American Murder: The Family Next Door - Netflix

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It’s all bizarre...even in the ”Letters from Christopher” book it’s hard to know what to believe because it’s become fairly apparent that he is a pathological liar.

Bella’s autopsy results though show she had bitten her tongue and had a torn frenulum presumably because she struggled. It’s heartbreaking,
 
Droosie123 said:
It’s all bizarre...even in the ”Letters from Christopher” book it’s hard to know what to believe because it’s become fairly apparent that he is a pathological liar.

Bella’s autopsy results though show she had bitten her tongue and had a torn frenulum presumably because she struggled. It’s heartbreaking,
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It is honestly one of the most upsetting stories I’ve ever heard. Those poor babies and the poor wife. And Shannon’s family! The man is just a piece of tit. I hope he suffers every day of his life for what he did.
 
Freedomofspeech89 said:
It is honestly one of the most upsetting stories I’ve ever heard. Those poor babies and the poor wife. And Shannon’s family! The man is just a piece of tit. I hope he suffers every day of his life for what he did.
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well they do say prisoners have a very dim view of those who perpetrate crimes against kids. So hopefully he’s getting his comeuppance in jail....because I doubt he particularly bothered himself. Not a tortured soul by all accounts
 
Poor Bella must of really tried to stop him, she was probably screaming and jumping around, hence the torn lip etc. I have never ever heard of such a story, and what makes it so haunting is that he came across like such a dedicated and loving husband and father.

How could he physically and emotionally do that knowing he brought them up from a tiny little baby and he was there to protect them. Also the bond they all made? How could that not mean anything, in fact so little he did the worse thing possible. I won't ever ever understand it.
 
Doobots said:
I don't understand why to have a new life with the gf he felt he had to murder everyone? From other real crime docs I've noticed guys like this seem to think annihilating your family is a better fresh start than a divorce.
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He said that when he talked about separating she said “You’ll never see your kids again.” Under those circumstances I can almost understand it if he lost it completely and killed her. I thought that she actually came across badly- very controlling, emasculating and quite smothering in the way that so much of their life seemed staged for social media.

What I will never understand is how he drove 45 mins away and murdered his daughters. He might have snapped and strangled his wife faced with the nasty threat to prevent him seeing his daughters, but he had 45 mins to consider his next move. Killing his girls was premeditated and absolutely blows my mind.

I know these topics can be heated, so please allow me a little licence for humour when I add that I did chuckle when, as my husband and I got half-way through the programme (the wife had just slagged off the husband for the Santa suit/mobile phone thing) and my husband quietly said “Jesus wept.....if you ever get like that I’d bloody strangle you.”
 
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Can we stop with the victim blaming please. Shan’ann said herself she was organised and bossy and acknowledged that Chris and she were totally different people. She also said on more than one occasion that he was her soulmate and helped her achieve all she had.

Remember we only have Chris’s word for the conversation which took place before he murdered Shanann ....and he is known to be a liar. An awake human would have struggled excessively if smothered....an asleep woman would likely have been unconscious before she could rouse and realise what was happening. The coroner/medical examiner said it was likely she was smothered....the only one withinjuries to show she’d fought back was Bella.
 
Can we just accept that no one here has said, or will say that shanann deserved to be killed. We’re all nice, normal people where you KNOW that no one thinks that.

we’re discussing the case. The case that has been posed as the normal American family next door. But they weren’t. They were unhappy, resentful, delusional. They built a lie based on the American dream. That’s What’s interesting, and that’s what’s being discussed
 
The truth is no one really knows what went on inside that house that night. Someone had an interesting theory that he may have killed Bella and Cece before Shannon got back. This would have been another explanation as to why she never fought back. If she’d known that the girls had passed then she would have wanted to go with them. I don’t believe a word he says though as he’s a proven liar.
 
He is a disgusting sicko! It’s unbelievable that he actually drove with the mums dead body in the truck! I read loads about it at the time but never saw that part. What also went through his mind when he climbed up then put his children in those oil drums thingys is just mad - I would love to know what he was thinking then it’s crazy to me but then I could never do that!
 
There are a lot of theories but no one knows except him what happened.... Shannans family believe he murdered the children b4 leaving the house. Neighbours cctv picked up him backing up his truck to the house .. no signs of kids struggling a very quiet low key loading . I imagine she came home checked the kids as she’d been away for 4 days .. then confronted Chris about the restaurant bill. I don’t believe it was a row that escalated .. experts say a mass killing like this is rarely spontaneous ... usually planned. Maybe kids witnessed so he killed them too? I think he killed shannan to start new life with GF but when I/v GF said they’d only been tog a month ... yes she enjoyed spending time w him but it was very early days ...yes Shannan videod a LOT but they had filed for bankruptcy ... she basically worked as an influencer .. her most recent product being a weight loss sticker.. she wore it on her arm . I think she was madly in love with Chris & you can see from her texts she had been deeply distressed for weeks about her marriage .. I think her family were everything to her. She was 4 months pregnant when she died but I think in the doc altho he tried to hide it Chris was very shocked about the pregnancy .. I think for him the marriage was already over. Yes she was a strong personality but what’s wrong with that .. she had a family who clearly adored her & a BF who clearly loved her too & looked out for her. It was thanks to her that the disappearance of shannan & kids was discovered so quickly. I think in addition to a fight about the restaurant bill she poss did say he’d never see the kids again under the stress of the moment it’s the kind of thing you could say. I’ve also read when a spouse murders partner and kids it’s a hate thing against the ptr .. ie if I can’t have them neither can you. I def think the fight woke the kids & they saw their mum dead ...@ ages 3&4 they’d have been able to tell a person with specialist training what they saw. I’m glad he didn’t get the death penalty ... he’s locked up 23 hours a day with no contact & nothing to think about except what he did. He’s “found God” ?? Give me a break !
 
Victim blaming is abhorrent. Shan’Ann didn’t deserve to be killed and wasn’t to blame. No-one is suggesting otherwise, not that I can see anyway.

Nonetheless, people also aren’t exempt from criticism because they were murdered 🤷‍♀️ It seemed to me that her behaviour certainly contributed to the breakdown of their marriage. No one was linking that to her murder, more that she wasn’t whiter-than-white in relation to why he wanted to separate in the first place. Many of us have a tendency to micro-manage partners, and be bossy, but jeez she took it to he next level imo.

The theory that he killed he girls in the same fit of temper as his wife (before he drove the 45 mins away), makes more sense to me, but I think that’s because my brain can’t cope with someone premeditating their daughters murder over the course of nearly an hour.
 
CMACJF said:
If anyone is interested (If that’s the correct word), here is the whole case file. Nearly 2000 pages!! Absolutely done me in but couldn’t not read it.

DocumentCloud

www.documentcloud.org www.documentcloud.org
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Scan reading a few bits but I can't fathom putting the girls in two different tanks. It's not like they'd find one and not check the other. Keeping them separated in death, and burying Shanann face down, he had no remorse or anything.

Also page 44, I'm reading it as that's the info the medium gave them, it's scarily accurate.
 
ItsEmmie said:
He is a disgusting sicko! It’s unbelievable that he actually drove with the mums dead body in the truck! I read loads about it at the time but never saw that part. What also went through his mind when he climbed up then put his children in those oil drums thingys is just mad - I would love to know what he was thinking then it’s crazy to me but then I could never do that!
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I was thinking today about the kids and why he decided to put them in the oil drum (this may sound weird, but to me it just seemed really disrespectful to do that to their bodies)

He said that he had originally smothered them in their beds with a pillow and thought that they were dead.

When he killed Shanann they woke up and saw what was happening, he then drove them to the burial site and smothered them again.

I now wonder if he put them in the oil tanks to make sure that they were dead.
 
Freedomofspeech89 said:
The truth is no one really knows what went on inside that house that night. Someone had an interesting theory that he may have killed Bella and Cece before Shannon got back. This would have been another explanation as to why she never fought back. If she’d known that the girls had passed then she would have wanted to go with them. I don’t believe a word he says though as he’s a proven liar.
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I have a gut feeling that's what did happen. He would have taken great joy in seeing Shannan breakdown at the sight of her babies gone. 😟
 
Looking at some of the footage in the documentary of him with Shannan and with the children, I feel there’s something really detached about him, like he’s just going through the motions. Even when he’s playing with the girls, it feels like he’s doing what he thinks he should do instead of what’s coming naturally. Sometimes I even get a sense h
e just doesn’t want to be there. I’m not sure if it’s just me seeing this obviously now knowing what he’s done, I just feel like maybe he’s always just kind of played at life and is emotionally just not there. Does anyone else see it or is it just me?
 
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