Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening
a file that I think a lot of people, you know,
they think they know. Right. It's a story that
was just splashed across every headline, every
Facebook feed, and then of course that massive
Netflix documentary. But here's the thing. When
a story gets that big that fast, we tend to memorize
the bullet points. Yeah, you get the highlights.
Exactly. And you miss the actual human machinery
that's working underneath it all. We are talking,
of course, about the Watts family murders of
2018. And it is a case that has just stuck with
people, I think, largely because it dismantled
a very, very specific American archetype. Yes.
You had Christopher Watts, Shanann Watts, they're
two beautiful little girls, Bella and Celeste,
and they were living in Frederick, Colorado.
To anyone just scrolling past on social media,
they were like the absolute definition of the
family next door. And that phrase, the family
next door, it really puts a lot away. on this
whole discussion, doesn't it? It really does.
Because if you've seen the Netflix documentary
American Murder, you know it felt different from
other true crime docs. It wasn't just, you know,
talking heads and reenactments. No, it was their
footage. It was their footage. It was found footage
in the truest sense. All their text messages,
the police body hams, and just hours and hours
of Shanann's own Facebook Live videos. And that
is such a crucial psychological component here.
Shanann... through her social media she really
created this uh this parasocial relationship
with the public even before the tragedy so people
felt like they knew her They felt like they knew
her. She documented everything, the highs, her
health struggles, the kids singing in the car,
the vacations. It created this digital intimacy.
So when people watched that documentary, they
didn't feel like they were watching a stranger.
They felt like they were watching a friend. Which
makes the betrayal feel so much more personal
to the viewer. Exactly. But that digital footprint,
it's also a bit of a trap, isn't it? We were
only seeing the curated version. We saw the highlight
reel. The highlight reel, yeah. And the mission
of this deep dive is to go into the editing room,
so to speak, look at what was left on the cutting
floor and really try to understand the darkness
that was simmering behind those iPhone lenses.
Precisely. We need to move past just the timeline
of events and get into the pathology. And to
do that, we are leaning very heavily on a specific
document that I think. changes the entire context
of this crime. Right. We're not just relying
on news reports. Oh, we're unpacking the 2019
interview that was conducted by the Colorado
Bureau of Investigation, the CBI, inside the
prison. And just to clarify for everyone listening,
this is not the confession we all saw on the
news back in 2018. This happened months later.
Right. A totally different thing. The 2018 confession
was, it was a strategic lie. It was damage control
on his part. But in February 2019, agents Tammy
Lee and Graham Cota They traveled to the prison
in Wisconsin where Chris is serving his life
sentence. And they sit down with him for hours.
No cameras, just audio recorders. And in that
environment. The mask just completely came off.
He revealed his internal state, the real sequence
of events and thoughts that are, frankly, terrifying
in their clarity. So it's the difference between
knowing what happened and knowing what it felt
like for him to make it happen. That's a perfect
way to put it. So before we get into all the
grim details, can you help us frame this psychologically?
What are we dealing with here? We are discussing
the concept of the family annihilator. It's a
very specific and just a harrowing category of
criminality. always involves a father, often
the good provider type, who murders his entire
family. And there's almost always a deep tension
involved. It's a tension between a very carefully
constructed public self and a hidden, crumbling
reality. In this case, you have the digital self,
the happy videos, the thriving lifestyle clashing
directly with domestic friction, financial ruin,
and a secret life. And the really scary part,
I think, is the disconnect in his demeanor. You
watch Chris Watts in those home videos, and he
just seems kind of boring. He's passive. He's
the quiet guy in the background holding the baby.
He's not the guy you see screaming or punching
walls. And that's the family next door illusion
in action. We all have this bias where we assume
monsters look like monsters. We assume they'll
act erratic or aggressive. But Chris Watts was...
A nice guy. He was passive. He just went with
the flow. And as we're going to see from that
CBI report, that passivity wasn't a virtue. It
was a vacuum. He just let things happen to him
until he decided to assert control in the most
destructive way possible. So let's go back to
the beginning, the foundation. Before all the
horror, there was a history. Chris was from North
Carolina. Shanann was from North Carolina. They
met back in 2010. Right. Chris was about 25 when
they met. He was working as a mechanic. Shanann
was dealing with lupus, which is, you know, a
very serious autoimmune condition. And Chris
really stepped into that caretaker role early
on. He helped her organize her life. He went
to her doctor's appointments. Shanann actually,
well, her friends told investigators that Chris
wasn't really her type initially. Oh, really?
Yeah, but he was persistent. He offered stability.
So they get married in 2012 and move to Colorado.
And on paper, it looks like they're chasing the
American dream. Big house in Frederick, nice
neighborhood. Yep. Chris gets a good job at Anadarko
Petroleum, which is a solid blue -collar job
with good pay. And Shanann was working in multi
-level marketing, specifically for a company
called Lavelle, selling Thrive products. But,
and this is a huge but, if we peel back that
financial layer, the rot was already there. The
CBI report highlights that despite this appearance
of wealth, They filed for bankruptcy in 2015.
2015? Wait, that's three full years before the
murders. Three years, yes. And despite that bankruptcy,
it's supposed to be, you know, a reset button,
they were back in the hole almost immediately.
They bought a massive five -bedroom house that
they absolutely could not afford. They had high
HOA fees. By 2018, they were behind on their
mortgage payments again. Shanann was apparently
paying the HOA fees to the wrong address for
an entire year. The financial pressure cooker
was just whistling. But Chris claimed in that
big interview that he didn't know the extent
of it. He played ignorant. He did. He claimed
total ignorance. He said Shanann handled all
the finances and he just brought home the paycheck.
He said he was blind to it all. Which fits that
pattern of passivity you were talking about.
It's his whole M .O. I just live here. I don't
run the ship. But that also means he felt he
had absolutely no control over his own financial
survival. I want to pivot for a second to the
Thrive aspect. Yeah. Because I think in a lot
of the public discussion, people kind of gloss
over it as just Shanann's job. But in the prison
interview, Chris talks a lot about using the
products himself. Oh, yeah. Specifically, something
called the Duo Burn Patch. This is a detail that
needs some serious unpacking because the physiology
here is critical. These patches, they're transdermal
delivery systems. They aren't just... you know,
vitamins, they are pumping stimulants directly
into your bloodstream. Simulants like what? Things
like caffeine, willow bark for scolin, and Chris
was wearing them constantly. And he described
a pretty intense... physical reaction he wasn't
just feeling like a little more perky not at
all he told the agents that the patches gave
him this surge of energy where he felt like he
could go longer and longer he mentioned specifically
that his apple watch would register a really
high heart rate like he was in a workout zone
even when he was just sitting on the couch so
his resting heart rate is just jacked all the
time constantly what about his sleep and this
this is the massive red flag he told the agents
he was sleeping about three hours a night Three
hours? For how long was this going on? For weeks
leading up to the murders. And he told them he
wasn't tired. He was just wired. Okay, let's
just stop there. We have to look at the biology
of that. If a human being is only sleeping three
hours a night for weeks on end, while also pumping
stimulants into their system, what is actually
happening to their brain? Well, you are entering
a state of severe cognitive degradation. I mean,
sleep deprivation studies show that chronic restriction
hits the prefrontal cortex first. Which is the
executive function part of the brain. Exactly.
It's where your impulse control, your emotional
regulation, and your empathy. It's where all
that lives. It's the brakes of the brain. So
you're saying he was basically chemically eroding
his own ability to hit the brakes on any impulse.
I'm saying he created a physiological environment
where he was likely paranoid, hyper -focused,
and emotionally blunted. You combine that biological
state with massive financial stress and a high
stakes secret affair. You are creating a cocktail
that mimics a psychotic break. It doesn't excuse
it, obviously. No, of course not. It doesn't
excuse the murder. Plenty of insomniacs don't
kill their families, but it does help explain
the mechanism of the snap. He was operating on
a razor's edge biologically. And while he's walking
this razor's edge, the family dynamic just completely
implodes. The CBI report dives deep into this
incident they call Nutgate. And I have to say,
the name sounds ridiculous. Dude, it sounds silly.
Like a pabloid headline. But the fallout from
it was absolutely nuclear. It sounds trivial,
but in family systems theory, this is what you'd
call a rupture event. It happened in the summer
of 2018. Shanann took the girls to North Carolina
to visit family for about five weeks. Chris stayed
back in Colorado for work, at least initially.
Okay. When they were visiting Chris's parents,
there was an incident involving Celeste and her
nut allergy. And Celeste was three? And her allergy
was like life -threatening, right? Correct. Anaphylactic.
Chris's mother apparently served ice cream or
had chips out that contained nuts. Shanann felt
it was negligent, maybe even malicious, and she
just went ballistic. She felt her mother -in
-law was actively endangering her child. And
this wasn't just a simple argument at the dinner
table. This was a complete severance of their
relationship. A total break. Shanann stopped
speaking to Chris's parents entirely. She told
Chris he wasn't allowed to talk to them either.
There was a text message exchange where she essentially
said, you will never see your grandchildren again.
Wow. And where was Chris in all of this? Caught
right in the kill zone. And this is so key to
his psychology. He told the CVI he felt completely
isolated. He had always been a mama's boy in
some respects. He was very close to his dad.
And suddenly, the woman he married has just cut
the cord between him and his entire family of
origin. He felt he had to choose sides. And outwardly,
he chose Shanann, but inwardly. Inwardly, he
was completely untethered. He lost his primary
support system. He was angry at Shanann for putting
him in that position. And now he's all alone
in Colorado while they're still in North Carolina
for weeks. Alone in Colorado. Yeah. With an empty
house. With the thrive patches pumping. And that
is exactly when the catalyst enters the picture.
Let's move to the affair. Enter Nicole Kessinger.
She was a co -worker of his at Anadarko Petroleum.
They met around June of 2018. The way Chris talks
about this relationship in the prison interview
is just fascinating. He doesn't just talk about
the sex. He talks about how she made him feel
about himself. It's a classic case of limerence.
That's the clinical term for that state of infatuation,
the obsession with a new romantic object. Chris
told the agents he felt in control. With Nickel.
In control. Yeah. He said that with Shanann,
he was always the passenger. Shanann made all
the decisions. Shanann was the dominant personality.
But Nickel, she asked for his opinion. She had
asked him what he wanted to eat, what he wanted
to do. He said he felt like he could finally
be himself. He used some really strong metaphors
in that interview. He described the affair as
a leash that she was using to tug him away from
his family. But the one that really haunts me
is the blindfold. Oh, the blindfold comment is
deeply revealing. He said, every time I was with
her, I felt like there was a blinder in my face.
He was essentially blocking out his own reality.
So when he was with her? When he was with Nickel,
the debts didn't exist. The screaming poddlers
didn't exist. The angry pregnant wife didn't
exist. He was living in this complete fantasy
world where he was a successful, fit, independent
bachelor. And he was acting like a bachelor.
Yeah. He talked about experiencing firsts all
over again. Yes. While his family was away, he
was actively dating Nickel. They went camping
at the Great Sand Dunes. They went drag racing
at Bandimere Speedway. They visited the Shelby
Car Museum. Things he liked to do. These were
things Chris loved cars, the outdoors, but felt
he couldn't do in his married life. He was test
driving a completely new identity. There's a
detail from that time that just really sticks
with me. He deleted his Facebook. He did. Now,
in 2018, for a guy whose wife practically lived
her entire life on Facebook, that is a massive
move. Why did he do that? He told the CBI he
did it because Nicole had told her friends about
him. He was terrified that her friends would
look him up, find his profile, and see very,
very clearly that he was married with two kids
and a pregnant wife. So this is active concealment.
This isn't just going with the flow anymore.
This is him actively erasing his family. Exactly.
And we have to talk about the discard phase here.
In the psychology of this kind of affair, the
new partner represents the dopamine hit. The
old family, they represent the stressor. Over
those few weeks, his family stopped being people
in his mind. They became obstacles. They became
obstacles. They were just the things standing
in the way of the high he was getting from Nickel.
He even admitted that Nickel was looking up apartments
for him. They were actually planning a future
together. They were. And you have to remember.
All this is happening while Shanann is pregnant.
She was 15 weeks pregnant with their third child,
a boy they were going to name Nico. Wow. Chris
admitted in the interview that when he found
out about the pregnancy, he wasn't excited. He
was scared because a baby is an anchor. It locked
him into the old life just as he was desperately
trying to float away into the new one. So let's
fast forward. The morning of August 13th. The
catalyst has been engaged. The cracks in the
foundation are wide open. Shanann returns home
from a business trip to Arizona. It's 1 .48 a
.m. Her friend, Nicol Atkinson, drops her off.
We have that grainy doorbell camera footage of
Shanann walking up to the door. It is the last
time she is ever seen alive. In the initial investigation,
Chris lied about everything that happened next.
But in that 2019 prison interview, he walks the
agents through the bedroom scene. And it is.
It's just disturbing in its intimacy. It's deeply
disturbing. He claims that when Shanann got into
bed, she was the one who initiated sex and he
engaged with her. Which just seems insane given
that he was already planning to leave her. Why
would he do that? He described it to the agents
as a test. He said he felt strange doing it.
He called it a trigger point or like pushing
a button on a bomb. A test for what? He was checking
to see if there was any spark left, any connection
at all. And he realized in the act that there
was nothing. For him, it was the final confirmation
that he was completely done. So they fall asleep.
Or at least he says they did. Then he wakes her
up. He wakes her up to tell her it's over. He
tells her he doesn't love her anymore. He tells
her they aren't compatible. And this is where
the story pivots to the act of violence itself.
He's straddling her on the bed. She's crying.
She realizes there must be someone else. And
she said something to him. According to Chris's
account, Shanann says you're never going to see
the kids again. And that was the trigger. That
was the moment he claims he snapped. He says
he just put his hands around her neck. But here,
this is where we have to stop and apply the science.
We hear the word snapped and we think of a split
second reaction like throwing a punch. Right.
But strangulation doesn't work that way. It's
not instantaneous. Because he said he couldn't
let go. Right. He told the agents, why couldn't
I just let go? But strangulation takes, on average,
two to four minutes to cause death. Two to four
minutes. Let's just sit with that for a second.
That is 120 to 240 seconds. Count to 10 in your
head right now. It feels like a long time. Now
imagine doing that 12 times over or more. He
had minutes to stop. He had minutes to look at
her face, to see the fear, to think about the
son that she was carrying. And he sustained that
pressure. That is not a snap. That is a decision
being made over and over and over again, second
by second. He also mentioned a thought he had
before it happened. He said it felt like the
idea was implanted in his mind. Implanted. Like
it was premeditated. But he wants to distance
himself from the ownership of the idea. It's
a way of deflecting responsibility. He said he
woke up that morning knowing it was going to
happen. That directly contradicts the idea of
a sudden rage. It suggests a grim inevitability.
He knew the only way out was through them. And
then. Yeah. That was the most harrowing part
of the 2019 confession. In his original story,
the one he told his dad, he said he killed Shanann
in a rage. She killed the kids. Yes. That was
a story the entire world lived with for months.
A complete and total lie. In the 2019 interview,
he finally reveals that after he killed Shanann,
Bella walked into the room. Bella, his four -year
-old daughter, she walked into their bedroom
holding her blanket. She saw her mother's body
wrapped in a sheet on the bed. And she asked,
what's wrong with mommy? This changes everything.
The children were alive. They were alive. And
this leads us to the section of the story that
is just the hardest to get through. The drive.
We really need to slow down here. Because this
isn't just a transport. This is a journey into
hell. It is. He loads Shanann's body into the
floorboard of his work truck. And then he puts
his two living daughters, Bella and Celeste,
into the back seat. Just try to imagine the sensory
experience inside that truck. It's dark. It's
early morning. He's driving to the Anadarko oil
site, a place called Servini 319. It is a 45
-minute drive. 45 minutes. Most of us can't handle
a 45 -minute commute with traffic. He is driving
with his murdered wife at his feet and his living
children sitting right behind him. And they are
talking to him. Bella complained about the smell.
She said, Daddy. It smells. Because after death,
Shanann's body had released its bowels. It's
the biological reality of death. The smell would
have been overpowering in that small cab. And
Chris, what did he do? He just drove. He told
the CBI he was on autopilot. He said he wasn't
thinking. But I challenge that. He was navigating.
He was obeying traffic laws. He was planning
the disposal. This is profound dissociation.
How does the human mind even do that? How do
you not just... Pull over, turn the car around,
do something. It's a psychological break called
depersonalization. He had already crossed the
Rubicon when he killed Shanann. In his mind,
the family was already gone. He wasn't seeing
them as his daughters anymore. He was seeing
them as loose ends. He was in task mode. Transport.
Dispose. Finish. So they get to the oil site.
He buries Shanann first. In a shallow grave.
He noted specifically in the interview that the
ground was hard. He actually broke the rake he
was using. He was frustrated by it. And the girls
are just watching this. They're in the truck.
They're watching him dig a hole. They asked him,
what are you doing to mommy? Oh, my God. That's
true. And he goes back to the truck. He takes
Celeste, Cece first. She was three years old.
He used her own blue Yankees blanket to smother
her. And Bella's sitting right there. Bella's
sitting right next to her. She watches her father
kill her little sister. Then he takes Celeste's
body. And we have to be graphic here because
the cruelty is the entire point. He takes her
to the oil tanks. The hatch size. The hatch opening
was only eight inches in diameter. Eight inches.
A standard sheet of paper is eight and a half
inches wide. Yeah. He had to physically force
those little bodies through that hole. Jesus.
He dropped Celeste into one tank. Then he went
back to the truck for Bella. And Bella. She knew
what was coming. She knew. She was four, but
she was smart. She asked him, is the same thing
going to happen to me as Cece? Oh, no. And her
final words to him, words he claims he hears
every single night in his cell were, Daddy, no.
That is just, that is the sound of absolute betrayal.
Daddy, no. And he did it anyway. He smothered
her. And he put her in the other tank. He separated
the entire family. Shanann in the ground. Celeste
in one tank. Bella in another. He told the CBI
later, I was angry at Shanann and I took it out
on the kids. It was an act of total annihilation.
He didn't just kill them. He submerged them in
crude oil. He wanted them to disappear completely.
He wanted to wash them out of existence. And
then he gets back in his truck and just drives
away. Like nothing happened. He ate a sandwich
later that day. That leads us right into the
cover -up. Because this is where the whole mastermind
theory just completely falls apart. He drives
away and the mask goes back on. but it doesn't
fit right anymore. No, it's slipping immediately.
He does things that make absolutely no sense
for a grieving or worried husband. He calls the
girls' school to unenroll them. Wait, hold on.
He called the school that morning. The same morning.
That same morning, before anyone had even reported
them missing. That is just idiotic. If you were
pretending your wife took the kids to a play
date or something, why on earth would you unenroll
them from school? Because he was just checking
things off a to -do list in his head. In his
mind, they were gone. He was cutting ties. Sell
house, cancel school, start new life. He wasn't
simulating grief. He was executing a logistical
plan. He also called a realtor to discuss selling
the house. It's so transactional. It's like he
was cleaning out a closet to make room for new
stuff. Exactly. But he made a critical, critical
error. He fell victim to what we call the narcissist's
error. He completely underestimated the intelligence
and intuition of the people around him. He thought
he was smarter than everyone else. He thought
he could just say they left and everyone would
believe him because he's good guy Chris. He did
not account for Nicole Atkinson. Shanann's friend.
She is the hero of this story without a doubt.
She really is. She knew Shanann's routine intimately.
Shanann didn't answer her texts. She missed a
doctor's appointment. Nicole didn't wait 24 hours
to file a report. She went to the house. She
called the police. She forced Chris's hand. She
knew something was wrong. Immediately. If not
for her, he might have had days to cover his
tracks. But because of her, the police were there
by that afternoon. And we have all that body
cam footage of him arriving home to help the
police. He's running around opening doors. It's
just acting. And it's bad acting. He was doing
what he thought a worried husband should do,
but there was no genuine emotion behind it. He
was sweating profusely. He was fidgeting. And
then he did the porch interview. Ah, yes. The
famous interview with the news stations. He's
standing there, arms crossed, kind of swaying
back and forth. Experts analyze that footage
constantly. There's something called duping delight.
It's a subtle smirk that happens when a liar
thinks they're getting away with it. And you
see flashes of it. You see flashes of it. But
mostly you see a flat effect. He talks about
them in the past tense. He says, I want them
back. But his eyes are just dead. He wasn't crying.
He wasn't frantic. He was just blank. So the
police, obviously, they are not buying this story
at all. The FBI gets involved. The CBI gets involved.
They bring him in for a polygraph test. Which
he fails, just miserably. He scored a negative
18, which is a number that strongly implies deception.
And then comes the interrogation room. Agents
Tammy Lee and Graham Coder. And they were just
masterful. They were. They used this technique
where they essentially dismantled his reality.
piece by piece. But the key moment, the turning
point, was when he asked to speak to his father,
Ronnie Watts. His dad was in the building at
the time. He was. They had brought him in. Chris
asked for him. And in that room with just his
dad, he admitted that he killed Shanann. But,
and this is the crucial manipulative part, he
blamed her. He told his dad, she hurt the kids.
I killed her because she killed them. Why did
he choose that specific lie? It seems so calculated.
Because the agents gave it to him. It's a very
common technique called minimization. In an interrogation,
investigators will offer a suspect a moral out.
They'll say things like, did you do something
to hurt the kids? Were you defending them? We
know you're not a monster. They give them a more
palatable story to tell. Exactly. They provide
a narrative where the suspect can confess to
the act but deny the malicious intent. And Chris
latched onto that immediately. It allowed him
to confess to the murder of his wife while trying
to maintain some twisted moral high ground as
the avenging father. It's just the height of
cowardice. It's incredibly cowardly. He tarnished
her memory, the mother of his children, just
to try and save his own skin. He let the world
believe for weeks that Shanann, a truly devoted
mother, had murdered her own children. But eventually
the evidence was just too strong. He pleaded
guilty to all counts. He had to. The GPS and
his work truck placed him at the oil site for
the exact amount of time needed. The bodies were
found exactly where he eventually said they were.
He pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty
in Colorado. Which brings us to the final chapter,
Reflections from Prison. He's serving multiple
life sentences without parole. And in 2019, the
CBI goes back to talk to him. What does his life
even look like now? It's a strange paradoxical
existence. He told the agents he has photos of
Shanann and the girls up in his cell. Wait, wait.
He keeps photos of the people he murdered in
his prison cell. He does. He tossed them. He
reads a book to his deceased daughters every
single night. He reads them the same book he
used to read to Celeste. He mixes it with scripture.
That is... I don't even know what the word for
that is. It feels completely delusional. It's
a way of compartmentalizing. He has separated
the Chris who killed them from the Chris who
loves them. He speaks as if it was some dark
force that took him over. He calls it a dark
shadow. He mentioned that in the interview. He
said he felt possessed by rage. He said I'm not
the monster. He's trying to externalize the evil.
He's saying he couldn't control it. But again,
that completely contradicts his own statements
about the premeditation, that implanted idea.
He wants to be the victim of his own rage rather
than the author of it. And then there's the fan
mail. Yes. This is a very disturbing phenomenon
in true crime. He receives letters from women
all over the world. Some of it is hate mail,
of course, calling him a monster. But many are
romantic, women who think he's misunderstood.
Women who want to save him. It's that Ted Bundy
effect. Hybristophilia, a clinical attraction
to those who commit crimes. Chris seems sort
of baffled by it, but also a little flattered.
He talked about one woman who wrote to him four
times a week. It just feeds that deep -seated
narcissism that was there all along. In the 2019
interview, he does finally officially clear.
Shanann's name. He did. And that was the most
important thing for the Rosedick family, Shanann's
parents. They had been dealing with these horrible
internet trolls calling Shanann abusive or a
narcissist because of Chris's initial lie. In
2019, Chris admitted she was a good mother. He
admitted she wasn't abusive. He admitted there
was no domestic violence until the moment he
killed her. He also reflected on the thrive patches
again, didn't he? He did. He wonders if the patches
played a role. He wonders if he would have snapped
if he wasn't so sleep deprived. He's constantly
looking for these external reasons. Was it the
patches? Was it the affair? Was it the finances?
And the real answer is probably all of the above.
It's a convergence of factors. But we have to
be very clear. Plenty of people go bankrupt.
plenty of people have affairs. Plenty of people
have overbearing in -laws. They don't put their
children in oil tanks. The missing piece is Chris
himself. His profound lack of empathy, his inability
to confront conflict in any kind of a healthy
way. He chose the most destructive path possible
because it was the only way he could see to just
delete his problems. It's the fresh start fallacy.
He thought if he just got rid of the old life,
the new life would just begin, clean slate. He
didn't realize the old life consisted of human
beings. He treated them like objects, like debts
to be canceled or furniture to be thrown out.
And that is the true horror of the family annihilator.
The family becomes disposable property. So after
all this, what does this all mean for us? We
started this by talking about the illusion, the
curated digital life. I think that's the big
lingering lesson here. We rely so much on social
media to understand the people around us. We
see the posts, the smiles, the perfect families.
But those posts are advertisements. They're not
documentaries. The reality of the Watts home
was financial terror, emotional isolation, and
a husband who was actively checking out of his
own marriage. It really makes you wonder how
well we truly know anyone. Chris Watts was the
quiet one. the nice neighbor, the guy who would
help you fix your car. And that's the provocative
thought I'd want to leave our listeners with.
We often look for the monster to have fangs.
We expect them to be angry, violent men with
long criminal records. Chris Watts had no criminal
record. He was polite. He was the family next
door. The capacity for this kind of evil can
hide behind a very banal, very ordinary mask.
And perhaps that's why this case haunts us so
much. It wasn't a stranger in a dark alley. It
was the man sleeping in the bed next door. Precisely.
It is a heavy one today. But it's important,
I think, to understand the reality behind the
headlines, to understand that the monster isn't
always who we think it is. And to remember Shanann,
Bella and Celeste, not just as victims in a Netflix
documentary, but as real people who deserved
a future that was stolen from them. Absolutely.
Thank you for listening. We will see you on the
next Deep Dive.