The Case of Chris Watts - pt. 1

What this episode is about

The content explores the unsettling case of Chris Watts, who became a prime suspect in the disappearance of his pregnant wife, Shannon Watts, and their children after a concerned friend called the police. Key points include the eerie circumstances surrounding Shannon's absence, Chris's suspicious behavior during police inquiries, and the tragic outcome that revealed his involvement in the family's fate.

Key takeaways

• Innocent until proven guilty? Chris's demeanor sparked suspicion instead of understanding—a masterclass in miscommunication.
• With a car and shoes left behind, Chris's calm response was a red flag—those details are not just 'minor'!
• He complied but took a minute—his slow pace may have seemed innocent, but it read like a script of guilt.
• Surveillance footage showed Chris with items in his truck; evidence seldom lies, yet behavior can mislead in plain sight.
• Absence of urgency in Chris’s interviews was chilling; a father of two vanished doesn’t typically maintain such a detached chill.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Chris Watts (Host) · 15 min speaking
• Nicole Atkinson (Guest) · 2 min speaking
• Officer Coonrod (Guest) · 2 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Frederick Police Department, Nicole Atkinson
2. 10:00 – 15:00: Nicole Atkinson

Notable quotes from "The Case of Chris Watts - pt. 1"

• The drama began shortly after the Frederick Police Department received a call from Nicole Atkinson, the best friend of Shannon Watts. She had arranged to drive Shannon into…

  about Nicole Atkinson · at 0:00

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Nicole Atkinson — Person · Reporting witness / friend who calls police · 3 mentions · first at 0:00
  Initiates the police response by reporting Shannon missing after failed contact attempts and noticing concerning signs at the home.

Companies & orgs

• Frederick Police Department — Company · Investigating authority · 2 mentions · first at 0:00
  Primary law enforcement agency involved in the investigation of Shannon Watts' disappearance and the subsequent case.
  The drama began shortly after the Frederick Police Department received a call from Nicole Atkinson, the best friend of Shannon Watts. She had arranged to drive Shannon into…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 The drama began shortly after the Frederick Police Department received a call from Nicole Atkinson, the best friend of Shannon Watts. She had arranged to drive Shannon 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. Okay. 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 nine and I told her to let me know if she needed me to take her. She's got two little girls. I've called, I've texted. Her car's in the garage. Her shoes she wears every single day are by the front door.

0:52 How you doing? You seen your neighbors today? No. Chris's phone number. Chris's phone number is... Hey, Chris. Officer Coonrod for the police department. Pretty good. So, do you have any idea where your wife is? Right. My concern is her car's here. They're saying she's diabetic. I don't want her. She's upstairs and can't respond. Okay. About how far out are you? Okay. All right. 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.

1:28 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. Scott, how you doing? How's it going? So this is the only vehicle she would have? Only one that, yeah. She would drive? Okay. 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

2:19 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 I'll give you permission to open my daughter's house. 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.

3:11 What time do you leave today? What time do you leave there? No, here. Usually between 5.30 and 6.00. And was Shannon here then? Yes. Does she usually watch the kids or do you have daycare to watch them? No, she usually watches the kids at night.

3:54 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. They don't leave anywhere without him.

4:29 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 want to go talk to him, I'm gonna get

5:10 his info real quick no right right and that's pretty recently normally quiet, what's up dude? He's over here telling you three times what he took out, what he did, what he did, what he did. He's buried. He never talks. So the fact that he's over here blabbing his mouth makes me kind of suspicious. 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. Yeah, we can pick up

6:14 Although not fully incriminating, as Shannon 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 situations. Like when I got home yesterday, it was like a ghost town. Like she wasn't here. Kids weren't here. I have no idea like where they went. Right now it's got K-9 units, the sheriff's department. Everybody's like they're doing their 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, all right, who can I call?

6:59 I called her three times, texted her about three times just to say, you know, What's going on? If she's vanished, I want her back so bad. I want those kids back so bad. Right now, I don't even want to just throw anything out there. I hope that she's somewhere safe right now with the kids. Last night, I wanted that knock on the door. I wanted to see those kids running, just barrel rush me and just give me a hug and knock me on the ground. That's why last night was just horrible. I couldn't do it. I'm hoping that somebody sees something or... Somebody knows something and comes forward.

7:37 Shanann, Bella, Celeste, if you're out there, just come back. 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 her 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.

8:24 a lot so I'm not going to keep you here all night. Tell me exactly what you remember and I'll take notes about where we can go. Okay so this 1.48 a.m. Let me switch to chairs. 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.

9:08 4 a.m. that's when my alarm goes off for work and I'm just getting dressed, brushing my teeth, everything I do upstairs. About 4.15, that's when I get back, slide right into bed next to her and start having a conversation with her about having the house up for sale and talking about actually proceeding with the separation. And obviously it gets pretty emotional, like we're talking about, we felt this disconnection was there, like falling out of love. and trying to stay together. It may have just for the kids' sake, but realizing that doing our homework, it's not, most of the time, that's not gonna work.

9:52 So that's when I got home, I opened the garage door, and we went inside the house and looked everywhere, Shanann, Bella, and Celeste, no word be found. Shanann's wedding rings on her nightstand, her phone's still on the couch, her purse is still there, the medicine for the kid is still there, The car in the car seat is still there and there's no sign of them anywhere.

10:16 I was just hoping that, I mean, left all lights on in the house, I was hoping that I'd get a knock on the door. But nothing happened. Yeah, but nothing happened. What do you think happened? At first, I really thought maybe she was just at somebody's house, just decompressing. It's going on, Steve. Yeah. But after today, like with the onslaught of all the cars, all the police cars, all the news, all the K9 units, is making me lean the other direction about someone took her. But it's just, if someone took her, it would have to have been someone she knew. Because there's no sign of anything like being disturbed, broken. But that's the way I lean now. At first I thought for real she was just decompressing somewhere. I mean, I thought she was safe. Even though everything in the house was left there. But now it's just after the day with the news crews and everything, it feels more the other direction. And it's freaking me

11:13 out. On that night, I told her, well that morning, early that morning, I told her like the disconnection, it's there. Like it's not going away. Like the connection we had in the beginning, not there anymore. I don't feel like the love we have is there anymore. And it's just like, I don't feel like, I mean, if we want to stay together for the kids, I'm not sure if that's going to work. Like, having another baby bring us in this relationship, do you think this is going to work with us being together? Or separation, I think, is going to be the best possible route for us.

12:01 And that's when all the crying and everything proceeded. It was just, it was very hard just to talk about that. But I needed to do it face to face. And I needed to see her face while I did it. I couldn't 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, she wanted to kind of work on it, but if that's the way I was feeling, then she respects that. 1 p.m. I'm now on my way home to check on my family.

12:44 Is that just because you're worried based on the conversation with Nicole? Had the police contact you by then? No. Okay. But Nicole says she was probably going to call the cops. Okay. All right. Now, so it sounds like Nicole's pretty worried. More worried than you. So I, Once she couldn't get anything out of her and nothing was going on in 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 modus. Instead of refuting the remark, they would accept it but try and explain its actions in a defensive manner. But it sounds like Nicole was more

13:34 worried. Yeah, because like most of it, like if she hasn't texted me, like I understand that. Sometimes that happens. Okay. But for her not to get back to her direct sales group, that was very unorthodox. Okay. So then they're at home, police officers there. Mm-hmm. Then walk me through that. So as we go through the house, we're all... Do you immediately go through the house? I open the garage door and I just go into the house. I'm looking. 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.

14:10 No, okay. What's the vibe like? I go up there, shake his hand, but I'm 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 in, open that up, and then they come in. Oh, so they didn't go in the garage door with you. Okay. Well, they went in the garage. They didn't come in the way I did. All right. So then... Everybody goes in. I think that was at 4 o'clock. That's when the officer went over to the neighbor's house to see if he saw anything. Who did I think was that? I think it was the officer. He just went over there. And then that's when the neighbor called him back over to show him. He had some stuff from the other night to show him whatever he had and put motion on it. Okay.

15:03 neighbor 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 Nicole with my truck up about the time that I told you I left. Okay. Can we talk about something that's kind of hard to talk about? So when I work with investigations like this, I have to keep an open mind. everything.

15:37 And part of keeping an open mind is listening to you talk about your wife and your marriage and the day she goes missing is the day that you guys have marital discord. So you can understand what I'm thinking about you. What do you think about that? I'm mixing my stomach honestly. I know like I've talked to a few of my friends who's 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 marrow issues, they're gonna look at me. Especially with the way everything looks. It honestly just makes me sick to my stomach because this is something that I would never do. Ever.

16:23 I know, like, you have to look at every vantage point. This is something I would never do to my kids or my wife. 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. I'm not sure, like, what I could do to, like, to make people believe that just because if they think you were having marital discord, they would automatically look at me. But there's no, I would harm anybody in my family at all.

17:21 I know we were having marital discord and we had that conversation that morning and then she goes, we have no idea where she is. or the kids. I promise you that 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. Because I am a very trustworthy person, and the people that do know me, they know how I am a calm person, I am not an argumentative person, I am a person who is never going to be abusive or physical in any kind of relationship. I will never harm my kids. I will 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.

18:41 I'm not about anything that elevates to that level. I mean, if someone yells at me, screams at me, I just take it and I just... Try to get it by the wayside and get it back to where it's a cool, just a cool conversation to where like none of that, none of that gets to that height. Cause I am not that person. I've never been that person.

20:04 She's always the one that's just like, she's either go or sleep. She's always the one growling. 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? You fine? Okay. She's just, she's just the sweetest little girl. She's the one that favors me more and Celeste is the one that favors Nan more.

20:54 I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm not a daddy, I'm

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Case of Chris Watts - pt. 1"?

Chris Watts (Host), Nicole Atkinson (Guest), Officer Coonrod (Guest).

What is "The Case of Chris Watts - pt. 1" about?

The content explores the unsettling case of Chris Watts, who became a prime suspect in the disappearance of his pregnant wife, Shannon Watts, and their children after a concerned friend called the police. Key points include the eerie circumstances surrounding Shannon's absence, Chris's suspicious behavior during police inquiries, and the tragic outcome that revealed his involvement in the…

What is mentioned in this JCS - Criminal Psychology episode?

2 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Nicole Atkinson, Frederick Police Department. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Case of Chris Watts - pt. 1"?

The episode runs 21 min; the transcript is about 3,105 words in 27 timestamped sections.

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