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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield

Was Chris Watts Having Secret Gay Affairs; Accused Killer Dad`s Double Life Exposed; Accused Killer Dad`s Life Behind Bars Revealed; CNN Heroes. Aired 6-8p ET

Aired August 30, 2018 - 18:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[18:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three counts of murder in the first-degree.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe that everything in life happens for a reason and I met Chris.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When she walked in the room it was like sunshine.

CHRISTIAN WATTS, HUSBAND OF SHANANN WATTS, SUSPECT: You have a moral obligation to stay in this relationship.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It came to her mind that possibly he could be cheating.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chris Watts had relationships outside of his marriage with both men and women.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the same time she was like he had no game.

SHANANN WATTS, VICTIM, WIFE OF CHRIS WATTS: Chris was very stand offish.

Can you say I am loved?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am loved.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wanted to defend him for what people are claiming he did before he confessed.

S. WATTS: He was the one for me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Frederick police department receive a missing person call just before 2:00 p.m. on Monday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just kept saying he didn`t know where she was.

WATTS: I left for work early that morning, like 5:15, 5:30.

At first I was like, I want to get out and go around, you don`t know where to look for. We had an emotional conversations.

S. WATTS: I am blessed.

WATTS: Felt like she had barely got in the bed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was something seriously wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST, HLN CRIME AND JUSTICE: Good evening everyone, I`m Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to Crime and Justice.

As the sun begins to set on the Wells County Jail, just outside of Denver, Colorado. Chris Watts has one thing to look forward to. Dinner. It may

just be in his cell. But part form that there`s very few bright spots in his life right now. The once awkward, but affable dad and the star of

dozens of family videos. He is officially now inmate number 360519.

And tonight, he is probably contemplating the five counts of murder he has been charge with. After police say he killed his entire family, hid their

bodies and then lied to his teeth about it. But exactly how Chris Watts feels about those accusations depends on exactly what Chris Watts did.

Depends on what exactly Chris Watts said he did and depends on exactly what length or what height Chris Watts may have gone to, to get away with

murder. And exactly what happens to Chris Watts now depends on every little detail that led up to the early morning hours of Monday, August 13th

when Shanann Watts, his wife got back from a business trip and within hours was buried near a pair of two-storey oil tanks, where the little girl`s

bodies were dumped.

Their marriage, their sex life and other alleged relationships could all come into play when Chris Watts goes to court. But some things in this

seemingly incomprehensible story are starting to fall into line. Some of the little puzzle pieces are actually starting to fit. And I`m about to

lay out this story in way that you have not seen it before with the best minds in the business telling us what makes sense and maybe more

importantly what does not.

Pat Lalama, with your experience covering crime stories is more than likely something about what I am about to say is not going to sit right with you?

Joseph Scott Morgan, our certified death investigator, you are going to be defining the forensic possibilities and impossibilities in the next time

line you are about to hear. James Gagliano, with your background as a special agent, I need you to weigh in on what it really takes to dig a

shallow grave and exactly how long it sets you back. Dr. Baber, our forensic psychiatrist, I`m going to ask you to probably shed some light on

the super human mindset it would take to pull off this kind of crime. And Parag Shah, I am going to get you to weigh in on is this kind of story

line, something an attorney would take straight to trial.

All right, everyone, bear with me and buckle up. I am going to lay this as best I can, but stay with me. We`re talking about a 12 hour frame work.

It`s not a lot of time. Just 12 hours. It starts at 1:48 in the morning on a Monday morning when Shanann Watts is dropped off.

[18:05:05] At 5:27 a.m., we know for fact on video Chris Watts trucks backs into the driveway and is seen shortly afterwards leaving. At 1:40 p.m., we

know the first officer is dispatched and this story begins to unravel. If you do that math, 1:48 a.m. To 1:40 p.m., it`s not even 12 full hours.

And filling in the blanks in between starts to sound, frankly, remarkable. First let`s go to when Shanann Watts` friend Nicole starts calling in the

morning and can`t reach her friend. Calls are off, she decided to go over. And when she gets there, she sees in the garage Nicole`s, her friend`s car

and unfortunately, it`s in the garage with car seats still affixed which means those children and Shanann have not likely left the house.

So she tries the front door. There`s no answer and the door is locked from the inside. Not one of those dead bolts. It`s latched with a hook like

those hotel latches from the inside. And we went and looked at the videos of that door and look what we saw beneath that latch. Zoom in and there`s

a piece of paper taped to the door. It takes a lot of clarity to read what the piece of paper says.

The paper says lock me. Maybe this is just a coincidence. Something to tell everybody to lock the door from the inside maybe at night when you

sleep. But you cannot lock me from the outside. You can only lock me with that latch from the inside. So this was not Shanann Watts locking that

door and then dying. More than likely it was someone else. Let me carry on with the timeline.

Now this friend of Nicole`s is so worried that that latch won`t let her open the door more than a couple of inches. She calls Chris. Of course,

her worry is her pregnant friend is inside possibly fainted, passed out. The children may be at risk. Chris comes home, she says. The answer is

unclear. But whatever his answer, she is now calling the police. An Officer Coonrod is dispatched at approximately 1:40 p.m.

When officer Coonrod gets to that front door, and he can`t get in either, he noticed something on the garage that would let him get in, right away.

It is the garage door opener. It is the electronic key pad. We all have them. You put in your code and instantly you can get into that house.

Well, what a great idea? He calls Chris on his cell phone and says tell me the code. I have to get in. It`s a welfare check on your wife. What do

you think Chris` answer was to Officer Coonrod? That isn`t working. That key pad isn`t working. But I`ll be there soon enough. I`ll be there in

about five minutes. Now put yourself in the mind of Chris Watts. He is driving toward the scene that he knows all too well.

He is driving approximately 12 hours later right back up that driveway that he just backed out of in the dark of the night with three bodies in the

car, by his admission in the affidavit. When he begins to speak with Officer Coonrod in the house, he tell that officer a couple of interesting

facts. That he got up at 5:00 in the morning. 5:00 in the morning. Had a conversation with Shanann. Says Shanann arrived home from a trip around

2:00 a.m. and he woke up at 5:00 a.m. And began talking to Shanann about marital separation. And what do you suppose happened after that? He said

he informed her he wanted to initiate the separation. 5:00 in the morning. That is easy to remember. There`s a lot of people wake up at 5:00 in the

morning.

But then Coonrod asks for a little back up. And he asks detective Baumhover to come on over and help him with this investigation. And on the

scene Detective Baumhover asks Chris, talk to me this period of time when you left off, your wife Shanann. And Chris said, Shanann arrived home from

the airport at approximately 1:48 a.m. Note that time. It`s very accurate. 1:48 a.m., my wife comes to the door, 1:48, not somewhere around

2:00 a.m. or I don`t know after 1:00 in the morning. 1:48 a.m. he seems to know the time exactly.

[18:10:00] And then he says something even more curious. He says at approximately 4:00 a.m., he informs Shanann he wanted to go through with

the separation and they were both upset and crying. Wait a minute. 4:00 a.m. I thought you said you woke up at 5:00 a.m. You told Officer Coonrod

you woke up at 5:00 a.m. So, how did you have a conversation with her at 4:00 a.m.? All of this is starting to sound pretty curious, right? And

you can imagine these cops are pretty wise to these strange little stories he is telling them on the scene.

In any case, he told these police officer`s one thing that was very consistent. He told them what time he backed his car up to load up his

tools and head off to work. Again, not I don`t know around 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning. He told them a specific time. He told Coonrod 5:27 a.m. He

told Baumhover 5:27 a.m. Very, very specific. So specific. So exact. Do you know exactly what time you leave the house? Maybe you do. Maybe you

do. But again, lot of coincidences, right? A lot of unusual moments, right?

Here is something else about exact time, because Chris really seemed to be connected to exact times. Very strange when he was doing those TV

interviews on the front porch, remember all that business about my poor wife, she is missing with my kids. Lying, flat-out, bald face to the

cameras. But strangely he was able to quote an exact time. Shockingly, he said my wife arrived home at 1:48 a.m. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She came back Sunday you said at 2:00 at night?

WATTS: yes, her flight got delayed from Arizona because of like, thunderstorms around the nation. She was supposed to get home at 11:00.

She got home around 1:48. I left work early that morning like 5:15, 5:30. So, like she barely got in the bed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Barely gotten into bed pretty much. But he knew about 1:48. So again, the big question, what happened after 5:27 a.m.? What happened?

Let`s start doing a little of the math. Because if what Chris told the officers is true, he actually took those bodies and the officers say he

buried them at the work site. That work site is about 40 minutes away. The thing is though, he told the officers he actually went to place called

Hudson. It`s in the middle of your map. The house is over at the Watts home, there on the left. 20 miles to Hudson where he told the police he

went and 20 more miles to the work site where the bodies were actually found.

Let`s just say at a bare minimum, if he was trying to clean everything up fast, at 5:27 a.m. he leaves that house. And 45 minutes or so later he is

arriving at the burial site. So now that takes us to about 6:15 a.m. Can I tell you when the sunrise was in Colorado that day? And whether that

sort of throws a hook into a plan at all. 6:10 a.m. sunrise in Frederick on August 13th. He is not getting to that work site until about 6:15 in

broad daylight, presumably the three bodies in that truck that need to be disposed of. Now you have to climb 20 feet, because at that work site

those oil tanks are very, very tall. About 20 feet high. You either get to them by steep stair or a ladder. And whatever you are going to take up

there, you are going to carry by yourself.

If you are carrying children to dump into the deep oil, they don`t weigh a whole lot. They`re only four and five years old after all, right. So

presumably, he carried those children up those steps with a ladder. He opened the manhole covers at a very, very top which is no small feat. Two

different tanks he dumps the bodies. And if he planned to dispose of his wife in a very same way, well, guess what, that is somewhere between 139 or

a 150 pounds of deadweight.

I don`t mean that as a pun. I mean dead weight. It`s extraordinarily difficult to lift that kind of weight especially if you`re carrying it like

in a sheet over your shoulder. A bag, maybe. Carrying it 20 feet up, maybe not. Maybe the plan changed. Because ultimately, she was buried in

a shallow grave.

James Gagliano, I know you have heard of shallow graves many times in your career. It`s not easy to bury someone in a shallow grave. Tell me about

the timeline now that it would take. How long would it take to bury someone in a shallow grave?

[18:15:09] JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Sure, first off, Ashleigh, you and I talked about this earlier today. And try to work on

this the way that you were a detective bureau, using specific times. That is something people do to try to make their alibi rock solid. No, it is

5:27 or 3:28. As far as the burial goes. To a standard grave site is about six feet. That is just been the way we have done it in perpetuity.

Keeps animals away if there is any disease. Six feet down. Shallow graves are generally three feet or less depth than that. To do that in type of

soil out here, you`re talking about a period of time where it`s hot. The soil is packed in.

BANFIELD: It is 80 degrees. I am going to tell you exactly what the temperature was that day at approximately that time. It was somewhere

around 80 degrees. Continue.

GAGLIANO: Clay in the soil. All right. Sand in the soil could make it very difficult. This would have been a work out. We know he transformed

his figure and became a fitness nut and a fitness buff, but this would have been work out. To did a three foot shallow grave. That is a minimum of a

half an hour worth of work.

BANFIELD: If you`re fit like he is and if you have the right tools and the soil looks fairly sandy in that geological location any way, you`re saying

at a minimum, half an hour?

GAGLIANO: At a minimum.

BANFIELD: OK. I am going to go for a break, but let us just tell where we are right now in the timeline. If he drove that 40 minute trip from 5:27

in the morning and got there around 6:15, if he disposed of his little girl`s body in haste and let us just say it took half an hour to unscrew

the manholes, climb those 20 feet, dumped both girls in two different tanks, maybe attempt Shanann, we don`t know and ultimately resort to the

shallow grave, let`s give that half an hour. We`re now at 6:45 where he begins digging a shallow grave.

As James Gagliano just put it takes about half an hour to achieve that task. So that would take you to 7:15. A lot of shifts start at 7:25. Who

knows that the shift is coming that day? Who knows that someone would have seen this family being disposed of? But at 7:15, maybe his shift was going

to start somewhere else. After the break I am going to take you to work with Chris Watts, because that is exactly what he did that day. He went to

work. But what happened after? And what was the biggest mistake he may have made? That is next.

[18:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

S. WATTS: Guess what, girls. Mommy has a baby in her belly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeheey.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A Colorado father accused of murdering his wife and two kids will in court minutes from now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The only thing you heard from Chris Watts was the yes, sir.

S. WATTS: Yes, are you really excited? Oh, my goodness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: When you`re a busy person some days` time down to the minute. Parents know this all too well. But no parent knows this as well, perhaps

as Chris Watts may have known it on Monday, August 13th. Because that is the day his wife Shanann came home from a business trip and that is the day

she ended up dead and buried just steps away from the oil tanks that were housing the bodies of her dead and limp daughters. Police say Chris Watts

killed them which would make Monday, August 13th, an extremely busy day for this very busy guy.

But at this point it`s his word versus the cop`s evidence. But tonight, we`re testing out the time line. Before the break I took you all the way

through that night and I took you right up to the point where he actually allegedly finished doing the burial and heading off to work sometime around

7:30 in the morning. After all, if he is guilty he sure did need an alibi. He needed it to look like nothing was wrong in his life. He would need it

to look like it was any other day at work.

So, 7:30 in the morning. If he is at work at 7:30 in the morning, what did he do for the rest of the day? And what did he still have left to do at

the house, because there wasn`t a lot of time at the house? Considering three people were killed and somehow that house was cleaned up fairly well

and three people were taken out of that house. Just think about it. 2:00 in the morning until about 5:30. Three and a half hours to erase any trace

evidence, any forensic that might point to you if what he says is a lie. Let`s go back to the time line for a minute. Is it possible Chris went to

work to get an alibi at 7:30 in the morning and thought I still have things left to do at the house, but I have got to make an appearance and normalize

my day, so that nobody suspects a thing.

James Gagliano, I want to bring you in on this, because there is something curiously left behind at that home when he went off to his workday, bed

sheets.

[18:25:03] Bed sheets that were very curiously stuffed in the kitchen trash. Nobody stuffs bed sheets in the kitchen trash. But there was a top

sheet. There were two pillow cases and the other sheet was mysteriously found at the burial site. Is it possible he thought he still had work to

do at home when he got home from work?

GAGLIANO: Absolutely, Ash. And one of the common themes in dealing with folks that have been charged with murder or convicted of murder throughout

the course of my 25-year career. They don`t want variables. They want constants. And you lay out a plan, and if it is premeditated one, you lay

out a plan and you hope that you hit your mark so that nothing happens that gets in the way of that. Clearly in this instance it looks like he has set

this up for a clean-up, when he got back afterwards.

BANFIELD: Well, low and behold, that friend Nicole may have thwarted it all. Because she wasn`t satisfied with no answer at the door midday and

approximately somewhere between 12 noon or 1:40, she is frustrated. She is traveling to the house. She is knocking on the door. She is calling

Chris. She is calling the police and Chris Watts now has no options left. The police are at the door. He has not had chance to come home from work.

So is that possible and I`m going to just lay this all out. Everybody listen in so acutely aware of this eight hour total. Eight hours to drive

almost two hours. That is to the death site, right, to the burial site and back. Approximately two hours burying a body, dumping the two children,

making it to work and somehow making it back telling a police officer that electronic key pad on my garage doesn`t work. You cannot open it. But

I`ll be there in five minutes. Joseph Scott Morgan, is there anything in this timeline as a death investigator that stands out to you?

JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, PROFESSOR OF FORENSIC, JACKSONVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes, for me, I think the thing that is most glaring, I`m still not buying

into the fact that these children would have been killed in the immediate. And I have my suspicions that these children were killed in advance of the

mother`s arrival by maybe hours, maybe up to days. Because we have a gap of time here that is not accounted for. And also, I would not -- you know,

I think that we still have the leave room to think about was there another trip that had been made out to that site for the dumping of these children

prior to the arrival of the mother. So, I think that we have to have lot of latitude here in our thought process. For me, you know, it`s hard for

me to buy that he would have done this so frenetically right at the end and run the risk, as James had pointed out, not leaving anything to chance.

That he is going to have to beat the sunrise and beat all of his colleagues to work.

BANFIELD: Well, all of this happened in broad daylight, because sunrise was at 6:10 a.m. Pat Lalama, I wanted to come to you about something that

struck me. Because I wondered the same thing. If he had done any planning prior, if he had gone out and done any digging prior, he was with those two

girls for several days by himself. She was on a work trip. It was a weekend. Would you think, as a crime reporter, that someone would take

their little daughters to their burial site and get some advance work done?

PAT LALAMA, GUEST HOST, HLN CRIME AND JUSTICE: I think it depends on whether he is pre-planned this whole thing. What was going on in his mind

during those days? This is a whole different scenario. Mr. Morgan hits the nail on the head. I`m not so sure it happened the way we think it

happened. I`m starting to think perhaps he had it planned out. He knew this was the opportunity. He was tormented with his life. That changes

the whole scenario, Ashleigh. Not heat of passion, but a calculated plan.

Maybe if we`re believing some of the stories he was tormented. He didn`t want to get found out. I think there`s more than we know. I don`t think

we know enough about who he was with when he was watching the kids. Was he watching the kids? Did somebody else watch the kids for him? Was someone

at his house? Remember, you brought up that he didn`t have his wedding ring on. He didn`t have the lupus band on. You know, did he get found

out? Did he get caught with something? I think, right now, the timeline doesn`t tell us enough and I`m really leaning more was happening before to

get all this done in time. I don`t think that you can just use your brain to that period of time and get all this done and calculate and keep track

of times.

BANFIELD: The best part of that is that a lot of criminals think they can figure it out when things goes crazy.

LALAMA: They think they can.

BANFIELD: And that is when they make big mistake.

LALAMA: Ashleigh, I`m just going to say, everything that we have seen of him, everything we know, it`s like the prosecution. He is riding this

circumstantial case for them. I mean, I know it does not have to be circumstantial because of what we know.

But he is just giving them the lies. Everything that he says is a lie. He thinks he`s so smart. But it`s typical with these kind of people that they

are just walking themselves right into a web. I hope he`s got a defense attorney that will untangle it for him.

BANFIELD: Daniel Bober, I mean, as a forensic psychiatrist, I almost don`t even need to ask you a question. I almost need to give you an hour just to

talk about every aspect of this case because every one who talks to me about this case says there`s only one thing that doesn`t make sense. Why do

you kill your children?

Everything could be going wrong in your life. I get it. Spouses get killed all the time. It`s awful. But it`s more understandable than not. But why do

you kill your own helpless, little children? What part of this makes sense to you?

DANIEL BOBER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: Well, Ashleigh, you know, certainly killing your children is a fairly rare event. But, you know, we have seen

this movie before. This is Modesto, California. Scott and Laci Peterson. This guy is cold, calculating, and cunning. And I watched his interview. It

just seemed glib, superficial and scripted. There just seemed to be a total lack of emotion.

And we don`t really understand fully what his motive may be. maybe he was under financial stress. We know that there were these extramarital affairs

going on and maybe he was tired of his life and wanted an escape and felt trapped, and did it in a way that was absolutely horrific to get himself

out of the situation.

BANFIELD: But do you think, Dr. Bober, that what Pat Lalama says is plausible, that this would be something he meticulously planned and

prepared for or does this kind of person that you see playing out in full living color on all these videos is something we didn`t have with the Scott

Peterson case?

We didn`t have living children that he nurtured for four and five years in the Scott Peterson case either. Do you see this as something that may have

been heat of passion at moment and spontaneous and electrified? How do you see this potentially playing out?

BOBER: To me, it feels like it was more planned because the way he conducts himself is so chilling and so cold that it makes me feel like he

may have psychopathic traits and just doesn`t have any connection to living things, even perhaps his own children.

BANFIELD: Chris Watts was certainly a husband at one point and a father at one point. He is neither anymore. And now we are all left wondering the

same thing. How does anyone go from father to accused murderer? Sitting alone in a jail cell.

He is no doubt having a lot of time to think about the reality of everything he`s accused of doing. We`ll try and break down what else might

be going through his might and how that jibes with the details he actually shared with police, next.

[18:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My daddy is a hero.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just didn`t seem like the type of guy to injure a fly let alone his entire family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My daddy. Daddy, I love you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The one question that people just keep asking over and over again in Colorado, where the Watts house is empty and right across the

country every one wants to know how on earth does a parent kill their own kids. How could someone who seems like the father of the year and the apple

of his daughter`s eye transform from family man to accused murderer?

If what the police say is true, that`s what happened to Chris Watts, to the point that he hid their tiny bodies in oil tanks. Where are the signs that

he was unhappy? And what would have been his justification?

Pat Lalama, there has been a lot of reporting that is coming out about his past sex life. He had an alleged affair at work, according to the police.

They said he had a protracted affair with someone at work. They are not saying male or female. We had someone on this program say he had been with

Chris Watts for 10 months.

There is other reporting. People magazine saying there were many lovers, both men and women. This is now becoming a story whereby social out and

dating sites are going to be part of the investigators.

LALAMA: Ashleigh, I told you a couple of days ago that I did not buy into the fact that any mistress had anything to do with this. I said it was

something deeper. And as we move along here, as this case evolves, I`m more and more convinced this man was living in a state of psychological torment,

perhaps double identify.

[18:39:57] A little bit of Scott Peterson perhaps, in that my estimation about Scott Peterson, when everyone said why didn`t they just get a

divorce, it`s because in the minds of these kinds of people, they just want to wipe them off the earth. They don`t want in their minds to know that

they`re anywhere alive, so just wipe them out.

And I also think he had a fear of whatever his secret was of being found out. Now, we talked about the potential of him having male and female

lovers, and there was a quote that I read, a friend said that if he is to come out, that he would be shunned. Imagine that.

I`ve known -- I had friends who lived that torment where they don`t feel -- because of whatever their personal circumstances are, they can`t be who

they want to be and that`s a darn shame. But I think that --

BANFIELD: But you don`t go killing your children over it, that`s for sure. I mean, you don`t go killing anyone over that shame.

LALAMA: Ashleigh, it`s a component.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

LALAMA: Ashleigh, it`s a component.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

LALAMA: To be able to -- when you`re talking about him dropping those babies in the oil, then we`re moving into potential psychopath.

BANFIELD: It`s just unimaginable.

LALAMA: Yeah.

BANFIELD: Let me ask you about that. You know, curiously, Parag Shah, maybe you can help us shed some light on something that`s very dark. That

is the witness list. We have a graphic of what it looks like. We pulled these documents from the court. And interestingly, they are kind of, you

know, standard.

We have to black out a lot of this information. We have to blur the personal information of many of the witnesses. But those black squares are

not us. That is officially redacted. Two witnesses on the witness list have been redacted. These were endorsed witnesses. Can you explain why that

might be?

PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: So, my belief is that there is another co- defendant involved and that he may be cooperating in some way. They don`t want that information to be public because they are still investigating it.

My understanding is that his lawyers waived the preliminary hearing.

In my experience, you only waive a preliminary hearing if you`re working out a bond or there`s information that you don`t want public yet because

you`re cooperating with the police. So given the block out, the redaction on the witness list, and the fact that he waived his preliminary hearing

makes me believe that there`s someone else involved or something that the police are still investigating.

BANFIELD: Well, it`s either that or it`s also this potential love interest story that number one, there`s a lover at work, the police say. Number two,

People magazine has a source inside the investigation saying there were many lovers, male and female. Maybe this is some part this redaction that

they don`t want this story getting out until they`ve had chance to get out see as many of these other possible witnesses as they can.

SHAH: But if he didn`t have any involvement, then what`s the matter of redacting it?

BANFIELD: Because reporters call every one of these people and find out what their connection is. They may not want that out. Just quickly as I`m

going to break, I want to show something. One of the great things about this program is that we`re not the only one who is sort of digging into the

investigation. Viewers are as well.

Earlier, I showed you a picture that looked like a sign saying lock me. Right under the lock of the door. The curious lock that was latched from

the inside. One of our viewers -- in fact, more than one, about five people weighed in on that.

When you come up close to it and you zoom into it, it looks like it says, lock me, under the lock. Guess what. Look at the logo one of our viewers

sent us. From Shannan`s company. The premium level 200K VIP. This was the level that she had reached.

It`s supposed to be the kind of thing that is an inspiration to some of the agents who work for Lavelle (ph), this company that Shannan was working

for. An inspiration to keep them going. That looks like that`s what she was looking at every single day that she walked out that door to remind her

that she had actually made the 200L level.

The VIP level. The level that got her a Lexus. The level that got her enough money for months from the company that was then checking out Audi`s

(ph) instead. But there you go. That`s thanks to our amazing viewers. We so appreciate that you`re weighing in on this as we are as well.

Life inside jail certainly takes a hell of an adjustment. Right? Certainly for someone like Chris Watts is going to. Life in the modest suburban cul-

de-sac was nothing like jail. Gone is the two car garage and of course the wife, the children, the laughter, the smiles, the photos, the videos, all

that`s gone.

So, exactly what does life inside jail look like for Chris Watts right now? And who might he be trying to call on as he begins the process in this new

phase of his life? You`re going to find out and you will also find out what those people can and can`t say, next.

[18:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This afternoon my office filed former charges against Christopher Lee Watts. Just come back. Somebody has her, please bring her

back. The charges that we filed are as follows. Three counts of murder in the first degree after deliberation, one count naming Shannan Watts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am super, super, super pumped about 2018.

[18:50:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One count naming Bella. One count naming Celeste.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you guys excited?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah? Are you really excited? Oh, my goodness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Saturday is the memorial service when the focus of the Colorado community will be on how the Watts girls lived rather than how the Watts

girls died. Because how they died is still a very dark mystery. Police say their dad and that husband killed them all. Dad and husband who wasn`t even

mentioned in the obituary and was likely sitting alone tonight in a quiet jail cell, wondering if he may have found any kind of new religion.

I can tell you this though, this family has some religion or at least did at one time. Let me show you one of the Facebook videos that Shannan was

proud of posting. It was at meal time when her family was saying grace and pays special attention to the children because they clearly had done it

before. They knew it by heart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE/UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the prayers and people. Thank you, god, for everything. Amen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: It`s going to take a miracle for him to work his way out of this one. Parag Shah, one of the things that most jail keepers will allow in a

cell is a bible, right from the get go, even before you get any other reading material. This jail is, I mean, it`s not just a lockdown facility,

it`s on lockdown with information. They will not tell us anything.

But can you walk me through what is typical for a man facing these kind of charges this high profile and what he might or might not have in his cell?

SHAH: Well, they`re probably going to keep him very secure because he`s so high profile. There are going to be a lot of security around. He is just

going to be treated like high profile defendants do which is very strict. They don`t want to mess anything up. They don`t want to do anything where

his defense lawyers may be able to use it for his defense.

So they are going to keep other inmates away, so there is no jailhouse snitches. They are going to keep officers away, so they`re not talking to

them. It`s just give him his meals, give him his time, and be done.

BANFIELD: So meals in the cell, likely in some kind of secure lockup. Isolation, away from general population?

SHAH: That may be possible. Absolutely. They are going to follow everything by the book for this one because they don`t want to mess his

conviction up.

BANFIELD: Would he be allowed visits from a pastor?

SHAH: It depends on a jail policy. But, yes, if they have the policy where there is a pastor, he can visit and all that communication would be

privileged communication just like as if a lawyer would have went and talked to him.

BANFIELD: So the lawyer and the pastor have secret conversations. Everybody else, those cameras and those microphones are on. Parag, thank

you for that. Every time we get a look at Shannan`s Facebook page, frankly were are just floored at what a normal family they seemed to be and what

happy, happy babies Bella and Celeste were.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s giving me kisses.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s so --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, my head.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, you want her to rub your back?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s rubbing your back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: When this week`s CNN hero first turned his pilot`s license on a whim, he had no idea what he would end up doing with it. Twice a month,

Paul Steklenski spends his own money to fly dogs from high-kill shelters in the south to no-kill shelters in the north. Check out these life-saving and

extremely adorable mission of love.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL STEKLENSKI, CNN HERO: Oh, you just look like my Tessa, you just look like my baby girl.

I try to greet every passenger before we load them on to the aircraft to spend a few moments with them.

There you go.

So they can see me, they can smell me.

I load the airplane up. We`ll make stops along the eastern coast. I`m quite certain they know things are about to change.

He is so calm right now.

They know things are getting better, they are not going to end up in the pound.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Go to "CNN Heroes" to watch the full story. You can also nominate someone you think should be a CNN hero.

The next hour of "Crime & Justice" starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three counts of murder in the first degree.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We loved those girls so much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe that everything in life happens for a reason and i met Chris.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When she walked in the room, it was like sunshine.

[19:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do I have a moral obligation to stay in this relationship?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It came to her mind that possibly he could be cheating.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chris Watts has had relationships outside of his marriage with both men and women.

THAYER: At the same time, she was, like, you know, he -- he has no game.

DANELL SEARCH, FAMILY FRIEND OF THE WATTS FAMILY: Chris was very standoffish.

SHANANN WATTS, WIFE OF CHRIS WATTS: We say, I am loved.

BELLA WATTS, DAUGHTER OF SHANANN WATTS: I am loved.

LAUREN NAUMANN, BABYSITTER TO THE WATTS FAMILY: I wanted to defend him for what people were claiming he did before he confessed.

C. WATTS: And what are you waiting for?

S. WATTS: He was the one for me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Frederick Police Department received a missing person call just before 2:00 p.m. on Monday.

NICKOLE ATKINSON, FRIEND OF SHANANN WATTS: He just kept saying he didn`t know where she was He just kept saying he didn`t know where she was.

C. WATTS: I left work -- for work early that morning, like 5:15, 5:30.

Sometimes you have no time to maintain the relationship.

That first day, I was like, I want to get out and drive around. They said you wouldn`t know what to look for.

We had an emotional conversation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drone search spotted a bed sheet that matched the set found in Chris Watts` kitchen trash can.

S. WATTS: I am blessed.

B. WATTS: I am blessed.

C. WATTS: I feel like she barely let me -- she barely got into bed.

ATKINSON: There was something seriously wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HLN HOST: Good evening, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to CRIME AND JUSTICE.

As the sun begins to set on the Weld County Jail just outside of Denver, Colorado, Chris Watts has one thing to look forward to. Dinner. And it

may just be in his cell. But apart from that, there are very few bright spots in his life right now, the once awkward but affable dad and the star

of dozens of family videos.

He is officially now Inmate Number 360519. And tonight, he is probably contemplating the five counts of murder he has been charged with after

police say he killed his entire family, hid their bodies, and then lied through his teeth about it.

But exactly how Chris Watts feels about those accusations depends on exactly what Chris Watts did, depends on exactly what Chris Watts says he

did, and depends on exactly what length or what height Chris Watts may have gone to, to get away with murder.

And exactly what happens to Chris Watts now depends on every little detail that led up to the early morning hours of Monday, August the 13th, when

Shanann Watts, his wife, got back from a business trip and within hours was buried near a pair of two-story oil tanks where the little girls` bodies

were dumped.

Their marriage, their sex life, and other alleged relationships could all come into play when Chris Watts goes to court. But some things in this

seemingly incomprehensible story are starting to fall into line. Some of the little puzzle pieces are actually starting to fit.

And I`m about to lay out this story in a way that you have not seen it before, with the best minds in the business telling us what makes sense and

maybe, more importantly, what does not.

Pat LaLama, with your experience covering crime stories, it is more than likely something about what I am about to say is not going to sit right

with you.

Joseph Scott Morgan, our certified death investigator, you`re going to be defining the forensic possibilities and impossibilities in the next

timeline you are about to hear.

James Gagliano, with your background as a special agent, I need you to weigh in on what it really takes to dig a shallow grave and exactly how

long it sets you back.

Dr. Bober, our forensic psychiatrist, I`m going to ask you to probably shed some light on the superhuman mindset it would take to pull off this kind of

crime.

And, Parag Shah, I`m going to get you to weigh in on if this kind of storyline is something an attorney would take straight to trial.

All right, everyone, bear with me and buckle up. I`m going to lay this out as best I can, but stay with me.

We`re talking about a 12-hour framework. It is not a lot of time, just 12 hours.

It starts at 1:48 in the morning, on a Monday morning, when Shanann Watts is dropped off. At 5:27 a.m., we know for a fact on video Chris Watts`

truck backs into the driveway and is seen shortly afterwards leaving. And at 1:40 p.m., we know at the first officer is dispatched and this story

begins to unravel.

[19:05:05] So if you do that math, 1:48 a.m. to 1:40 p.m., it is not even 12 full hours. And filling in the blanks in between starts to sound,

frankly, remarkable.

First, let`s go to when Shanann Watts` friend, Nickole, starts calling in the morning and can`t reach her friend, calls so often she decides to go

over. And when she gets there, she sees, in the garage -- Nickole sees her friend`s car and, unfortunately, it`s in the garage with car seats still

affixed, which mean those children and Shanann have likely not left that house.

So she tries the front door. There is no answer. And the door is locked from the inside, but not with one of those deadbolts. It`s latched with a

hook, like those hotel latches from the inside.

And we went and looked at the videos of that door and look what we saw beneath that latch. Zoom in and there is a piece of paper taped to the

door. It takes a lot of clarity to read what the piece of paper says. But the paper says, "Lock me."

Maybe this is just a coincidence, something to tell everybody to lock the door from the inside maybe at night when you sleep. But you cannot lock me

from the outside. You can only lock me with that latch from the inside. So this was not Shanann Watts locking that door and then dying. More than

likely, it was someone else.

Let me carry on with the timeline. Now, this friend of Nickole`s is so worried that that latch won`t let her open the door more than a couple

inches, she calls Chris. Of course, her worry is that her pregnant friend is inside possibly fainted, passed out. The children may be at risk.

Chris, come home, she says.

The answer is unclear. But whatever his answer, she`s now calling the police, and Officer Coonrod is dispatched at approximately 1:40 p.m.

When Officer Coonrod gets to the front door and he can`t get in either, he notices something on the garage that would let him get in right away. It`s

the garage door opener. It`s the electronic keypad.

We all have them. You put in your code, and instantly, you can get into that house. Well, what a great idea. He calls Chris on his cell phone and

says, tell me the code, I have to get in. It`s a welfare check on your wife.

What do you think Chris` answer was to Officer Coonrod?

That isn`t working. That keypad isn`t working, but I`ll be there soon enough. I`ll be there in about five minutes.

Now, put yourself inside the mind of Chris Watts. He`s driving towards the scene that he knows all too well. He`s driving approximately 12 hours

later right back up that driveway that he had just backed out of in the dark of night with three bodies in the car, by his admission in the

affidavit.

When he begins to speak with Officer Coonrod in the house, he tells that officer a couple of interesting facts. That he got up at 5:00 in the

morning, 5:00 in the morning, had a conversation with Shanann. He said Shanann arrived home from a trip around 2:00 a.m. And he woke up at 5:00

a.m. and began talking to Shanann about marital separation.

And what do you suppose happened after that? He said he informed her he wanted to initiate the separation. 5:00 in the morning. That`s easy to

remember. Look, a lot of people wake up at 5:00 in the morning.

But then Coonrod asked for a little backup, and he asked Detective Baumhover to come on over and help him with this investigation. And on the

scene, Detective Baumhover asked Chris, talk me through this period of time when you last saw your wife, Shanann.

And Chris said Shanann arrived home from the airport at approximately 1:48 a.m. Note that time. It`s very accurate, 1:48 a.m., my wife comes in the

door. 1:48, not somewhere around 2:00 a.m. or, I don`t know, after 1:00 in the morning. 1:48 a.m. He seems to know the time exactly.

And then he says something even more curious. He said at approximately 4:00 a.m., he informed Shanann he wanted to go through with the separation,

and they were both upset and crying.

Wait a minute, 4:00 a.m.? I thought you said you woke up at 5:00 a.m. You told Officer Coonrod you woke up at 5:00 a.m. So how`d you have a

conversation with her at 4:00 a.m.?

[19:10:08] All of this is starting to sound pretty curious, right? And you can imagine these cops are pretty wise to these strange little stories he`s

telling them on the scene.

In any case, he told these police officers one thing that was very consistent. He told them what time he backed his car up to load up his

tools and head off to work. Again, not, I don`t know, around 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning. He told them a specific time. He told Coonrod 5:27 a.m.

TEXT: What happened after 5:27 a.m.?

BANFIELD: And he told Baumhover 5:27 a.m. Very, very specific. So specific, so exact. Do you know exactly what time you leave the house?

Maybe you do. Maybe you do but, again, a lot of coincidences, right? A lot of unusual moments, right?

Here is something else about exact time. Because Chris really seemed to be connected to exact times. Very strange when he was doing those T.V.

interviews on the front porch.

Remember all that business about my poor wife, she is missing with my kids, lying, flat out, bald-faced to the cameras? But strangely, he was able to

quote an exact time. Shockingly, he said, my wife arrived home 1:48 a.m. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She came back Sunday you said at 2:00 at night?

C. WATTS: Yes, because her flight got delayed from Arizona because there`s, like, other storms around the nation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

C. WATTS: She was supposed to get home like 11:00. She got home at like 1:48, got to bed about 2:00. And I left work for work early that morning

like 5:15, 5:30, so, like, she barely let me -- she barely gotten into bed, pretty much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Barely gotten into bed, pretty much, but he knew about 1:48. So, again, the big question, what happened after 5:27 a.m.? What happened?

TEXT: What happened after 5:27 a.m.?

BANFIELD: Well, let`s start doing a little of the math. Because if what Chris told the officers is true, he actually took those bodies and, the

officers say, he buried them at the work site. But that work site is about 40 minutes away.

The thing is, though, he told the officers he actually went to a place called Hudson. It`s in the middle of your map. The house is over at the

Watts` home there on the left. Twenty miles to Hudson where he told police he went and 20 more miles to the work site where the bodies were actually

found.

So let`s just say, at a bare minimum, if he was trying to clean everything up fast, at 5:27 a.m. he leaves that house. And 40, 45 minutes or so

later, he is arriving at the burial site. So now, that takes us to about 6:15 a.m. Can I tell you when the sunrise was in Colorado that day and

whether that sort of throws a hook into a plan at all?

TEXT: Sunrise in Frederick, Co. on Aug. 13th, 6:10 a.m.

BANFIELD: 6:10, a.m. 6:10 a.m. sunrise in Frederick on August 13th. But he is not getting to that work site until about 6:15 in broad daylight,

presumably with three bodies in that truck that need to be disposed of.

Now, you got to climb 20 feet. Because at that work site, those oil tanks are very, very tall, about 20 feet high. You either get to them by steep

stairs or a ladder. And whatever you`re going to take up there, you`re going to carry by yourself.

If you`re carrying children to dump into the deep oil, well, they don`t weigh a whole lot. They`re only 4 and 5 years old, after all, right?

So presumably, he carried those children up those steps with a ladder. He opened the manhole covers at the very, very top, which is no small feat.

Two different tanks, he dumps the bodies.

And if he had planned to dispose of his wife in the very same way, well, guess what? That`s somewhere between 139 or 150 pounds of dead weight.

And I don`t mean that as a pun. I mean, dead weight.

It is extraordinarily difficult to lift that kind of weight, especially if you`re carrying it like in a sheet over your shoulder. A bag? Maybe. But

carrying it 20 feet up, maybe not. Maybe the plan changed because, ultimately, she was buried in a shallow grave.

James Gagliano, I know you have heard of shallow graves many times in your career. It is not easy to bury someone in a shallow grave. Tell me about

the timeline now that it would take. How long would it take to bury someone in a shallow grave?

JAMES GAGLIANO, FORMER SPECIAL AGENT, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Sure. First off, Ashleigh, as you and I talked about this earlier today

and tried to work through this the way you would in a detective bureau, using specific times, that`s something people do to try to make their alibi

rock solid. No, it was 5:27 or 3:28.

[19:15:00] As far as the burial goes, two, a standard gravesite is about six feet. That`s just been the way we`ve done it in perpetuity in

humankind. It keeps animals away. If there is any disease, six feet down. Shallow graves are generally three feet or less depth than that.

To do that in the type of soil out here in Frederick, you`re talking about a period of time where it`s hot, the soil is packed in, some of it is clay

--

BANFIELD: It`s 80 degrees.

GAGLIANO: Eighty degrees.

BANFIELD: I`m going to tell you exactly what the temperature was that day at approximately that time. It was somewhere around 80 degrees. Continue.

GAGLIANO: Clay in the soil, all right, sand in the soil, could make it very difficult. This would have been a workout. Now, we know that he

transformed his figure, became a fitness nut and a fitness buff, but this would have been a workout. To dig a three-foot shallow grave, that`s a

minimum of a half an hour worth of work.

BANFIELD: If are you fit like he is and if you have the right tools -- and the soil looks fairly sandy in that geological location, anyway -- you`re

saying, at a minimum, half an hour?

GAGLIANO: At a minimum.

BANFIELD: OK. I`m going to go to break, but let`s just -- let`s just tell you where we are right now in the timeline.

If he drove that 40-minute trip from 5:27 in the morning and got there around 6:15, if he disposed of his little girls` body in haste -- and let`s

just say it took half an hour to unscrew the manholes, climb those 20 feet, dump both girls in two different tanks, maybe attempt Shanann -- we don`t

know -- and ultimately resort to the shallow grave. Let`s give that half an hour.

We`re now at 6:45 where he begins digging a shallow grave. As James Gagliano just put it, it takes about half an hour to achieve that task. So

that would take you to 7:15. A lot of shifts start at 7:15. Who knows if a shift was coming that day? Who knows if someone would have seen this

family being disposed of?

But at 7:15, maybe his shift was going to start somewhere else. After the break, I`m going to take you to work with Chris Watts. Because that`s

exactly what he did that day, he went to work.

But what happened after? And what was the biggest mistake he may have made? That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[19:22:08] S. WATTS: Guess what, girls? Mommy has a baby in her belly.

CELESTE WATTS, DAUGHTER OF SHANANN WATTS: Again?

B. WATTS: Oh.

S. WATTS: How big is that, Chris?

BANFIELD (voice-over): The Colorado father accused of murdering his wife and two kids will be in court minutes from now.

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The only thing you heard from Chris Watts were the "yes, sir."

JUDGE MARCELO KOPCOW, 19TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT OF COLORADO: Do you understand?

C. WATTS: Yes, sir.

S. WATTS: Yes? Are you really excited? Oh, my goodness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: When you`re a busy person, some days time down to the minute. And parents know this all too well. But no parent knows this as well

perhaps as Chris Watts may have known it on Monday, August 13th.

Because that`s the day his wife Shanann came home from a business trip, and that`s the day she ended up dead and buried just steps away from the oil

tanks that were housing the bodies of her dead and limp daughters.

Police say Chris Watts killed them, which would make Monday, August 13th, an extremely busy day for this very busy guy. But at this point, it`s his

word versus the cops` evidence. So tonight, we`re testing out the timeline.

Before the break, I took you all the way through that night, and I took you right up to the point where he`d actually allegedly finished doing the

burial and heading off to work sometime around 7:30 in the morning.

After all, if he`s guilty, he sure did need an alibi. He needed it to look like nothing was wrong in his life. He would need it to look like it was

any other day at work.

So 7:30 in the morning. If he`s at work at 7:30 in the morning, what did he do for the rest of the day? And what did he still have left to do at

the house? Because there wasn`t a lot of time at the house, considering three people were killed and somehow that house was cleaned up fairly well

and three people were taken out of that house.

Just think about it, 2:00 in the morning until about 5:30. Three-and-a- half hours to erase any trace evidence, any forensics that might point to you, if what he says is a lie.

So let`s go back to the timeline for a minute. Is it possible Chris went to the work to get an alibi at 7:30 in the morning and thought, I still

have things left to do at the house but I have got to make an appearance and normalize my day so that nobody suspects a thing?

James Gagliano, I want to bring you in on this because there is something curiously left behind at that home when he went off to his workday, bed

sheets. Bed sheets that were very curiously stuffed in the kitchen trash.

[19:25:00] Nobody stuffs bed sheets in the kitchen trash, but there was a top sheet. There were two pillowcases. And the other sheet was

mysteriously found at the burial site. Is it possible he thought he still had work to do at home when he got home from work?

GAGLIANO: Absolutely, Ashleigh. And one of the common themes in dealing with folks that have been charged with murder or convicted of murder

throughout the course of my 25-year career, they don`t want variables. They want constants.

And you lay out a plan -- if it`s premeditated murder, you lay out a plan, and you hope that you hit your mark so that nothing happens that gets in

the way of that. Clearly, in this instance, it looks like he had set this up for a cleanup when he got back afterwards.

BANFIELD: Well, lo and behold, that friend, Nickole, may have thwarted it all. Because she wasn`t satisfied with no answer at the door mid-day at

approximately somewhere between 12:00 noon and 1:40.

She`s frustrated. She`s traveling to the house. She`s knocking on the door. She`s calling Chris. She`s calling the police, and Chris Watts now

has no options left. The police are at the door. He has not had a chance to come home from work. So is that possible?

And I`m going to just lay this all out. And everybody, listen in, so you`re acutely aware of this eight-hour total. Eight hours to drive almost

two hours -- that`s to the death site, right? The burial site and back, approximately two hours.

Burying a body, dumping the two children, making it to work and somehow making it back, telling a police officer that electronic keypad on my

garage doesn`t work, you cannot open it but I`ll be there in five minutes.

Joseph Scott Morgan, is there anything in this timeline as a death investigator that stands out to you?

JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR OF APPLIED FORENSICS, JACKSONVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes. For me, Ashleigh, I think the thing

that`s most glaring -- I`m still not buying into the fact that these children would have been killed in the immediate. And I have my suspicions

that these children were killed in advance of the mother`s arrival by maybe hours, maybe up to days, because we`ve got a gap of time here that`s not

accounted for.

And also, I would not -- you know, I think that we still have to leave room to think about, was there another trip that had been made out to that site

for the dumping of these children prior to the arrival of the mother? So I think that we have to have a lot of latitude here in our thought process.

For me, you know, it`s hard for me to buy that he would have done this so frenetically right at the end and run the risk, as James had pointed out,

not leaving anything to chance, that he is going to have to beat the sunrise and beat all of his colleagues to work.

BANFIELD: Well, all of this happened in broad daylight because sunrise was at 6:10 a.m.

Pat LaLama, I want to come to you about something that struck me because I wondered the same thing. If he had done any planning prior, if he had gone

out and done any digging prior, he was with those two girls for several days by himself. She was on a work trip. It was a weekend.

Would you think, as a crime reporter, that someone would take their little daughters to their burial site and get some advance work done?

PAT LALAMA, MANAGING EDITOR, "CRIME WATCH DAILY WITH CHRIS HANSEN": I think it depends on whether he has pre-planned this whole thing, what was

going on in his minds during those days. This is a whole different scenario.

Mr. Morgan hits the nail on the head. I`m not so sure it happened the way we think it happened. I am starting to think perhaps he had it planned

out. He knew this was the opportunity. He was tormented with his life, he wanted nothing -- and that changes the whole scenario, Ashleigh, not heat

of passion but a calculated plan.

Maybe if we`re believing some of the stories, he was tormented. He wanted -- he didn`t want to get found out. I think there`s more than we know. I

don`t think we know enough about who he was with when he was watching the kids. Was he watching the kids? Did somebody else watch the kids for him?

Was someone at his house? Remember, you brought up that he didn`t have his wedding ring on. He didn`t have the lupus band on. You know, did he get

found out? Did he get caught with something?

There`s just -- I think, right now, the timeline doesn`t tell us enough. And I`m really leaning that this -- more was happening before to get all

this done in time. And he`s -- I don`t think that you can just use your brains through that period of time and get all this done and calculate and

keep track of times. I think it started sooner.

BANFIELD: Well, that`s the -- the best part of that is that a lot of criminals think they can figure it out --

LALAMA: They think they can. Yes, they can.

BANFIELD: -- when things go crazy.

LALAMA: Yes.

BANFIELD: And that`s when they make big mistakes. Daniel Bober --

LALAMA: And they --

BANFIELD: Yes, go ahead.

LALAMA: Yes. Ashleigh, I was just going to say, everything that we`ve seen of him, everything we know, it`s like the prosecution -- he is writing

a circumstantial case for them.

[19:30:04] I mean, I know it doesn`t have to be circumstantial now because of what we know. But he`s just giving them the lies, the bed clothes, the

-- you know, everything that he says is a lie and he thinks he`s so smart. But it`s typical with this kind of people that they`re just walking

themselves right into a web, and I hope he`s got a defense attorney that will untangle it for him.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HLN HOST: So, Daniel Bober, I mean as a forensic psychiatrist, I almost don`t even need to ask you a question. I almost

need to give you an hour just to talk about every aspect of this case, because everyone who talks to me about this case says that there`s only one

thing that doesn`t make sense, why do you kill your children? Everything could be going wrong in your life, I get it. Spouses get killed all the

time. It`s awful but it`s more understandable than not. But why do you kill your own helpless little children? What part of this makes sense to

you?

DR. DANIEL BOBER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: Well, Ashleigh, you know, certainly killing your children is a fairly rare event. But you know,

we`ve seen this movie before. This is Modesto, California. Scott and Laci Peterson, this guy is cold, calculating and cunning. And I watched his

interview, it just seemed glib, superficial and scripted. There just seemed to be a total lack of emotion. And we don`t know really understand

fully what his motive may be. Maybe he was under financial stress or we know that there were these extra marital affairs going on, and maybe he was

tired of his life and wanted an escape and felt trapped and did it in a way that was absolutely horrific to get himself out of this situation.

BANFIELD: But do you think, Dr. Bober that what Pat LaLama says is plausible, that this would be something he`d meticulously plan and prepare

for? Or does this kind of person that you see playing out in full living color on all these videos, something we didn`t have with the Scott Peterson

case. We didn`t have living children that he`d nurtured for four and five years in the Scott Peterson case either. Do you see this as something that

may have been heat of passion and -- at the moment, and spontaneous and electrified? How do you see this potentially playing out?

BOBER: To me, it feels like it was more planned, because the way he conducts himself is so chilling and so cold that it makes me feel like he

may have psychopathic traits and just doesn`t have any connection to living things, even perhaps his own children.

BANFIELD: Chris Watts was certainly a husband at one point, a father at one point. He is neither anymore. And now, we are all left wondering the

same thing, how does anyone go from father to accused murderer? Sitting alone in a jail cell, he is no doubt having a lot of time to think about

the reality of everything he`s accused of doing. Going to try and break down what else might be going through his mind, and how that jives with the

details he actually shared with police, next.

[19:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BELLA WATTS, DAUGHTER OF CHRIS WATTS: My daddy is a hero.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just didn`t seem like the type of guy to injure a fly, not alone his entire family.

B. WATTS: My daddy, daddy, I love you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: See one question that people just keep asking over and over again in Colorado, where the Watts house sits empty and right across the

country, everyone wants to know how on earth does a parent kill her own kids? How could someone who seems like the father of the year and the

apple of his daughter`s eye transform from family man to accused murderer. If what police say is true, that`s what happened to Chris Watts to the

point that he hid their tiny bodies in oil tanks. But where are the signs that he was unhappy and what would have been his justification?

Pat Lalama, there has been a lot of reporting that is coming out about his past sex life. He had an alleged affair at work according to the police.

They said he`d had a protracted affair with someone at work. They`re not saying male or female. We had someone on this program say he`d been with

Chris Watts for 10 months. There is other reporting, People Magazine saying there were many lovers, both men and women. This is now becoming a

story whereby social media and dating sites are going to be part of the investigators.

LALAMA: Ashleigh, I told you a couple of days ago that I did not buy into the fact that any mistress had anything to do with this. I said it was

something deeper. And as we move along here, as this case evolves, I`m more and more convinced that this man was living in a state of

psychological torment of perhaps double identity. A little bit of Scott Peterson, perhaps. In that my estimation about Scott Peterson when

everyone said, why didn`t he just get a divorce is because in the minds of these kinds of people, they just want to wipe them off the earth. They

don`t want in their minds to know that they`re anywhere alive, so just wipe them out.

[19:40:07] And I also think he had a fear of whatever his secret was of being found out. Now, we talked about the potential of him having men --

male and female lovers, and there was a quote that I read -- a friend said that he has come out, that he would be shunned. And imagine that? I`ve

known -- I`ve had friends who have lived that torment where they don`t feel because of whatever their personal circumstances are. They can`t be who

they want to be and that`s a darn shame. But I think that ---

BANFIELD: Yes, you just don`t go killing your children over it. That`s for sure. I mean, you don`t go killing anyone over that shame.

LALAMA: Ashleigh, it`s a component. Ashleigh, it`s a component.

BANFIELD: Yes, yes.

LALAMA: To be able to -- when you were talking about him dropping those babies in the oil --

BANFIELD: It`s just unimaginable.

LALAMA: We`re moving into potential psychopath.

BANFIELD: It`s unimaginable.

LALAMA: You know, I mean -- yes. I don`t know for sure.

BANFIELD: So, let me -- let me ask about that. You know, curiously, Parag Shah, maybe you can help us shed some light on something that`s very dark,

and that is the witness list. We have a graphic of what it looks like. We pulled these documents from the court, and interestingly, they`re kind of,

you know, standard. We have to black out a lot of this information (INAUDIBLE) to blur the personal information of many of the witnesses. But

those black squares are not us. That is officially redacted. Two witnesses on the witness list have been redacted. These are endorsed

witnesses. Can you explain why that might be?

PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: So, my belief is that there is another co- defendant involved and that he may be cooperating in some way and they don`t want that information to be public because they`re still

investigating it. My understanding is that his lawyers waived the preliminary hearing. In my experience, you only waived a preliminary

hearing if you`re working out of bond or there`s information that you don`t want public yet because you`re cooperating with the police. So, given the

black out -- the redaction on the witness list and the fact that he waived this preliminary hearing, makes me believe that there`s some other --

there`s someone else involved or something that the police are still investigating.

BANFIELD: Well, it`s either that or it`s also this potential love interest story that, number one, there`s a lover at work, the police say, number

two, People Magazine has a source inside the investigation saying there were many lovers, male and female. Maybe this is some part of this

redaction that they don`t want this story getting out until they`ve had a chance to get out and see as many of these other possible witnesses as they

can.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAH: But if he didn`t have any involvement then what`s -- I mean, but if he didn`t have any involvement, then what`s the matter of redacting it?

Simply because you have a lover.

BANFIELD: Because reporters call every one of these people and find out what their connection is and they may not want that out. And just quickly,

as I go to break, I want to show something. One of the great things about this program is that we`re not the only ones who are, sort of, digging into

the investigation. Viewers are as well. Earlier, I showed you a picture that looked like a sign saying "lock me," right under the lock of the door.

The curious lock that was latched from the inside. One of our viewers, and in fact, more than one, about five people weighed in on that. And when you

come up close to it, and you zoom into it, it looks like it says lock me under the lock. But guess what? Look at the logo one of our viewers sent

us.

From Shannan`s company. The premium level 200KVIP. This was a level that she had reached. It`s supposed to be the kind of thing that is an

inspiration to some of the agents who work for Lavelle (ph), this company that Shannan was working for, an inspiration to keep them going. That

looks like that that`s what she was looking at every single day that she locked out that door to remind her she had actually made the 200k level,

the VIP level, the level that got her a Lexus, the level that got her enough money per month from the company that she was then checking out

Audis, instead. But there you go, and that`s thanks to our amazing viewers. I so appreciate that you`re weighing in on this as we are as

well.

Life inside jail certainly takes a hell of an adjustment, right? Certainly for someone like Chris Watts it`s going to. Life in the modest suburban

cul-de-sac was nothing like jail. Gone is the two-car garage, and of course, the wife, the children, the laughter, the smiles, the photos, the

videos, all that`s gone. So, exactly, what does life inside jail look like for Chris Watts right now? And who might he be trying to call on as he

begins the process in this new phase of his life. You`re going to find out, and you`ll also find out what those people can and can`t say, next.

[19:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This afternoon, my office filed formal charges against Christopher Lee Watts.

CHRIS WATTS, MURDER SUSPECT: Just come back. Like, if somebody has her, just please bring her back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The charges that we filed are as follows: three counts of murder in the first degree after deliberation, one count naming Shannan

Watts.

SHANNAN WATTS, MURDER VICTIM: I am super, super, super pumped about 2018.

[19:50:01] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One count naming Bella, one count naming Celeste.

S. WATTS: Are you guys excited?

B. WATTS: Yes.

CELESTE WATTS, MURDER VICTIM: Yes.

S. WATTS: Yes? Are you really excited? Oh, my goodness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Saturday is the memorial service when the focus of the Colorado community will be on how the Watts girls lived rather than how the Watts

girls died, because how they died is still a very dark mystery. The police say their dad and that husband killed them all. Dad and husband who wasn`t

even mentioned in the obituary, and was likely sitting alone tonight in a quiet jail cell, wondering if he may have found any kind of new religion.

I can tell you this, though, this family has some religion or at least did at one time. Let me show you one of the Facebook videos that Shannan was

proud of posting. It was at meal time when her family was saying grace and pay special attention to the children because they clearly had done it

before, they knew it by heart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

C. WATTS: Thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the birds and bees. Thank you, God, for everything. Amen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: It`s going to take a miracle for him to work his way out of this one. Parag Shah, one of the things that most jailkeepers will allow in a

cell is a Bible, right from the get go, even before you get any other reading material. This jail is -- I mean, it`s not just a lockdown

facility, it`s on lockdown with information. They will not tell us anything. But can you walk me through what is typical for a man facing

these kinds of charges that this high-profile and what he might or might not have in his cell?

SHAH: Well, they`re probably going to keep him very secure because he`s high profile, there going to be a lot of security around. There -- he`s

just going to be treated like high-profile defendants do, which is very strict, they don`t want to mess anything up, they don`t want to do anything

where his defense lawyers may be able to use it for his defense. So, they`re going to keep other inmates away so there`s not jailhouse snitches,

they`re going to keep officers away, so they`re not talking to them. It`s just give him their meals, give him his time and be done.

BANFIELD: So, meals in the cell likely in some kind of secure lockup, isolation, away from general population?

SHAH: That may be possible. Absolutely. They`re going to follow everything by the book for this one because they don`t want to mess this

conviction up.

BANFIELD: Would he be allowed visits from a pastor?

SHAH: It depends on the jail policy, but yes, if they have that policy where he -- where there is a pastor he can visit and all that communication

would be privileged communication just like as if a lawyer would have went and talked to him.

BANFIELD: So, the lawyer and the pastor have secret conversations. Everybody else, those cameras and those microphones are on. Parag, thank

you for that. Every time we get a look at Shannan`s Facebook page, frankly, we`re just floored at what a normal family they seemed to be and

what happy, happy babies, Bella and Celeste were.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

S. WATTS: She`s giving me kisses.

B. WATTS: Mommy.

S. WATTS: That`s so sweet.

B. WATTS: (INAUDIBLE) my head.

S. WATTS: You want her to rub your back?

(LAUGHTER)

S. WATTS: She`s rubbing your --

[19:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: When this week`s CNN Hero first learned his pilot`s license on a whim, he really had no idea what he was going to do with it, but now, twice

a month, Paul Steklenski spends his own money and his days flying dogs from high-kill shelters in the south to no-kill shelters in the north. Check

out these life-saving missions. Very adorable missions of love.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL STEKLENSKI, CNN HERO: You just look like my Tessa. You`re just like my baby girl.

I try to greet every passenger before we load them onto the aircraft to spend a few moments with them.

Are you ready to go?

So, they can see me, they can smell me. Load the airplane up and then we`ll make stops along the eastern coast. I`m quite certain they know

things are about to change.

Hey, buddy, he is so calm right now.

They know things are getting better, and they`re not going to end up in the pound.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: You can go to CNN Heroes to watch the full story, and while there, you can also nominate somebody you think should be a CNN Hero.

We`ll see you right back here on Monday night at 6:00 Eastern. Thanks so much for watching, everyone. You can listen to our show any time, download

our podcast on Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you get your podcasts for your CRIME & JUSTICE fix. Have a good weekend.

"FORENSIC FILES" begins right now.

END