Week 9 | Thursday | Known vs. Knowable: Chris Watts — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:19[music]
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- 1:43>> Nobody there.
- 1:45I am bereft of feline companionship once
- 1:48again.
- 1:49Once again on a Thursday, I'm Morgan
- 1:52Wright.
- 1:53This is Crime Reconstructed. Man, we
- 1:54have got a lot of comments already. So,
- 1:56thank you guys for hopping in there and
- 1:58doing comments. Um you guys have seen
- 2:00that. We were talking about
- 2:03Yeah, his story changed several times.
- 2:05Uh Laura Lee got some. I've been through
- 2:07that hail stuff. Oh, yeah. That is no
- 2:09fun down there in Oklahoma where the
- 2:11wind comes sweeping down the plains.
- 2:14Very great musical. All right. Uh you
- 2:15say for remember being Houston for
- 2:17training and they had hailstorms. Yeah.
- 2:20Goth but I'll tell you what, those uh
- 2:22dent paintless dent repair people, they
- 2:24make a killing on storms like this.
- 2:27Uh all savvy. I think I said it right.
- 2:30All savvy. We're in Connecticut. I have
- 2:33an uncle in Mystic.
- 2:35Uh let me see here. I'm safe for now.
- 2:36Weather season for hail and tornadoes
- 2:38the worst in years. Yeah. Um
- 2:41We've got in-laws. My my in-laws and
- 2:43oldest boy still live in Southwest
- 2:45Kansas. So, we've been watching the
- 2:46storms that go through there.
- 2:48Hi y'all to Casefile 365. Hey, y'all.
- 2:52Uh let me see. Hello, the sun is out
- 2:54finally. All right, Teresa. Yay.
- 2:56Hallelujah. Hello there.
- 2:58Good morning all from Gail Holly. Good
- 3:01morning to you, too.
- 3:03We're getting so many things. Good
- 3:04morning, Gail. Welcome. Welcome.
- 3:05Welcome. Me, too. CST. All right. God,
- 3:08we got through all of that stuff. So,
- 3:09what are we going to do today, guys?
- 3:12Today, we are going to talk
- 3:15about
- 3:16uh Thursday. Thursday is known versus
- 3:18knowable.
- 3:20And then tonight will be our Thursday
- 3:21night masterclass.
- 3:23And then uh Friday, we will do the
- 3:26synthesis, wrap things up. So,
- 3:28been an interesting ride. I've been
- 3:30watching your comments. Uh and just so
- 3:32that you know, okay and other folks, I
- 3:33did look into the issue. I did have it
- 3:35turned on. I just wasn't going back far
- 3:37enough. The comments in the live stream
- 3:39turn on, but it takes sometimes 24 hours
- 3:41to get there. So, I went back and
- 3:42checked. They're all displaying. So,
- 3:44when you go back and look, the comments
- 3:45are in the live stream. Um they are
- 3:48displaying. So, problem solved. Check.
- 3:52And then uh couple other things, really
- 3:53neat things, too.
- 3:57In my hands, I'm actually submitting a
- 3:58proposal to the
- 4:00uh Center for Public Safety and Justice
- 4:02at the University of Virginia, the
- 4:04Howard and Carol Safer Foundation. Doing
- 4:07some really cool stuff. Going to do some
- 4:10stuff around AI. Um I can't tell you
- 4:12right now, but it is in the uh proposal.
- 4:15Um hello from Oregon. Carrie Lynn, who?
- 4:18Hello there.
- 4:21Oh, yes. Thank you for the chat replay
- 4:22investigation.
- 4:24We're like the FBI. We get our man. So,
- 4:26some neat stuff there and I did get
- 4:27reached out to. So, I was in uh North
- 4:30Carolina what, 3 weeks ago on the
- 4:32Saturday for the senior leadership
- 4:33conference. Out of that now, I've been
- 4:34invited back to come address the counter
- 4:36drug folks
- 4:37uh in Greenville. They're doing a
- 4:39combined South Carolina, North Carolina.
- 4:41So, I'm going to go address them
- 4:43sometime in August. This is getting fun.
- 4:46What's fun about this is I talked to
- 4:47them about the same stuff I'm talking to
- 4:48you guys about, just different ways to
- 4:50look at things, right? So, let's talk
- 4:51about this. Let's get into the known
- 4:53versus knowable today.
- 4:56And they're Oh, wait. Hold on. There we
- 4:57go. We have a cat sighting. There she
- 4:59is. She Rosebud just came across. What
- 5:01she does, she hops up on my desk and if
- 5:04her heating pad's not turned on, she
- 5:06hops up on my desk, sits here, waits for
- 5:07me to finally figure it out. Oh, then I
- 5:09got to go back turn her little heated
- 5:11pad on even though it's 64° right now.
- 5:14Uh her sensitive little paws apparently
- 5:16require
- 5:18heat
- 5:19for her to um do that stuff. Hi,
- 5:22everyone. Susan Schorba.
- 5:24576. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome to
- 5:26everybody. So, hey, before we get
- 5:28started though, one I do just one quick
- 5:30thing and you know what's because I'm
- 5:32about to post the link. So, what are we
- 5:35what are we talking about?
- 5:43>> [music]
- 5:44>> Yes, news to you. Case intake. If you
- 5:46guys want to supply a case that I look
- 5:48at and I will be doing somebody's case
- 5:50for next week. I'm not going to tell you
- 5:51who it is yet cuz I haven't fully
- 5:53decided. We still have a couple
- 5:54stragglers coming in. So, but we'll
- 5:57definitely take one of those cases and
- 5:58work on them. And yes, so if you guys
- 6:00want to do it, I just posted the link.
- 6:02Oh, I'm sorry, it didn't go through.
- 6:03Hang on.
- 6:05Boo ya. There it is. There's the link,
- 6:07right? So, if you want to do that link,
- 6:08just go there.
- 6:09You do the work. I am not going to take
- 6:11stuff out of chat and do it. Sorry,
- 6:13folks. Uh just
- 6:16too much work for me.
- 6:17So, don't don't take it wrong, but uh if
- 6:19you can do just a little bit of that, so
- 6:21it goes right into a form, so I have one
- 6:22place to go track this stuff down.
- 6:24My mind's like a bookshelf. It only
- 6:25holds so many books. You put one on,
- 6:27another one falls off. All right. So,
- 6:28and before we get started, let's talk
- 6:30about why we are doing this today. We're
- 6:32doing it for these four people. Shannan
- 6:34Watts and the unborn baby Nico, Bella
- 6:37Watts age 4, Celeste Watts age 3. That's
- 6:40why we do this. Today, we honor them
- 6:43with our analysis.
- 6:45Okay. So, let's get to talking about
- 6:47this today. The known versus the
- 6:48knowable.
- 6:50And I did all real quickly, too. Uh we
- 6:52had a couple folks ask they weren't
- 6:53getting email notifications. I have cut
- 6:55back because I realized, too, I was
- 6:57getting tired of seeing all these emails
- 6:59from other Substacks that I follow. I'm
- 7:01going, "Man."
- 7:02So,
- 7:04uh I cut back on a lot of that stuff and
- 7:05actually I cut back a lot cuz I'm not
- 7:07posting the article. I'll post one
- 7:08article a week, but it'll be I have
- 7:11written five articles, six articles
- 7:12actually, Monday through Friday and then
- 7:14the Thursday masterclass.
- 7:16But I will post that uh at the end of
- 7:18the week on Friday at 3:00 p.m. It's
- 7:20It's already staged. It's ready to go
- 7:21out, but it'll have uh a summary of each
- 7:24day.
- 7:25And then if you want to go deeper on
- 7:26that, it'll have a link and then you can
- 7:28go read the article. There. Uh so, I'm
- 7:30trying not to do it. If you guys still
- 7:32want me to send out emails or have the
- 7:34system automatically send out emails to
- 7:36say, "Hey, I've got this scheduled." or
- 7:38that it's actually been posted. That's
- 7:39what it is is when this gets done
- 7:40recording, I go into Substack and I have
- 7:43my show notes. So, I put my show notes
- 7:44in there and then it turns it into not
- 7:46only recording on that, but turns it
- 7:48into the podcast. So, I'm trying not to
- 7:49send out multiple emails, but we'll see
- 7:52how it goes. Oh, got to get a quick
- 7:53drink from the tactical water bottle.
- 8:00See that right? Got the tactical knife
- 8:02back here.
- 8:04Camo.
- 8:06Plate carrier.
- 8:08Uh all sorts of they call Molly vest. I
- 8:11can hang all sorts of things
- 8:13off of that. So,
- 8:15we have our tactical water bottle
- 8:16intact. All right, let's get into this.
- 8:20In the Peterson case, guess what, guys?
- 8:22Both of them, the known column was
- 8:23frozen.
- 8:25I mean,
- 8:26it was pretty much done. Scott Peterson,
- 8:27Drew Peterson. Two investigations, two
- 8:30victims, two different decades and the
- 8:32same structural failure. The system
- 8:35could not grow its own record. It was
- 8:37frozen.
- 8:39What investigators knew on day one
- 8:41was roughly what they knew when the
- 8:43gavel came down
- 8:45in court, the guilty verdicts. The
- 8:47knowable, everything that must have
- 8:48happened, everything the evidence
- 8:50implied, but couldn't confirm stayed out
- 8:51of reach. That's the knowable.
- 8:53Not because investigators were careless,
- 8:56because the evidence, excuse me, that
- 8:58existed couldn't be translated into the
- 9:01evidentiary record the system required.
- 9:04Because the evidence that existed
- 9:06couldn't be translated into the
- 9:07evidentiary record the system required.
- 9:10Now, guess what? The Watts case inverts
- 9:13that completely.
- 9:15Over 6 months, August 2018 to February
- 9:182019, the known column expanded four
- 9:22times.
- 9:23Each expansion came from the same
- 9:25source.
- 9:26Christopher Watts himself, the POS who
- 9:29is better uh
- 9:31would be better served by being room
- 9:33temperature.
- 9:35Over 6 months,
- 9:37that expanded each time because of Chris
- 9:39Watts, right? Four confession
- 9:41iterations.
- 9:42As you're seeing there in the graphic,
- 9:43four confessions iterations.
- 9:46Each one more complete and more damning
- 9:48than the last. The known kept expanding.
- 9:51By the end, the known column in this
- 9:52case is more detailed than almost any
- 9:55domestic homicide in the public record.
- 9:57That's in the public record.
- 9:59And yet there are still a question that
- 10:01reconstruction cannot answer. That's
- 10:02what we're here for. What what do we
- 10:04know? What do we don't know?
- 10:06Three levels of knowledge. Known knowns.
- 10:08Second level knowledge is known
- 10:10unknowns. Third level of knowledge is
- 10:12unknown unknowns.
- 10:14You know what you know, you don't you
- 10:16don't you know what you don't know, and
- 10:17then you don't know what you don't know.
- 10:21Famously said by Donald Rumsfeld, the
- 10:23Secretary of Defense during a conference
- 10:25one time. But but he was right. I mean,
- 10:27we are dealing with knowns, unknowns.
- 10:31We know what we know. We know what we
- 10:32don't know.
- 10:34So, there's still a question though that
- 10:36reconstruction cannot answer. Today we
- 10:37trace these four iterations. We track
- 10:39exactly what entered the known column at
- 10:41each stage. What do we know? What
- 10:42happened at each stage, right? Cuz the
- 10:44first stage is the cooperative suspect.
- 10:47That's the performance. As you saw here,
- 10:49the chief performance, the cooperative
- 10:51suspect. Before I walk through the
- 10:53iterations though, let's establish
- 10:55something about how the known versus
- 10:57knowable framework applies differently
- 10:59here than it has in the other cases
- 11:00we've talked about.
- 11:02So, in a normal application of the
- 11:04framework, the subject of investigation
- 11:06is separate from the information source.
- 11:10You have the event which actually
- 11:11happened.
- 11:13And then you have the evidence the
- 11:14investigation produces about that event.
- 11:18Witnesses, physical evidence,
- 11:19surveillance, cell records. The known
- 11:22column grows as the investigation
- 11:24gathers and verifies.
- 11:26In the Watts case though,
- 11:29the primary information source about
- 11:30what happened is the man who made it
- 11:32happen.
- 11:34It's not investigators going to a
- 11:36warehouse and finding uh
- 11:38homemade concrete anchors.
- 11:40It's not uh investigators
- 11:42uh
- 11:43um
- 11:45exhuming the body. No.
- 11:47This is
- 11:49everything comes from Chris Watts,
- 11:50right? He simultaneously is the most
- 11:53knowledgeable person in the world
- 11:55about August 13th, 2018, and the person
- 11:58with the greatest incentive to control
- 11:59what the known column contains. As long
- 12:01as he controls what goes in there, he
- 12:03can control his destiny.
- 12:05Every account he gives is both a
- 12:07disclosure and a concealment document.
- 12:09Remember, that's why when you get into
- 12:11court, you swear to tell the truth, the
- 12:12whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
- 12:17I am late. So sorry. There is a penalty
- 12:19for that, and your penalty is you have
- 12:21to take a look at the my cat.
- 12:24So, here's the picture of Rosebud. All
- 12:25right, there you go. You have been
- 12:26penalized. You can bask in her
- 12:29awesomeness and her cuteness as we go
- 12:31back into what we're talking about
- 12:32today. There you go.
- 12:35Oh.
- 12:36Veteran 1313, I'm late, too.
- 12:39Which branch, Veteran 1313? That will
- 12:42depend upon the punishment you get. I
- 12:43mean, if it's Marine or Army, you're
- 12:45going to be doing push-ups. If it's
- 12:46Navy, I'm going to make you go get me a
- 12:48cup of coffee. And if it's Air Force,
- 12:51uh I'm going to make you eat at a uh
- 12:53two-star restaurant instead of a
- 12:55three-star. That's what I'm going to do.
- 12:57The your punishment depends upon your
- 12:59branch, right?
- 13:00So.
- 13:02>> [laughter]
- 13:03>> So cute. Yes, the cat is so cute. Me?
- 13:05No, the cat. I think she means you. Yes,
- 13:07or he means you. Can't tell. Veteran.
- 13:10Coast Guard. All right, Semper Paratus.
- 13:12Always prepared.
- 13:15I got that right, didn't I?
- 13:17Fact, one of my friends, a lady named
- 13:19Martha Coit, wrote the book that uh
- 13:21the Guardian was based on that Kevin
- 13:23Costner
- 13:25played a rescue swimmer.
- 13:27So, da da da da da. Semper Paratus.
- 13:29Thank you very much.
- 13:31Uh 14 watching. Maybe give the live a
- 13:33like to move it along in the algorithm.
- 13:34Yeah, you know what happens is we have
- 13:3520 now. Uh and actually I want to
- 13:38recognize my folks over on Substack.
- 13:40There's Stacy, Jackson, Richard Marks,
- 13:42Phil Hannum, and Robert Bartel. So, hey
- 13:45guys. Welcome to you guys, too. I'm
- 13:48trying to uh And the other thing, too,
- 13:50you don't see is that there's views on
- 13:52there's additional views on Substack.
- 13:54There's additional views on uh X that
- 13:57may not be showing up uh here. I think I
- 13:59I think I get all of them here. But uh
- 14:01anyway.
- 14:02You did great movie. I know. Very good.
- 14:05So, anyway.
- 14:07Catch me up. Really quick recap. Okay,
- 14:09well, no, we just we just getting
- 14:11started about known and versus knowable.
- 14:13So, in the Peterson case, um the known
- 14:15column was frozen.
- 14:17Uh in this case though, everything that
- 14:20went into the known column kept
- 14:21expanding because of Chris Watts.
- 14:23There's your quick catch-up. I hyped his
- 14:26last video. Thank you so much, hype.
- 14:28Whoop whoop. I don't know what kind of
- 14:30music we played. I should have walk-out
- 14:31music now for my videos, apparently. No,
- 14:33I'm just I'm a little farm boy from
- 14:35Kansas. We keep this simple. No fancy
- 14:37sets. I'll do some stuff with graphics.
- 14:38But um just just want to keep it just
- 14:41want to keep it real, people. Keep it
- 14:43real. All right. So, what happens,
- 14:45right? Every account he gives is both a
- 14:48disclosure and a concealment document.
- 14:50The known column grows not because not
- 14:53just because the investigators gather
- 14:54evidence. It grows because the subject
- 14:57under a sequence of different conditions
- 14:59and different pressures
- 15:02decides at each stage what he's willing
- 15:04to put into the record. First it was on
- 15:06the grieving husband. Then he comes in,
- 15:08takes the polygraph. Then he fails the
- 15:09polygraph. Then it's well, Shannan was
- 15:12uh was uh smothering my kids.
- 15:15All right. So, he's already adding to
- 15:16the known column. He's already changing
- 15:18it. Only one person knows the real
- 15:19story. That's him.
- 15:21Understanding that dynamic changes how
- 15:23you read, you know, each iteration,
- 15:24right? So, these aren't just successive
- 15:26confessions. They're a series of
- 15:27decisions about how much of the known
- 15:30column to fill. How much he's making
- 15:32under conditions that change each time.
- 15:36Oh, that's why your show's so good.
- 15:37Well, thank you. Thank you very much.
- 15:39Thank you. In fact, you know what I will
- 15:40do? I will thank you very much with
- 15:41polite golf applause.
- 15:43>> [cheering and applause]
- 15:43>> Thank you very much.
- 15:45Um uh I appreciate that. No, I just I
- 15:48This is about having fun, guys. But it's
- 15:50about doing some good work here. All
- 15:52right. So,
- 15:53let's talk about that, right? Here's
- 15:55what goes into the known column after
- 15:56the first 48 hours. Shannan Watts
- 15:59arrived home from Phoenix at
- 16:01approximately 1:48 in the morning
- 16:04on August 13th.
- 16:06Documented on a neighbor's doorbell
- 16:07camera. Her luggage was inside the front
- 16:10door. Her phone was in the house. She
- 16:12was 15 weeks pregnant with the couple's
- 16:14third child.
- 16:16By 7:37 that morning,
- 16:195 and 1/2 hours later,
- 16:21she was gone. So were Bella, age 4, and
- 16:24Celeste, age 3.
- 16:28Uh with the knowns Okay, with the knowns
- 16:30pouring in so quickly, I wonder what was
- 16:32also going on in the investigative
- 16:34realm. So, a good question.
- 16:35Um
- 16:37Remember we talk about there's also
- 16:38informational entropy. You move from
- 16:40order to disorder. You get information
- 16:42overload. You can't cognitively process
- 16:44all that stuff. But uh
- 16:46that's good question though. What's
- 16:47going on in the investigative realm? I
- 16:49think what they did is they got off to a
- 16:51slow start. Why did they get off to a
- 16:53slow start? Because he's the grieving
- 16:54husband. He's the cooperative suspect.
- 16:56He's uh standing in front of the TV
- 16:58going, "I want my crocodile tears."
- 17:00Nothing there, right? "I want my kids
- 17:01back. I want my wife back."
- 17:03So, that kind of slowed the roll on that
- 17:05a little bit.
- 17:08So, but what happened? To your point,
- 17:09what did he do? He called 911 himself.
- 17:12He reported his family missing. Oh, my
- 17:14family's missing even though I killed
- 17:16them.
- 17:16Right? He gave investigators a version
- 17:19of that morning.
- 17:20He and Shannan had argued about the
- 17:22marriage. She left with the girls. He
- 17:24didn't know where they went.
- 17:26Okay. She left. Didn't take her phone.
- 17:29Her luggage is still there.
- 17:32I think the keys were still there, too.
- 17:34He didn't know where they went.
- 17:36Well, okay. That's easy to figure out.
- 17:38The same camera that saw her come home
- 17:39at 1:48 in the morning should have seen
- 17:41them leave. The neighbor's camera that
- 17:42saw his truck backing up at 5:30 in the
- 17:44morning should have seen them leaving.
- 17:46These are things These are easy things
- 17:48to figure out.
- 17:50Right? What goes on in the What goes
- 17:52into the known column now? Family
- 17:53missing. Last documented contact at 1:48
- 17:56a.m. when she got home. Husband's
- 17:58account on record. Husband is
- 18:00cooperative.
- 18:02What's in the knowable column?
- 18:04Everything material.
- 18:06Where they went. What happened between
- 18:081:48 and 7:37.
- 18:11Whether the account Watts gave
- 18:12investigators was true. That's in the
- 18:14knowable column. We know what's in the
- 18:16known column. That's in the knowable
- 18:18column.
- 18:22Man, it's a beautiful day. I did my
- 18:24workout this morning. Hit the old
- 18:25Peloton again.
- 18:27Uh should be outside. But man, so much
- 18:29stuff so much stuff to do.
- 18:31Um
- 18:32Oh, love the name.
- 18:34>> [laughter]
- 18:35>> Thanks.
- 18:36I think we're having a love fest here.
- 18:38Folks, we're here to study. Pay
- 18:39attention, class.
- 18:41Don't be passing notes in class.
- 18:43I'll have to have I'll have to have
- 18:44somebody uh take roll. Oh, and I forgot,
- 18:47what's the punishment for Coast Guard?
- 18:48You know what the punishment is for
- 18:49Coast Guard? You don't have to be last
- 18:51anymore. Guess who that is? It's Space
- 18:53Force. Space Force is last now.
- 18:55Actually, technically in DOD, when they
- 18:57talk about the order of flags, Army is
- 18:59always first.
- 19:01Thank you very much.
- 19:04Bless you.
- 19:05Why are you sneezing over there? Just
- 19:06making sure she's not coughing up along
- 19:07with all of this uh pollen and stuff
- 19:09going on. All right. So, the gap
- 19:12uh the gap between these two columns on
- 19:14August 13th is the entire investigation
- 19:16now between what's known,
- 19:18last sighting,
- 19:19and what's knowable. Everything else in
- 19:22between 1:48 and 7:37.
- 19:25Now, here's something to think about.
- 19:27As we move through the iterations, the
- 19:29different versions of this, the known
- 19:31column on August 13th isn't thin because
- 19:33investigators failed.
- 19:36It's thin because on day one of any
- 19:38missing person case, the known column is
- 19:40almost always thin.
- 19:42You're you're trying to collect data.
- 19:43You you knock on doors. You're starting
- 19:44to call people. What do you know, right?
- 19:47Starting to do records checks, database
- 19:49checks, you know.
- 19:51Checking to see if other agencies
- 19:53you know, check hospitals, right? Check
- 19:55with other agencies, surrounding
- 19:56agencies. Uh any anybody show up, you
- 19:58don't know, they haven't identified,
- 19:59could have got amnesia, don't know.
- 20:02Huh. Glad I'm not last. I will tell you
- 20:04I will give props to the Coast Guard.
- 20:06When you see some of those Coasties out
- 20:08there hopping off and onto those narco
- 20:10boats and that dude in the full tactical
- 20:12gear and he is banging on that thing,
- 20:14that is some badass stuff, my friend.
- 20:16That That is like Oh, yeah, America. I
- 20:19love that stuff.
- 20:21Uh
- 20:22my brother-in-law is retired Coast
- 20:24Guard, Panama City Beach. I'll tell you
- 20:25what, when you look at some of these
- 20:26things what they go out and do, the
- 20:28rescue swimmers, you see what they were
- 20:29doing through these hurricanes uh and
- 20:32storms, even President uh Trump
- 20:34recognized one of the rescue swimmers, I
- 20:35believe, at the uh White House during a
- 20:37recent hurricane, right? Recent uh
- 20:40uh
- 20:42weather, you know? And it's just I I
- 20:43tell you what, my hat goes off to all
- 20:45those people who train.
- 20:47Back to our regularly scheduled podcast
- 20:48now, right? So, here's what I want you
- 20:50to think about. It's thin because that's
- 20:52where it always is on these missing
- 20:53person cases. When you When you allow
- 20:55him to frame it that way, remember he
- 20:56got away with framing it as a missing
- 20:58person, he's a cooperative suspect, the
- 21:00grieving husband, all that good stuff,
- 21:02right? The evidence gathering takes
- 21:03time. It does. The interviews take time.
- 21:06It take you can't just hey, come here,
- 21:07download from your chip to my chip,
- 21:09okay, interview's done. No, you have to
- 21:10ask questions, you have to write things
- 21:11down. You get an interview, then you do
- 21:13a follow-up. You go out, oh, I need to
- 21:15ask come back and ask a couple more
- 21:16things, right? All of this takes time.
- 21:19The physical processing takes time. The
- 21:21gap between known and knowable at the
- 21:23start of an investigation is normal.
- 21:25That's the way I
- 21:26in the investigations I worked, whether
- 21:28it was something simple as I'd get
- 21:29called out, drive-by shooting, not that
- 21:31those are simple, but you go out there,
- 21:33what do we know? You start to collect
- 21:35evidence, right? Um
- 21:36One thing I've always found when you
- 21:38watch television, you watch these events
- 21:39unfolding, it was like the recent
- 21:41attempted assassination at the White
- 21:43House Correspondents Dinner uh with that
- 21:46major idiot.
- 21:48Um
- 21:49but we If you look at things like that,
- 21:52all you have to do is look at the and
- 21:54analyze the initial reporting coming out
- 21:56versus after it's all settled, what is
- 21:57the actual reporting? At first it was
- 21:59the shooter was down, the shooter was
- 22:01shot, or one person's dead, one person's
- 22:03in custody, right? You've got all of
- 22:04these different things. Then what it
- 22:05boils down to, Secret Service agent took
- 22:07a round in the chest, Kevlar and a phone
- 22:10uh stopped the round. Shooter was taken
- 22:12into custody. Now, eight shots were
- 22:14fired at him, nobody hit him.
- 22:17Too bad. Um
- 22:19Folks, we got to get to the range more
- 22:21often. Why? Because you got civilians
- 22:23and citizens around, too. You got to
- 22:24make sure that your your good with your
- 22:27your targets. So, anyway, it's thin
- 22:29because it takes time. Physical
- 22:30processing takes time. The
- 22:31investigation, that gap is normal,
- 22:33right? What isn't normal?
- 22:35What distinguish now this Watts case
- 22:37from the Peterson case is that the gap
- 22:39was closed from the inside.
- 22:41On August 15th, under examination from a
- 22:44polygraph
- 22:45Watts broke when he was shown the
- 22:47picture.
- 22:48He broke. I woke up and she was
- 22:50strangling the kids. Don't you feel
- 22:52sorry for me? It went from I don't know
- 22:53what happened to it now. Uh
- 22:56uh I woke up and she was strangling the
- 22:58kids.
- 23:01Gail Holly, Laura A, abs fantastic. They
- 23:03came to my rescue after Hurricane
- 23:05Michael, wonderful guys. I'm telling
- 23:06you.
- 23:07When you see the weather they go out
- 23:09into and and and now they're they're
- 23:11drug interdiction missions and the
- 23:12things that they're doing uh around the
- 23:14Gulf of America and places like that,
- 23:16great stuff. So, all right, veteran
- 23:181313. There you go, you got all your
- 23:21props, okay? You Coast Guard people, I
- 23:23might even elevate you up past the Navy,
- 23:25uh the Department of the Navy, right?
- 23:27Because it's the Department of the Navy
- 23:29who then uh are provide transportation
- 23:31for the Marines, as my son-in-law, a
- 23:33Marine formerly on active duty, says.
- 23:36All right.
- 23:37Close from the inside. He woke up, uh
- 23:39she was strangling the kids. Okay, so
- 23:41let's let's let's understand what's
- 23:43going on here.
- 23:44Cuz this account is one of the most
- 23:45instructive single moments in the entire
- 23:47case for anyone trying to understand how
- 23:50subjects manage information under
- 23:52pressure. Remember
- 23:54when the hu- when humans are under
- 23:55pressure, when they're under stress,
- 23:57your performance does not get better. It
- 23:59gets worse. That goes back to the
- 24:00analysis I did on the Nancy Guthrie
- 24:01case, all the television interviews I
- 24:03did. I kept saying, tell me
- 24:05what what circumstances would have to
- 24:07exist inside the home to where
- 24:09a burglary that went wrong and the
- 24:11burglar thought it was less risky to
- 24:13kidnap somebody than it was to flee?
- 24:15Because we don't we don't get better
- 24:17under stress, we get worse under stress.
- 24:18That's why when you see
- 24:20Tier One operators, Special Operations
- 24:22Forces.
- 24:23Now, you got to be careful, Special
- 24:25Forces is Green Berets.
- 24:27Um Green Berets, a lot of them are
- 24:28Rangers.
- 24:29Green Berets are Special Forces.
- 24:31Everybody else what they call SOCOM,
- 24:32Special Operations Command or Special
- 24:34Operations Forces, SOF, SOF. So there
- 24:38you go, there's your uh there's your
- 24:39learning for today, Special Forces
- 24:41versus Special Operation Forces.
- 24:46And I know a few Green Berets and if I
- 24:48don't get it right, they'll just come
- 24:49they'll kidnap me and break my neck.
- 24:52All right, let's see here. Uh
- 24:54Watts was out of his element, Drew
- 24:56Peterson was well-versed. Well, of
- 24:57course Drew Peterson was well-versed, 29
- 24:59years as a cop. He knew how this was
- 25:01going to go.
- 25:02He knew how to manage Stacy.
- 25:04That's what he was doing.
- 25:07Did they search the area where the oil
- 25:09drums were before he basically confessed
- 25:11during the polygraph or after or both?
- 25:14Good question, Emily Dill. Welcome to
- 25:17the show, as they say. Um
- 25:21I
- 25:22I don't know I I'd have to go back and
- 25:23look just for sure to say which one's
- 25:25contemporaneous, but definitely his
- 25:26confession led them to where it was, but
- 25:28I think they were closing in on it, too,
- 25:29because
- 25:30um they knew where he worked.
- 25:33Um and there's also I believe there was
- 25:35GPS on the truck. So, what but we'll
- 25:37have to get into that. That's great.
- 25:39That's That's good question, veteran
- 25:401313. Thank you.
- 25:42Thumbs up. All right, uh poor Wolf
- 25:45Blitzer. He's wondering he didn't have a
- 25:47heart attack being within several feet
- 25:48of the shooter.
- 25:49Um yeah, I mean
- 25:52normally reporters, the the good ones,
- 25:54they don't want to be the story, they
- 25:55don't want to be part of the story, but
- 25:56sometimes you are, especially that. Now,
- 25:58the one thing that I thought was really
- 25:59tacky, and I think it was somebody from
- 26:01Ukraine
- 26:02was
- 26:03swiping all the wine bottles off the
- 26:05table. Pathetic, people. You're taking
- 26:08advantage
- 26:09of a major security incident to become a
- 26:12thief.
- 26:15Anyway.
- 26:17Gail Holly says, I think it was after.
- 26:22Darn pollen.
- 26:23Hm.
- 26:30>> [laughter]
- 26:32>> Boy, I shouldn't have the windows open,
- 26:33but man, it it is so nice.
- 26:37I apologize for that, folks. Apologize
- 26:39for that.
- 26:40Lord, I apologize.
- 26:42Larry the Cable Guy.
- 26:47Um
- 26:48not sure, but they were the 20-ft tall
- 26:50oil drums, yeah.
- 26:52Doubt they would have looked at them, or
- 26:53if they did you don't know where the
- 26:55bodies would have been at that point, so
- 26:58timing was everything on this, right?
- 27:00So, let's go back [clears throat] into
- 27:01this, right? So
- 27:03Here's what's going on here, right? What
- 27:05he's trying to do is we want to
- 27:06understand how subjects manage
- 27:08information under pressure. Now, he's
- 27:09not confessing, he's redirecting. He's
- 27:11not confessing to it, he's trying to
- 27:13redirect. I didn't do it, but she was
- 27:15doing it, so the only reason I said that
- 27:17I didn't she's the mother of my kids and
- 27:18I didn't want to make her look bad. So,
- 27:20for 2 days he maintained position of the
- 27:22cooperative, innocent, grieving husband.
- 27:26He's given investigators a story in
- 27:28which he has no involvement
- 27:30no knowledge, she left, I don't know
- 27:32what happened, no culpability.
- 27:34The polygraph has just shown his body is
- 27:37responding in ways that make that story
- 27:39impossible to sustain.
- 27:41When I would do interview and
- 27:43interrogation, the purpose of the
- 27:44interview is to collect information so
- 27:46that I could develop the appropriate
- 27:47things to go in and do the
- 27:48interrogation. Interviews is you talk, I
- 27:51listen. Interrogations is I talk, you
- 27:53listen. My job and might say, hey, but I
- 27:55didn't no no no, don't want to hear yet,
- 27:56don't want to hear yet. During the
- 27:57investigation, they don't get to talk
- 28:01cuz every time they get to talk, they
- 28:03get to relieve stress. My job is to
- 28:04build up so much stress inside of you,
- 28:07you have no other way to to deal with
- 28:09that, that stress manifest so much
- 28:11inside of you, the only way to deal with
- 28:12it is to tell the truth. Only when
- 28:14you're willing to tell the
- 28:16Let's see here. Let's take a look at
- 28:17some of these uh comments here. Did he
- 28:19drop those girls in alive? No, he did.
- 28:21They were alive uh when they went in the
- 28:23oil wells. Ella um Marstead.
- 28:26Yep. Uh it's not that wasn't fake. Uh in
- 28:29fact, they they uh
- 28:30the original investigation, as they went
- 28:32back to, they found out that the girls
- 28:34were still conscious when he left the
- 28:35house with them.
- 28:37Yeah, and the [clears throat] guy that
- 28:37kept eating his salad while on the
- 28:39floor. Yeah, that's another one, too.
- 28:40We're talking about the people swiping
- 28:42bottles, eating a salad, another guy
- 28:43just kept eating, too, sat at the table.
- 28:46Let me see. I was wondering because I
- 28:47was trying to gauge how much perceived
- 28:49pressure he felt he had on him to create
- 28:51internal collapse. Well I think it
- 28:54once he was in for the polygraph and he
- 28:56and he even though they do the
- 28:57pre-interview and they tell you there's
- 29:00no surprises in a polygraph. There are
- 29:01no surprise questions in a polygraph.
- 29:03Having been through them, I can tell you
- 29:05there are no surprise
- 29:06even when they do full scope lifestyle
- 29:08polygraphs, when they do
- 29:08counterintelligence polygraphs, when
- 29:10they do polygraphs for positions of
- 29:12public trust, there are no surprise
- 29:14questions. What is your name? Is your
- 29:16name this, right? Or they they're
- 29:18polygraph questions are yes or no, so
- 29:20not like on TV.
- 29:21Okay, just answer the question. No, I
- 29:23don't know anything about it. Now, you
- 29:24answer every question yes or no. Is your
- 29:26name Morgan Wright? Yes. Do you live
- 29:29here? Yes. Are you this old? Yes.
- 29:33Then they will have you answer some
- 29:35questions wrong so that they can measure
- 29:37they can get a baseline for how you even
- 29:39even even if you know, you've been told
- 29:41to lie, even when you lie, there are
- 29:42physiological changes. So, those are all
- 29:45things that we can do. Let me see, um
- 29:48Ella, do we think Nicole will ever be
- 29:50looked into? I think she was more
- 29:51involved. Um
- 29:54And this is the first time I've seen you
- 29:56on here, so I don't know what you've
- 29:58heard before. So, a lot of the way crime
- 29:59reconstructed works is I'm not here to
- 30:01relitigate the case or reinvestigate. We
- 30:03take what's in the record and then we
- 30:05reconstruct it and we look at what are
- 30:06the teaching points out of this, what
- 30:08went right, what went wrong, where could
- 30:09the things have gone better. So, whether
- 30:11they will go back and look at her or
- 30:13not, chances are at this stage now,
- 30:15since we're talking about, you know,
- 30:172018,
- 30:18unless unless as in the Drew Peterson
- 30:21case to where
- 30:22Stacy Peterson
- 30:24goes missing, that then triggers the
- 30:27reopening of the Kathleen Savio case,
- 30:29unless you have something come up. The
- 30:31fact that it hasn't been filed um leads
- 30:34me to believe, based on uh experience,
- 30:36that no no charges are going to be filed
- 30:39in that case. So, that's just my two
- 30:41cents. The detectives handled that whole
- 30:42time period with him so well. Yeah, I'm
- 30:44telling you it's like I told you when I
- 30:45was interviewing that guy one time um
- 30:48that had uh fondled a 13-year-old
- 30:5012-year-old actually.
- 30:52Um you have to make it sound like hey,
- 30:54you have to be willing to throw up in
- 30:56your mouth, right? But, they did what
- 30:58they needed to do to keep him talking.
- 30:59Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
- 31:01Yeah, huh.
- 31:02He's got to believe that he's leading
- 31:03them down the path when and and in
- 31:05reality they are leading him down the
- 31:07path.
- 31:08So, that's the good stuff, right? So,
- 31:11for 2 days he's maintained his position
- 31:13of cooperative innocent grieving
- 31:14husband. He's given investigators a
- 31:16story in which he has no involvement, no
- 31:18knowledge, no culpability. The polygraph
- 31:21has just shown
- 31:22that's not the case, right? He cannot
- 31:24maintain that denial that he was
- 31:25present. Can't do it anymore.
- 31:28He was present now. Why? Because he said
- 31:30he woke up and Shannan was smothering
- 31:32the kids.
- 31:35Now he's present. Before he wasn't
- 31:36present.
- 31:37So, that's a lie. We know that's a lie,
- 31:39right? So, before he wasn't present, I
- 31:41woke up, they were gone.
- 31:437:37, I don't know where they were.
- 31:45Now he says, "No, I woke up and she was
- 31:47trying to kill the kids." Well, now he's
- 31:49present. That changes everything, right?
- 31:52And so, uh
- 31:53he cannot maintain like say that denial
- 31:55that he was present. Now, the instrument
- 31:57has effectively closed that option. The
- 31:58polygraph did what it was designed to
- 32:00do, which was to force an admission
- 32:02against interest.
- 32:05So, he does the next best thing.
- 32:07He acknowledges presence. He
- 32:09acknowledges, "Yeah, something
- 32:10happened." And he redirects the action
- 32:12to someone who can't contradict him.
- 32:13Why? Cuz Shannan's dead.
- 32:16She's buried in a shallow grave out by
- 32:18the Anadarko uh oil fields, those oil
- 32:21storage drums.
- 32:24Let me see here, Gail. When I looked at
- 32:26the interview, it looked like the
- 32:27interviewer gave him the idea that he
- 32:28didn't do all the killing, allowing uh
- 32:30to confess to the murder of Shannan or
- 32:32Shannan. Yeah, and it's okay. By the
- 32:35way, Supreme Court has ruled trickery
- 32:37and chicanery by There's a word for you
- 32:39guys today, chicanery. Trickery and
- 32:41chicanery are okay in interviews.
- 32:45You can trick people. The police can lie
- 32:47to you. Yes, they can. As long as I
- 32:50don't coerce you or as long as I don't
- 32:52give you the information. For example,
- 32:55"Hey, you broke into the uh blue Pontiac
- 32:57four-door on Thursday night using a
- 32:59crowbar, didn't you?" "Oh, yeah, that
- 33:01was me." No. Did you break into a car?
- 33:04Yes. When was it? It was on Thursday
- 33:06night. What kind of car was it? It was a
- 33:08Pontiac. What color was it?
- 33:10Well, we got video of you doing it
- 33:11anyway. You might as well tell us. "I
- 33:13did. I broke into it. It was a blue
- 33:14Pontiac four-door. I used a crowbar."
- 33:18So, okay. You can you can do that.
- 33:21What you cannot do is
- 33:23People say, "Well, that's entrapment."
- 33:25Now, in
- 33:26entrapment is I have to You've already
- 33:27committed the crime. We're past
- 33:29entrapment. Entrapment is is I solicit
- 33:32you to commit a crime you otherwise
- 33:34would not have committed. In this event,
- 33:36he's already committed the crime, right?
- 33:38So, the polygraph effectively closed
- 33:40that option. So, he does the next best
- 33:42thing.
- 33:42He puts the blame on somebody who can't
- 33:44contradict him. 15-week pregnant Shannan
- 33:48strangling two children.
- 33:49Physically implausible. I didn't say
- 33:51impossible, I said implausible.
- 33:54He knows that.
- 33:55The polygraph examiner knows that.
- 33:58But, the account does something the
- 33:59grief performance couldn't do.
- 34:02You know what? It puts them in the room
- 34:03as a witness now, rather than a
- 34:06perpetrator. So, he's not yet the
- 34:07perpetrator. He goes from I don't know
- 34:09anything to I was there, but I didn't do
- 34:11it, she did it, right? So, we're going
- 34:12through phases now.
- 34:14So, if investigators accept this
- 34:16account, the murder of the girls becomes
- 34:18Shannan's crime and Watts' exposure is
- 34:20limited to whatever happened with
- 34:22Shannan.
- 34:24Which I think you were getting into uh
- 34:26uh Gail Halley. Um yeah, if if she
- 34:28killed the kids and he killed Shannan in
- 34:30response to her killing the kids,
- 34:32you might call that justifiable
- 34:33homicide. He was attempting to keep her
- 34:35from doing that or she fought him.
- 34:37As implausible, I didn't say impossible,
- 34:39but as implausible as it seems.
- 34:43Mhm.
- 34:44I'm going to have to go do a straight IV
- 34:45with some of this stuff.
- 34:47>> [clears throat]
- 34:48>> Uh just to
- 34:50w- wet the old whistle as they say here.
- 34:52So, he's not thinking about the truth
- 34:54now. You know what he's thinking about?
- 34:56He's thinking about the least damaging
- 34:57position he can establish given the
- 35:00information he can no longer withhold.
- 35:03He broke. He broke during the polygraph.
- 35:05He can no longer withhold that, right?
- 35:06So, what can he do? He redirects. What
- 35:09goes into the known column after August
- 35:1015th? Watts was present in the house
- 35:13when something happened. That is now
- 35:14known.
- 35:16Something happened to his daughters that
- 35:18morning. He has direct knowledge of
- 35:19where the family is.
- 35:21He acknowledges the marriage was in
- 35:23serious trouble. These things now go
- 35:24into the known column. What has shrunk
- 35:28is on the knowable column.
- 35:30We now know the perimeter.
- 35:32He's inside of it. He's no longer
- 35:34outside of it. He's inside the
- 35:35perimeter. The gap between known and
- 35:37knowable
- 35:39has narrowed not to zero,
- 35:41not yet, but to a question of how and in
- 35:43what sequence. So, it's one of those
- 35:45things I heard in court one time. Uh
- 35:47we're not arguing that you're a liar
- 35:49now, we're just arguing to what degree
- 35:51you are.
- 35:52That was an effective line used by a
- 35:53district attorney county attorney one
- 35:55time. I thought it was really good,
- 35:56right?
- 35:58And so, the question is
- 36:00uh has narrowed not to zero, but to a
- 36:01question of how and in what sequence,
- 36:03not whether he was involved. He's
- 36:05involved now. Now, the question is to
- 36:07what degree. This is the moment the
- 36:09investigation shifts from guess what?
- 36:11From find the family
- 36:13to build the case.
- 36:15Because
- 36:17um as I said in the Guthrie case, my
- 36:19analysis of that didn't make me popular
- 36:21in some circles, but I said it's no
- 36:22longer a missing person case. We have to
- 36:24treat this as a no body homicide.
- 36:27We have to treat it in order to build
- 36:28the case. The polygraph didn't produce a
- 36:30confession that could go before a jury.
- 36:33It produced an admission though that
- 36:35made the next question unavoidable.
- 36:38If Shannan didn't kill those children
- 36:40and she didn't, then who did?
- 36:43So, the third iteration adds almost
- 36:45nothing to the known column in terms of
- 36:47facts.
- 36:48What it adds though is finality.
- 36:51So, on November 6th, 2018, Watts entered
- 36:54a guilty plea.
- 36:55>> [snorts]
- 36:57>> Uh he was going to I mean, he could have
- 36:59wasted the taxpayers' money, gone to
- 37:01trial. He was going to get convicted. Uh
- 37:03I mean, he took the deal.
- 37:05You know, the plea was structured to
- 37:06minimize the statement of facts
- 37:07required.
- 37:09He closed the legal question without
- 37:10admitting substantially to the
- 37:12informational record.
- 37:14He is guilty.
- 37:15Five consecutive life sentences. There
- 37:18will be no trial,
- 37:19no testimony, no cross-examination of
- 37:22his account.
- 37:25Let me see, agree. I don't know what you
- 37:26agree with, but hey, I'm in agreement
- 37:29with your agreement.
- 37:31Uh remember, we got about a 30-second
- 37:32pending. I found out what was causing
- 37:34the hiccups the other day. I changed my
- 37:36settings from normal to extremely low
- 37:38latency,
- 37:39which then pumps out It requires more
- 37:41bandwidth and more processing power,
- 37:43even though I have a brand new iMac
- 37:45here. Uh but that's what I found out.
- 37:47So, if you notice lately the last two or
- 37:48three times, no glitching. So, uh so,
- 37:51we're about 30 seconds behind, I do
- 37:53believe. But, I I will attempt to keep
- 37:56uh 30 seconds behind in my thinking.
- 38:00What goes into the known column after
- 38:01November 6th? Mhm. I have a card here
- 38:03from Homeland Security. Uh the uh
- 38:06Assistant Secretary uh Office for State
- 38:08and Local Law Enforcement. Got to follow
- 38:11up with this guy. We got some good
- 38:12things going on. What goes into the
- 38:14known column after November 6th? Full
- 38:16legal accountability.
- 38:18No question anymore. He did it.
- 38:20The system has rendered its verdict.
- 38:23He pled guilty. He knowingly and
- 38:24willfully pled guilty.
- 38:27The case is closed in every sense that
- 38:28the legal system closes cases. There is
- 38:30no appeal from this. That was part of
- 38:32the plea deal. You cannot appeal. You're
- 38:34pleading guilty.
- 38:36Which is solace for the family cuz they
- 38:38don't have to worry about this being
- 38:39brought back up again.
- 38:41What's still in the knowable column? The
- 38:43sequence.
- 38:44The premeditation.
- 38:46What is known is where the bodies are,
- 38:47where they were discovered. What is
- 38:48knowable is the sequence, the
- 38:50premeditation, the specific mechanics of
- 38:53what happened on August 13th. And the
- 38:55question that the known versus knowable
- 38:56framework approaches but cannot resolve,
- 38:59and Emily Deal, I think you were talking
- 39:00about this, why at the level of actual
- 39:03psychological motivation any of this
- 39:05happened. And I think I saw that early
- 39:08on. And no appeals for his family to
- 39:10endure. Yes, I saw that early on way up
- 39:12here at the top. Let me see here.
- 39:14Um
- 39:16Oh, I think that No, that was you,
- 39:17Lorelei. This was in right here. I
- 39:19watched one interview uh
- 39:21with the two little girls were alive in
- 39:22his truck with their dead mother. He
- 39:24killed them at the worksite. Who can do
- 39:25that? That's that's the knowable column.
- 39:28That's the question we still cannot
- 39:30answer.
- 39:32What does it take for somebody to do
- 39:33that?
- 39:35Just know, I'm sure pretty somewhere in
- 39:37prison
- 39:38there is a code of honor in prison among
- 39:40convicts.
- 39:42If you're a pedophile, if you're a child
- 39:43killer, if you're a child rapist,
- 39:46you have uh
- 39:48a very rough time in prison. They put
- 39:50you what they call ad seg,
- 39:51administrative segregation, ad seg, a d
- 39:54s e g. They put you in administrative
- 39:56segregation.
- 39:58Why? Because if you go out there, you're
- 40:00going to get killed.
- 40:02It happens.
- 40:03Payback is a [ __ ] Karma is a [ __ ]
- 40:06And uh in this case uh I'm sure that he
- 40:09is
- 40:09probably what he's most likely in is a
- 40:12uh if not solitary confinement, then in
- 40:15an area with other high-risk
- 40:16individuals.
- 40:18Um and they are segregated
- 40:19administratively from the rest of the uh
- 40:21general pop, what they call gen pop. Not
- 40:23Gen Z, gen pop.
- 40:26There you go. You didn't know there were
- 40:27all sorts of acronyms involved in this
- 40:29stuff.
- 40:30So,
- 40:32what's still a noble column, like we
- 40:33said, the sequence. Why would somebody
- 40:34do this, right? Why at the level of
- 40:37actual psychological motivation any of
- 40:39this happened? The plea deal closed the
- 40:41legal question. Guilt or innocence. He's
- 40:44guilty. It did not close the record.
- 40:47And then came February 2019.
- 40:51Here we go. Laura Leigh, if we
- 40:52understood what they think or how they
- 40:53think, we would be like them. That's why
- 40:55I can't wrap my head around his actions.
- 40:57You know, funny you should mention that
- 40:58because uh sometimes you have to think
- 41:00like the people who are doing this. You
- 41:01have to um
- 41:04look at it through their eyes. As I tell
- 41:05people when I instruct, especially on um
- 41:09first principles, investigation stuff
- 41:10like this, what I did for the guard,
- 41:13I tell them the problem isn't the
- 41:14problem. The problem isn't even the way
- 41:16you think about the problem. There is
- 41:18only one problem that matters.
- 41:20How does your adversary think about the
- 41:21problem? How do the Chinese think about
- 41:23it? How do the Russians think about it?
- 41:24How do the Iranians think about it? The
- 41:25North Koreans? That's all that matters.
- 41:27Doesn't matter how you think about it.
- 41:29So, to my point, it doesn't matter how
- 41:30we think about it. We have to look at it
- 41:32how does he think about it?
- 41:34So, yeah, you cannot rationalize this.
- 41:36There's no way to rationalize what he
- 41:38did from the standpoint and that's the
- 41:40frame. It's very difficult then for
- 41:42people to get into that frame, but what
- 41:43you have to get into is think
- 41:45>> [snorts]
- 41:47>> you would go you go, "Well, I wouldn't
- 41:48do anything like that." That's not the
- 41:50question. The question is what would
- 41:51make you do something like that?
- 41:54In his case, what would make him do
- 41:55something like that? Girlfriend on the
- 41:57side, wanted a new life, uh a wife with
- 42:00a third child coming and two daughters
- 42:02was an impediment to his future
- 42:04lifestyle that he had envisioned in his
- 42:06head.
- 42:07I mean, I couldn't do something like
- 42:09that, but in my mind, I look at what
- 42:12would it take to rationalize it in a
- 42:14somebody's mind like his in order to
- 42:16give him the justification to go ahead
- 42:17and do what he did.
- 42:20So,
- 42:20>> [clears throat]
- 42:21>> that gets us into exactly this, February
- 42:232019.
- 42:26Mhm.
- 42:28And boy, I don't know if you can hear
- 42:29some of the birds out here, too. I love
- 42:30the birds. I record them in the morning.
- 42:32I use little app called uh Merlin, m e r
- 42:34l i n.
- 42:36Cornell.
- 42:37Uh just great app. I can identify I got
- 42:39like 80 different birds uh things of
- 42:41life here.
- 42:42Emily Dill. So, he doesn't experience
- 42:45emotions like normal people. He didn't
- 42:46want his wife and kids anymore, but
- 42:47nobody else can have them, either. So,
- 42:49they had to go. Yeah, if I can't have
- 42:51you, nobody else can kind of thing. Or
- 42:53it's like, "Hey, I don't want to deal
- 42:54with this. I don't want to deal with
- 42:55child support. I don't want to deal with
- 42:57divorce." So, what's the easiest way to
- 42:58do it? Is to get rid of them.
- 43:01Also, the potential loss of assets and
- 43:03money from a divorce. Absolutely.
- 43:05I don't know if Colorado's a community
- 43:07property state or no-fault divorce, but
- 43:09I guarantee you um with two kids and one
- 43:12on the way, his child support payments
- 43:14would have been very healthy.
- 43:17So,
- 43:18let's talk about February 2019. In the
- 43:20seventh month after his conviction,
- 43:23Watts sat down at the Dodge Correctional
- 43:25Institution in Wisconsin. Wisconsin.
- 43:29Guess what? He's not doing time. Where
- 43:31did this happen at?
- 43:33And where's he doing time at?
- 43:36Colorado? He's doing time in Wisconsin.
- 43:39Happens sometimes with high-risk
- 43:40individuals like this.
- 43:42He sat down with FBI behavioral
- 43:44analysts,
- 43:46which uh I actually have some of their I
- 43:48have those my training I still have my
- 43:49training book from that, believe it or
- 43:51not. He gave them the fullest account of
- 43:53August 13th that exists anywhere in the
- 43:55public record.
- 43:57So,
- 43:58let's let's talk about who these FBI
- 44:01behavioral analysts are and what they're
- 44:02doing in that room because it matters
- 44:05how you interpret what comes out of that
- 44:06conversation. So, part of this is what
- 44:07they call the National Center for the
- 44:09Analysis of Violent Crime.
- 44:12FBI's Behavioral Science Unit.
- 44:14Behavior actually Behavioral Analysis
- 44:15Unit. Um BAU. Used to be I'm thinking
- 44:18old school, Behavioral Science Unit, but
- 44:20it's now called BAU, Behavioral Analysis
- 44:22Unit. And they have different groups
- 44:24now, so
- 44:25BAU 1 2 3 4 and I think 5, five
- 44:28different ones. Each one focus on
- 44:29different things. So, BAU 4 um
- 44:34uh is uh I think with dealing with
- 44:37adults, but in this case you got
- 44:38children, so the National Center and the
- 44:41other folks, they focus on these things.
- 44:42So, but what do they do, right?
- 44:44Behavioral analysts, they're not
- 44:45prosecutors. They're not there to
- 44:46collect information to litigate you.
- 44:49They are not building a case.
- 44:51The legal case has already been built.
- 44:52It's done. It's over. Watts is never
- 44:55getting out of prison, regardless of
- 44:56what he says or does not say in the next
- 44:583 hours. Will not happen.
- 45:02You got a better chance of seeing God.
- 45:03He is not getting out of prison. Not
- 45:05going to happen. Got a better chance of
- 45:07winning the lottery, the Powerball, two
- 45:09weeks in a row.
- 45:11Not going to happen. He's not getting
- 45:12out. Only one way he's getting out, upon
- 45:15death. Horizontal.
- 45:18The analysts are not there to extract
- 45:19information that can be used against
- 45:21him. There's nothing left to prosecute.
- 45:23Legally, there is nothing more that can
- 45:24be done to him. They are there to
- 45:26understand what you guys have been
- 45:28talking about, Laura Leigh and Okie and
- 45:30Emily. They are there to understand.
- 45:33They're there to understand,
- 45:35to document, to add to the body of
- 45:38knowledge about how this specific type
- 45:39of case unfolds.
- 45:41They're less concerned about Chris
- 45:43himself and they're more concerned about
- 45:45what can we learn from Chris and apply
- 45:47this to other cases to give us
- 45:49behavioral clues. So, if we run into
- 45:50another case with the quote cooperative
- 45:52suspect grieving husband, can we look at
- 45:54this and identify things quicker,
- 45:56faster, better to either confirm or
- 45:58dispel the notion that this is truly a
- 45:59missing person case or
- 46:02it's a
- 46:03homicide, it's a kidnapping.
- 46:05Real quick,
- 46:07show you quick kitty picture. There she
- 46:08is. Rosebud's back. Kind of hard to see
- 46:10that sunlight comes in like that, but uh
- 46:12she's curled back up. I opened up the
- 46:14window.
- 46:15At the expense of my uh um
- 46:19um hey, you know, uh
- 46:23the pollen and everything out there,
- 46:25allergies. But, [clears throat] anything
- 46:27for the cat, right? Anything for the
- 46:28cat.
- 46:29All right. So, that context, like I
- 46:31said, changes everything.
- 46:33Uh
- 46:35they are not there to to collect
- 46:38evidence against him for a future trial.
- 46:40So, what they want is they want
- 46:42knowledge about this specific kind of
- 46:44case unfolds so that the next time an
- 46:46investigator, like I say, faces a
- 46:47cooperative suspect in a domestic
- 46:49disappearance, they have a more complete
- 46:51picture of what they might be looking
- 46:53for. Where else should we look? What
- 46:55other questions should we ask early on?
- 46:58What steps should we take sooner rather
- 47:00than later?
- 47:02One of them is the crime scene. I was
- 47:04just watching on when I do my endurance
- 47:06rides, um I'll
- 47:08Peloton has Netflix on there and I'm
- 47:09rewatching some stuff on 48 Hours.
- 47:12And this case just happened up in
- 47:13Montgomery County, Maryland.
- 47:16But, it all start off by the framing. A
- 47:18oral surgeon, a doctor of oral surgery
- 47:21and stuff.
- 47:22I don't want to get into the whole case,
- 47:24but he's got a girlfriend half his age,
- 47:27used to be his patient, then worked for
- 47:28him and now they're go But, anyway,
- 47:30she's got all sorts of drugs there,
- 47:31propofol, ketamine,
- 47:33all sorts of stuff like that.
- 47:35>> [clears throat]
- 47:36>> But, they go there and he frames it as
- 47:37that it's an overdose. She overdosed
- 47:39herself. She's been like this for a long
- 47:41time.
- 47:43They don't secure the scene like they
- 47:44should have.
- 47:45Not knocking Montgomery County, got lots
- 47:47of friends that work there.
- 47:48But, this is the one thing that if I
- 47:50could just beat it through people's
- 47:51head, it doesn't matter what you say.
- 47:55I don't care it's like the cold case I
- 47:57was telling you I was working. The
- 47:58doctor then framed it as it's a suicide
- 48:00when it is not a suicide. FBI BAU 4 said
- 48:03it is a staged crime scene. This is one
- 48:05of the biggest things I'd love to get
- 48:06through into not only into dispatch, uh
- 48:09into the initial radio call that goes
- 48:10out, but into the initial mindset of the
- 48:12officers that showed up. It does not
- 48:14matter what that person tells you.
- 48:16It doesn't matter what you believe. It
- 48:18only matters what must be true. That's
- 48:19why first principles is so powerful when
- 48:21you apply it this way.
- 48:23So, it doesn't matter what he told me.
- 48:25She's missing. Got you. Noted. Data
- 48:28point. Don't believe I don't It's not a
- 48:30matter of believing or not believing.
- 48:31It's a data point. So, she's missing. We
- 48:35have a crime scene, right? We want to
- 48:36treat this as a crime scene. You never
- 48:38get the second You never get a second
- 48:40chance to go back to a pristine crime
- 48:41scene, the way it was when you first
- 48:43showed up. JonBenét Ramsey.
- 48:45Never going to get that chance. Why? Cuz
- 48:47we let John Ramsey go throughout the
- 48:49house. He found her, ripped the duct
- 48:51tape off, and now he's contaminated the
- 48:53crime scene. You never get a second
- 48:55chance to do this. So, if I had my way,
- 48:57in the academy, everything else, doesn't
- 48:59does not matter a single thing. Does not
- 49:02not matter what they say. Doesn't mean
- 49:03you don't take them seriously. Like, my
- 49:05child's missing. Great.
- 49:07Child's missing. Get let's get some
- 49:08information. Do an Amber Alert. Let's do
- 49:10whatever we can. But, at the same time,
- 49:12in my head, I am not closing off
- 49:15all of the other different possibilities
- 49:16based on behavior, right? Is the parent
- 49:19acting like
- 49:20Chris Watts did?
- 49:22You know?
- 49:24Are they the grieving Are they the
- 49:25cooperative suspect, right?
- 49:27Well, if you handle it like a crime
- 49:29scene from the beginning and you collect
- 49:31everything, and if they don't want to
- 49:33let you do it, it's very simple. You
- 49:34say, "Fine. You don't get to go back
- 49:36into the house. You're coming out here.
- 49:37We're securing this area. We'll go get a
- 49:39We'll go get a search warrant.
- 49:42That's how that gets handled.
- 49:45Sorry, I went off on a rant there. But
- 49:47this very important. This is why the FBI
- 49:49is there. They're there. They're there.
- 49:51The context changes the conversation in
- 49:54ways that are specific and documented,
- 49:56right?
- 49:57Because what do they want? They want um
- 50:01They want to document, like I say, to
- 50:03add to the body of knowledge about how
- 50:04this specific type of case unfolds so
- 50:07that the next time an investigator faces
- 50:09a cooperative suspect in a domestic
- 50:11disappearance,
- 50:12they have a more complete picture,
- 50:13right? The context changes the
- 50:15conversation in ways that are specific
- 50:17and documented. Subjects talk
- 50:19differently to people who are not
- 50:20prosecuting them. He's got nothing to
- 50:23lose. In fact, he's got everything by
- 50:24everything to gain. Maybe he gets a
- 50:25couple favors. Maybe he gets a extra
- 50:27meal time, whatever it might be, right?
- 50:29He gets some favors. So he's got an
- 50:31incentive now to cooperate. The
- 50:33adversarial structure of the interview
- 50:34room and the implicit or explicit
- 50:36awareness that what you say can be used
- 50:37against you
- 50:39changes what people are willing to
- 50:40disclose. In this case, it's gone.
- 50:41Nothing he says can be used against him.
- 50:43He can't do any more time. He's He's
- 50:46uh sentenced to five consecutive life
- 50:47sentences. He's not really going to
- 50:50There's nothing else you can make it six
- 50:52or seven. Not going to change his
- 50:53outcome at all. He's still not getting
- 50:55out of prison, right? So when that
- 50:57structure is gone, when the subject has
- 50:59nothing left to protect legally, a
- 51:01different type of conversation becomes
- 51:03possible.
- 51:04Let's see what some of these things are
- 51:06um
- 51:08That's where Susan Smith comes in, the
- 51:09Chris Watts and mother. Susan Smith will
- 51:11be a case that we do. I actually met the
- 51:13sheriff one time at an
- 51:14ICP conference that did that case. They
- 51:16actually had him on a panel talking
- 51:18about that. Very interesting. And the
- 51:20part of that started her downfall
- 51:22was the use of
- 51:24past tense versus present tense. I'll
- 51:26just leave it at that. We'll get into
- 51:27more of it later.
- 51:29Seems Chris is unique in that he is
- 51:31among the 19% of family annihilators who
- 51:33did not attempt or succeed at suicide.
- 51:36Um
- 51:38Yeah, but that's what But that's um
- 51:40But even when we say, "Look, uh
- 51:43what are the odds of it?" Well,
- 51:44apparently in his case, 100% that he was
- 51:46not part of that 19%, right?
- 51:48Um
- 51:49And his He may have thought He may have
- 51:51had the hubris, the arrogance to think
- 51:53he was going to get away with it. That's
- 51:54why he didn't attempt it.
- 51:56And sometimes some people are so vain,
- 51:58it's like, "I want to kill myself." They
- 51:59want the attention, but they never
- 52:00follow through on it. So, you know, with
- 52:03this guy, that's part of why the FBI was
- 52:05there, right? So, um
- 52:08it doesn't guarantee honesty though,
- 52:09these types of interviews. I guarantee
- 52:11you, it doesn't. You could You can talk
- 52:12to people. I knew a guy that was good
- 52:14for, let's say, 30 burglaries. He'd only
- 52:15tell me about 25 of them. Would not give
- 52:17up the last five, even though it would
- 52:19not have made a material difference in
- 52:20anything. They hold on to that kind of
- 52:22information. That's their safety
- 52:23blanket, something that still belongs to
- 52:25them. You'll see this especially in
- 52:27serial crimes.
- 52:29The self-serving elements don't
- 52:30disappear. They just change form. Watts
- 52:32in February 2019 is constructing a
- 52:34version of himself as, guess what? An
- 52:37overwhelmed man who could see there was
- 52:38no other way. Not as a predator who
- 52:41planned methodically.
- 52:43Methodically.
- 52:45He was texting his girlfriend on the
- 52:47side, "Hey,
- 52:50uh she's leaving me. I'm going to be
- 52:52getting I'm going to be coming a free
- 52:53man here in a couple days."
- 52:55before Shannan mysteriously and
- 52:57coincidentally dies.
- 53:00That narrative serves his psychological
- 53:01needs, even if it no longer serves his
- 53:04legal ones. Doesn't matter anymore.
- 53:07>> [clears throat]
- 53:07>> But it creates conditions for the kind
- 53:08of disclosure that the prior three
- 53:10iterations couldn't produce because they
- 53:12were all done under different
- 53:14conditions, different legal
- 53:15implications. And what he disclosed in
- 53:17that room is the most complete account
- 53:19of August 12th and 13th, 2018 that
- 53:21exists. Why? Only one person who knows.
- 53:23Everybody else is dead.
- 53:25Here's what he put down in the known
- 53:26column.
- 53:32Ah, that's getting better.
- 53:35Uh I've I'm sorry, I missed this one
- 53:37here. Uh seems Chris Oh, yeah, unique
- 53:39and then I've studied them a really dark
- 53:41but fascinating facet of mass murder.
- 53:44So, there's [clears throat] different
- 53:44types of murders, folks. Uh there's uh
- 53:46serial crimes. There's mass killers,
- 53:49there's spree killers. You know, each
- 53:50one of those mean different things. So,
- 53:52that's why words mean things in a legal
- 53:54context. Mass killers, you do it all at
- 53:56once. Spree killer, you're doing
- 53:57killings um
- 53:59one after the other, let's say. You go
- 54:01one place, you kill a couple people, you
- 54:02drive to another place, kill a couple
- 54:03people. That's spree killings. Mass
- 54:05killing confined to one location. Serial
- 54:07crimes, uh definition now is down to two
- 54:09murders, but uh a murder followed by a
- 54:12cooling-off period.
- 54:13You know, then you do a second one. If
- 54:14you have two or more of those, they call
- 54:16that now a serial murderer.
- 54:18Serial killer. But definitions change.
- 54:21Anyway, but here's what goes into the
- 54:22known column.
- 54:23The night before Sh- The night before
- 54:25Shannan came home from Phoenix, while
- 54:26she was still in Arizona. Arizona,
- 54:30kick off your shoes and stay. That was
- 54:31another famous song. Anyway,
- 54:33he tried to administer oxycodone
- 54:36through her food. Oxycodone.
- 54:39The goal was to harm baby Nico.
- 54:41The baby survived.
- 54:45Think about that for a moment.
- 54:47Because this detail alone dismantles
- 54:49something that has been in the public
- 54:50narrative since the case broke.
- 54:52This is not a crime that happened in a
- 54:54terrible moment. This is not a man who
- 54:57snapped when his wife walked in the
- 54:59door.
- 55:01The planning horizon
- 55:03on August 13th doesn't begin at 1:48 in
- 55:05the morning when Shannan came home.
- 55:09It begins at least 24 hours earlier in a
- 55:12deliberate attempt to harm an unborn
- 55:14child through his food supply, which is
- 55:17the mother. You Whatever you do to the
- 55:18mother ends up in the baby.
- 55:21When Shannan walked through the front
- 55:22door that night, she walked into
- 55:24something she was all that was already
- 55:25running.
- 55:27His plot. Continuing the account,
- 55:29Shannan arrived at approximately 1:48.
- 55:31An argument about the marriage followed.
- 55:34After Shannan was asleep, Watts
- 55:36strangled her in their master bedroom.
- 55:40That is the beginning, right? Now,
- 55:42he's killed her.
- 55:43Now, what do I do? Well, then he went to
- 55:45Bella's room.
- 55:46Then Celeste's room.
- 55:48The girls were still alive when he
- 55:50carried them to his truck.
- 55:53On the drive to the Anadarko Cervi, c e
- 55:57r v i, Cervi 319 oil site, Bella asked
- 56:00him where they were going.
- 56:03So, I read that FBI transcript.
- 56:05The question, four words from a
- 56:074-year-old.
- 56:09"Where are we going?" is documented.
- 56:13It entered the known column in February
- 56:142019. And in all the years I've been
- 56:17doing this,
- 56:19few single pieces of evidence stay with
- 56:22you the way that something like this
- 56:23does, right? Not because it changes the
- 56:25legal outcome. He's not getting out.
- 56:27Because of what it means about those
- 56:30last hours were like for those children.
- 56:34The oil tank access opening at the Cervi
- 56:36319 site
- 56:38were 8 inches in diameter.
- 56:48That's 8 inches.
- 56:50Right there.
- 56:53That's That's the diameter
- 56:56of those holes.
- 56:58He placed his daughters' bodies inside
- 57:00those tanks.
- 57:01Shannan was buried nearby at the site.
- 57:06>> [clears throat]
- 57:06>> Um let me see.
- 57:08Uh what? Wait, what? He drugged her that
- 57:10night? The night before he tried uh It
- 57:12was the uh oxycodone.
- 57:15Premeditated. He canceled a work crew
- 57:16that was to be at the work site.
- 57:20It's It is so sad. Um yeah, guys, and
- 57:22this is I say, we don't get into the
- 57:24salacious details about but these are
- 57:26details in the record, but they're
- 57:27they're important when we reconstruct
- 57:29the case and we look at what's known
- 57:31versus knowable, right? Cuz that's what
- 57:32Thursdays are about. So,
- 57:35he placed his daughters' bodies inside
- 57:37those tanks, and Sh- Shannan was buried
- 57:39nearby, right? After the February 2019
- 57:41interview, the known column in the Watts
- 57:43case is is among the most complete, you
- 57:46know, for a case of this type.
- 57:48That The what is documented. The what?
- 57:52The sequence is documented. The
- 57:54premeditation is documented. The
- 57:56planning horizon is established.
- 57:59The mechanism of each death is now in
- 58:01the record. The location and method of
- 58:03disposal is in the record. And yet,
- 58:06what question can we not answer?
- 58:09It is the why. At the level of
- 58:11psychological truth is still not there.
- 58:16Sorry, I told my Tarara not to have the
- 58:18duty between 12:00 and 1:30. Guess what?
- 58:20She didn't listen. I was walking her and
- 58:22trying to listen.
- 58:23>> [laughter]
- 58:25>> Uh
- 58:26But with a with a little Chihuahua, it
- 58:28should have been a small duty. Not a If
- 58:30it's a big one, you got big problems,
- 58:32right?
- 58:33Same size as the well pipe that just the
- 58:35baby Jessica fell in, yeah. I mean, it's
- 58:37you You'd be amazed um
- 58:41what can be done in those small spaces,
- 58:42right? So,
- 58:45So, anyway, what it is, it's one of the
- 58:46most complete on record. And yet, we
- 58:48still don't know why. Watts said he
- 58:49wanted to be with Nicole Kessinger.
- 58:52He says the marriage was over.
- 58:55He says he felt trapped. He says he
- 58:57couldn't see another way out. Those
- 58:59words are in the record. They are not
- 59:00sufficient, not in any way, shape, or
- 59:02form. Here's what I mean by the
- 59:04distinction.
- 59:06The surface why is present, the affair,
- 59:09the desire to be free,
- 59:11the feeling of being trapped.
- 59:13Those are real.
- 59:15He experienced them.
- 59:17They're in the record, but they don't
- 59:19account for the oxycodone attempt.
- 59:21They don't close the gap between I want
- 59:23out of this marriage and I will poison
- 59:25my unborn son and put my daughters in an
- 59:27oil tank.
- 59:28That gap between a recognizable human
- 59:31motivation and what actually what he
- 59:33actually did is where explanation runs
- 59:36out.
- 59:37People went out of marriages every day.
- 59:40They don't kill.
- 59:42Not always, but some do, but no, people
- 59:44went out of marriages every day. People
- 59:46feel trapped in relationships and in
- 59:48lives that aren't working for them
- 59:50constantly.
- 59:51The vast majority of them divorce or
- 59:53leave or have conversations they've been
- 59:55avoiding.
- 59:56The explanation for why this specific
- 59:59man made this specific series of
- 1:00:01decisions is not in the record.
- 1:00:04It cannot be put there by any
- 1:00:05investigative means we know.
- 1:00:09So, the known versus noble framework is
- 1:00:11a tool. What's a tool for? It's a tool
- 1:00:13for establishing
- 1:00:15facts. It is not And again, that's why I
- 1:00:17wanted to make a question, I think um
- 1:00:19one of our new folks here. Uh let me go
- 1:00:21back up and get the name correctly.
- 1:00:24Um
- 1:00:26not that trans, but uh
- 1:00:29Oh, gosh, darn. I will I'm one of those
- 1:00:31people once I get the open loop in my
- 1:00:32head, I have to do it. Let me scroll
- 1:00:34There it is. Uh Ella
- 1:00:36uh uh Ella Marstead, right? Um so, um
- 1:00:40one thing I was trying to tell people is
- 1:00:42we're not here to go back and I had this
- 1:00:44discussion with somebody and I stopped
- 1:00:45it on the Scott Peterson case. He's
- 1:00:47innocent. He was railroaded. That's not
- 1:00:49here for that.
- 1:00:51Not here to relitigate the case. I'm not
- 1:00:52here to open it. I'm not We have new
- 1:00:54evidence. Not my problem. That's the
- 1:00:56court's problem. That's his problem. Not
- 1:00:57my problem.
- 1:00:59This is about crime reconstructed. This
- 1:01:01is about diving in
- 1:01:03and and and doing doing the intro, doing
- 1:01:05the assumption audit, doing the system
- 1:01:07stress test, doing the known versus
- 1:01:09noble, we do the master class, and then
- 1:01:11we find finish Friday with the
- 1:01:12synthesis. That's what we do on these
- 1:01:13cases. Some of them can be adjudicated.
- 1:01:15Some of them can still be open, but I'm
- 1:01:17not here to go search down rabbit holes
- 1:01:21for somebody's pet theory.
- 1:01:24So, that's why I
- 1:01:25sometimes And guys, you know, that when
- 1:01:27I push back, it's not personal. It's
- 1:01:29like, "No, if I don't do it, you guys
- 1:01:30have seen me. We were in Australia
- 1:01:32looking at koalas." Literally.
- 1:01:34I showed you some pictures of Australia.
- 1:01:36Uh good stuff. I think I'm starting to
- 1:01:38get it. Hey, look, took me a while. Been
- 1:01:40doing this 40 years. Took me a while to
- 1:01:41get it.
- 1:01:43Uh Nicole knew he was married and had no
- 1:01:44problem with that, right?
- 1:01:47She didn't see his lies until she found
- 1:01:49out Shannan was pregnant. From what she
- 1:01:51said in her PD interview. Similar to
- 1:01:53Amber Frey.
- 1:01:55You mean, you were married, Scott? That
- 1:01:56you weren't a widower? That she was
- 1:01:58still alive? And she disappeared with
- 1:02:01your unborn son, Connor?
- 1:02:03That's why Amber Frey came forward in
- 1:02:05the Scott Peterson case.
- 1:02:07All right.
- 1:02:08The known versus noble is a tool for
- 1:02:10establishing facts. It's not a tool for
- 1:02:12establishing psychological truth. Those
- 1:02:15are different objects and the
- 1:02:16methodology has to be honest about the
- 1:02:18difference.
- 1:02:19Facts can be documented, sourced,
- 1:02:21corroborated, placed in a known column.
- 1:02:24Internal motivation, the actual
- 1:02:26experience of a person who commits this
- 1:02:28kind of act
- 1:02:29cannot be reconstructed from the
- 1:02:31outside, not by investigators,
- 1:02:33not by behavior analysts,
- 1:02:35not by the methodology.
- 1:02:37This is not a failure of the
- 1:02:38investigation. It's not a failure of the
- 1:02:41framework.
- 1:02:43Let's see here.
- 1:02:45Um
- 1:02:46Chris said his family would be alive if
- 1:02:48not for
- 1:02:49for Yeah, that Nicole's relationship,
- 1:02:52for what that is worth.
- 1:02:54He's transferring Guess what? What if if
- 1:02:56she hadn't been willing to have an
- 1:02:57affair for me, my family would still be
- 1:02:59alive. Don't Don't look at my personal
- 1:03:01responsibility.
- 1:03:03If it wasn't for her, if it wasn't for
- 1:03:04everybody else. Well, dude, if it wasn't
- 1:03:06for you, they'd all be alive.
- 1:03:09It's not a failure of the framework.
- 1:03:10It's the honest boundary of what
- 1:03:12reconstruction can do. The known column
- 1:03:14has a ceiling.
- 1:03:15In the Watts case, we found that ceiling
- 1:03:17by running the record to its completion
- 1:03:19and asking what it still doesn't answer.
- 1:03:22The why.
- 1:03:24Finding the ceiling is the work. It
- 1:03:25tells you what is available to be known
- 1:03:28and it tells you where the unknowable
- 1:03:30begins.
- 1:03:31That boundary is not a comfortable place
- 1:03:33to end up. Remember I said sometimes you
- 1:03:34have to be comfortable with uncertainty
- 1:03:37when you're doing investigations. This
- 1:03:38is not a true crime podcast, folks. In
- 1:03:40other words, we're not just retelling a
- 1:03:41story and rehashing it and doing murder
- 1:03:43porn. This is a serious look at how
- 1:03:47these things work, how investigations
- 1:03:49work, how we improve on doing these
- 1:03:51things, and it's giving you an inside
- 1:03:53insight They They don't give you
- 1:03:54insight. What they do on all of these
- 1:03:56shows, and I've watched them, you know,
- 1:03:58and I know when I'm being fed.
- 1:04:00It's like I have this discussion with my
- 1:04:02wife all the time. Well, what do you
- 1:04:03think about
- 1:04:05They put on TV what they want you to
- 1:04:06see, not what the truth is. Remember I
- 1:04:08did that rant about a month ago, South
- 1:04:10by Southwest. How do we shape the facts
- 1:04:12to tell a compelling narrative?
- 1:04:14Nobody cares about the truth in some of
- 1:04:16this stuff. They don't. You know why?
- 1:04:17Cuz if you told the truth, to them it'd
- 1:04:19be boring.
- 1:04:20They want to They want to sexy it up.
- 1:04:22That That's why it's called murder porn.
- 1:04:24Murder monetizing media. They They
- 1:04:26profit off the misery of others.
- 1:04:31So again, that boundary is not a
- 1:04:32comfortable place to end up. The
- 1:04:33question that sits on the other side of
- 1:04:35it,
- 1:04:37why would any person do this?
- 1:04:39Which all of you guys have asked. I
- 1:04:40don't see how anybody could do this. Is
- 1:04:42the question every person who encounters
- 1:04:43this case eventually ask. How could he
- 1:04:46do this? The known column gives you four
- 1:04:49detailed
- 1:04:50confession iterations, 2,000 pages of
- 1:04:54discovery, and the most detailed record
- 1:04:56The Colorado Bureau of Investigation put
- 1:04:58out that discovery document, and the
- 1:05:00most detailed record of a domestic
- 1:05:01homicide that most people will ever
- 1:05:03encounter.
- 1:05:04And it still does not answer that
- 1:05:06question.
- 1:05:09Thank you, Emily. If this was true
- 1:05:10crime, I wouldn't be here. I appreciate
- 1:05:12you because I'm not into doing true
- 1:05:14crime.
- 1:05:15I mean, one of the proposals I have
- 1:05:16actually before a streaming service
- 1:05:18right now is about How about we do a
- 1:05:20true true crime story about the failure
- 1:05:22of true crime? And here I have five
- 1:05:24episodes.
- 1:05:27One of them is the Golden State Killer.
- 1:05:29You want me to tell you all the ways
- 1:05:30true crime has failed? You want me to
- 1:05:32tell you how many times they
- 1:05:33misidentified the wrong person? They got
- 1:05:35the wrong information. They put the
- 1:05:37wrong people in the frame and cost them?
- 1:05:43I can tell you many true crime podcasts
- 1:05:45right now
- 1:05:47that have been sued
- 1:05:49and are likely to be sued again. Why?
- 1:05:51Because they play
- 1:05:53fast and loose with the facts.
- 1:05:56Whatever serves their purpose to create
- 1:05:58clickbait to get you on here. I could do
- 1:05:59a better job of getting people on here
- 1:06:01by doing clickbait stuff, but look, I'm
- 1:06:03going to do what I do,
- 1:06:04and if it grows, it grows, and if it
- 1:06:06doesn't, it doesn't. Some of you guys
- 1:06:08are going to start seeing ads. I've
- 1:06:09gotten to the point now where I can run
- 1:06:10ads on some of this stuff.
- 1:06:12We'll see where it goes, but I'm not
- 1:06:14doing it for the money.
- 1:06:17Um
- 1:06:18if I was, it'd be a different format.
- 1:06:21It'd be all of this hype and everything
- 1:06:23else. So,
- 1:06:25uh are all these answers to why enough?
- 1:06:27I'm a little lost as to what more and uh
- 1:06:30little lost as to what more is unknown
- 1:06:33noble.
- 1:06:34Um
- 1:06:36Well, I don't know. I I'm not sure I
- 1:06:37quite get that, but aren't all these
- 1:06:38answers to why enough? We don't know
- 1:06:40why.
- 1:06:41We know his explanation.
- 1:06:44But, you know, his why isn't the true
- 1:06:47why.
- 1:06:48That's what I said. That's the That's
- 1:06:49the noble part, right? That's why we've
- 1:06:51had four different four different
- 1:06:53versions of this.
- 1:06:55The question that sits on the other side
- 1:06:56of it, why would any person do this,
- 1:06:58right? Is the question everybody who
- 1:07:00ask, you know, who sees this case ask.
- 1:07:03And it does not answer that specific
- 1:07:04question, why? We have his answers, but
- 1:07:07it still not does not answer why, right?
- 1:07:09Cuz he's got four different
- 1:07:10explanations.
- 1:07:12This has to be accepted as the condition
- 1:07:13of the work, though. To your point, Oki,
- 1:07:15not fought against. This is a condition
- 1:07:17of the work because the alternative,
- 1:07:19pretending the known column contains
- 1:07:21something it doesn't, constructing a
- 1:07:23psychological explanation from
- 1:07:25insufficient evidence,
- 1:07:27treating the surface why
- 1:07:29as sufficient because no better answer
- 1:07:31is available
- 1:07:33is not honest reconstruction. It's
- 1:07:35narrative substitution. We're
- 1:07:36substituting one narrative We're
- 1:07:38narrative We're We're back to
- 1:07:40Thinking, comma, Fast and Slow, Daniel
- 1:07:42Kahneman. System One Thinking, Type One
- 1:07:44Thinking. We need coherence. Whatever
- 1:07:45sounds good enough, we'll put it in
- 1:07:46there. That's narrative substitution.
- 1:07:49It tells the story that feels complete
- 1:07:51while burying the fact that the real
- 1:07:53answer isn't there. Let's see. I don't
- 1:07:56think Amber Frey was aware of Scott's
- 1:07:57marriage because must have hearing him
- 1:07:58lie
- 1:07:59so much to her on the phone. No, she
- 1:08:01wasn't aware of that until she was
- 1:08:02reported missing.
- 1:08:04I mean, I I firmly believe Amber Frey
- 1:08:05was not aware of all this stuff. She
- 1:08:07definitely thought she was dealing with
- 1:08:08somebody who was available, who was on
- 1:08:10the market, who didn't have a wife and
- 1:08:12son on the way.
- 1:08:14So, the Watts case gives us the fullest
- 1:08:16known column in this series so far.
- 1:08:18It gives us the ceiling at its highest,
- 1:08:21and it still has a permanent unknowable.
- 1:08:25So, tonight's master class, 7:00 p.m.
- 1:08:28Eastern Time,
- 1:08:30addresses that directly. So, Oki, we
- 1:08:32will get into some of that tonight. I
- 1:08:33don't want to I don't want to
- 1:08:35cannibalize
- 1:08:37future episodes by getting it all of it
- 1:08:38now, but tonight we're going to talk
- 1:08:40about the unknowable part of that. We'll
- 1:08:41talk about some of the why part, right?
- 1:08:43Cuz the Watts case gives us the fullest
- 1:08:45known column in this series. Tonight's
- 1:08:47master class, what do we do? We address
- 1:08:48that directly. When a subject gives you
- 1:08:50multiple conflicting accounts of the
- 1:08:52same events,
- 1:08:54which ones do you weight?
- 1:08:57W E I G H T, not W A I T. Which ones do
- 1:08:59you give weight to? Which ones do you
- 1:09:02discount?
- 1:09:03And how do you build a reconstruction
- 1:09:05that's more accurate than any single
- 1:09:08version provides?
- 1:09:09The methodology problem that almost
- 1:09:11nobody teaches systematically.
- 1:09:14That's what we are going to do tonight.
- 1:09:16Tonight. Tonight. Tonight I'll see my
- 1:09:19love tonight. What musical did that come
- 1:09:22out of? All right, sheriffs need to
- 1:09:23provide detectives with what they need
- 1:09:24to investigate, and detectives need to
- 1:09:26be retrained and have consistent ongoing
- 1:09:28training. Couldn't agree more.
- 1:09:30Uh unfortunately, budgets budget
- 1:09:32constraints um they all operate under um
- 1:09:35tightening budgets.
- 1:09:37Um and so you don't there's
- 1:09:39state-mandated training that you have to
- 1:09:41go through. Depends on what state you're
- 1:09:43in. Sometimes it's 40 hours, sometimes
- 1:09:44it's 80 hours, but you have to have uh
- 1:09:46in-service training or have continuous
- 1:09:48training each year, so many credit
- 1:09:50hours. Continuing legal education
- 1:09:52credits, similar, you know, CLEs.
- 1:09:54So yeah, training is a big part of that.
- 1:09:56That's why I don't mind going to the
- 1:09:57National Guard. I do professional
- 1:09:58speaking. My fees are much higher than
- 1:10:00what I'm charging these guys. I'm giving
- 1:10:01them a 75% discount. And still
- 1:10:04capitalism is good thing, comrade. I
- 1:10:06still do this for capitalism, but um I
- 1:10:09want I want to make sure they get
- 1:10:10trained, right?
- 1:10:12So um we're exchanging something.
- 1:10:14They're exchanging money for my time,
- 1:10:16and for my time, I'm exchanging my my
- 1:10:18knowledge or my the way I think about
- 1:10:20stuff with them so that they become more
- 1:10:22valuable in terms of the work that
- 1:10:24they're doing.
- 1:10:25Um got you. Bingo, got you.
- 1:10:28Let's see Ah, she got it right. Teresa
- 1:10:30Griffin, West Side Story. Yes, we did
- 1:10:32that, believe it or not, in high school.
- 1:10:34I am dating myself. We did some songs
- 1:10:36from uh uh high school Maria.
- 1:10:40Maria, I just met a girl named Maria.
- 1:10:44Great great uh kid named Martin Geisert
- 1:10:46sang lead on that. I remember it. How do
- 1:10:48I remember this stuff? It's an
- 1:10:50affliction. It's a curse. It's a
- 1:10:51blessing and a curse, right? So guys, so
- 1:10:53here's what we're going to do.
- 1:10:55Um uh
- 1:10:56I won't show you
- 1:10:58I just want to show this from yesterday.
- 1:10:59I still had it in there. I forgot to
- 1:11:00take it out. Remember, we have all of
- 1:11:01these what if people. What if what if
- 1:11:02what if, right? Well, remember now, what
- 1:11:04if worms had machine guns, birds
- 1:11:05wouldn't screw with them, now would
- 1:11:07they? Okay.
- 1:11:09So and I want to remind you of one more
- 1:11:10thing here, right? What do I want to
- 1:11:12remind you of? This.
- 1:11:15>> [music]
- 1:11:22>> Give me your case, we'll reconstruct it.
- 1:11:24And if I do, and if you you there's a
- 1:11:26thing on there that says you want to be
- 1:11:27uh credited with it or not. If you want
- 1:11:29to be, I will I will give you full
- 1:11:31credit. Otherwise, you can remain
- 1:11:34anonymous. That's anonymous, not
- 1:11:36anonymous, but anonymous. I say
- 1:11:38anonymous.
- 1:11:39Uh because I'm the You don't know,
- 1:11:41hardly.
- 1:11:42You're not that old.
- 1:11:45I don't know anybody's age. There's no
- 1:11:46age requirement other than this is uh I
- 1:11:48don't make it with YouTube, it's weird.
- 1:11:50If you make it for kids or something it
- 1:11:51So I don't make this for kids. This is
- 1:11:53made for adults. And I have to go
- 1:11:55through on the ad stuff and basically
- 1:11:56check. The only thing I do is is I keep
- 1:11:58as you notice really keep profanity to a
- 1:12:01minimum. Former cop, military guy. I
- 1:12:02mean, I could have unleashed a flurry of
- 1:12:05uh foul language, but I chose not to cuz
- 1:12:07this needs to be professional. And you
- 1:12:09guys are professionals out there. Um but
- 1:12:11I have to check a place on there that
- 1:12:12says we talk about sensitive topics, but
- 1:12:14in a but in a respectful way. We talk
- 1:12:16about death and tragedy and stuff like
- 1:12:18that, which makes it ad safe. That the
- 1:12:20YouTube will allow you to generate and
- 1:12:22run ads on that. So
- 1:12:23it's not that I'm interested in playing
- 1:12:25within their rules and their guidelines,
- 1:12:26but it is their system, right? But I'm
- 1:12:28not interested in being controversial
- 1:12:29and going I know what happened in the I
- 1:12:32get tired of seeing this crap on the net
- 1:12:34crap, as they say in Scotland,
- 1:12:35crappolat. I get tired of seeing this
- 1:12:37crap of people putting out crap on the
- 1:12:39Nancy Guthrie case, and they keep
- 1:12:41bringing up um
- 1:12:42uh the son-in-law. They keep bringing up
- 1:12:45the daughter. They keep bringing up all
- 1:12:46this other stuff that has been just
- 1:12:49run to ground. It's been dealt with.
- 1:12:51There's not a there there, and yet they
- 1:12:52keep regurgitating it. Why? Because they
- 1:12:55keep getting clicks.
- 1:12:57It's like you say, why why did you you
- 1:12:58see what they used to call the Nigerian
- 1:12:59scam email? Why do they keep sending out
- 1:13:01these scam emails? Because it works.
- 1:13:03People still respond to them. So I do
- 1:13:05not do um
- 1:13:08Rita Moreno is 94, amazing. Oh, yes. I
- 1:13:11mean, and that the the Jets and the
- 1:13:12Sharks, remember the two gangs? They
- 1:13:14just don't I mean, I I like it's been a
- 1:13:16long time since I've gone to see a
- 1:13:17musical. I
- 1:13:18few times I was up Well, not few times,
- 1:13:20quite a few times I've been up in New
- 1:13:21York City. I walked down Broadway. Could
- 1:13:23have seen some stuff down there, but um
- 1:13:26just wasn't into it at that time. Um I
- 1:13:29like I like the movie version of it of
- 1:13:31West Side Story. So but uh anyway,
- 1:13:34>> [snorts]
- 1:13:34>> let us do this tonight. You guys have
- 1:13:36your marching orders. If you show up at
- 1:13:387:00 p.m. tonight, we will dig into a
- 1:13:39lot of this stuff. I want to thank all
- 1:13:41of you guys for showing up. Uh make sure
- 1:13:43you like, subscribe, smash that like
- 1:13:45subscribe button. Um help the algorithm.
- 1:13:48Get it out there. Share it with friends.
- 1:13:49Total strangers. Total strangers will
- 1:13:51simply have to watch to wonder what
- 1:13:52you're going on and on about. You got to
- 1:13:54watch Crime Recon- structed on YouTube,
- 1:13:56Substack. I'm broadcasting to six
- 1:13:58different um locations right now.
- 1:14:01So if you can't find me, you're not
- 1:14:02trying hard enough. But remember, we
- 1:14:04want to do this right. We want to do
- 1:14:06this legitimately. And remember, at the
- 1:14:07end of the day, this is why we do this.
- 1:14:10Whoops,
- 1:14:10>> [music]
- 1:14:11>> wrong one.
- 1:14:13Sorry, wrong one. This is why we do
- 1:14:15this. We do this for these four, Shannon
- 1:14:17and Nicole, I mean Nico, Bella, and
- 1:14:20Celeste. That's why we do this. So guys,
- 1:14:22keep that in mind. Let's talk about that
- 1:14:24tonight at 7:00 p.m.
- 1:14:28Gregory, hey, my buddy from KHP.
- 1:14:31Uh [sighs]
- 1:14:32there it is.
- 1:14:35State trooper,
- 1:14:37detective. There's the 50th anniversary
- 1:14:39right there.
- 1:14:41There we go, right there.
- 1:14:43Um all sorts of good stuff there. Take
- 1:14:45care, y'all. Peace, safe travels. Thank
- 1:14:47you, guys. 7:00 p.m. tonight, Eastern
- 1:14:49time. Remember, it does not matter what
- 1:14:51you believe. All that matters is what
- 1:14:53must be true.
- 1:14:557:00 p.m. Eastern time tonight, Susan
- 1:14:57Shorb. Do you I Do I Of course I know
- 1:14:59the time tonight. I'm the one who set
- 1:15:00the time. So now you know the time. 7:00
- 1:15:03p.m. Eastern, 6:00 Central, 5:00
- 1:15:06Mountain, 4:00 Pacific.
- 1:15:08See you tonight.
- 1:15:23>> [music]
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