Is murder murder by any other name?
New book published November 12, 2022
This is a story of murder and money and power gone wrong.
In June of 2021, following two brutal homicides in a prominent family, the rest of the world learned what people in a small Southern town called Hampton had long known …
… Anything is possible if your last name is Murdaugh.
‘Murdaugh, She Wrote’ is a Southern gothic tale of one family and the people who served them. It’s an account, or better to say an accounting, of five murders that took place in a tiny area of the Lowcountry, South Carolina, and which left a long blood trail that led always back to one family.
There are patriarchs, and a mad young man, and victims aplenty. Some are dead, some are ruined for life, but them’s the breaks in the Kingdom of Murdaugh,
Come on down, there are tales to be told.
Buy the Kindle version - here
Buy the paperback version - here
In June of 2021, following two brutal homicides in a prominent family, the rest of the world learned what people in a small Southern town called Hampton had long known …
… Anything is possible if your last name is Murdaugh.
‘Murdaugh, She Wrote’ is a Southern gothic tale of one family and the people who served them. It’s an account, or better to say an accounting, of five murders that took place in a tiny area of the Lowcountry, South Carolina, and which left a long blood trail that led always back to one family.
There are patriarchs, and a mad young man, and victims aplenty. Some are dead, some are ruined for life, but them’s the breaks in the Kingdom of Murdaugh,
Come on down, there are tales to be told.
Buy the Kindle version - here
Buy the paperback version - here
In August of 2018, in a wealthy Denver suburb, a shocked and horrified nation learned that Christopher Lee Watts had murdered his pregnant wife, their two little girls and their unborn son.
But shock was soon replaced by puzzlement. Why?
And the surprising answer is that a standard Anadarko Petroleum employee policy led, unintentionally of course, to the murders.
By early 2018, the Watts family finances were beyond dire again after a recent shattering bankruptcy, then Chris Watts’ employer, Anardarko Petroleum, offered him a life insurance policy on the lives of his wife, Shan’ann, and his very young daughters, Bella and CeCe, for a total of $450,000.
Wouldn’t that get him out of a spot?
After that, Shan’ann’s days were numbered, preferably via a perceived oxycontin overdose.
Well, Chris Watts tried that twice and failed. Then he decided to go for the jackpot. Shan’ann would ‘murder’ the girls, and would then disappear. Nobody was going to find her body in the Cervi 19 oil storage tanks. He would collect on the girls immediately and then get the rest when Shan’ann was legally declared dead.
It was an excellent plan, to be carried out by a complete moron.
On the night of Sunday August 12, 2018, two things went catastrophically wrong, leaving Chris Watts to dispose of three bodies, not one, and facing a nail-biting time crunch.
Then a friend of Shan’ann’s called in the cops on the morning of Monday August 13, and it was game over.
But, for some, that’s when the party started.
Also featured in the book will be American lawyer superstar Anne Bremner, who, after thirty years in private practice, has never lost a case as lead counsel, and, as an international awarding-winning super lawyer, is a regular commentator on True Crime TV shows. Anne's role will be to point out how ol' Pennywise could potentially challenge his own confessions in an appeal to overthrow his plea deal, anticipating what Chris Watts' own lawyers will be arguing later in the year. That Chris Watts may still bound free is a sobering, but all-too-possible, thought.
Buy the Kindle version - here
Buy the paperback - here
But shock was soon replaced by puzzlement. Why?
And the surprising answer is that a standard Anadarko Petroleum employee policy led, unintentionally of course, to the murders.
By early 2018, the Watts family finances were beyond dire again after a recent shattering bankruptcy, then Chris Watts’ employer, Anardarko Petroleum, offered him a life insurance policy on the lives of his wife, Shan’ann, and his very young daughters, Bella and CeCe, for a total of $450,000.
Wouldn’t that get him out of a spot?
After that, Shan’ann’s days were numbered, preferably via a perceived oxycontin overdose.
Well, Chris Watts tried that twice and failed. Then he decided to go for the jackpot. Shan’ann would ‘murder’ the girls, and would then disappear. Nobody was going to find her body in the Cervi 19 oil storage tanks. He would collect on the girls immediately and then get the rest when Shan’ann was legally declared dead.
It was an excellent plan, to be carried out by a complete moron.
On the night of Sunday August 12, 2018, two things went catastrophically wrong, leaving Chris Watts to dispose of three bodies, not one, and facing a nail-biting time crunch.
Then a friend of Shan’ann’s called in the cops on the morning of Monday August 13, and it was game over.
But, for some, that’s when the party started.
Also featured in the book will be American lawyer superstar Anne Bremner, who, after thirty years in private practice, has never lost a case as lead counsel, and, as an international awarding-winning super lawyer, is a regular commentator on True Crime TV shows. Anne's role will be to point out how ol' Pennywise could potentially challenge his own confessions in an appeal to overthrow his plea deal, anticipating what Chris Watts' own lawyers will be arguing later in the year. That Chris Watts may still bound free is a sobering, but all-too-possible, thought.
Buy the Kindle version - here
Buy the paperback - here
Anne Bremner and Kathleen McKenna Hewtson
