Although the internet is now a part of everyone’s daily lives, there is still much debate about whether having 24/7 access to the entire world is a net-positive or a net-negative for society. On one hand, it allows you to speak with just about anyone as quickly as you can pull out your cell phone and swipe past the multiple Fox News articles your grandmother messaged you on Facebook; however, on the other, it will also likely result in the complete destruction of privacy, objective truth, and possibly democracy itself. So, overall, the answer is still a bit of a tossup.
But with that being said, there is one thing that most people can agree on regarding the internet, and that is the negative effect that social media has had on people’s perception of reality. On websites like Instagram, a platform where nearly everything you see is heavily photoshopped, filtered, and reviewed before upload, people can create a version of themselves that barely reflects reality—if it reflects reality at all. This is a huge problem because those who spend too much time obsessing over people’s “perfect” online personas inevitably begin to feel the compulsive need to sanitize their own lives to appear equally as perfect.
To many, this may come as no surprise, but to others—particularly young people who were born after the internet boom—not realizing how fake the internet is poses a real danger as the problem has a compounding effect. As more people attempt to appear perfect, more people will succeed, which, in turn, causes more people to attempt to appear perfect. If this vicious cycle continues unabated for several years, eventually, you will have a generation in which 1 in 5 teenagers claim to have never taken a selfie without a filter in their entire lives. (That is a real statistic.)
But the problem goes even deeper than that. Just like many people edit their photos to appear thinner, or taller, or less bald (looks good on you, Simon), many also misrepresent the details of their very lives to keep up that illusion of perfection. For some, this simply means not posting about the negative aspects of their life, such as a recently diagnosed illness or a death in the family, but for others, it means outright fabricating entire portions of their lives for the camera—including their relationships with other people.
In this episode of The Casual Criminalist, we’ll be taking a look at a family—the Watts family from Frederick, Colorado—who were living their lives as I have just described. Online, they appeared as happy as any modern American family could be, but behind the scenes, countless secrets and well-hidden pains were quickly pushing them toward disaster.
The Disappearance
The nightmare began at around 1:40 PM on August 13th, 2018, when the Frederick County Police’s dispatch line received a call from a woman named Nichole Atkinson. According to Nichole, she was concerned about her friend, Shanann (pronounced as Shah-nann) Watts, because Shanann had not been answering her phone calls or text messages all morning and had missed an important doctor’s appointment, something that was exceptionally uncharacteristic of her.
As her friend, Nichole then told the dispatcher that she had driven to Shanann’s home at 2825 Saratoga Trail to check on her; however, after receiving no answer at the door and noticing that Shanann’s white Lexus was still inside her garage, she became even more concerned. Shanann was diabetic, Nichole said, and had not been feeling well for the past few days. She also had two young daughters, 3-year-old CeCe and 4-year-old Bella, neither of which had responded when she called out to them from outside the home’s front door.
Based on all the evidence available to her, Nichole worried that Shanann may have passed out and was in need of immediate medical assistance. She had called 911 to request a welfare check.
Several minutes later, officer Scott Coonrod of the Fredrich County Police Department arrived outside the Watts’ home to meet with her. He stepped out, greeted Nichole and her 17-year-old son, Nicolas, who was standing beside her, and then looked beyond them, to the Watts’ large, yellow home. As a new build, the home was modern and socketed tightly into a neighborhood of similar homes that surrounded it on all sides.
Trying to explain the situation, Nichole told Coonrod that she and Shanann had been out of town for a business meeting in Arizona the past two days and had just returned home the previous night. Nichole herself was the person who had dropped Shanann off at around 1:20 AM, approximately 12 hours earlier. That was the last time that she had seen or spoken to her friend, and as far as Nichole was aware, she had been planning to sleep immediately since she had not been feeling well and was 18 weeks pregnant. The doctor’s appointment that Shanann had missed was an emergency checkup to verify the health of her baby.
Not wanting to waste any time, Coonrod quickly began attempting to contact Shanann or her daughters. He knocked on the front door, called out to them, and then proceeded on foot toward the home’s rear entrance, knocking on and peering through each of the home’s windows as he went. At the back of the house, atop a tall wooden deck, he knocked several times on the rear sliding glass door and then called out to them once again, still receiving no response. He then circled back around to the home’s front entrance to reconvene with Nichole.
Unfortunately, Coonrod explained, he did not yet have probable cause to enter the premises because all the home’s curtains were drawn, and he had not witnessed anything that indicated Shanann was in immediate danger. That meant that, as of that moment, all he could do was continue attempting to make contact from outside until some justification for him to enter presented itself—if it ever did. Nichole then informed Coonrod that she knew the code to Shanann’s front door but could not open it more than a few inches because the safety latch was engaged from the inside. At his request, Nichole inputted the code, and then all three of them took turns shouting through the narrow gap, trying to bring either Shanann, Bella, or CeCe to the door and watching diligently for signs of movement from within.
When this didn’t work, Coonrod inquired about the whereabouts of Shanann’s husband, Christopher Watts. According to Nichole, she had contacted Chris multiple times that morning to see if he had any information, but Chris had denied knowing anything. He had told her that he left Shanann in bed earlier that morning at around 5 AM and that she had mentioned something about a playdate for Bella and CeCe.
He had not asked who the playdate was with, where they would be going, or when they would return. When Nichole pointed out that Shanann’s Lexus was still inside the garage and asked Chris to return home as quickly as possible, he said she shouldn’t worry because Shanann and the girls had likely been picked up by a friend and would return home shortly. When Nichole asked him again to return for just a moment to open the garage door to allow her inside, Chris said that he could not because, as an oilfield operator working in the desert many miles outside of town, he couldn’t just drop everything at a moment’s notice to drive the long distance back to Frederick.
He then reassured Nichole that Shanann was fine and would call her back soon.
Unsatisfied, Nichole then told Chris that, if he didn’t return home immediately, she was going to call the police, and upon hearing this, Chris said to wait because, if she was that worried about it, he could be there in 45 minutes. Nichole agreed, hung up the phone, and waited for him to arrive. One hour later, there was still no sign of him, and that was when she had dialed 911.
Feeling that he had a slightly better understanding of the situation, Coonrod then asked for Chris’s cellphone number to speak with the man himself. When he dialed it, Chris picked up and confirmed everything that Nichole had said about the playdate and revealed that he was still on his way. He had been stuck in heavy interstate traffic but was then only five minutes out. The officer then hung up the phone and, feeling uneasy, radioed in a request for a supervisor.
The Home
Minutes after speaking with Coonrod, Chris Watts pulled his work truck to the curb outside his home on Saratoga Trail and stepped out, greeting the officer as he did. Standing at five foot, ten inches tall, Chris was dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and had sunglasses resting atop his close-cut brown hair. He was dirty—as was to be expected from someone who worked in an oilfield—but overall seemed surprisingly put together when compared to Nichole and Nicholas. Despite the urgent situation, Chris introduced himself and shook the officer’s hand before opening the garage door and inviting them inside.
As the four of them passed through the garage, Nichole pointed out that both Bella and CeCe’s carseats were still buckled into the backseat of Shanann’s car. To her, this suggested that they had not called for a ride as Chris had suggested because those car seats were the only ones that the couple owned.
Then, as Nichole explained the situation to Shanann’s mother over the phone, Coonrod walked from room to room searching for signs of the missing mother and her children. He checked the bedrooms, bathrooms, the living room, and the large, unfinished basement with no luck, peering inside every closet and utility room along the way. At the base of the home’s main staircase, he noted that there was a large suitcase—the one that Shanann had used for her trip with Nichole the previous day—which had yet to be unpacked.
In the kitchen, Shanann’s purse, which contained her driver’s license and card wallet, was sitting on the counter. These were items that she would obviously not willingly leave home without.
However, other than those things, nothing else seemed out of place. Everything from the furniture to the children’s toys were exceptionally tidy and organized, and there were no signs of foul play or a break-in. The girls’ beds were even made, and Shanann’s bathroom appeared spotless. It was as if the three of them had simply vanished into thin air, taking absolutely nothing with them as they went.
Upstairs, even more evidence was found that pointed toward this conclusion: Shanann and the children were each prescribed medication, and the bottles for each were still sitting inside the family’s medicine cabinet untouched. The only thing that Chris could immediately identify as missing from the home was Bella and CeCe’s blankets. He said they never left home without them and would cry if they were forgotten.
Chris didn’t claim to know where his family had gone, but he believed that they had left in a hurry. He was still holding on to hope that they were safe somewhere; however, Nichole could not believe it, and the next discovery made would, in her mind, confirm her suspicions.
After searching for it briefly, Chris discovered Shanann’s cellphone wedged between two couch cushions in the upstairs living room. He brought the phone to Nichole, silently laying it before her. The pair and Coonrod stared at it in silence. To the officer, it was just a cellphone, but to Chris and Nichole, the implication was obvious.
You see, Shanann was not a casual cellphone user as, by her own admission, her phone was her life. This was because she was very active on social media and had grown a sizable following as a “mom-fluencer.” For her followers, she posted daily updates that included videos of heartwarming family moments, playdates, birthday parties, and other special events. She would never go anywhere without her camera out of fear of missing something noteworthy.
Additionally, Shanann also worked as a direct sales agent for Le-Vel, a multi-level marketing company that sold and distributed weight-loss patches, pills, and shakes as well as dietary supplements. She was, according to Nichole, always working, and her cellphone was the only way that her customers ever contacted her. Even on her “days off” or days when she wasn’t feeling well, Shanann would still attempt to sell to anyone she came across because her job was something she took great pride in.
At this point, Nichole asked Chris if he knew the phone’s passcode, but Chris claimed not to. Nichole was able to guess it. The six-digit code was the baby’s due date. While reviewing the call log, they discovered that Shanann, in fact, had not made any calls or texts that morning, which further indicated that nobody had picked the three of them up.
Trying to gauge Shanann’s mood, Coonrod then asked how Shanann had been acting that morning when Chris left, and Chris stated that she had seemed completely normal. They had spoken briefly in bed after Nichole had dropped her off at around 2 AM, but she had not indicated to him that anything was wrong. He had left for work before sunup at around 6 AM while she was still in bed.
After this, Chris re-searched the master bedroom and discovered Shanann’s wedding ring sitting atop her nightstand. This was when he first revealed to Coonrod that he and Shanann were actively seeking a divorce.
Coonrod asked how the divorce was going, and Chris said “civilly.”
The Neighbor
As other officers and detectives were arriving outside the home, Chris and Officer Coonrod walked across the narrow grass that separated Chris’s home from that of his neighbor, Nathaniel Trinastich. Fortunately for the investigation, Nathaniel had an extensive security system installed, which included a motion-activated camera that pointed toward the Watts’ driveway and garage. When he heard that Chris’s wife and children were missing, he did the neighborly thing and offered to show them the footage from that morning and the previous night.
As they all stood around the television in Nathaniel’s living room, a recording played that showed Nichole dropping Shanann off the prior night. In another clip that was recorded several hours later, Chris could be seen backing his truck up into the garage to load his tools for work; however, what neither clip showed was Shanann or the children leaving the house at any point. There was no footage of that event because it had ostensibly never happened.
Seeing that the footage was a dead end, Chris then turned to leave his neighbor’s home and go speak with a new detective who had just arrived at the scene, but Coonrod took this opportunity to speak to Nathaniel alone. He wanted to see if Nathaniel knew anything else that could be useful for the investigation, and this turned out to be a wise decision because the slightly nosey neighbor was a wealth of information:
Without prompting, as soon as Chris was out of earshot, Nathaniel claimed that Chris was “not acting right.” Obviously, he acknowledged, the man was shaken by the entire ordeal, but the behaviors he had demonstrated while reviewing the footage—rocking back and forth, speaking nervously, and taking deep, calming breaths every few seconds as if he were on the verge of a panic attack—had struck Nathaniel as exceptionally out of character. He had also appeared “zoned out” while viewing the footage and had looked away several times as if nothing on the tape would surprise him.
Additionally, although Nathaniel had not wanted to say anything while Chris was standing beside him, he revealed that Chris never loaded his tools for work in the morning because he never unloaded those tools in the evenings. Usually, Chris parked his truck at the curb and carried everything he needed for work in his arms across the lawn. A lunchbox, a water jug, and a laptop bag were the only things he normally took with him.
Also, Nathaniel had never once seen Chris back his work truck up to the garage door in that manner, and not-so-subtly suggested that he may have been trying to load something else into the truck bed. But, unfortunately, because of the angle at which the camera was mounted, the footage did not reveal the inside of the garage or what had been loaded.
This revelation concerned Coonrod; however, the next thing the neighbor said was even more concerning. Officially, Chris and Shanann had not yet announced their divorce, but Nathaniel suggested the couple must be having marital problems because, on multiple occasions, he had overheard them screaming at one another late into the night. In fact, this had become such a common occurrence that Shanann and her children had been out of town for the past several weeks before her business meeting. She had been staying with her family in North Carolina, and Nathaniel assumed that she was trying to distance herself from Chris’s abusive behavior.
Obviously, the divorce was not as “civil” as Chris had suggested.
Back inside the Watts home, detectives were reaching out to Shanann’s family and preparing to present Chris with a consent form that would allow them to search the home from top to bottom for evidence. Immediately and without question, Chris agreed. He said they had free reign to do whatever they needed to bring his family home. After even more officers arrived, they then did exactly that.
They combed through every inch of the home, even getting down onto their hands and knees to look at the carpet and baseboards, searching for blood droplets or anything difficult to spot.
They found nothing: no blood, no signs of a struggle, no signs of a cleanup. And other than the fact that all of Shanann’s important possessions were still inside the home, nothing appeared out of order—nothing except for one thing: the master bedroom’s bedsheets were missing. When sorting through the laundry, they could not be located, but while searching the kitchen trashcan, a top sheet and two pillowcases were found stuffed inside. There was no sign of the fitted bottom sheet, which would have completed the set.
Knowing that they were in over their heads and that the first 24 hours in any investigation are the most critical, investigators immediately called in the FBI for special assistance. They also enlisted the help of volunteers who began going door-to-door, canvasing the neighborhoods surrounding the Watts home, and handing out flyers to any passersby.
Chris himself even went on the evening news to issue what he believed was a heartfelt plea, begging for information; however, for those watching at home, this plea came across as cold and artificial. When ignoring what Chris was saying and focusing solely on his demeanor, he appeared wholly unconcerned. Visually, he was also still well put together and appeared rested, not at all how one would expect someone to look when their wife and children were missing.
Witnessing this interview live, the FBI knew that it was time to take a closer look at Mister and Missus Watts.
The Many Secrets of Chris and Shanann Watts
Now, normally, marital problems between two non-famous people are not considered noteworthy enough to hide so carefully; however, as we briefly touched on earlier, Shanann was not exactly an ordinary person. Online, she was a small-time influencer that attempted to present herself as an idealistic wife and mother, but doing so required her to show her and Chris’s relationship in the best light possible. This meant that her Facebook feed was filled with pictures of them and their children smiling for the camera, laughing together, and showing off their life. As a result, Shanann’s many followers—including most of her friends and family—had no clue that the pair were having marital problems of any kind, much less ones that were quickly spiraling toward divorce.
To give you some idea of just how artificial their relationship had become, Shanann had been posting updates to Facebook where she talked about missing Chris the entire time that she was staying with her parents in North Carolina to escape his abuse.
But this trend of faking things for the camera was not new for the couple as, when police searched Shanann’s phone, they discovered that she had been producing artificial content for years. For example, to announce their most recent pregnancy, Shanann had posted a video to Facebook that began with her standing in frame and revealing to viewers that she was wearing a t-shirt that read, “oops… we did it again.” The obvious implication was that she was pregnant.
In the video, Shanann then takes a step behind the camera, leaving it pointed toward an open archway, and waits. A moment later, Chris walks into the room, sees the shirt, laughs, and then goes to her. They embrace off camera, and then Chris walks back into frame to proudly present a positive pregnancy test.
Had this moment been real, this would have been a sweet moment for the couple to cherish—which is how it was presented to her followers—however, this was not Chris’s genuine reaction as he had known that Shanann was pregnant before the camera started rolling. The pair had staged the entire scene to make the announcement more exciting.
Furthermore, Chris was not excited about the pregnancy in the slightest. As text messages on Shanann’s phone revealed, the pair had actually discussed an abortion not long before filming the video. This was just one of many instances that were faked for the camera because, in truth, the Watts family had been fabricating content around their personal lives for years. They were truthful about the major parts, such as being married, having two children together, where they worked, and so on, but the smaller details were all fantasy.
Part of the reason that Shanann likely felt driven to present herself this way was because of her job. As mentioned earlier, Shanann worked for Le-Vel, a multi-level marketing company that relies heavily on social media to promote and sell its products, which meant that Shanann’s large social media presence had allowed her to become an extremely successful saleswoman for the company. Yes, despite the predatory nature of MLMs, Shanann claimed to be making between $65,000 and $70,000 dollars-per-year, and her and Chris’s home and lifestyle reflected that.
They took frequent vacations and family trips, drove expensive cars, and wore nice clothes, none of which would have been possible on Chris’s income alone. By revealing their divorce, her entire social media image as a happy wife and mother—and possibly her sales numbers—would have been destroyed overnight.
Obviously, this revelation would have shocked those that knew the couple; however, the secrets that the Watts family kept from the world paled in comparison to the ones that Chris kept from Shanann. Based on text messages found on her phone, she suspected her husband of having an affair, and when police searched Chris’s phone, they found deleted pictures of him with one of his female coworkers, a woman named Victoria Miller.
According to Victoria herself, she was a geologist working on contract for the environmental services department at Chris’s workplace, and she had met him one day in their office when he introduced himself. At the time, Chris wasn’t wearing his wedding ring, and she was not aware that he was married. She also said that, during their initial interaction, he was soft-spoken, kind, and a great listener, which immediately attracted her to him.
However, when Victoria later learned from another coworker that Chris was married, he told her in confidence that he and Shanann were seeking a divorce and were no longer romantically involved. In Victoria’s mind, Chris and his wife’s relationship was over, and Chris was a single man. She was not aware that no paperwork had been filed, nothing had been officially decided, or that Shanann was pregnant with Chris’s third child and trying desperately to resolve the problems in their marriage.
Obviously, Victoria said in later interviews, if she had known that Chris and Shanann were still together, she would not have pursued a relationship with him. But Chris lied about everything to both of them for months. She had no idea that she was Chris’s secret mistress.
What happened after this was pretty standard as far as affairs go. After chatting casually in the office for a few weeks, Chris had taken the next step by inviting Victoria out to lunch where they often discussed his impending divorce. This then led to dinner, which then led to romance, which then led to the pair meeting up regularly for after-work sex. As late workdays became all-nighters and Chris went from withdrawn to mentally absent, Shanann began to suspect that something was going on, but she had no proof.
In text messages exchanged between Shanann and her closest friends, she revealed that she and Chris had cancelled their planned gender reveal party because of their unresolved problems. Some of the messages read:
“I grabbed his hand during (the) ultrasound (,) and he didn’t grab back.”
“He has changed. I don’t know who he is. … He hasn’t touched me all week, kissed me, talked to me except for when I’m trying to figure out what is wrong.”
“(The) only thing I can think of (,) even though I don’t think he has it in him (,) is another girl.”
In the weeks before Shanann’s disappearance, Victoria discovered the pregnancy, but Chris said that the baby was not his. He claimed Shanann had cheated on him.
The Interview
When investigators finally sat Chris down inside an interrogation room, they already knew much of what I just told you. They had seen the text messages documenting Chris and Shanann’s rocky relationship as well as Chris and Victoria’s secret affair; however, they kept their cards close to their chests. They didn’t yet have any physical evidence that Chris was involved in the disappearance, but by this point, there wasn’t much doubt left in their minds. After all, it’s always the husband.
While giving an official statement over the course of a three-hour interview, Chris maintained that the last time he had seen Shanann was the morning of her disappearance and that he had no idea where she could have gone. He also said that Shanann was the one seeking a divorce and that he still very much loved his family and hoped that they would soon return to work out their issues—although, he was not hopeful; his theory was that Shanann had taken the girls and fled the state to be with someone else.
After documenting everything Chris said and allowing him to dig a hole for himself, the detective then revealed outright that nobody in the entire department believed his story and asked why anyone should believe him. Chris then fumbled around with an answer that implied he was a trustworthy guy, but it did little to help. He once again denied doing anything to his family, his children specifically, and said that he could never hurt anyone. He continued to assert that he just wanted them to come home.
When questioned about whether he himself was having an affair, Chris denied it without hesitation, still unaware that police had retrieved the deleted pictures and conversations from his phone. And although he did not stray far from his original story, there were so many inconsistencies that were obvious to everyone in the room that Chris began to physically sweat while sitting in the hot seat.
Seeing this, the detective wanted to press Chris further, to continue dialing up the pressure, but by this point it was past midnight, so he instead asked if Chris would be willing to return the following morning for a polygraph test to clear his name. Chris agreed, went home to get some sleep, and then returned the next day.
He failed the polygraph.
Now, while polygraphs are generally considered unreliable and are not admissible in court, Chris hadn’t just failed, he had bombed. According to the test’s administrator, polygraphs are graded on a scale and scoring above a 2 is considered a pass while scoring below a -4 is considered a fail.
Chris Watts scored a -18.
After this, the interrogators dialed up the pressure. They didn’t tell Chris his exact score, but they did imply that his guilt was evident, not just because of the polygraph but because of the lack of empathy he had shown for his missing family. They pointed out that he had not shed a single tear throughout the interrogation. They also began rejecting his denials outright and insisting that he was hiding something.
Whenever Chris would protest his innocence, they would shake their heads and reaffirm that they simply did not believe him.
To explain away his failing grade, Chris then finally revealed his affair with Victoria, saying that his nerves had gotten the better of him because he had been thinking about her and how bad it would be for him and Shanann if their affair were to be made public. But this did not work either, and when detectives did not relent, Chris broke down and asked to speak with his father, Ronnie Watts—Ronnie had accompanied Chris to the police station that day and was being interviewed in another room.
After brief consideration, the officers agreed, walked Ronnie to Chris’s room, and then left them alone to speak in private—however, the security cameras continued to film. While the father and son sat beside one another, Ronnie asked Chris if there was anything he needed to tell him. Chris then dropped his head and finally changed his story:
As Chris tells it in the recording, in the early hours of August 13th, the night when Shanann returned home from her business trip with Nichole Atkinson, the pair had gotten into a fight in their bedroom over Chris’s infidelity, and Shanann had stormed out of the room. Agitated, Chris sat in silence, but after hearing a commotion coming from the direction of the girls’ bedrooms, he rushed to them and discovered Shanann choking CeCe with her bare hands. Bella’s lifeless body was beside them, and her skin was blue. Chris then said that, in a moment of pure rage sparked by the sight of his children’s lifeless bodies, he had killed her and, panicked, disposed of all three bodies.
Stunned, Ronnie sighed, put his head into his hand, and said:
“Good God almighty, son.”
Chris’s father then advised him to get a lawyer, but before they could work out a concrete plan of action, officers reentered the room, and confronted Chris over his recorded admission.
The Oilfield
On August 16th, 2018, just 3 days after Shanann’s disappearance, the Colorado State Patrol arrived at an oil field owned by Andarko Petroleum, Chris’s employer. Here, they began the harrowing process of searching for the bodies that Chris had admitted to dumping at the site. In the center of the field, two 400-barrel crude oil tanks sat filled with inky black sludge. Also inside, the bodies of 3-year-old CeCe and 4-year-old Bella were waiting for them.
Sergeant Armstrong was the man in charge that day, and after climbing the staircase affixed to the side of the 30-foot-tall tanks, he peered inside through the narrow port at their crest and ordered their contents to be drained. As officers, firefighters, and oil workers below began the slow process, they used a metal strainer to catch anything that might be small enough to slip through the drainpipe.
After the tanks were empty, Sergeant Armstrong climbed back to the top, peered through the opening once again, and spotted what he believed to be the shape of a small body. Back at the bottom of the tank, a larger access hatch was unbolted and removed so that officers in hazmat suits could enter and begin their search, but that search did not last long. Both girls were inside, just as Chris had said they would be, and after photographs were taken for evidence, officers began the careful process of lifting and removing the girls from the foul mixture.
However, despite their best efforts to handle them as gently as possible, their skin began slipping off as they were being lifted out. The oil that they had been submerged in for over 56 hours had caused major damage to every part of their bodies. It was a complete nightmare for everyone involved.
The girls were still in their nightgowns.
Less than 100 yards away, Shanann’s body was found face down in a shallow grave; the only reason she was not inside the tank with her daughters was because the tank’s top hatch, the hatch that Chris had used to drop the girls into the tanks, was only eight inches in diameter. Nearby, the missing bed sheet from Chris and Shanann’s bed was discovered. It was covered in dirt.
The whole recovery process took approximately 14 hours, and officers who had entered the tank to retrieve the bodies had to undergo a thorough decontamination process to remove any remnants of the crude oil that had made contact with their skin.
After taking more photographs and unsuccessfully attempting to remove as much oil from the girls’ bodies as possible using absorbent pads and a hastily erected decontamination pool, all three bodies were turned over to the Weld County Coroner’s Office. It was then revealed that the cause of death for all three was asphyxiation. According to the coroner, one of the girls also had deep scratches on her buttocks where her body had been forced through the narrow hatch. CeCe had defensive wounds that revealed she was awake and aware of what was happening to her when she died.
On August 15th, 2018, Chris Watts was taken into custody, and 5 days later, he was formally charged with 5 counts of first-degree murder, 1 count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and 3 counts of tampering with a deceased human body.
Yes, that’s right, although Chris claimed that Shanann had been the one to kill Celeste and Bella, police simply did not believe him because the evidence did not match his story. The primary issue was that Chris had claimed he had walked into the girls’ bedroom as Shanann was strangling CeCe with her bare hands, but the coroner said that there was no evidence of strangulation. Shanann’s neck had strangulation marks, but the girls had likely been asphyxiated with a pillow or similar object covering their mouths.
And if you are wondering why there are 5 first-degree murder charges instead of 3, the two additional charges were tacked on as the result of a Colorado law that allows additional charges when:
“a person knowingly causes the death of a child who has not yet attained twelve years of age and the person committing the offense is one in a position of trust with respect to the victim.”
Preparing for the long legal battle ahead, prosecutors were given a trial date and began organizing their evidence; however, long before that date arrived, something unexpected happened: Chris Watts entered a guilty plea for all nine charges. His reasoning was that he wanted to avoid a trial because Colorado still had the death penalty as of 2018, and he was convinced that no impartial jury could be found. By this point, news stations had spread his story far and wide, and he was the most hated man in the entire state.
On November 19, 2018, Chris Watts was given 5 life sentences without the possibility of parole with an additional 48 years for the unlawful termination of Shanann’s pregnancy and 36 more years for the three charges of tampering with a deceased body. He was then remanded into the care of the Colorado prison system to begin serving his multi-life sentence.
Chris’s Confession
Now, for the sake of everyone familiar with this case, I won’t beat around the bush any longer. Chris’s story that Shanann had smothered her children was a lie, and we know this because he later admitted it. Originally, directly after his sentencing, Chris claimed that he was innocent and planned to appeal his guilty plea and request a trial, but after six months in prison, he finally confessed to what really happened:
Now, unfortunately, before I tell you what Chris now claims, I need to make you aware of one very important thing: because Chris’s case never went to trial and there was no evidence discovery process, no extensive witness interviews or testimony, or anything else that typically results from the prosecution’s efforts to prepare for a murder trial, the police cannot say for certain that Chris’s new version of events is the truth. And since Chris has proven himself to be a liar many times over, this means that we will likely never know for certain what happened that night.
However, investigators have announced that the new timeline that Chris provided is much more in line with the evidence they collected throughout their initial investigation, and as such, they themselves now accept it as fact. The reason I say all of this is to simply point out that nothing that follows was ever proven in a court of law. Don’t sue me.
According to Chris, in the early hours of August 13th, Shanann arrived home from her business conference, crawled into bed beside him, and woke him up by rubbing her hand across his body in a way that indicated she wanted to have sex with him. In that moment, Chris said that the sex felt like a test, like she was trying to gauge whether or not he was still sexually attracted to her and determine if he had been having his needs met by someone else while she was away. He said that he engaged in the passionless act out of obligation but then felt guilty afterwards.
After everything was over, Chris said that he then rolled over onto his side, which caused Shanann to become agitated, sparking an argument between them. Soon, this argument became heated, and because he felt so overwhelmed and trapped by the situation, he climbed on top of Shanann, pinned her down, and began yelling at her. This caused her to start pleading with him, telling him that he was hurting the baby, but Chris said he did not care because, in that moment, he could not think rationally. He wanted to be with Victoria and saw Shanann as the only thing standing in his way.
Chris then wrapped his hands around Shanann’s neck and strangled her as she flailed desperately beneath him. When she stopped moving, he released her neck, climbed out of bed, and noticed Bella standing in the room, looking at Shanann’s facedown body among the mess of sheets.
Bella asked:
“What’s wrong with mommy?”
Thinking fast, Chris told Bella that Shanann was sick and needed to see a doctor. He wrapped her limp body up in the single bed sheet, hiding her neck and swollen face from the girls, and then disposed of the other bed linens in the kitchen trashcan. He then roughly dragged Shanann’s limp body down the staircase, and as he did, CeCe and Bella started crying. They knew their mother was hurt and that Chris had caused it. They were terrified of him but also completely reliant upon him.
After backing his truck into the garage, Chris then loaded Shanann’s body into the backseat floorboard before placing CeCe and Bella in the backseat with her without their car seats. Crying, they kept asking:
“Is mommy okay?”
Chris said she was, but the girls would not believe him.
He said he then placed a trash bag over Shanann’s face so that, should the sheet slip, the girls would not see her face as he drove them out into the desert, to the site of the oil storage tanks. As he drove, the girls fell asleep, and Chris was left in silence for nearly an hour. At no point during that time did he ever reconsider what he was about to do.
After parking beside the tanks, Chris slid out from behind the driver’s seat, opened the backdoor of his truck, and placed his hand over 3-year-old CeCe’s mouth and nose, smothering her to death in front of her older sister. He carried her body up the staircase, lifted the hatch, and pushed her inside. He then returned and did the same thing to 4-year-old Bella. After she too was in the tank, Chris buried Shanann, calmed himself, and prepared for work.
Less than an hour later, when his coworkers arrived at the site, they said that Chris was behaving normally, as if nothing was wrong, and it wasn’t until he announced that he needed to return home to address a family emergency that they noticed any change in his normal demeanor. This emergency was Nichole Atkinson threatening to call the police.
As Chris told this new story to investigators, they asked why he had killed Shanann and not just divorced her, but Chris could not give an answer. It is assumed that—if not for Nichole’s persistence—he would have finished his workday as normal, driven home, gotten rid of Shanann’s important possessions, ironed out the details of his story, and then reported his wife and daughters as missing. He would have told police that she took the children and ran away to be with another man, and then he would have openly started dating Victoria, starting a new life with her now that his old life was over. To investigators, this was the most likely scenario, and as it turns out, Chris had been planning something similar for much longer:
In letters sent by Chris to true-crime author Cherlyn Cadle, author of Letters from Christopher: The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders, he revealed that he had been planning Shanann’s murder for weeks, and that the events on the night of August 13th were not his first attempt to kill his family. Before then, he had slipped Shanann a large dose of OxyContin to induce a miscarriage. This attempt failed, but it may have been the reason that Shanann was sick during her business trip with Nichole. He may have harmed the fetus without managing to kill them.
In other writings, Chris also revealed that the murders were not a crime of passion as he first claimed; they were calm and premeditated. While tucking Celeste and Bella into bed on the night of August 12th, Chris wrote that he said to himself:
“‘That’s the last time I’m going to be tucking my babies in.’ I knew what was going to happen the day before and I did nothing to stop it.”
The Aftermath
After the coroner had completed his assessment of Shanann, CeCe, and Bella’s bodies, they were released to Shanann’s parents and permitted to be buried. Originally, Shanann’s mother, Sandra Rzucek, requested cremation for all three, but she was told that her request was not possible for either CeCe or Bella because their bodies had become explosive after being submerged in oil for so long. They were instead entombed and buried inside a special, sealed coffin that was designed to prevent the toxic gasses and runoff from leaking and polluting the cemetery grounds. The worst part, Sandra said in an interview with a local TV news station, was that her family did not even get to say goodbye in person.
Now, while I’m aware that Simon doesn’t understand open-casket funerals and I do see how some may view the ritual as odd, every funeral I have ever been to has been open casket, and for me, seeing the body and saying goodbye one final time has always been a key part of the grieving process. I have never been the type of person to kiss the deceased on the forehead like some in my family, but I did lay my hand over top my grandmother’s hand after she passed away when I was in high school, and feeling her cold skin helped me finally accept that she was gone. It was closure for me, but Shanann’s family was robbed of that closure. A private ceremony was held, but none of the bodies were suitable for viewing.
Today, barely 5 years after the murders, Chris Watts is housed inside an out-of-state prison—the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin—for his own protection. This is because, if he remained in Colorado, there was a real fear that he would be targeted by the other inmates due to the nature of his crimes. He is now cellmates with another man, Marcus Johnson, who was convicted of killing his own infant child by submerging him in boiling water. According to authorities, Chris and Marcus watch each other’s backs, protecting one another from harm as they go about their days.
According to Chris’s former cellmate, David Carter, Chris keeps a picture of Celeste and Bella pinned to the wall of his cell, but he refuses to hang a picture of Shanann. He says that Chris suffers often from a reoccurring nightmare of two little girls playing catch inside the cell as he sleeps. He refuses to say whether those girls are Celeste and Bella, but David assumes that they are.
Dismembered Appendices
Although Chris Watts has now admitted to the murders, he still has yet to take responsibility. Now, instead of blaming Shanann for killing CeCe and Bella, he blames el Diablo for making him kill his family and is currently writing a prayer book titled Revelation in the Reckoning. So, if you’ve ever wanted to purchase a prayer book written by a psychopath, don’t do it. Here is one of the prayers that Chris has written; it shows just how little responsibility he takes for his actions:
“My past is a blueprint and the devil the architect. While I watch his fallen ones build stone upon stone every day (,) I see these walls as insurmountable, a barrier that blocks me from enjoying your love, your peace, and of your joy, oh Lord… You are my master builder. Help me walk around these walls, sound the trumpet and shout that they may come crashing down like the walls of Jericho.”
I don’t think Chris’s prayers are going to be answered.
For those of you familiar with this case, you may have noticed that I changed the name of Chris’s mistress from Nichol Kessinger to Victoria Miller, and this was done for two reasons: First, there was already another “Nichole” in today’s episode (Shanann’s friend, Nichole Atkinson) and I didn’t want anyone who wasn’t paying attention (primarily Simon) to get them confused. Second, I also wanted to help distance her from the never-ending slew of harassment she has faced online over the past five years due to her relationship with Chris; however, as I learned toward the end of writing this script, the harassment was so severe that Nichol was forced to change her name, abandon her career, and move to a different part of the country to find peace.
According to her, many people accuse her of being an adulteress, a homewrecker, and even an accomplice to the murders despite an official statement from the police declaring that she had no prior knowledge of Chris’s plans and was not involved in the crime in any capacity.
At first, this discovery made me so angry that I considered abandoning the entire project; however, instead of scrapping an entire weeks’ worth of work, I instead decided to take this opportunity to defend Nichol and call everyone who has harassed her over the years an asshole.
Asshole!
While in prison, Chris has been receiving letters from many women attempting to start a relationship with him. This is not uncommon, but the fact that he is relatively young, charismatic, handsome (gag), and has found Jesus is further compounding the problem. He currently has an entire list of female pen pals that he keeps in contact with regularly. In many of the letters he sends, Chris talks in detail about the murders, and the women love it.
I have no words to effectively express my disappointment.
Key Takeaways
- Social media pressures drove Shanann Watts to fabricate a perfect family image online, masking severe marital problems and abuse.
- Chris Watts murdered his pregnant wife Shanann and two young daughters in August 2018, then hid their bodies at his oilfield workplace.
- Chris initially blamed Shanann for killing the children, but later confessed to premeditated murder motivated by an affair and desire to escape his marriage.
- Police identified Chris as the suspect through his odd behavior, neighbor security footage, a failed polygraph test, and inconsistencies in his statements.
- Chris received five life sentences without parole after pleading guilty, and now blames the devil rather than accepting responsibility for his crimes.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Watts family disappearance begin, and who made the initial 911 call?
The nightmare began at around 1:40 PM on August 13th, 2018, when the Frederick County Police’s dispatch line received a call from a woman named Nichole Atkinson, who was concerned about her friend Shanann Watts because she had not been answering phone calls or texts all morning and had missed an important doctor’s appointment.
What was Shanann Watts’s occupation, and why was her cellphone so important to her?
Shanann Watts worked as a direct sales agent for Le-Vel, a multi-level marketing company that sold weight-loss patches, pills, shakes, and dietary supplements. Her cellphone was extremely important because she was very active on social media as a ‘mom-fluencer’ and her cellphone was the only way her customers ever contacted her. She would never go anywhere without her camera out of fear of missing something noteworthy.
What suspicious behavior did neighbor Nathaniel Trinastich observe from Chris Watts when reviewing security footage?
Nathaniel Trinastich observed that Chris was ‘not acting right’—rocking back and forth, speaking nervously, taking deep calming breaths every few seconds as if on the verge of a panic attack, appearing ‘zoned out,’ and looking away several times as if nothing on the tape would surprise him. Nathaniel also noted that Chris never loaded his tools for work in the morning because he never unloaded them in the evenings, and he had never seen Chris back his work truck up to the garage door in that manner.
What evidence suggested that Chris and Shanann Watts’s relationship was not as ‘civil’ as Chris claimed?
Neighbor Nathaniel Trinastich revealed that on multiple occasions he had overheard Chris and Shanann screaming at one another late into the night, which had become such a common occurrence that Shanann and her children had been out of town for several weeks staying with her family in North Carolina. Additionally, text messages on Shanann’s phone revealed she suspected Chris of having an affair, and police found deleted pictures of him with coworker Victoria Miller.
What was Chris Watts’s polygraph score, and what did it indicate?
Chris Watts scored a -18 on his polygraph test. Polygraphs are graded on a scale where scoring above a 2 is considered a pass and scoring below a -4 is considered a fail. According to the test’s administrator, Chris hadn’t just failed—he had bombed the test.
Where were the bodies of Shanann, Bella, and CeCe Watts found?
On August 16th, 2018, at an oil field owned by Andarko Petroleum, the bodies of 3-year-old CeCe and 4-year-old Bella were found inside two 400-barrel crude oil tanks. Less than 100 yards away, Shanann’s body was found face down in a shallow grave. The missing bed sheet from Chris and Shanann’s bed was discovered nearby, covered in dirt.
What was the cause of death for all three victims, and what additional injuries were found?
The cause of death for all three was asphyxiation. According to the coroner, one of the girls had deep scratches on her buttocks where her body had been forced through the narrow eight-inch diameter hatch. CeCe had defensive wounds that revealed she was awake and aware of what was happening to her when she died.
What was Chris Watts’s sentence, and why was he moved to an out-of-state prison?
On November 19, 2018, Chris Watts was given 5 life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 48 years for unlawful termination of Shanann’s pregnancy and 36 more years for three charges of tampering with a deceased body. He was moved to the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin for his own protection because there was a real fear that he would be targeted by other inmates in Colorado due to the nature of his crimes.
What did Chris Watts reveal in letters to true-crime author Cherlyn Cadle about his prior attempts to harm his family?
In letters to Cherlyn Cadle, author of ‘Letters from Christopher: The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders,’ Chris revealed that he had been planning Shanann’s murder for weeks and that the events on August 13th were not his first attempt. He had previously slipped Shanann a large dose of OxyContin to induce a miscarriage, which failed but may have been the reason Shanann was sick during her business trip. He also wrote that while tucking Celeste and Bella into bed on the night of August 12th, he told himself: ‘That’s the last time I’m going to be tucking my babies in.‘
Why were CeCe and Bella Watts unable to be cremated, and what special burial arrangements were required?
CeCe and Bella could not be cremated because their bodies had become explosive after being submerged in oil for so long. They were instead entombed and buried inside a special, sealed coffin that was designed to prevent the toxic gasses and runoff from leaking and polluting the cemetery grounds. Shanann’s mother, Sandra Rzucek, had originally requested cremation for all three.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: The Watts Family Disappearance
- Hero image source by IAEA Imagebank / openverse, by.
