15

Lies, Loss and Life Sentences

14 October

This week we talk about the true crime documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door, which is about Shanann, Bella and Celeste Watts who were murdered by Chris Watts. Joe explains why he would fail a polygraph test and Sandra overshares.

Joe got his information from:

• Wikipedia
• American Murder: The Family Next Door, documentary on Netflix

Sandra gor her information from the same documentary, as well as:

• Wikipedia
• A medium.com article, by Shannon Ashley
• An article in The Sun, by Fionnuala O'Leary. This is also where the photos of the Watts family can be found.

Audio transcript

Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.

Hello?

Hit me with your rhythm stick, hit me, hit me. Fantastisch, ich liebe dich, hit me, hit me, hit me.

It is I, your friend and confidant.

Thank you very much for scheduling this tonight, because this is my opportunity to catch up on TV from the week. I've got an episode of Bob's Burgers, I've got the rest of Bly Manor, I've got two more episodes of Little Mix, I've got...

What?

I was hoping you'd skip over that.

Wait a minute. What are you watching?

And then there's another episode of Lockhart Country coming out tonight. They're doing a show... [uncontrollable laughter] All right, I don't even know why i'm bothering to explain this to you, you clearly don't care, you just want to laugh at me. How much of you had to drink, it's really not that funny?

Not much. Are you watching a reality tv show about Little Mix?

No it's not a reality tv show. Do you need five minutes?

Tell me what it is.

I don't think you're ready. I don't think you can handle it.

I can handle it. I can handle it.

You sure? Because your voice says otherwise.

I'm ready.

They're looking for their next support act, so they're just doing a bunch of auditions and vocal training for hopefuls to be their support act for the next tour.

Okay...[laughs] I tried to hold it in.

Yeah I know, you sounded like you were constipated. [Laughter]

Can you still listen to the music after seeing how they are? They might be lovely.

They are lovely. [Laughter] Actually, I'm growing to like the one that I didn't like more, so it's clearly been beneficial for her. She's welcome.

Because it all falls if you don't like her?

I mean no, but it can't hurt her life if I'm on her side, can it?

Okay. How was the birthday party?

It wasn't a party.

How was the birthday meetup? Meeting?

It wasn't even as formal as that. Only me and my mum went round.

Okay, why?

Why?

Yeah. What were the other...

Because the rule of six stops everybody from meeting up in the same house.

Oh okay, yeah, that makes sense. Did you get him anything?

I bought him a fancy new slash old coin, because he collects coins.

What kind of old coin?

It's called a quarter sovereign. So sovereigns are made from gold, in case you didn't know. This particular coin, half of the gold is from modern era, so like whatever gold's available now, and half of the gold is from George the third's reign.

I don't know how long ago that was, but I'm guessing it's old.

Many. They only made 3 999 of these coins. So given how many coins are made nowadays, that are in the millions, it will be quite rare.

We should pick up like metal detecting you and I. We can go around beep beep beep beep.

I get called I'm a loser often enough without taking up metal detecting. And also you don't like the beach, which is where most metal detectors go.

I don't mind the beach. Why wouldn't I like the beach? I'm not a monster.

Because you get sand in your vagina.

I don't spread out and like shuffle about.

I don't need to know your beach details. [Laughter]

I just imagine you, when you see a beach, doing what a dog does when it's got an itchy bum.

That is true.

Yeah so..

I do have an itchy bum so. No, that's not true.

That's cause you don't wipe properly.

I do wipe properly! I wipe way too much, that's the fucking problem

You're welcome listeners.

Okay...

You should start the recording, or the episode, with just that. And then play the theme tune.

[Music]

It's wednesday my dudes, which means that it's time to talk about crime. You're listening to Midweek Murders, with me Sandra...

And me, Mario.

Joe. This week we're going to talk about the murder of Shanann, Bella and Celeste...

Or Cece, as she was known by the family.

I got my information from Wikipedia, "American Murder: The Family Next Door" which is a documentary that you can watch on Netflix. And... oh lord here it comes... An article in The Sun by Fionnuala O'Leary.

Beautiful british name. That is an Al Murray - the pub landlord joke. I'm not just being outlandishly racist.

Do you know how Fionnuala is pronounced? Is that an irish name?

Judging by the surname it could be irish, and therefore we will just call them Finn.

All right. And an article on medium.com by Shannon Ashley.

I have the same sources as you.

What?!

The whi, the wick, the wi wiki.

The wit, the wi, the wikiwikiwiki.

Wikipedia, and the netflix documentary.

Oh you watched it!

Und das ist alles.

Und das ist alles. It starts on august the 13th in 2018 when Shanann had been away on a business trip and her flight had been delayed, so she returned home at about two in the morning. And she got a ride home from the airport by her friend Nickole Atkinson. Chris was home with the girls. On the next day...

You should probably mention who chris is, because we haven't mentioned him so far.

Oh yeah. Sorry. So we can say this first, Chris Lee and Shanann Watts were married, and they had two daughters Bella and Celeste. And Shanann was also 15 weeks pregnant.

With little baby Niko.

Yeah. They had been together for a while. Maybe we should also say that the couple had declared bankruptcy in 2015. Chris worked at an oil company and Shanann was an independent representative for a multi-level marketing company which is more commonly known as a...

Pyramid scheme!

As a pyramid scheme or an mlm.

Sorry, I jumped in there. "Pyramid scheme" I know this one!

And I feel like people are...

Five points to Dumbledore. Sorry, you're doing great. I didn't do that one on purpose. [interrupts again] That one I kind of did.

I should also probably say that this is hard...

Enough without me interrupting you. Yeah I know, I get it.

I was gonna say that the MLM part is a bit hard for me, because I like subscribe to this anti-mlm subreddit and stuff. And I know how extremely predative... Predative? Predative?

Tative.

Yeah they're very...

They're predators.

Horrible companies that yeah...

Yeah it's a very aggressive sales technique.

Yeah, and they also prey on like house wives a lot.

And old people.

People that don't have any source of income and people that... It's a bit tricky because it does paint Shanann in a pretty dark light. But I would also like to say that a lot of people get roped into these companies, so I don't blame her, but I think that a lot of other people do. Yeah, I don't know where I wanted to go with that. I felt like very uncomfortable in my whole body when I tried to speak about it and I didn't know what to say. And I was like... But oh well.

MLM bad. Shanann not necessarily bad.

Oh yeah, that's a pretty pretty good description I would say. The company leaders, the actual people that make money out of these companies, they are the evil ones. I would point out.

Pharaohs.

Yeah. The pharaohs, yes, because it's a pyramid scheme. I got the joke.

You're welcome.

So Nickole Atkinson, after their trip, I think it was a company trip for the MLM thing?

Yeah. So they worked together and it was described as a business trip.

Yeah. She became concerned because Shanann had missed a scheduled OB-GYN appointment and she did not answer any texts or phone calls, which was very unusual for her because she was very much...

Obsessed.

On her phone, yes, yes. Which a lot of people were in that day and age. Two years ago, you know, I remember it like it was yesterday. So she went to the house and she tried to phone Shanann, she tried to ring the doorbell, she wouldn't answer. So she got concerned and called the police. Which I think is a good move, surprisingly good, because it wasn't even like she was missing for a week. She didn't answer her phone for like a couple of hours, remember she had gotten home that morning at 2 am, and her friend is like: "oh no, something is very wrong". So an officer arrived to the house to do a welfare check at about 2 p.m. So at that point it's 24 hours, but still very quickly.

12 hours.

12 hours. Sorry, my maths. So an officer gets there and they managed to call her husband Chris. Chris gets home, he says that he went to work at like 5.30 in the morning and Shanann was still in the house when he went to work. So they search for her in the house, they search for any kind of clues. No note, nothing, but her wedding ring...

Beds empty, no note, car gone...

All right Mrs Weasley.

Apart from the car was still there.

Yeah, which I think was one of the warning flags for her friend, that the car was still there but she wasn't answering the door or anything. Which, I mean, quite astute friend. If I had a friend who didn't answer my text messages... I mean I have a friend who hasn't answered me for like six months, I'm still not checking up on him.

I think it's not so much the individual phone calls and text messages that weren't replied to, but she knew she was pregnant and she missed her OB-GYN appointment. Which is more of a red flag than not picking up your phone.

Yeah. Although to be fair, at the frequency that we're messaging, if you hadn't answered me for 12 hours I would be concerned.

I mean I don't get 12 minutes before someone starts video calling me.

For you listeners, that's not true.

It's 13.

We do send a lot of reddit links there inbetween.

Give him the benefit of the doubt.

So the police gets there, they talk to Chris, he has no idea where his wife is. They find her ring, and then Chris says that they had an argument but he was like: "it wasn't that serious". So they were like: "okay". Goes to the neighbour's house, because the neighbour says that he has a security camera that points out to the street where you can see Shanann and Chris's house. When they were watching the security camera footage Chris isn't really looking at it, did you notice that? So he's glancing at it, looking at his phone...

And also seems incredibly agitated.

Yeah. For me watching it, because it was in the documentary, I was like: "all right, he seems a bit sketchy". But for the neighbour who knows him and who's talked to him and stuff like that, he was like: "this is not his normal behavior". Which I also felt like, that neighbour is very astute, but he was like: "oh he's very talkative and he's very like agitated, this is not how he usually behaves". The police officer kind of brushes that aside and says: "well, anyone would be nervous if the wife was missing" kind of.

I think the police officer paid attention to it, and it was probably put in his statement. But it wasn't like: "uh oh, well he's acting super suspicious, let's arrest him now". He was given the benefit of the doubt because his wife and two children were missing. So yeah, I don't think you can place any blame on the police officer for not following that lead. I think he did seem interested when he was speaking to the neighbor about the differences in behavior, but did sort of not bring it to the main point of attention because of the circumstances.

Which I definitely get. But then the neighbor says something bone chilling, and it was when he pointed out that when Chris leaves for work, he's loading stuff in his car, he can see Chris backing the car into the garage or something. I don't remember exactly what it was, but he says to the police: "he never takes out his tools out from the car, so it's always in the car".

Yeah, so that video clip of the car backing into the drive, Chris explained that he does that all the time because it's a shorter trip for him to unload all of his tools and equipment from his van, or truck, into the garage and vice versa. To which, once Chris had left, the neighbor was like: "he never does this, ever. That's not a thing that he does".

Which is also very astute, but also gives me a bit of the creeps. Like how much did this neighbor watch his neighbors with a security camera?

No, to be fair, when you live in that kind of environment when you are in a detached house but you've got close proximity of neighbors, you do know their behaviors because you hear a truck in the middle of the night and you're like: "oh what's this". You look out the window: "oh it's just the next door neighbor coming home from work, or leaving for work". If for every working day of you being neighbors, your neighbor has never backed his truck up into his driveway and then one night he does and you've got that on camera, it's suspicious. And I don't think you have to be a peeping tom kind of neighbor to be able to note something suspicious.

No, that's true. And I also want to say that I'm not like blaming him or anything. I think that he was very helpful because it did lend towards the case against Chris, the fact that he was on camera backing his car into the garage. I think it's good that he was like: "this is not normal". Only two days afterwards, after the disappearance of his wife and children, Chris was arrested by the police.

Well it wasn't going to be by the chicken sellers, was it?

And one thing that led to his arrest was that he was subjected to a polygraph test, and this is shown very briefly in the documentary, but it was actually a five-hour polygraph test and he scored abysmally low. So he was asked about his wife and his children, where they were, did he know what happened to them, yada yada yada. And he sometimes in that polygraph test referred to his children in a past tense, which is one of those dead giveaways. And I know, well maybe you do this, I would guess you don't, but sometimes I listen to like 9-1-1 calls when I know that one of the people are guilty in the calls. And then I watch like a whole breakdown of: "what does this behavior, and what do these choices of words say about the person who's calling", and one of the red flags in those 911 calls is if they talk about a person in a past tense. It means that they know that they're dead. Even though he was like, to the police and to the media and everyone, he would say that: "I think they're out there somewhere. If you're out there, please come back". But in the police interview, in the polygraph test, he sometimes would slip up and talk about his children in the past tense. Which might not be a interesting detail for you, but it was for me.

I think the whole polygraph episode, I was just rolling my eyes throughout the whole thing. I cannot believe that in this day and age there are institutions like the police force, like the FBI, like the CSI that still use polygraph as an acceptable form of evidence of guilt in a court of law.

But they don't.

Yes they do.

They don't admit it as evidence. I think it was to put pressure on him.

In which case, it's a honey trap and again shouldn't be admissible. There's no reason to be using a polygraph, you can get the same set of results from a polygraph as you can from just interviewing.

Yeah, that's true. I think...

And because there's no forensic evidence in this case, I looked into the polygraph a little bit further. As we're on it, you're gonna get that now. So the polygraph test is commonly known as a lie detector test, as I'm sure you're aware. There's no such thing as a lie detector test. There's no physiological evidence of when a person is lying versus when a person is telling the truth. So all of these wires and tapes that they get you to put on your fingers and across your heart, and you have to sit on a sensor in the chair to tell whether you're clenching your butt cheeks or not. Genuine, not even making that up.

What? I thought... I didn't know that, the butt one, or the sitting one.

In the documentary on Netflix, she tells him to sit down on the chair and they have a little discussion about it, and she's like: "yeah it's a bit weird, don't worry about it, it's not on right now".

Oh! I didn't notice.

That's a sensor for involuntary gluteal maxima stimulation.

That's funny.

But, what the polygraph is actually measuring is your blood pressure, your pulse, your breathing rate and your skin conductivity, which is a direct correlation to sweat. So if you're sweating you're supposedly meant to be lying or uncomfortable about something, which is why I could take a polygraph test and would fail it, because I'm always sweating.

Yeah.

So basically, the polygraph is measuring, and I'm using this in the scientific term, prepare yourself.

I'm prepared.

A polygraph measures arousal.

Oh! My gluteus maximus just clenched.

Guilty. What they don't tell you when you're having a polygraph, or if you're looking at a polygraph reading, or any of this. Is that a polygraph can be affected by anxiety, PTSD, nervousness, fear, confusion, hypoglycemia, psychosis, depression, highs from substances, withdrawals from substances and other strong emotions.

Yeah. Yeah I know...

So there are so many biological reasons why a polygraph result is absolute bullshit.

Yeah.

There is absolutely no reason in a logical, orderly, scientific world that we live in in 2020, or in this case 2018, that a polygraph should be used. And that's my rant about polygraphs over.

I do understand what you're saying, and it is inadmissible as evidence, which I think is good, because it wasn't.... I don't remember when it...

But they did arrest him on the basis of his failed polygraph.

Not only. I think that some of the other things why they arrested him was: one, there was no signs of foul play, nothing was missing from the house, her purse, her phone was still there, her car...

Which he actually raised in his interview, didn't he? He was like: "I'm worried that she might have been abducted by someone she knows because there was no sign of struggle" and the police officers were like: "yes. Yes, you're right. That's a good point Chris, we didn't think of that. There was no sign of struggle, it must have been someone she knew".

Yeah. I think they knew the whole time that it was him. And also, I think they subjected him to the polygraph because they wanted him to...

They wanted to break him.

Yeah. There is actually a series about the invention of the polygraph test and it's very raunchy. The series.

Not the polygraph, that's just a set of machines.

I think he was also arrested because he claimed to the police during his interview, and the polygraph test, and stuff like that. He repeatedly said: "I have never cheated on my wife. I didn't cheat on my wife" but his girlfriend at the time, because he was cheating, surprise, surprise, had contacted the police. Because she said, and this is also possibly not true, but she said that they worked together and Chris had told her that he was leaving his wife. But then she saw the news about his wife's disappearance and that she was pregnant, and stuff like that, and she said that: "actually, I don't know this guy that well. I'm gonna call the police and tell them that we're in the relationship and I don't know, but it seems suspicious". But the police later determined as well that she had been googling Shanann a lot before calling the police and before Shanann disappeared. So she probably knew that she was pregnant and she probably knew that Shanann wasn't planning on divorcing her husband at any point. Because apparently she had been googling her insistently, like a lot, before the disappearance and stuff like that.

I think you mean incessantly.

Yes, incessantly. But what I would also like to say is that even if she knew, doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but I'm glad that she called the police.

Yeah. She was a vital cog in the whole "arrest Chris" machine.

And that's actually really commendable. Because it's also true, like how well do you know someone that you've met a couple of months ago? You don't really. And his wife is disappearing, pregnant and stuff, it's almost always the partner. Well it's almost always the partner statistically speaking, not almost always, but like a very high percent.

I'd like to see your coefficient verification and standard deviation for this abominable claim

I don't actually know the numbers but you could probably google it. But the thing is... I would also like to say, that even if she had googled and knew that they weren't divorcing and knew that she was pregnant before she disappeared, it doesn't really matter. Because she did call the police and was like: "I'm actually in a relationship with this guy, so he might be suspect", which he was. Definitely. So during the interviewing and the polygraph and stuff, and this annoyed me so much, but I know that it's like a police tactic that during the interview they were like: "oh well, Chris, we know that women can be crazy sometimes. Did she do something to make you angry?". I know that it's a tactic to get him to confess, but it did annoy me that they were so nice to him and that they were like: "maybe it was Shanann's fault, maybe she did something to the babies, and then you were like angry about that". Did you see that in the documentary?

I remember the "women can be crazy" part, but I don't think they ever led with questions like: "maybe she did something to the children".

I think they did at some point, but I know... I think....

Because that's not a policing technique, that's a leading question, and if a defense lawyer got hold of that interview tape you wouldn't be able to prosecute him on it.

Yeah. Now I'm second guessing myself, but I really think that they did kind of lead him into that. And then he says that he wants to talk to his dad. His dad comes in, and he tells his dad that Shanann murdered the daughters and then he got angry and murdered Shanann. And obviously this is a lie, but they were like: "oh, are you feeling okay?" and like rubbed his back and stuff. I was like: "why would you treat a murderer"... I know that it's a tactic...

It was his dad that was rubbing his back.

Yeah, but the police...

The police officer squeezed his shoulder on the way out, but at that stage they were under the impression that this was like a revenge act because his wife had just killed his two kids.

I don't think they ever thought that. The polygraph lady, she rubs his back a lot.

Well the polygraph lady isn't a police officer, she's a psychologist.

Yeah okay, that's true. It did rub me the wrong way that they were so nice to him because obviously they know that he's lying about never having cheated on his wife, that he had met someone new, they knew all of that. And so... Yeah, I don't know. We don't have to argue about it, but I just felt like it was so much empathy for a guy that doesn't deserve it. Because I'm pretty sure that they knew that Shanann never killed the daughters.

Prove it. I'm joking, you can carry on.

So they wanted to know where his family was buried, and after a lot of like interviewing and stuff like that, I think he was there for a long time, he tells them where they are buried. So at his place of work, they dig up Shanann, and the sheet that he wrapped her body in was on top of where she was buried. And then he also tells them that he put his daughters in an oil tank, so they....

Can I just interject here?

Yeah.

So they knew that he worked at this site, they spoke to his boss as a character witness. So like, they did all of their investigation. They admitted, the police this is, in the interview that they recovered that sheet from the site. Where the are their forensics officers?

What do you mean?

Why was that sheet not tested for Shanann's hair, or body fluid, or anything?

I think that they found the sheet after he told them where they were buried.

Oh. I assumed they visited the site before he told them, like checking out all of the leads and stuff, but okay.

I would guess, because he was arrested just two days after she went missing.

Yeah, it was all very quick.

Yeah. I think that they just went there to dig up the body more or less, I would guess. But I'm not... I can't say for sure. So then they said, I think this is right, but I might be wrong, you can correct me on this but...

I'll do my best.

That they'll take the death penalty off the table if he admits to everything.

There was a plea deal involved. If he pleaded guilty he wouldn't get the death sentence, but that was proposed by Shannan's mum. That wasn't a court decision, she... It was either her, or a joint decision with both the parents, but they said they didn't want any more death. If he pleads guilty, just give him life rather than the death penalty.

I think, fair enough.

It's quite admirable, really.

Yeah. I would also like to say that some of the reasons for why he was arrested so quickly, was that he had called the daughters school to unroll them from school before he was even arrested. So they definitely knew that he knew that they were dead.

Or gone.

Yeah. And then he confesses that he and Shanann has an argument, he kills Shanann by strangling her, and then takes the children with the dead body of their mother in the car and says that: "mommy's not feeling well, but she'll be fine", takes them to the site and kills them. Then what later emerges in his private correspondence is that he tried to smother his children before even going to bed, so...

I didn't know that.

He didn't have an argument with Shanann. He tries to smother his children with a pillow, goes to bed, has an argument with Shanann, he thinks that he just murdered his daughters, doesn't say that to Shanann but strangles her to death. And then his daughters wake up and comes in when he's wrapping up their mother in a sheet, and one of them is badly bruised and he takes them in the car and kills them on site, where he buried the bodies or where he buried Shanann, and put the daughters in the oil tank. He also confesses in his private correspondence that he had planned the murders for a while. He had also tried to force Shanann to miscarriage by giving her opiates. I think it was oxy...

Oxycontin?

Yeah, that one. But it's unsuccessful. So this was, I think, weeks before the actual murder happened. But he definitely planned it. He had been thinking about it for a while, definitely.

What a psychopath.

Yeah, yeah. Typical psychopath. He was convicted of five counts of first degree murder, unlawful termination of pregnancy, and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

Now some of you particularly avid listeners will realize that there were only three murders, but he was charged and sentenced with five. Hmm. How is that so? Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you right now. He was given an additional life sentence for each of his children, as they were under the age of 12 and he was in the position of being a parental guardian. And for some reason in the state of Colorado, I don't know if it's federal law but it's definitely a state law, if those are the circumstances, killing a child gets you two life sentences.

I didn't know that.

Oh well, you're very welcome. Oh yeah, what did you say he was charged for?

Five first degree murder, unlawful termination of a pregnancy...

Yes. So that was the other one that I wanted to bring up. In some states in America, if you murder a fetus, by either killing the lady carrying or an unlawful abortion, you can be charged with first degree murder. In Colorado and certain other states, they do not recognize the killing of a fetus as a first-degree murder charge. So he was charged with the unlawful death of a fetus rather than a murder charge on top of that. Which he would have got in certain other states, he would have been charged with six cases of first degree murder in some states, but in this one it was only five and unlawful termination.

Wait. I understand why you can be charged for killing someone else's baby if that is not their choice, but if you have an abortion for example...

If it's an unlawful. If you don't go to an abortion clinic. So if you go back alley and meet someone who isn't a registered licensed doctor, that person can be charged either with first degree murder or unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

Oh, okay.

Depending on which state you're in.

Yeah.

Which is why it's always a debate in the U.S as to whether a fetus constitutes human life and whether abortion should be legal etc, etc.

Yeah. Obviously abortion should definitely be legal, abortion is a right.

Yes. We are pro-aboytion. [Laughter] We're pro-aboytion, we're from the Bronx. If a woman wants to get an aboytion, she should get an aboytion. That's her choice.

That's funny.

We're pro-choice is what we're trying to say.

Yeah, and it shouldn't even be pro-life because...

Yeah. All of you republican bot listeners out there that are pro-life, fuck you.

Oh god. I think there was something else that I wanted to say. Yes, another thing that annoyed me a lot with the documentary... We should have said spoilers for the documentary at the start, but we're too deep in now.

Spoilers! Just cut it and put it where you need it.

I found it extremely annoying that during the victim statements that they have, when Shanann's family can get up and...

I think I know what you're going to say.

Yeah, and they tell Chris that: "this is not okay, this is horrible. We love them you took away our child, our grandchildren blah blah blah". Which I think is important probably, because the victims get a chance to express what this has cost them. And I feel like that probably has a therapeutic...

Yeah it could be quite cathartic, yeah.

Which is good. And also because he's a dick and he should know that killing his whole family wasn't just...

That's not how you get out of a marriage.

No. Get a divorce you fucking coward. But when his parents get up and his mom is like: "we forgive you", I'm like that's not something you are allowed to do.

No. I also like how they cut to Shanann's dad after she said that and the look of disbelief on his face!

Yeah.

He's like: "are you serious? This guy has just murdered your grandchildren and your daughter-in-law and you're like oh he's such a troubled soul, we forgive you, oh you poor baby", that he's like: "are you fucking kidding me".

God it made my blood boil. I'm like you're not allowed to do that because it's not your child and, well it is their grandchildren, but fucking hell. Like I get it if her family were like: "oh, we forgive you because we have to do that for our own sake" but his parents are like, you know.

Well they never liked her in the first place.

To summarize, I would just like to say to Chris Watts if he ever hears this, which...

You're a cunt.

He would never. But I hope you rot in jail for the rest of your life because...

Although good bloody job with your weight loss. You did look much better than when you were a chubby psychotic bastard.

Good lord.

But I feel like that was probably the beginning of the end, in which case that is not a reason to get fit.

Yeah.

To murder your wife and children.

No, definitely not. Of all the motivations you can have...

It's a strong one, but not really sustainable.

Fucking hell, what a monster. What are you gonna do now?

I think Ollie does need another wee, he's been pestering me for like the last half an hour.

Oh nooo. Oh! Do you want to know something nice? Bodil's been here for the whole recording.

Awww little psychopath kitty.

Yeah, she just came in and sat with me for the whole recording. I'm like: "aww".

Oh, I like the sound of your voice, is what Bodil is saying.

Yeah. I had a video call with my friend Jakob, and he was like: "yeah, I heard myself in English and I was like, fucking hell I sound so professional", and I'm like, that's so unfair because my register goes up when I'm speaking English. Like I have a much deeper and more pleasant voice in Swedish.

When you're sounding Swedish.

And then when I speak in English my register just goes up and I sound like a child.

"I sound like a little squeaky bear". "I speak English and everybody hears me, especially the dolphins. And then I speak Swedish and only the whales can hear me".

I think it's also more like noticeable when I edit the episodes because you have a very deep voice and then I'm over here like: "hello".

What about if I speak like this, would that be more helpful for you in your editing tones? It's a little bit more Shirley Bassey and a little bit less Tom Jones. Those are two very famous Welsh singers. [Laughter]

I know, I know. Just because I didn't know about Cornish, I'm not... [Laughter]

You know nothing about Great Britain.

No, that's true. It's true.

We'll fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the air. I don't know the rest of Churchill's speech.

Good try. It's almost there.

We will fight them on the beaches. We will fight them in the air. We will fight them on the land. We will destroy the nazis surge.

Okay, should we say goodbye to the listeners? Goodbye, thank you so much for listening to Midweek Murders. We'll see you next week!

Bye!

Shia La-bye-ouf.

[Music]

Topics

• Chris Watts
• Shanann Watts
• Bella Watts
• Celeste Watts
• The Watts family murders
• Polygraph test
• lie detector test
• Men who murder their family
• unlawful termination of a pregnancy
• Polygraph tests explained
• American Murder: The Family Next Door
• true crime documentary discussion
• Victim statements
• Colorado state laws