Eight years after leaving Pinecrest, and an unknown length of time after her divorce, Shan’ann met Chris on Facebook in 2010. At the time she was working in a call center of a children’s hospital in Neptune New Jersey for Meridian health. She described this period as the darkest time of her life when she was at her worst.
There are two Shan’ann Watts profiles on LinkedIn. One, with no profile picture, describes her as a registered nurse at Meridian Health in New Jersey. She describes herself under this profile as a dedicated employee and student wanting to refine her skills while pursuing higher education in nursing. The same profile lists her as a receptionist over the same six-and-a-half year period from 2006-2013 for Mike the Plumber in Red Bank New Jersey. [The distance between Red Bank and her home in Clifton is less than 50 miles].
Since the same profile lists a high school diploma from Red Bank Regional High School between 2002 and 2006, it appears Shan’ann may have dropped out of school at Pinecrest. At least four years after graduating, Shan’ann signed up at Brookdale Community College, in Lincroft New Jersey, to study nursing. If the profile is accurate, then she was studying while holding down two jobs, one as a receptionist and the other as a registered nurse.
A second LinkedIn profile, this one with a photo of Shan’ann, describes her as an 80K Brand Promoter operating in the Greater Denver Area for a company called LeVel.com. The entire description of who she is amounts to sales promo for Thrive.
Prior to her two years and nine months working for Le-Vel, Shan’ann worked as a call center agent connecting medical staff to patient families. The profile lists her work for the Colorado Children’s Hospital commencing June 2013 to the present. She doesn’t list any academic qualifications for either of these positions, but lists a single skill – in network marketing.
Perhaps the best source for her backstory is Shan’ann herself on her video posted on May 5th, but given that her history is conveyed while wearing the Thrive t-shirt, and doing a Thrive spiel, some of it should no doubt be taken with a pinch of salt. When talking about how she met Chris, Shan’ann provides the following context:
“Uhh…my health challenges happened. Um…I was diagnosed with uh…um…health challenges…[gulps emotionally] and…then I met Chris.”
Those health challenges were lupus and fibromyalgia, the former involving joint pain and stiffness, the latter tender areas over muscles. Treatment for lupus and fibromyalgia are completely different however.
“I met Chris because of those health challenges. Um…my friend actually sent me a friend suggestion for him. It was actually from his cousin’s wife. And…um…I deleted it.”
It’s not clear how Shan’ann sees that her health challenges caused her to meet Chris, especially if she met him on social media through someone else sending a friend suggestion. Perhaps she sees it that because of the health challenges she was single, and then he came along. Even so, and this is a tragic irony of this case, one has the sense that Chris may have wanted to be married in order to be part of normal society, but he wanted to be with someone not weak necessarily, but someone who wouldn’t demand much of him, or push him around.
“Like…I’m not interested…I don’t wanna meet a guy. Um, so I deleted her friend suggestion for him…I was diagnosed two months later…and I went through…I would say…one of the darkest times of my life because things just got scarier. Um…worse.”
The fact that Shan’ann didn’t know which way to turn during this “darkest period” is revealing. Couldn’t turn to her parents? Couldn’t she turn to her brother? Since her murder, her younger brother Frankie has expressed regret that he wasn’t able to “protect” her. Well, about eight years ago in 2010? It’s also worth noting that she had no friends then, though it seems a stretch to think her illness or her moods as a result of the illness, drove them away.
“I thought my life was crumbling underneath me and I didn’t know which way to turn. I didn’t have a lotta friends at the time because [Deeter barks]…friends I did have I lost because they didn’t understand that I looked perfectly fine, and I felt horribly inside. Um…horribly. I felt a lot of discomforts. A lot of aches. A lot of bad moods.”
If she had genuine friends, then if anything, the illness would have brought those close to her even closer. There’s an impression of Shan’ann on social media in 2018 that she doesn’t have any friends either. There are constantly people around her, but these are invariably promotors or people involved in selling. There’s no one standing out in life as a friend of hers, with nothing to do with Thrive, and no one – for that matter – in death, clearly identified as her best friend. Her biggest supporter, arguably, is her brother and parents, and they both lived hundreds of miles away.
It’s likely that Shan’ann’s intense promotion work on Facebook for Thrive drove away the best people in her life, and destroyed the best friendships prior to her taking the job. Consider how the multi-level marketing system works – a promoter is meant to engulf everyone they know, their entire networks – friends and family – in exhausting sales promotion. In some forums that discuss the aftermath of multi-level marketing, they describe significant tears in the social fabric, where friends are lost, family are alienated and often, couples break up or divorce.
“But on top of all of that, when I got sick I reached out to support groups online. And I built relationships with so many – so many people that have similar health challenges or the same, and we’ve built a relationships stronger than some relationships I’ve known for over 20 years. Some that I’ve known over – my whole life. And these people are in my life for a reason.”
What we also see is the focus, the prioritizing, of Shan’ann’s online life and online support, rather than resources in the real world, with real people. One may be dismissive of her meeting her husband-to-be on Facebook as merely a symptom of modern society, but this was eight years ago when Facebook itself was barely two to three years old.
“Um…I met a lotta friends online…annddd in the part where I gave up on everything, I quit my job [it was kinda temporarily] of nine years. I just said I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. You don’t understand me. You don’t understand what’s going on in my life and I quit. And…I…gotta friend suggestion-friend request from Chris. [Smiles]
Looking at Shan’ann’s LinkedIn, it’s difficult to reconcile any job she had in 2010 for nine years. That would put her back in high school. She doesn’t mention what the job was, at this point, but says she felt misunderstood. Again, it’s difficult to say if this was the receptionist job, or the call center job, both or neither. And the solution to this misunderstood-feeling amidst a career crisis was Chris. A friend suggestion [or request] from him turned her whole life around. See how and why there’s a sense of low self-esteem in 2010, of Shan’ann seeing herself as an emotionally compromised ugly duckling?
“I was in a really really really bad place, and I gotta friend suh-friend request from Chris on Facebook. And I was like – uhhhh, what the heck. I’m never gonna meet him. Accept. Well one thing led to another and eight years later we have two kids, [gushes breathlessly] we live in Colorado and he…he’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Shan’ann glossing over the next part is unfortunate. She focusses on how they met [virtually] but reveals nothing on how they actually met when they met face to face, and what that involved. She seems to link accepting him as a friend on Facebook with getting married and having children, as though the click of a mouse was the same as a marriage vow.
“And because of my health challenges. Because I got so sick, I let him in. And he only knew me at that time. He knew me at my worst. And he accepted me.”
It’s difficult to understand what Shan’ann’s getting at by saying her health challenges were the reason she let him in, because initially she didn’t.
um…I deleted it… I’m not interested…I don’t wanna meet a guy.
Although she portrays the health crisis she entered as a positive, and that
it pulled her defenses down, it also meant she was emotionally dependent on him and not herself. As commendable as it may seem that Chris accepted her “at her worst”, it’s also possible he saw her as an opportunity then, because she had a house and he didn’t. Perhaps on some level, even consciously, the idea manifested in his mind that if she was so sickly, and if he married her, she might die and leave him the house.
If anything, the thought or the seed of the thought had to have been planted then. And perhaps as one child after another followed, and then a third, it became clear that there wasn’t going to be an easy way out of their financial dire straits. Certainly not working or as a family unit.
“And [brushes the hair off her face] you know, through your vows, like through sickness and everything…he’s been there.”
In sickness and in health, he was there…well, except he wasn’t. Not only wasn’t he there, we know what happened to Shan’ann and the kids in the end, and clearly, he was as opposite to “being there” as a husband and father could be. But at the same time, so was she. She was on business trips while he was stuck at home. He was seeing his weekends frittered away while she was elsewhere. If he wanted to be away and wanted to have affairs, then this state of affairs wasn’t good for him.
“He was the one who let me lay on him and fall asleep for 3-and-a-half hours, on his lap, while he had to pee. Um…he is the best thing that has ever-ever happened to me.”
Shan’ann’s example, her illustration of Chris’s dedication and sacrifice doesn’t feel very deep or invested. Letting her lie on him while he wanted to pee – that’s his badge of honor? Him lying there while his loins yearn to urinate - that’s what means so much to her in a marriage? What about real sacrifices, like taking the kids to school or looking after them?
“Know that no matter how hard life gets. No matter how low you feel, know that deep down, like in your heart, that’s there’s a purpose, there’s a reason – for everything.”
Shan’ann’s describing the meaning and purpose here as getting sick being a great gift that allowed her to meet Chris. It may be unfair, and seem cruel, to second-guess this assessment, but we do so not to judge Shan’ann but to see how and why and where we ought to second-guess our own meaning-constructs.
Life was getting hard for Shan’ann financially, and if she was aware of Chris’s infidelity, emotionally too. Those difficulties weren’t just part of the blur, or there being a reason for everything, serious financial debt has to be managed, adapted to, reined in. Infidelity has to be confronted, and perhaps she did.
Feeling low is an emotional communication, and the emotions never lie. The heart never lies. Feeling low when life gets hard suggests feeling overwhelmed, and then what one needs to do is stop and take stock, not barrel on with a fake smile and fake positivity. Thriving while dying ends up as dying, and not with a smile on one’s face.
Sickness can’t be spun into “a reason behind everything”. Lance Armstrong once said that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to him. Sitting on this side of history, was it really? We know a lot of the doping he did probably caused the cancer in the first place. In Shan’ann’s cause, had she had no health problems to begin with, perhaps she wouldn’t have become a nurse, and perhaps she would have seen no need to associate herself – fuse her identity even – to a brand pretending to be all about wellness.
“It’s hard to understand it at the time [laughs]. I’m telling you, when I met Chris I pushed him away. I gave every excuse for him to run [looks at the sky] …I gave him an out every single day. I gave him an out. And if you guys know my story with Chris, you know I gave him an out. I mean, he went to my colonoscopy. I…tortured him. I rejected him. I pushed him away time and time and time again.”
Here’s some evidence then, that Shan’ann was a bossy spouse, and perhaps even unpleasant. In the context that she’s telling it, it seems cute and forgivable, but the words “torture” and “pushed him” [repeated twice] sound like they could have extended beyond the initial stages of their relationship.
you know I gave him an out
What does that mean? And in 2018, did she give him an out as well, or didn’t she? If she tortured and pushed him when things were dark, what happened in the last weeks of her life? The fact that Shan’ann didn’t post a single video in August suggests something was seriously wrong. She knew it and he knew it. The fact that she took a six week break with her family, over Bella’s birthday, right before her murder, suggests Shan’ann was ready to make a big shift. Perhaps she wanted to sell the house and get out of dodge, just as they had when they moved to Colorado. But Chris didn’t want to leave his job and his mistress.
you know I gave him an out
Being bossy, and earning more than he was, she may have felt it was her decision to make. If she wanted to run away, perhaps to a house for $549 000 she mentioned for sale in Myrtle Beach, then it was her decision.
you know I gave him an out
Except he didn’t want to go.
“But when I cancelled dates – last minute – cos that’s how life is with my health challenges, you cancel things last minute and it’s hard for people to get, it’s hard for me to understand, but – he stuck around. And he stuck around because…he was the one for me. And he…is amazing. And I can’t tell you how wonderful he is.”
He stuck around through a lot of torture, a lot of ups and down, a lot of rollercoasters, twists and turns, but in August 2018, he was tired of sticking. He was tired of being wonderful. He was tired of being amazing, and being the one for her. He wanted to ne there for himself for once.
“We’re not promised tomorrow. We’re not promised anything. But to be able to enjoy our children, it can be super crazy…I’m not gonna lie. My kids are…are crazy…[laughs]. But I love them. And I love the fact that I can be there for them.”
It seems unfair and unkind to criticise this aspect, because Shan’ann sounds here like she’s sincere and means well. Perhaps she was sincere, and perhaps she really believed in Thrive, or perhaps she felt she had no choice but to give it her all. It’s unfortunate that she did, because in the same way Thrive consumed her, it sucked up all her mental capacity to look into the rest of her life, and to see what’s happening. Desperate people are attracted to multi-level marketing, and their customers are just as desperate. Desperate people can’t handle the truth, let alone look out for it.
Through Thrive Shan’ann was promising her customers and clients a better tomorrow. It was a promise she made on a daily basis, using herself and her family as models. But if anything the promise wasn’t one of wellness, but of death, and not a better tomorrow, but one where tomorrow was torn from her grasp in the most nightmarish way possible. Wellness – whatever was left – in her body and her children’s, was suffocated out of them
“I feel like I’m able to show them how to be strong. How to work hard. How to be confident. I mean, I’m by far not a confident person, but I’m more confident than I’ve ever been in my life. And I want to show that to my girls.”
Perhaps she did. Perhaps she did show her girls a confident take-charge woman, and perhaps this newfound bristling confidence was precisely what Chris could no longer abide, but for a very specific reason.
*On her Facebook profile Shan’ann Watts lists her hometown as Passaic New Jersey. Clifton is less than 3 miles from Passaic.
**The Thrive founder and CEO provides zero social media coverage of the Watts case on social media, despite the fact that Shan’ann Watts appeared to one of his top promotors, and had featured prominently in Strive magazine a few months earlier.
Issues of Sexual Identity?
“A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.” ― Ogden Nash
In my opinion, there are three reasons why homosexuality intuitively fits into this case.
First and most important, because of this impression of Chris being crushed and turned in on himself. This stoicism was there throughout – from high school to his unemo
tional interview, from his arrest to his appearance in court, and in every Facebook video Shan’ann posted. Second, and this ties in with the first, Chris’s lack of his own separate identity on social media. He’s a player in Shan’ann’s spiel, but doesn’t seem to have much of a presence beyond, and if he does it’s subtle, or even secret. In a way, Chris plays the role of a trophy, almost like a male bimbo version of the blonde bimbo trophy stereotype. Third, he seems to rely on Shan’ann for his sense of self. This doesn’t necessarily mean he has no identity, but perhaps that as a possibly gay man, he needs her to establish a socially acceptable identity, and bends over backwards to appear “wonderful”.
If Chris is gay, and he may not be, then we have to wonder about his being actively involved in an affair with a co-worker. Was this done to purposefully force a schism in his marriage? Was the “affair” with a woman meant to disguise an affair with a man, or several men?
In the admittedly slim archive that currently exists for this case, we’ve been able to identify Shan’ann’s parents and her brother. In Chris’s case, a neighbor has anonymously identified Chris’s mother, living in Vass Road. Thus far his father has not been mentioned.
We see Shan’ann’s father making several appearances in her social media, as a babysitter and as a supporter for his daughter. He’s there. He’s emotionally invested. We don’t see Chris’s father, but it may be that social media artefacts have been removed. It’s this idea of a slippery father figure that Chris Watts represents, and the slippery father figure as a totem, that haunts this narrative from the side-lines and in fact from all sides. We intuit this, even if we can’t say precisely why.
In one dimension, the Thrive branding represents a kind of slippery father figure, in the sense of a company that in its wisdom and grace, is able to bestow wealth, clarity of mind, wisdom and magical healing. All you have to do is belong to it, believe in it and trust in it with all your heart, mind and soul. That’s asking a lot, however.
Two Face- the Man Underneath Christopher Watts Page 6