American Murder on Netflix

[happinessischocolate]

Has anyone else watched this? I've just finished it, and I'm in tears. Why, why would anyone do that.

Wow that link above is chilling

I didn't know anything about this case and so when I began watching I had no idea as to whether Shannan and the children had been found or who had killed them. It was chilling and as soon as it got to the part where the neighbour shows the footage from his CCTV, the husband's body language completely changed, he couldn't look at the screen and put his hands on top of his head which in body language terms I think indicates the need to protect oneself.
Most awful was his disposal of his children's bodies. Why weren't they buried with their mother? It was as though he wanted to deny them being together.
To me it seemed totally premeditated, I think she came home, confronted him about his credit card spending which he wasn't expecting and he gaslighted her fears by having sex as she had felt rejected for weeks. When she was sleeping, that's when he strangled her. I also think the little girls were also no longer alive when he loaded up the car as surely they wouldn't have got into the car with being caught on camera by the neighbour.
Just awful.

His mistress looked so similar to Shannan.
The neighbour was on the ball about him going back and forth to the truck that morning, mentioning it was unusual for him to do that.
Absolute horror of a man, why can't they just get a divorce? How egotistical must you be to think you can get away with murdering your family?

I've just watched this today. It's a chilling documentary. I thought his dad was amazing when he disclosed to him. He was clearly shocked and devastated but remained on a level and didn't react so much. It must be so hard to discover that your child is a murderer.

I have no idea about the last hours of Shannan and the children but I'm sure that those children felt fearful of the person who should have protected them and that is unforgivable.

I can't get over him greeting the police by shaking their hand hours after anhiilating his family.

Boy, that was harrowing.

I do not understand why he killed two children who adored him and whom he adored as well as his pregnant wife. Why not just separate and divorce like other people?

There was no clue as to why and that bugs me; he'd never given any indication of being weird or violent, quite the contrary.

An absolute horror.

Apparently they went bankrupt a couple of years before she died. I knew that money would be involved somewhere.

I wonder when the police found out that he'd de-enrolled the girls from school that morning. I presume they would have made enquiries with the school quite early on to see whether Shannan had been there to drop them off. We didn't hear them mention that when questioning them though. I would have liked to hear how he explained that one when he was still denying it.

Like someone else said upthread, the friend really ruined his plans by alerting the authorities so early on. He was probably planning on sending some messages from her phone later etc in an attempt to create a story.

@HollowTalk

Apparently they went bankrupt a couple of years before she died. I knew that money would be involved somewhere.

Did he have life insurance on Shannan do you know?

I watched it it was heartbreaking but compelling viewing. I thought the neighbour was spot on when he said straight away to the police officer that the dad wasn't acting right. And you can almost see the exact moment the female officer doing the lie detector test realised he was lying.

If the police had found searches on the mistresses internet as has been implied, then surely she would have been arrested as an accessory to murder?

I have just finished watching it, had to fast forward when he started talking about what happened to the girls at the end I am afraid I couldn't handle that. Fascinating film but so disturbing.

I felt sick and chilled watching the film. Reading that link made me feel even worse. There are some truly awful bastards living.

@happinessischocolate I thought that but the more I research it the more I think she's involved. Her phone pinged off a cell phone early hours of the morning of the murders right near the watts home but she didn't live any where near there.

I watched it last night. I just don't understand how he could have done that. Those lovely little girls and Shannan was pregnant with a much wanted (apparently) son. He just seemed to feel so sorry for himself rather than remorseful for what he'd done.

It was a heartbreaking documentary well done the friend and neighbour, apparently it wasn't a very thorough documentary and there's better podcasts,, material on YouTube. Apparently the evidence suggested that the mistress and mom was far more culpable too.

People saying why not just divorce- because in his twisted mind it was quicker and easier with them completely gone. A divorce would be time consuming and expensive plus he’d still have 3 kids he didn’t want. Murder wiped the slate clean. Horrific.

I believe he took the girls to a birthday party the day before he killed them and told his co worker vis text whilst there that he was going g to be at the isolated oil rig to test it, so to take his time. This co work was the only person who works there normally but he didn't arrive til 9/10 as there was no need Chris was there.. do he left his house at 4/5 he had at least 3-4 hours to do what he did. He did unroll his kids at school though

Dr Phil. Has a fantastic pod series on this as does sword and scale.

GRAPHIC INFO PLEASE DONT READ FURTHER IF TRIGGERED BY BABY LOSS

Chris watts said in a police interview not on this documentary that he knew she was dead when she peed, and then later realised that that was her waters breaking.

@MrsGrindah

People saying why not just divorce- because in his twisted mind it was quicker and easier with them completely gone. A divorce would be time consuming and expensive plus he’d still have 3 kids he didn’t want. Murder wiped the slate clean. Horrific.

Also I suspect he is a narcissist. If so he wouldn’t have wanted to be made to look bad, or to be put in a position where he’s confronted by his own wrong behaviour. Divorcing a pregnant woman with two small children who suffers from a chronic illness so you can be with your mistress would have been terrible optics, and he’d have had to face the consequences of his actions.

This has really stuck with me since I watched it the other night. I've watched the beginning of it several times, because it's just incomprehensible to know where he's just come from when we first see him on the police officer's bodycam. It's so telling that the neighbour knew straight away that he was guilty. He stood next to that TV screen whilst they all watched him loading his car up.

So smart of the investigating officer to ask whether he killed Shannan after witnessing her kill the children because he's such a "good dad". They knew that didn't happen but it was the start of him confessing.

If anyone's interested there's a YouTube channel called JCS Criminal Psychology which goes into detail about his behaviour during the interviews and also explains some of the tactics used by the investigators when interviewing him.

It such a disturbing yet compelling case.

@AltheaThoon
'So smart of the investigating officer to ask whether he killed Shannan after witnessing her kill the children because he's such a "good dad". They knew that didn't happen but it was the start of him confessing.'

I noticed this as well. This basically gave him the idea to blame Shannan for killing the kids. You could see his mind working when the officer suggested this. It was a way to 'lessen' what he had done and look like a good dad still. He then fed this story to his Dad.

Yep. And then they worked to completely pull the story apart for not making sense. Which, of course, it didn't.

I watched it on Saturday and can't believe someone can be so calculated and cold, he had no emotion on his face in court, how on earth could he have hurt any of them in that way. And reading that link with the letters and the little girls breaks my heart, the fear they must have felt. He's truly an evil person

This was very disturbing. I don't understand how he thought he could ever get away with that.

ifoneremememberstoturnonthelight- he's talked an awful lot of shite to a frankly strange fundamentalist Christian woman who's written up the stuff they've exchanged in letters though. The graphic thing you mention did not happen, and there's a reason that even the prosecution did not release the autopsy reports, i.e. a lot of unpleasantness that would not have affected the verdict at all, but could compromise the dignity of the victims in such a public case. Also, a lot of strong feelings have been stirred up by the anti-choice lobby involved in the legal side of adding the pregnancy to the murder charges. I'd take anything about those kind of details with a huge pinch of salt.

There is the full police report available to look at, was over 2,000 pages on my phone.

One thing which struck me was that as this report would be viewed by the public, why wasn’t the girlfriend ( also a victim here) protected. The report detailed her internet activity as well as semi naked images she had sent to Chris or he had taken of her.