The Watts Family Murders: A Calculated Act Behind Suburban Normalcy

On August 13, 2018, in Frederick, Colorado, Christopher Lee Watts committed one of the most chilling crimes in recent American history. In a brutal span of hours, he murdered his pregnant wife, Shanann (34), strangled their daughter, Bella (4), and suffocated their daughter, Celeste (3). He would later be sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole—a punishment reserved only for the most heinous criminal acts. Yet beneath the suburban veneer of their home, weeks of deception, infidelity, and premeditated cruelty had laid the groundwork for mass familicide.

Investigative Evidence and Case Files: The meticulous documentation that guided the criminal investigation

The Victims: A Family Fractured by One Man’s Deceit

Shanann Watts was a vibrant 34-year-old businesswoman who worked in direct sales and was deeply invested in her family. At the time of her death, she was 15 weeks pregnant with a son the family had named Nico Lee Watts. While Shanann’s efforts to salvage her marriage grew increasingly desperate in the months before her death, she remained devoted to her two young daughters and the unborn child she was carrying.

Bella Marie Watts, only four years old, was described as intelligent and perceptive beyond her years. Court documents would later reveal a heartbreaking final moment: after Shanann’s body had been strangled to death, Bella walked in on her father wrapping her mother’s corpse. With the innocence and directness of a child, she asked, “What are you doing with Mommy?” Watts told her that her mother was sick and needed to go to the hospital. As Bella watched, unaware of what had transpired, Watts loaded both his living daughters into the bed of his work truck alongside their dead mother’s body.

Celeste, only three years old, was Watts’ younger daughter and would become the first of the children to die. She had a severe peanut allergy that her father, in moments leading up to the murders, seemed increasingly dismissive of—a detail that haunts family members who now understand his psychological distance from the family he was about to annihilate.

In Memory: Shanann and her daughters, victims of a family tragedy that shocked a nation

The Affair: “Everything She Wasn’t”

The foundation for the murders was laid not in a moment of rage, but in a calculated, methodical deception spanning weeks. In May or June 2018, Christopher Watts met Nichol Kessinger, a 30-year-old coworker at the Anadarko Petroleum oil and gas company. Watts immediately began lying—removing his wedding ring and telling Kessinger he was already separated from Shanann and living in the basement of their home.

By early July, the affair had become sexual. In a birthday card dated July 3, 2018, Watts wrote to Kessinger with language that prosecutors would later characterize as evidence of his motive to escape his family. He wrote: “Big things will happen this year. Dreams will come true. That smile (that stare), that laugh (that giggle) gets me every time!! You are truly an amazing, inspirational, and electric womanwhot takes my breath away every time I see you! You are wonderful! Don’t EVER stop being you!!!!”

Ten days before the murders, on July 30, Watts wrote another note, this time making his intentions crystal clear: “Wow, where do I even start? The first day I saw you, you took my breath away… We have a lot of FIRSTS together, Nikki. And I want to keep having them with you!!” These were not the words of a man experiencing a sudden, uncontrollable rage. They were the words of a man envisioning a new life—one that required eliminating his current family.

Meanwhile, Kessinger’s own internet searches revealed her complicity in the fantasy. In July, she searched “Man I’m havingan affair with says he will leave his wife” and “marrying your mistress.” In early August, she searched for wedding dresses. The digital evidence painted a picture of two people constructing a narrative about their future together—one built on lies and, unbeknownst to Kessinger, built on murder.

The Unraveling Marriage: Shanann’s Desperate Pleas

While Watts was conducting his affair, his wife was documenting the emotional collapse of their marriage. Text messages and conversations preserved in court documents show Shanann attempting to reach her emotionally withdrawn husband in the weeks before her death. On August 4, just days before her murder, Shanann sent Chris a lengthy text about Celeste’s peanut allergy incident, accusing him of not defending her to his parents and expressing her pain at his coldness: “I don’t feel like he’s happy with just Bella and Celeste,” she wrote to a friend. “He thought he wanted another one. I’m sick to the stomach. I’m trying to have him last just to see if that helps him, and he rejected me.”

In her desperation to save their marriage, Shanann was attending self-help seminars and couples counseling sessions. Meanwhile, Watts was taking Kessinger to car museums and dunes, using his credit card for lavish dinners—expenses that would later appear on statements that Shanann noticed but could not fully comprehend the significance of.

Just days before her death, the emotional toll was evident. Shanann texted: “I don’t feel like he’s happy about this baby. It’s only one-way emotions and feelings. I can’t return this. Please meet me halfway. You don’t consider others at all, think about others’ feelings.” She was begging her husband to be present, to care, to show even the barest affection toward the family he had already decided to destroy.

August 13: The Day Everything Changed

Shanann returned home from a business conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in the early morning hours of August 13, arriving around 1:45 a.m.Doorbell camera footage captured her arrival. What unfolded in the hours after remains partially known only through Watts’ various confessions, which prosecutors correctly noted were inconsistent and self-serving.

According to Watts’ eventual admission to authorities, he and Shanann had an “emotional conversation” about their marriage and the future. He told her about the affair and expressed his desire for a divorce. It was at this moment, prosecutors argued, that Watts made the calculated decision to kill his entire family to achieve his “fresh start.”

The District Attorney’s characterization of the murders was unambiguous: “The defendant coldly and deliberately ended four lives not in a fit of rage, not by way of accident,t but in a calculated and sickening manner.” Watts strangled Shanann with his bare hands—a prolonged, personal form of murder that left physical evidence across her body. He then wrapped her corpse in a bedsheet and loaded it into the bed of his Dodge pickup truck.

While Shanann’s body lay in the truck bed, Bella remained in the home. When she awoke and discovered her father wrapping something (her mother’s body) in a sheet, she asked what he was doing. Watts told her her mother was sick. He then retrieved Celeste from her bedroom as well. The young girl still had her favorite blanket—the same blanket Watts would use to smother her once they reached the oil field.

The Bodies Concealed: A Crime Scene at Anadarko

The Crime Scene: Anadarko oil field in Frederick, Colorado, where the victims were discovered

At approximately 5:15 a.m., Watts drove his truck to the Anadarko Petroleum oil field where he worked, carrying the bodies of his wife and two living daughters. Security camera footage from a neighbor captured him loading a gas can into his truck and backing it into his garage—timestamp evidence that contradicted his later claims to police that his family had left the home with him.

At the oil field, Watts dug a shallow grave near two large oil storage tanks and buried Shanann’s body, still wrapped in the bedsheet. Her remains remained in that grave for three days before discovery. Her unborn son, Nico, was never allowed to live.

For his daughters, Watts employed a different method of concealment. He forced both Bella’s and Celeste’s small bodies into the opening of crude oil tanks—openings only eight inches in diameter. The girls’ bodies remained submerged in crude oil for four days before authorities recovered them. The deliberate nature of this disposal—choosing a method that would render the bodies difficult to identify and would eventually contaminate any physical evidence—further contradicts any narrative of a crime committed in blind rage.

Prosecutors entered into evidence photographs of the oil field crime scene, drone footage showing the remote nature of the location, and detailed bodycam video of the search and recovery operations. These images, available in over 2,000 pages of publicly released discovery materials released publhedocumentc, document the methodical nature of Watts’ attempt to conceal his crime.

The Investigation: Deception Meets Evidence

By the afternoon of August 13, a friend of Shanann’s, Nickole Utoft Atkinson, became alarmed when Shanann missed a doctor’s appointment and failed to respond to multiple texts and phone calls—behavior entirely unlike the social media-active businesswoman. At 1:37 p.m., Atkinson called 911 to report the family missing.

Police arrived at the Watts home around 1:40 p.m. for a welfare check. Remarkably, Watts permitted officers into the residence and initially claimed that he had last seen his wife around 5:15 a.m. when he left for work—a story he maintained while his wife and daughters lay dead miles away at an oil field. Inside the home, police discovered Shanann’s cell phone, purse, wallet, and medication—physical evidence that contradicted Watts’ later claims that his family had voluntarily left the home.

That evening, in interviews with local news outlets, Watts performed the role of a grief-stricken husband and father. “I just want them back. I just want them to come back. If they’re not safe now, that’s what’s tearing me apart,” he told KMGH-TV—words spoken while he knew their exact locations and the manner of their deaths.

The breakthrough in the investigation came through investigative discipline and technology. Police obtained Watts’ cell phone records and discovered evidence of his extramarital affair with Kessinger. On August 15, two days after the murders, Watts was administered a polygraph examination. He failed it decisively, achieving one of the lowest possible scores. In the interrogation room, faced with the irrefutable evidence of his infidelity, Watts asked to speak with his father. While controversial, this decision proved strategically sound for investigators.

With his father present, Watts finally admitted to killing Shanann. However, he offered a false narrative: he claimed that Shanann, not he, had killed both daughters—that he had discovered Bella unresponsive and then witnessed Shanann strangling Celeste. Only then, he claimed, had he strangled his wife “in a fit of rage.” Investigators knew this account was false. The polygraph results, the evidence recovered at the crime scene, and the coordinated disposal of all three bodies at a remote location indicated a single perpetrator acting with deliberation, not passion.

By August 16, investigators had located all three bodies at the Anadarko oil field, and the evidence mounted steadily. Neighbor surveillance footage captured Watts’ truck being loaded in the early morning hours of August 13. Drone footage revealed the oil field and the precise locations of the bodies. Forensic evidence—bedsheet fibers matching pillowcases from the Watts home, footprint impressions, and the positioning of the bodies—corroborated a premeditated, methodical crime.^8

The Charges and Plea Agreement

On August 21, 2018, Watts was formally charged with nine counts: five counts of first-degree murder (one for each victim, plus two additional counts for each daughter due to their age and Watts’ position of trust), one count of unlawful termination of pregnancy, and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

Initially, Watts faced the possibility of capital punishment. However, Shanann’s family made a decision that prosecutors noted was extraordinary in its compassion: they requested that the death penalty not be pursued. This decision was not a reflection of forgiveness but a deliberate choice to prevent another killing—even a legal one. The family preferred that Watts spend the remainder of his natural life in prison, contemplating his crimes.

On November 6, 2018, facing overwhelming evidence and the certainty of conviction, Christopher Watts pleaded guilty to all nine counts. In doing so, he abandoned his false narrative that Shanann had killed the children. His guilty plea constituted an admission that he alone murdered his pregnant wife and two young daughters.

Sentencing: The Weight of Justice

On November 19, 2018, Judge Marcelo Kopcow sentenced Christopher Watts to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 48 years for the unlawful termination of Shanann’s pregnancy and 36 years for three counts of tampering with deceased bodies. The sentences were calculated to ensure that Watts would never be eligible for release and would die in prison.

At sentencing, Judge Kopcow characterized the crimes in unambiguous language: “Perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime I have handled out of the thousands of cases I’ve seen.” Shanann’s family delivered victim impact statements before the judge, their voices filling the courtroom with the emotional weight of their loss.

In November 2019, more than a year after sentencing, a civil court awarded Shanann’s parents a wrongful death judgment of $6 million against Watts—$3 million for each death and an additional $3 million for emotional pain and suffering. The judgment, which accrues interest at eight percent annually, served a dual purpose: it acknowledged the immeasurable value of the lives lost and prevented Watts from ever profiting from his crimes through book deals, interviews, or other commercial ventures.

Justice Served: The courtroom where five life sentences without parole were handed down.

The Unresolved Questions

Despite extensive investigation, thousands of pages of discovery materials, and Watts’ guilty plea, significant questions remain unanswered. Why did Watts transform from a man participating in couples counseling (albeit half-heartedly) to a man capable of murdering his pregnant wife and smothering his small daughters in the span of a few weeks? Prosecutors and investigators have offered motive: the desire for a “fresh start” with his mistress, free from the responsibilities of family life. But the psychology of his transformation—the moment when fantasy about a new life with Kessinger crystallized into the decision to commit murder—remains partially opaque.

Watts has provided no definitive explanation since his guilty plea. District Attorney Michael Rourke expressed skepticism that Watts would ever truthfully account for his actions, stating, “I don’t expect that he will ever tell the truth about what truly happened or why. There’s no rational way that any human being could find those answers except those responsible for such horrific questions.”

In prison, Watts has reportedly told fellow inmates that Kessinger was “the death” of him, suggesting he blames his mistress for his crimes rather than accepting personal responsibility. Handwritten notes obtained by media outlets show him characterizing Shanann as a “control freak” while elevating Kessinger as “everything” his wife wasn’t.” These statements suggest a man incapable or unwilling to confront the reality of his own agency in the murders.

Conclusion: The Banality of Evil

The Watts family murders represent a particular horror: not a crime born of sudden, uncontrollable violence, but one rooted in prolonged deception, calculation, and the systematic erasure of inconvenient human beings. Shanann, a devoted mother and wife attempting to salvage a marriage to an emotionally withdrawn and unfaithful husband, was murdered not in rage but as an obstacle to her husband’s desired future. Her daughters, ages four and three, were murdered because they stood in the way of that future—a future with a woman he had known for mere weeks.

The case also illustrates the limitations of the American criminal justice system in fully addressing the deepest questions of human motivation. Christopher Watts was apprehended, convicted, and sentenced to five consecutive life sentences. Justice, in its legal form, was served. Yet the fundamental mystery of how and why a man came to murder his entire family—the psychological and moral architecture of such evil—remains partially beyond the reach of interrogation, evidence, and forensic analysis.

Shanann Watts and her daughters Bella and Celeste, along with their unborn brother Nico, are remembered now not through the eyes of their murderer but through the testimony of those who loved them: family members, friends, colleagues, and a community forever changed by the knowledge of what occurred in the early morning hours of August 13, 2018.

Case Details at a Glance

**Element**	**Details**
Victim 1	Christopher Lee Watts, age 33 at the time of crime^3
Victim 2	Bella Marie Watts, age 4^2
Victim 3	Celeste Watts, age 3^3
Perpetrator	Christopher Lee Watts, age 33 at the time of the crime^3
Location	Frederick, Colorado; bodies concealed at Anadarko Petroleum oil field^1
Date of Crime	August 13, 2018^1
Bodies Discovered	August 15-16, 2018^12
Arrest Date	August 15, 2018^3
Charges	5 counts of first-degree murder, 1 count unlawful termination of pregnancy, 3 counts tampering with the deceased body^13
Plea	Guilty to all 9 counts, November 6, 2018^3
Sentencing	5 life sentences without parole (3 consecutive, 2 concurrent), plus 48 years for unlawful termination, plus 36 years for tampering, November 19, 2018^3
Current Location	Dodge Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison in Waupun, Wisconsin^1
Civil Judgment	$6 million wrongful death lawsuit awarded to Shanann’s parents, November 2019^14