Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / BONUS: The case against Colorado dad Chris Watts

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BONUS: The case against Colorado dad Chris Watts · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: If you have heard about the murder of Jessica Chambers,
0:03
Speaker 1: do not miss the new docuseries on Oxygen. It's the
0:06
Speaker 1: true story of a teen girl, a cheerleader in Mississippi
0:10
Speaker 1: who is burned alive and the story of the man
0:15
Speaker 1: accused of this heinous crime. Is that the right guy
0:19
Speaker 1: on trial? Who is he? And who is Jessica Chambers?
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Speaker 1: And how does such a horrific crime occur? With more
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Speaker 1: questions than answers, this is the case that has captured
0:33
Speaker 1: national headlines, taken over social media, and leaves a small
0:37
Speaker 1: town divided. This is a must see TV event. It
0:42
Speaker 1: features exclusive interviews that take you inside the investigation as
0:47
Speaker 1: a search for answers and justice goes on. Unspeakable crime,
0:52
Speaker 1: The Killing of Jessica Chambers, Saturdays at seven six Central
0:56
Speaker 1: on Oxygen, the new network for crime. My daddy is
1:12
Speaker 1: a hero. He helps me, girl ups helping me. I'm
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Speaker 1: not good too. He reads me book, My Shoes, My Daddy, Daddy,
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Speaker 1: and love you. You're hearing a four year old bell
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Speaker 1: sitting in the back seat of the Watts family car,
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Speaker 1: singing a hero song for her father, Christopher Watts. She's dead.
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Speaker 1: She was murdered and bomb Shall News right now did
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Speaker 1: her father. The so called hero Chris Watts, confessed to
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Speaker 1: fatally strangling his wife in a rage after a heart
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Speaker 1: to heart with his father. I Meancy Grays, this is
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Straight out
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Speaker 1: to Ellen Color and Crime online dot Com investigative reporter.
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Speaker 1: The very latest suggests that Chris Watts, who was now
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Speaker 1: charged with first degree murder in the death of his wife, Shenan,
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Speaker 1: and their two little girls, plus the first boy to
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Speaker 1: enter the scene, Shanan, was pregnant with a baby boy.
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Speaker 1: At first. Watt says he strangled his wife in a
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Speaker 1: fit of rage after he sees her on the baby
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Speaker 1: can murdering the girls. That really doesn't make a whole
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Speaker 1: lot of says, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know what, Let
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Speaker 1: me back it up, e K, because that's actually not
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Speaker 1: the very first thing he said. The very first thing
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Speaker 1: he said when his wife and daughters two little girls
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Speaker 1: were missing, was to beg for their return. Listen to
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Speaker 1: Chris Watts. Let's get it from the horse's mouth, Bella.
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Speaker 1: So lest if you're out there, just just come back,
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Speaker 1: Like if somebody has her, please bring her back. I
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Speaker 1: need to see everybody. I need to see everybody again.
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Speaker 1: This house is not complete with without anybody here. Well,
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Speaker 1: you know, if you really want to see him, you
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Speaker 1: know where to look, Chris Watts at the oil field
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Speaker 1: where you bury their bodies in that of oil. I mean,
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Speaker 1: at least that's what the prosecution says. Uh, you know what.
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Speaker 1: Ellen Joining me Ellen colaurin Crime online dot Com, renowned
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Speaker 1: forensics expert from the Florida jurisdiction, Karen Smith, judge and
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Speaker 1: lawyer and founder of child crime watch dot Com. Ashley Wilcot,
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Speaker 1: Fulton County medical examiner Dr Jan Gorniac and joining me
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Speaker 1: from Beverly Hills psychoanalyst Dr Bethany Marshall. Okay, Ellen, let's
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Speaker 1: just start at the beginning, because the first thing that
4:00
Speaker 1: struck me and Ashley go ahead and laugh into your fist.
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Speaker 1: When I first saw Shenan, I'm like, she's beautiful and
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Speaker 1: a little let me just say, tiny bit envious because
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Speaker 1: she's so together, because she had this beautiful matching outfit
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Speaker 1: and there was a picture of her in her den.
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Speaker 1: It looked straight out of an ad, you know this
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Speaker 1: ads for furniture ads like you know, rooms to go,
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Speaker 1: and it just was this beautiful setting and she's like
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Speaker 1: the perfect mom, and she had gotten this awesome knee
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Speaker 1: job with like a patch that gives our nutrients and
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Speaker 1: minerals to your body. And she was finally making to
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Speaker 1: me a lot of money, seventy thous dollars a year.
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Speaker 1: And it was kind of a pyramid thing, like um
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Speaker 1: am we where not only do you sell the health patch,
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Speaker 1: but you also recruit other people to sell and then
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Speaker 1: you get a portion, not you get a portion of
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Speaker 1: what they make, what plus what you make, and then
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Speaker 1: they recruit in. The company gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
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Speaker 1: So she's going to all these awesome destinations for conferences,
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Speaker 1: and she got these beautiful girls. And this this father
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Speaker 1: or the Chris Watts, it seems like a great husband.
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Speaker 1: There's a picture of him in the backyard cutting the grass.
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Speaker 1: How many times have I cut the grass? Cursing the
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Speaker 1: entire time? But long story short, she had it all
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Speaker 1: together and now, to top it all off, the answer
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Speaker 1: to their prayers. They're getting a boy. They always wanted
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Speaker 1: a boy. And she's got two girls and she's pregnant
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Speaker 1: with the baby boy. I mean, Ellen, what the hey happened?
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Speaker 1: That's right, Nancy. By all accounts, it was a picture
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Speaker 1: perfect family, picture of perfect marriage. The home was while
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Speaker 1: appointed Shannon with beautiful, well put together the daughters and
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Speaker 1: photos always an adorable outfits. Everything looked like it was
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Speaker 1: going really really well. Oh wait, Allen Allen, Allen Allen,
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Speaker 1: hold on, Dr Bethany Marshall, I'm sure you want to
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Speaker 1: analyze this, Okay. There's this family at our church. They
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Speaker 1: have five daughters, five they're precious. Every Sunday they come in,
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Speaker 1: they all have a little matching outfits that the mother
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Speaker 1: makes all right, or somehow gets it together to go
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Speaker 1: out and and finds the little matching outfits. And Bethany,
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Speaker 1: don't get all into all the mindset of matching your
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Speaker 1: children's outfits, because if I had it together, I would
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Speaker 1: have matched the children when they were growing up. But
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Speaker 1: mommy just you know, was trying to keep them alive, okay,
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Speaker 1: and make it to the studio. And they're well behaved,
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Speaker 1: they're perfect. They are. I'm not saying there's anything going
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Speaker 1: on behind it. And that is what goes through my
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Speaker 1: mind that she was this mom, like the five little
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Speaker 1: girls mom, they're totally devoted to the family, and I
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Speaker 1: mean it's it's envious. It's envious. Well, there's two different
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Speaker 1: realities in that household. There's there's the mom, like the
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Speaker 1: mother of the five children that attend to church. There's
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Speaker 1: the mom who is nice and brilliant and she's nice,
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Speaker 1: and I mean, couldn't I just hate her for peace? Say?
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Speaker 1: Can there be something? No, she's perfect and she's a
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Speaker 1: d I wire. She can like um D real things
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Speaker 1: and hammer things. She's got this awesome college degree. I
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Speaker 1: mean the works. Okay, okay, let me just throw that
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Speaker 1: and go ahead. Well, I mean you have Shenan who
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Speaker 1: has all these resources. She's smart, she's she's becoming a
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Speaker 1: big earner. She loves her children. One half of the
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Speaker 1: story in that household is love. She loves her kids,
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Speaker 1: and she has another boy on the way and and
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Speaker 1: the other half of the household is full of hate.
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Speaker 1: And when you talk about the beautiful outfits, the father
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Speaker 1: was going along with this. He was acting like this
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Speaker 1: family was perfect and then a perfect world. But what
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Speaker 1: we know about sociopatht We have a phrase in my field.
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Speaker 1: It's called wearing the mask of samity. The sociopaths are
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Speaker 1: very good at looking as if they're normal. They often
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Speaker 1: have beautiful children and beautiful wives who are devoted to
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Speaker 1: the family, while secretly they have a whole another life
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Speaker 1: going on underneath social paths. No, they're not normal, so
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Speaker 1: they learn to move and act in society as if
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Speaker 1: they think like other people. And that's why it's always
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Speaker 1: so shocking when something like this happens. You know, hold on, Alan,
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Speaker 1: I know I started this with you, and I haven't
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Speaker 1: even let you say five words yet, But Ashley willcott
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Speaker 1: something about our discussion right now, an ideal with dead bodies,
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Speaker 1: crime scenes, autopsies, mass murder, serial murder, spray murder, torture, murder,
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Speaker 1: the works of seen it all with a straight face
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Speaker 1: and I never once even get queasy. But this is
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Speaker 1: making me tear up. Ashley, I don't know what it
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Speaker 1: is about this. Oh, this one's really bad because it
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Speaker 1: hits too close to home. You do have somebody, and
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Speaker 1: it's not that different because she's working, she's take and
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Speaker 1: care of her children, she has a husband, she has
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Speaker 1: all of these things that you have, right and that
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Speaker 1: a lot of our listeners have, and so here they
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Speaker 1: have all these things and it looks like the family's
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Speaker 1: a normal family and functioning and getting through life and
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Speaker 1: doing these things and enjoying their children and loving their children.
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Speaker 1: And yet underneath the surface, you've obviously got a lot
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Speaker 1: of other things going on, and he's killed the family. Okay,
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Speaker 1: I know this is the question for the for the ages.
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Speaker 1: Why can't they just be happy? I don't get it,
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Speaker 1: Dr Bethany, Why can't I mean, sometimes and I'm weary
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Speaker 1: and I'm overwhelmed, I'm like, look what I have to
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Speaker 1: be grateful for. I'm so happy? Well, why couldn't they
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Speaker 1: just be happy? Why did I have to end up
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Speaker 1: with the girls and a vat of crude oil and
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Speaker 1: the mother in a shallow grave? Why? Well, what one
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Speaker 1: half of the family was happy. Shenan was happy, the
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Speaker 1: children were happy. It's the father who wasn't Nancy, so
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Speaker 1: she empathy. The personality disorder of being a sociopath is
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Speaker 1: essentially an order of a disorder of detachment. Sociopaths are
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Speaker 1: detached from everybody around them, their own children, their parents,
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Speaker 1: their spouses. They don't connect like you or I do,
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Speaker 1: and they have very shallow emotional lives, so they can't
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Speaker 1: just hang out at home with their children. They always
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Speaker 1: have little side gigs, going on affairs, um financial misdealings, crimes,
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Speaker 1: um habits of pornography. There's always did you ever see
10:36
Speaker 1: Blue Velvet? Where there was this one world that was
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Speaker 1: like bright and shiny, the sun was shining, and at
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Speaker 1: the very last scene, the camera pants to under the
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Speaker 1: front lawn and there's this whole underbelly of worms and
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Speaker 1: beetles and bugs under the front lawn. Two separate worlds.
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Speaker 1: That's what this family was like, a bright, shiny, loving
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Speaker 1: world and then a personality disordered dad slash husband who
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Speaker 1: couldn't attach to his family. When we talk about violent crime,
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Speaker 1: it's almost as if we're drinking from a fire hydrant.
11:04
Speaker 1: It's just too much, too fast, too furious. If you
11:08
Speaker 1: have heard about the murder of Jessica Chambers, don't miss
11:12
Speaker 1: the new docuseries on Oxygen, The true story of a
11:15
Speaker 1: teen girl cheerleader Mississippi, Burned Alive, The story of the
11:20
Speaker 1: man now accused of the heinous crime. Is the right
11:24
Speaker 1: guy on trial? Who is he? And who was Jessica Chambers?
11:28
Speaker 1: How does such a horrific crime even occur? More questions
11:32
Speaker 1: than answers. It's a case that has captured national headlines,
11:36
Speaker 1: taken over social media and has now left and is
11:39
Speaker 1: leaving a small town divided. It's a musty TV event
11:43
Speaker 1: with exclusive interviews that take you inside the investigation as
11:48
Speaker 1: a search for answers and justice goes on. Don't miss it.
11:53
Speaker 1: It is Unspeakable Crime, the killing of Jessica Chambers Saturday's
11:58
Speaker 1: seven sixth Central on Oxygen, the new network for Crime
12:03
Speaker 1: gets what girls, mommy has a baby in her belly.
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Speaker 1: Are you guys excited? Yes? Are you really excited? Oh?
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Speaker 1: My goodness, don't give me a hats Oh you gay? Huh?
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Speaker 1: I love you, Bella. You are hearing Shannan Watts. She's
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Speaker 1: telling her two little baby girls that she is going
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Speaker 1: to have a little baby boy, the unborn child she
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Speaker 1: was carrying at the time she was murdered. Now, I
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Speaker 1: want you to compare that, juxtapose it against her telling
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Speaker 1: the husband, Chris Watts. Listen, I like that shirt. Really really,
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Speaker 1: that's all so pak means. That's just a testa tone.
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Speaker 1: They're just since the pink is gonna be girls know that. Yes,
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Speaker 1: guess guess when you want to see what happens? Yeah, okay,
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Speaker 1: that was a little underwhelming. Guys, you're listening to Shann
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Speaker 1: Watts telling her husband Chris Watts, age thirty three, they're
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Speaker 1: having a third child. He's like, awesome, Okay, you know,
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Speaker 1: Ellen Kilauren, Sorry, but I got carried away with their
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Speaker 1: perfect life. Elan Coilauren. Let's take it from the top.
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Speaker 1: Shinen had been on a business trip and it's my
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Speaker 1: understanding she got home that evening with a friend girl
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Speaker 1: who drove her to the house, who had been out
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Speaker 1: of town. With her to the home, she gets sent
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Speaker 1: around one a m ish. Now, according to the husband,
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Speaker 1: Chris Watts uh now suspected in the three murders, they
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Speaker 1: have a quote emotional discussion until five a m. When
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Speaker 1: he leaves for work at an oil field. What happened
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Speaker 1: after that? He says that she they were speaking in
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Speaker 1: the early hours of the morning and then he went
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Speaker 1: to work. Later that day, Shannon was supposed to go
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Speaker 1: to a doctor's appointment, she was supposed to meet a friend.
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Speaker 1: None of those things happened. So her friend goes to
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Speaker 1: the home and Frederick Colorado and realizes that they're not there.
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Speaker 1: Shannon and the girls are not there, and no one
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Speaker 1: knows where they are. Chris initially says that he believes
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Speaker 1: that his wife may have gone on a play date,
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Speaker 1: but he doesn't have any details. He doesn't know the
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Speaker 1: name of the people, and he continues for a couple
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Speaker 1: of days to claim that he has no idea what
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Speaker 1: happened to his family, and goes on TV and begs
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Speaker 1: for their return. Let's taken listen to Chris Watts begging
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Speaker 1: for his wife's return. And it wasn't like her not
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Speaker 1: to answer a phone call or attacks. And when her
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Speaker 1: friend Nicole showed up at the door, I was like,
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Speaker 1: all right, something, something's up. And uh. I came home
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Speaker 1: and it was like walked into a ghost town. Like everything.
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Speaker 1: She wasn't here, kids weren't here. It was like it
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Speaker 1: was just they were here and then they were gone,
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Speaker 1: Like Shenan Belen slaves, if you're out there, please let's
15:03
Speaker 1: come home. You're hearing Chris Watts begging for his family's return.
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Speaker 1: That's not at all what was really happening, Ellen Colauren,
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Speaker 1: What led authorities to an oil field where Watts worked, Well, um,
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Speaker 1: we'd have to back up for one second, because what
15:20
Speaker 1: what led them to I think question his story was
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Speaker 1: the fact that he had been staying with a couple
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Speaker 1: of friends neighbors, and they felt that something wasn't quite right,
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Speaker 1: and they called police and then they questioned Chris Watts
15:33
Speaker 1: and brought him in. UM obviously starting to believe that
15:36
Speaker 1: the story he was claiming to be true was not
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Speaker 1: at all, and after multiple interviews with police, UM and
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Speaker 1: Wish he he initially was not telling the truths. They
15:46
Speaker 1: don't think Um, but eventually he did tell them where
15:50
Speaker 1: the bodies were. He led them there and it was
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Speaker 1: the property of the place where he had worked. What
15:56
Speaker 1: we know is that police then go digging at the
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Speaker 1: oil field and there they find the girls in a
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Speaker 1: vat of crude oil. They're dead bodies there, and the
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Speaker 1: wife buried in a shallow grave. To Dr Jane Gournia,
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Speaker 1: joining US Fulton County Medical Examiner, Dr Gournia, I'm so
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Speaker 1: grateful that you're with us. Putting a body into crude oil?
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Speaker 1: Does that preserve it? Does it hasten the decomposing process?
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Speaker 1: What does that do to a child's body. I've never
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Speaker 1: had a body in crude oil before. I can assume
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Speaker 1: that it will hasten the um, the decomposition. It's nothing
16:33
Speaker 1: that's going to preserve it. So I'm freezing will preserve
16:36
Speaker 1: the decomposition. So anybody that's in fluid um, any sort
16:40
Speaker 1: of fluid, the body is going to go through changes.
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Speaker 1: So I believe that the decomposition process will be accelerated.
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Speaker 1: Karen Smith, with the bodies in vats of oil, forensically,
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Speaker 1: what does that mean to you? It means it's going
16:54
Speaker 1: to be an extraordinarily challenging investigation. Nancy. You know these
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Speaker 1: vats of oil, the two little girls, I don't know
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Speaker 1: if they were wrapped in something when they were placed
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Speaker 1: in there, if they were placed in there with clothes
17:07
Speaker 1: on or without close on. We don't have any of
17:09
Speaker 1: that information. So to say that investigators and the medical
17:12
Speaker 1: examiner staff have an unbelievable challenge ahead of them as
17:16
Speaker 1: an understatement, however, there may be maybe some forensic evidence
17:21
Speaker 1: left behind that can be garnered and link these deaths
17:26
Speaker 1: directly to Chris Watt. At this point, we we don't
17:29
Speaker 1: have a cause of death, which is you know, critical
17:32
Speaker 1: to to the forensics, and until we have that, it's
17:35
Speaker 1: just speculation. At this point, I'm just hoping that, you know,
17:39
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're doing their due diligence and doing everything
17:41
Speaker 1: possible to find out what happened to these two little girls.
17:44
Speaker 1: We know what happened to Shenan. He's he's confessed as
17:47
Speaker 1: strangling her. Um, but until we have those, uh those
17:51
Speaker 1: medical examiners reports were kind of in the wind on that.
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Speaker 1: To ask you, Willcott joining US judge lawyer, founder of
17:56
Speaker 1: child crime watch dot com, we know that his Chris
18:00
Speaker 1: Watt's defense team asked for the girls next to be
18:04
Speaker 1: swabbed for d N A. What does that tell you
18:07
Speaker 1: the outside of their next Yeah, it's to talk about strangulations.
18:10
Speaker 1: So here's what's fascinating in this case to me and
18:12
Speaker 1: really bothers me. The defendantness case says, um, he strangled
18:17
Speaker 1: his wife right at some points in time. Then he says,
18:20
Speaker 1: but she strangled the children. Really you think that because
18:25
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, yeah, you're gonna make up. I
18:27
Speaker 1: think he strangled to children. He's gonna make up and
18:29
Speaker 1: say the wife strangled to children. So the significance is
18:32
Speaker 1: to find out what DNA is there, because I promise you, Nancy,
18:35
Speaker 1: she did not strangle those children. I promise you he did.
18:38
Speaker 1: His argument is that when he tells her he wants
18:41
Speaker 1: to leave her, she goes in a fit of right
18:44
Speaker 1: and strangles the children. Ellen Colauren, you have been investigating
18:49
Speaker 1: the case, What, if anything have you learned about his
18:52
Speaker 1: sex affairs. Well, we know that at least one affair
18:56
Speaker 1: has been confirmed by authorities. Um, he was having affair
19:00
Speaker 1: with a co worker, something that he initially denied during
19:04
Speaker 1: police questioning. Two other people have come forward. One woman
19:07
Speaker 1: spoke to a radar online and said that she had
19:09
Speaker 1: an affair with him after meeting him on Tinder, and
19:12
Speaker 1: then another man who crime Online actually spoke to as well,
19:15
Speaker 1: says that he had an affair with Chris Watts for
19:19
Speaker 1: ten months that ended several months before the family was killed.
19:23
Speaker 1: So let me understand. We've got a coworker he's having
19:26
Speaker 1: an affair with. According to the coworker, you have another woman.
19:30
Speaker 1: I don't know where she's from or how there was
19:32
Speaker 1: tender and then you have a man. Now, let me
19:35
Speaker 1: ask you something, Ellen, you've talked to the guy on
19:37
Speaker 1: many occasions. Did he tell you anything he couldn't learn
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Speaker 1: from the internet. Um. Sure, he told me about conversations
19:45
Speaker 1: that he had with Chris about his marriage. He told
19:49
Speaker 1: me that Chris initially denied being married. He said that
19:52
Speaker 1: he was separated and that he eventually figured out that
19:56
Speaker 1: he was married, and that Chris did admit to it.
19:58
Speaker 1: And he said that has told him that he was
20:02
Speaker 1: in an unhappy marriage, that he felt insignificant, that Shannon
20:06
Speaker 1: would allegedly be emotionally abusive to him, and that he
20:11
Speaker 1: felt trapped, felt insignificant. Let's take a listen again to
20:16
Speaker 1: his daughter bella singing, Daddy is a hero. My daddy
20:21
Speaker 1: is a hero. He helps me go upst he helps
20:27
Speaker 1: me good, chill, he leads meet the seas. My daddy, daddy,
20:43
Speaker 1: and love you. To give you some background, the Preto
20:48
Speaker 1: Police Department received a missing person called just before Excuse
20:51
Speaker 1: Me just before two pm on Monday, Augusten. Our agency
20:56
Speaker 1: lost investigation conducting interviews neighborhood canvases in an effort to
21:01
Speaker 1: locate Shenan and the two girls, Bell and Celest. We
21:06
Speaker 1: also contacted the FBI and the CBI to assist in
21:09
Speaker 1: this case. In addition to providing investigative agents and crime
21:13
Speaker 1: scene responders. Missing Excuse Me, a missing danger alert was
21:16
Speaker 1: announced on Tuesday afternoon. Frederic P. D conducted additional canvases
21:22
Speaker 1: were flyers featuring Shennan, Celeste and Bellow were distributed ravy. Finally,
21:28
Speaker 1: in the late hours of Wednesday evening, the husband and
21:30
Speaker 1: Chris Watts was taken into custody. You're hearing from the
21:34
Speaker 1: Colorado Police sergeant there in Frederick Ian albert On. Chris
21:40
Speaker 1: Watt's arrested in the last hours, a stunning new development.
21:44
Speaker 1: Although the husband, Chris Watts, has changed his story multiple times,
21:47
Speaker 1: apparently after a heart to heart talk with his father
21:50
Speaker 1: behind bars, he makes a full confession to Alan Kloren,
21:55
Speaker 1: what do we know that's right? We know that when
21:58
Speaker 1: when Chris Wats was initially interviewed by police, he wasn't cooperative,
22:02
Speaker 1: but then he said, when if you let me talk
22:04
Speaker 1: to my father first, I'll talk to him and then
22:07
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the truth. And he did speak to
22:09
Speaker 1: his father, and we don't know what was said in
22:12
Speaker 1: that conversation, but we do know that after he spoke
22:14
Speaker 1: to him, he went back and he admitted to detectives
22:18
Speaker 1: that he had strangled his pregnant wife, but claimed that
22:21
Speaker 1: he did so in enrage after seeing that she was
22:25
Speaker 1: strangling one of their daughters while while another daughter laid
22:28
Speaker 1: limp on her bed next to them. Well, to me,
22:30
Speaker 1: that's not a full confession. Are you saying that he's
22:33
Speaker 1: still saying the wife strangled little girls? That's right, nothing
22:37
Speaker 1: has changed. So I feel that we have been misled
22:40
Speaker 1: to Dr Bethany Marshall. The story that he's telling is
22:46
Speaker 1: diametrically opposed to what we know as the evidence. He's
22:51
Speaker 1: still blaming his murdered wife for the deaths of the
22:55
Speaker 1: two girls. What what's that about, Dr Bethany. You know what, Nancy,
22:59
Speaker 1: he may be the type of perpetrator who will just
23:02
Speaker 1: continue to lie and lie and lie, and we'll never
23:05
Speaker 1: get the full truth from him. Basically, he's claiming that
23:09
Speaker 1: he's such a great guy, such a wonderful dad, that
23:14
Speaker 1: and so special that when he told his wife he
23:17
Speaker 1: wanted to break up with her, that she flew into
23:20
Speaker 1: a rage and started to strangle the girls just to
23:24
Speaker 1: get back at him. I mean, that is such a
23:27
Speaker 1: fantastical story, and that he flew into a rage and
23:31
Speaker 1: strangled her because she was strangling the daughters. I mean,
23:35
Speaker 1: this kind of embedded in this kind of a story
23:38
Speaker 1: is that he's great, he was protecting his daughters. He
23:42
Speaker 1: lost it because the wife was killing the daughters to
23:45
Speaker 1: get back at him. It just doesn't stack up to
23:48
Speaker 1: the kind of family life that you're talking about where
23:50
Speaker 1: she was so attached to her kids. I mean, come on,
23:53
Speaker 1: Ashley Willcott, it's going to be a cold and ah
23:55
Speaker 1: g double ale that this mom comes home from working
23:58
Speaker 1: to support the family and then and then she strangles
24:04
Speaker 1: the girls and he happens to see it on the
24:07
Speaker 1: nanny camp. Oh yeah, sorry, Nancy, it's b s I mean,
24:11
Speaker 1: wad And to Phil him say well, I felt to
24:13
Speaker 1: hear him say, oh, I felt insignificant. I have no patience.
24:17
Speaker 1: I have no tolerance for this entire story, for his half.
24:20
Speaker 1: You know what confession, He clearly, in my mind, strangled
24:23
Speaker 1: all of them. I do not believe she's working her
24:26
Speaker 1: tail off for those children, for him, for the family.
24:31
Speaker 1: I do not believe that she returned home and strangled him.
24:34
Speaker 1: To Karen Smith, what about the possibility of evidence under
24:38
Speaker 1: the little girl's fingernails, under their nails. Do you think
24:41
Speaker 1: there's any chance we're going to get his d NA. Yes,
24:45
Speaker 1: there's always a chance, Nancy. And you know what, I'm
24:47
Speaker 1: I'm right with Ashley on this. My patience for this
24:50
Speaker 1: case is is at its limit, and you know, as
24:53
Speaker 1: a forensic investigator, I'm supposed to remain unbiased. But in
24:56
Speaker 1: the face of all of this, in the face of
24:58
Speaker 1: all of the evidence, it points right to Chris Watts.
25:01
Speaker 1: And there are a couple of opportunities that investigators have here,
25:04
Speaker 1: not only the finger nails of Celesti in Bella, but
25:08
Speaker 1: you know, if if they're asking for DNA swabs of
25:11
Speaker 1: the next there's a reason for that. Either the children
25:14
Speaker 1: were wrapped before they were placed in the barrels and
25:17
Speaker 1: there is a chance that there is DNA on their
25:19
Speaker 1: next or um, you know, depending on the decomposition process,
25:23
Speaker 1: you're dealing with possible deep bruising that may be available
25:28
Speaker 1: in photographs using u V light or i R lighting
25:31
Speaker 1: and that can show hand size. Uh, that's a possibility.
25:35
Speaker 1: And you know, I've also heard rumors that there may
25:37
Speaker 1: be and this is kind of a stretch, but there
25:40
Speaker 1: may be an opportunity to use what's called superglue fuming
25:45
Speaker 1: on their next to find out if there's any what
25:47
Speaker 1: we call ridge detail left from the perpetrator on the skin.
25:51
Speaker 1: Now after four days, that may be a very remote possibility,
25:54
Speaker 1: but the possibility still exists. So if investigators are using
25:58
Speaker 1: all of these tools. It is really my hope that
26:02
Speaker 1: all of those clues lead right back to Chris. What
26:05
Speaker 1: right where it belongs? Explain to those are not from
26:08
Speaker 1: that are not familiar with the super glue fuming. How
26:10
Speaker 1: does it work. It's kind of a complicated process. It
26:13
Speaker 1: started back in the nineties with some experienced some experiments
26:16
Speaker 1: by Ivan Futrell and Art Bohannan of the Knoxville Police Department.
26:19
Speaker 1: Ivan Futrel from the FBI, they took cadavers and they
26:23
Speaker 1: did experiments placing their fingerprints on the skin of these cadavers.
26:27
Speaker 1: And what they did is they use what's called it's superglue,
26:30
Speaker 1: and they use the fuming methods. They would put a
26:33
Speaker 1: tent over the body and put some drops of literal
26:36
Speaker 1: superglue onto a warming plate and it creates fumes. It
26:41
Speaker 1: it disperses itself into this tent and it will settle
26:45
Speaker 1: on the ridge detail of the fingerprints on the skin. Now, again,
26:51
Speaker 1: it's a very complex process and it doesn't always work.
26:55
Speaker 1: It's it's there's very few, uh possible us for this
27:00
Speaker 1: to happen. However, if those ridge details are available on
27:04
Speaker 1: the next of these children after they do this process. Um,
27:09
Speaker 1: then there's the possibility of enhancing those fingerprints using powders
27:13
Speaker 1: and the possibility of them uh sending them off to
27:16
Speaker 1: a latent print examiner to see if we can compare
27:19
Speaker 1: them to Chris Watts's known print. To Dr Bethany Marshall,
27:22
Speaker 1: not only are we taking calls at nine O nine
27:25
Speaker 1: forty nine crime, we're getting a ton of Facebook messages
27:30
Speaker 1: and here's one from fruit Loop, who I would love
27:32
Speaker 1: to meet. On the video, she Shinn tells Chris Watts
27:36
Speaker 1: they're expecting. Why doesn't anyone talk about his narcissistic reaction
27:41
Speaker 1: when he says quote, when you want it you foot
27:46
Speaker 1: Loop says he's placing blame on her, and also why
27:50
Speaker 1: is she doing all these videos to praise him. It
27:53
Speaker 1: seems like a narcissistic hold he has on her, playing
27:57
Speaker 1: on her illness, which I believe she had. Looke Well,
28:00
Speaker 1: I think that's very insightful of fruit Loop, because women
28:03
Speaker 1: who are in relationships with sociopaths or or pathological narcissists
28:08
Speaker 1: do tend to always try to fluff them up, to
28:11
Speaker 1: inflate them to make them feel better. And we know
28:15
Speaker 1: this idea of like, well, when you want it, you
28:17
Speaker 1: get it. I don't hear that as blaming her. I
28:20
Speaker 1: hear that as a trite, rehearsed, stereotyped statement that doesn't
28:25
Speaker 1: really mean anything at all, and so she passed. Because
28:28
Speaker 1: they have such a shallow emotional life, they tend to
28:31
Speaker 1: talk this way, they use trite, rehearse sayings because they're
28:34
Speaker 1: really not feeling anything at all. He wasn't excited that
28:37
Speaker 1: she was pregnant. I mean, he put his daughters in
28:40
Speaker 1: vats of oil. He does not love this family. So
28:44
Speaker 1: I hear just very flat affect and complete disinterest in
28:48
Speaker 1: the pregnancy. A lot of you know, my part of
28:53
Speaker 1: my story, UM my health challenges, UM ad relationships, UM
28:59
Speaker 1: things that could have knocked somebody down, completely hardcore. UM.
29:04
Speaker 1: But the thing is is I believe that everything in
29:06
Speaker 1: life happens for a reason, and I also believe people
29:10
Speaker 1: are placing in our life for a reason. You're hearing
29:12
Speaker 1: Shenan Watts talking about meeting her husband as she battled
29:15
Speaker 1: her lupus. You know Dr Bethany and Ellen Colornin with me,
29:20
Speaker 1: Kieren Smith and Dr Jane Gorniac. The most recent development
29:26
Speaker 1: is that triple murder suspect Chris Watts is now trying
29:30
Speaker 1: to keep secret his visitors behind bars. Now, as of
29:36
Speaker 1: right now, the judge Marcello cop Cow has ruled against
29:40
Speaker 1: the motion, but he is claiming Chris Watts is claiming
29:44
Speaker 1: that the guests he has his visitors behind bars will
29:50
Speaker 1: reveal a quote crucial element in his legal representation to
29:55
Speaker 1: Dr Bethany Marshall. Why the cloak and dagger? Why is
29:59
Speaker 1: he filing a motion to keep secret all of his
30:02
Speaker 1: visitors behind bars? I've never heard that that's public record.
30:07
Speaker 1: I call this the Casey Anthony syndrome. You remember, when
30:10
Speaker 1: she was behind bars, she kept pressuring her mother to
30:14
Speaker 1: get in touch with her boyfriend. Even when she was incarcerated.
30:17
Speaker 1: She was much more interested in her love life than
30:20
Speaker 1: in the fact that her little girl was missing. And
30:22
Speaker 1: the fact that Chris Watts wants his visitors to be
30:25
Speaker 1: kept secret. I keep wondering, who are all these people
30:28
Speaker 1: out there that he might be having affairs with, He
30:31
Speaker 1: might be trying to pursue that, He's trying to continue
30:35
Speaker 1: some side hustle with even though his wife and daughter
30:40
Speaker 1: are dead, He's still more invested in his own life.
30:43
Speaker 1: And also this whole thing of like she made me
30:45
Speaker 1: do it, like the dog ate my paper, that kind
30:47
Speaker 1: of thing, you know, blaming another person. I hear all
30:51
Speaker 1: of this is just continued attempts to cover up all
30:55
Speaker 1: of his motivations instead of to be transparent. He'll never
30:58
Speaker 1: be transparent. It'll be one after another. Another possibility as
31:03
Speaker 1: to why he is keeping wants to keep all of
31:05
Speaker 1: his visitors a secret, which is public record. To Dr
31:11
Speaker 1: Jeanne Gornia at Fulton County Medical Examiner, I recall every
31:15
Speaker 1: time I had a homicide, I would have to go visit.
31:17
Speaker 1: I didn't have to, I would because I wanted to
31:20
Speaker 1: go visit the medical examiner to go through every single
31:24
Speaker 1: line of the autopsy report so I could understand it
31:28
Speaker 1: in playing English, not medical terms, to convey it to
31:32
Speaker 1: a jury. I wonder if he is working with an
31:36
Speaker 1: expert much as I'm describing right now, to try to
31:40
Speaker 1: find a way out of these murders. Well, it's it's
31:42
Speaker 1: a possibility, and I think it's a It's a great
31:45
Speaker 1: idea that prosecutors and even defense attorneys meet with the
31:49
Speaker 1: medical examiner to one know what the injuries were, how
31:52
Speaker 1: they could have occurred at a consistent with this consistent
31:56
Speaker 1: with that um and also know what we're gonna say
31:58
Speaker 1: when we're on the on the stand and UM, so
32:02
Speaker 1: knowing exactly how injuries could occur is very important. So
32:07
Speaker 1: I can understand if the defense site is working with
32:10
Speaker 1: the medical examiner just to know what injuries there were
32:13
Speaker 1: and how or if there's another way they could have occurred.
32:17
Speaker 1: So you have this story, but it's a consistent with
32:20
Speaker 1: this doctor, and we could also say yes, so in
32:22
Speaker 1: a way that could help that the defense site. Also
32:25
Speaker 1: in the last hours, triple murder suspect Chris Watts unsuccessfully
32:29
Speaker 1: seeks to keep secret his visitational list in the jail.
32:36
Speaker 1: Judge Judge Marcelo cop Cow has just ruled against the
32:40
Speaker 1: motion from What's his lawyers requesting the sheriff's at the
32:44
Speaker 1: jail to be barred from disclosing information about visits to
32:49
Speaker 1: him in Colorado's Willed County jail. Now we all know
32:55
Speaker 1: that Watts is thirty three years old and he has
32:57
Speaker 1: been there since he was arrested in the murders of
32:59
Speaker 1: his pregnant why Shenan, and his two daughters. Now in
33:04
Speaker 1: the decision, Judge Coopcow, though he does describe confidentiality and
33:11
Speaker 1: loyalty of people that work with the defense team. Nonetheless,
33:15
Speaker 1: he denies the request. It's because it's a public record.
33:19
Speaker 1: Instead of ordering the visitation logs being secret, he instructed
33:25
Speaker 1: the prosecution move to review the logs as necessary, with
33:30
Speaker 1: the defense being able to seek redactions. So I'm not
33:34
Speaker 1: sure exactly how the judge is landing on this. It
33:37
Speaker 1: sounds like he's redacting possibly the experts that come to
33:42
Speaker 1: visit behind bars while keeping everything else public. Um very
33:48
Speaker 1: very unusual move. To Ellen Colauren, do we have any
33:53
Speaker 1: idea where his defense is headed. Well, one thing that
33:57
Speaker 1: we could possibly look at is the fact as as
34:02
Speaker 1: one of one of the one of the panelists was saying,
34:05
Speaker 1: who's coming to visit him? And why does he want
34:07
Speaker 1: to keep that a secret? When I'm online spoke to
34:10
Speaker 1: the man who had an affair with who claims to
34:13
Speaker 1: have had an affair with Chris Watts. He said that
34:15
Speaker 1: prosecutors have wanted and and and the defense team have
34:20
Speaker 1: been wanting to talk to him, and he told me
34:23
Speaker 1: that he didn't want to talk to any authorities without
34:27
Speaker 1: Chris Watts being present, because he would he wanted both
34:30
Speaker 1: of them to be in the same place because he
34:32
Speaker 1: felt that Chris would try and lie and misrepresent the situation.
34:36
Speaker 1: Now that's pure speculation, but it seems like it's one
34:39
Speaker 1: possibility because up until very recently, reports had been saying
34:43
Speaker 1: that Chris Wats wasn't taking many visitors at all. So
34:46
Speaker 1: why the sudden in secrecy. Who came out of the woodwork?
34:49
Speaker 1: Another development that were getting in the last hours, and
34:52
Speaker 1: this goes to you, Karen Smith, forensics expert. When the
34:56
Speaker 1: bodies of Shennan Watts and the two little girls were
34:59
Speaker 1: discovered at that Colorado oil field, police found something reportedly
35:04
Speaker 1: on the scene that might further link the death too
35:08
Speaker 1: Shenann's husband. It was a bag with a possible footprint,
35:15
Speaker 1: according to a prosecution motion that we have obtained now.
35:20
Speaker 1: In that motion, the state is asking to take a
35:24
Speaker 1: print of Chris Watts's bare feet to determine if his
35:29
Speaker 1: footprint matches what is on the bag. It makes me
35:35
Speaker 1: think that the bag must have somehow gotten entangled with
35:39
Speaker 1: the bodies in the home, because why would he be
35:44
Speaker 1: barefoot at an oil field. Karen Smith, How's this going
35:48
Speaker 1: to work? That's a great question. That's the first I've
35:51
Speaker 1: heard of that it has to have come from the
35:53
Speaker 1: home week We know that he took the bodies to
35:56
Speaker 1: the oil field. We know that that's where they were placed.
35:59
Speaker 1: So if they came from the home and he was
36:01
Speaker 1: their foot at the time, you know, I don't know,
36:05
Speaker 1: you know, these are the questions that I have. Was
36:07
Speaker 1: was it a bloody print? Was it a latent footprint
36:10
Speaker 1: which means invisible until it's enhanced. Um And I'm not
36:14
Speaker 1: quite sure how that would play into the scene unless
36:17
Speaker 1: it came from the daughter's room, unless it came from
36:20
Speaker 1: an area of the house that was remote from Chanan
36:24
Speaker 1: at the time. That's a great question. I'll look forward
36:27
Speaker 1: to see how that plays out with me. Dr Bethany Marshall,
36:30
Speaker 1: Dr Jane gorni At, Karen Smith, and Ellen Colauren Ellen.
36:34
Speaker 1: Prosecutors claim he murdered his family when his wife got
36:38
Speaker 1: back from a business trip, but now evidence is also
36:41
Speaker 1: emerging that he may have already killed the two little girls,
36:45
Speaker 1: and that Chanane comes in and finds them dead. He
36:49
Speaker 1: had been with him for the entire weekend taking care
36:52
Speaker 1: of them. They were a little little with a lot
36:55
Speaker 1: of demands, a lot of uh feeding and caring for
37:00
Speaker 1: two little girls that age. Did he just lose it
37:04
Speaker 1: taking care of the little girls and kill them? Ellen,
37:06
Speaker 1: I mean obviously didn't want to be in a marriage
37:08
Speaker 1: to start with. Now he's got another baby on the way,
37:11
Speaker 1: well exactly. That explanation that the little girls died before
37:16
Speaker 1: shen Shanon even got home is certainly a lot more
37:19
Speaker 1: plausible than the claims that he made that that mother
37:22
Speaker 1: who left her little little girl so much would hurt
37:25
Speaker 1: them in any way. There was a very short time
37:28
Speaker 1: between when Shannon came home and when he took them
37:32
Speaker 1: to an oil field and buried their bodies, just a
37:35
Speaker 1: few hours, So it certainly seems more than reasonable that
37:39
Speaker 1: investigators would be looking at the possibility that those little
37:42
Speaker 1: girls were already dead when when their mother got home.
37:46
Speaker 1: And yvorens the evidence in the investigation unfolding rapidly, and
37:49
Speaker 1: we wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing
37:54
Speaker 1: off Goodbye Friend one