Transcript of 446: Part 1: Chris Watts Admits the Murders Were Pre-Planned & Throws Mistress Under the Bus?

Like, I have no inclination of where they're at right now.

It's like a nightmare that I just can't wake up from.

Like, I want her back so bad.

I want those kids back so bad. He labels Nicole Kessinger a Jezebel.

This was the case that people wanted a punishment for.

It stirred such a reaction in the community.

Well, they just disappeared from thin air.

Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Asleep. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialously with me, your host, Annie Elise, also your true crime bestie clocking in for duty. And you know how it goes. On Monday, we deep dive together into these cases. I am your, you know, I don't know, I guess you call it your resident sleuth going to the ends of the earth researching these cases for you. The depths of hell online, the FOIA requests, the court documents, the interviews, everything so that I can give you the full story.

Okay?

And for those of you who might be new here, first and foremost, welcome. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome in. Uh, please, before we get started too, everybody do me a favor. If you're watching on YouTube, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button. If you're listening to the audio version of this in your car, make sure you're following the podcast so that you don't miss any new episodes. And you're really going to want to do that right now because today's deep dive is a little bit different than our regular deep dives in the sense that there are 2, a part 1 and a part 2, but all on the same case. However, it's a notorious case too. I'll just tell you that right from the jump. Part 1 is all about the backstory, the notorious case, the evil monster at the center of it. And part 2 is digging a little deeper, going a little bit behind the curtain into the mistress involved in this case, who I believe hasn't been proven by a court of law, but who I believe did play some type of role in this quadruple murder. And it is a quadruple murder because this monster, Chris Watts, he murdered his wife, His 2 daughters and his unborn son.

Now, okay, let me just say this. I just shared with you that today we are talking about Chris Watts, also Nicole Kessinger, and because it's a 2-parter and because of the case and the content within it, it is going to bring up a lot of mixed emotions. Okay? Because this is a case that I could probably retell in my sleep by this point. I know this case. So well, I have been so immersed in it for years now, decoding every single thing I can, researching everything I can, literally going through hundreds of pages of phone records and highlighting things. I just I feel like I know it like the back of my hand. And like I said, today we are talking about none other than the infamous family annihilator Chris Watts, which I know, I know, I know. I thought that ship had sailed too. I didn't think we were going to be going back to Watts Island anytime soon. Yet somehow, even after all the these years, Chris Watts is still finding a way to stay relevant in the media. And most recently, it's because there are reports that Chris has apparently gotten married or is preparing to get married while behind bars, which obviously has put his name, you know, right there back in the headlines.

So today what I'm gonna do is not only revisit the murders themselves, because like I said, I know this case backwards and forwards, and I promise you Even if you think you were familiar with this case, there are details that you probably don't know about, especially when it comes to whereabouts, activity, phone records, time cards.

You heard that right, time cards and other details from the afternoon following the murders.

There is so much that we need to go through, so we're going to dig in together. Everything we know about Chris, everything I've been able to pulled together over the years, everything that's out there relating to the crime itself. And then we're also going to talk about his mistress, Nicole Kessinger, because some of the details surrounding this case still have a lot of people asking questions. Because chances are, if you mention Chris Watts or the Watts family murders to anyone you know or anyone who follows true crime, I would say that 90% of people have at least heard of the case or have some sort of knowledge of it. But a lot of people still have no clue about the smaller details, the inconsistencies, the unanswered questions, the strange pieces of the investigation that even after all these years later still have people wondering, did investigators actually get the full story? So like I said, because of the massive deep dive that today's episode is and the sheer amount of information that there is to go over, I've decided to split it into 2 parts. First, we're going to talk about Chris and Shanann's marriage, the dynamics within it, how they went from this seemingly perfect family next door to a marriage that was near the end, and what was the ultimate catalyst within that.

Then we are going to also talk about Chris and Nicole's activity before, and even more importantly, after the murders. And then we're also going to touch on why Chris has been in the headlines the last couple of years, and even more recently, Just a couple of months ago. So there is a lot to go through, but I want to take you through it start to finish. So buckle up, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, and let's get into it. And really quickly, just as a note, if you hear any differences in audio, it's because I'm pulling a couple pieces from past deep dives just to make the story more complete. So that being said, let's jump right in.

Around 2 AM on August 13th, 2018, Shanann Watts got home from a business trip. She was working in direct sales for a company called Thrive, and her friend Nicole Atkinson also worked for that company and had been on that trip with her. So after a long day of traveling, Nicole drove both of them home from the airport. She dropped Shanann off at her home in Frederick, Colorado. She made sure that she got inside safely, and then she drove home. Little did Nicole know that she would essentially be the last person to ever see Shanann alive. Because just 2 days later, on August 15th at 11 PM, Shanann's body was found in a shallow grave near an oil drilling site. It was about 40 miles away from her home. The bodies of her daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old CeCe, were also found a day later. They were found inside crude oil tanks about 200 yards away from Shanann's body. Shanann was in a purple t-shirt and underwear. She had a plastic bag on her head and another wrapped around her feet. She had abrasions on her neck and also to the left side of her face.

An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled to death. CeCe was found in a pink and black shirt and wearing a diaper. She didn't have any visible injuries and it was determined that she had been smothered to death. Now Bella had also been smothered. She was wearing bright pink pajamas, but unlike CeCe, Bella had many injuries. There was blunt force trauma to her jaw, lacerations in her mouth, and she also had bite marks on the surface of her tongue. So all of these injuries made the medical examiner come to the conclusion that Bella was fighting for her life in her final moments. But it's not like investigators just happened to find these bodies by chance. There wasn't a long drawn-out search that led them to this oil drilling site. The killer actually told them exactly where to look. He had already been identified, and the killer was none other than Shanann's husband and Bella and CeCe's father, Chris Watts. On November 3rd, 2012, Chris and Shanann got married in Charlotte, North Carolina. After the wedding, Shanann joined Chris in Colorado, and then a year later, on December 17th, 2013, they had their first child together, a little girl named Bella Watts.

Now, I want to backtrack just a little bit here because Shanann had been absolutely overjoyed, ecstatic when she found out that she was pregnant. She had been struggling with health problems pretty much her entire life. In her mid-20s, Shanann had started losing a lot of her hair and she felt terrible almost all of the time. Eventually, she was diagnosed with lupus and with fibromyalgia. So she was told that it was very unlikely that she would ever become pregnant. So this was an absolute miracle. She was over the moon. It was just a complete shock when she found out that she was expecting. However, she was told that this pregnancy was high risk. She had to take it easy. So because of that, she stopped working and Chris ended up working as a mechanic at a local car dealership. Now, in a complete shocker to her, Chris, and family, friends, even doctors, Shanann found out that she was pregnant again in late 2014. Now, again, this pregnancy, it was definitely high risk and it was very difficult on her. But on July 17th, 2015, Shanann gave birth to another little girl, CeCe Watts. How could a seemingly happy marriage deteriorate so quickly?

Well, starting in June, Chris began growing very distant from Shanann. He was quiet, cold, and he was uninterested in her or the girls. Text messages from the beginning of July show the start of some issues in their relationship. Now, by this point, Shanann was spending the 6 weeks visiting family in North Carolina, and the girls were also there with her. Meanwhile, Chris had stayed back home, he had to work, but he had plans to meet up with them towards the end of their trip. So on July 10th, Shanann texted Chris asking him if he was okay because he hadn't said much during a previous phone call that they had. She said that she wished that her husband would just actually talk to her. But Chris insisted he was fine, he was just really stressed at work. But then after that, Chris just straight up stopped answering Shanann's calls and he was barely responding to any of her text messages. Shanann was also having issues with Chris's family at the time while she was staying in North Carolina, so that wasn't making anything any easier on her. Now these issues with the parents, they definitely weren't new.

There had been tension there for quite a while. See, years before, before Shanann and Chris even got married, Chris's mom Cindy straight up told Shanann that she didn't think that Shanann loved Chris, that she actually loved him. There was apparently such turmoil too in those relationships that a bunch of relatives didn't even go to their wedding. Which, that all sounds pretty bad, yes, but it was nothing compared to what actually went down during this visit with his parents in North Carolina. See, CeCe, their young daughter, she had a severe peanut allergy. Even a little bit of a peanut could cause this severe allergic reaction. However, for whatever reason, Chris's parents were just not taking that seriously apparently. They gave the 2 girls ice cream that had pieces of peanuts inside of it and Shanann immediately went into, you know, protective mother mode and got very, very angry like, what are you doing? You know that she has an allergy, like why on earth would you give this to her? So Shanann got into a huge fight with Chris's parents and they didn't see each other for the rest of the trip. His parents didn't even go to a party that Shanann had held for CeCe's birthday.

So Shanann told Chris what had happened, you know, she was expressing her anger, but he acted like he didn't even care that his daughter had almost gotten seriously sick or could have even died. So she sent him a follow-up text message which read, these kids are my world and I have to protect them from the evil of the world. I shouldn't have to protect them from evil family. Our kids deserve the same love and attention that other kids get, nothing less. Then on July 24th, Shanann sent Chris another text message. I realized during this trip what's missing in our relationship. It's only one-way emotions and feelings. I can't come back like this. I need you to meet me halfway. You don't consider these at all, nor think about feelings. I try to give you space, but while you are working and living this bachelor life, I'm carrying our 3rd child and fighting with 2 kids daily and trying to work and make money. It's not hard to text I love you and I miss you. If you don't mean it, then I get it, but we need to talk. I kept looking at my phone all night and no response from you.

Seriously, we didn't just start dating yesterday. We've been together 8 years and we have 2 and a half kids together. So by this point, there was definitely a fracture in their relationship. Whether it was surface level, it was certainly emotional at this point. And Shanann wasn't just sending these angry text messages to Chris. She was also telling her friends all about Chris's strange behavior. How out of seemingly nowhere he just apparently completely stopped caring about her and their 2 daughters. But during all of this, he did make some effort to seem caring or committed because on July 31st, Chris flew out to North Carolina to spend that last week of the vacation with his family as originally planned. But things were weird and everybody could tell. All of Shanann's family noticed how distant Chris was acting and I mean, it was super out of character for him. Chris had always been so loving, so attentive, but now he was barely paying any attention to his wife and his daughters. So at the beginning of August, the Watts family flew back home to Colorado. But if Shanann was hoping that things would just, you know, go back to normal once they were home and they would get back in the swing of things and their usual routine, she was definitely wrong.

Because out of nowhere, on August 6th, Chris apparently told Shanann that He wasn't even excited about having a 3rd child, and we know this because the very next morning Shanann sent another text message to a friend. It read, Chris told me last night that he is scared to death about this 3rd baby and that he's happy with just Bella and Celeste and that he doesn't want another baby. Now, 2 days later on August 9th, the 2 of them had an ultrasound appointment. Chris went with Shanann, but again, he was very distant and he just seemed Very uninterested during the entire appointment, even when the two of them learned the sex of the baby. They were having a little boy, a milestone that should be so exciting and so thrilling in a relationship. So again, Shanann texts her friend. She said, I said, you sat here in this living room and you said you think it would be a great thing to have a baby. We talked it out a lot beforehand and we agreed to this. You were so excited and happy. I grabbed his hand during the ultrasound and he didn't grab it back.

The only thing I can think of, even though I don't think he has it in him, is another girl. Later that day, Shanann told her friends that she and Chris had a very long conversation later that day and that things did seem to be better. She said he seemed happier about the baby once he did find out that it was a boy and that they even had picked out a name together, Nico. According to Shanann, it was the best conversation that the two of them had had in a really long time. And Chris was now finally acting like Chris again. She said he even kissed her before going to bed that night, something that he hadn't done in weeks. But then Shanann left for her business trip with her friend Nicole, and once they were physically apart from one another once again, things went right back downhill like they had before with Chris. But now he was telling Shanann that he didn't think that this relationship was going to work. He wanted to separate.

Their marriage had gone significantly downhill and pretty fast.

And Shanann knew it.

But even more than that, she suspected that there was another woman behind it. That it wasn't just your typical marriage spats and starting to possibly drift apart, but that there was actually another third-party person involved that was helping to create the divide between the two of them. And this was something that even her friends knew about, just from confiding in them. So when Shanann and the girls went missing, Chris was really the first person that everybody looked at, especially those close to Shanann. And as those close with Shanann were sharing what they knew with investigators, or what they thought they knew, what their concerns were, what some of the red flags were, one of the number one things that the investigators of course wanted to get to the bottom of was, was there any truth to these extramarital affairs?

So when I work investigations like this, I have to keep an open mind on everything, okay? And part of keeping an open mind is listening to you talk about your wife and your marriage. And the day she goes missing is the day that you guys have marital discord. Okay, so you can understand what I'm thinking about you.

Yeah.

What do you think about that? Uh, makes me sick to my stomach, honestly. Like, I know, like, I've talked to a few of my friends, like, you know, this does not look good on you. I'm like, I know. It's like people that— if people knew that we were having marital issues, they're gonna look at me, especially with the way everything looks. It honestly just makes me sick to my stomach because this is something that I would never do, ever. I, I know, like, you have to look at every, every vantage point. This is something I would never do to my kids or my wife.

At all.

I'm not sure, like, what I could do, like, to make people believe that, just because if they, they knew we were having marital discord, they would automatically look at me. But there's no— I would harm anybody in my family at all. I know we were having marital discord, and we had that conversation that morning, and then she goes We have no idea where she is or the kids. I promise you that. No, no, I had nothing to do with any of that. Are you telling me the truth? I'm telling you the absolute truth. Why should I believe you? Because I'm a very trustworthy person, and the people that do know me, they know how I'm a calm person. I am not an argumentative person. I am a person who is— that's never going to be abusive or physical in any kind of relationship. I would never harm my kids. I would never harm my wife. I mean, you can talk to me and you talk to any of my friends, any of her friends. They know me. They know I'm a low-key guy that's quiet. I'm, I'm not about confrontation. I'm not about anything that elevates to that level.

I mean, like, if someone like yells at me, screams at me, I just take it and I just try to get it by the wayside and get it back to where it's cool, just a cool conversation to where like none of that, none of that gets to that height because I am not that person. I've never been that person.

So Chris just says he's a low-key guy, that he wasn't abusive, and that he would never hurt his wife or children. But here's the thing. During the entire interview, Chris was referring to Shanann and the girls in the past tense, almost like he knew that they weren't alive anymore. The detective clearly didn't believe anything that Chris said either, so he asked him if he would take a polygraph test, and Chris agreed.

And you understand that I'm not arresting you right now. You understand that you can walk out of here at any time?

Sure.

Okay. Having said that, I do want to talk to you. Uh, I have a lot more questions for you.

Okay.

Okay. Do you know where your wife is? I do not know where my wife is. Are you telling me the truth? I'm telling you the absolute truth. Okay.

The detectives also discovered that Chris had been keeping an even more massive secret from them. Shanann was right. He was having an affair. He was having an affair with a coworker named Nicole Kessinger. On August 15th, an FBI agent was able to corroborate Chris's claim that he was having an affair with Nicole. A regional manager from his job called to say that they had found some emails to prove it. And almost 2 hours later, Nicole called the police herself and told them that she was, in fact, having an affair with Chris. Now, there's some speculation as to why she called the police at this specific time, and I will talk about that in a little bit because we have got a lot to talk about regarding Nicole. But for now, let's just say Nicole said that she called them because she says she saw Chris on the news and she realized in that moment that he had been lying about his marriage and about Shanann's pregnancy. Nicole was under the impression, according to her, that the marriage was already over and she had absolutely no idea that Shanann was pregnant. So the investigators continued to do some digging, and they discovered that Chris and Nicole had started talking in the early months of summer in 2018.

Nicole also worked at Anadarko, and she would sometimes see Chris in the break room. Then one day, Chris went by her office and started talking to her. Then the casual break room chats turned into something more, and one day Chris went by her office and started talking to her there. Then he added her to his phone as a contact on June 14th. They met up outside of the office later that month, and Chris had told Nicole that he and his wife were in the process of separating and that he was also almost divorced. So by July, while Shanann was away with the kids in North Carolina, Chris and Nicole were having a field day. They were seeing each other 4 to 5 times a week. Their relationship had also become physical by this point, and later that month, Chris told Nicole that his marriage was officially over. On July 14th, they went on a date at the Shelby American Collection Car Museum, and while they were there, Shanann had tried calling Chris 4 different times, but each time the calls went unanswered. And just remember, this was all during the time where Shanann was freaking out because something seemed off with Chris.

However, he would never tell her what it was. A few days later, on July 18th, Nicole sent Chris these semi-nude bikini pictures. Which he decided to save on a secret app on his phone. It's an app that looks like a normal calculator app, but it's actually a secret place to store photos or videos so that if somebody happens to see that app, if they're going through your phone, they won't suspect that it's a hidden folder.

It's disguised, you know, as a calculator.

So she sends him all these, like, really cringe nude— semi-nude, I should say— bikini photos of herself, and he saves them into that app. Then 10 days after that, Chris and Nicole go on a trip together to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. And there they spent the night together. So he's ignoring his pregnant wife, his 2 young girls, he's making Shanann feel so insecure, all while he's in this, what, romantic whirlwind with his coworker while his wife is calling him, texting him, pleading with him, trying to make things better? And as if that wasn't bad enough, on July 30th, Chris gave Nicole a card that had a love letter written inside of it. Then he just up and left to go see his family in North Carolina like nothing ever happened. All while Chris and Nicole continued to message and stay in contact with each other while Chris was away. And on top of all of that, right before and after the girls went missing, Chris was searching online for different things like secluded vacation spots and 2-person cars. He was also texting with a realtor the exact day that his family went missing.

He was inquiring about selling his house, and at one point the realtor asked why Shanann hadn't texted her at all. And Chris just said that he didn't know where she was, and he asked the realtor to pray for them. Which, what a bizarre conversation, right? I mean, I would love to know what was going through that realtor's head in that moment when some guy texts and casually just mentions, oh, by the way, my wife is missing, but, you know, don't let that get in the way of me selling our house. Also, the fact that he was searching a 2-person car. Look, I'm no expert, But to me, that signals premeditation. You only are going to get a 2-person car if you know that you're not going to need 2 car seats behind you. So the girls are still missing. Nobody knows anything. All the while, he is still continuing to text Nicole about their life together, even when people were actively searching for Shanann, CeCe, and Bella. Now I know that that's a lot, and that's all of what the police learn in just one day. Just one day of searching his phone. And also on that same day, or more accurately, that night, they got a phone call from Shanann's mom, Sandy.

She told the police that she was positive that Chris did something to Shanann. He had hurt her. She noticed how he had been acting very weird lately and she added that if he did in fact try to hurt Shanann, she wouldn't be able to fight back because of her lupus. Sandy was particularly afraid that Chris was going to pour oil on the bodies and Dispose of them somewhere. It was a very, very specific concern of hers and she told the police about it. So on August 15th, now 2 days after Shanann and the girls had been reported as missing, Chris took that polygraph test. Now while all of this was going on, other officers were searching the Watts family home. They noticed how clean everything was in the home, but otherwise nothing really seemed too out of the ordinary.

At first, that is.

Because when they went to the master bedroom, they noticed that the bed was completely stripped. There weren't any sheets, no blankets, nothing. The search team ended up finding the top sheet and the pillowcases, but get this, they were shoved inside the kitchen trash can. They also couldn't find a fitted sheet that matched the set. They couldn't find it anywhere. Now by this point, as I'm sure you probably would be and have guessed, Everybody was suspicious of Chris. His story just wasn't making any sense. His behavior was weird. The police knew that he was cheating on Shanann. I mean, there were so many red flags going on. So one of the CBI agents even told Chris that, you know, given the circumstances, it would actually be really dumb for you to take a polygraph test because if you did do something to the girls, we're going to find out. But Chris said that it was okay. He had nothing to lie about. He wasn't going to lie. So they did the test.

Tons of polygraphs, obviously, in my training. Um, I went to 10 weeks for training. I've been a polygrapher about— for about 5 years. Um, I went to the best school in the country. So I want you to have confidence in the fact that if you had nothing to do with this disappearance, like, we're gonna find that out today, okay? I have the best training that they offer in the United States. Um, I— we use the most validated testing, um, that— the way I'm gonna ask you the questions, so Believe me, if you had nothing to do with this, I will be able to show them that today. Okay? So that should give you some confidence that, um, you know, she's out. Like, you're gonna be cleared today if you had nothing to do with it.

Okay? And it was just like, all right, so I'm at this point, I'm hoping, all right, she's at a friend's house, she's safe, and she's just like decompressing, or like, she's just— she's safe. But like, that night, like, as I'm like calling like hospitals and hotels And it's like, there's like, there's nothing, like, it's nothing, there's nothing there. Like, nobody's, nobody's had her check in, nobody, there's nothing at all. And then that was just traumatic because like, I had, I had every light in the house on just, just in case. Like, you know, like, yeah, I went and laid in bed, but I didn't sleep. I was just sitting there. It was like, I had friends that came over. Nick and Amanda came over for a little while and they showed support. My friend Dave and and Jeremy came over, they showed support. Um, Shanann's friend Lauren came over, she showed support. Another friend, uh, Melissa came by that I didn't know, that she showed support. Everybody's just like, I don't know like why this happened or how this happened, but like I hope that she's okay type thing.

Mm-hmm.

And just like, I was just hoping that I would get that knock on the door or a phone call or a text. I mean, her phone, I mean, they have her phone, like hopefully maybe it's a number I don't know. hopefully it's like, you know, like a burner phone or some, some kind of, some kind of like phone she bought and she could just text me, call me like, hey, I'm okay, something. Or just get a knock on the door and the kids just run in. And I was just like, like, it didn't happen. And when I was going through like that night, just like trying to, just trying to process everything, like, I miss like the kids like sitting at the dinner table and like I have to tell them to eat their dinner. And like, I missed them throwing the chicken nuggets at me. Like, I was— when I went to their rooms, just kind of like, you know, make the beds. It's like I wasn't going to turn the rain machines on, you know. Like, I wasn't like, you know, gonna read them a book. I wasn't gonna like— I wasn't gonna kiss them good night.

I wasn't gonna like, you know, do that. I wasn't gonna play in the playroom. I wasn't giving them like their Nightly snack, like their nighttime snack. I wasn't, you know, giving them their medicine. I wasn't, you know, getting them dressed for bed. All that, like, just— it just hit me. It's like, I'm not— I'm not turning the monitor on to watch them because they're not here. Like, where are they? And then I was just like, I didn't even want to stay in the house that night, but I knew— I, I knew I had to just in case, like, maybe they came home. Maybe they, they would come in that front door. garage door or something, something would happen. But nothing happened that night. So I just laid in bed and took phone calls and texts from all our friends that were— I couldn't sleep either. And just like, just asking for prayers, just asking prayers in general. Just like, these kids are gonna come home, they're gonna come home safe. And the next day Well, detective, he called me about 2 AM saying like they were going to do like the missing persons report, and I'll get that all, get that all going there.

But yeah, it's like the next day, like when everything like started happening as far as the news crews like pulling in and then all the K-9 units and the drones flying over my house, it was just like it all set in, like This is not— she's, she's not— they think something happened because all this, all this right here, this means that, okay, my worst fear, that's where this is going right now. Because I thought she was just at somebody's house and she was safe, but now it's going down the other direction with all this going on, with the dogs coming in, with the news, the news media, everything just kind of happening. It's like, all right, this is, this has gone to a totally different, totally different direction. And it's like, I, I was, I was, when all my friends like were coming over to give me some support, I knew that like, all right, like I was happy all my friends came over to support. I didn't want to be alone at that point in time. Like, it's like, that's, this is the time you don't want to be alone at all. And my friends have supported me all through this and I just want to find them.

I want them to come home safe, like wherever they are, I hope they are safe. And I really, I really hope they can just come home.

After the polygraph test, Chris was left alone for a little while. 2 agents came back into the room and that's when they shared the results with Chris.

So, um, it was completely clear that you were not honest during the testing. I think you already know that. Um, you did not pass the polygraph test. Okay. Okay, so now we need to talk about what actually happened. I feel like you're probably ready to do that.

I didn't— I didn't lie to you on that polygraph, I promise. Chris, I, I know— Just stop. It's time. All right, just stop for a minute. Take a deep breath. I want you to take a deep breath right now.

There's a reason you feel sick to your stomach. When people hold stuff inside, it makes you physically ill. And I can just tell on your face, I could tell you— tell from the second you walked in that you were wanting to just come clean and just be done with this. And I appreciate that because you knew sitting down in that chair that you weren't going to pass today. And you knew I was going to find out because I told you that, and then you continued to stay knowing that you could at the end say, you know what, I just need to get this off my chest. Like, I just need to tell you what happened. We're not— we're not here to play games. We're not here to do any of that with you. We just want to know what happened. So can you start from the beginning and tell us what happened?

Everything that I took I told you I did not lie on this polygraph.

I am—

I don't know how much I could— I can tell you right now, like, I did not.

It's not even— it's not even an option right now because you did not pass the polygraph. So I know you were being deceptive. So that's not even an issue right now. The issue right now is what happened to Shanann, Bella, and Celeste. That's the issue right now.

Okay.

Okay, so let's talk about that. I know, I know you want to tell us. I, I can, I can see it in your face. Holding this lie in is going to do nothing for you.

I know this. Like, I'm not like trying to like cover things up.

Like, yeah, but you kind of are because— and, and no, it's normal. Normal people would do that. Normal people that make a mistake initially are going to go, I don't know what you're talking about, I didn't do anything.

That's normal.

I would expect that. It's just like if you ask your kid, you know, did you write on the wall? And they go, no. And you're like, you have marker on your hand, like, I know you just wrote on the wall. They're like, oh, okay. That's a natural reaction that someone's gonna initially lie about something like that and then eventually tell the truth. So this is your eventually telling the truth time. This is where, this is where the rubber meets the road, Chris. Like, don't let this continue any longer, please.

I'm not trying to make anything continue. Like, I want them back home, like—

But you know they're not coming back home. You know that.

I don't know.

In the back of my head, I hope they come back home.

But you know they're not.

I hope they come back home.

Mm-hmm.

And I don't know they're not coming back home.

At one point, Chris said that he probably failed because he hadn't talked about his affair with Nicole before. But the investigators knew that that was not the only reason why he failed. And then Chris asked if he could talk with his dad privately. His dad had flown in from North Carolina the previous day. So finally, when Chris's dad came in and they had their private conversation, Chris confessed. Well, I should say he confessed to his first version. So according to Chris, on August 13th, he and Shanann had talked about separating, about divorcing. She freaked out and he says she went upstairs and that's when she smothered Bella and CeCe, killing them. He says he didn't see her do it, but he did hear some commotion coming from upstairs. So he went upstairs to see what was going on and that's when he found out what Shanann had done. So he says he freaked out and in a complete rage, he strangled Shanann to death. Afterwards, he then put the bodies in the backseat of his truck. This was around 5 AM on the morning of the 13th. Then he drove to one of those oil sites where he worked and he buried Shanann in a shallow grave.

Then he put Bella and CeCe in the crude oil tanks. He even told the police exactly where they could find their remains. So that night, the investigators went out to that site and they found Shanann's body. This was around 11 PM. They also found that missing bedsheet from the bedroom. Also parts of a broken rake that was all near Shanann's body. And Chris admitted that he had used that rake to cover her body with brush. However, even though they had found Shanann at this point, they still had to wait until the next day to get CeCe and Bella. So on August 16th, the police went back to the site. They had to climb to the very top of the tanks to get to the openings. I mean, we're talking 20 feet high. And up there, they saw a tuft of blonde hair on one of the tanks. Hair that, of course, belonged to one of these little girls. They also noted how small the openings were. They were only about 8 inches in diameter. So they wondered how Chris was able to possibly squeeze their little bodies through that opening. Did he contort them? Did he break bones?

How did they fit through an 8-inch opening? They ended up draining all of the oil out of the tanks so that they could recover the bodies, and this took hours, but then they finally got the girls' bodies out. Now, no one actually believed the story that Chris had told about Shanann killing the girls. She was a great mother, a protective mother. She never would have done that. I mean, no matter how upset she was about separating from Chris, she never would have killed her daughters. So instead, they thought that he was lying. And that he had been lying the entire time. When he was calling and texting her asking her where she was and where the girls were, that was all just to cover his own tracks.

Which honestly, he didn't do that great of a job at.

He was pretty suspicious from the start. So on August 21st, Chris was officially charged with 3 counts of first-degree murder, plus 2 additional first-degree charges for the death of a child who was under 12 years old. He was also charged with the unlawful termination of a pregnancy and 3 counts of tampering with a body. On September 1st, a funeral was held for Shanann, CeCe, Bella, and unborn baby Nico. The funeral was held in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and Chris was not mentioned once during the ceremony. When Chris did enter a plea on November 6th, 2018, he pled guilty to all of the charges. He finally admitted that he had killed Shanann and his daughters. And at his sentencing on November 19th, Shanann's mother gave a very emotional testimony where she asked the district attorney not to seek the death penalty.

God makes no mistakes on who he puts in your life. Marriage is about love, trust, and friendship and unity. We marry for sickness and health, to death do us part. Our daughter Shannon loved you with all of her heart. Your children loved you to the moon and back. Shannon's family was her world. Shannon put a crown on your head, but unfortunately The day that you took their life, God removed that crown. We loved you like a son. We trusted you. Your faithful wife trusted you. Your children adored you, and they also trusted you. Your daughter Bella Marie sang a song proudly, and I don't know if you got to see it, but it was Daddy, You're My Hero. I have no idea who gave you the right to take their lives, but I know God and his mighty angels were there at that moment to bring them home to paradise. God gives us free will, so not only did you take the family of 4, your family of You took your own life. I want the world to know that our daughter and her children were so loved by us. They will always be protected by God and his mighty angels.

I didn't want death for you because that's not my right. Your life is between you and God now, and I pray that he has mercy for you. From Shannon's mother, Bella Marie, Celeste Catherine, and Nico-Lise. Nana. Thank you, Your Honor.

Chris was sentenced to 5 life sentences without the possibility of parole. Plus, he was sentenced to 48 years for the unlawful termination of the pregnancy and another 36 years for burying the bodies. But it didn't stop there. Oh no. Because the same day as Chris's sentencing, Shanann's parents filed a wrongful death suit against him. And almost a year later, in November of 2019, A judge ordered Chris to pay her parents $6 million. Chris was and still is completely broke, so he couldn't actually pay them the $6 million, but it was more of like a symbolic victory for Shanann's parents. Now needless to say, Chris did not have a good time in prison. Not at all. I mean, besides the fact that prison is definitely not a nice place for pretty much anyone, he was a very famous child killer. And there were a lot of threats to his safety, so much so that it ended up being bad enough that he needed to be transferred to Wisconsin. Then on February 18th, 2019, investigators from the FBI interviewed Chris at this prison. This was his first interview that he gave since he confessed, or I should say since he confessed to his version, and he finally told the entire story of his affair with Nicole, and more importantly, how he ended up murdering his entire family.

He said that what interested him in Nicole was that she was the one who approached him. She showed interest in him first, so it made him feel really good about himself. I should also mention that early on in his marriage, he was— I wouldn't say overweight, but not in the best of shape.

And then as he started this affair with Nicole, he started getting like ripped.

He lost a lot of weight, so he was definitely feeling more confident. And then in this interview, he says, yeah, she just made me feel really good about myself. She's the one who pursued me. She sought me out. He claimed that Nicole also wanted to have sex with him all the time, that it was just easy for him to talk with her, to be with her. He didn't worry that he was going to say something that she would find dumb or off-putting. And apparently Nicole just made him so happy that it made him decide to kill his entire family. And if not for her, he might have just continued living his life the same way that he always had. But he says instead, on the morning of August 13th, he woke up for work and he tried to save his life. smother Bella and CeCe in their beds. Then he went over to Shanann and he told her that he wanted to talk. He told her that the relationship was over, he wanted a divorce, and he says that Shanann did not take this well. So much so that she told him that he would never see the girls again.

So for whatever reason, he says this just made him like go into a blind rage. He just flipped out, which I don't know why because by his own admission he had already tried to murder his daughters. So he knew that he wasn't going to see them again either way. But now he was just angry. And so he says he got on top of Shanann and he choked her to death. However, in a haunting and harrowing detail, in the middle of this barbaric attack on Shanann, Bella walked into the room and she asked what was going on. She asked if her mom was okay. Chris was surprised that she was still alive, but he told her Shanann just wasn't feeling well. Go back to your room. Then he put a plastic bag around Shanann's head and feet He rolled her up in that bedsheet and he put her body on the floor of his work truck. Then he brought both of the girls out of their room and put them in the backseat of his truck because, as it turned out, both of them were still alive. He told them that their mom was really sick and that they were going to take her to the hospital all together as a family.

The girls, feeling safe and loved and protected by their dad, they napped in the car while he drove. Each of them had their blankie and CeCe was also holding on to a stuffed animal. Chris then drove 40 miles to the oil site. He parked, took Shanann's body out of the truck, and he buried it there. And as he was pulling Shanann's body from the truck, Bella and CeCe asked him what he was doing to Mommy. After burying Shanann, he went back to the truck, and there he put CeCe's blanket over her head and smothered her. Then he got her body out of the truck, he stuffed it into one of those oil tanks, and he went back to the truck For Bella. Now, this next detail makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. It never gets easier, and I've been following this case for years, like I said, and I've covered it before, but like, it never gets easier to say. It's something you will never be desensitized to. But before he killed little Bella, she turned to him and she asked if he was going to do the same thing to her that he had done to her sister CeCe.

She also put up a fight and she yelled, Daddy, no! Before he ultimately—

Killed her.

Smothered her. And it just makes me absolutely sick and enraged and just, as a mom myself, heartbroken for these little girls to not only have witnessed what he was doing to their mother and then to have Bella seen him kill CeCe and then dispose of her body and come back for her. And remember, they thought that they were taking their mom to the hospital. They felt safe enough with their dad that they fell asleep in the car. They were taking naps in the car. So for her to cry out and say, are you going to do the same thing to me? Daddy, please no, and fought him off. A toddler doing this.

It is sick.

And he had that entire drive to change his mind, 40 miles to change his mind. They had already miraculously survived one of his attempts. He could have changed his mind at any moment, and he didn't. He didn't. He just killed them so heartlessly, so evil. It's just truly, truly diabolical. So once he killed Bella, he dumped her into the other tank, and he said that when he heard the girls' bodies hit the oil, he knew that they were really dead. He said he considered killing himself at this time too, but he decided not to because he didn't want to traumatize the person who would find his body. Which, great, so thoughtful of you. He then drove by a construction site and he dumped his clothing and the girls' blankets. So Chris then said he changed into another pair of work clothes that he had in his truck. Then he got breakfast at a nearby 7-Eleven because nothing will work up an appetite like a quadruple murder on your wife, your 2 daughters, and your unborn son. He said that he had no plan about what to do afterward because he hadn't been planning on killing them at all in advance.

That it happened all in a moment of rage after hearing Shanann say that he wouldn't be able to see his kids if they separated. That it was something he never even thought about doing. He said he felt like another person was taking over his body. Now Chris's actual words were, This was like the epitome of being angry, the epitome of showing rage, the epitome of losing your mind. And who really knows if this was some spur-of-the-moment thing? I personally don't think it was, but Chris has changed his story so many times. He had said that he tried killing the girls first, then killed Shanann. Now he was saying it was some sort of moment of rage reaction.

I mean, honestly, who knows?

He also claims that he wasn't at all expecting Shanann's friends to jump into action the way that they did. He didn't expect the police to get so suspicious so fast. And he also said he was planning on pleading guilty before he was even arrested.

I guess he just didn't want to draw out the legal process.

He knew that it would be difficult for Shanann's family to go through a lengthy trial, so maybe he was trying to win some brownie points by saying that. But if you think all of this is bad, it gets even worse because there's more. According to Chris, he was slipping Shanann OxyContin. No one knows where he got the oxy, and he also said he would never reveal to anyone where he got it from. But as we go into Nicole, there is a looming suspicion about who facilitated that oxy and who obtained it and how he received it and then started slipping it to his pregnant wife. According to Chris, he gave Shanann this drug so that he could try and induce a miscarriage. He thought that it would be easier to leave Shanann if she miscarried and if she wasn't pregnant because the baby made him feel trapped. And right before she was killed, Shanann was experiencing some very intense Stomach pains, which definitely could have been from Chris drugging her. And remember North Carolina when she got so, so, so ill? Did he drug her before the trip? Chris is still in prison in Wisconsin and it's reported that he mostly keeps to himself.

He currently works as a custodian and he has also become very religious, which— talk about a jailhouse cliché, right? But at one point he befriended another inmate and together they self-published a book of Prayers called Revelation in the Reckoning. One of these prayers in the book reads, my past is a blueprint and the devil is 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, O Lord. You are my master builder. Help me walk around these walls, sound the trumpet, and shoot that they may come crashing down like the walls of Jericho. Now, in a lot of these prison exchanges, he also references Nicole. He calls her a Jezebel and does it with some really weird religious scripture in, like, some kind of weird flowery type of way. But basically he calls her this Jezebel who, like, had her sex powers over him and, like, he was fixated on her and that Nicole made him do this. He also mentions that it's premeditated, but he does talk about her and acknowledge that she did know more about this and that she is the one that drove him to do this, not you know, verbally making him do it necessarily, but that because of her, that's why he did this.

But I will say this, and I think that this goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Just because they were having an affair, it doesn't necessarily mean that Chris had planned out this whole entire thing and that he told Nicole everything that he was going to do before doing it. A great example of that is Scott Peterson, right, and Amber Frey. We know that Scott Peterson was having an affair with Amber when Laci and Connor went missing and when Laci and Connor were murdered. However, I don't believe even to this day that Scott had told his whole plan to Amber Frey, especially because she was so forthcoming to the police officers as soon as she heard that something was wrong, and as soon as she heard that Scott was still married and that all this was going on and that he wasn't widowed. And so I don't think having an affair automatically means that Your mistress, or I don't know what's the equivalent for if you're a woman having an affair, a mister, I guess. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have knowledge of whatever your plans are, and it surely does not mean that Nicole helped plan the murders.

However, that is what a lot of people to this day still believe, and I'm going to touch a lot on that in part 2 because based on her activity from the following day after the murders, I too am suspicious that she knew more than she was letting on. And the truth is, speculation like that based on the affair alone, yeah, that would be jumping to conclusions. Except that is not what the speculation is built on at all. It's based on actual unexplainable evidence that is linking the two of them together.

What was up with this mistress, and was she involved? When she revealed herself to the police and to the media, she said, I barely knew Chris. He completely lied to me. He tricked me. I had no idea. He told me that he was in the middle of a mutual divorce and separation. He never told me that he was still married. And she also says that they were taking it really slow, had no long-term plans, and that it was just kind of a casual thing, and that she is so appalled by what he's done to his family. And people really believed her because she approached the police before they even had to seek her out for questioning. And so they thought she was very forthcoming, that he really had played her as well, and she had no idea of anything that was really going on. And then once she saw it on the news, that's when she called the police. And so they said, this is a good woman, she didn't know better, he really played her too, she's also been victimized. But the reality in all of this is that she was extremely in Chris's life, involved in a relationship, so much that she actually had literally ridden in Shanann's car.

But in her mind, surely the detectives must believe that she's just this innocent bystander, right? She just happened to have sex with Chris, but she's a good person. I mean, she literally tries to act like their relationship was barely anything. Nothing.

Casual.

Yet her phone logs showed that they called and texted nearly every single day. But Nicole wants you to believe that she was actually trying to, like, counsel Chris to repair his marriage? Mm, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And it even gets way more obvious and gross as we continue. We're just going to talk about a ton of the different lies and inconsistencies because through all of her interviews and then what's outlined in the 200 pages of discovery and what is there as black and white forensic and digital evidence, there is so much that didn't match, guys.

Did he mention the children's name or his significant other's name?

Um, I didn't know his significant other's name for a while.

So if this were true If she truly did not know Shanann's name and she didn't learn of it until, you know, well after meeting Chris and starting their affair, tell me, how is it possible that she was searching for Shanann's name and using her specific name in those searches? And those searches dated back way earlier, before she even met Chris, because police found that she had been searching on Google for Chris Watts as early as August 3rd 2017, and she didn't meet him until June 2018. And she was also searching for Shanann Watts back in January of 2018, again months before she met Chris. Feels a little gross, right?

Feels a little—

that doesn't really make much sense. Nicole also says in this interview that she didn't learn about Shanann's pregnancy until the newspaper reported it and the news aired about Shanann missing, and Chris gave that infamous Horrific interview where he's like rocking back and forth. However, computer records from the discovery show that Nicole again frequented Shanann's Facebook page, where Shanann had not only made that public tribute to Chris for Father's Day, but she also announced her pregnancy, and she would also post frequent updates about her family. And Nicole had all of this in her digital history. She was seeing it, but she was telling the officers as if they're stupid and wouldn't connect the dots. that she didn't learn about this until the case was a media sensation. She also said that if she had known that Shanann was pregnant, she wouldn't have been with Chris in the first place. And when she says this, the FBI agent stops her for a second to press her a little bit more into what she meant by this, because obviously that could be a motive for Chris. Certainly if Nicole found out that he was expecting a baby and she was threatening to leave him, that would be a motive for Chris to murder his family, correct, if he wanted to be with her.

But then once again, her dad steps in and he tells the officer to stop asking leading questions.

So in those 6 years though, they had 2 children.

Yep.

Um, and you said earlier you did not know she was pregnant until reading the newspaper. So, um, that never came up in any conversation. Um, there was no No indications that that was going on?

None.

Um, he never hinted to anything like that as far as you knew? Um, he was just leaving her, he had 2 children, and, um, that was the final take on that?

Yes. I think I know why he lied to me. He lied to me because if I'd have known that he had a child on the way, I'd have never wasted my time with him in the first place. Like, none of this would have Whatever you want to call it, if he would have just told me the truth.

So do you think if he found out that you, um, if let's say this week you guys were to go look at some apartments, and this is hypothetical, but you, um, you've never found out that his wife was pregnant, would, would that have changed anything? Uh, like you just said, If I knew he was— his wife was pregnant, I wouldn't be in this picture. So if his wife was not pregnant, um, and forgive me, but if, if, if he takes her out of the picture, you're never going to know that she was pregnant, right?

What do you mean takes her out of the picture?

Like, if he murdered her, she's out of the picture. You're never going to know if she was pregnant. If he can get away with murder, You're not gonna— I got divorced from my wife, you say. Do you understand what I'm saying here? If, if she's gone—

But this—

don't lead. Hypothetically, please.

Yeah, hypothetically.

If she— okay, you understand where I'm going? If you didn't know—

you're leading into questions that are nothing with your—

if you didn't know though— wait, Nick, that she was there. Did you hear what I said? I'm not— I'm following you. I just want her to answer a question that relates She said something that's important.

Then she tells the detective that she needed to bring something up to them, something that she forgot to tell them previously. She said that the night after everything unfolded, in one of their very many phone conversations in the early hours of the 14th, which she tried to say they didn't even speak, Chris apparently asked her what to do with the wedding ring that he found of Shanann's. And her response to Chris? was to pawn the ring. This was literally just a day after Shanann went missing. She tells him to pawn Shanann's wedding ring that was left behind.

So another thing, so that was Tuesday and that was it for Tuesday, but I forgot some stuff on Monday that I did need to bring up to you guys. So Monday, um, when we were on the phone, at one point he mentioned to me— I can't even believe I have to say this— She left her wedding ring here. And I said something along the lines of, does that mean you two are done? And he was like—

Oh my God.

He said, how much do you think it's worth? And I was like, remember hearing him say that and being like, what the fuck? And I remember I'm thinking to myself like, I don't even know how to respond to this. And so I was like, I don't know, pawn it, man. And I was just like, I was like, I pawn jewelry all the time. I was like, I pawn jewelry a few times. I was like, it's not worth shit though. And I was like, so I don't know if you really want to do that. And he's like, no, no, I think I'm gonna get it appraised. It's a nice rock. And I was just like, okay.

If she truly did think that these kids and this mother were just missing, as she said in the beginning of her interview, I thought they were just missing, the last place my mind even went to was murder.

Like, I didn't even think this guy killed his wife. I mean, that, that, like, murder is not something on the top of my mind when I call one of my friends for 3 or 4 hours and she doesn't answer the phone. Like, that doesn't even process to me as, like, a real thing that is a possibility at that point.

If that's truly what she thought, and she thought that she would possibly return, Why on earth would you suggest pawning it? In the interview that she had the day before, which was in a public park, she said that she had never been there.

Um, so when we spent time together, I didn't really, like, go to his house. Like, we would spend time at my house. Um—

So you went— during your guys' dating time, did you guys spend most of the time at your place?

Always.

She even goes in further to this detail and, like, tries to bolster this claim even further by saying, that the dinner that they had at the Lazy Dog Cafe was the only time that they had ever been in public together.

You guys, was there anything else?

Uh, was it just dinner?

Did you go anyplace else?

Visit any other— No, we just went to dinner.

That's one of the only times I've actually ever been out in public with him. However, the next day, after learning that they needed her cell phone records, boop, like magic, she remembered that she did go there twice.

I've been to that house twice, but it was very, very brief.

And later on in a written statement in September, She said that she had only been there twice, once on July 4th and once on the 14th. But once again, as if we are thinking that she's going to stop lying, she's not. Because Maury, as Maury says, that was a lie. Because later when she was talking about her and Chris's trip to Bandimere Raceway and what they did that day, she says, and then I don't remember what we did after Bandimere. I think we just went to his house.

I'm almost Positive.

We, we, um, we did that and then we went to Bandimere and then I don't know what we did after Bandimere.

I think we just went to the house. I'm almost positive.

Like—

Well, the dates will get you every time, Nicole, because that trip that you guys took to Bandimere was on July 21st. That would be a 3rd day that you were there. If you are saying you were already there on the 4th and the 14th, the 21st is a 3rd day, my friend. So going back to the timeline of the murders, Nicole has absolutely zero, zilch, nil, null, none, no alibi for the time of the murders. Nothing. She didn't clock into work until 3 PM that day either. And not only did she not clock in until 3 PM that afternoon, but her activity while she was at work for a very short window of time was kind of sketchy, and we're going to get into that in a minute too. So let's start with the morning of the murders. A neighbor reported seeing a truck very similar to the one that Nicole owned, and the neighbor said that she saw it outside of the Watts family home. At that same time this neighbor saw the truck, Nicole's phone pinged at a tower in Frederick, Colorado, which is where the Watts family home was, and it pinged at 6:16 AM.

But Nicole lived 25 minutes away. So why is it pinging at 6 in the morning, the morning of the murders, near Chris's family home when you live 25 minutes away? And you might think, okay, Annie, well, we know that phone pings could— might not always be accurate because a certain cell tower can coverage a large area of space. Sure. But what's interesting is that when they FaceTimed the night before for that 2-hour conversation, remember the night before the murders, or like the early morning hours of Her phone did ping near her house, not in Frederick. So if her phone is located in her home, it's pinging near her home. Makes sense. If her phone is not at her home, it wouldn't be pinging near her home, and it would be pinging wherever her phone was closest to, which happened to be a tower right next to Chris Watts' house. So that ping happened at 6:16 AM, and she didn't make any phone calls that day until 2:26 PM that afternoon. So she gets to her office around 2 PM that afternoon, and then her phone shows that the next call that she made was at 2:26 PM, like I mentioned, which is right before she made 2 other calls from her office at 2:28 PM and 2:35 PM back to back.

And I'm going to bring that up shortly because those calls are important.

So in addition to that, I decided to look even further into her phone records to just kind of say like, okay, could it be a fluke?

Maybe it did just coincidentally ping there. Maybe it was an error. And I not only looked at her history of her phone records, but I also looked at her phone records all the way up until mid-September, over a month later, a month after the murders. And never once did her phone ping again in that same area as it did the morning of the murders at 6:16 AM. Which would make sense because at that point her relationship with Chris was donezo. He was arrested. He was pleading guilty. So she had no reason to be over near his house, and therefore, over a month later after the murders, there was not a single ping near his home in sight, the last one being the day of the murders. So you tell me, what are the chances of it never pinging there again if it truly was a tech error or a fluke? It seems more likely to me that it never pinged there again because she in fact never went to the Watts house again. Now, all we know about is the phone ping that morning, and she did clock out of work at 3:00 PM, right after making those 2 phone calls from the office, one at 2:28 PM and the other at 2:35 PM.

Those phone calls were to her spiritual advisor, a 73-year-old man named Robert of the Ordo Templi Ordinans. Now, one of the major features and core teachings of this organization from this spiritual leader And the spiritual leader that she called back to back that day, right after getting into the office, is the practice of sex magic. Now, similar to many secret societies, the membership is allegedly based on an initiation system with a series of degree ceremonies that use some sort of ritual drama. So then after those calls are made to her spiritual advisor, she immediately leaves the Anadarko office. And that's when she went to meet her friend Jim at her apartment at approximately 3:45 PM. Then at 5:01 PM, Nicole calls Chris twice, but both calls go unanswered, and she deletes those calls from her phone log. At 5:30 PM, Chris calls her. This call also goes unanswered, but she again deletes it from her phone log. Tell me this, if you're deleting phone calls on the day of a murder and you had no idea what was going on and you had no idea they were even missing and you're phone also coincidentally pinged there that morning, and then you get to work late, and then you call your spiritual advisor, and now you're deleting phone logs the day of the murder when you are saying that you had no idea anything was even afoot until days later?

Why are you deleting your phone records? Why are you pinging at his house that morning? It doesn't make any sense. At 11:09 PM on the night of the murders, after Shanann was reported as missing, There was a 51-minute phone call between the two of them, but then it was deleted from her phone 8 minutes later. Again, why are you deleting your phone records immediately after if you have nothing to hide? Then at 12:09 AM, Chris calls Nicole back for another 31 minutes. Then at 1:12 AM, Nicole calls Chris back again and they talk for 3 minutes. Then at 1:51 AM, Chris calls Nicole again and they talk for another 8 minutes. So all of these calls are flying back and forth, nothing's making any sense. And now comes the critical phone exchange that really does lead me to believe Nicole is more involved than she is making it out to be. After that exchange of phone calls, at 1:58 AM, Chris and the detective start playing phone tag, and the detective says, That every time he tried to call and connect to Chris's phone, his personal phone, would have dead air on his line. So then Chris would call him back, and once again there would be dead air.

So he would call Chris back, then there would be dead air, like something wasn't connecting, like the phone call wasn't connecting. And this goes on for nearly 10 minutes. Then Chris takes a break in calling the detective back for just one single minute. And he calls Nicole in that break. Now, why take a break to call Nicole when you and the detective are so clearly trying to connect and get in touch with each other? So he calls Nicole really quickly from that same phone, from his personal phone, and they talk for less than 1 minute. Then 1 minute later, at 2:07 AM, Chris calls the detective back, but this time he calls from his work phone, not his personal phone. So now, at that exact same time that he is having this conversation with the detective, at that same moment at 2:07 AM, Nicole calls Chris's personal phone. And remember, he was talking to the detective on his work phone. Now, that phone call lasts for 11 minutes, and it was the final call between Chris and Nicole. So it's suspected that the dead air during the phone tag with detective was Chris trying to add Nicole to the line as a listener, a 3-way calling situation, and it just wasn't connecting, which is why they had to play phone tag and go back and forth.

And then when it finally didn't connect, he's like, I'm just gonna call him from my work phone, I'll put it on speaker, you call me on my personal phone and you can listen into the conversation. So he hangs up with her, then he calls the detective from his work phone, she calls the personal phone to listen in. Now guys, I know that this sounds wild, but the phone call log is all outlined in the discovery. I am not making any of up. It is there in black and white. Do we know that she listened in for a fact? No. But what else could be the reason for him to have her on his personal phone simultaneously while he is talking to the detective on the work phone? How does that equate at all? And for the exact same amount of time, the same duration for both phone calls. In addition to the deleted calls on Nicole's phone, there were hours, hours, hours, hours worth of searches for Shanann Watts after the murders happened, and Nicole deleted all of those searches. So did she want it to look like she wrote off Chris completely and didn't care about anything pertaining to him?

I mean, why delete them if you are just curious about updates and you have nothing to hide, especially if you're trying to act like you're being so forthcoming to the police? In addition to deleting all of the history of searches, calls, text message, all of those things, Nicole also tried to destroy her SIM card before giving her phone to the investigators. Now, one of the biggest things through this— as if there aren't enough— but one of the biggest things that doesn't quite sit right with me in this case is how she's trying to play both the victim and also the martyr. Now, for the victim role, she tells the police that Chris told her that he and Shanann were separated. They were in the process of divorcing, mutually divorcing. Yet if he truly told her that, then why would she be Googling things like this? Man I'm having an affair with says he will leave his wife. This is a search from July 24th. If you thought that they were in fact separating or divorcing, you certainly wouldn't be using the word affair or mistress in your searches, right? Because honestly, nobody looking at Shanann's Facebook page would ever be under the impression that she was nearing the end of a mutual divorce, as Nicole claimed to believe.

Now sure, being the other woman hardly implicates you of murder, but if you're lying about what you understood his marital status to be when there are several things to prove otherwise, you have to ask why. I mean, aside from the obvious shame in all of it.

So was it really just shame or something more? Well, according to Chris, After his literal come-to-Jesus moment, it was much more.

In the same prison as Chris, in the cell right next to him, was a man named Dylan Tallman. Dylan was in prison for narcotics, and during his sentence, he also found God. So Dylan and Chris being next to each other and both on this whole spiritual journey, apparently they started getting closer together. Dylan claims that they started talking frequently and studying the Bible together. He said that Chris began calling him his spiritual twin. Maybe that's a new take on a twin flame, I don't know. But apparently this spiritually fueled relationship between the two of them made them come up with the idea of writing their own book. The book would be about their own crimes and also their prison journeys. However, it was going to be heavily focused on the religious and spiritual sides of their lives. So after about a year of planning this 3-part series book, which they were calling The Cell Next Door. Dylan claimed that Chris backed out of it for whatever reason. Dylan, however, didn't care though. He wanted to still go through with it. The first book apparently gets right into it.

Dylan claimed that he and Chris referred to Nicole as a Jezebel.

If you aren't familiar, Jezebel is a biblical figure in the Old Testament who, for many reasons I'm not going to get into, is depicted as somebody who is manipulative, insidious, and has evil characteristics and tendencies. So if you do ever get called a Jezebel, just know it is certainly not a compliment. According to the first book, Chris told Dylan, I was having an affair with this girl and I ended up in love with 2 women at the same time. It's what led up to what happened. She is of evil spirits, like Jezebel. So in book 1, Chris is allegedly blaming the murders on Nicole and saying that her evil spirit manipulated him into doing what he did. That is, of course, if this is all actually believed to be true in this book. Now, as if that's not already insane enough, Dylan had more on the topic of Nicole's evil spirit as well, claiming that on the night of the murders, Nicole allegedly told Chris that he had to choose between her or Shanann and the girls. Then, Jezebel was the forbidden fruit and it was costly. Apparently, during the time when they were planning the books, But before Chris had backed out, Dylan claims that he and Chris encouraged each other to write letters to God, and one of these alleged letters is also now public.

It's signed by Chris and it's dated March 3rd, 2020. The letter reads, Dear Heavenly Father, I have backslidden. I am like a sheep gone astray from the flock and I have fallen into a pit.

The snare of the enemy has entrapped me.

The words of a harlot has brought me low. Her flattering speech was like drops of honey that pierced my heart and soul, but little did I know all her guests were in the chamber of death. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life— how did I not see it? How did I let this happen? The blessings You have bestowed upon me were right in front of me, and I still followed the perfume of a strange woman. The web of the enemy squeezes around my heart and is cocooning my soul to the point of suffocation. The enemy and his Jezebel mock and scourge me as they celebrate another capture. But oh, that man would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men! You, O Lord, did not leave me captive or condemned. You heard the prayer of the destitute and of the prisoner appointed to death. You opened my eyes, you made my ears ready to perceive, and you said, come forth. The web of death loosened its grip, and I walked into the light of your presence. As I humbly kneeled before you, you said, go and sin no more.

Your faith has made you whole.

Which, I know, that was a whole lot of intensity, right?

So was it Jezebel, aka Nicole's fault? Or are you still in love with her and she's still writing to you?

Who really even knows the truth? And I am curious to know what you guys think.

But taking out all of the religious aspects out of the first book's story, could there be some truth to what Dylan was alleging that Chris told him?

Despite being in prison, Chris had found plenty of ways to occupy his time. He had his book writing, his newfound religion, and of course writing to his mom like the mama's boy he is, Cindy Watts.

So apparently Cindy isn't the only person that Chris is writing to either in all of this. Not at all. Here's where all of the women who have some reason to obsess over these disgusting men in prison come into play, because Chris, like Wade Wilson the tattooed-faced serial killer, has been getting so much fan mail from all over the place for years now. Countless women have been writing to Chris just hyping him up Telling him that they know that he's a good person, that they feel drawn to him for whatever reason, blah blah blah blah blah. And some of these women will literally even send scandalous photos of themselves in bikinis, underwear, sometimes even naked. And just take a look at one of these letters that somebody sent to him. It says, I won't lie, I've seen the news, but it's not my reason for writing to you. You honestly have one of the kindest faces I've ever seen. I don't even know you yet. I don't want you to feel alone. You also very much remind me of somebody that I used to know. You can do as you please with this letter. Of course, I would love to hear from you talking about whatever you wish to talk about.

But if for some reason you feel you are unable to write, then I'll completely understand that too.

I've included a photo of me so you can put a face to the name.

Maybe then I won't feel like such a stranger to you. Now, this will never not irk me.

The amount of women who reach out to these people, and I don't know if it's because women typically have kind of like this savior complex of, I can save him, I can, you know, I can rehabilitate him, whatever the things are. But she's talking about how he has such a kind face.

You know who also had the kindest faces? His daughters that looked just like him.

And don't get it twisted, Chris responds to many of these letters. It's not like he just reads them, then doesn't play into it at all, then goes about his day. I mean, he has all of the time in the day to read these, just like He reads the Bible passages over and over and over again. So he also responds to romantic and sexual letters.

So these letters actually bring me to some of the most recent updates that I want to talk with you guys about today. And I'm going to try to refrain from rolling my eyes so far back in my head that I can see my brain and making, you know, snarky side comments. I can't promise that that's how it's going to go, but I really am going to try to do my best and refrain from all of that. But in one of my previous videos, I really went back and forth with why Chris would even bother responding to some of these letters. I mean, was it out of boredom, a need for attention, the desire to be told by at least one person that he wasn't as bad as the rest of the world was making him out to be? Or was he actually interested in finding love again? And if that was the real goal in responding to all of these women, I gotta say, apparently he was in luck. Because breaking news from August of 2026 reported that Chris was in fact trying to get remarried from prison. And I know when I first saw the headline, I was kind of like, surely this can't be real.

Somebody's punking me. Where is Ashton Kutcher in his trucker hat? Like, what is going on here? This has to be some sort of clickbait title or some sort of like, I don't know, master plan of deception. I was in denial. I could not believe what I was reading. But as it turns out, As I was digging in deeper to it, turned out the headlines are real. In August of 2026, Chris applied to marry within the prison system. Now, the conspiracy theories automatically were of course going crazy.

Who was he trying to marry? Was it Nicole?

Had she and Chris still been together this whole time? Had they been in secret contact with one another? And I don't know what was more shocking to people— the fact that no, it wasn't Nicole after all, this once woman who he destroyed his whole family over and labeled a Jezebel and like he was, you know, completely brainwashed by her and that he now wanted to get married to somebody who wasn't her, or the fact that a woman would actually want to marry Chris Watts knowing his history, knowing what he did. And both sides of the coin are equally bizarre to me. But here's what we know about this semi-mystery woman. Her name is Lizzie Henderson. She's a 39-year-old woman from Cleveland, Ohio.

But get this, she actually now lives in Wisconsin so she can be closer to Chris.

And apparently Chris and Lizzie's relationship isn't anything that is super fresh because prison logs show that their relationship dates back to at least the end of 2024. And I say at least because apparently these logs showed that Lizzie was there spending time with Chris on Christmas Day. And even though there aren't any earlier reports that are public of her visiting, I would imagine that they must have at least been in communication with one another in order to have planned this Christmas visit and want to spend the holidays with one another. I'm sure that Christmas wasn't the first time she talked with Chris, maybe saw him, but surely not the first time that she had spoken with him. Then in 2025, records showed that Lizzie visited Chris 20 times. During one of those times, a witness who apparently was also at the prison visiting someone Had come forward claiming that she saw Chris and Lizzie together and the two of them were making out, which gives me the ick. I mean, the hard ick. But apparently at Dodge Correctional Institute, where Chris is located, they are allowed 10 seconds at the end of every visit to touch each other, to hug each other, kiss each other, grind on each other, freak dance on each other, whatever they wanna do.

And I guess they used those 10 seconds to like mack down hard. This woman alleged that they were hugging and kissing the entire 10 seconds. More than that though, this woman claims that she heard Chris tell Lizzie, I'll see you next time, to which Lizzie allegedly responded saying, I can't wait to see you again.

I love you.

And again, allegedly, Chris then replied saying, I love you too. Now keep in mind, that is just secondhand information that we are receiving. Maybe it's true.

Maybe it's not.

Regardless though, prison records, they don't lie. Neither does the request to marry, the formal request that Chris submitted. And you know what else doesn't lie? Lizzie's request for a legal name change. Because as if all of this isn't crazy enough, Lizzie has apparently been going by the name Lizzie Watts. Which, I understand wanting to be traditional and take your husband's name.

Absolutely. I took my husband's name.

I don't know, part of me— call me crazy, but would you still want to take that name when it is tied to an infamous murderer, a family annihilator? I know people who have the last name Watts actually who are not related to Chris Watts and hate the fact that that is their last name. But yet here you have this woman willingly wanting to change her last name to be identified as a Watts. I don't know, don't love it. But she's proud. She's also been spotted in public wearing a wedding and an engagement ring. So there is still a lot about this relationship that's unknown. Lizzie herself has actually spoken out, yet she kept things pretty vague. For example, someone asked her how she and Chris met, and her response was, how things began is between me, him, and God. Which, I don't know, maybe that's code for pen pal prisoner website, because How else would they have met?

I don't know.

She also told reporters that she knows that her relationship with Chris could be, quote, perceived as weird, which— that's definitely not the word that I would personally have used if I were in that sentence and, like, describing that. That's just me. But yeah, I think it is a little weird. Sure. One thing that the reporters asked Lizzie about was the actual murders, and her PR-prepped response was, quote, how I feel about it, he knows. He knows how I feel. I don't know all the people involved, but I would want to respect them. I mean, if you truly had no idea what this case was about and you only heard her response, you would have probably thought that maybe she was just talking about having an affair with a married man or something, saying, I don't know all the people involved, I don't know what people have heard, as if he didn't murder his 2 toddler-aged children and pregnant wife. It is so bizarre to me. Yet she continued on describing the actual murders by saying, quote, something harsh for anyone to experience. Again, harsh isn't quite the way I would describe these murders. Not even close.

The closeness of him taking the lives, snatching the lives and souls out of his 2 daughters, him then shoving them in an oil tank. Him killing his pregnant wife on the bed all while his children watched from the doorway. I mean, harsh? That is not the adjective that I would use to describe what he did. And by the way, what he admitted to. And what's even more shocking to me than her marrying this freaking scumbag at all is that her family knows about it and they seem supportive of it. Apparently, when Lizzie made the move from Ohio to Wisconsin so that she could be closer to Chris, Her mom even came with her. Now, granted, it seems that based on some reporting that Lizzie is her mom's primary caregiver, yet still, at what point do you put your foot down or maybe have another family member step in? Which I don't know the optics at it, or not the optics, the logistics. I don't know what is possible at this point, but there's something about this whole thing that just is deeply unsettling to me. And some of her other family members have spoken out about the relationship.

Lizzie's brother, who ironically is also in prison but for a sexual assault crime, he spoke with the Daily Mail about the relationship, saying, quote, she told me that he was serving time for committing a murder, but she made it seem like the person he killed stole something or did something wrong to him. So I don't know if that is her gaslighting her brother so that he doesn't judge her, or if perhaps Chris has lied to her. And remember how he lied early on saying that he killed Shanann because she killed the girls and he was so angry and in this blind rage? So is he lying to her and she believes it hook, line, sinker? Or is she lying to her brother so he doesn't judge her? I don't know. Apparently the Daily Mail told him what Chris actually did and his response was, oh shit, I'm shocked. That's kind of bad. It's kind of messed up.

It is more than shocking.

Uh, yeah, again, understatement of the century. Although I will say this, okay? Lizzie's former stepdad said he knew of the relationship knew what Chris had done, knew that they were trying to get married too. So I don't know, it kind of seems like maybe it wasn't as big of a secret in the family as one would imagine. In most recent photos of Lizzie, the ones of her wearing a wedding ring, she was also sporting a Keller Williams tracksuit, which for those of you who maybe are unfamiliar, that is a huge real estate company. Apparently back in Ohio she was working as a realtor. I was even able to find a profile on Zillow that says that she was still working with the company.

Yet I couldn't find her on the Keller Williams actual website under Find a KW Agent.

So I don't know, maybe she's not doing too well in the industry anymore now that her relationship status has gone public. Maybe people aren't trying to buy a home from Chris Watts's new wife and support that whole situation. Who knows? I mean, it's not all that unsurprising. I can't imagine you would want somebody who's married to a family annihilator to list or sell you a home, but Then again, I didn't think anybody would want to marry Chris Watts either, so what do I know? So that's the most recent update that we have on Chris, and it's a pretty disturbing one. Yet somehow it's not all that surprising for a man like him. But I think what really irks me the most in all of this is the fact that Chris made this request in August of 2026, which maybe doesn't feel like a huge thing. Maybe he doesn't even remember. But let me be the one to remind him and to remind you, it was August of 2018 that he killed his entire family. So instead of spending the 8th year since his family has been dead mourning them, being remorseful, feeling, you know, tied by guilt, he's too worried about his own life, worrying about getting a marriage certificate, spending his life behind bars with this new woman, Lizzie, that He's freak dancing with the last 10 seconds of every visit.

It's sick. But honestly, what more can we really expect from this guy by this point? He has never taken full accountability for his actions, whether it was when he claimed that Shanann is the one who killed the girls and he killed them in retaliation, or that he killed her because she threatened that he would never see the girls again if they got divorced, or that he killed his entire family because Nicole was this, this evil Jezebel spirit. Who influenced him, it has always been some version of him blaming somebody else for his actions. A coward, a loser, a creep, a weasel, a douche canoe. All the words, all, all the embarrassing loser little twerpy adjectives to describe for this fucking hell monster. Now, speaking of hell monsters though, if you've made it to the end of this episode, I have given you a little information about Nicole Kissinger, but I haven't even cracked open the complete diabolical history, actions, and just evilness of this woman. So you are definitely gonna wanna drop down into the feed and go to part 2 right now, because part 2 is the Nicole Kissinger exposé, laying it all out there on the table.

Her weird actions when she went to work that day right after the murders, her spiritual guidance counselor guy that she called, her father's ties to an alleged Illuminati-type secret society situation, her special treatment during interrogation where her father sat in with her, in my opinion pulling his influence, and all the weird Google searches All the weird internet activity leading up to the murders.

That is in part 2, where we are going to talk all about Nicole Kessinger.

So thank you for tuning in to this episode all about Chris Watts, but buckle up because we are just getting started.

See you at part 2. In the meantime, be nice and don't kill people.

Bye.

Bye.