MY DADDY IS A HERO-Lena Derhally

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daughter's bodies in separal, separate oil tanks. As terrible as his story is, it is also a warning because to this day, living behind bars, Watts is still acting out the character traits that made him kill in the first place.

In this the first and only psychological exploration of the Watts family murders, psychotherapist Lena Derhally has pieced together the crime, the events leading to it, and most of all her beliefs about the why, including the fact that Chris Watts, now a self described man of God, is not in the least remorseible about killing his family. Using police discovery and other sources, der Holley recreates the night of the

murders and the investigation that followed. She explores the childhoods, families of origin, meeting, and early relationships of Shannan and Chris Watts. She also examines Watt's double life and duplicity regarding his well publicized affair with a co worker who, although she claimed their affair was casual, was searching online

for wedding dresses at the time of the murders. The book includes an in depth look at community psychopaths, the different subtypes of narcissism, how to prevent this type of violence, and interviews with a neuroscientist, a criminal psychologist, and a journalist in order to determine what in Watt's twisted makeup allowed him to hide who he really is for so long.

Using her knowledge of attachment theory, immigo relationship theory, and psycho pathology, Dear Holly draws a profile of the real Chris Watts, and just as important, she warns readers that he is still a danger today. The book we're featuring this evening is My Daddy Is a Hero. How Chris Watts went from family Man to Family Killer with my special guest, psychotherapist and author Lena Dearhlly. Welcome to the program, and thank you so much for this interview, Lina dear Holly.

several objectives. I think one was I hear sometimes that people say motive doesn't matter and things like this, and I work with a lot of people and especially women that have suffered this type of narcissistic abuse, and not a lot of people know how to label it or know what to look for, and so one, you know, I wanted this book to be an education I didn't want to write some sensationalized crime story because you know, the people I'm talking about, they're real people, and so

many people in this case have been so deeply affected,

including law enforcement. One of the head detectives on the case actually retired because of his PTSD from the case, and so, you know, we really want to think that these are real people, and so many people's lives were destroyed because of Chris Watts's actions, and I think it's really important that people sort of know, you know, what type of patterns there are to look for, and arguably, you know, we'll probably talk about this at some point.

I don't really think Chris Wats displayed any warning signs, which was sort of the second objective of the book, because as someone you know who, I'm a psychotherapist, I have worked with a lot of couples, I see a

lot of couple dynamics. I worked with personality disorders before, and Chris Watts just really didn't fit this typical picture of you know what we see when we see a family annihilator of some of his features do, but mostly he was this really passive, cive, deferential, low key guy who was so easy going and go with the flow, and he showed no signs of being controlling or anything like that, and I think that was one of the

reasons people were so drawn to this case. Everybody was just scratching their heads and puzzled about, well, how does somebody who has the opposite signs of somebody who normally would kill his wife or family, how did this happen? And so those were sort of the main objectives of helping people understand. And I learned so much writing this book as well, so it helps me understand more, and you know, to also give people an education and sort

of look at again the neuroscience. I really liked talking to the neuroscientist I interviewed for this book. I interviewed a great criminal psychologist for this book. So I really wanted to help people understand and I really wanted people to learn. And then I think the third objective was I wanted to go on the record as a mental health professional to defend shenand Watts. People watched the Netflix

documentary about this case, which is called American Murder. They go into this aspect of the case that there was a lot of victims blaming going on about Shenan sort of you know, being the person. You know, there's some narrative that she somehow pushed Chris to do this, and I could not disagree with that more. And so I wanted to go on the record as a professional defending her because she can't defend herself, and so it was

really important for me to do that for her. And so those were my main objectives.

His eyes look really soulless. But at the same time, you see this, you know, handsome, canned, muscular guy in front of this large suburban home, and it just there's just this real incongruency about it, this you know, picture of perfect idyllic life and then this man who on the surface seems great, but you can tell that there's something,

you know, not right. And then as the story unfolded, you know, nearly days after he did that interview, he failed a polygraph test and ended up confessing his first confession. He blamed his wife and said, you know, she killed the kids, and then he killed her in a fit of rage. But as forensic evidence came out and eventually he signed off on a confession that he had killed

all three of them. But just the of you know, burying his pregnant wife in the shallow grave face down, which he in certain confessions has confessed that he did it on purpose, the way he just kind of threw her callously into that grave, and then putting his children in oil tanks. I mean, this aspect just blows the mind of everyone. How could a father put his baby girl three and four years old in oil tanks? I mean,

just that horrific aspect. And again of this person who had no warning signs, no criminal record, no history of abuse, no history of being controlling anything of that. For everybody loved him is that, you know, I researched the book. You could not find one person who had anything bad to say about this man, and so I was, you know, obsessed with the same reason everybody else was. How does

this happen? How does somebody so seemingly normal and like a nice guy do something that is the epitome of evil.

able to cover his tracks. We'll talk about more about that and a motivation for that, but let's talk about again. You talk about the senselessness of this, and especially it's profound in terms of his everybody saying what a great guy was, and all of his actions and behavior, and his wife's respect and love for him, and her posts about their love and their and everybody's idea that this

was an idyllic relationship in the first place. Let's talk about the relationship where he works at this petroleum company and as an impetus for and a reason for these murders to occur in the first place.

And you know, right before Sanan and the girls left for North Carolina, Chris had struck up a flirtation with a coworker named Nicole Kessinger, so he met her. You know, they had He was out in the field a lot, but there were times once or twice a week where they would have to go into the office and so he would see her there kind of like a water cooler thing. And I think they found each other attractive. But what ended up happening was he was already texting

and flirting with Nicole Kessinger. Even he was on a business trip with Chanan for the supplements she promoted called Thrive in San Diego right before she took the girls to North Carolina, And even on that trip where he was with Shanan on a weekend just the two of them,

he was already flirting with Nicole Kessinger. But when the family left for five weeks, all of a sudden, he had this opportunity to have this bachelor life, and he was you know, he went full force into this affair with Nicole Kessinger and basically spent you know, five days a week with her for pretty much the entirety of the time his family was gone. So if you look at one of the you know, I always like to say about this case, I call it the perfect storm

of multiple factors that came together. So, you know, this affair seemed to be one of the driving forces behind what he did. But you know, as we'll go into later, what I like to tell people is that lots of people have affairs. I deal with infidelity in my practice all the time. Most people who have affairs do not kill their family, So we know that the affair was

not the reason why he killed his family. There had to be something much deeper, much more wrong than just an affair, but that was one of the catalysts that put this idea in motion for him to premeditate the killings of his family.

I don't want to be the second fiddle. Like, you need to figure that out first. But you know, there's also times where Nicole Kassinger would say things to him like she wanted to give him his first son, and Shannann was pregnant with the third child, and she was actually pregnant with a boy. And so, you know, Chris said in one of his confessions, and I looked at multiple confessions that he's given, and he has changed the story.

He has said that when Nicole said that she wanted to give him his first son, that was when the idea of plotting these murders came into his head. So you know, there, I'm not sure exactly what was said behind the scenes, because there seems to be some conflicting, contradictory things that both of them say about you know, how much she knew about his marriage and whatnot.

place in her life. She was ill, she was coming off of a divorce, and so she kind of turned him down and said, you know, I'm not really ready to meet anyone, but he kind of kept pushing, and then she agreed to meet him, and they went on a first date, and she still was kind of aloof with him and not really thinking he was her type. But he pursued, He pursued, he pursued, He really went

after her. And the dynamic of their relationship from day one was that she was kind of more of the assertive one, you know, kind of wearing the pants and the relationship she was very much self admittedly OCD. She really things in their order. She really liked control. Everything was meticulous in her house. You know, she was very much a perfectionist and she did everything really well. And Chris again had always had with everybody in his life.

It seeing this really quiet, laid back again, very deferential, very submissive, and he made it seem like he was okay with that dynamic that he kind of liked being told what to do. That his role was kind of again this really good guy who doted onto his girlfriend who then became his wife. And so that was the dynamic that they always had, but that was also the dynamic that Chris sold to her. So if we look at somebody she's pushing him away, and he's convincing her

to be with him. He's going above and beyond. In the first few months of dating, he's driving her to Colonosk at the appointments, he is rearranging her pills in their pill box. You know, things that are very, very over the top when we're first meeting someone. So he's really trying to sell her something here. And eventually she's like, well, this is the opposite of my first marriage, and this is how you know, I really like being treated like this.

I feel adored, I feel loved, and so of course she said, you know what, this is probably what I need and a husband and a father. So the dynamic

was there from the beginning. But as many of us who are married or have kids know that you get married you have young kids, your life changes and a lot of the time, little children have lots of needs, and people are busy, you know, they're working, they're trying to put food on the table, they're driving their kids to school, and so their life became very they fell into very much of a monotonous, typical, you know, lifestyle

of parents with young children. And again, when he met Nicki Nicole Kessinger, who he calls Nicki, she was you know, she's thirty, she's single. She you know, Chris said that he felt that she respects did him in a way

that nobody else had ever respected him before. I think he felt that she really was interested in what he had to say, and I think he kind of felt over the years, at least this is what he says, is that, you know, I think he felt like he didn't have as much control with Shanan or maybe didn't feel respected by her, although he never articulated that to her, and so there was never a chance to repair this

dynamic if he was unhappy with that. But of course, in the honeymoon phase of a relationship, when you're first meeting somebody and he's first meeting Nicki Kessinger, you put your best foot forward, and we're not always showing, you know, the worst sides of ourselves as well. So he's sort of looking at the projections fantasy of what he thinks,

Nicki is he doesn't really know her. You know, he's been with Shanan for eight years, Nicki, he's known for what a few weeks, and so he's romanticizing and projecting on her as well what I think he wants her to be. But ultimately, I think the big comparison for him him was, oh, there's this person and I feel respected and heard by them, and I haven't felt like that with anyone in my life. And I believe you know, he did say that that she was the person he felt respected him the most.

appealed to her because she could work from home. And so she actually, because she had her own health issues, she started, i believe, as a customer of this Thrive and she really liked it, and she started to promote it, and she she became, you know, quite successful with these type of things. You know, you make money when you get consultants to work under you and then you sell the products and sort of the more people you have

working under you, the more money you make. So she was able to use that of her only career, so she was able to quit the other jobs she had had. She had worked you know, at a call center in a children's hospital before, and had done some other dabbled and some other types of things. And while she was doing that, she also goot Chris to you know, use the supplements, and part of selling this is using social media, so she and Chris, you know, would be on social

media promoting the products. And Chris was quite overweight, you know, they joked, his family joked that he was like a garbage disposal. He would eat everything, you know, love McDonald's

kind of thing. And he started eating healthy and working out and taking Thrive, and he dropped a lot of weight, and he started working out and running and weightlifting, and he became you know, more muscular as he was tanned and he was fit, and he was just I think overall, way more attractive than he had been in the past.

And so part of this, you know, was in it seems like a lot of it was when he started Thrive and in conjunction, but Thrive adopted this healthy lifestyle and in turn, you know, maybe maybe Nicki Kessinger would not have noticed him before when he was you know, sort of overtweight self, so that it's another interesting thing

to look at. Well, all of a sudden he's attractive, you know, by a lot of people would say that, I think, and not now, of course, after what he's done, but before that, you know he may have been attracting attention from women before, and I think Nikki was the one who pursued him and made him feel sexually desirable, and I'm not sure he's ever had that before in

his life. So there was felt to that attraction of this woman who finds him very sexually attractive, and I think he was very very much enthralled with somebody who felt like that about him.

As a personality disorder, you can't take a medication for it. It's sort of fixed in your personality. And so the the malignant narcissism is it's very parallel to psychopathy, and so there's lots of you know, debate in the field about psychopathy versus sociopathy versus malignant narcissism, where there's also something called the dark triad, which is traits you know, like masthew vellianism, but they all sort of share the

same thing. And I think that's one of the things that's important to know is sort of when we're looking at malignant narcissism psychopathy, we're looking at narcissistic personality disorder or the subtypes of narcissism, which I you know, discussed in the book. They're defining features are lack of empathy and remorse, and so you know, I think that's thing

that you always want to look for. But malignant narcissism, I think is when it's it's really dangerous narcissism, Like this is the real the worst type of the narcissist, very psychopathic. Again, they think of people like objects and they will just if they will discard you, they will do whatever it takes to just do whatever they want.

Like there's just no regard for other human beings. There's a lot of impulsivity, there's a lot of recklessness or you know, they break the law, which again Chris didn't do any of this, but there's always a first time, right for every criminal, and so there was always I think there was always that he was always capable of it. But again these perfect storm factors came out later in life, which you know, he's I think he's about thirty five now and this happened two years ago.

skilled mechanic. He was really into you know, race cars and things like that, so they would they would do that together. They were quite bonded. Ronnie would go to Chris's Little league games and you know what was his big supporter was at every game, Cindy and Chris's sister, Jamie's about seven years older than he is, and you know,

they had a more distant relationship with Chris. It wasn't a contentious relationship and childhood by any means, but they which you know, I get into the book as well as that they had said that, well, they never knew what he was feeling as a child. You know, he was really closed off and they were always asking him, how are you feeling. Nobody really kind of knew what he was thinking or feeling a lot and so I think, you know, Jamie was the older sister and doted on him,

and you know, his mother. I think because he was so passive as a child, I think again he sort of always lets you know, certain people in his life

just kind of dictate things for him. Whether or not he liked that, I don't know, but I think that was a dynamic that started probably with his mother and sister that he was used to being in relationships with people who kind of just told him what to do and he kind of just went along with it, or he was just more of a passive bystander in the relationship, and you know, nobody kind of really knew what was really going on with him. So, as you know, sNaN

was probably his first real girlfriend. I think you've had maybe like very more casual girlfriends before that, but this is the really serious one. And you know, he moved in with her, and right away Shannan clashed, especially with Cindy and Jamie, but she clashed with all three of them.

And you know, as is in the discovery documents of the case and in my book and you can you know, find it everywhere on YouTube, that they met for the first time when Chanan had this really nice, big house and she had a cookout and they all came, and I think Jamie and Cindy were very skeptical of her to begin with, How does this young woman have such nice things in this big house? And why do you need all that. You know, where Chris came from, I

guess more of a humble background. And Shanan's mother, Sandy, also felt there was a cold vibe from them. And again, you know, well, I don't think we'll ever really know the truth behind some of these stories that have happened. Like there was the famous story about Shanan and Chris's engagement party where Sanan had given Jamie the invitations to be mailed and nobody showed up at the party except you know, immediate family, and Shenan believed that Jamie never

sent those invitations. I believe Jamie says that she did. So again, you have all these different stories, but the tensions were really high and everything came to a head, you know, when Shenan was in North Carolina the last summer of her life, when the famous incident nutgait happened, when her children had severe nut allergies, especially the youngest one, Ceci, and Chris's mother Cindy had allegedly put you know, something

to do with nuts. There's been different stories. Again, did the ice cream have nuts or was there a bowl of nuts on the table. I've heard different versions of it, but Ultimately, Shanan felt that not only was she front of the girl, but she was also disregarding Shenan's you know, wanting to protect her children. And this is really sad.

I think when I think back some of the texts Shanan had with Chris about that incident, where she's talking about protecting her children at whatever cost and protecting them from evil family, you know, and she's talking about his mother, and she has no idea this whole time that her husband is the one she really needs to protect herself from. I mean, she didn't need to protect herself from the

whole family because it was a very toxic relationship. But it's just really, you know, I still can't get over it. Like when I think about how Shenan had zero idea her husband was plotting her murderer, capable of this, and that also that he would murder her children. She never once thought that she would have to protect herself and her children from her husband. So it's that still kind of shakes me to my core to this day.

Let's talk about what happened and when he talks about killing his children and then afterwards, believing they're dead, he goes to deal with and have this conversation and kill Shanan. What happens this while he's wrapping her up in a bed sheet in the bedroom.

believe he's a very unreliable narrator, which I try to put that in my book that when I'm talking about what's happening, this is what he's saying. But we also have to keep in mind that he's unreliable narrator and

he's lied and changed his story multiple times. But he, you know, said that he he strangled sNaN and I think it's debatable about there's some theories that he had drugged her because he had admitted to previously giving her oxy codon to try to get her to miscarry the baby when they were in when he came out to North Carolina, and you know, people were people were a little confused about, Oh, it didn't seem like she fought back.

I've talked to the survivors of domestic violence who have been choked, and some of them will say, you're in shock, you can't fight back. So it's again, I don't think we really know if she she didn't fight back because she couldn't, if she was drugged, if what happened. But I think he waited for her and after they had had, you know, a contentious discussion about their marriage. I think he had waited for her to drift off to sleep and then he kind of climbed on top of her

and strangled her. And you know, he when he knew she was dead, her body in a sheet, and Bella, who was the four year old, walked into the room and you know, said daddy was wrong with mommy, and he said something, you know, like mommy doesn't feel good.

And ultimately I guess CC woke up as well. And in another confession, he actually has said that he smothered them in their beds with their pillows before Shanana got home from a business trip, so she the night she was murdered, she had been away for the weekend.

I'm just repeating them. But he did drag Shenan's body down the stairs in front of the girls, wrapped in a sheet because he couldn't carry her, she was too heavy, and you know, put them, put her in the car on the bed of the truck in the back, put the girls with their feet dangling over their dead mother, and drove forty five minutes oil field where he worked, where you know, he then proceeded to strangle his mother,

Ceci with her favorite blanket, in front of Bella. And then I think, I believe you put her in the oil tank then and then he came back to Bella and she said, Daddy, are you going to do the same thing to me that you did to Ceci? And he says he doesn't remember what he said, and obviously then he goes and does the same thing and then puts her body in the oil tank. But I mean,

you look at again. I mean the time, the amount of time, the complete lack of mpem a mother and I have a daughter who was born three months before Bella was, So when I'm writing this book, I have I can picture what a girl Bella's age is. It's my own daughter, and there's just nothing in you know, I get my voice first cracking because it's just so upsetting.

I'm still I'm so upset to this day. There's nothing on this earth that would make a parent who loves their child, who's begging for their life, and to subject them to what he subjected, that type of trauma, what he did to them, It's just, you know, it is pure evil as far as I'm concerned. That is not a human thing to do. So it's it's still it's I can't even go back and read my own book. I cannot read that chapter. But you know, writing that

chapter I had to disassociate from. It was hard to edit. It's just most incredibly one of the most incredibly disturbing things. I think most of us have ever heard from a father.

did not care that about his third child. He did not care he was having a son. Literally zero attachments his wife to any of his children. All he wanted was his new life that he had decided was the right thing for him, and he was willing to do anything to get what he wanted.

at some point in the questioning. They allow that it's one of the most horrifying parts of incredibly horror horrifying tale. What does he tell his father about his culpability in this.

she do something? You know, and then did you get angry? You know, sort of feeding him those lines, and so when he called, when he said he wanted to speak to his father, he said that he had seen he had told Schanan that he wanted to leave her, and she got so angry that she strangled the girls. He changed his story at first he said smothered and then the father asked why she was choking him or was

she smothering him? And he said, oh, choking, so you know, and he even said he saw them blue in the face, but the baby monitors are black and white. They're not in color, so I don't even know, you know, when I'm thinking about all these details, he told, I'm still like, how could you tell that they were blue from the baby monitor? Anyway, this is what he told his father, and by the time he got up there, the girls

were dead and he strangled Shanan in a rage. And then he didn't know what to do with what he said, and that's why he put the bodies in the oil tanks, is that he didn't know what to do. So that also started a wave of again, you know, people believing that Sanan did it. And you know, Chris Wats has had his fans, you know, there's people who still believe in his innocence, no matter you know, what he's said or what he's confessed to, and you know, so it's

it's pretty shocking just to think about. And I believe his his family even you know, there's different stories I've heard, but you know, I think there's a part of them that still believe he's innocent or still you know, are looking and again, you know, of course, I'm they're probably in such shock and denial, like this is not anything

they ever expected to happen. But obviously they want to search for any possible answer to make it so that Chris, you know, doesn't have culpability in this and and that that you know, was started initially by this false story that he he brought to light.

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we were speaking about this incredible case. Eventually he is pressured to avoid the death penalty. But also there are other reasons. Tell us why you think that it was that he agreed to a plea deal in this case.

anything to get it. Someone who's a communal narcissist uses good deeds or the persona of being helpful and trustworthy to get that narcissistic supply. And so you know, people always think, well, if people are psychopaths or you know, narcissists, they don't care what other people think. But actually, narcissistic people very much care about what other people think about them. In fact, it's it's central to sort of the way

they operate. They need other people to admire them, and Chris really need it that, you know, he really needed people to see him in a good light. And even you know, after his wife is missing and he's texting with her friends, he's even saying things to them like, oh, I don't want you to think I'm a bad person. And so I also think that there's a part of the motivation and the crime of you know, people say, well,

why didn't he get a divorce? I think there was multiple reasons why he didn't do that in his twisted mind. That's not a normal mind. So normal people don't think like that, which I think was interesting when I was

studying psychopathy. You know, they'll say that psychopathic people, when they think about solutions to their problems, they think about antisocial solutions, so and that that would be murder, for example, whereas people who are not psychopathic, like Shenan for example, will think of pro social solutions to their problems, which is what she did when she started noticing trouble in her marriage a few weeks before she was killed. She was sending him self help books. She wanted to go

to counseling. She was looking at her else she was saying, what can I change to make things better? But that's a pro social solution to a problem, and so you know, that's something to understand too. So in Chris's mind, he's thinking of these anti social solutions. But I also believe that what would it look like to Chris if he divorced his pregnant wife and left pregnant white, you know, his wife with three children, and it came out that he had a new woman like it would look it

would make him look really bad. And I think he wanted to avoid that at all costs. And so again part of that motivation, I think he just wanted to be rid of them and just didn't want any baggage. But I also think, you know, he could also set himself up to look like the victim. You know, oh

my wife. I think he wanted to make it appear like she left him, and that he didn't have enough time to set it up that way, but there were certain things he did and said that alluded to the fact that you know, oh we had a fight, and to like me, she took the kids and she left me. So then he could be this victim and that people could feel sorry for Chris. And so I think that was really really important to him that people saw him

in a good light. And so I think the confession, the early confession, was one to he's still playing the role of the good boy that he always was, you know, that he's the people pleaser, he's doing the right thing. But also I believe he wanted to avoid a trial.

I don't think he expected. I don't think any of us expected that we would get a public dump of the documents, which you know, became public records, and everything came out anyway, and the sentencing was televised, and the prosecutor he outlined exactly what had happened as well, and you know, he made look like a horrible person, even in you know, the short speech that he gave just

just talking about the affair with Nicki. And while his wife is begging him to talk to her, he's researching jewelry and Victoria's secret for Nicki, and you know, just he's already totally forgotten about his life. So yeah, I believe that he wanted to avoid a trial. He wanted to avoid being dragged through the mind, and I also think, yeah, he wanted to just maintain the appearance that he saved everybody from the trouble of a trial.

he would get them all right. He was great with cars, you know, he had this memory that was incredible, so he had a certain amount of intelligence. But the other thing again with to me the failed psychopath, was just an aha moment when doctor Gordon said that to me. And I'll have to get back to that in a minute. But again, when somebody is really narcissistic, they do not think that any They think there's the smartest person in the world, and they think they can get away with anything.

So Chris thinks he's really convincing. He actually believed that he could create this scenario and people would believe it. I think he really thought that he could convince people that Shenan took off to spite him, and so you know, he made all these mistakes. He didn't even think about the GPS tracking in his truck, which you know law enforcement was going to find. Obviously, he probably doesn't watch

a lot of CSI or crime shows. When you have the husband is always suspect number one, no matter what. Like I really, his narcissism I think was so off the charts that he just he just was believed that he could convince people of anything, and that I think was his stupidity and his downfall was his narcissism. He doesn't understand the perspective of other people, he doesn't give other people enough credit.

of prison, one of those things. You know, he's all of a sudden a reformed man of God, and he wants to get out and proselytize to people and help people, and you know, all of these things. But he's never really shed any real tears. He's never talked about how he misses his children or any qualities about them. I've done several interviews, and this is one of the things that I always share because it stuck out to me

so much. Is when he was talking about his girls in the interrogations, when he when he knew they were dead, and he was conjuring up memories of them, and the only thing he could think of to say about them was like he missed them throwing chicken nuggets at him. I was like, wow, that's a really interesting, really cold, removed thing to say when your children are missing. And he almost said it with this disdain for them too.

And he even goes on to say that he says sometimes they're bossies, like there, and he's about to say mother, and he stops himself. He actually realizes that he is the images he has at his own children or them pelting chicken nuggets of them were being bossy. This is what he thinks. He can't even say anything human about them when they're missing, Like there's nothing genuine he can

say about them. And even now, you know, he's saying, oh, I'm looking out the window and I could have a one year old, a five year old, and you know how old they would be at the time, but he's like, but now it's just me, and that's him feeling sorry for himself. And that's all I've heard from him, is just constant pity for himself. And I you know, his his parents still, you know, tell them how much they love him and they stand by him. And I'm not

here to put a judgment on on that. You know, other people have their different opinions on that, but that is I think an insight into how he's never really taken any culpability or accountability for anything. And I don't think his you know, his family has never really held an accountable either, So it kind of makes sense when you look at it that way.

pulled off the shelves because because she literally plagiarized. The author's name is Anne Howard, I believe, and that information is all out there if anybody wants to, you know, Google. But she approached Chris apparently. I heard she has a second book coming up to you, like a follow up

of this. But apparently she had approached Chris in prison as a as a you know, religious woman and telling him she wanted to write a story about his past to redemption, so making it out to be like this is going to be more of like a religious finding God book a redemption for him. And she went and

met with him in person. She several times had driven there, and you know, she has described when he talks about the murders, his eyes going dark, Like I think she got some really dark, bad energy from him, And I think, you know, maybe as she sat with him and spoke

with him, maybe she started to really dislike him. You know, that's the impression sort of that I get that she one hundred percent believed he's guilty, but he had written her letters and in person was the one who had you know, this was the first time he had confessed to certain things like giving Shenan the oxy to Miss Carrie. He had mentioned to SHERYLN. Catle, and some of her letters the Daily Mail published as an ex elusive so

they're also out there on the internet. But you know, I think that particular letter in the Daily Mail that they had printed was one where he is like, after I buried them and put them in oil tanks, I drove away and I felt no remorse. All I could think about was had the dogs eaten? Yet? Like he would make those kind of comments. And you know, I don't think any of those actual letters have been disputed

by anybody. I do believe that those letters, you know, are very much in his handwriting and very much a reflection of who he is. But yeah, the entire thing around that book, unfortunately, it is just a big mess.

But doctor Fields, you know, studies the brain, and in his work he identified that in humans, and you know in animals there are about nine circuits in the brain that when stimulated or triggered, prompts us to go into a violent rage. And so he identified what those nine triggers are, and you know, some of them are pretty obvious. One he calls he has like a sort of acronym for it called life Morse and the L stands for

life or limb. And so that means, of course, when you you're threatened, it's like self defense, right, the self defense reasoning when you feel like you're going to be threatened physically, like bodily harm or murder, you don't even

think about it, right, you go into a rage. But there's other things too, And you know, one of the things that I found really interesting from talking with him was called the S trigger, which he says stands for stopped, So when whenever anybody feels like they are impeded from doing something, that can be stopped. So, you know, he explained it to me, is like when you're in traffic and road rage comes up, you feel like you're being

stopped from going somewhere. And this is because these these pathways that we have in our brain, these neural pathways are primitive. They're you know, they've evolutionary for us. They they haven't fully adapted. And so even though the logic in us knows like, oh, we're just being we're just in traffic, it's okay, we're gonna get we're going to get to where we're going to be, the primitive response

in the brain is like real threat. And so that's why sometimes you have people who do really crazy things with road rage. And one of the other things he mentioned to me is that snapping is what he defines as a break from reality, which again, it just it doesn't mean that someone is not accountable for their actions, and I really think it's important that he says that, and I say that as well, that we are all

fully accountable for our actions. But what I did find interesting was that he said this process of snapping can go on for weeks or even months. And I had read some other SBI profilers that talked about this as well, that people think snapping is just an in an instant, but this break from reality is like something that also

allows people for weeks or months to plot something like murder. Again, when people are like, how is he so stupid, there's also this response from him that's a real break from reality where he's not seeing clearly. He just wants to get what he wants. And doctor Field doesn't do anything with personality disorders or anything like that, but he does get letters from people in prison all the time who are thanking him. They've read his book and thank you

for helping me understand. He thinks that with a lot of people who snap, they end up having remorse for it, and that's where I think, you know, I diverged by saying, well, there's people who absolutely do not have remorse, and we can see that, you know, with some of I'm sure many of the criminals you've covered in your podcasts, in

your work. So we know that there's a spectrum of good and evil, and all people fall somewhere, you know, on that spectrum, and there are unfortunately a rare subset of people who are who have absolutely no remorse, And so I think it's possible for all of those things to exist together, which again goes back to the perfect storm of factors in my book is I think you can be a psychopathic, narcissistic person be you know, have that s trigger where he felt he was stopped from

getting the life he wanted and his anger was then in turn projected on to his wife and children, who he believed were the barrier for him to get what he wanted. And then he turned to his anti social solution and thought it was a good idea for him to get what he wanted.

So he's already like, I've killed the family. I'm done. I'm ready to start my new life, putting the house on the market, you know, on enrolling my children from school, and then texting her and saying, like, my family's gone. He responded to an email about fantasy football, saying he was in like he was all ready to just go forward with his life. And if he had gotten away with this, you know, I believe that he he would

have never had any remorse about it. And Yeah, he just expected that, you know, Nicky was going to be like, oh okay. I think he just expected that everyone is going to be like, Okay, they're gone. Now that's all wealth, you know, and NICKI was going to be like, great, okay, you don't have a family anymore, let's all. It was just a very delusional, illusional state of mind. But again, it's just a reflection of how again, these really narcissistic

people operate. They don't think like normal people. They actually think that that's an acceptable response when your children are missing, and they can't understand that other people are scratching their heads saying, what's wrong with you? This is weird, This is not how you respond when your family's missing.

check in the afternoon. And while the officer Kuonrod, who was the one who responded to this scene, well he was, you know, going around and looking Nate Trinistitch, their next door neighbor, came by and he said, you know, I have a security camera that feazes in front of their house and I have some footage and you guys just

come over and watch it. And so Nate, you know, they all go to Nate's house and he turns on the footage on the TV and you can see Chris standing next to it, his hands on his head, He's rocking back and forth. This is the only time you see real emotion from him. You know, he looks really scared. And you know, I think in my book too, I had I had cited a research study that showed that

psychopaths do feel fear. So there is some misconception that psychopathic people don't feel anything, but they actually do feel fear and anxiety. And so again that's you know, that's when he shows emotion, is when he's he thinks he's going to get caught because he knows that he loaded Shenan's body into the truck and brought the girls out. And you know, you can't see too much in that video footage. You can see him walking back and forth,

but you can't really see what he's doing. And there have been multiple video that have zeroed in and analyzed that that security footage over and over again. And there's some footage, you know where you can see like the shadows of the girls and him kind of picking them up and putting them in the truck, and the prosecution has verified that that was the case, that that actually did happen, and so so they kind of knew, you know, you can kind of know that the girls were alive

at that point based on that. But yeah, I mean it's really interesting that he's really worried he's going to get caught and Nate Trinisitch, who doesn't know him, He wasn't friends with Shanan and Chris, he was just their neighbor. But as soon as Chris leaves, he turns there and he's like, this isn't right. This guy's acting weird, and he kind of knows. It's almost like everybody, even Shannan's mother right away, even though they never would have pegged

him for it before. It's like this gut feeling that everybody had about him, that something was just really really wrong with his behavior. And yeah, that was a really wild moment that security footage.

with Shanana. She woke up her husband and her son, Frankie Junior, and she was really worried and she said, something's wrong with Shanana. They were kind of like, no, it's there, right, you know, you're just having a bad dream. It's fine, go back to sleep. But yeah, again, this there's a real a sense of a real powerful mother daughter connection where it was almost like she the mother was experiencing what was happening to Shanan, and you know

it woke her up. And so I think that that was a really another powerful There's so many powerful relationships, you know, just thinking about uh, Sandy and Shanan in that moment, and the love that Nikki had for her friend Shanan, where you know, she didn't have to call the police for a wellness check, but It's like she just acted on her instincts and she went right away

for it. And you know, again we have a lot of credit to her because without her, who knows how you know how much Chris would have been able to cover up his tracks. Without her, you know, we may not have had Schanane's cell phone which he had hit in the cushions, but somebody had found it, you know, because he didn't have time to clean up his tracks, they were able to find her. Everything was left at home, her purse or medication, her phone, the car and the

car seats were there. So he really had no way out at that point because he had no time to disclose of anything. And again I credit that to Nikki, Shenan's best friend.

so soon. There's just like in this case, Chris is washing his daughter's clothes, washer and dryer going when when they do get to the to the to the home and the police officer comes upstairs and what does he notice about the beds, again making him immediately suspicious given again this pressure where Chris didn't anticipate the police being in the house that quick at all.

again he wasn't very smart. He had also disposed of the book that she had self help books she had sent him called Old Me Tight Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. And he hadn't even opened it out of the Amazon box. He literally sort of or he had opened the box or something, but the book was still in the box and he had just thrown it into the trash. And so when the investigators were going through everything, they find the sheets in the trash, they

find the self help book. You know, it was like everything was just so discarded by him. It was like done, done, done, left behind so much evidence even you know it wasn't all forensic evidence, but all of it together really painted a picture of the disregard he had for his family.

and that's gotten him out of trouble. And I really think that part of him thinks, like, oh, if I just act really good, they're going to let me out. But it's almost like he's totally ignorant of the fact that he has sentences life sentences for killing three people, an unborn child, tampering with human body, you know, with bodies. There's so many charges against him that it's like hundreds of years, you know, of like you don't just get out on good behavior when you do those kinds of crimes.

But I really believe that he thinks, again his narcissism, that he's going to convince everybody that he's this man of God. And he does. He gets lots of letters, He corresponds with women, some of them visit him in prison and talks to him. You know, in the narcissism world, we have a term called flying monkeys, which is the people around the narcissists that sort of do their bidding

for them and pass on their messages. And you know that could be the case here, is that he has all these He does have some people around him where he can where then they can talk to the press or people magazine and you know, say whatever they want to say, that he's a changed man or that, or you know, just pass messages from him that he wants the public to hear. I did hear. He was upset about the Netflix documentary that came out because it painted

him in a bad light. Again. You know, it's funny because I hired an attorney for this book, because you know, I'm I'm a psychotherapist. There's ethics involved. I really wanted to make sure that this book was ethical legally and otherwise and professionally, and I just really wanted to do my best with it. And you know, I say, really, the only person that I really talk about in a

negative light of Chris Watts. And my attorney told me a funny story that someone in prison who is a murderer as well, had written him and was upset that there was a book about him and he was, you know, talking about libel and all this stuff. And my attorney had written back to that prisoner and said, sorry, you

already ruined your reputation when you killed people. So you know, the idea that like there's just nothing You've already done this to your reputation, there's nothing you can do to redeem yourself, you know, but these people will keep trying. They really again, they can't see, they can't see what the rest of us are seeing because they don't have empathy. They can't put themselves in someone else's shoes.

And I think else, if we're generally good people, a lot of us have a bias that other people are going to act in the same ways we do. And I think a lot of us just believe the best in people. But I think Chris was an exceptional con man in the sense that I really don't believe anybody that knew him or was involved with us. Anybody could have ever predicted this. That's what a good con man

he was. And you know, in the book, I talk about how psychopaths, and I even cite the experience of a self described psychopath about how they spend a lifetime crafting a mask that they portray to the world. And I think Chris had spent a lifetime mimicking people and creating this mask that he put on, and psychopaths can create really convincing masks, and that's the scary part. But again, he had you know, I don't even think he ever really if he had raised his voice with people, it

had been on a very rare occasion. He had showed no signs of violence or anything. Again, all his behavior had just been you know, doting father and husband up until he met Nikki Kessinger. Apparently, you know, even Shanan was shocked. She felt that the carpet had been pulled out from under her because she had, you know, in private text messages to friends that we have never had problems like this in our marriage. This is that of

the blue. I don't know what happened. So here she is for you know, up until she left for the summer vacation. She's thinking she has this great marriage. They're physically affectionate, you know, they have, they have a good sexual relationship, they're loving, they're playful, they have you know, she's she thinks that she's got it all. And I

really believe she felt that way. And I think again, one of the chilling moments that you know, I will never be able to shake is we have the the footage of the last moment, one of the last moments of her life, when Nicki Atkinson drops her off at her house at you know, around two in the morning, and we have the security camerage, the doorbell camera footage from her house, and you know, she's walking into her house, and you know, we all know now that she is

walking into her death. And at that point, Chris is probably already attempted at smothering the daughters. And she has no idea what she's walking into. And that is and nobody had an idea. If somebody had, she never would have walked into that house. She never would have left her children there. Nobody would have ever allowed this to happen.

And so again I think that just shows the how he was really able to dupe and con people and again, you know, it goes back to the failed psychopath thing where doctor Gorgan's who told me about community psychopaths, which is what she did her dissertation on. And you know, she said to me, Lena, we only study the psychopaths who are in jail, and we call them the failed psychopaths because they're not very good at what they do. And so that's why I said, you know, there's a

there's a first thing for every criminal. Chris's first time was killing his family that we know of. Who knows, you know, maybe there was other things we'll never know, but you know, as far as we can tell, I think the most likely scenario was this really was and she probably didn't even really have a speeding ticket before. You know, this is truly his first real crime. But she says, you know, there's a whole world of psychopaths but never get calls that are never in prison, and

those are the successful psychopaths. And so I think when you put it like that, it's really easy to see that he actually just failed at what he said. He was probably a psychopath all along and he just eventually failed at it, and that's why he's in prison now.

his daughter. So a few months before he told the family, she Shanan had taken a video of her where she was singing this song called My Daddy as a Hero. And every chapter in the book, for the most part, especially the storytelling part of the book where you're going through the events, so if it's in real time, every chapter has a quote from somebody that's sort of about the irony of Chris's double life, like what he portrayed

to the world versus who he really was. And so you know, one of the chapters could be headings, could be I couldn't have asked for a better man, which is what Shnan said, you know, So they sort of all have that a theme to it, about his psychopathy and narcissism and how he was able to fool everybody. And so I think my daddy as a hero was the ultimate con in a way. But it also I think it really you know, again goes through these were

real people. He killed his children, He killed his children who called him a hero like this, I think it really encompasses the truth severity of what he did and that you know, how evil it was. And so I wanted I wanted that to really be to come across. And I mean it's chilling and it's jarring. And then again there's other aspects. Again, Chris's father was his hero, so you know, you could interpret it of you know,

there's different father heroes in this story. And it's sort of all again about the the mirage of of what of how scary it is that people can pretend to be something they're not and fool everybody.

putting this information out there. This could have been me I got out. I want other people to read this book so they know because sometimes people are in these relationships and there are more obvious signs that are there, and you know, it's nice to hear that people could use this book to identify those signs, and even if they're not in danger of being murdered, maybe it will make them look at their relationships or put up boundaries

where they need to put them up. But one of the bigger signs I tell people, and again this doesn't mean someone's going to This is not a sign in someone who's going to murder you, But narcissistic and psychopathics people have a pattern in relationships, which is referred to as love bombing, devalue, and discard, and so actually you can you know, I sort of illustrate how that happened with Chris and Shaman. We're in the beginning. He loves

bombed her. It's in the beginning of this interview we talked about him really pursuing her and going over the top to win her over. So with narcissistic people, again, they're really trying to win you over. They go really over the top. They may not even know you well. They may know you for two days and say I want to send the rest of my life with you.

That doesn't mean that someone is a narcissist if they do that, by the way, but that is that can be a red flag if somebody doesn't really know you well and they seem to have this agenda to really win you over. So that's called love bombing. But when you know you're kind of dealing with a person, you know, someone with more of a personality disorder. Once they win

you over, they shift to something called devalue. And so in Chris's case, which I think is more rare because I think usually in these situations, at least in the ones I've encountered personally and in my professional life. The devalue face comes pretty quickly, and that's when they become very a lot of the times emotionally abusive, although it can also be other forms of abuse, and that can be look like criticizing or you know, when you know

something's wrong, or mistreating you. So Chris began to devalue Sheanan much later on when he met Nicki. In the beginning the first few weeks, he was playing along with Shanan while he was having an affair with Nicki. He's still telling Shannan he loves her to the moon and back, and you know, playing a game. But then when he really decides he wants to be rid of his family, this is when Shannan starts getting really upset because all

of a sudden, her husband turns on her. So after being together eight years and having a third kid on the way, all of a sudden, her husband doesn't want the third baby, wants the separation, doesn't want to work things out. And so I said, this is a real red flag, like when you're with somebody and you have children with them and they turn on you with no explanation on the drop of the hat. There's something wrong there. That's not a person who has real attachments or emotional

maturity or commitment or investment to you. That's not normal for somebody to just flip like that. And so again I don't think that was predictive of him going to murder her, but I think it was a sign and it was true that other things were going on. I mean, he flipped because you know, he was having a fair and he didn't want anything to do with her anymore.

But that's the thing with narcissistic people. When they don't need you anymore, you're like garbage to them, and they only keep people around that again fuel their narcissistic supply or serve them in some way. So for Chris, his family could have given him admiration, could have made him look good to the outside world, like he needed them for something, until he didn't. And that's when the discard phase comes in. And that's basically like I said, with

Chris Walks, it was the ultimate discard. Discard we usually refer to as like they leave you and then they don't want anything to do with you again, or they act like you never mattered. Literally discarded his family like garbage, like I'm done with you. That's it. You're not human

to me. And so again that's when we're going really to the malignant side of narcissism, the real severe side of psychopathy, because the empathy is just pretty much non existent, zero, it's so self focused on the gratification of his own needs at the expense of everybody else. And so that's what I would say about all of that.

psychology podcast. Tell us about what that podcast is and if there's a website for this or Facebook page for this book.

He's a male therapist, I'm a female therapist, and we talk about all kinds of issues that our clients are experiencing. And we do a lot of relational issues and couples issues and anxiety, and we do have sessions with Bob and Lina, but yeah, we just kinda we do that as inspired when we think there's something out there we could talk about that could help other people.