Just finished watching the Netflix documentary on the Chris Watts case: American Murder, the Family Next Door. It is more dramatic than any drama and 10 minutes after the show was finished, my mind was frozen in disbelief. How has a so called “Perfect family” in the neighbors’ eyes turned into one of the worst tragedies in the human history? Unfortunately, the documentary provided little clue to what was in Chris Watts’ mind. After searching online for info, I did not get any in depth answer, other than this report on the 5 crucial moments on the murder case. Still, it tells us more on how but little on why. Another report had a promising title of “What Happened,” but went little further.
From the movie I noticed one detail: The murdered wife, Shanann Watts, once threatened her husband of taking the two daughters away so he would never see them again. But that is somewhat typical for someone to say before divorce, and we all know that it is up to the court, not the husband nor wife, to determine the child custody. In addition, if Chris can be so cruel to kill his two daughters, it is obvious that child custody was not high on his priority list.
There must be something in the childhood of Chris Watts that planted the seeds for his crime. Based on the movie and also on the Wikipedia piece, Chris was an excellent actor and was very calm in front of camera and media. He was capable of making up stories and alibi to the legal authority, until the polygraph revealed his dishonesty.
Should we doubt marriage altogether? I asked myself this question. How can you trust the institution when you may have put your life in danger? How can you believe all the vows that couples made in their weddings? How can you tell the bad guys from the good ones?
My answer is this: Try to find out as much about someone’s childhood as possible and you should be OK! It is still true that a truly happy family will be far more likely to raise healthy kids! A person growing up from a warm family is much less likely to a cold heart!