The Chris Watts case was one of the grimmest in recent memory. In an attempt to make a new life with his mistress, Chris Watts killed his pregnant wife, Shanann, and two young daughters, Bella and Celeste. Watts would receive three consecutive life sentences, plus 48 years for wrongful termination of a pregnancy, plus another 12 for tampering with the bodies of his murdered family. The story has been told on the news, and in the 2020 Netflix true crime documentary "American Murder: The Family Next Door". However, certain details remain to be told. Here are bizarre things about the Chris Watts case.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00Chris Watts infamously pleaded guilty to murdering his pregnant wife and their two young daughters
00:05in August 2018.
00:07Since then, the story has garnered international attention.
00:10These are the most bizarre things about the chilling case.
00:14While to the outside world, Chris and Shanann Watts appeared to have a perfect marriage,
00:19their relationship suddenly changed in the weeks leading up to the murders, and Shanann
00:23had grown suspicious of her husband.
00:25According to documents released by the Weld County District Attorney's Office, on August
00:297th, 2018, Shanann texted one of her friends,
00:33"[Chris told me last night he's scared to death about this third baby and he's happy
00:37with just Bella and Celeste and doesn't want another baby.
00:40He has changed.
00:41I don't know who he is."
00:42It would seem that Chris' behavior toward Shanann became noticeably different, as she
00:46also told her friend via text,
00:48"...I told him last night I don't feel safe with him after what he said about the baby."
00:52Tragically, less than a week later, Shanann's sense was absolutely correct.
00:57Chris did the unthinkable to his family, and attempted to cover up the crime by disposing
01:01of the bodies at a remote oil field location owned by his employer.
01:06During an interview on 2020, Shanann's mother said that she was aware of the change in her
01:10son-in-law.
01:11Per ABC News, her daughter had told her that the transformation happened over the course
01:15of a few weeks, maybe a month.
01:17Prior to this personality change, Chris was reportedly a model husband, as Shanann's mom
01:22revealed,
01:23"...Chris' hand voice never cursed at her."
01:27Sadly, no one could know that Chris' transformation would turn deadly.
01:32While Googling romance advice isn't necessarily bizarre, the fact that Chris Watts was searching
01:37for dating tips while married to Shanann Watts is troubling.
01:40While Chris reportedly met Nicole Kessinger, the co-worker he would begin an affair with,
01:45in June 2018, the romance seemed to have escalated quickly by the following month.
01:50According to People, prosecutors in the case revealed that on July 25th, Chris had Googled,
01:55"...when to say I love you for the first time in a new relationship."
01:58Chris Googled this phrase less than three weeks before he murdered his wife, two daughters,
02:03and unborn son.
02:04Obviously, with a Google search like this, it appears that the married man was moving
02:08quickly with Kessinger, and was ready to take their relationship to the next level.
02:13As noted by People,
02:14Prosecutors have cited Watts' desire for a fresh start with his mistress, co-worker
02:19Nicole Kessinger, 30, as his motive in the killings.
02:22While Chris Watts and his mistress, Nicole Kessinger, reportedly met in June 2018 at
02:27work, it wasn't long before Kessinger was also turning to Google for romance advice.
02:32In her only interview following Chris' arrest, Kessinger told the Denver Post,
02:36"...we had just met.
02:37I barely knew him."
02:38However, court documents told a different story.
02:41As People reported, Kessinger spent over two hours searching Google for wedding dresses
02:45just nine days before Chris killed his wife and two daughters.
02:49Of course, searching for wedding dresses isn't a crime by any means, but Kessinger's search
02:53history suggested that she was incredibly serious about her relationship with Chris,
02:58and was already thinking about a future with the man she'd allegedly only been dating for
03:02approximately six weeks.
03:04It's also alleged that Kessinger believed that Chris was single when they started dating.
03:08As reported by the Denver Post,
03:10"...Watts said he was separated and at the end of divorce proceedings," Kessinger said.
03:14However, Kessinger's search history told a slightly different story.
03:18Per People,
03:19"...on July 24th, Kessinger Google-searched the phrase, man I'm having affair with, says
03:23he will leave his wife."
03:24Her search suggested that she may have known that Chris was yet to split from Shanann,
03:28and was hoping that he would leave his spouse to be with her.
03:32In the digital age, it's difficult to conceal information, but Chris Watts found an unusual
03:37way to store content he received from his mistress, Nicole Kessinger.
03:41Per the discovery documents released by the Weld County District Attorney's Office, Watts
03:45had a secret calculator application uploaded to his personal phone.
03:49This application, by all appearances, is an operable calculator.
03:53When the user enters a secret passcode, the application reveals its true purpose, a concealed
03:57storage device for photographs, videos, contacts, even a private browser.
04:03Investigators discovered a plethora of hidden photos and messages in the app on Chris' phone,
04:08and they noted in the discovery documents,
04:10I'm certain Watts communicated far more with Kessinger than is reflected in his phone data,
04:14perhaps facilitated through the secret calculator application.
04:18It became apparent he was receiving assorted images of Kessinger, which he then stashed
04:22in that application to prevent Shanann from ever seeing them.
04:26Basically, it would appear that Chris was living a double life before he murdered his
04:30wife and children.
04:32When Shanann Watts was killed on August 13th, 2018, she'd just returned from a business
04:36trip in the early hours of the morning.
04:39Chris Watts had spent the weekend with their daughters, Celeste and Bella, and according
04:42to him, they'd had a rather normal time together at home.
04:46According to documents released by the Weld County District Attorney's Office, on Sunday,
04:50August 12th, 2018, he took his girls to a birthday party.
04:53There was a mini pool at the birthday party and his girls had an epic time.
04:57They drove back home after the party and he gave his girls a shower and put them to bed.
05:01Chris also revealed to investigators that earlier in the morning, after watching some
05:05television, he took the girls to Target to shop for a birthday gift, and when they got
05:09home from running the errand, they ate leftover pizza for lunch.
05:13By all accounts, Chris had spent a pretty regular weekend with his two daughters, and
05:17there seemed to be no indication of his deviant plan just hours later.
05:22In hindsight, Chris' calm behavior during these events was extremely chilling.
05:27While Chris Watts initially denied murdering his pregnant wife and their children, it later
05:32came out that he'd revealed to a co-worker his plans to visit the remote oil field in
05:36Frederick, Colorado, where his family's bodies would later be found.
05:40According to the official case documents, on Sunday, August 12th, 2018, at around 5
05:45p.m., Chris texted a co-worker in reference to the oil field and wrote,
05:49"...I'm gonna go straight out there from my house in the morning."
05:52When the co-worker responded that they had also been planning to visit the site, Chris
05:56joked,
05:57"...I can go out there, though.
05:58No sense in both of us going out there, lol."
06:01By telling a co-worker that he'd be visiting the site early on that Monday morning to complete
06:04some checks, many people believed that Chris may have premeditated his actions on that
06:09fateful August day.
06:11After Chris Watts pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in November 2018, his parents gave
06:16an interview to ABC 11 defending their son.
06:19Chris' mother, Cindy Watts, said of her son's marriage to Shanann Watts,
06:23"...It was a very hard relationship.
06:25It was a very hard relationship with Shanann as far as I'm concerned.
06:28I couldn't do anything right."
06:30Chris' parents also suggested that it was his marriage to Shanann that changed him.
06:34His mom said,
06:35"...He was in sports from when he was 5 until 17 years old.
06:39There's not one person you can talk to that will say anything about this kid.
06:42He was normal.
06:43He didn't have a temper.
06:44He was just easygoing like his dad.
06:46He's not a monster."
06:47Meanwhile, Chris' dad, Ronnie Watts, also defended his son to ABC 11 and explained,
06:53"...It's hard for me to believe that he would hurt them girls no matter what.
06:56The story he told me that night, I believed it.
06:59The way he looked at me, the way he was crying, I believed it."
07:02"...If he did it all, I can live with it, and if he didn't, I want him to fight for
07:05it."
07:07Ronnie is referring to the initial story that Chris gave to the police, claiming that he
07:10only killed Shanann after discovering that she'd murdered their two daughters.
07:14However, this was, of course, later revealed to be untrue.
07:18From prison, Chris Watts reportedly corresponded with author Sherilyn Cadle in a series of
07:23letters, phone calls, and meetings, the details of which she subsequently published in the
07:292019 book Letters from Christopher, The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders.
07:33Speaking with the Daily Mail, Cadle claimed that Chris had told her,
07:37"...If I had not met Nikki, I would never have killed my family.
07:40All I could feel was now I was free to be with Nikki.
07:43Feelings of my love for her was overcoming me.
07:45I felt no remorse."
07:46According to the author, Chris also revealed,
07:49"...The darkness inside of me had won.
07:51It was still in me, though, I thought maybe permanently.
07:54I felt evil, swallowed up by this thing inside of me.
07:57I felt like I could kill anything and be justified for doing it."
08:00Of Chris' mistress, Cadle said,
08:02"...Christopher says he loved her like he has never loved anyone else before."
08:06"...That's why I got so emotional right there."
08:09Police investigating the Chris Watts murders discovered that he had looked up the lyrics
08:13to the Metallica song, Battery, per the Weld County District Attorney's Office's discovery
08:18documents.
08:19Shortly after he committed the horrific act, one of the reasons, then, that some people
08:23speculated that Chris' mistress, Nicole Kessinger, might have allegedly been involved in the
08:28murders was that she'd sent him a text soon after the killings had taken place.
08:32As author Sherilyn Cadle wrote in her book, Letters from Christopher, The Tragic Confessions
08:37of the Watts Family Murders,
08:38"...after Christopher killed his family and drove away, Nikki texted him to look up the
08:42song by Metallica band called Battery.
08:45I challenge you to look up the full lyrics of this song.
08:47I find it interesting that we should believe it's only a coincidence."
08:51A few specific lines that are troubling include,
08:54"...smashing through the boundaries, lunacy has found me, cannot stop the battery, pounding
08:58out aggression, turns into obsession, cannot kill the battery, cannot kill the family,
09:03battery is found in me."
09:05On August 15, 2018, less than a week after his wife and daughters disappeared, Chris
09:10Watts failed a polygraph test.
09:12Tammy Lee, an investigator in the case, conducted the test, and as reported by The Tab, Chris
09:17Watts didn't just fail his polygraph test.
09:19He scored shockingly low.
09:21"...there's a reason you're so sick to your stomach, when people hold stuff inside, it
09:26makes you physically ill."
09:28After failing the test, Chris confessed to a version of the truth, which included him
09:32alleging that he'd only murdered his wife, Shanann Watts, after she supposedly smothered
09:37their two daughters.
09:38According to iNews, he claimed that she had killed their two girls in response to his
09:42request for a divorce, and said he had killed her in anger after she did this.
09:47However, he later confessed to strangling his wife during a confrontation over the revelations
09:52of his affair.
09:53Presumably to save face after failing the polygraph test, Chris concocted a story about
09:58what happened to his family, which painted him as somewhat of a victim in the proceedings.
10:02However, it was later revealed that Chris killed Shanann first, and didn't murder their
10:07daughters Celeste and Bella until he'd driven to the oil site where their bodies were found.
10:13While Watts' mistress has maintained that she believed he was separated from his wife
10:17when they met, police discovered a strange piece of information on Kessinger's mobile
10:22phone.
10:23According to the discovery documents compiled by investigators, data from Kessinger's phone
10:27showed that she'd Googled Shanann Watts' name on September 1st, 2017, almost a full year
10:33before she started an affair with Chris.
10:35In an interview with Crime Online, Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said,
10:40The dates to which you are referring — in 2017, where it appears she Googled or otherwise
10:45searched Shanann — was data that came off her phone.
10:48Nicole Kessinger told us that she met and started their relationship with the defendant
10:52in 2018.
10:53So where that anomaly in the data comes from, I don't know the answer to it.
10:57Indeed, the fact that Kessinger reportedly Googled Chris' wife's name in September 2017
11:02seemingly contradicts her own version of events.
11:05As The Denver Post, with whom Kessinger gave her only press interview, later reported,
11:10One day in the middle of June 2018, he walked into her office to introduce himself.
11:14Per Kessinger's account to the outlet, Watts told her that he had two daughters and, after
11:19Kessinger asked, Watts said he was separated and at the end of divorce proceedings, she
11:23said.
11:24This shocked me just as much as I think it shocked the rest of the world.
11:28As well as Googling wedding dresses and the name of Chris Watts' wife, Kessinger also
11:32searched online for Amber Frye, the infamous mistress in another high-profile murder case.
11:38Frye dated Scott Peterson, who was married.
11:40Frye believed that Peterson was single when she met him.
11:43Lacey Peterson was eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002,
11:48and it wasn't until April 2003 that the bodies of Lacey and her unborn child were found.
11:54Per the Chris Watts case's discovery documents,
11:57Kessinger searched the internet on topics related to Amber Frye.
12:01Her searches included Frye's book deal, her net worth, and did people hate Amber Frye?
12:06These searches reportedly took place on August 18th, 2018, three days after Chris confessed
12:11to murdering his family.
12:13Presumably, Kessinger may have been concerned about what the public perception would be
12:17once it was revealed that she was the mistress of a convicted murderer.
12:21However, the fact that she Googled Frye's net worth and book deal might also suggest
12:25that she may have been hoping to capitalize on her situation.
12:29Of course, this is all speculation, and it should be noted that Kessinger voluntarily
12:33spoke with police on August 15th, the same day that Chris was arrested.
12:37As Kessinger later told the Denver Post,
12:39"...I just wanted to help.
12:41With a pregnant woman and two children missing, I was going to do anything that I could."
12:46On February 18th, 2019, Chris Watts sat down for a five-hour interview with the Frederick
12:51Police Department, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI, the audio of which
12:56was released to the public.
12:57Chris made a number of telling revelations during the interview, and he spoke about his
13:01former mistress, Nicole.
13:03As reported by Oxygen, Chris said,
13:05"...I'm not sure what you, Nicole, went through afterward.
13:08If you had, like, counseling, if you're in a different state, if you had to leave everything
13:13behind."
13:14When the investigators asked Chris if he was hoping to speak to Kessinger one day, he replied,
13:18"...maybe once, just to say I'm sorry this all happened."
13:21However, Chris' attorney reportedly attempted to contact Kessinger on his behalf, but she
13:27During the same interview, Chris also emotionally suggested that if he hadn't begun an affair,
13:33he might not have become dissatisfied with his marriage to Shanann Watts.
13:36"...If I never met Kessinger, would I have ever thought our relationship was bad?
13:41Probably not.
13:42I never thought I would have strayed away from Shanann."
13:45Many people have watched the Netflix documentary American Murder, The Family Next Door, which
13:49pieces together all the events leading up to the crimes.
13:52And it would seem that one eagle-eyed viewer of the documentary believed they'd spotted
13:57something strange in the background of one video clip.
13:59According to the Daily Mail, footage from a police officer's body camera has been getting
14:03attention because it appears to show a little girl playing inside the Watts' home after
14:08Chris' wife and daughters were reported missing.
14:10As reported by the site, Arthur Kant took to YouTube to suggest that he'd spotted a
14:15ghost in the body cam footage, and asked viewers to consider whether it was an apparition of
14:19one of Chris' murdered daughters.
14:21However, other viewers reportedly suggested that, rather than a ghost, the young girl
14:26was simply the daughter of Shanann's friend, Nicole Atkinson, who alerted police when Shanann
14:30missed a doctor's appointment and failed to reply to any text messages or phone calls
14:35that morning.
14:36Atkinson joined police in the house in the search for Shanann, and it seems likely that
14:40her children could have been present too.
14:42However, as the Daily Mail reported, despite the logical explanation, a few people insisted
14:47that the home is haunted.