Two Face- the Man Underneath Christopher Watts

by Nick van der Leek

  As soon as we invest in substitute fathers, what we do is we abandon the project of becoming our own fathers. Instead we give up our freedom and become slaves. We see some of this in Chris as the crushed in doting family man. There he is, mowing the lawn, washing dishes, playing chauffeur, playing with the children, always being amazing.

  An authentic person isn’t someone else’s doormat. So this idea that the perfect person for us is one who treats us like a king, or a queen, presupposes either that we think too highly of ourselves, or that they think too little of themselves, or both.

  When we abandon becoming our own fathers, and expect those around us to elevate us into fatherness, then we’re diminished. The only way we become fathers to ourselves is when we ourselves take on the role of managing who and what we are. We do it because it’s what we ask of ourselves and what we need to be to move into the world, not because someone or some situation demands this of us.

  There is a certain amount of “tight-lipped determination” in living as an adult, as Ernest Becker the Pulitzer prizewinning cultural anthropologist puts it in The Denial of Death. But there’s a difference between that kind of discipline and being crushed in. We are crushed in because of the burden of secret. We are stoic not because we are strong, but because of our secret, and our dishonest attempts to keep it that way.

  What we see with Shan’ann, not only via her dependency on Thrive, but also on Chris, is a kind of melting into a father figure, but in a way that completely enslaves her. She is not only diminished but destroyed, and in this case, the fires of destruction consumed her living children and her unborn child. We feel the same sense of melting into another figure with Laci Peterson. What troubles us – or it should if it doesn’t – is irrespective whether Scott Peterson was worthy of such hero worship, or whether Chris was, both Laci and Shan’ann were so blinded by it that they were unable to see who was really in their midst. There’s also the disturbing possibility that this untenable and unnatural worship of man as a god, turned him into a devil.

  There are two further possibilities to consider, regarding issues of sexual identity. The first is easy to observe, and it’s the change in appearance in Chris Watts. The tattoos and muscles seem to be additions to the grooming that was there all along. We may look at this attention to appearance as normal, but it doesn’t quite fit the quiet, crushed in identity. Why does a crushed-in identity wish to be seen, or is the operative question – when? The second goes hand in hand with the first, and it has to do with the exposure Chris was getting on Facebook, indirectly, through Shan’ann’s efforts. Did he want to be placed in her glass house? Did he want to play the role, endlessly, of the amazing husband and father figure? Or did he resent it?

  Both possibilities when added together, and seen through the guise of a man who is not the man he pretends to be, and his crushed-in-ness has been transformed into a new confidence, or even identity, then what we’re seeing through the murder of the wife, the unborn boy child and the two little girls may be the man coming to the fore at last, identifying himself if not to the world, then to himself. In effect, the murder is of his old self in favor of the new. And murder of the unborn child is in effect, the man stepping out into the real world, cast not in someone else’s himself, not in someone else’s words, but finally his own.

  Although it could be that Chris Watts was simply emerging – through this crime – as a man, the cool fierceness of it seems to suggest something that was deep and distraught. There is a world of difference between a man crushed by a marriage, and a gay man crushed daily by that lie, turning him into product placement in order to make money out of his slow demise. Her world thriving, in other words, at his expense.

  Living a Lie and Running out of Time

  “You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.” ― Harry S Truman

  Liars aren’t always murderers, but murderers are always liars. Murders tend to flow directly out of living a lie. If that’s true, then murder on the scale of this family annihilation suggests massive mendacity. And there is. But how does the mechanism work? What are the dynamics of it? What is the scale and scope of the mendacity and how did it actually get its claws into these people. How do the conveyors fit around the people in this family, and how are they pulled and jostled on a day-to-day basis? What triggers are loaded in the timeline and what caused them to discharge to such devastating effect?

  One obvious question to ask is whether Shan’ann was consciously living a lie or not? In retrospect we can say her picture perfect marriage, that fairy tale, turned out to be a lie, but was Shan’ann aware of it before her death, or did the horrible portent only dawn on her as the shadow of death fell upon her, as she breathed her last?

  A less obvious question is whether Chris Watts was consciously living a lie. Imagine the dynamics when one person is unconsciously living a lie, while the other is sort of dragged along, first reluctantly through this quagmire of deceit, and then unwillingly. Think about the fireworks when one person believes in a thing, is invested in a thing, while the other not only disbelieves but is opposed to it. We see it in different religious beliefs all the time, but what about something more basic – like an approach to work. Like one person’s attitude to multi-level marketing versus someone else’s?

  It’s natural in this case that we see Shan’ann and her two beautiful children as innocent victims, and they are. But this perception tends to blind us from another truth. We may be innocent, but we may be deceived. She may be innocent, but she was deceived. What does this mean?

  Are you sure you want to hear this?

  In their June 2015 bankruptcy filing, only one salary is noted as the “current income of individual debtors” [plural]. It’s an amount of $4 909.03. It’s Chris’s salary as an auto mechanic at a Ford dealership in Frederick.

  In 2014 Shan’ann was earning $18 an hour as a call center operator for a Children’s Hospital. A student loan of $11 245 forms part of the liabilities of the household; that’s mostly Shan’ann’s debt. Medical expenses, mostly Shan’ann’s, was also significant. The $3000 mortgage and car repayments of $600 formed the bulk of their monthly expenses totalling $4 900.

  When the two debtors’ income and expenses are juxtaposed on page 33 [Schedule E], we see one spouse paying into a mandatory retirement plan but not the other. We see one spouse paying insurance but not the other. We see one spouse paying life insurance but not the other. The only contribution made by the second debtor is from “direct sales commissions”, averaging $111. Which of the two was involved in direct sales? Which of the two, at the time of her death, was involved in direct sales and selling?

  After living in Colorado for three years, the mortgage had reduced from $400 000 to $378 348.00. In three years they’d paid just over $21 000 of their mortgage, around $7000 a year, or $583 per month. At that rate, all things being equal, they were going to need 686 months [57 years] to pay off their home.

  But things were not equal. In 2015 Shan’ann was pregnant with her second child, and the bankruptcy filing notes this in #13.

  Do you expect an increase or decrease [in income] after you fill in this form?”

  The yes box is ticked, with the short explanation:

  “The Watts are expecting another child, and Mrs. Watts will work fewer hours.”

  The burden in 2015 was shifting to Chris to face the burden of bankruptcy, and somehow they were able to hold off the foreclosure that year, and the following year and the following year. And then in 2018, the same thing happened. Just as things couldn’t get any worse financially, Shan’ann fell pregnant a third time.

  Just as in the Scott Peterson case, it was this unborn child growing in Shan’ann’s womb that was a harbinger of death for Chris Watts. But how could that be? How could Niko be life for her, but death for him?

  Perhaps in the same way that Caylee Anthony represented death to Casey. It was a burden she wished to cast aside if she could. But the burden in Casey’s case was of a young person wishing to be ali
ve, wishing to have a boyfriend, wishing to go to parties and have fun, wishing not to be a mother but a lover. What was the dynamic here?

  What was it?

  It seems clear that the third pregnancy was unwanted, at least as far as Chris Watts was concerned. One obvious reason he wouldn’t want Shan’ann to be pregnant right then was if he was in an affair with someone else. But if Chris Watts didn’t want Shan’ann to be pregnant, why did he act like he did in the video she took, posted to Facebook? And why would he record video of Shan’ann telling the kids, chuckling quietly in the background as she told them:

  Are you guys excited? Are you really excited?

  For various reasons, and for different reasons, both Chris and Shan’ann were living a lie. It was one lie, but a lie of many layers. It was the lie of family, and for Shan’ann the lie provided her the currency to sell a product that symbolised and epitomised “thriving”. This product she was selling was chiefly herself – a mother, wife and the fairy tale idea of a happy person in a happy home. On June 28th, Shan’ann’s smile appears to be faltering on Facebook.

  For Chris the lie of family meant something else. It meant he was constantly being drained in some way, suffocated, weighed on, burdened. If he signed up for the lie, what he never signed up was the scale of it. All of these performances. So much being at her beck and call. It was a burden he felt he didn’t sign up for, but tried to live with initially until he realized he no longer could. What was that burden?

  What was it?

  In May Chris turned 33, and just then, just as he was becoming his best self, it felt to him like his life was over. It wasn’t just over, it was being ruined, pissed upon, taken away from him. He was drowning in domestic shit. He wanted to be free of it. Shan’ann’s long trip away with the children gave Chris a sense of the freedom he was missing – the freedom to be himself, to be his own man [whatever that was to him].

  In a single word, Chris’s motive was greed. Greed to be more, to have more, to be more than a bit player in Shan’ann’s endless Thrive movie.

  How could Niko be life for her, but death for him?

  The arrival of Niko of course was like a death knell on any fantasies of freedom. If he was tied down, a third child would tie him down even more. If he was struggling to shoulder the financial burden, a third child would break the bank. And losing the house was a certainty. Chris wanted out, but the baby was keeping him trapped, like a steel umbilicus handcuffing him to his fate.

  In the video, Chris’s eyes are hidden behind tinted glasses. He’s less groomed than usual, with black stubble riding high on his cheeks, like Wolverine. His first word to Shan’ann is really? She answers with the same word, almost curt: Really. The next few seconds he’s awkward on camera, not knowing what to say, and off camera she remains curt, almost testy. He does the happy dance, he has to, but it’s not convincing.

  If we take Shan’ann’s words, posted five weeks prior, and apply them to this moment, suddenly the unexpected pregnancy is cast in an entirely new context:

  “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. And if you guys know my story with Chris, you know I gave him an out. I…tortured him. I rejected him. I pushed him away time and time and time again.”

  Which brings us at last to the moment of truth.

  If Shan’ann was in the habit of pushing Chris away, and giving him excuses to run, and torturing him, why couldn’t she do the opposite? Why couldn’t she control him when it suited her, pressure him when that suited her, pull him in if or when he wanted to leave.

  If she knew or suspected he was cheating, then perhaps falling pregnant was part of a spiel to keep Chris around. If finances were eating at their marriage, then perhaps – as Shan’ann saw it – the only thing that mattered was keeping the fairy tale going. Finances were part of the fiction too, so why not all of it?

  Was the pregnancy a cynical trap, and this video, a kind of ploy to force him to respond, on camera, to his situation – so that his world [and his mistress] would see? If true, that would mean Chris Watts wasn’t the only one playing games on camera. If he was driven to abort the pregnancy, and with it, the whole marriage, even his children, what was the thing eating at him? Couples divorce all the time, whether wives are pregnant or not. Why was it necessary in this case, for Watts to wipe out his whole family?

  The scale and scope of the murder is a mirror for the scale and scope of the underlying mendacity. We look to the murderer, usually, to determine the extent of the thing. Chris’s sexuality and his escapades may be a big part of what happened here, but thus far there’s only limited evidence. Even if he was having an affair with his co-worker – actively – couples split up all the time without resorting to murder. There’s infidelity, the marriage falls apart, but no one is murdered. It happens all the time.

  In the Scott Peterson case we see chronic financial problems, a mistress and an unwanted pregnancy with his wife, and all of this while the clock counts down to Christmas [which was Scott Peterson’s self-imposed deadline to “fix” his situation]. Isn’t it the same scenario here? It is, but with one major difference: Thrive.

  In the Scott Peterson case, he was a salesman, and a failing on at that. In this case, Shan’ann is the salesman. What’s not clear is what kind of salesman she was [in terms of numbers], and more importantly, what kind of impact her failure or success had – or was having – on Chris.

  On the surface it may appear that she was earning more than he was, he felt emasculated and diminished, and resented this. But if their finances were hanging on a thread, why kill the goose laying the golden Thrive branded eggs?

  In the Scott Peterson case there was an incentive to murder Laci – there was a shitload of inheritance money and jewelry Scott couldn’t wait to get his paws on. The Amber Alert trilogy emphasises Scott Peterson’s money grubbing behavior in the days leading up to Laci’s murder. He reputedly pawned various items of Laci’s inherited jewelry. But the most valuable items had to wait…until she was dead.

  The dynamic is different here. To understand it we have to examine the giant thing at the center of it. No, not the double-storey monstrosity siphoning all available cash, that was #2825 Saratoga Trail, but the virtual version of it online. The blue glass house Shan’ann had built, the Facebook version mirroring her idea of that home. And who had she built this virtual home for? Who was it serving? Thrive of course.

  There are three reasons to suspect Chris was incredibly unhappy with Shan’ann’s endeavours [misadventures might be more accurate] with the multi-level marketing company.

  He knew their finances were haemorrhaging but initially played ball. We see Chris actively involved in promoting the Thrive brand in the beginning. He wears the t-shirts, he’s at the events, he’s holding up the branded flair. Then it becomes more passive. And then he’s in the background. Obviously he’s tempted by the free trips, and this causes his lack of buy-in to fluctuate. He’s not on and then off, it’s a rollercoaster of trust, sometimes willing to go out on a limb, other times feeling it’s costing him and arm and a leg. As late as the end of June, Chris makes an appearance at a Thrive gig in San Diego. He’s on the bus with the cult, he’s wearing the uniform, he does his dance on camera. But it’s also the last time he appears in Shan’ann’s videos. He appears for about half a second in their hotel room. And then he’s gone. There’s nothing in July, and nothing in August. It’s possible that the trip to San Diego was the last straw for Chris as regards Thrive. He wanted Shan’ann to cash in her chips and get out. They had a family to raise, and she needed to make real money. Except:

  The Watts are expecting another child, and Mrs. Watts will work fewer hours.

  Are you guys excited? Are you really excited?

  I pushed him away time and time and time again.

  And so Chris was in a bind. Somehow he’d got locked into a situation and now he was well and truly trapped in it. And it wasn’t his f
ault! Whether or not Shan’ann worked, it was going to be up to him to raise the shipwreck that was #2825 Saratoga Trail from the seabed.

  She knew their finances were haemorrhaging. Thrive is set up according to targets and milestones. Shan’ann appeared to be hitting hers. She was doing her part. But did the Thrive glitz translate to real wellness, real wealth, for their promotors?* There is some evidence that promotors have complained about not being paid their promised commissions. There’s also signs that the figureheads at Thrive had been involved in other multi-level marketing operations, and then cut and ran amid allegations of “malfeasance”. Besides this, the much vaunted VIP Auto Bonus appears to be not quite as it appears either. Instead of “earning” the bonus, or “winning” the bonus, Le-Vel requires the leasing of an expensive luxury car. Although the company undertakes to contribute to some of the lease, this is conditional and thus contingent on hitting subsequent sales targets. Fail to hit them and you’re on your own with those payments, a great way to lock-in sellers using their own greed and impatience, isn’t it? If Shan’ann wasn’t being paid, or not in full, or was having her income postponed or delayed in some way, this would have put tremendous pressure not only on her, but on her marriage. And 15 weeks after conception, that pressure was starting to tell. The question was – could Shan’ann lay her cards on the table and walk away, or keep on gambling, hoping to walk away with something? It appears that in July and August, the penny did drop for Shan’ann. Her Facebook posts suddenly dried up altogether, and so did her videos. In fact we see a steady decline from 18 videos in May, to 14 in June, to just 5 in July and none in August. If Shan’ann saw the storm clouds at last, what could Chris say except I told you so? And if Shan’ann had purposefully fallen pregnant to force him to stay in the marriage, then by August the full scale of the impending disaster was made crystal clear. If Shan’ann had no money, then she’d killed the family [and killed him] while selling a fairy tale to the world. The irony was, after she was dead, Chris did exactly the same on the porch – selling make believe that everything was better than it really was just as Shan’ann had, to keep him safe in his house.