Fresh Hell in Frederick - Shanann Watts

[Skip]

I disagree with this. Not trying to defend the guy, but I have, and think we all have, seen people first hand do strange things in a moment of panic.

I must have missed something about gloves, I've pretty much been getting my info from here. Was him wearing gloves part of his confession, or is this just an assumption that he was wearing gloves?

As to the reference to the movie, it is the same formula for every disaster movie where someone makes an initial bad decision, then keeps adding increasingly poor decisions to try and recover, but ultimately sealing their own demise.

You don't come up with a calculated plan of where to hide the bodies (oil tanks at your employer) without leaving the panic stage.

It's not like he put a sheet over them and walked out of the room. I would understand that if he just lost it and couldn't deal. But he loaded the bodies up, drove there, and used the tanks. At some point his mind made a rational plan of how/where to hide the bodies and thought it would work. Not sure if that happened before or after the murders, but he had a plan and executed.

It's also not like the first time LE asked about his kids he told the whole truth. He kept up that act for a couple of days.

[Martinjmpr]

I disagree with this. Not trying to defend the guy, but I have, and think we all have, seen people first hand do strange things in a moment of panic.

I must have missed something about gloves, I've pretty much been getting my info from here. Was him wearing gloves part of his confession, or is this just an assumption that he was wearing gloves?

As to the reference to the movie, it is the same formula for every disaster movie where someone makes an initial bad decision, then keeps adding increasingly poor decisions to try and recover, but ultimately sealing their own demise.

I'm very skeptical of an argument that goes "he didn't react the way I would have reacted." To me, that is a hallmark of lazy, sloppy thinking.

You see it all the time on the "wife murder of the week" TV programs (20/20, 48 hrs, etc) and it always bothers me. Typically the "argument" goes "XXXX's wife was killed and he 'didn't grieve the way I thought he should have'" or "He didn't act the way most people would have in those circumstances."

To me there are two huge flaws in that line of reasoning: First of all, there is the ASSUMPTION that you KNOW how you would react to, say, finding your wife stabbed to death in a pool of blood in your house.

You can say "I would have done XXX" or "I would have done YYYY" but the truth is, until something like that actually happens to you, you don't REALLY know how you would react. So to me, that is error #1.

Error #2 then compounds error #1 because the witness will then filter what the suspect did or didn't do through his own perceptions - which are often based on "confirmation bias" anyway. IOW, if you are predisposed to think of Joe Suspect as a creepy guy, then whatever he does -whether it's wailing in the street, gnashing his teeth and rending his clothes ["I thought he was overdoing it"], or sitting quietly at home ["it was like he had no emotion at all"] - is going to be "proof" because "He didn't act the way I thought he should have acted under those circumstances."

The reality is that different people react differently to extreme situations. Some people collapse into a pool of tears and helplessness. Others snap into "robot mode" so they can deal with life. There's no "right" or "wrong" way to deal with a tragic or horrific situation so the argument that says "he must be guilty because he didn't react in exactly the way I think I would have reacted" is a lazy one.

So, yes, to me the argument that "a normal parent would have done XXXX" doesn't hold much water and trying to argue against a defense that way IMO is allowing the defense to lead you down the rabbit hole.

Better to just focus on the facts available (which seem to be more than enough to convict, and we don't even know all of them yet) rather than to try and argue about what "most people" would do under such-and-such circumstance.

[Irving]

You don't come up with a calculated plan of where to hide the bodies (oil tanks at your employer) without leaving the panic stage.

It's not like he put a sheet over them and walked out of the room. I would understand that if he just lost it and couldn't deal. But he loaded the bodies up, drove there, and used the tanks. At some point his mind made a rational plan of how/where to hide the bodies and thought it would work. Not sure if that happened before or after the murders, but he had a plan and executed.

It's also not like the first time LE asked about his kids he told the whole truth. He kept up that act for a couple of days.

Sounds like we're mostly on the same page. Obviously at some point he had the idea to stash the bodies. But that he stashed the bodies is zero evidence of planning ahead. Again, it doesn't really matter. They are dead, he's confessed to killing them. Shame all around.

[Irving]

What you said.

Yes, exactly.

[Martinjmpr]

BTW one of Napoleon's most famous sayings is "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

In terms of cases like this one, I think the best prosecution strategy would be to simply allow the defendant to tell his ridiculous story to the jury. Let the jury be the ones to roll their eyes and say "Are you f***ing kidding me with this?"

Telling an obviously ludicrous story actually makes the defendant look MORE guilty than if he would just STFU.

[Skip]

Sounds like we're mostly on the same page. Obviously at some point he had the idea to stash the bodies. But that he stashed the bodies is zero evidence of planning ahead. Again, it doesn't really matter. They are dead, he's confessed to killing them. Shame all around.

Yeah, it's not going to go well for him at trial.

I think he's only confessed to killing the wife. I might be wrong...

[Irving]

I'm being guilty of looking at a situation through my own lens, but to me the biggest red flag is that he shaved his head and beard. You can tell when a woman has ended a relationship when she changes her hairstyle. That was the very first thought that I had when I saw the difference in his appearance between the two interviews.

[Irving]

Yeah, it's not going to go well for him at trial.

I think he's only confessed to killing the wife. I might be wrong...

No I believe you're correct, but there is little hope he'll be able to concoct a story that will convince a jury. Guys like him rub other humans the wrong way.

[Martinjmpr]

My prediction: DA offers to take the death penalty off the table if he cops to 1st or 2nd degree and life in prison w/o parole and he takes it.

There's no scenario where he walks free from this. None.

[Skip]

No I believe you're correct, but there is little hope he'll be able to concoct a story that will convince a jury. Guys like him rub other humans the wrong way.

That happens when you murder your strongest allies.