Two Face- the Man Underneath Christopher Watts, page 1
part #1 of K9 Series
TWO FACE
THE MAN UNDERNEATH CHRISTOPHER WATTS
By Nick van der Leek
Copyright (c) 2018 by Nick van der Leek
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The author would be grateful to be notified directly of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.
Cover design: Nick van der Leek
“It just seems like I’m living in a nightmare, and I can’t get out of it.”― Chris Watts, August 14th 2018
“If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.” ― Lewis Grizzard
Important Note to the Reader:
The #SHAKEDOWN books are unique. Throughout this book, the author has provided hyperlinks to relevant resources including documents, photographs and videos to enhance your interactivity with the story.
Disclaimer
On August 20 2018, Weld County prosecutors in Colorado formally charged Christopher Lee Watts with nine felony counts, including three counts of first-degree murder after deliberation [premeditated murder], two counts of first-degree murder in regards to victims under 12 in a position of trust, one count of first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. As of this writing, September 2018, the defendant admits he murdered his pregnant wife, but disputes that he murdered his two children. The criminal trial commences on November 19th 2018.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Final Breaths
Cadaver Dogs
REVISITING THE TIMELINE
From Noon – Monday Afternoon
Tuesday, August 14
Wednesday, August 15
Thursday, August 16
Friday, August 17
Monday, August 20
August 21-September 1
PLUMBING THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK
A Home of our Own?
An Initial Analysis of Shan’ann’s 30 Minute Video + Six Unintended Thrive-With-Me Insights
Behind the Mirror of Facebook [Part 1]
His Backstory
Her Backstory
Issues of Sexual Identity?
Living a Lie and Running out of Time
Motive and The Psychology of Oil
Revisiting the Porch
A Married Man’s Best Friend
When were Bella and Celeste Murdered?
About the Author
Final Breaths
“I came home and walked in the house and nothing. Just vanished.”― Chris Watts to Denver7
The LCD on the dashboard of the white Mitsubishi GT blinks three numerals in white: 1:47. Nickole Utoft Atkinson’s hail-damaged vehicle, with a year left to pay off, cruises silently through a brand new neighborhood. The scattering of new homes slumbering on the outskirts of Frederick glisten under the polish of stars wheeling over a Colorado night sky.
The diamond-white beams turn into Saratoga Trail. The two 30-something women in the cabin are silent. It’s been a long night. Hours ago they were in another time, in another place, and if they’d stayed there, Shan’ann may have still had the rest of her life ahead of her.
At 18:00 in Tempe the Le-vel girls have a bigger dinner and more drinks than expected when their flight is cancelled. As if the gods are determined to keep Shan’ann away from home, the power at the Thirsty Lion Gastropub & Grill goes out. The ladies post photos of themselves and their leftovers meals in the semi-darkness to Facebook. Shan’ann posts her final message to Facebook:
Best way to leave Arizona with you and Addy and loss of power while eating dinner. 😂
Determined to get home, the former nurse and hairstylist book and board new flights. After a two-hour delay, they finally board at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, landing at Denver International at close to 01:00 Monday morning. After a “great motivational weekend”, they’re determined to get home and hold their babies.
But it’s too late for that now, at least for Shan’ann. She will never hold her children again. She will never the see the sun shine on their faces ever again. She will never eat again. And this sleep, this night, will be the last on this world. Does she have any inkling as she races towards her shipwrecked home in darkness, of what awaits?
Most people this time of night are dead to the world. But somewhere in the dark up ahead, eyes like dark wet pebbles are wide awake, exhilarated and waiting.
This is the night. It’s now or never.
33-year-old Chris Watts has had a long night at the end of a long weekend with the girls. With Shan’ann’s imminent arrival comes a feeling of dread.
15 weeks.
Gender reveal party!
He blinks in the dark, his plan playing out in his mind like a movie. It ripples effortlessly, but with each ripple adrenalin energises his muscles, like electricity charging a phone battery.
This is the night. It’s now or never.
He feels the taste of blood and metal on his tongue. He takes a deep breath. He didn’t expect to be looking forward to this moment, but now that it’s here, dread is turning to anticipation, even relief.
It will be over soon. It’s almost over…
Disembarking in the dark and then driving 31 miles north and east of Denver to get to the town of Frederick [population 8 600], and then the new and rapidly expanding neighborhoods east of Frederick, 34-year-old Shan’ann Watts doesn’t know it, but this is the last time she will see any of this again. It’s a one way road for her.
She does not register the oil derricks, or their elbows, chugging tirelessly and mechanically at the crusts of unseen fields. She has no idea what the significance oil, or oil storage, could have for her flesh and blood, or her children, in a matter of hours.
Beside her, Atkinson mentions a book she’s been reading on the plane: Girl, Wash Your Face. It’s about being an imperfect mother in an imperfect world. Like the power outage, this book, now, could turn the fates. It could save Shan’ann’s life if she can only see the message and what it means for her life, and her home situation right now. But the signal is lost in the noise and Nickole’s raucous laughter. As the lines of the road slip under them, the hinge of destiny continues to turn towards its imminent denouement.
Over Shan’ann’s shoulder the numbers of a few homes flash by the window like seconds ticking on a clock. Then, as the LCD hits 01:48, Utoft Atkinson’s fleshy arms tug at the steering, and the nose dips onto the moon grey cement driveway of #2825.
Shan’ann’s door clicks open and the two move to the trunk to unload her luggage. It’s nippy outside, close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit with a slight cloying wind. The porchlights are on, but every last window in the double-story façade is an unlit blank. The house is dark, like a ship lying motionless on an airless sunken seabed. The porch, where Chris will stand in two days, smiling and shrugging, is vacant, its wooden rail like a ships railing skirting the small deck.
Hulking alongside the Watts home are similar roofs tilted upward like pyramids into the glittering sky. Their mint-new lawns, newly hammered timbers, newly painted corners and veneers give the neighborhood an artificial fragrance, like the inside of new car.
Shan’ann labors with her loud neon-pink-bleeding-into-red luggage, pulling the single suitcase along a narrow cement apron, then hoisting it over two grey steps and finally onto the porch outside the front door. The pregnant 34-year old opens it, takes a breath and steps inside.
Somewhere inside, Chris is awake. His black eyes watch her enter remotely, via the doorbell camera. Unknown to anyone right then, a neighbor’s dashboard camera also silently records the scene. Nickole leans forward in time to see a flurry of fingers as Shan’ann waves at her from inside. Shan’ann has time to wonder:
Where’s Deeter?
The battered Mitsubishi withdraws, its lights swing away and as the front door clicks shut, the interior of the house is cast into darkness once more.
Cadaver Dogs
“In my heart I believe she is somewhere, and I hope she is safe.” ― Chris Watts to Fox 31 as a dog barked from somewhere inside the house behind him
If only dogs could talk. If only Shan’ann’s Dachshund Deeter, could tell us what he saw from the moment Shan’ann arrived under cover of darkness that night. Two houses away from the Watts house, 68-year-old Cheryle Hallowell went onto her front porch and heard Deeter barking up a storm mid-morning on August 13th.
“On this one particular day that the family went missing I could hear him. [And he] was barking up until the cops took him away.”
When Chris stood in his front yard holding court with the press, trying to appear solemn, a dog barked from somewhere inside the house behind him. But it wasn’t Deeter. Chris was telling the reporters then:
“I came home and walked in the house and nothing. Just vanished.”
In this version he can’t bring himself to even say their names. He can’t even say “they just vanished”. But while Chris is talking he mentions other dogs. Even while he’s talking, dogs can be heard barking. But it’s not the high pitched bark of a Dachshund, it’s deeper. It’s the cadave
The barking gets so loud, and so close, it’s difficult to hear Chris speak at times. A dog can be heard whining. The reporter tells Chris:
“A search dog is going into the house right now to get a scent. Uh…why are police cars…”
Chris flicks his tongue nervously through his lips and smiles, saying smugly:
“I’m so happy that they’re here, right now, doing everything that they can…just, it scares the living crap out of me right now….just that, knowing it’s come to this.”
He was right to be afraid.
Chris had no way of knowing it, and neither did the reporter, but those dogs going into the house weren’t search dogs. They weren’t just any dogs, they were cadaver dogs. And these dogs are trained to talk. When they find something specific they communicate by giving an alert.
Even if Chris felt he’d done his damnedest to clean up the crime scene, wash it, bleach it, whatever he did in the approximately four hours between the time Shan’ann arrived [01:48], and the time her body left in Chris’s truck [05:37], he had no idea what he was up against with cadaver dogs, especially so soon after the crime.
To get an idea of the supersniffing capabilities of cadaver dogs, in the Madeleine McCann case, cadaver traces were found in their holiday apartment despite being cleaned numerous times just as a matter of routine by hotel staff. The feat was even more amazing because of the time span between Madeleine’s disappearance and the dogs coming into apartment 5A.
After three months, the dogs were able to detect traces behind the couch, in the McCann’s bedroom closet, in the garden below the balcony, in the McCann’s rental car [hired two months after the incident], in the villa they moved to, on Madeleine’s doctor mother Kate’s clothing, on the key of the rental and on Madeleine’s cuddle cat toy. The toy had also been repeatedly washed by Kate McCann and still the dogs picked out the unmistakeable cadaver smell.
So when Chris was standing outside the house, little did he know it, but that’s how and why the game ended. The dogs smelled death inside the 4 000-square-foot house and those barks in the background while Chris was talking, was them telling their handlers:
Three people died here, but two died long before the third.
REVISITING THE TIMELINE
“People who are two faced, usually forget which mask they are wearing at some point in their life.” ― Anthony T.Hincks
From Noon – Monday Afternoon
In heaven, all the interesting people are missing. ― Friedrich Nietzsche
The breakthrough in this case is thanks to Shan’ann’s friend Nickole Utoft Atkinson. Because Nickole took the unusual step of calling 911 as soon as she did on the afternoon of August 13th, the police response was swift – far swifter than Chris would have expected.
It’s so swift, when Officer Coonrod is dispatched to the home on Saratoga Trail on a welfare check, the cops end up outside the house even before Chris returns home. That’s when they discover Shan’ann’s essential belongings – cell phone, purse and medication inside the home.
Although this raises suspicions, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything – then. But let’s back track and review precisely how and why Nickole calls the police when she does.
Sometime on the morning of August 13th, Nickole becomes worried because Shan’ann’s not answering her calls or messages. Nickole’s also aware, somehow, that Shan’ann’s missed a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 10:00.
This may seem perfectly normal, Nickole’s vigilance of her friend, but I’m not sure it is. Nickole knows better than anyone that Shan’ann arrived home late, close to 02:00, so her failure to answer her calls and messages for the next eight hours is hardly surprising. Wouldn’t she be – under normal circumstances – just getting her eight hours sleep?
Missing the 10:00 appointment of course presents the first real sign that something could be [and was] amiss. But how did Nickole know Shan’ann had missed her appointment? Did Nickole call the doctor? It’s possible but doubtful. There are two possibilities:
Since Shan’ann used Facebook as a marketing tool almost constantly, Nickole would have seen, and been aware, whether Shan’ann was online or not. They’d just returned from a big motivational weekend, and that morning was a big day for Shan’ann in terms of her pregnancy, and yet Shan’ann wasn’t actively online. She usually was, with multiple promotional posts daily. Why not?
More than friends, or Facebook friends, Nickole and Shan’ann were work colleagues. As such, Shan’ann was going to take Nickole to car dealers because Nickole had qualified on June 25th for Thrive’s VIP auto club. When Shan’ann announced she was going to take Nickole car shopping on June 25th they were at another Thrive event in San Diego, and after that, Shan’ann went on a six-week working vacation with her family [and without Chris] in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Add six weeks to the end of June and you’re at plus-minus the middle of August. That morning, hadn’t Shan’ann promised to take Nickole car shopping, and wasn’t that why Nickole was calling Shan’ann around the clock?
In a report filed by abc11.com Nickole “stopped by” the house around noon to see if Shan’ann’s there. There’s no car in the driveway, but Nickole wants to make sure Shan’ann isn’t home. To see inside the tiny garage door windows means Nickole has to stand on something, perhaps on the trunk of her own car, to look inside. When she does Nickole is able to see Shan’ann’s car, and what’s more, the empty child seats inside.
So Shan’ann is home! Now Nickole goes to the front door and tries to open it. A latch on the front door opens three inches, but prevents her from entering. Through the three-inch space Nickole is able to see Shan’ann’s bright red-and-pink suitcase at the foot of the stairs. It hasn’t travelled far from where Nickole’s last seen it, a few hours earlier that same morning. Shan’ann’s shoes are also near the door.
Undeterred, after all this Nickole calls Chris. Nickole’s unaware that Chris has been watching Nickole’s antics at the front door all this time, remotely – from work. She asks Chris to return home immediately to find out if Shan’ann’s okay. About an hour passes, possibly with Nickole shouting through the gap in the front door, while listening to the little dog inside barking incessantly. Nickole can also see on her phone that Shan’ann’s still not active online, or answering her phone. It’s also possible when she calls Shan’ann’s phone from the front door, she can hear it ringing inside the house.
It’s while Chris is on his way – taking a long time too – that Nickole calls 911. At 13:40, with Nickole having been last seen 12 hours earlier, this is relatively quick. It makes all the difference that the police arrive at the house before Chris does.
According to meaww.com:
[When] Officer Coonrod reached the location, Utoft told [him] that she went to the home to check on her friend…[and was concerned for Shan’ann’s wellbeing]. Officer Coonrod checked all the doors and windows but they were secured. Coonrod then contacted Chris and asked him to give the code for the garage door to which [Chris] replied that it didn’t work and that he was only five minutes away from the home.
Does the code really not work, or is Chris shitting his pants at the thought of the cops tramping through his house this soon?
…it scares the living crap out of me right now….just that, knowing it’s come to this…so soon…
When Chris arrives, Nickole is there with Officer Coonrod. Chris doesn’t have much choice but to pretend he has no idea what’s going on, and so, he coolly and casually consents to allowing the officer into his home. This is the first phase of Chris acting to a small audience that he has no idea what’s happening. It starts with a performance aimed at just two – Nickole and Coonrod – and the performances that follow is the same bullshit but to a much bigger audience.
Coonrod looks around and finds no one home. No Shan’ann, and no children. So Coonrod sits Chris down and asks him a few questions. Chris’s responses and his demeanor are likely as smooth but strangely unsettling to Coonrod as his interview the next day was to the media and most everyone who watched it, the following day.
