The drama began shortly after the Frederick Police Department received a call from Nicole Atkinson the best friend of Shanann Watts.
She had arranged to drive Shanann into town that same day for a pregnancy checkup
but there was no answer when she knocked at the door, nor any response to her text messages or phone calls.
After noticing her shoes were still at the front door, she became concerned and called 911
Nicole? Yes. What's going on?
So, my friend, we were out of town for a business trip this weekend, right
and I dropped her off at two o'clock this morning
She's 15 weeks pregnant
She wasn't feeling well
And she had a doctor's appointment this morning at 9:00
And I told her to let me know if she needed me to take her. She's got two little girls.
I called, I texted, her car's in the garage, her shoes she wears every single day are by the front door
How you doing? You seen your neighbors today? No? Okay.
What's Chris's phone number? Chris's phone number is...
Hey Chris, Officer Coonrod, Frederick Police Department.
Pretty good. So, do you have any idea where your wife is?
Right. Well, my concern is her car's here
they're saying she is diabetic. I don't want her...
...she's upstairs and can't respond... Okay
About how far out are you? Okay. Alright, he said like five minutes.
It's not a sure sign of guilty conduct, yet
the fact that Chris made the officer wait for his return would have most likely alerted some minor suspicion.
In normal circumstances a husband
receiving a call from the police saying they were concerned about the safety of their pregnant wife and children
in most cases would have given them permission to immediately kick the door down.
It's a truly somber awareness to know that the man stepping out of the car
had only a very short time ago dumped his infant daughter's
bodies into an oil tank and buried his pregnant wife in a shallow grave.
So this is the only vehicle she would have?
The familiar routine for anyone checking for someone's presence inside a house,
whether it be an emergency or otherwise, is to immediately call out to them for instantaneous reassurance.
Chris remains silent but instead feels the need to examine his wife's car before subtly sneaking through the internal garage door.
He then disappears for one minute and seven seconds before letting the neighbors and police officer inside.
Only Chris will know what he carried out during that time period but it's safe to assume that his curious behavior was not going unnoticed
made evident by the unsettled gaze of Nicole as he opens the door.
Do you mind if I come in, Chris?
There were multiple key moments captured from inside the house which may not have been noticed immediately by the officer
but would have no doubt been gathered by forensics upon further investigation.
The most overt peculiarity was Chris's interaction with his phone.
The guise of his thumb movement would have given the impression he was
texting someone which would have seemed very peculiar
as the normal response would be to frantically call people rather than text, given the circumstances.
Hindsight gives us a clearer picture of Chris's introversion
which is that he was most likely using his phone to avoid eye contact and progressive dialogue with the officer.
What time do you leave today?
What time did I Ieave there?
No, here.
Oh, usually between 5:30, 6:00.
Was Shanann here then?
Yes.
Does she usually watch the kids? Or do you have daycare watch them?
No, she usually watches the kids, if they're not at school.
You guys have any kind of issues? Marital issues or...?
You are? How's that going?
Civil for the most part? Or...?
Additionally, we are presented with the subtle cues of Chris's forethought cover story
being that his wife simply ran off with the kids after a breakdown in the marriage.
The rest of Chris's conduct could be analyzed and dissected in various ways and it would be easy to pick at certain oddities in body
language and link them with signs of guilt. Yet without the
hindsight we have now, his behavior could just as easily be linked with an innocent man who is
understandably concerned and frantic over the disappearance of his family. His very
conservant neighbor however had the perceptual advantage of knowing Chris on a semi-personal level
and could analyze his kinesics in a far more accurate manner than the police officer.
You just wanna go talk to him? I'm gonna get his info real quick...
Does he?
And that's pretty recently?
This was just after the moment he had shown both Chris and the officer his surveillance footage of that same morning
capturing only Chris leaving the house after loading multiple unidentified things into his truck.
Although not fully incriminating, as Shanann and the kids could have left through the back entrance,
this was an extremely detrimental piece of evidence and would have no doubt been extolled by
forensics and made Chris an immediate prime suspect.
The following day, Chris for some bizarre reason
agreed to be interviewed by two separate news stations, where he came across as extremely unimpassioned
and detached from the alarming nature of the situation.
Like when I got home yesterday, it was like it ghost town, like she wasn't here, kids weren't here.
I have no idea like where they went.
Right now it's, got K9 units, the Sheriff's Department
everybody is like there, they're doing the best right now to figure out like if they can get a scent.
If she wasn't here like
Where did she go? Like once I got here? It was like alright, who can I call?
I called her three times texted her about three times just to say you know
What's going on? Like if she's vanished like I want her back
so bad, I want those kids back so bad.
Right now I don't even want to just like throw anything out there like
I hope that she's somewhere safe right now, and with the kids.
Last night... I wanted, I wanted that knock on the door
I wanted to see those kids run in... just barrel rush me
Just give me a hug and knock me on the ground.
That's why last night was just horrible. I couldn't do it.
that... I just...
I'm hoping that somebody sees something or somebody knows something and comes forward.
Shanann, Bella, Celeste
if you're out there just, just come back. Like if somebody has her just
Please bring her back.
I need to see everybody.
I need to see everybody again. This house is not complete without anybody here.
Please bring them back.
This could have been construed as Shock Trauma, where a person will turn numb and retreat into themselves as a means of escape
yet the viewers watching this live from home
were probably thinking what we as the retrospective audience already know.
He was called in for questioning four hours later.
Alright, let's do this.
So, this, 1:48 AM...
You know what, let me switch chairs.
because, when they come knocking...
One of the oldest and most commonly used techniques is for the interrogator to sit between the door and the suspect.
This is for the purpose of heightening the feelings of isolation and dependence.
It's an indirect subliminal message letting Chris know that the only way out of that room is through the detective.
It's an excellent tool for stripping away confidence. Thus increasing the telling signs and body language when information is fabricated.
4:00 AM, that's when my alarm goes off for work.
I get dressed, brush my teeth, everything I do upstairs. Okay
About 4:15, that's when I
Get back, to slide right into bed next to her and start having a conversation with her about
having the house up for sale and
talking about
Something like actually going proceeding with the separation. Okay.
And obviously it gets pretty emotional like we're talking about like we felt this disconnection was there, like falling out of love and
trying to stay together for the kids' sake, but realizing that doing like our homework, that's not...
Most of the time that's not going to work. Yeah.
So that's when I got home.
I open the garage door and went inside the house and looked everywhere
Shanann, Bella, Celeste nowhere to be found
Shanann's wedding ring's on the nightstand, her phone's still on the couch,
her purse is still there, medicine for the kids still there,
the car, the car seats still there, and there's no sign of them anywhere.
Okay
Was just hoping that... I left all the lights on in the house
I was hoping that I'd get a knock on a door. Well, yeah.
But nothing happened.
What do you think happened?
At first I really thought maybe she was just at somebody's house.
Just decompressing. Just blowing off steam.
Yeah, but after today like with the onslaught of all the cars
I mean all the police cars, all the news, all the k-9 unit's
It's making me lean the other direction about someone took her. Okay.
If someone took her it would have to have been someone she knew
Because there's there's no sign of anything like being disturbed or broken
But like that's the way I'm leaning now at first I thought for real she's just decompressing somewhere
I mean, I thought she was safe even though everything in the house is left there.
But now it's just, after today with the news crews and everything it just
it feels more the other direction and it's freaking me out.
On that night I told her... I woke up that morning, early that morning, and I told her like the disconnection
It's there like it's not going away like
the connection we had in the beginning
It's not there anymore. Click. I don't feel like the love we have. Is there anymore.
Okay.
It's just like, I don't feel like
I mean if we stay together for the kids, I'm not sure if that's going to work. Like bringing us...
Yes.
Okay, like having another baby to bring into this relationship. Do you think this is going to work?
With us being together, or
separation I think it's going to be the best possible route for us
That's when like all the crying and everything preceded
it was very hard to just to talk about that, but I needed to do it face-to-face.
I needed like, I needed to see her face like while I did it
I couldn't just text... phone... whatever
I needed to be face to face, and be able to see her and know that
She was going to be at least
reciprocating back to me. Oh.
What did she say?
she said that it was, I mean it was she wants she wanted to kind of work on it, but
If that's the way I was feeling then she respects that. Okay.
1:00 p.m. I'm now on my way home to .check on my family
Is this cause you're worried, based on the conversation with Nicole? Yep.
Had the police contacted you by then? No. Okay.
Once we couldn't get anything out of her and nothing was going on at the house... I was like alright I gotta go home.
The sharp and sudden change of angle from baseline questioning to direct
confrontation would normally make an innocent person refute or at least challenge the statement.
There would also be a brief pause as they would need
time to process the allegation due to its perplexity.
A guilty individual would already be in a defensive state of mind
and would normally respond in a hastily modis:
Instead of refuting the remark they would accept it, but try and explain its actuality in a defensive manner.
But it sounds like Nicole was more worried
Yeah, because like... if she doesn't text me like I understand that, sometimes it happens,
but for her not to get back to her Direct sale group. That was very unorthodox. Okay.
So then they're there at home
Police officer's there
And then what
So as we go through the house,
Did you immediately go through the house?
Like I open the garage door
I just, I just go into the house.
I'm looking like I just go in the garage door and I'm looking
Is the police officer saying "Hey, let me talk to you for a minute"?
No. Okay.
What's the vibe like?
Go up there shake his hand. I'm like opening the garage door at the same time
Okay, and then I go through and then they're waiting at the front door
I go and open that up and then they come in
Oh so they didn't come in the garage door with you?
Well, they they were in the garage, but they didn't come in the way I did. All right, so then
everybody goes in
I think it was at... four o'clock, that's when, uh
because... because the neighbor
The officer and I went over to the neighbor's house to see if he saw anything
Whose idea was that? I think it was the officer's.
He just went over there. And then that's when the
neighbor called back over to show him, he had some stuff from the other night
to show him like, whatever he had that put motion on it.
4:00 PM, police check neighbors security footage and questioned them as well. Okay.
Have we talked about that? Is that where we're at?
Anything else about that? No, I mean it just shows Nicole dropping her off
but her not walking up, and it shows me loading my truck up, about the time that I told you I left.
Yeah.
What do you think about that?
Makes me sick to my stomach honestly, like I know like I talked to a few of my friends like, you know
This does not look good on you. I'm like, I know
It's like people that if people knew that we were having marital issues
They're gonna look at me
Especially with what everything looks it. Honestly just makes me sick to my stomach because this is something that I would never do
Ever
I know like you have to look at every, every vantage point. This is something I would never do to my kids or my wife
... at all.
This is what is known as "The Pause Technique". After the suspect answers a question, the interrogator will remain silent while maintaining eye contact
This physical demeanor gives off the subtle cue that he expects more information to be divulged and may already know more than the suspect
Realizes a deceptive person will usually drop their eyes change posture or break the silence
I'm not sure like
what I could do to like, to make people believe that, just because if they
they knew we were having marital discord, they would automatically look at me
But there's no way I would harm anybody in my family
...at all.
And I know we were having marital discord, and we had that conversation that morning and then
She goes, and we have no idea where she is, or the kids
I promise you that no, I had nothing to do with any of that
A truthful individual will normally respond to this question with a question
Such as, "why are you asking me that" or "what's going on here"?
they will often protest the aggressive nature of the inquisition or give a short and forceful response to
Cause I am a very trustworthy person, and the people that do know me they know how I'm a calm person. I am NOT an argumentative person
I am a person who is
Never going to be abusive or physical and any kind of relationship.
I would never harm my kids. I would never harm my wife.
You can talk to any of my friends, any of her friends
They know me, they know
I'm a low-key guy
That's quiet
I'm not about confrontation. I'm not about anything that elevates to that level.
I mean, like if someone yelled at me, screams at me
I just take it, and just try to get it by the wayside and get it back to where it's cool
It's a cool conversation to where like none of that gets to that height and I am NOT that person
I've never been that person
Okay
Let's take a little break. I'm going to come back in here. Cause I have a lot more questions for you
How you feeling?
Celeste
She's rampage. She's always the one that's
gung-ho, she's always the one that's just like
She's all, she's either go or sleep
She's always fun growling. She's she's always been she's a tiger
Bella, she's the calm, the mothering one. She's the one that's always, "You okay? You okay? Fine? Okay!"
She's just the sweetest little girl, she's the one that favors me more,
Celeste was the one that favors Shanann more
I remember when they wore that dress... she just wore that dress not too long ago
Button the back of it so I could get her pajamas on
Bella loves those spaghetti strap dresses, she likes long dresses