How Chris Watts Got Rid of His Entire Family for a Fling
Script for Humble Mysteries, episode 7
Getting married and starting a family is one of the most common life goals for people. They exchange vows, they start their lives together, then have children. Still, not everyone gets to experience the happy ending of growing old together with their spouse, or seeing their children start their own families. A big percentage of families are nowadays broken by divorce, the rates of which are higher than ever before in history.
But even divorce will seem like a wonderful option when you hear the story of the family we’re discussing today. The family that seemingly had it all - a beautiful marriage between two loving individuals, two children and a third one on the way, a house, security that most people can only dream of…
How then, do we go from there, to 3 members of this family being gone? What kind of a mask hides all the imperfections that were festering under the surface of a shiny, happy family life?
And even though this case was solved, was there more to it than what we were told?
Please join me as we explore the murders of Shanann, Bella, CeCe and Nico Watts.
In the heart of Colorado, about 30 minutes away from Boulder in one direction and Denver in the other, is a small town named Frederick. A growing community that was built from the early 20th century families of miners who came to town to work and provide for their families, Frederick is a quaint little place, perfect for family life.
In 2013, a newly wed couple, Shanann and Chris, moved into their newly purchased house in Frederick and in December that same year, their first daughter, Bella Marie was born. In 2015, another baby girl blessed this family and they named her Celeste Cathryn, but affectionately called her CeCe.
Shanann and Chris both lived in North Carolina in 2010 when they met. Shanann said that she met Chris while going through a very difficult time in her life, having gone through a divorce, and being diagnosed with Lupus. Chris messaged her on Facebook, and from there their relationship blossomed. As I mentioned before, they married in 2012 in North Carolina, but chose to move to Colorado because the weather there was more beneficial to Shanann’s health struggles.
Once in Colorado, Chris started working for Anadarko Petroleum. His job was the kind of a job where he would work from the office, but would then also regularly visit oil sites. In 2015, the Watts family filed for bankruptcy. Shanann had a few successful jobs, but eventually opted to work for a multi level marketing company named Le-Vel, promoting and selling a line of products called Thrive. If you understand how MLM or multi level marketing works, you will know that the purpose of that job setup is to basically create a big downline, to sell products, but more importantly, to recruit new people into the company and get them to recruit more people and so on.
Obviously, that kind of a job requires you to be very good at promoting not only the product, but also the company, the opportunities it brings, the lifestyle and yourself as a mentor and an upline. For Shanann that meant loads of time spent on social media, and documenting almost every single aspect of her life on social media. She was mostly active on Facebook, where she shared a lot of their everyday life, how she incorporates Thrive products into her daily life, how the products are helping her health struggles and so on. Chris was also very heavily featured in her social media posts, whether it was trying new Thrive products with her, or again, just sharing snippets from their daily lives.
There is a lot of negativity connected to working for an MLM, and I am also not supportive of those kinds of businesses. I think they can be very exploitative, they can create very unhealthy environments and mindsets and ultimately lead to financial ruin. Because the majority of financial compensation doesn’t actually come from selling the product, but rather from recruiting, a lot of people find themselves with huge amounts of stock they cannot sell, and not enough people to recruit.
With all that said, I do not think badly of people who join MLMs, nor do I think they are doing anything wrong. The vast majority are just regular people trying to earn money for their families, and there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re working legally, and honestly, more often than not, they are actually working really, really hard. And I will never fault a mother working hard to bring home that extra income to afford herself or her family something nice, or to just cover some basic costs.
And that’s exactly who Shanann Watts was when it came to work. She worked hard, believed in the product she was promoting, was regularly seen using it herself, and ultimately actually reached some level of seniority within the company where they were able to help her finance a new car, she was going to conferences, trips, and so on.
And on the night of August 13th 2018, she was coming back home from one of those company trips. She and her friend Nickole Atkinson, who also promoted Thrive, attended a conference in Phoenix, Arizona. After flying in, Shanann was captured by the family’s Ring doorbell camera entering the home at 1:48am. She can be seen carrying a small suitcase, and in the background, Nickole Atkinson’s car can be observed pulling out of the driveway onto the street.
The next day, at 1:37pm, almost 12 hours since Shanann was last spotted on camera, Nickole Atkinson made a call to 911 emergency service. She said that she was concerned about Shanann, explained that she was 15 weeks pregnant, and that she hadn’t been able to reach her ever since she dropped her off at home the previous night. She said that Shanann was scheduled for an OB-GYN appointment that morning, which she missed. She claimed she called Shanann’s husband Chris who informed her that Shanann was at a playdate with their two daughters. However, Nickole was at their house and noticed that Shanann’s car was home, and her daughters’ car seats were in the car. She claimed she called Chris to ask him to come home and check on his wife to which he replied he’d be there in 3 minutes. Nickole, however, waited for over 45 minutes, and he didn’t show up, so she called him again, and this time he said he was 45 minutes away.
In the call, Nickole also said that just a week ago, Shanann was blindsided by her husband who told her he wants to separate. The dispatcher then ended the call by sending an officer over to the Watts’ residence to conduct a welfare check on Shanann.
The officer arrived shortly and found Nickole patiently waiting at the door. He asked her about what was happening and why this behavior was unusual for Shanann. He knocked on the doors multiple times, went around the house and peered in the windows. Nickole had a safety code for the front door, which she entered, and the door opened, but the safety latch was attached from the inside. At one point the officer called Chris and asked him to give him the code for the garage, to which Chris said that the code won’t work from the outside. Finally, after waiting for a while, Chris arrived home and entered through the garage. He went through the house, then opened the door and let the officer and Nickole in.
Once inside, it became clear very quickly that Shanann and the girls were not there. The officer started walking around the house looking for any signs of them. The house was in pristine order, everything was clean, tidy, and super organized. Nickole, who was in the house with Chris and the officer, then spotted Shanann’s purse on the kitchen counter. She immediately pointed it out to the officer and said it was extremely unusual that she would leave without taking her purse. The purse contained her wallet, her keys, but more importantly, medication that Shanann was taking, and an epipen for her younger daughter CeCe who had a severe nut allergy.
And can I just commend Nickole for being an absolute peak friend anyone could ever have? How many of us can say we have friends who know what medication we take and know whether or not we carry them in our purses?
Yes, they just went on a trip together, so it was easy for Nickole to notice those things, but what a brilliant observation from her to notice that not one, but two life saving medications were left right there on the counter. That in itself is incredibly valuable information to the police because it paints a picture of this disappearance. Shanann would not leave medication behind, especially not an epipen for her daughter, if she planned on going wherever she was going.
So while this all was going on in the Watts family home, Chris was looking like he was giving the officer a tour of his house. Even though Nickole, Shanann’s friend, was obviously deeply worried, Chris seemed casual about not knowing where his wife was. He kept saying that she just told him she was taking the girls to a friend, as if that somehow explained and justified not only why she left her purse, wallet and keys behind, but how she even got there if the car with the car seats was at home. He also didn’t know which friend she was going to, and I’m sure that stuck out to Nickole as she was a part of Shanann’s friend group and knew her other friends. His original version of the story is that they had an emotional conversation about separating that morning at 5am when he woke up to go to work. He said it wasn’t an argument.
He started giving some weird ideas about where they could be, and one of these ideas was the communal swimming pool. It was clear that Chris was acting very nonchalant about the situation and had no awareness of how out of character it was for his wife to just disappear. At one point he even asked the officer if he should be looking for his wife and kids. Umm, yes? That would probably be a good place to start, Chris.
The reason we know how he acted is the body cam footage from the officer in the house. The family obviously had a Ring camera. And it was so odd to me that Chris never offered or thought to check the footage on that camera to see when Shanann left, and in what state. To see if someone came to the door, anything. I mean surely, that’s why you have that footage, so why not check it.
The house obviously had a back door, and a garage, and to my knowledge none of these points of entry were covered by any cameras belonging to the Watts family, but still, the number one thing I would be doing is looking at what I DO have.
In any case, at some point while Nickole and the police were still in the house, Chris found Shanann’s phone tucked between the cushions of the sofa. A few minutes later, he entered the bedroom, and walked out holding Shanann’s wedding ring as if it was some kind of a trophy. He announced that she left her ring on her bedside table. He also remarked on the fact that the girls’ blankies were gone.
The officer later said that the house appeared to be immaculate, there were no signs of struggle, and nothing that stood out. The family had a dog who was in the house, unharmed. The only thing that didn’t entirely fit this image of a perfectly pristine home was the fact that the bed in the master bedroom was stripped. On the body cam footage it can be seen that there are no bedsheets on the bed, only a mattress.
Now, as is usually the case, the police started contacting the neighbors asking if they have security cameras. The neighbor in the house right next to the Watts family home said that his front porch camera had a partial view of the Watts residence as well. The officer and Chris Watts then made their way to the neighbor’s house who showed them the security camera footage. The camera view was partially obscured by a big bush, but the Watts driveway could be seen. At 1:48am the camera captured Shanann coming back home. At 5:27am Chris can be seen exiting the house, then backing up his truck all the way to the entrance of the garage. He can be observed entering the house and getting back to the truck multiple times, seemingly loading some stuff into the truck. At 5:45am he left.
Chris was behaving exceptionally odd during this footage viewing session. He barely looked at the TV at all, spent most of his time facing away and scrolling on his phone. Again, his reactions were caught on the officer’s bodycam, and I remember watching this and my jaw was on the floor. This was supposedly a husband and a father whose entire family was missing, and he couldn’t be bothered to look at the footage that could potentially give them some answers. If I was in the same situation you better believe I’d be watching that TV like a hawk trying to get a glimpse of what happened. And, as you most likely gathered by now, no other vehicles came to the Watts house that day until Nickole Atkinson showed up to check on her friend.
Once they were done checking the footage, Chris shot out of his neighbor’s house, but the police officer lingered a bit, and the neighbor took the opportunity to remark that Chris wasn’t acting right and that something was off. The officer kind of brushed it off, but I am certain that red flags were waving and alarms were going off for him at that point as well.
Chris explained his multiple trips to the truck by saying he was loading up his gear. Which is all fine and dandy, but both his neighbor, and Nickole confirmed that that wasn’t his usual routine.
At this point, everyone understood that what started as a simple welfare check turned into a missing persons case and a full blown criminal investigation.
The next day, the police started canvassing the neighborhood, knocking on doors, asking for security footage, and so on.
Obviously, this is also the point in every missing persons investigation where all eyes are turned towards people closest to the missing person, and in this case that was Chris. Every single investigation has to start from the inside out, and that was the case here as well. The Watts family residence was forensically processed, but no signs of struggle were observed, it didn’t appear that any major cleanups happened recently, and after the forensic team had done their job, the cadaver dogs were brought in.
Chris was approached by several TV stations who wanted to do interviews with him, and he agreed. The police were also open to him doing these interviews, mostly because they were interested in observing his behavior and display of emotions, but also to appease him a little bit and make him feel like they’re on his side.
Chris was interviewed on the front porch of his house while dog handlers and dogs were working in the house. It is incredible to watch these interviews now with the knowledge we have, because every time a dog would bark, it seemed like Chris would get a mini panic attack.
And what is likely the weirdest in all of that, in one of these interviews, Chris claimed that he and Shanann had an emotional conversation the night before she disappeared. Things are not looking well for your public image at this point, man.
One of the investigators later said in a TV special how weird he thought it was to talk about that on the news. Basically, what they expected to see was super emotional Chris pleading with the public to help him find his wife and kids, but instead he came across as emotionless, cold, and even smiled and chuckled a few times.
And I will again say, all of us have different reactions to shock, grief… We all process it differently. But what was very apparent with Chris was that his concern seemed fake. He seemed very eager to show the detectives that he was cooperating, but there were no initiatives that came from him, he wasn’t giving them any tips or coming up with ideas on where to look for his family. I think all of us would be a wreck if our loved ones were missing, and even if we tried to mask it for the public appearance such as an interview, the detectives would still be able to see that vulnerability simply because of how much time they tend to spend with the family in the first days following a disappearance. And that never materialized with Chris. One of the agents said that he was very calm and internally inconsistent, and that’s what raised major red flags for them.
Because Frederick police force was relatively small for a criminal case of this size, Special Agent Coder who is an FBI agent, and Special Agent Lee who is a CBI agent joined the investigation. A decision was made to bring Chris in for questioning and it was decided that Special Agent Coder would be leading the interview.
To this day, I keep hearing that the interrogation of Chris Watts was done exceptionally well, and we can point out a few very interesting tactics employed by the agents. First, he was told he wasn’t a suspect. It is important to remember that in the US, the police may lie to you in an interview to try and get information out of you.
Now, they still haven’t uncovered everything at that point, but for starters, they had Shanann’s phone and through her phone they had access to text messages between Chris and her, and all of the messages she exchanged with her friends.
Now, before we continue talking about this interrogation, let’s go back to the months of June and July of 2018.
On June 11th 2018, Shanann told Chris she was pregnant with their third child. She filmed his reaction, and he seemed excited about it. He even said: “I guess when you want to, it happens.”
Mere three days later, on June 14th, Chris entered a new contact into his phone - Nichol Kessinger. Remember, this is not Shanann’s friend Nickole, her last name is Atkinson, and their names have different spellings.
On June 17th it was Father’s Day, and while Shanann was posting loving tributes to Chris all over her social media, he told Nichol Kessinger that he is married and has kids, but is in the process of separating from his wife. That was a lie.
The post Shanann wrote on her Facebook for Chris said: “Chris, we are so incredibly blessed to have you! You do so much everyday for us and take such great care of us. You are the reason I was brave enough to agree to number 3!”
On June 27th, Shannan and the girls traveled to North Carolina to spend 6 weeks with their family, both Shanann’s extended family, and also Chris’ family. The plan was that Chris would join them on week 6 and they would spend that final week together before flying back home to Colorado.
During that visit, Shanann had a huge argument with Chris’ mom which proved to be detrimental to their relationship. According to the text messages she was sending her friends during that time, she left her daughters with Chris’ parents and when she came back she noticed that his mom was offering the girls ice cream containing traces of nuts which CeCe was allergic to. Shanann obviously reacted like probably any mother would, especially since Chris’ mom knew about CeCe’s allergy. During their stay in North Carolina, the family had a birthday party for CeCe, and Chris’ family chose not to attend because of the argument between Shanann and Chris’ mom. This was not the first time they didn’t attend an important family event, as they also did not attend Chris and Shanann’s wedding. Chris himself said in an interview that his family, especially his mom, never liked or trusted Shanann. His mom felt that Shanann took him away from her by moving to Colorado, and that was apparently, an unforgivable offense.
While Shanann was in North Carolina with her kids, Chris and Nichol were going through that blissful new relationship phase. On July 4th, Nichol Kessinger visited the Watts family home for the first time. According to her, this visit was to set up Chris’ diet, weight loss and exercise goals. Because, you know, you can’t do that anywhere else, it has to be at home. According to Chris, however, he started his day on July 4th by waking up in Nichol’s bed to several missed phone calls from his wife.
From July 10th onward, Chris and Nichol started speaking on the phone regularly.
On July 14th they visited a car museum in Boulder, and Shanann made 4 calls to her husband, and if you wanna guess how many of those he answered, let me tell you the answer. It’s zero.
On July 18th, Nichole sent Chris her first nude, and he slyly saved it to a secret app on his phone that looked like a calculator. Cheaters will come up with solutions for everything, man.
On July 28th our lovebirds visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park and spent the night at the campground.
On July 30th, the day before he was supposed to fly out to rejoin his family in NC, Chris gave Nichol a love letter. I wish I could describe the levels of cringe of that letter, but if you want to see it, go look at my substack, it’ll be there. But let me just read you some lines. The front of this letter says: “A kiss, a touch, a smile, a squeeze. A look, a laugh, a tickle, a tease.” And inside, Chris wrote lyrics to the song “Down to Earth” and signed it “Love, Chris”.
In any case, when Chris joined the family in North Carolina, Shanann realized just how big the rift between them had become. In text messages she wrote to her friends she said: “He has changed. I don’t know who he is” and “He hasn't touched me all week, kissed me, talked to me except for when I'm trying to figure out what is wrong” She also confided in one of her girlfriends that Chris told her he didn’t want another baby. She mentioned that he refused to go to counseling, and work on their marriage. One of her friends even suggested that there must be another woman.
Chris and Shanann argued over a lot of things during their joint portion of the vacation in NC, including Chris’ failure to stand up for her with his family.
And if you think Nichol Kessinger was bored while Chris was away with his family, you’d be wrong. On August 4th, she spent 2 hours straight looking at and searching for wedding dresses online.
After returning to Colorado, on August 9th, Chris accompanied Shanann to her ultrasound appointment to find out the gender of the baby. She described the experience to one of her friends as cold, and said she grabbed his hand during the ultrasound, but he didn’t grab back. Shanann then canceled the gender reveal party she planned, and instead asked her friend Nickole to just come over and tell her the gender of the baby. She confided in a friend that Chris told her they were not compatible anymore and that she can’t understand what changed in 6 weeks. Chris got himself a girlfriend, that’s what changed.
Later that same day, on August 9th, Shanann traveled to Arizona for a Le-Vel conference. While she was there, Chris took the opportunity on August 11th to take his mistress, Nichol, out on a date. He hired a babysitter for Bella and CeCe and told Shanann he is going to a game with his friends. His friends being Nichol Kessinger, and the game being “The Lazy Dog” sports bar.
But this time he kind of slipped up, and used the credit card which Shanann was receiving alerts for on her phone.
She noticed a charge on their credit card for a meal at The Lazy Dog. The amount seemed weird, and she and her friends googled the menu and realized that the amount was more than one person would pay for any given item on the menu. From there on, Shanann most likely strongly suspected that Chris was having an affair.
Let’s go back to Chris Watts’ interview with Special Agent Coder. His timeline of events started on August 13th around 2am when he felt Shanann get into bed. He said his alarm went off at 4am, and that’s when they started talking about selling the house and proceeding with the separation. He said both of them were crying and she said she would take the kids to her friend’s house. Agents remarked in the TV special that Chris seemed to have taken some responsibility by admitting to the heavy nature of their conversation, but he just seemed dishonest.
In an attempt to elicit some emotions in Chris, Special Agent Coder, handed him a photo of his family. Chris took the photo and said that CeCe loved those shoes, and Bella loved that dress. It didn’t go unnoticed by the detectives that he used a past tense when referring to his daughters. This wasn’t consistent with the role of a concerned father he was playing at the time, and the detectives thought it was odd that anyone who had hopes of finding their family alive would refer to them in past tense.
And just as an aside, this generally seems like such a good indicator of deception, I keep hearing about this in cases when someone is concealing someone’s murder by pretending the person is missing. Once they start slipping up and referring to them in past tense, you kind of know where the case is going. I have also heard of unsolved cases of missing persons whose family members DO NOT refer to them in past tense even after decades of them not being found. Just goes to show.
Chris is then asked about infidelity and he emphatically states that he never cheated on his wife and that he believes she never cheated on him either. He tells Special Agent Coder that he thinks if either of them were thinking about having an affair, they would tell each other. The detective tells him that’s ridiculous and asks him: “What’s her name?”
When asked about the reason for their separation, Chris said he is falling out of love and couldn’t be himself around Shanann anymore. Yeah, because his new self is in love with a different woman, duh.
The detective on the case remarked that Chris was not urging them to go find his family, that he wasn’t asking about them or giving them any tips or useful pieces of information. He seemed utterly uninterested in the investigation.
Towards the end of the day, the investigators knew they needed to put Chris on a polygraph, but it was already late and they were worried how that might affect the results so they told him to be back the next day at 11am.
That night, as Chris slept at his friends’ house just across the hall from small children, the detectives started combing through Chris’ phone and computers. Obviously, what they found is that Chris was in fact having a very prolific affair, and that raised major, major red flags for the investigators. One of them said that now that they knew he was deceitful and lying about having an affair, they were worried what else he might be lying about.
The next morning, Chris showed up to his interrogation and polygraph examination with his dad.
Now, polygraph records generally, as far as I know, are usually not used as evidence in court, but they are used during the investigation to help steer the investigation in the right direction. Detectives scan for deceit in people involved with the case, and that gives them an idea of who might be hiding something, or bending the truth, and so on. And I believe that’s why the detectives opted to use the polygraph in this case as well, since they already suspected deceit on Chris’ end.
Chris was again asked if he was having an affair, and he denied. The interview preceding the polygraph lasted 3 hours, and it was decided that Special Agent Tammy Lee, who was with the CBI, will conduct the polygraph examination. She took her time giving directions to Chris and telling him how stupid someone would have to be to agree to a polygraph if they had something to hide. She then hit him with the coolest line ever: “Right now, there’s only one person in this room who knows what the truth is, but in about 2 minutes, there’s gonna be two of us.”
I don’t understand these polygraph charts, nor do I have any knowledge on what exactly the polygraph reads and how it interprets it, but Special Agent Lee said in a TV special that on the relevant scale, a truth teller would score 2 or higher, and someone who would score negative 4 and lower would be considered deceitful. She then said that Chris’ score was negative 18.
He failed every question, and that granted him the title of the main suspect.
The agents then started interviewing Chris again, and this time they were done playing nice. At the same time, after reviewing the records of the GPS in his work truck, they were using drones to visually inspect the area of an oil field where Chris went for work on the morning of Shanann’s disappearance. There, they observed an area of disturbed dirt which usually points to a fresh grave. A short distance away, they also observed a white sheet.
Putting the puzzle pieces together, and having the advantage of this knowledge, the detectives faced Chris with the reality of his own deception, and started to really drill into him with questions.
He chose to admit to something, to give an explanation on why he failed the polygraph, and he said he was having an affair. With all their other tactics not working so far, the detectives decided to do some victim blaming, and Agent Lee asked Chris “Did Shanann do something to them?”
At this point, the detectives’ main concern was locating the bodies, and they needed a confession from Chris. This seed that Agent Lee put in Chris’ ear proved to be good, because Chris asked to speak to his father, and when they let his father into the interrogation room, he took the same prompt Agent Lee offered him on a silver platter just minutes earlier, and told his father that he saw Shanann choking the girls on the baby monitor, and then he choked her out of rage.
Chris, proving that he lost any shred of dignity he had left, shifted the blame from himself onto a person who couldn’t defend herself anymore. The agents then wanted him to say where he put the bodies and Chris told them that all three of them were at the work site he went to on the morning of August 13th. The agent then showed him a photo of the site, and he pointed at the area of disturbed dirt and said that’s where Shanann was. When asked where the girls were, he pointed at the two huge oil tanks. Agents, heartbroken, asked him what was in the tanks and he said it was a mixture of crude oil and water.
Despite the agents’ efforts to get him to confess to the entire truth, asking him if he was ok with Shanann having a reputation of a killer, Chris did not want to confess to murdering his children.
Chris was then arrested and booked into jail.
Shanann’s body was exhumed from a shallow grave around 11pm on August 15th. She was found curled up, as if she was just thrown in, discarded like trash and then covered with dirt. The oil tanks needed to be drained, which couldn’t be done in the night. The detectives also weren’t entirely sure if Chris told them the truth about where the girls’ bodies were, because they obviously couldn’t see them when they opened the inlet shafts on top of the tanks. The shafts were only 20cm or around 8’’ in diameter which also made them suspicious about how a child’s body would fit through them. However, they found a tuft of hair on the edge of one of the shafts and knew that the next morning, a difficult discovery was waiting for them in those tanks.
The next morning, in the first tank they drained they found the body of CeCe Watts who was still wearing her jammies and a diaper. In the second tank they found the body of her sister, Bella Watts.
Agents who recovered the bodies said that they can usually detach themselves from the cases they work, but that the images of the little girls’ bodies covered in crude oil will just never leave their minds.
The autopsies were performed that same day. All three bodies were already decomposed. Shanann’s body had visible bruising on her neck, and an amniotic sack was protruding from her vaginal area. Because of decomposition and the gasses in the body, the fetus in the amniotic sack was pushed out of her body. The tiny body of baby Nico was recovered and later buried with his mother’s body. It was concluded that Shanann’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to manual strangulation.
The bodies of CeCe and Bella were also in high stages of decomposition, with a lot of skin slippage. The cause of death for both girls was determined to be asphyxiation due to manual smothering. The most heartbreaking injuries were observed on Bella’s body, who had a lot of injuries to her tongue and mouth which led the detectives to conclude that she was fighting back and fighting for her life. She also had scrapes on her buttocks and tops of her shoulders, from being shoved through the inlet shaft.
And if you remember, Chris said he saw Shanann choking the girls, but the autopsy proved that they were smothered, so it’s easy to conclude that he, once again, lied.
Shanann and her children were laid to rest on September 1st in North Carolina.
Chris Watts was charged with 9 counts, including unlawful termination of pregnancy for his unborn son, Nico.
On August 15th, Nichol Kessinger called a tip line to report that she was Chris’ mistress. And if that sounds like a very cool, honest gesture, think twice because she only did so after she was tipped off that a regional manager at the company she and Chris worked for, informed the police about their affair which they uncovered from their emails.
The first interview with Nichol Kessinger was held on August 16th, and after a few more interviews, it was concluded by the detectives that she had nothing to do with the murders. That might be so, and I obviously cannot claim otherwise. But there is a lot of noise about her in online spaces. And what I can say without qualifying, is that Nichol, just like Chris, was deceitful.
And honestly, guys, there are podcast episodes, and YouTube videos that are over an hour long just going over inconsistencies in the story she told the detectives and information in the official case files. The amount of lies this woman was able to tell and not get investigated is incredible. It is also worth mentioning that her father was present for her second interview, and he seemed to have quite a bit of authority over the detective leading the interview, which was a really strange dynamic to observe. We don’t know what kind of influence her father had over the police and their investigation, but something felt off. Why he was even allowed to be with her during that interview is a mystery, and definitely not a standard practice, but he also almost acted as her lawyer, directing detectives on not asking her leading questions and reformulating her answers.
Let’s at least touch on some inconsistencies in Nichol’s story. Well, first there’s the story she told the detectives of not knowing that Chris was married and had children until he told her. It was proven in the discovery that she had searched both Chris and Shanann on facebook months before officially meeting Chris and multiple times in more recent months. Shanann had a very public profile, so Nichol would have known they were married and had children. And not only that, she would have known Shanann was pregnant, too. She claimed their relationship was, to her, just casual. Interesting, because I definitely wasn’t spending 2 hours searching for wedding dresses when I was just casually dating my husband. Nichole also googled terms like “man I’m having affair with says he will leave his wife” and “marrying your mistress”.
It was also discovered that Chris tried to induce a miscarriage in Shanann by giving her Oxycontin, but the detectives were never able to establish how he got it. He said that how he got it is a secret he will take to his grave. A lot of people are speculating that there is actually a connection between him obtaining Oxycontin and Nichol Kessinger. And finally, let’s not forget the fact that Nichol does not have an alibi for the time of the murders, and that she not only deleted messages and photos off her phone, but tried to also physically destroy a SIM card after googling if cops would be able to see her deleted messages. This, again, has not been proven in any court of law, but it is publicly accessible in the discovery file I will share on my substack. I will also include a video on all of her inconsistencies, as well as her possible involvement in the crime itself. It is not surprising that so many people are asking for this investigation to be reopened.
In any case, guys, like I said, Nichol Kessinger was completely cleared, and that’s the fact of the matter. If there was an investigation into her involvement, we will never really know about it because on November 6th 2018, Chris Watts pleaded guilty on all charges. Obviously, that stopped the investigation because the case was not going to trial. After consulting with Shanann’s family, the prosecution granted Chris his wish not to receive a death penalty if he pleaded guilty. Shanann’s family said they didn’t want any more deaths, and were alright with Chris serving a life sentence instead.
On November 19, he was sentenced to five life sentences - three consecutive and two concurrent - without the possibility of parole. He received additional 84 years on top of that.
And boy, do I love to see these life sentences all stacked on top of each other like dominos, after all these meager sentences we keep seeing in Croatian cases. The American system is truly remarkable. Not only did he receive multiple life sentences, but he cannot even serve them all in his lifetime. If he was born again, he would, theoretically, go straight to prison for another lifetime. Amazing stuff.
And now, while all of this seemed over and done, the detectives and the family of Shanann Watts, still wanted to know the entire story and give everyone some much needed closure.
On February 19th 2019, Special Agents Lee and Coder, who masterfully interrogated Chris back in August 2018, flew to Wisconsin where Chris is serving his sentence at Dodge Correctional Institution. Their objective was to finally get Chris to tell them the whole story, and he did.
Obviously, with the case being closed, Chris wouldn’t get into more trouble by unveiling more information, but it would mean a lot to Shanann’s family.
He said that on the night of August 13th, when Shanann arrived home, they were intimate, but then he broke the news to her and told her he didn’t love her anymore. I mean, this is just sane stuff guys. Why wouldn’t you make love to your wife and then immediately after tell her you don’t love her?
He then straddled her on the bed. He was essentially sitting on top of her and that’s how he chose to have that conversation with her. She was struggling and trying to get him off her, because she was worried he would hurt the baby. He said this went on for about 20 minutes and then she told him he would never see the kids again. At that point he started strangling her.
Once Shanann was dead and face down on the bed, Bella walked in and asked if mommy was ok. He told her mommy was sleeping. He then wrapped Shanann’s body in a sheet, dragged her down the stairs, and Bella was following him the entire time. He loaded the body in the truck, put the girls onto the back seat, loaded his lunchbox (can’t forget his nutrition plan that Nichol helped him come up with) and started driving to the oil field that was about 45 minutes away.
He said the girls sat in the back while their dead mother’s body was on the floor under their feet. They kept asking if mommy was ok, but he, being the thoughtful father he is, covered her head and legs with plastic bags, so that the girls wouldn’t have to look at her.
He said he took Shanann’s body out of the truck, then put the blanket over CeCe’s head and put his hand over her nose and mouth and smothered her. He took her body to the tank and shoved his own daughter into the pool of crude oil. He then returned and said that Bella asked him “What happened to CeCe? Is the same thing going to happen to me as CeCe?” He says he doesn’t know if he responded or not, but he proceeded to do the same to her as he did to CeCe, and he said that the last thing Bella was able to do was fight back, kick, and scream: “Daddy, no!”
He said he hears those words all night, every night. I hope he never stops hearing them, I hope he keeps hearing them for 24 hours a day until he takes his last breath.
After disposing of Bella’s body, which barely fit through that inlet shaft, he buried Shanann in a shallow grave and he was finally a free man. The burden of his three family members, and that little one on the way was finally gone, and the glitzy future of sunshine and rainbows with his new lover, Nichol, awaited.
What Chris failed to account for was Shanann’s support network. Her friends who he probably never even noticed, or cared about. Who knew her better than Chris. And who obviously cared about her more than he did. I am certain that Chris never anticipated Nickole Atkinson calling in a welfare check that same day. I am certain he had no idea how many people saw through his facade.
The agents all agree that the final version is darker and more horrible than anyone could have imagined, and while it offered some closure, it never answered the question “WHY?”
Why not just divorce? Why not run away with Nichole? Why not tell Shanann about the affair? So many things he could have done differently. And then why kill the children? He drove for 45 minutes. He had plenty of time to decide to spare his daughters’ lives.
I read somewhere a comment that said “He didn't value them so he didn't realize how other people did. He thought they could just disappear and no one would care because he did not care.”
And I think that sums it up perfectly. When he got a taste of freedom and that thrill of a new, fresh relationship, his wife and children became disposable to him. They were a burden, an obstacle. This man is nothing short of evil.
And I am aware of the debates going on about Shanann’s character and the dynamic of their relationship. I know that people say she was a control freak and he was submissive to her, he didn’t have a say about anything, and his only job was to earn them money. I know people think Shanann was stupid for working for an MLM, and that she was antagonistic in the relationship with his parents. All of that may well and fully be completely true. And I am not pretending that any of the victims we talk about are saints. They are all people with their own faults and shortcomings, just like all of us.
But, I’m sorry, since when does being a controlling wife warrant a murder? Are we saying that we should be able to just kill our spouse if they’re not contributing financially to the household? Are we now justifying a guy murdering his entire family because he didn’t feel seen and heard in his marriage? What on earth are we talking about? There is absolutely nothing about this situation that would justify what Chris Watts did to his wife and children. Absolutely nothing.
I am not even a proponent of divorce, but my goodness, if you’re choosing between murdering your entire family or divorcing your wife, please choose divorce.
I know I didn’t do this case justice in terms of how much of it I presented. We have barely scratched the surface here. There is so much more to be said, like I mentioned, just about Nichol Kessinger. This case is what got me into true crime, and it still has a hold on my mind 6 years later.
I keep asking myself how life goes on after something like this. I keep imagining Shanann’s family having to come to terms with losing not only their daughter, but also their two granddaughters. I keep thinking about who was tasked with cleaning up the house, removing everyone’s belongings. The house that still looked and smelled like life was being lived there, day after day. Children’s toys telling a story of the last game ever played. Shanann’s suitcase still packed from the trip she came back from. Lawn mowed, floors mopped, meals prepared for the week ahead. And then no one came back. No one came back.
A lot of things can hide in the darkest, most depraved parts of our souls. A lot of masks for every occasion. The mask of a perfect father, loving mother. The mask of an involved caretaker. Humans can hide a lot of evil, but once it starts coming out, it usually boils over like an unattended pot of milk on the stove. And it ruins everything, including itself.
May this case at least be a lesson in how a mother should love her children. Let it be a masterclass in friendship, presented by Nickole Atkinson. Without her intervention, this case could have ended a lot worse. And in the end, let it also be a memory of Shannan, Bella, CeCe and baby Nico. I pray that they have found their peace in eternity.
SOURCES:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5219206-Christopher-Watts-REDACTED-FINAL