The release of American Murder: The Family Next Door has brought new eyes to the Watts family.
If you haven't seen the Netflix special, allow me to catch you up. Chris and Shanann Watts seemed like a perfectly happy married couple. They had two daughters, Bella and Celeste. They also had a baby boy on the way whom they planned to name Niko.
Sadly, their life was a little more complicated behind the scenes. Chris was having an affair while Shanann was pregnant. Her suspicions and accusations were causing conflicts between them. They spent six weeks apart in the summer of 2018. During that time, Chris' affair with Nichol Kessinger heated up. He reportedly told Nichol that he and Shanann were already separated.
Shanann didn't get confirmation of the affair until moments before her death, according to Chris' confession. The admission and his desire for divorce allegedly led to an altercation, during which Chris strangled and killed Shanann. He'd later kill his two daughters and dispose of all three bodies at a site owned by his former employer.
The Netflix special is chilling in that it tells the story through Shanann's texts, social media posts, and police footage of Chris. However, there were some details about the Watts' marriage that Netflix didn't fit into the special.
American Murder: The Family Next Door tells the story behind the murders of Shanann Watts and her two daughters. Her husband, Chris Watts, killed the three and is serving five life sentences for their deaths as well as the death of his unborn child, Niko.
The Netflix special tells the family's story through police footage, Shanann's social media, and Shanann's text messages.
There were some details that weren't included in the documentary, however. One was the troubled financial past that Shanann and Chris shared. The couple filed for bankruptcy in 2015 after buying their $400,000 home, CNN reported.
They owed about $70,000 in combined student loans and credit card debt. Together, they earned $91,000 annually, with Chris accounting for $63,000 of that.
That changed in 2018, when Shanann's new job with a lifestyle company came with a big salary jump. She started driving a Lexus and enjoyed paid business trips to places like Mexico and the Dominican Republic. It was thrilling, but unlike previous instances, Chris would stay home with the kids. Shanann also became busier during that time, which left Chris more time to pursue his affair.
There isn't a consensus on when Chris started seeing Nichol Kessinger. By the time Shanann's career was picking up, he was spending a lot of that time with Nichol. The idea has been that Chris killed Shanann, Bella, and Cece so he could get a fresh start with Nichol.
Some even believe she may have been involved in the crimes more than investigations revealed. Nichol's search history reportedly revealed some interesting items. There were searches surrounding Amber Frey, Scott Peterson's mistress when he killed wife Laci and unborn son Conner. One search inquired how much Amber made from her book deal after the murders.
There were also searches for how you know you're in love, wedding gowns, and more that indicated a future with Chris. Her searches also indicated a past, with a search for Shanann Watts coming up almost a full year prior to the murders.
Regardless, we know that Nichol was involved in the criminal investigation. When Nichol saw the news that Shanann and the kids were missing, she called Chris and questioned him. He started to come clean about matters he'd lied about, such as his separation. That's when Nichol contacted investigators to share what she knew.
Investigators have been open about the fact that information provided by Nichol helped them put Chris behind bars.
"Nichol Kessinger turned out to have information that I can best describe as being a bombshell," Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said in an interview on an Investigation Discovery special.
"It appeared to us as if he had every intention of starting a brand new life, clean of Shanann and Bella and Celeste and Niko with the love of his life — is how he described Nichol Kessinger."
Chris has also revealed more information about the case since he began serving his five life sentences. During his time at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, Chris began opening up to both family members and pen pals.
One of those correspondents, Cheryln Cadle, published many of their letters in a book, Letters From Christopher: The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders, in 2019.
In one letter, Chris admits he knew he was going to kill his wife and daughters at least 24 hours before he actually put his plan in action.
"I walked away and said, 'That's the last time I'm going to be tucking my babies,'" he said of putting Bella and Cece to bed on the night before the murders.
In another letter, he talks about the moment he was to start killing Shanann. "All the weeks of me thinking about killing her, and now I was faced with it," he wrote.
Chris also reveals in the letters that he tried to kill Bella and Cece prior to killing Shanann. He tried to smother them in their bedrooms with pillows, but somehow they "woke back up."
"It makes the act that much worse knowing I went to their rooms first and knowing I still took their lives at the location," he wrote.
In another letter, Chris spoke to the idea he killed his family to be with Nichol. He explained that he slipped Shanann Oxycodone, hoping to make her miscarry.
"I thought it would be easier to be with Nichol if Shan'ann wasn't pregnant," he admitted.
The details of this case are simply tragic. It's heartbreaking to know that these little girls and their mother could have survived Chris and moved on to live long and healthy lives. While justice has been served in some sense, there's nothing that can ever dull the pain of knowing what an ordeal the three went through.
