dad has heard this, so he's like, did she do something like, what happened? Did you do something like, what's going on? Just tell me what's happening? And he claimed they had another argument about their marriage. And when he came downstairs, he found Shannan had smothered the girls to death because she was. He was. She was so mad that he wanted to separate that she murdered her children. And he tells his father and I freaked out and hurt her. Now, according to Chris, after he strangled Shannan and wrapped her in the top sheet that was missing, and then took her body and the bodies of Bella and Celeste out to the truck, that's when he drove out to one of the oil tanks his company owned in the middle of a remote area. And after burying Shanann in a shallow grave, he placed the girls bodies into each tank, then sealed them up and drove to work like nothing happened.

[Ash]

Why would that be your response in any precisely world.

[Elena]

Precisely why would that be what you did? Well, and so now he's confessed to the murder of Shanann, but he's swearing he had nothing to do with the murder of the children. But there are about a billion things in this confession that everyone said no. At one point he even looks at his dad and he says, why does that. Why did this happen to me? Why did this happen to those two little girls? Why did it happen to you?

[Ash]

Nice that you asked it about yourself first.

[Elena]

Not even the kids first. Just why did this happen to me? I mean, why did this happen to those two little girls? Like, you can't even. Human, you don't know how to human,

[Ash]

you don't know how to father.

[Elena]

He can't even kind. He doesn't even stumble into humaning at any point, which is crazy. Which is even crazier because I feel like a robot. Watt even stumbles into humaning. Everyone's honestly, like, honestly, AI can Human more than Chris Watts can. Human. Yep. Like, truly. And several times the interrogators tried to get him to admit what he did to Celeste and Bella after this. And they noted. They. And I. This was another thing. I was glad they did. They looked right at him and they said, listen, we're not going to feel right if Shanann, a murder victim who cannot defend herself, takes the rap for murdering her own children. If she didn't do it.

[Ash]

Because we know she didn't.

[Elena]

And they. Because they know it. And they're trying to appeal to him now by being like, listen, you can't pin this on a mother who didn't do it. She'll. She's dead. Like, her legacy is going to be murdering her own baby girls, and you're gonna let that happen? And he says, I'm fine with it.

[Ash]

Of course he is. He doesn't give a. About her anymore.

[Elena]

Totally fine.

[Ash]

Which is it diabolically up.

[Elena]

He was fine with Shanann being known as a mother who smothered her children to death because she was mad at the husband for wanting to say he was fine with her going down like that.

[Ash]

And because he said that. There are people that believe that.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Like, they're insane. And they're like, they're not educated on this case.

[Elena]

Anybody who thinks Chris Watts is innocent in any way, shape or form. I don't want to hear anything from you. No, I don't want to hear anything from you.

[Ash]

But how fucked up is that?

[Elena]

Willfully ignorance that he was okay doing

[Ash]

that and did it.

[Elena]

Yeah, he was.

[Ash]

Even when. Even when warned about the consequences.

[Elena]

Exactly. He did not care. And he said, that's fine. But they also pointed out something that was interesting and really good, too. And they were playing on the fact that he is not a parent. Like, he's not a human. He's not a father.

[Ash]

Because he let go.

[Elena]

Because they said, you know, here's the thing. And they said, so when you came downstairs, what did you see? And he said, said. He said, shanann was on top of Cece. Now, again, this is him. He lied. Yeah. And they said, okay. And he said, so I grabbed her and I strangled her. I was just so angry. Like, I could. I saw those girls and blah, blah. And they're like, yeah, yeah, totally. And then they're like, no parent is ever going to accept that their children are dead. They're just not. And they said, certainly not enough to dump them in tanks of oil. Like, they're just not. And so they said, it's strange to Me. They said, did you try cpr? Did you try life saving, reviving them? Like, anything on them, which you would. And he said, no. And they were like, that's weird to me. Like, Agent Coder was like, I'm sorry. I can't understand why I would do everything I could to bring my child back to life. And they said, you didn't call an ambulance to try to revive them? Nope. And they were like, that's weird. That's weird. And he was like, I was scared. And they were like, yeah, parents don't get scared over their love for their children. Like, you don't pick scared over love for child. And they were like, especially. It just doesn't make sense to me. And he's like, I don't know. I was scared. Okay. Like, yeah, you're right.

[Ash]

It makes absolutely no sense now.

[Elena]

Meanwhile, as this is happening, police had discovered the body of Shannan. She was buried the top of, like, where she. Her body was eight inches under the dirt.

[Ash]

That's a shallow.

[Elena]

Shallow.

[Ash]

Calling that a shallow grave is actually generous.

[Elena]

Yeah, it's a divot. And she was found about 100ft from the large oil tanks at the Anadarko oil well site near Roggen, Colorado.

[Ash]

Where he just worked all day.

[Elena]

Yep.

[Ash]

Or almost would have worked all day.

[Elena]

He was around employees that day at that site, feet away from where his children were laying in an oil tank. And he was joking with them. They. Everyone at that site said he didn't act even slightly off.

[Ash]

That's unreal to me.

[Elena]

Nothing was different. Now they found them because he had gone to that site that morning and worked there, and he had. His truck was a work truck. It had GPS on it. Right? Right. So they followed the gps. He didn't think through any of this.

[Ash]

No. And that's why it's wild that, like, this was planned.

[Elena]

Yeah. Like, he thought.

[Ash]

He really thought he was going to be. All he had was that he was gonna murder them.

[Elena]

Yeah. And he thought he could go home and just get rid of anything that said.

[Ash]

But it wasn't meticulous because, remember one

[Elena]

thing about this that I will give, like, for this to be part of the plan. He was going to that site anyways.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

So his GPS showing that he went there isn't the thing that tipped them off.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

It's just because he would have been there anyway. They're going backwards and they're following his trail because they are now just investigating different things. So this wouldn't have tipped them off. So this could be he. This Is part of the plan of while I'm going there anyway.

[Ash]

So stupid.

[Elena]

Now, they did an aerial search from the air. They spotted a piece of sheet that Shannan was wrapped in and buried in. It was sticking up from the dirt. And they said, hey, there's some fabric. They were able to determine that the sheet was from the missing set that they found in the trash. And during that search, Chris confessed it like that he had killed Shanann. It was happening like at the same time. So they're finding the sheet and then he immediately confessed and he said he disposed of their bodies at this site. So he. They took a picture of this site from the air and sent it to the police station. And he wrote their initials on where they were.

[Ash]

Oh my God.

[Elena]

One on each tank. Because something that like really upset both of us yesterday. I think Ash didn't know. No. Was that he dumped Celeste and Bella in separate tanks.

[Ash]

I never knew that.

[Elena]

And for some reason, I mean everything about that just shatters him dropping them

[Ash]

in an oil tank alone. But to separate them, to separate them from their. Not only from their mother, but from

[Elena]

each other, each other is like they were just alone in those oil tanks. A four year old and a three

[Ash]

year old and why did you throw them in oil? I shouldn't even say throw them. Why did you shove them in oil tanks?

[Elena]

But we'll get there. Now, on August 16, they went back and completely drained the tanks of crude oil. And this is going to get rough again. I'm not going to be super graphic about it.

[Ash]

It.

[Elena]

The discovery documents are very graphic about this search and I warn you that ahead of time when you. If you are reading them and you get to this point, I suggest you skip over it. It's horrific and I wish I had never seen it. That's when they found Celeste and Bella in each tank and they were able to get them out. Autopsies concluded that the death of Shannan was manual strangulation. Although her hyoid bone was not broken, he just knew what to press on to stop breathing. And the deaths of Bella and Celeste were violent and horrific. Asphyxiation due to smothering.

[Ash]

And he smothered them with their favorite blankets.

[Elena]

And Bella fought back really hard because Bella was the last one killed. Bella's the four year old, so she had seen what happened. So Bella's last. I'm gonna cry again.

[Ash]

No, of course you are.

[Elena]

Bella's last moments months were seeing this nightmare and that like ruins me. Like, I just, like, I don't. I don't get how somebody does this. I don't get it. She. They're all.

[Ash]

That's like, that's half of you. You created those beings.

[Elena]

That's the thing. How would you not die for those babies?

[Ash]

And how do you kill them?

[Elena]

Oh, how do you do that? I can't even raise my voice at my children without apologizing after.

[Ash]

I don't.

[Elena]

I don't know. I just don't get it. And there were injuries as well from being shoved through an 8 inch hole that neither of them could fit through comfortably. So he had to further hurt them.

[Ash]

And he just didn't care.

[Elena]

He just didn't care.

[Ash]

And then he worked by those tanks.

[Elena]

He's a monster. He's a disgusting, irredeemable, monstrous piece of. Yeah. And if there is a hell, he will see it.

[Ash]

He's in it.

[Elena]

And honestly, if there is a hell, I hope he sees it every day.

[Ash]

He does.

[Elena]

Yeah. And you.

[Ash]

He has said that he does.

[Elena]

Oh, he said he's haunted. And I hope he says she is.

[Ash]

I hope he's not.

[Elena]

Just. He sees the visions every day. And I hope it gets worse and worse. I hope those visions never fade. And I hope they get clearer and clearer.

[Ash]

I hope they drive him to complete another madness.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And then he loses his mind.

[Elena]

I hope it's the same thing like Brian Kohlberger in the Idaho 4, where he's losing his mind at night because none of the inmates will let him sleep.

[Ash]

That's what you get when you murder.

[Elena]

I hope that he's getting that now. There was a report that I saw that was on August 18th. Just going through the timeline, and that just gives you another. After you've just heard, that gives you another indication of how little he cared and how much he knew that he was probably going to get caught. There was a friend, a mutual friend of both of them, a guy named Christopher Rusk, and he found out that the family was missing and he hadn't heard anything yet. And he had reached out to Chris, this was a few days prior, and was saying like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry, if there's anything I can do. And he said the only thing that Chris said to him was, quote, I shouldn't have talked to the media. What the fuck? And he actually went to the police with that and said this was weird. Yeah. So everyone around him was like, this is weird.

[Ash]

I shouldn't have talked to the media. He basically just said, well, I'm.

[Elena]

Yeah. On August 19th, the police department got an email from someone and this is. This is just a strange thing that I found that I had. There was no verif. Like, nothing came after this. Yeah. Nobody found this person, but it's still in the documents. And I thought it was a strange thing to see. I was like, huh?

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So the Police Department on August 19, got an email from [e-mail] and it was saying that Chris was having an affair with a woman, not Nicole Kessinger, whose ex husband he worked with at this oil company. And they spoke and interacted through a secret calculator app, which is. This is interesting because that information had not been revealed.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

That he talked to Nicole Kessinger through a secret calculator app.

[Ash]

That's.

[Elena]

I don't know about anyone else, but in 2018, I wasn't hearing about a secret calculator app that was flying around for people to cheat on their spouses. I wasn't. So it's weird that she said this, and I'm like, this is weird. Like, as. Was he having multiple affairs and this person just didn't come forward or what?

[Ash]

Maybe.

[Elena]

Like, it's very strange.

[Ash]

It's weird.

[Elena]

But on August 19, the same day, Nicole Kessinger, like we were saying, she knew. She knew. You Google. Yeah. Does everybody remember Amber Fry?

[Ash]

Of course.

[Elena]

You don't know Affair. Amber Fry was unknowingly having an affair with Scott Peterson, who murdered his wife, Lacey Peterson, and their unborn child. And their unborn child, Connor. Amber, by all accounts and by all the things that they researched and saw, did not know that he had this whole other life. Didn't know he was married. Did not know he was married. And.

[Ash]

And actually aided in the investigation.

[Elena]

And she wore a wire. She did. Like, she really tried to get him caught. So she had a different vibe. Yeah. So everybody just kind of rallied around her because. Damn, that's traumatic. Yeah. Now, Kessinger, on August 19th, Google, did people hate Amber Fry? Things about Amber Fry's net worth and things about her book deal.

[Ash]

If this lady woman thought that she was getting a book deal, that's. I'm like, what are you gonna write?

[Elena]

Well, and all. You thought you were gonna write about this, like you had any insight and that.

[Ash]

I'm sorry. That you deserve. That's the money that comes from that.

[Elena]

What the.

[Ash]

You knew that he was married with children, whether or not he was separated,

[Elena]

having an affair with him.

[Ash]

You knew he had children, and you were having an affair.

[Elena]

You knew you had to interact in private. You knew that this wasn't okay. Like that's, that's the thing.

[Ash]

That's a completely different scenario.

[Elena]

So that was interesting to me. That's in the Discovery. Yeah.

[Ash]

Getting scared is one thing. Getting a thrill is. Well, you want more of those in your Life. The Genesis GV70 is built to thrill, baby. A thrilling yet elegant design always makes driving the GV70 an exciting adventure. Its powerful athletic stance screams performance and turns heads. Everybody's looking at you, girl or boy or whoever. Command the road and experience a class leading standard 300 horsepower. Oh my God. Plus, discover the different dynamic drive modes for all different terrains. Choose between the different terrain modes for whatever road conditions you may encounter. The Genesis GV70's award winning technology and performance lets you drive with comfort and drive with confidence all at the same time. It's an exciting SUV with intuitive tech that can make your ride smooth even when the road isn't. And its blind spot cameras allow you to see what's next to you.

[Elena]

You.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

And this was another thing that I saw in the discovery that I never saw mentioned somewhere was on August 20th. So the day after the police got in touch with somebody named Addie who was friends with them, with friends with Shannan. And she said on August 14, which is the day after they went missing,

[Ash]

the day after he murdered them.

[Elena]

There was an email that Chris responded to on that day and it was concerning to her because she said his family was missing. At this point, Chris received an email about fantasy football and on the day after his family was missing, he responded with I'm in. I'm in. He got an email about a fantasy football league and he said, I'm in. The day after his family is missing,

[Ash]

he's ready to start this new chapter of his life.

[Elena]

He's gonna, he's gonna fantasy football. He's gonna.

[Ash]

Yeah, he can spend his money on whatever he wants now. He already un enrolled his children in daycare after killing them.

[Elena]

I'm in. I'm in the day while your family's missing.

[Ash]

I've already started looking at my, my people that I want to.

[Elena]

You wouldn't catch me answering email else.

[Ash]

No.

[Elena]

If I was not, not joining fantasy

[Ash]

football leagues, you wouldn't see the Gmail app open on my phone.

[Elena]

Now this is the kind of that you need to see because you need to know how diabolically awful this piece of is.

[Ash]

I'm in.

[Elena]

Now, a few days later, Chris Watts was arraigned on account of first degree murder and the death of Shanann and one count of causing the death of an unborn child. At his arraignment, Chris's attorney, James Merson, argued that that he had killed his wife in a fit of rage after witnessing her kill their two daughters. Merson also petitioned the judge to require the district attorney to require DNA testing on the necks of the two girls. But that was rejected on the grounds that the judge does not have the authority to tell the prosecution how to conduct their investigation.

[Ash]

And it probably wouldn't have worked anyway because he shoved his two children in an oil tank. So that would have disturbed some DNA.

[Elena]

It absolutely did. Now, from the moment he offered up this story about Shanann killing Bella and Celeste, nobody believed that. Nobody believed that.

[Ash]

It doesn't make any sense.

[Elena]

There was no one that believed that. And there was also no evidence to support that story.

[Ash]

Well, also, this is something that we said yesterday that we forgot to mention today. That security camera footage that Nate has shows two little shadows going on.

[Elena]

It does. I don't think it shows too little shadows, but it shows more than just his shadow. So, like, there's movement that you can see, okay, that clearly they're alive. Like, there's something more than just Chris

[Ash]

getting into the car.

[Elena]

It's not just Chris moving about. Like, it just doesn't. There's no evidence to show that. And despite this, the District Attorney, Michael Roark, decided to take a chance on getting a further confession from Chris. At a meeting in early October, Chris was informed that the prosecutor intended to pursue the death penalty, as they should. But he was willing to take that off the table if Chris was willing to tell them what really happened that night, which I think was brilliant, smart. Finally, under threat of execution, Chris confessed that Shanann had nothing to do with their daughter's murders and he was just gonna let her take the fall for it. And it was the, in fact, Chris who had killed them.

[Ash]

How nice that he had a choice in not getting executed.

[Elena]

Exactly. Now, what had happened that night? Like I said earlier, he drove them 45 minutes alive. He told them that mommy's sick and needs to go to the hospital, put them in the car and drove them 45 minutes.

[Ash]

And could have changed his mind.

[Elena]

Once he dumped Shanann's body into the dirt, he smothered CeCe with her favorite blanket in front of Bella. Bella again fought him. I'm not gonna go into any more detail than that. I'm not gonna say any of, like, last words or anything, because it's pure horror. If you read it and you hear about it and you hear this fucker, too. This fucker who later confessed every detail of this. When you hear him say it, it'll turn your stomach in a way that is hard to recover from. So I don't suggest listening to it.

[Ash]

Does he have any emotion when he says it?

[Elena]

He doesn't give a shit. It. And it's just the. The details of that moment are so horrifying.

[Ash]

Well, that's not what anybody needs to

[Elena]

remember about those kids. No, it's not. And that's the. It's the worst kind of horror. And I'm just so sorry to their family. Like, I'm so sorry. Every. The whole time I was reading these things, I was just like, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Like, I'm so sorry that this man who you thought was protecting your family and was a part of your family was the monster that your kids feared. Yeah. And didn't even know it. Like, I'm so, so sorry. It just. Oh, like, yeah. Now, on November 19, 2018, Chris appeared before a judge for sentencing. By then, the charges against him were now three counts of first degree murder, two counts of causing the death of a child under 12, as well as one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. Body.

[Ash]

Wow.

[Elena]

Now, at sentencing, Michael Rourke urged that maximum penalty of life in prison be imposed. And he said he told the jury, what must the part that always. Yeah, this is a lot. What must Bella, age 4, or Celeste, age 3, have thought when their father, the one man on Earth supposed to nurture and protect them, smothered them to death? And it's true. Yeah, like, you don't even want to think about that. You're like, I. But I keep thinking about it. Like, how can you not stop thinking

[Ash]

about it, knowing that that's what happened?

[Elena]

How do you not think about it? I got it. After we record this one for the second time. I have to get far away from this case. I need to get far away from this case. It's horrific. And what kills me is that the family and the friends can't get away from it. No.

[Ash]

It's their reality.

[Elena]

Like I'm saying, I need to get away from this. I need to go, like, read something. I need to just, like. Like, get it out of my brain.

[Ash]

But this is what he did to them.

[Elena]

But they live with this every day.

[Ash]

And Pete, that people who loved him and trusted him to take care of those children and take care of Shannan,

[Elena]

and they be a husband and a father. They live with their absence every day, so it's a reminder every single day to them of what happened. And he's still here like that. He's still here in protective custody like the little that he is truly just. But you know what? He's scared every second. He's pissing his pants every second.

[Ash]

I just feel like. Don't protect him. He didn't protect anyone.

[Elena]

No, nobody protected those little girls.

[Ash]

His duty. And nobody protected her. And his duty as a husband was to protect his wife and his children at all costs, and he didn't. So why are taxpayer dollars.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Protecting him.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

Why?

[Elena]

Why? Why?

[Ash]

I don't want to. I mean, I'm not in Colorado, but

[Elena]

I don't want to pay for that.

[Ash]

Yeah, nobody should pay for that.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

Give him one. Give him one day out. It'll be fine.

[Elena]

Give him a day he deserves, you know, that's all.

[Ash]

Let karma serve its purpose.

[Elena]

Yeah. Just let the. Let the chips fall where they may, you know, that's all I have to say. Judge Marcelo Copcow shared everybody's outrage and disgust with Chris Watts. He said, this is perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime I have handled out of the thousands of cases I've seen. Can't even imagine nothing less than a maximum sentence would be appropriate. And with that, he sentenced Chris Watts to three life terms for the murders and an additional 84 years for the other crimes. So this fucker is spending three life sentences plus 84 years.

[Ash]

I honestly, like. Part of me hopes that he lives such a long life.

[Elena]

Yeah. And I hope he thinks about it every day.

[Ash]

Absolutely terrorized. Because he doesn't get to. He doesn't deserve to get to move on to the afterlife anytime soon and

[Elena]

be rid of this. No. And before Chris was removed to begin serving his sentence, the families of both Chris and Shannan were given the opportunity to speak. These ones are rough, but I feel like they're important.

[Ash]

They're heavy, but, yeah, their words should be said.

[Elena]

So Frankie Shannan's brother said, honestly, this one really gets me. We beg the district attorney to spare your life because we believe no one has the right to take the life of another, even someone like you. Why? Why would you do this? You don't deserve to be called a man. What part of it. What kind of person slaughters the people who love him the most? Did you really think you'd get away with this? Did you really think that this was your best option? To throw away your family like they were garbage? They deserve better, and you know it. I hope you spend the rest of your life staring at the ceiling every night, being haunted by what you've done. You took away my family from this earth, but you can never take them from my heart. This is the part that really kills me. You took away my privilege of being an uncle to the most precious little girls I had ever known. That always gets me.

[Ash]

Yeah, of course. It's like, I'm so glad that. That they got to say exactly what they wanted to him, though. And who knows how it impacted him, because I don't know if he's even impactable.

[Elena]

But I hope it him up.

[Ash]

I hope it did.

[Elena]

Her father, Frank Jun Sr. Said, I trusted you to take care of them, not kill them. And they also trusted you, you heartless monster. You have to live with this vision every day of your life. And I hope you see it every time you close your eyes at night. Night. Now. In her statement, Cindy Watts, Chris's mother, barely worth reading. Sorrow for Everything. And she said, as your mother, I have always loved you, and I still do. I hate what has happened, but we will remain faithful as your family. We love you and forgive you, son.

[Ash]

It's so bad that you have to say what has happened?

[Elena]

You didn't even say what you've done. Use. Use a. More like. Not passive terms. Don't make it passive, like he didn't have something to do with it. What has happened? Nothing happened, babe. Nothing happened.

[Ash]

I hate that you have done this

[Elena]

to our family, murdered his family. Also you want to say, I will always love you because I'm your mother. Yeah, I get it. I will always love my kids. I don't care. Like, no matter what.

[Ash]

Of course.

[Elena]

But to sit there and say what happened, like, he didn't do it, and also to say, I forgive you. No one gives a shit that you stand in front of her family and say that you forgive the guy who

[Ash]

murdered their daughter, who you didn't like, and continue to disparage and continue to

[Elena]

say you don't like.

[Ash]

We can't get too far into that. Because I'll get heated.

[Elena]

Yeah. I'll get, like, super pissed. But there's. She's done plenty of interviews that say how she felt about Shannan since Shanann has been murdered. Yeah.

[Ash]

One thing I have to say is I don't understand how she didn't get up there Like, I don't have children, so I don't know how I feel, how I will feel, like.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Or how I would feel in this situation, but I feel like you could have gotten up there and said, I will. I'm your mother. I still love you, but I'm ashamed of you.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Because I think you can still love somebody. Like, of course that doesn't go away, but you can be ashamed. And that one thing I believe is that that woman should be ashamed of her son.

[Elena]

Well, then here's what I think should have happened. Don't say anything. Yeah. Sit down. Yeah. And, hey, continue to not say anything. That's my advice.

[Ash]

Stop calling the media.

[Elena]

Stop speaking about it. Yeah. Because no one wants to hear his family's side of it. Nope, don't talk about it like that.

[Ash]

It'd be different. It would be different if their reactions were different.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But we need to move on.

[Elena]

Yeah, I know. I don't want to get too far into it, but I do want to end those statements with Sandy, who is shenanigans mother, she said. And this proves that the mask dropped. We loved you like a son. We trusted you. Your faithful wife trusted you. Your children adored you. And they also trusted you. Your daughter, Bella Marie, sang a song proudly. I don't know if you got to see it, but it was, daddy, you're my hero. I have no idea who gave you the right to take their lives, but I know God and his mighty angels were there at that moment to bring them home to Paradise Place. After everyone had been given the opportunity to speak, the judge instructed the deputies to take Chris out of that courtroom, get him and deliver him into the custody of the Colorado State Prison system, where he was going to begin serving

[Ash]

a sentence, where he was going to begin rotting.

[Elena]

But a few months later, Chris was transferred to Dodge Correctional Facility in Wisconsin after prison officials in Colorado became concerned for his safety. Safety?

[Ash]

He wasn't concerned with anybody else's safety, so why waste the money?

[Elena]

He should be concerned for his safety every second of every day. Yeah. For no one majority of his life. He remains there to this day and is unlikely to be released. And like I said, just to remind you, he's scared shitless for his life every second of every day. He barely sees sunlight. He's in isolation. His life is miserable.

[Ash]

And that's how it should be.

[Elena]

He also recently, as recent as last year, 2025, he wrote a letter to God. He's found religion.

[Ash]

Honey, if God's around, he's not listening to your dumbass he does not like

[Elena]

your ass, I can tell you that much. He wrote a letter to God where he blamed women and mainly his mistress Nicole for what happened.

[Ash]

Nice.

[Elena]

He said that she tempted him. Oh. Because he's a little sniveling Shipburg with no self control. Yeah, yeah.

[Ash]

Awesome.

[Elena]

Yeah, yeah, totally. I. He wrote, I was misled. I was tempted by a harlot. I was weak and I allowed myself to be fooled by an evil woman. She led me from the path of righteousness. I know that you will deal with her someday. She will be judged. You know my heart, Lord. I am a man after your heart. I seek your face. I allowed her to sway me. He also completely blamed just women for everything. He called women harlots, Jezebels, whores. Okay. It's all their fault.

[Ash]

It seems like he's really adjusting.

[Elena]

He was cheating on his pregnant wife and then murdered them all in cold blood. But like, yeah, it's women's.

[Ash]

Yeah, totally.

[Elena]

That's nice. Should have known it when he looked at that police officer and said, because women. Yeah. Honestly, when it made no sense. There is also a paranormal aspect to this case which I'm not going to get super into. There's only a couple that I just wanted to point out because they are the only ones that I was not able to immediately be like, well, maybe it's this, you know? So there's there's like two things. So there's one. Sandy Shannan's mom received a text message after all this from an unknown number saying that the back door of your deceased daughter's house is open. And she responded, who is this? And they never responded.

[Ash]

Like, that's up.

[Elena]

So the police were called to go check. The door was closed, but the screen door was open, which is weird. And the garage light was on. And there's no. It's not motion, nothing like that. It's like it was on.

[Ash]

Like you have to be in the garage.

[Elena]

So they were confused by all this, but seemed like no one had broken in. Nothing else they could figure out at least. And then later in the same day, Nate, the neighbor who like saved us all with the surveillance video, right. He said that he got so other neighbors had told him that they were seeing lights going on in that house. And so he said he looked at the surveillance video and he saw a dark haired woman walk up to the front door. Oh.

[Ash]

And not walk out so many times. And it chills me to record every time.

[Elena]

And she never walked out. So the police showed up again. They couldn't find anybody, but there were lights on. And when they went in there, they said, like, a cabinet was opened, but that's it. And, like, they couldn't figure out anything else. It didn't look like anything was, like, ransacked or taken.

[Ash]

And there's no footage of the woman leaving.

[Elena]

Yeah. And that footage isn't released. They won't release it.

[Ash]

It's like, maybe she went out the back.

[Elena]

You would. I think you would see, though, you.

[Ash]

Oh, okay.

[Elena]

Because the door. And the door was locked. Oh, yeah. I don't know. So, like, chilling and then, like, I think the garage. The alarm was set. And when they talked to Shannan's father, he was like, I didn't set the alarm when I left last because there's

[Ash]

nobody in the house.

[Elena]

Like they do. Why? He literally. He's like, there's nothing worth protecting in that house anymore. So why is the alarm set and who said it? Yeah, like, it's very strange. And why it's very strange. Yeah. I don't know. And then there's two other things. There's. There's body cam footage from afterwards with the canine unit.

[Ash]

This is the part that messes me up.

[Elena]

And when they're walking into Shanann's closet, you hear a very distinct giggle. Like a child's giggle. Loud. Very loud. Very distinctive. It actually startles the officers. They all hear it. They all discuss it.

[Ash]

They try to recreate it.

[Elena]

They try to recreate it. They're all very frazzled by it. They can't recreate it. They don't know where it came from. It's very spooky.

[Ash]

One of them won't even go back in the closet.

[Elena]

Yeah. It's, like, clearly freaked out by it. And then the second one is the one that really chills my bones, because,

[Ash]

honestly, with that first one, I hope that's because I. Yeah, exactly. I hope it's residual energy because I really hope that, like, whatever their family believed in, like, Sandy said she hopes they're in paradise. I hope that's exactly where they are.

[Elena]

Yeah. To not like.

[Ash]

Like, I don't want to believe. And I honestly don't believe that they're stuck in that house.

[Elena]

No, I don't believe that either. I think, if anything, this was residual. I think this stuff, too, was as they were missing. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. So it was right after. And I wonder if it's just a burst of residual stuff. But they go into the main bedroom at one point, and you can hear this breathy whispering voice say, this is our home.

[Ash]

And it sounds like it's in, like, despair.

[Elena]

Yeah, it sounds like a very sad. Like, this is our home, like, and it says it, like, so sad. And it's. And it's so clear. It is. And it's just like. I don't know what it is, but regardless of what it is, it's spooky. And it's. I don't know if it's just energy that, like, was. Because I was gnarly energy in that house right then, so. But it's very spooky. A lot of people talk about it. It's worth noting. Yeah. But, yeah, that. That is the story of Chris Watts. And it's even more horrifying than I initially thought it would be somehow. Yeah.

[Ash]

Honestly.

[Elena]

And again, I just feel so sorry for anybody who knew them who has to live this every day. I know. But I also want to make sure that his version of the story is dispelled as often as humanly possible.

[Ash]

Seriously. Because he's a monster. And I am happy to never think

[Elena]

of him again because also, he likes to, like, spin the story of, like, Shanann being domineering and almost tries to pin it on that, like, well, she was just a hard woman to live with. And it's like, first of all, none of her friends say that. Everyone who knows her says that she was great. And it's like. And two, even if she was domineering, get divorced first. That still doesn't mean you kill her. Like, that's so, like, I. I hate that too, because it's like, it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with anything.

[Ash]

There's just no excuse.

[Elena]

Yeah. There's no excuse for it. But, yeah, it's a horrifying story, and I never want to talk about it again.

[Ash]

Let's, as a palette cleanser, get to the fun fact part of the show.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

To end this, I feel like we all need this fun fact.

[Elena]

I desperately need it.

[Ash]

Birds get drunk on fermented berries, particularly in the late winter and early spring, because thawing and freezing causes the berries to ferment.

[Elena]

I. You had used this one yesterday, and it was so welcome. Yeah, I love that.

[Ash]

It's very prevalent in the spring.

[Elena]

In fact, I love that a lot. Yeah. Because good for them.

[Ash]

We might have seen a drunk bird today, actually.

[Elena]

They're just out there popping bottles.

[Ash]

You never know.

[Elena]

Yeah. I saw a bird that. That. That flew. I was in the drive thru and it flew onto a branch, but the branch wasn't like heavy enough to support it. So it had like a weird stumble moment and then jumped on a regular branch and I was like, oh, man, I bet he's so embarrassed, and I hope he's not.

[Ash]

She's like, I hope nobody saw.

[Elena]

I was like, I'm not judging you. We've all been there. But yeah, that was a good, fun fact. Yeah. I love birds. Yeah.

[Ash]

All right.

[Elena]

We hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird.

[Ash]

And that's it.

[Elena]

Not that weird, man. Sam.

[Ash]

Out on the road, it's nice to

[Elena]

have a partner who can help you make the most of your journey. A partner like the Love's Rewards app. With Love's Rewards along for the ride,

[Ash]

you earn points on food, fuel, drinks, and more every time you scan.

[Elena]

Then you can spend those points at Love's just like cash. So every stop is even more rewarding. Download the app today and watch the

[Ash]

points roll in mile after mile. Love's Rewards save and earn at every turn. Terms apply. See website for details.

[Elena]

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