And this is why you and I are crossing swords. You seem to be making the case that Chris Watts was free to do whatever he wanted to do, and he exercised that freedom to commit triple murder. He could do anything but he chose to commit triple murder out of the blue – his first criminal offence in his life – because he failed to appreciate there were much easier options. So you’re saying he chose murder, the more difficult option, because…?
You can make a claim like that, but back it up with something. Did he murder because he’s a psychopath, because he’s stupid, or just because? Or do you say well Chris Watts is a weird guy, who knows how his mind works, and that’s your explanation for why he murdered his family. If that’s your argument, you argument is basically “he committed murder, it was a poor choice and there’s no telling why because he had so many other options.” It’s not an explanation.
Personally I think that’s a very naive, uninformed and intuitively “off” assessment. Are you happy with your answer to why, or is it a cerebral sense of, aaah, but you see, no one can ever know, and anyone who says he does is a fool? So he who doesn’t know is wise, and he who does is a wannabe? That about it?
I don’t really care whose fault the bad financial situation was. It seems when you try to figure that part out it defaults [in many people’s eyes including yours] to victim blaming. So let’s leave Shan’ann out of it, or let’s assume she was actually the sole breadwinner and hypothetically Chris Watts was a gambling addict or similar. Let’s blame him for the financial malaise, or blame a hypothesis where a scammer came along and stole their money. It’s not true, but it gets us around this difficult issue that the finances were anyone’s fault, and allows us to actually acknowledge that the finances were like walls moving in on them, just as the pregnancy for Niko felt like the walls of her womb were growing tighter as he evolved more fully into a living being.
I think you have no experience and no knowledge – for example – of the Scott Peterson dynamic, and the state of his finances, and how crucially that played into his sense of limited choice and ultimately desperation. I think I sent a link. You probably ignored it. Once again, what matters isn’t what you think of their situation, and what you think their options were, it matters what the situation factually was, and what Chris Watts knew [or thought he knew, or imagined] his options were. What did he think his choices were?
You seem to think murder in this case was like a new choice of breakfast cereal. he woke up and randomly, for no good reason, made a different breakfast cereal choice. It wasn’t a big deal, he chose to murder, it was just one of the plethora of options on the table.
But murder is a very big deal.
When you look at the week preceding the murder and you see how often Shan’ann asked him, prodded him and pushed him to tell her what was going on [because she knew he’d changed, and she knew something was going on], why do you think he didn’t just choose the obvious option on the menu and tell her. “Hey hun, I’ve been having an affair. No big deal.” She was already in North Carolina – why not tell her why she was half-moved out anyway, and with the children anyway?
There’s a real reason Chris Watts didn’t see this as an option. Shan’ann had a massive meltdown over nuts that lasted about a month and used much of the 6 weeks she was away. I’m sorry if this appears to point a finger at Shan’ann, I’d really like to leave her out of it, but she was actually married to Chris Watts, and was the mother was his children, so she is relevant to the argument.
She told Watts that, for example, she deserved a f*cking gold medal [her words] for the way she treated his parents [based on what almost happened to their children]. Let’s say she was 100% right and justified in doing what she did. If this was how she responded to a child almost eating ice cream with nuts, and she then went onto social media and vented, how did – not how would you – how did Chris Watts think she might react if he told her what was really going on?
You don’t need to answer that question to me. It’s posed to you for you to consider. Your understanding of the people and the circ*mstances in this case is very shallow, that’s why your assessment of both him and Shan’ann and their multiple options is also off.
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