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CRIME AND JUSTICE WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Dad Kills Family, Puts Kids In Oil Tanks; Trace DNA Found In Girl`s Bodies; D.A., Autopsies Contain Critical Evidence. Aired 6-8p ET

Aired September 24, 2018 - 18:00   ET

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


(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[18:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s a chess game now between prosecution and defense. Tug of war essentially.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cops say Chris Watts killed his entire family.

SHANANN WATTS, VICTIM, WIFE OF CHRIS WATTS: He is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But after lying through his teeth, he now says his wife was the one doing the killings.

CHRISTIAN WATTS, HUSBAND OF SHANANN WATTS, SUSPECT: You know, I wasn`t going to kiss them to bed tonight. It was, it was, last night was

horrible.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the answer hiding somewhere in the microscopic details?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The DNA testing methods that we have are able to detect the tiniest of trace quantities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is one parent`s DNA layered on the necks of those three victims?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Persons of interest are all people who cohabitated and therefore would be sharing their DNA with each other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The secret behind trace DNA and strangulation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Strangulation involves force. That can increase the amount of skin cells.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why would the prosecution want to keep these details private?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecution`s basically coming back saying we don`t have to answer you, good-bye.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What evidence do they have to answer the biggest question of them all? Did Chris Watts murder his wife and children?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have to obliterate his contention that you know, the wife killed the children.

S. WATTS: Good relationship. Gone bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

There is no question the Watts case out of Colorado is dark and mysterious. A father accused of murdering his entire family. When just hours before,

he appeared to be father of the year and as dark as it seems, it is getting even darker.

Forensic files dark. Because whatever is contained in the autopsy report, well it`s causing a lot of agitation to both prosecutors and the defense

about going back and forth about keeping those details under wraps. Details we routinely get early on in a murder case. Details like, cause of

death, but there are some clues in the way those reports are being handled right now and when I say handled, I mean hand delivered.

Because according to court documents, sometime between today and tomorrow, and that is a matter of hours, those autopsy reports are supposed to be

moving around Colorado in sealed envelopes. One copy for the court. One copy for Chris Watts and his lawyers. And surprisingly, it`s not Chris

Watts demanding these autopsies stay private it`s the prosecutors, which really makes you wonder, morbid as it may be, just what is on the bodies of

those little precious girls?

Crime and Justice Producer Kyle Peltz, has been working on the phones all day, he also had been combing through documents. Kyle, I have done this

job for a very long time. I have covered murder for 30 years. I have rarely found it this difficult to find cause of death coming up on six

weeks since the death. There`s something fishy.

KYLE PELTZ, CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: That is right, Ashleigh. We`ve covered a lot of these types of cases and up to by now, you have at least a

preliminary cause of death. In this case we got nothing.

Now the judge on the Chris Watts case on Friday actually ordered prosecutors to hand deliver, as you mentioned a copy of the autopsies to

the courthouse and to Chris Watts` attorneys, but we reached out to the prosecutor`s office today and they say they don`t even have the autopsy

report yet. So then we reached out to the Coroner`s office and it just gets even more bizarre from there.

BANFIELD: OK. This is really weird, because the D.A. has said over and over again and they have not been pouching it. They`ve not been coy. They

have said honestly, wish we could answer your question. We do not have the autopsy reports in our office. I spoke with the D.A. only within the last

hour. Still at this late afternoon hour in Colorado, the D.A. is not in possession of the autopsy report. So it is strange. What would be the --

so if the D.A. doesn`t have it, Kyle, who has it? Who would be the person that who would hand it to the D.A.?

PELTZ: Well, presumably, the person that would hand it to the D.A. is the Coroner`s office and we reached out to the Coroner`s office today and they

said, they don`t even have the report yet. The Coroner`s office doesn`t have the report and has no timelines as to when they`re going to have it.

[18:05:07] BANFIELD: So let me get this straight. In a murder case, a triple homicide, the Coroner, six weeks after the murders, does not have

the autopsies. Did I hear you clearly?

PELTZ: That is exactly right.

BANFIELD: So let`s go one chain back then. Who gives those, those results to the Coroner?

PELTZ: Well, the autopsies were probably conducted in medical examiner`s office not by the Coroner himself, but you`d think by now the Coroner would

have something.

BANFIELD: OK, so the judge has been pretty clear about all of this. At least what the judge and the court thinks about all of this. And honestly,

may not be accurate, but this is what we can tell you from a court order regarding who should know about what`s in the autopsy reports.

This is from the most recent court order. This court is not aware of any member of the public who has made a CORA. That is a Colorado Open Records

Act request, to inspect the autopsy reports. So the court has said we`re going keep things quiet. Clearly, some of the parties don`t want to

autopsies to get out and the court has agreed, but the courts has gone ahead and said we don`t really know any member of the public that is even

interested in this stuff.

BANFIELD: Well I`m Ashleigh Banfield and my program is called Crime and Justice and we`re interested. And our viewers have said, time and time

again, on Facebook and elsewhere that they want to know what was the cause of death of these three victims, because there`s a triple homicide and

potentially a death penalty on the line. So it would be critical to know how these people died before you can even begin the investigation as to

whether the stories that are being told are true or lies.

So let me take you one step further. We tried. We have sent in requests. We have asked over and over again to the Coroner, can we please get the

information from the autopsies. Like cause of death. We understand if your toxicology reports are going to take a long time, they often do, but

just something simple like the cause of death and strangely enough, we got this response from the Coroner. I want to read this to you. And by the

way, can I tell you, we actually formally made this request by law, we did one of those CORA requests. Colorado Open Records Act. So we did that on

Wednesday. Right. And this is the response we got.

I have located the CORA request that you submitted. Submitted by HLN. In the folder that contains numerous requests for the Watts autopsy reports.

I apologize for not replying sooner. And it goes on to say I didn`t know that your inquiry was couched in the form of a CORA request. That is the

official run by law, as you may have gathered from the district court`s order, we don`t have the autopsy reports yet. OK, that is weird.

And then the Coroner says I don`t have a timetable right now for when we will receive the reports. So the Coroner is saying two weird things to us.

Number one, we don`t even have the reports. Number two, yes, sorry, we have a big file of people like you and the media who said can you send us

the report, but we didn`t know that yours was an official one filed by law.

OK. This is two days after we sent in our request. And in case you`re wondering how formal we made this request and how obvious it was that this

was a legal document, a legal request, that the public, you, me, everybody watching, we have the right to these documents. This is before any court

weighed in. This is before any judge said no, you can`t release it. This is how obvious our legal requests was.

Let`s roll the video of the actual wording. It says dear Mr. Coroner, redacted his name, under the Colorado Open Records Law, you can see the

number we cited, right there, I am requesting copies of all records generated or maintained by your office pertaining to the autopsies of

Shanann, Bella and Celeste Watts. As you know, Mr. Christopher Watts has been charged with the murders of his wife and young daughters and it is

currently in custody at the Weld County jail. So that is the formal request that we sent in on September the 19th. That is Wednesday.

The Judge said we`re not aware of any members of the public who have made CORA requests to inspect the autopsy reports on September 21st. That is

Friday.

[18:10:00] And the Coroner responds to us, sorry, we didn`t see that it was couched in the form of a CORA request, but boy, have we got a lot of these.

In fact, we had to make a file out of them.

Alexis Tereszcuk, is a senior reporter for Radar online. She is covering this case as well. Alexis, is a lot of this surprising to you? I`m trying

to figure out if one hand knows what the other is doing in this case.

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, SENIOR REPORTER, RADARONLINE.COM: I think that they very much know what they`re doing in this case and I think the prosecutor and

the Coroner always know what they`re doing, but what it seems some of the files that have been made in the court, seems like the prosecution wants to

keep this information from the public, because they are saying, their claims are they don`t want a potential jury pool to be tainted with the

information, so they are hiding the Coroner`s results.

I am not saying they are hiding it, but what they are trying to do is in effect hiding it. They are asking a judge not to release it when they have

it. So I think they know exactly what they`re doing there and I think they are taking every measure they can to stop perhaps Christopher from

obtaining it and also from people in the public, but the thing is, this is the law, we have open records here in the United States. They should be

releasing this, but what they`re trying to do is keep it as secret as possible and they have tried to keep everything from Christopher. His team

has said that they haven`t received any documents at all from the prosecution and what they are saying is that they are trying to protect

their case. They don`t want people to speculate about how they died. They want to make sure they can get justice for these girls.

BANFIELD: That is why a judge can come in and rule, you know, I think we`re going to keep this quiet, because you know, there`s still a lot that

needs to settle, but when the judge does that, two days after we put in that CORA request and there was no judge`s order saying you can`t release

that, I find this a little fishy.

Let me bring in James Gagliano, right now. He is CNN`s senior law enforcement analyst, retired FBI supervisory special agent. That is a big

title for a guy who`s done a lot of this work. I want you to just kind of put this into perspective for me. It is weird to me that a prosecutor and

a defense team neither one of them has an autopsy report and then the public, that is you, me and everybody watching right now, has no access to

this, even though we did exactly what the law requires us to do on a timely manner and the judge ruled two days later and yet we`re still being

precluded from all this.

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You always ask me to play devil`s advocate. So I am going through here. So, is this unusual?

Absolutely. Unheard of? No, to your point earlier, it could be considered prejudicial to a jury pool. It could also be considered something that the

prosecution doesn`t want potential witnesses to already have in mind when they interviewed a potential witnesses.

I`m going to go one further here. Here`s what my thinking is on this. As someone who worked very closely with medical examiners offices, when we

dealt with murders that were gang related and things like that, and the FBI. Here`s the other aspect of this. Could it be possible that the

defense has floated out a notion that Chris Watts wants to cooperate and if he does --

BANFIELD: Come on.

GAGLIANO: Is it possible that the prosecution doesn`t want to lay out all the facts as they know them yet, because that information is going to be

discoverable? It has to be given to the defense at some point on and if they wait too close to a potential trial, the defense can throw the yellow

cards and say, hey listen, this is not fair.

I`m suggesting that it is possible that they could be in discussions with their attorneys, the defense attorneys, and maybe they don`t want to have

the answers out there so the defense can then go to him and say this is what they got, let`s figure out a story.

BANFIELD: At this early stage?

GAGLIANO: You could make the argument that it`s too early for that, but I`m just suggesting that that has happened before.

BANFIELD: OK, how weird is this? You`re in law enforcement, when we talked to the D.A. and we read further into the judge`s order, the Judge is

ordering that the District Attorney by tomorrow hand deliver the autopsy results to the defense. Basically, share that discovery, but the D.A.

doesn`t have it. Literally the D.A. said to me on the line, we`re letting the court know, we don`t have it. How weird is that?

GAGLIANO: Judges as you know don`t suffer prosecutors who don`t make everything available as soon as they have it. And if they have it and they

know what the results are and haven`t given it --

BANFIELD: How can you order them to hand deliver something tomorrow to the defense that they don`t even have?

GAGLIANO: Maybe they`re suggesting that the prosecution team gets with the medical examiner and makes this happen. Because to your point, the autopsy

has been done. The only thing that would cause a delay in autopsy, as I can see it, is a toxicology report. And we are already six weeks later.

BANFIELD: We`ve done that in a million times. We wait on toxicology in a millions of times, but we get cause of death and this is where your

expertise is going to be critical. In this next question.

Six weeks since the murder. OK. We don`t know the cause of death. We the public. D.A. does not know the cause of death. Defense does not

officially know the cause of death. I say officially because you know what, it is possible you know it full well what the cause of death is, but

when you are a cop and you are investigating, don`t you need to know exactly where to start?

[18:15:09] Was it done with a ligature? Was it done with hands? Was it done with duct tape? Was it done with a pillow case? I need to go to the

hardware store. I need to interview little Bob, who works in the hardware store on weekends in August, because he is going back to school in

September. But now you are asking six weeks later, do you remember this guy potentially coming into your store and buying string? Wouldn`t this be

better if you`re asking him, do you remember this guy on Wednesday? Or Monday? Coming in here? As an investigator, six weeks is poison.

GAGLIANO: I`m going to stipulate to what you just said as wholly accurate as far as my experience tells me. The only thing that I could take issue

with here is the D.A. knows the cause of death. The D.A. has to know that because the investigators are the ones that recovered the bodies. So I`m

sure. Now, listen, you can`t tell what doxological components might be inside the bodies, but you can tell potentially if somebody was strangled,

if somebody had any type of, you know, sharpened objects and paled them and things like that.

BANFIELD: No, I`m going to disagree with you. I don`t think the D.A. knows if duct tape was used or if a string was used or if necktie was used

or if hands. And isn`t that where the investigation will really catch someone up? Because you know what, you could be on video at the hardware

store buying that ligature.

GAGLIANO: You`re right, Ashleigh, but I`m going to tell you right now, I don`t think the prosecution is sweating it. I believe they have the

answers that they need. They just need the autopsy report to confirm it.

BANFIELD: I`m just so astounded, because if I were investigating this, I`d be to start real early and be asking questions real often to people before

their memory starts to fade. Hold those thoughts for a moment everybody. Less than 48 hours after Chris Watts was booked into the jail and charged

with three counts of capital murder, his defense team went to work. They began filing motions including a motion that demanded that the throats of

his beautiful daughters, Bella and Cece be swabbed for DNA evidence. How can investigators recover trace DNA or even fingerprints from remains that

were submerged in oil for up to four days?

Forensic pathologist, Joey Joseph Scott Morgan says it can be done and you will not believe the technique that is used. And I will give you this

hint. Open your kitchen drawer, because what they use, you likely have it there right now. We`ll tell you what it is, next.

[18:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are looking at DNA. They are looking at bruise marks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The DNA testing methods that we have are able to detect tiniest of trace quantifies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: DNA, as long as it`s stored properly, can last a long time. Perhaps they got DNA from the necks of the victims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Persons of interest are all people who cohabitated, therefore would be sharing their DNA with each other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`re going to run that reference sample against it and see if it comes back to Chris Watts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Chris Watts allegedly told the police he saw his wife strangling their daughter, wrapping her hands around Cece`s tiny little neck. The

same hands that she had used to hug those little girls and clothes those little girls and tuck them in at night, but he said she was squeezing until

Cece ran out of air. It would be torture to witness that, right? But apparently, not torture enough to keep Chris from doing the very same thing

to Shanann. If his story to the police is true.

The police don`t believe any of it. They say he killed all three of them. Before dumping their bodies at his work site, but the answer might just be

preserved on those bodies. Even the two little ones pulled out of that black crude. Joining me now, Joseph Scott Morgan is a certified death

investigator and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University.

Joe, I got to ask you something. That the pattern if there is one, and we don`t know that the autopsies are who knows where right now, but the

pattern that is found on those little girl`s necks if in fact they were strangled, would the finger patterns be traceable to one size hands or

another, a man or a woman?

JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, PROFESSOR OF FORENSIC, JACKSONVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes. Let us clarify this Ash, that the idea here is that what we would be

talking about are areas of hemorrhage on the outside of the neck. It would have to be a rather forceful grip to the point where you would create

hemorrhage that would contused areas to the point where maybe you could say with some reasonable certainty that this would be created by an adult.

That is about as far as you can go with that.

Now the one thing we have to be aware of is if there is contact with the porous skin, OK, with the porous skin, they can utilize one particular

method in order to lift prints off of that particular area.

BANFIELD: What is it? What`s the method?

MORGAN: It`s actually called super glue fuming. I`ve actually been involved in these cases where we superglued bodies in the morgue.

BANFIELD: Like just so I`m clear, really the kind the super glue I have at home in my kitchen drawer like, crazy glue.

MORGAN: Yes. Absolutely.

BANFIELD: You used that?

MORGAN: Yes. Ad let me tell you how it kind of works. What happens is the body is essentially placed on the table in a morgue.

[18:25:04] And there is a plastic tent that is placed over the body. And then if folks at home will just think about a coffee cup warmer, many times

these are used, you place a little dollop of super glue on to a little pan on to the surface of the heater. It fumes that are, essentially, what

happens is the glue converts over to a gaseous state and then it begins to settle.

And you know, our fingers, our fingertips, leave behind fatty lipids. We got -- people talk about I have greasy skin, oily skin that is what leaves

behind a fingerprint. Fingerprints here we leave behind fingerprints. These are friction ridges. So we leave this behind on the body and you can

actually appreciate a print on the surface of the skin vis-a-vis superglue.

BANFIELD: So your description is brilliant. I get it completely, but for those watching who are watching right now who still wonder how do you put

superglue on a little heater and heat the body under a tent and then what happens? Watch this. This is actually something our producers pulled from

forensic files. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Superglue is made of cyanoacrylate ester. A drop of superglue is placed into a chamber along with the item containing the print

and the chamber is heated for up to six hours. By heating the superglue, fumes condense and adhere to biological materials such as the oils of a

fingerprint. Under a laser light, the biological material fluoresces, producing a clear image of the print.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And if we need a better evidence of what a clear image of that kind of print looks like, we found a couple of them. These are remarkable,

actually, when I look at how crystal clear these prints are. Let us put those up. Not only are they the prints themselves, but as we go from frame

to frame, it is the print and the length of the finger and lo and behold, Joe Scott Morgan, it`s the palm as well. Let`s drop that banner if we can

because you can actually see the palm print of the person and what was it? That the prosecutor has been requesting? Joseph Scott Morgan, yes, they

want the palm. And the fingers. They want the whole thing. Do you think it might be because of this?

MORGAN: Yes, I think it could possibly be and of course this brings me back in my logical mind Ash, in this whole scenario, we keep talking about

the oil bins. These vats of oil that these little angels were placed into. My problem with this is these bodies would have to be cocoon in some way

that means contain within plastic bags for instance or wrapped in something that would have preserved this evidence. We are talking about things like

touch DNA and latent prints. These things are very, very fragile, Ash. And so, they would have to cocoon in this areas and placed into the oil and

be preserved. That is about the battle.

BANFIELD: You know what, no, maybe not, because it`s not out of the realm of possibilities. They found a bag, they called it a non-porous surface

which could be plastic but they found a bag at the site. Maybe that is a bag that those little girls were contains in. Maybe there were more than

one, I don`t know, but that is something that is so fascinating to see.

I want to go on to another part and that is DNA. Because we`ve been racking our brains to figure out what microscopic smoking gun exists on the

necks of those little girls. And fascinatingly enough, I kept thinking about touch DNA. Well, of course those parents kiss their little girls and

Shanann coming home at the 2:00, first thing I do is I go in and kiss my little boys while they are dead asleep and sweaty. What would that show,

but if in fact Chris Watts put his hands around their necks, applied pressure and strangled them, walk me through how much DNA would be on their

necks, because it`s different than if he just gave them a little peck.

MORGAN: Yes, it is. And what we`re talking about when you have touch DNA Ashleigh, as opposed to say applying saliva from a kiss, touch DNA is only

going to be a partial strand, because this is coming from dead skin cells that slough. There`s an entire industry that is out there, but based on

dry skin, right, with lotions and all these sorts of things.

A lot is going to be dependent upon how much skin he was sloughing at that particular time to contact the area and it doesn`t have so much to do with

the amount of force that he would apply to these little angels` necks. It has everything to do with how long he was in contact with them. So I would

think not only, not only their neck, but anywhere else he may have touched. Now, the problem with this is and defense will raise this and prosecution

will have to examine in, is this idea of cohabitation. In this environment, all these people lived together so you expect to find DNA from

other people in this environment.

BANFIELD: Well, I get it. But Shanann had been away for two days and presumably this girls had a bath since she left on Saturday morning.

SCOTT MORGAN: Yes.

BANFIELD: It`s now, you know, Monday morning at five o`clock in the morning when Chris Watts says all of this happened. But let`s just say for

an instance -- I`m trying to sort of lock down all the things that will create more DNA on the next and say, giving a child a bath, drying them

off, giving them a kiss, put them to bed, if someone put their hands around those children`s necks for the length of time that it takes and the amount

of pressure that it takes to snap the life out of them, that is a lot of sloughing.

That is the length of time that is not natural. And then there`s the notion that what if they just had very dry hands. It`s different than if they had

moist hands. The drier, the more DNA. Correct?

SCOTT MORGAN: Yes, you`re absolutely right. And that`s going to slough off in the skin cells. The contact. We we lose thousands and thousands of these

cells every single day. Every surface you contact in your home. It might be a table. It might be your clothing. It might be other people. You shaking

hands. You`re exchanging these sloughed cells all of the time.

So this is an ongoing process. Now, you`re right. What we`re thinking about here is, why would such a high concentration of these cells be found

immediately adjacent to say their external -- the external area adjacent to their airway. That`s a question that would be posed I think probably by the

investigators and ultimately in court.

BANFIELD: Just fascinating. There`s also an answer for whether he thought ahead and put her dead hands around their necks and made it simulated as

though she did it. But then the backs of her hands would have this that same pressure time and everything of his DNA.

So, it` fascinating. Joe, hold that thought for a minute, because as we wait for the coroner to eventually get the results from the medical

examiner and then eventually pass that on to the DNA of how Shanann, Bella, and Celeste actually die, we still don`t know.

An even more perplexing question. That is why. Why? This macabre mystery of Chris` motive. It really is driving a lot of detectives from around the

world and our own experts to take a closer look at everything. Every single thing we know. As they try to crack the tragic case open.

There are no easy answers. But when you look at them all together, does form an intriguing picture. We`re going to put it all together for you,

next.

[18:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s the best thing that has ever happened to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The way that she looked at him and the way that he looked at her --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My office filed formal charges against Christopher Lee Watts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say that Chris Watts confessed to killing his wife but not their two young daughters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is absolutely the worst possible outcome.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Why on earth would he do it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Did you guys get into an argument before she left?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wasn`t like an argument. We had an emotional conversation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She loved those girls and those girls loved her. I`m sickened that a parent, a father, could do that to his children.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: We need to know how they died and we need to know whether it was Chris Watts who killed them. But the question the autopsy reports just will

not answer is why. Why would he have done it? Because up until hours before the murders, these are the images that really were the person.

He just seemed like the epitome of family man. And if there were issues between Chris and his wife, Shanann, they sure didn`t seem to impact the

relationship he had with those little girls. So why would he kill his entire family? Why the children?

Randy Kessler is with me. He`s a trial attorney. And Randy, if you look at all of the potential motives bundled up together, I mean, we`ve been

covering this case for six weeks. Bit by bit, we discovered little pieces. But then we put them all into one file. And I think it`s kind of telling

when you see them all in same basket.

Start with the first one, the cheating. We do know from the arrest affidavit that the police say he was cheating with someone at work. A woman

at work. We also know from People magazine, one of their police sources said that he was having lots of affairs with men and women.

Number two, financial. Look at everything under financial. Bankruptcy in 2015. Shanann had quit work and was doing something on the side that was

far less of an income. Shanann and her two girls were sick all the time. In the hospital. Doctors bills. Had to have been steep.

They had those little girls in private preschool. That`s not cheap. They had a brand-new house that was spectacular. And apparently had to furnish

it all with new furniture because they left most of the other furniture they had behind in the house she sold in the Carolinas.

And we know for a fact there was life insurance. How much, we don`t know. But we know there was life insurance, even on one of the children at very

least. And number three, a brand-new baby was on the way. And we all know that that`s pressure.

But here`s my question, Randy. You don`t have to prove motive in a murder case. It`s just weird if you don`t.

[18:40:01] RANDY KESSLER, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Right. So, that`s the good news for the prosecution. They don`t have to prove why. They do want to answer

that question because if someone on the jury has reasonable doubt, if someone says, why in the world would he do that, they want to answer that

question.

Here`s an explanation for you just to make sure that reasonable doubt is eliminated. But the prosecution does not have to prove motive. So it`s up

to speculation. We can speculate all day long why. There are some good answers. You just listed them. And maybe that is why. But the good news

again for the state is if they can prove that he did it, then they`re going get a conviction.

BANFIELD: So Randy, maybe you can`t prove all this stuff, but do you just go up and do a power point like I just did and literally hold this up in

front of the jury and say, I can`t tell you exactly why he may have done this, but I can show you some of the things that might have caused this.

Do you just sort of float that into their minds so they have some -- I mean, the rest of us out here are wondering how the hell does a guy go from

being father of the year to family annihilator. You got to have some reason or you just won`t feel that there`s the right kind of doubt.

KESSLER: Right. You can talk to the jury about why, but you make sure the jury understands that it is not the state`s burden to prove why. They just

have to prove that he did it. Who in the world would do something like this? Who would not do it, but then put their kids in a bath of oil and put

them in the containers?

So I think you`ve got the conviction based on the facts of the case, but you have to eliminate doubt. And so you give them an explanation. If you`re

wondering no way he would have done this, well, here`s some reasons why he might just have done it.

BANFIELD: So, real quickly, Alexis Tereszcuk, I want to ask you if I have covered all the bases here. I`m sort of scraping back through every single

file, trying to find through all the reporting, potential motives. I`m not sure, maybe I`ve missed something.

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, SENIOR REPORTER, RADARONLINE.COM: That`s the thing. It is that there have been multiple examples. People that have come forward

and said that they were having an affair with Chris. But nobody is coming out and saying he said I was going to leave my wife for them or that he was

tied down. They were just affairs.

And then some friends have come forward very, very recently and said they have a tough relationship, that she was the one in control and was very

aggressive towards him. Again, not really motive to kill your wife. There wasn`t something where he wanted to run off with a young person, whether a

man or woman since he reportedly had affairs with both, and leave his whole family behind but he couldn`t.

So, it just seems like this is something that is not adding up for anybody, anywhere. There is no evidence of an unhappy relationship if you look at

her social media. I am sure everybody puts things that are happy on social media. But if you really are miserable with your husband, he`s not going to

be on there.

BANFIELD: It can be only the girls. It`s only half the page. And you know what, we are not even -- you know, we`re not even a fraction into this case

in terms of the official information. I`m going to keep this list and I`m going to keep adding to it when more information becomes available.

Hold your thought for a second, because Chris is not the first guy. Not the first man accused of killing his entire family for no apparent reason. And

he`s got something in common though with men who have.

For instance, did you know that most family annihilators actually kill their families in the month of August? Chew on that for a minute. That`s

when police say Chris killed Shanann and the girls. And you will not believe some of the other similarities he shares with family annihilators.

That`s next.

[18:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We are still talking about the big question in this case. The question the coroner can`t even answer. That question is going to be

crucial in court. Why on earth would Chris Watts kill everyone in the family if he did it?

It`s the reason we are digging into his past, into his relationship with Shanann, and into the alleged relationship from the side. And it`s the

reason we are questioning theories like this one. That Chris Watts could have felt the need to get rid of his entire family.

Joining me now Dr. Daniel Bober. He is forensic psychiatrist. Dr. Bober, I tell you something, when I saw some of the statistics on family

annihilators, my eyes bugged out. Because I could not help but notice a lot of the similarities that he shares with the typical family annihilator.

Let me put a graphic up that sort of helps our viewers along to see what exactly the typical family annihilator is. He`s a white male, typically and

is typically in his 30s. Killing for the most part, take place in August. They typically have financial difficulties. And they typically confessed to

one of the killings or committed suicide. That`s not on the graphic there, but it is part of it.

That is absolutely every single one of those Chris Watts can align with. But I was sort of fascinated by the August. What does that mean? What do

you make of the August issue?

DANIEL BOBER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: They tend to commit the crimes in August, Ashleigh, because that`s when they have the most access to the

children. The kids are not in school and so the kids are less likely to be missed if they`re not in school. But there`s some other things as well.

There was a study in Great Britain that was done a few years ago looking at this. And not only are they white males in their 30s, but they also tend to

be people that have a poor sense of self. Very unstable ego identity. And if you look at this guy and you see these affairs he has been having with

men and women, this is someone who strikes me as someone who`s not really comfortable in his own skin.

[18:50:03] But interestingly enough, they tend to be people that don`t have a criminal record, and they also tend to be people that everyone

thinks by all outward appearances are fine. So this is someone who never felt comfortable as a father, as a husband, as a man and I think was

overwhelmed and felt trapped and acted out in a very selfish way to form a new identity in his own skin.

BANFIELD: So incredibly fascinating because many of the people from his past have told us that he seemed shy, a little bit awkward, that he was

beloved, girls all had crushes, et cetera, but he didn`t seem to know what to do about it, just wasn`t sort of outgoing at all about that.

There`s another set of statistics that really stood out to me, Dr. Bober, and I want you to read into these for me. Reasons for family annihilations.

Sixty percent of family annihilations are done in a rage. Thirty percent are because of spousal revenge.

And then look at that last one. This is the one I couldn`t understand. The remaining 10 percent, they don`t know why. They just don`t know the cause

of why they wiped out their entire family. What can you tell me about that 10 percent?

BOBER: Well, you know, we don`t know the reason, but there is always a reason, right? And although they occur in rage, they overwhelmingly tend to

be planned. And again, they -- the top two reasons usually are for financial problems or economic -- I`m sorry financial problems or, you

know, either affairs or there`s also disappointment.

In other words, they feel like they let down their family or their family has let them down. And the common thread again is just a lack of identity,

an unstable self and someone who feels like there`s no other option.

BANFIELD: And so just to be clear, when they say 10 percent, they don`t know the cause, is it that the researchers don`t know the cause or is it

that the annihilator can`t say why he did it?

BOBER: Oh, I think it`s because they don`t -- I think it`s because they don`t fit into a neat profile.

BANFIELD: Got it.

BOBER: The same way the D.C. sniper did not fit into the profile. You know, they weren`t white males who are committing these crimes. So, I think

they try to categorize them. But as we know, there are outliers that don`t fit into a neat profile.

BANFIELD: Man, I hope he`s not one of these outliers for so many reasons, but at the same time, I`m just so incredibly perplexed by these statistics,

and how he fits into so much of it. That is not to say that he did this. He has his day in court, that`s for sure.

Daniel Bober, stand by for a moment. We know that Shanann was found buried in the Anadarko property. But there`s one piece of crucial evidence that we

have not heard anything about. Not for lack of trying. We asked every question we can. And it`s a shovel.

A shovel, because that`s what it requires to dig a shallow grave, usually. And it is one of the questions you are all asking about tonight. So we`re

going to ask our experts and we`re going to keep your Facebook questions coming on #askash on "Crime & Justice with Ashleigh Banfield." That`s next.

[18:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: It`s now been six weeks since police say Chris Watts killed his family. And for just about six weeks, we have been trying to figure out if

he did it, or if that is really a far-fetched story that he gave us, that it was actually Shanann, threw his wife under the bus, said she did it.

What`s great is that we`ve been asking questions after questions, trying to narrow down the possibility, and still more possibilities emerge. Thanks to

you, viewers, who have been tracking the story along with us, and you are posting great questions like this one from Mike and Marie Lark.

I want to read you the question from them. They say, so, you have to have a shovel to dig a grave. Well, was one found? James Gagliano, you are the cop

here. Sounds to me like that would be important in this case.

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It would actually be something that investigators will be looking into. Was one found in the

garage? Was one found at the home?

BANFIELD: In the truck.

GAGLIANO: Or in the truck or disposed of close. The other thing here is trace evidence because any time you have friction contact with something,

maybe his DNA was on it, maybe the wife`s or two children`s DNA on it. Those are other things that investigators will be looking at.

BANFIELD: All right. This one is from Kimberly Anne Magari Van Allstein (ph). Very long name but very clear. Here is my question on the case, why

hasn`t his family commented on what he did to his family? And do they think that his wife killed the sweet little girls?

Alexis Tereszcuk, it is clear that we have to say -- we can`t say that he did it. It`s still a question. But what do we know about his family and how

they responded in all of this?

Well, you know, they have been very tight-lipped. In fact, it`s came out that another -- that the day that he was arrested and taken into custody,

the police really wanted to talk to him about what happened, and he said, I have to have a conversation with my father. He spoke with his father.

It was after that that he confessed and told the police his story. Now, his very simple story is that his wife killed the kids, but he still has such a

tight bond with his father that after that conversation, he revealed what happened to the children. And that`s how they found their bodies.

BANFIELD: Well, I`ll tell you what. I want to be a fly on the window of the truck or car that he used to pick his dad up at the airport because I

think the first big conversation with his dad happened in that vehicle as his dad flew in to see what kind of trouble he was in.

[19:00:00] Thank you so much to all my guests. Just fantastic work on all your parts, and this story continues. But, the next hour of "Crime &

Justice" starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: It`s a chess game between prosecution and defense. Tug of war, essentially. Cops say Chris watts killed his entire family.

SHANANN WATTS, WIFE OF CHRIS WATTS: He`s the best thing that has ever happened to me.

BANDFIELD: But after lying through his teeth, now says his wife was the one doing the killings.

CHRIS WATTS, SUSPECT MURDERING HIS FAMILY: No, I was not going to kiss them to bed good night. It was -- I -- that`s why I left. It was horrible.

BANDFIELD: Is the answer hiding somewhere in the microscopic details?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The DNA testing methods we have are able to detect the tiniest of trace quantities.

BANDFIELD: Is one parent`s DNA layered on the necks of the three victims?

UNIDENTIFIELD MALE: Persons of interest are people who cohabitated and, therefore, would be sharing their DNA with each other.

BANDFIELD: The secret behind trace DNA and strangulation.

UNIDENTIFIELD MALE: Strangulation involves force that can increase the amount of skin cells.

BANDFIELD: And why would the prosecution want to keep those details private?

PAT LALAMA, CRIME JOURNALIST: The prosecution`s basically coming back saying, we don`t have to answer you, good-bye.

BANDFIELD: What evidence do they have to answer the biggest question of them all? Did Chris Watts murder his wife and children?

LALAMA: They have to obliterate the intention that the wife killed the championship.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good relationship gone bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANDFIELD: Good Evening everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield and this is Crime and Justice. There`s no question the Watts case out of Colorado is dark

and mysterious. A father accused of murdering his entire family when hours before he appeared to be father of the year. And as dark as it seems, it

is getting even darker. Forensic files dark because whatever is contained in the autopsy reports, well, it`s causing a lot of agitation, both

prosecutors and the defense going back and forth about keeping those details under wraps.

Details we routinely get early on in a murder case. Details like cause of death, but there are some clues in the way the reports are being handled

right now, and when I say handled I mean hand delivered because according to court documents, some time between today and tomorrow, and that is a

matter of hours, those autopsy reports are supposed to be moving around Colorado in sealed envelopes.

One copy for the court, one copy for Chris Watts and his lawyers and surprisingly, it`s not Chris Watts demanding these autopsies stay private.

It`s the prosecutors which really makes you wonder morbid as it may be, just what is on the bodies of the little precious girls.

Crime and Justice Producer Kyle Pelts has been working the phones all day. He`s also been combing through the documents. Kyle, I have done this job

for a very long time. I have covered murders for 30 years. I have rarely found it this difficult to find cause of death coming up on six weeks since

the death. There`s something fishy.

KYLE PELTS, CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: That`s right, Ashley. We`ve covered a lot of these types of cases, and often by now, you at least have

a preliminary cause of death, and in this case, we got nothing. Now the judge in the Chris Watt`s case on Friday actually ordered prosecutors to

hand deliver a copy of the autopsies to the courthouse and to Chris Watt`s attorneys, but we reached out to the prosecutor`s office today, and they

say they don`t have the autopsy report yet. So then we reached out to the coroner`s office, and it gets more bizarre from there.

BANDFIELD: OK. This is really weird because the D.A. has said over and over again, and they have not been couching it. They have not been coy.

They have said honestly, wish we could answer the question.

We do not have the autopsy reports in our office. I spoke with the D.A. only within the last hour, still, at this late afternoon hour in Colorado,

the D.A. is not in possession of the autopsy report. So it is strange. What would be the -- so if the D.A. doesn`t have it, Kyle, who has it? Who

would be the person that would hand it to the D.A.?

PELTS: Well, presumably the person that hands it to the D.A. is the coroner`s office, and we reached out to the coroner`s office today, and

they said they don`t even have the report yet. The coroner`s office doesn`t have the report, and has no timeline as to when they are going to have it.

BANDFIELD: So let me get this straight. In a murder case, a triple homicide, the coroner six weeks after the murders does not have the

autopsies? Did I hear you clearly?

PELTS: That`s exactly right.

BANDFIELD: So let`s go one chain back, then. Who gives those results to the coroner?

PELTS: Well, the autopsies were probably conducted in the medical examiner`s office not by the coroner himself, but you`d think by now the

coroner has something.

BANDFIELD: OK. So the judge has been clear about all of this, at least what the judge and the court thinks about this, and it honestly may not be

accurate. But this is what we can tell you from a court order regarding who should know about what`s in the autopsy reports.

This is from the most recent court order. This court is not aware of any member of the public who has made a CORA. That`s a Colorado Open Requests

Act, to inspect the autopsy reports. So the court said we`re going to keep it quiet. Clearly, some of the parties don`t want autopsies out, and the

court agreed, but the court has gone ahead and said, we don`t know any member of the public that`s interested in this stuff.

Well, I`m Ashley Banfield, and my program is Crime and Justice, and we`re interested, and viewers said time and time again on Facebook and elsewhere,

they want to know what was the cause of death of these three victims because there`s a triple homicide, and potentially, a death penalty on the

line. So it would be critical to know how these people died before you can even begin the investigation as to whether the stories that are being told

are true or are lies.

So let me take you one step further. We tried. We sent in requests. We asked over and over to the coroner, can we please get the information from

the autopsies? Like cause of death? We understand if your toxicology reports are going to take a long time. They often do. But just something

simple, something simple like the cause of death. And strangely enough, we got this response from the coroner. I want to read this to you.

And, by the way, can I tell you, we actually formally made this request by law. We did one of those CORA requests, Colorado Open Records Act. So we

did that Wednesday, right? And this is the response we got. I have located the CORA request that you submitted -- submitted by HLN in the

folder it contains numerous requests for the Watts autopsy reports.

I apologize for not replying sooner, and it goes on to say I didn`t know that your inquiry was couched in the form of a CORA request. That`s the

official one by law. As you may have gathered from the district court`s order, we don`t have the autopsy reports yet. OK. That`s weird.

And then the coroner says, I don`t have a timetable right now for when we will receive the reports. So the coroner is saying two weird things to us.

Number one, we don`t have the reports. Number two, yeah, sorry, we have a big file of people like you in the media who say, you know, can you send us

the report? But we didn`t know that yours was an official one filed by law. OK?

This is two days after we sent in our request. And In case you`re wondering how formal we made this request and how obvious it was that this was a

legal document, a legal request, that the public, you, me, everybody watching, we have the right to these documents. This is before any court

weighed in. this is before any judge said, no, you can`t release it. This is how obvious our legal request was.

Let`s roll the video of the actual wording. it says, dear Mr. Coroner, we redacted his name, under the Colorado Open Records Law and you can see the

number we cited right there, I am requesting copies of all records generated or maintained by your office pertaining to the autopsies of

Shanann, Bella, and Celeste Watts. As you know Mr. Christopher Watts has been charged with the murders of wife and young daughters and is in custody

at the Weld County Jail.

So that is the formal request sent in September the 19th, that`s Wednesday. The judge said, we`re not aware of any members of the public who made CORA

requests to inspect the autopsy reports on September 21st. That`s Friday. and the coroner responds to us, sorry, we didn`t see that it was couched in

the form of a CORA request, but, boy, have we ever got a lot of these, and, in fact we had to make a file out of them.

Alexis Tedesco is a Senior Reporter for Radar Online. She`s covering this case as well. Alexis, is a lot of this surprising to you? I`m trying to

figure out if one hand knows what the other is doing in this case.

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, SENIOR REPORTER, RADAR ONLINE: I think that they very much know what they are doing in this case. And I think the prosecutor and

the coroner always know what they are doing, but what it seems from files that have been made in the court it seems like the prosecution wants to

keep this information from the public because they are saying, their claims are they don`t want a potential jury pool to be tainted with the

information. So they are hiding the coroner`s results.

I`m not saying they are hiding it, but what they are trying to do is in effect hiding it. They`re asking a judge not to release it when they have

it. So I think they know exactly what they are doing there and I think that they are taking every measure that they can to stop, perhaps,

Christopher from obtaining it, and also from people of the public, but thing is, this is the law we have open records here in the united states.

BANDFIELD: We do.

TERESZCUK: So they should be releasing this. But what they are trying to do is keep it secret as possible, and they have tried to keep everything

from Christopher. His team has said that they have not received any documents at all from the prosecution. What they are saying is that they

are trying to protect their case. They don`t want people to speculate about how they died. They want to get justice for the girls.

BANDFIELD: And you know what that is why a judge can come in and rule, you know, I think we`re going to keep this quiet because, you know, there`s

still a lot that needs to settle, but when the judge does that, two days after we put in that CORA Request and there was no judge`s order saying you

can`t release that, I find that fishy.

Let me bring in James Gagliano right now because he`s CNN`s Senior Law Enforcement Analyst, retired FBI, supervisory Special Agent. That`s a big

title for a guy who has done a lot of this work. I want you to just kind of put this into perspective for me. It is weird to me that a prosecutor

and a defense team, neither one of them has an autopsy report. And then the public, that`s you me, and everybody watching right now, has no access

to this, even though we did exactly what the law requires us to do on time, in a timely manner, and the judge ruled two days later, and yet we`re still

precluded from this.

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN`S SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You always ask me to play devil`s advocate so I`m going to here. So is this unusual?

Absolutely. Unheard of? No. To your point earlier it could be considered prejudicial to a jury pool. It could also be considered

something the prosecution doesn`t want potential witnesses to already have in mind when they interview potential witnesses.

I`m going to one further here. Here`s what my thinking is on this. As someone who worked closely with medical examiner`s offices working murders

that were gang related or things like that in the FBI. Here`s the other aspect of this, could it possible that defense floated out a notion that

Chris Watt wants to cooperate and if he does --

BANDFIELD: come on.

GAGLIANO: Is it possible the prosecution doesn`t want to lay out all the facts as they know them yet because that information is going to be

discoverable. It has to be given to the defense at some point and time. And if they wait too close to a potential trial, defense says, listen, this

is not fair. I`m suggesting that it is possible that they could be in discussions with their attorneys, the defense attorneys, and maybe they

don`t want to have the answers out there so the defense can then go to him and say this is what they got, let`s figure a story.

BANDFIELD: Do you think at this early case -- at this early stage --

GAGLIANO: You can make the argument it`s too early for that, But I`m just suggesting that`s happened before.

BANDFIELD: OK. How weird is this, you`re in law enforcement. When we talked to the D.A., and we read further into the judge`s order, the judge

is ordering that the District Attorney by tomorrow hand deliver the autopsy results to the defense. Basically, share that discovery. But the D.A.

doesn`t have it. Literally, the D.A. said to me on the line, we`re letting the court know we don`t have it. How weird is that?

GAGLIANO: Judges as you know don`t suffer prosecutors who don`t make everything available as soon as they have it, and if they have it and they

know what the results are --

BANDFIELD: How can you order them to hand deliver something tomorrow to the defense they don`t even have?

GAGLIANO: Maybe they are suggesting the prosecution team gets with the medical examiner and makes this happen because to your point, the autopsy`s

been done. The only thing that would cause a delay in an autopsy, is a toxicology report. And were already six weeks later.

BANDFIELD: So fine, yes. We`ve done that a million times. We wait on toxicology reports a million times, but we get cause of death. And this is

where your expertise is going to be critical in the next question. Six weeks since the murder, OK?

We don`t know the cause of death. We, the public. D.A. does not know the cause of death. Defense does not officially know the cause of death. I say

officially because it`s possible he knows full well what the cause of death is. But when you are a cop and you are investigating, don`t you need to

know exactly where to start?

Was it done with a ligature? Was it done with hands? Was it done with duct tape? Was it done with a pillow case? i need to go to the hardware store. I

need to interview Little Bob who works weekends in August at the hardware store because he`s going back to school in September. But now you`re

asking six weeks later, do you remember this guy potentially coming into the store and buying string? Wouldn`t this be better if you are asking

them, do you remember this guy on Wednesday or Monday coming in here? I mean, as an investigator, six weeks is poison.

GAGLIANO: I`m going to stipulate to what you said as holy accurate as far as my experience tells me. The only thing I could take issue with here is

the D.A. knows the cause of death. The D.A. has to know that because the investigators are the ones that recovered the bodies. So I`m sure, now,

Listen, you can`t tell what toxicological might have been inside the bodies. But you can tell potentially if somebody was strangled, if there

was a type of, you know, sharpened objects impaled in them. Things like that.

BANDFIELD: No. No. I`m going to disagree with you. I don`t think if the D.A. knows if duct tape was used or if a string was used or if a

necktie was used or hands or --

GAGLIANO: There`s the mechanism too.

BANDFIELD: And isn`t that where the investigation will really catch someone up because you know what you could be on video at the hardware

store buying that ligature.

GAGLIANO: You`re right, Ashley, but I`m going to tell you right now, the prosecution is not sweating it. I believe they have the answers that they

need. They just need the autopsy report to confirm it.

BANDFIELD: I am just so astounded because if I were investigating this, I`d need to start real early and be asking questions real often to people

before their memories start to fade. Hold those thoughts for a moment, everybody. Less than 48 hours after Chris Watts was booked into the jail

and charged with three counts of capital murder, his defense team went to work. They began filing motions including a motion that demanded that the

throats of his beautiful daughters be swabbed for DNA evidence.

How could investigators recover trace DNA or even fingerprints from remains that were submerged in oil for up to four days? Forensic

Pathologist Joseph Scott Morgan says it can be done, and you will not believe the technique that is used. And I`ll give you this hint. Open your

kitchen drawer because what they use, you likely have it there right now. We`ll tell you what it is next

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are looking DNA. They are looking at bruise marks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The DNA testing methods we have are able to detect tiniest of trace quantities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: DNA, as long as stored properly, can last a long time, perhaps they got DNA from the necks of the victims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Persons of interest are all people who cohabitated, and therefore, would be sharing DNA with each other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are going to run that reference sample against it and see if it comes back to Chris Watts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANDFIELD: Chris Watts allegedly told the police he saw his wife strangling their daughter, wrapping her hands around Cici`s tiny little

neck, the same hands she used to hug the little girls and clothe those little girls and tuck them in at night. But he says she was squeezing

until Cici ran out of air. It would be torture to witness that, right? But, apparently, not torture enough to keep Chris from doing the very same thing

to Shanann, if his story to the police is true.

But police don`t believe any it of. They say he killed all three of them before dumping their bodies at his work site. But the answer might just be

preserved on those bodies, even the two little ones pulled out of that black crude. Joining me now, Joseph Scott Morgan is a Certified Death

Investigator and Professor of Forensics at Jacksonville State University. Joe, I`ve got to ask you something. The pattern, if there is one, and we

don`t know because the autopsies are who knows where right now, but the pattern found on the little girls` necks, if, in fact, they were strangled,

would the finger patterns be traceable to one size hand or another, a man`s or woman`s?

JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, CERTIFIED DEATH INVESTIGATOR: Yes. Let`s clarify this, Ash. The idea here is that what we would be talking about are areas

of hemorrhage on the outside of the neck. It would have to be a rather forceful grip to the point where you would create hemorrhage that would

contuse the area to the point where maybe you could -- you could say with some reasonable certainty that this would have been created by an adult.

That is about as far as you could go with that. Now the one thing you to be aware of is if there`s contact with a porous skin, OK? With the porous

skin, they can utilize one particular method in order to lift prints off of that particular area.

BANDFIELD: What is it? What`s the method?

MORGAN: It`s actually called super glue fuming. And I`ve actually been involved in the cases where we super glued bodies in the morgue

BANDFIELD: like so just to be clear, really the kind of super glue I have in home in the kitchen drawer like crazy glue? You use that?

MORGAN: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes. And let me tell me kind of how it works. What happens is the body is essentially placed on the table in the

morgue, and there`s a plastic tent that is placed over the body, and then if folks at home will just think about a coffee cup warmer, many times they

are used. You place a little dollop of super glue unto -- into a little pan on the surface of the heater. It fumes the area.

Essentially what happens is the glue converts over to a gaseous state, and then it begins to settle. And you know, our fingers, our fingertips leave

behind fatty lipids. We`ve got -- people talk about how have greasy skin, oily skin, that`s leaving behind the fingerprint. we don`t have

fingerprints here. We`d leave behind fingerprints. These are friction ridges. So we leave this behind on a body. And you can appreciate a print

on the surface of the skin vis-a-vis super glue.

BANDFIELD: So you`re description is brilliant. I get it completely. But for those who are watching right now wondering how do you put super glue on

a little heater and heat the body under a tent and then what happens? Watch This. This is actually something that our producers pulled from Forensic

Files. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIELD MALE: super glue is made of Cyanoacrylate Ester. A drop of super glue is placed in a chamber along with the item containing the print,

and the chamber is heated for up to six hours. By heating the super glue, fumes condense and adhere to biological materialsuch as the oils of a

fingerprint. Under a laser light, the biological material fluoresces producing a clear image of the print.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANDFIELD: And if we need a better image of what a clear image of a print looks like, we found a couple of them. These are remarkable actually, when

I look how crystal clear the prints are. Let`s put those up. Not only are they prints themselves, but as go frame to frame, it`s the print and length

of the finger, and low and behold, Joe Scott Morgan, it`s the palm as well. Let`s drop that banner if we can because you can actually see the palm

print of the person, and what was it? That the prosecutor has been requesting, Joseph Scott Morgan, from --

MORGAN: Yes. Yes.

BANDFIELD: they want the palm and the fingers. They want the whole thing. Do you think it might be because of this?

MORGAN: Yes. I think that it could possibly be, and, of course, this brings me back in mye logical mind, Ash, in this whole scenario. We keep

talking about the oil bins, the oil bins, the oil bins, these vats of oils the little angels were placed into it. My problem with this is these bodies

would have to be cocooned in some way.

That means contained within plastic bags, for instance or wrapped in something that would have preserved this evidence. We`re talking about

things like touch DNA and latent prints on it. These things are very, very fragile, Ash, so they have to be cocooned in areas and placed into the oil

to be preserved. That`s an uphill battle.

BANDFIELD: And you know what no, maybe not because it`s not out of the realm of possibilities. They found a bag. They call it a nonporous surface

which could be plastic, but found a bag at the site. Maybe that`s a bag the little girls were contained in. maybe more than one, I don`t know, but

that`s something that is so fascinating to see.

I want to go on into another part, the DNA, because we`ve been wracking our brains to figure out what microscopic smoking gun exists on the necks of

those little girls. And fascinatingly enough, I thought about touch DNA. Well of course those parents kiss their little girls and Shanann coming

home at 2:00 in the morning. First thing I`d do is I go in and I`d kiss my little boys while they`re dead asleep and sweaty. So that -- what would

that show. But if in fact, Chris Watts put his hands around their necks, applied pressure and strangled them, walk me through how much DNA would be

on their necks? Because it`s different than if he just gave them a little peck.

MORGAN: Yes, it is. what we`re talking about when you have touch DNA, Ash as opposed to say, applying saliva from a kiss, touch DNA is only going to

be almost a partial strand because this is coming from dead skin cells that slide. There`s an entire industry out there based on dry skin, right, with

lotions and all these sorts of things.

A lot of it is going to be dependent upon how much skin he was slotting at that particular time to contact the area. And it`s not so much to do with

the amount of force that he would have applied to the little angels` necks. It has everything to do with how long he was in contact with them.

So I would think not only, not only their necks, but anywhere else he may have touched. Now, the problem with this is, and defense will raise this,

and prosecution will have to examine this, is this idea of co-habitation. In this environment, all of these people lived together. You expect to find

-- you expect to find DNA from other people in this environment.

BANDFIELD: Well, I get it, but Shanann has been away for two days. And presumably, these girls have had a bath since she left on Saturday morning.

MORGAN: Yes.

BANFIELD: It`s now, you know, Monday morning at 5:00 in the morning when Chris Watts says all of this happened. But let`s just say, for instance,

I`m trying to sort of lock down all the things that will create more DNA on the necks than, say, giving a child a bath, drying them off, give them a

kiss, put them to bed. If someone put their hands around those children`s necks for the length of time that it takes and the amount of pressure that

it takes to snuff the life out of them, that is a lot of sloughing, that is a length of time that is not natural, and then there is the notion that

what if they just had very dry hands? It`s different than if they have moist hands. The drier, the more DNA, correct?

MORGAN: Yes. Yes. You`re absolutely right, and that`s going to slough off in the skin cells that are contacted. We lose thousands and thousands

of these cells every single day, every surface you contact in your home, it might be a table, it might be your clothing, it might be other people,

you`re shaking hands, you`re exchanging these sloughed cells all of the time. So, this is an ongoing process. Now, you`re right, what we`re try

thinking about here is why would such a high concentration of these cells be found immediately adjacent to, say, their external -- the external area

adjacent to their airway. And that`s a question that would be posed, I think, probably by the investigators and ultimately in court.

BANFIELD: It`s just fascinating. And there`s also an answer for whether he thought ahead and put her dead hands around their necks.

MORGAN: Yes.

BANFIELD: And made it simulated as though she did it, but then the backs of --

MORGAN: Her hands, yes.

BANFIELD: -- her hands would have that same pressure, time, and everything of his DNA, so it`s fascinating. Joe, hold that thought for a minute,

because as we wait for the coroner to eventually get the results from the medical examiner, and then, eventually, pass that onto the DNA of how

Shanann, Bella, and Celeste actually died -- we still don`t know. An even more perplexing question, that is why, why this macabre mystery of Chris`s

motive. It really is driving a lot of armchair detectives from around the world and our own experts to take a closer look at everything, every single

thing we know, as they try to crack the tragic case open up. There are no easy answers, but when you look at them altogether, it does form an

intriguing picture. We`re going to put it all together for you, next.

[19:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANANN WATTS, MURDER VICTIM: He`s the best thing that has ever happened to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The way she looked at him and the way that he looked at her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My office filed formal charges against Christopher Lee Watts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say that Chris Watts confessed to killing his wife, but not their two young daughters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is absolutely the worst possible outcome.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why on earth would he do it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you guys get into an argument before she left?

CHRIS WATTS, MURDER SUSPECT: It wasn`t -- it wasn`t like an argument. We had an emotional conversation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She loved those girls, and those girls loved her. I`m sickened that a parent, a father could do that to his children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: We need to know how they died, and we need to know whether it was Chris Watts who killed them, but the question the autopsy reports just

will not answer is why, why would he have done it? Because up until hours before the murders, these are the images that really were the person. He

just seemed like the epitome of family man, and if there were issues between Chris and his wife, Shanann, they sure didn`t seem to impact the

relationship he had with those little girls. So, why would he kill his entire family? Why the children?

Randy Kesller is with me, he`s a trial attorney, and Randy, if you look at all of the potential motives bundled up together, I mean, we`ve been

covering this case for six weeks, and bit by bit, we discovered little pieces, but then we put them all into one file. And I think it`s kind of

telling when you see them all in the same basket. Start with the first one, the cheating; we do know from the arrest affidavit that the police say

he was cheating with someone at work, a woman at work, we also know from People Magazine, one of their police sources said that he was having lots

of affairs with men and women.

Number two, financial; we`ll go everything under financial, bankruptcy in 2015, Shanann had quit work and was doing something on the side that was

far less of an income. Shanann and her two girls were sick all the time in the hospital. Doctors bills had to have been steep. They had those little

girls in private preschool. That`s not cheap. They had a brand new house that was spectacular, and apparently had to furnish it all with new

furniture because left most of the other furniture they had behind in the house she sold in the Carolinas, and we know for a fact there was life

insurance. How much? We don`t know, but we do know there was life insurance, even on one of the children at the very least.

And number three, a brand new baby was on the way. And we all know that that`s pressure. But here`s my question, Randy, you don`t have to prove

motive in a murder case. It`s just weird, if you don`t.

[19:40:01] RANDY KESSLER, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Right. So, that`s the good news for the prosecution. They don`t have to prove why. They do want to answer

that question because if someone on the jury has reasonable doubt, if someone says, why in the world would he do that? They want to answer that

question and say, well, here`s an explanation for you just to make sure that that reasonable doubt is eliminated. But the prosecution does not

have to prove motive. So, it`s up to speculation, we can speculate all day long why, there are some good answers, you just listed them, and maybe that

is why, but the good news again for the state is if they can prove that he did it, then they`re going to get a conviction. And you know --

BANFIELD: So, Randy, maybe you can`t prove all these stuff, but do you just go up and do a PowerPoint like I just did and literally hold this up

in front of a jury and say, I can`t tell you exactly why he might have done this, but I can show you some of the things that might have caused this. I

mean, do you just sort of float that into their minds so they have some? I mean, the rest of us out here are wondering how the hell does a guy go from

being father of the year to family annihilator? You go to have some reason or you just won`t feel that there is the right kind of doubt.

KESSLER: Right. You could talk to the jury about why, but you make sure the jury understands that it is not the state`s burden to prove why, they

just have to prove that he did it. Who in the world would do something like this -- and who would not do it but then put their kids in a bath of

oil and put them in the -- in the containers (INAUDIBLE) I think you got the conviction based on facts of the case, but you have to eliminate doubt,

and so you give them an explanation. If you`re wondering no way he would have done this, well, here`s some reasons why he just might have done it.

BANFIELD: So, real quickly, Alexis Tereszcuk, I want to ask you if I have covered all the bases here. I mean, I`m sort of scraping back through

every single file, trying to find through all the reporting potential motives, and I`m not sure, maybe I`ve missed something.

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, SENIOR REPORTER, RADARONLINE.COM: Well, that`s the thing is that there have been multiple examples of people that have come forward

and said that they were having an affair with Chris, but nobody is coming out and saying he said I was going to leave my wife for them, or that he

was tied down, they were -- they were just affairs, and then some friends have come forward very, very recently and said they had a tough

relationship, that she was the one in control, and was very aggressive towards him.

Again, not really a motive to kill your wife, and there wasn`t something where he wanted to run off with the young person, whether it`d be a man or

woman since he reportedly had affairs with both, and leave his whole family behind, but he couldn`t, so it just seems like this is something that is

not adding up for anybody anywhere. There is no evidence of an unhappy relationship if you look at her social media, and, sure, everybody puts

things that are happy on social media, but if you really are miserable with your husband, he`s not going to be on there. It`s going to be only the

girls.

BANFIELD: So, this list is only half the page, and you know what --

TERESZCUK: Right.

BANFIELD: -- we`re not -- we`re not even -- you know, we`re not even a fraction into this case in terms of the official information. So, I`m

going to keep this list and I`m going to keep adding to it when more information comes available. Hold your thought for a second because Chris

is not the first guy, not the first man accused of killing his entire family for no apparent reason. And they have something in common, though,

with men who have. For instance, did you know that most family annihilators actually kill their families in the months of August? Chew on

that for a minute. That`s when police say Chris killed Shanann and the girls, and you will not believe some of the other similarities he shares

with family annihilators. That`s next.

[19:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We`re still talking about the big question in this case, the question the coroner can`t even answer, and that question is going to be

crucial in court. Why on earth would Chris Watts kill everyone in the family if he did it? It`s the reason we`re digging into his past, into his

relationship with Shanannn and into the alleged relationships on the side. And it`s the reason we`re questioning theories like this one: that Chris

Watts could have felt the need to get rid of his entire family.

Joining me now is Dr. Daniel Bober, he`s a forensic psychiatrist. And Bober, I tell you something, when I saw some of the statistics on family

annihilators, my eyes bugged out because I could not help but notice a lot of the similarities that he shares with the typical family annihilator.

Let me put a graphic up that sort of helps our viewers along to see what exactly the typical family annihilator is. He`s a white male, typically,

and he`s typically in his 30s, killings for the most part take place in August, they typically have financial difficulties, and they typically

confessed to one of the killings, or committed suicide. That`s not on the graphic there, but it is part of it. That is absolutely every single one

of those, Chris Watts can align with, but I was sort of fascinated by the August. What does that mean? What do you make of the August issue?

Dr. DANIEL BOBER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: They tend to commit the crimes in August, Ashleigh, because that`s when they have the most access to the

children. The kids are not in school, and so the kids are less likely to be missed if they`re not in school. But there`s some -- there`s some other

things as well. There was a study in Great Britain that was done a few years ago looking at this, and not only are they white males in their 30s,

but they also tend to be people that have a poor sense of self, very unstable ego, identity, and if you look at this guy and you see these

affairs he`s been having with men and women, this is someone who strikes me as someone who`s not really comfortable in their own skin.

[19:50:03] But interestingly enough, they tend to be people that don`t have a criminal record, and they also tend to be people that everyone thinks, by

all outward appearances, are fine. So, this is someone who never felt comfortable as a father, as a husband, as a man, and I think was

overwhelmed and felt trapped and acted out in a very selfish way to form a new identity in his own skin.

BANFIELD: So incredibly fascinating because many of the people from his past have told us that he seemed shy, a little bit awkward, that he was

beloved, girls all had crushes, et cetera but he didn`t seem to know what to do about it. Just wasn`t sort of gregarious or outgoing at all about

that. There`s another set of statistics that really stood out to me, Dr. Bober, and I want you to read into these for me. Reasons for family

annihilations: 60 percent of family annihilations are done in a rage, 30 percent are because of spousal revenge, and then look at that last one,

this is the one I couldn`t understand, the remaining 10 percent, they don`t know why. They just don`t know the cause of why they wipe out their entire

families. What can you tell me about that 10 percent?

BOBER: Well, you know that -- we don`t know the reason but there`s always a reason, right? And although they occur enraged, they overwhelmingly tend

to be planned. And again, the top two reasons usually are for financial problems or economic -- or I`m sorry, financial problems, or you know,

either affairs, or there is also a disappointment, in other words, they feel like they`ve let down their family, or their family has let them down.

And the common thread, again, is just a lack of identity, an unstable self and someone who feels like there is no other option.

BANFIELD: And so, just to be clear, when they say 10 percent, they don`t know the cause, is it that the researchers don`t know the cause or is it

that the annihilator can`t say why he did it?

BOBER: Oh, I think it`s because they don`t -- I think it`s because they don`t fit into a neat profile. You know, the same way the D.C. sniper

didn`t fit into the profile. That, you know, they weren`t white males who were committing these crimes. So, I think they try to categorize them, but

as we know, there are outliers that don`t fit into a neat profile.

BANFIELD: Man, I hope he`s not one of these outliers, for so many reasons, but at the same time, I`m just so incredibly perplexed by these statistics

and how he fits into so much of it. That is not to say that he did this, he has his day in court, that`s for sure. Daniel Bober, stand by for a

moment. We know that Shanann was found buried in the (INAUDIBLE) property, but there`s one piece of crucial evidence that we haven`t heard anything

about, not for lack of trying, we`ve asked every question we can, and it`s the shovel. A shovel. Because that`s what it requires to dig a shallow

grave, usually, and it is one of the question you are all asking about tonight. So, we`re going to ask our experts and we`re going to keep your

Facebook questions coming. It`s @askash on CRIME & JUSTICE with Ashleigh Banfield, that`s next.

[19:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: It`s now been six weeks since police say Chris Watts killed his family and for just about six weeks, we have been trying to figure out if

he did it or if that is really a farfetched story that he gave us, that it was actually Shanann. Threw his wife under the bus, said she did it. But

what`s great is that we`ve been asking question after question, trying to narrow down the possibility and still more possibilities emerge thanks to

you, viewers, who`ve been tracking this story along with us and you are posting great questions like this one from Mike N Marie Lark. I want to

read you the question from them. They say, "So, you have to have a shovel to dig a grave. Well, was one found?" James Gagliano, you`re the cop

here. It sounds to me like that would be important in this case.

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: That would absolutely be something that investigators would be looking into. Was one found in the

garage, was there one found at the home, or --

BANFIELD: In the truck.

GAGLIANO: -- or in the truck or disposed-off clothes. The other thing here is trace evidence because any time you have friction contact with

something, maybe his DNA was on it, maybe the wife`s or two children`s DNA was on it. So, those are the things that investigators would be looking

at.

BANFIELD: All right. This one is from Kimberly Ann McGarry VanAlstine, very long name but very clear, "Here`s my question on the case, why hasn`t

his family commented on what he did to his family, and do they think that his wife killed them sweet little girls?" Alexis Tereszcuk, it`s clear

that we have to say -- we can`t say that he did it, it`s still a question, but what do we know about his family and how they`ve responded in all of

this?

TERESZCUK: Well, you know, they`ve been very tight-lipped. In fact, it`s just come out that another -- that the day that he was arrested and taken

into custody, the police really wanted to talk to him about what happened and he said I have to have a conversation with my father. He spoke with

his father and it was after that that he confessed and told the police his story. Now, his version of the story is that his wife killed the kids but

he still has such a tight bond with his father that after that conversation, he revealed what happened to the children.

BANFIELD: Well, I would want to be a -- I would want to be a fly on the -- on the window of the truck or car that he used to pick his dad up at the

airport because I think the first big conversation with his dad happened in that vehicle, as his dad flew in to see what kind of trouble he was in.

Thank you so much to all my guests. Just fantastic work on all your parts. And this story continues. Thanks for watching, everyone. "FORENSIC FILES"

begins right now.

END