The Watts family annihilation

Revised November 2024

The story of Chris Watts and the Watts family annihilation, as featured in the Netflix documentary, “American Murder: The Family Next Door” (released on September 30, 2020), is a shockingly disturbing tale of infatuation, adultery and murder. The aftermath of the crime was played out in real-time due to video recordings by the Police and the release of text messages.

The Watts family murders occurred in the early morning hours of August 13, 2018, in Frederick, Colorado, U.S. While being interviewed by police, Christopher “Chris” Lee Watts, 35 (born May 16, 1985), admitted to killing his pregnant wife Shanann (Shan'ann) Cathryn Watts (née Rzucek, born January 10, 1984) by strangulation. He later admitted to killing their daughters, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste “Cece”, by smothering them with a blanket. He pleaded guilty on November 6, 2018, to multiple counts of first-degree murder as part of a plea deal when the death penalty was removed from sentencing. He was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole, three to be served consecutively and two to be served concurrently.

The brutal killing of Shanann Watts and their two daughters, Cece and Bella, by Chris Watts in August 2018, shocked the world. In particular, the brutal slaying of the children and the way they were squeezed into Anadarko-owned oil storage containers to conceal their bodies, covered in oil and shedding their skin. Shanann ended up in a shallow grave, strangled to death, on the same site.

Shannan Watts shallow grave

Background to the Watts murders

Chris Watts and Shanann Cathryn Watts were natives of Spring Lake and Aberdeen, North Carolina, respectively. They met in 2010 and were married in Mecklenburg County on November 3, 2012.

Shanann had lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes a person's body to attack its organs.

They had two daughters: Bella Marie Watts (born December 17, 2013) and Celeste Cathryn "Cece" Watts (born July 17, 2015). They lived in a five-bedroom home in Frederick, Colorado, purchased in 2013. The family were declared bankrupt in 2015.

Chris was employed by Anadarko Petroleum as an operator, starting his role in January 2015. Shanann was a representative for the health and wellness company Le-Vel, selling a brand called “Thrive.” At the time of her death, she was 15 weeks pregnant with a son whom they would have named Niko Lee Watts.

Disappearance

Shanann returned home from a business trip to Arizona at about 1.48 am on August 13, 2018, after getting a lift from the airport from her friend and colleague, Nickole Utoft Atkinson. Chris was home with the girl after looking after the children for the weekend while Shanann was on her business trip.

Later that day, Shanann and the girls were reported missing by Nickole, who became concerned when she missed a scheduled appointment for her pregnancy and failed to return text messages. After she missed a business meeting, Atkinson went to the Watts' home at about 12:10 p.m., and when there was no response, she contacted Chris, who was at work, and called the Frederick Police Department. An officer from the Police arrived to conduct a welfare check at about 1:40 p.m.

Chris arrived home, using the garage door to enter the property and left Nickole and the Police Officers waiting at the front door for several minutes (presumably to hide any incriminating evidence).

During the welfare check, he gave the police officer permission to search the house, but there was no sign of Shanann or the girls. As they walked into the house, the officer saw signs that Shanann had arrived home safely from her trip, as there was a suitcase by the stairs and women's shoes near the door. A security camera attached to the front porch later confirmed Shanann had entered the house.

However, she wasn't there and appeared to have taken nothing with her—except her children. Police said her "purse, wallet, and medication were all located in the house." Other strange discoveries included Nickole's son finding Shanann's phone in the cushions of a couch upstairs and not in her handbag. The dog was in the house, seemingly agitated.

Her car was in the garage, which still contained the girls' car seats. Her wedding ring was also found in the master bedroom after Chris showed it to the Police during the house search.

Nickole Atkinson

The FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation joined the investigation the next day, August 14. Chris initially told police he had no idea where Shanann, Bella, or Celeste might be and had not seen his wife since 5. 15 am on the 13th when he left for work. Chris Watts had left his home in Frederick, a community 20 miles north of Denver, around 5.15-5:30 am on Monday, August 13. Watts told police investigators he left that morning to go to a job site owned by his employer, Anadarko, about a 40-mile drive from his home, 12 miles northeast of Keenesburg. The site was called CERVI 319.

Watts was also interviewed by Denver stations KMGH-TV and KUSA-TV outside the house, pleading for their return whilst investigators with cadaver search dogs scoured the property.

The killing of the Watts Family

It subsequently transpired whilst the plea deal was being constructed and in subsequent prison interviews that Chris Watts strangled Shannan in the bed after her arrival back home early in the morning. Watts tried to smother the children before Shannan arrived home, but they woke up at some point. Once Shannan was strangled to death, she was wrapped in a bedsheet and dragged to the waiting truck, which had been reversed to the garage door of the house. Watts said her eyes turned black with blood, her makeup ran, and her bowels emptied in the bed when she died.

The autopsy of Shannan revealed there were no signs of a struggle, indicating that she was probably attacked whilst asleep and she was rendered unconscious by pressure on her Jugular vein.

The children were then put in Watts’ truck and spent the 40-mile trip with their dead mother in the vehicle before they, too, were strangled at the Anadarko facility. Bella, the oldest, apparently tried to fight her smothering by Watts before she succumbed.

The affair with Nichol Kessinger

Nichol Kessinger

Nichol Kessinger, 32, was a work colleague of Chris Watts at Anadarko Petroleum. She graduated from Colorado State University in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science, specialising in geology. She started off working life as a bookkeeper but progressed to become a field engineer. In 2018, she joined Tasman Geosciences, which contracted with Anadarko Petroleum Co.

The pair struck up a friendship and then started an affair in June 2018, two months before Chris Watts killed his family.

Nichol Kessinger told police she was aware of but had never met Chris Watts’ children, and he had told her he was separating from Shanann. She also said she was told Chris had been sleeping in the family basement so that he could still live at home and care for the children despite their “separation”. Nichol claims she knew nothing about Shanann being pregnant when she was seeing Chris; instead, she found this out through media reports.

She took part in extensive interviews to share what she knew about Watts and his current situation and gave over her phone to be inspected. It was found that on the night of the murders, Chris Watts and Nichol Kessinger shared a 111-minute-long phone call. The conversation ended at 23:19, around when Shanann was initially supposed to have arrived home from her work trip, but the flight had been delayed.

It is thought that Kessinger ended her relationship with Watts when she found out what he had done, and she is believed to be living under witness protection. According to reports, one source said: “She has received several threats, public shaming, and could be considered one of the ‘most hated women’ in America. She plans to start fresh with a new name, new town, and ultimately a new identity.”

Neighbor’s CCTV video

Chris Watts with Nate Trinastich

Chris Watts watching Nate Trinastich CCTV footage

Bodycam footage from Police Officers on August 13, 2018, showed Watts pacing around the living room of his neighbor, Nate Trinastich. He was sweating and looking nervous as Nate showed the Police and Watts CCTV from a camera installed by Nate looking directly onto the Watts driveway. The officer watched as Nate continued to wind through the footage on his TV, trying to pinpoint the moment he recalled seeing Chris loading up his car at 5 am. Nate was suspicious as he noted it was unusual for Chris to be up so early, but the car wasn’t parked in its usual spot. After he found a reason to leave the tense situation, Nate told the officer, ‘he is not acting right,’ while looking completely unconvinced by Chris’ version of events.

Chris Watts Arrest

Chris Watts

Chris Watts was arrested late on August 15, 2018. According to the arrest affidavit, he failed a polygraph test and subsequently confessed to murdering Shan'ann. He asked to speak to his father before confessing. According to the affidavit, he was having an affair and claimed he asked for a separation from Shanann. During the investigation, he claimed she had strangled the girls in response to his request for separation and in a fit of rage, he strangled her and then transported the bodies to a remote oil storage site where he worked.

Chris Watts Polygraph test

On August 15, 2018, Tammy Lee conducted an interview and polygraph test with Chris Watts. Lee began the interview by saying that at that moment, only one person in the room knew the truth, but the “cool thing” was that at the end of the test, two of them would.

The expected score to indicate that someone is lying is around -4, and Watts scored -18. If someone scores two or higher, they’re probably telling the truth. After failing his lie detector, Watts requested to speak to his father and later confessed to killing his wife.

The full interview with Tammy Lee and Chris Watts lasted around seven hours. The same questions were asked to Watts repeatedly to ensure the results were accurate. During the interview, Watts was shown a photograph of his family and referred to them in the past tense despite there being no evidence at that time that they were nothing more than missing persons. During the questioning, he repeatedly said “they had” and “they were” in sentences.

The discovery of the bodies

On Tuesday, August 14, the police department did a drone search of the Anadarko work site, which showed freshly disturbed earth. Investigators also found a bedsheet that matched a sheet and pillowcases in a trash can at the Watts’ home.

The authorities located the bodies of Watts' family on the property of his former employer, Anadarko Petroleum, on August 16. He was fired on August 15, the day of his arrest. The girls' bodies were found hidden in the oil tanks. Shanann was buried in a shallow grave nearby, presumably because each tank's opening was only 8 inches, so she wasn't put in the tank, too, as her body wouldn't have gone through the entrance.

On August 21, Watts was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, including an additional one count per child cited as "death of a child who had not yet attained 12 years of age and the defendant was in a position of trust", unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. He was denied bail at his first court appearance. At a later hearing, his bail was set at $5 million, requiring him to put down 15% to be released. On September 1, he posted $750,000 and was released pending legal proceedings.

Plea deal and sentencing

Chris Watts

Watts pleaded guilty to the murders on November 6. The death penalty was not put forward by the district attorney at the request of Shanann's family, who did not wish for any further deaths. They were supportive of the decision to accept the plea deal. On November 19, he was sentenced to five life sentences, three consecutive and two concurrent, without the possibility of parole. He received an additional 48 years for the unlawful termination of Shanann's pregnancy and 36 years for three charges of tampering with a deceased body. After this, his $5 million bail was revoked and immediately remanded to custody.

On December 3, 2018, Watts was moved to an out-of-state location due to "security concerns". On December 5, 2018, he arrived at the Dodge Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison, in Waupun, Wisconsin, to continue serving his life sentence. He is in lockdown for 23 hours of the day.

On November 18, 2019, Weld County Judge Todd Taylor ordered Christopher to pay Shanann’s parents $6 million following a civil lawsuit.

Removal of Celeste and Bella from the oil tanks at Cervi 3/19 Anadarko Petroleum 

The process of removing the bodies began at 5 am on the morning of August 16 and would go on for almost 14 hours, with the report noting that at 6.45 pm that evening, members of the Colorado State Patrol cleared the scene. The personnel on scene were traumatised by the scene at the Anadarko site.

Cervi 3/19 Anadarko Petroleum Watts murder site

At that time, the oil from the two 400-barrel tanks was manually drained by workers, who carefully poured the liquid over metal screens to collect any possible evidence. The process of removing the bodies began at 5 am on the morning of August 16 and would take 14 hours, until 6.45 pm.

Sergeant Armstrong approached the top of the tank and looked in the thief hatch. He could see what looked like a body face down on the south side of the tank. Photos were taken, and then the men began the process of removing the body from the tank.

Because of the level of oil sludge and toxic fumes, the men could only remain in the tank for a few minutes, making the process much more complicated.

Trooper Reeder went in, followed by Armstrong. There was a body face down on the south side of the tank with the head facing west. It appeared to be a small female child. Reeder held the upper portion of her right arm to turn her over and then lifted her by both upper arms. The victim was then moved out of the tank, but during the process, her hand was 'degloved' of its skin. That skin was retrieved and given to a member of law enforcement on the scene.

The men next went about removing the body of the second victim, which was found in the second oil tank. Trooper Bandy grasped the left wrist and shoulder area, and Sergeant Armstrong did the same on the right side. As the victim was passed through the manway, Trooper Bandy and Sergeant continued to support her body as she was placed into a containment pool.

During this extraction, there was some skin slippage where they touched the victim’s body. There was also some skin on the plywood where her back made contact. Some skin was also lost while the body was being moved to the oil pool. The bodies were turned over to the Weld County Coroner.

No additional evidence was found in the tank. The Weld County Coroner and Pathologist attempted to remove the crude oil by utilizing several oil-absorbing pads.

The men who retrieved the bodies had to undergo an extensive decontamination process from the few minutes they spent in the tanks wearing SCBA gear.

Letters from Prison

Watts family

Cherlyn Cadle wrote to Watts in prison, as documented in the book, “Letters from Christopher”. In a confession letter he sent to her, he shared what happened to Shanann and their two daughters.

He told Cherlyn he had been thinking about killing his family for “weeks” so that he could be with his girlfriend Nichol Kessinger forever. The letter says that Chris claims he tried to kill his young daughters the first time at home, but they “woke back up”.

Watts wrote, “August 13th, morning of, I went to the girls’ room first, before Shanann and I had our argument. I went to Bella’s room, then Cece’s room and used a pillow from their bed. That’s why the cause of death was smothering. After I left Cece’s room, then I climbed back in bed with Shanann and our argument ensued.

After Shanann had passed, Bella and Cece woke back up. I’m not sure how they woke back up, but they did. Bella’s eyes were bruised, and both girls looked like they had been through trauma. That made the act that much worse, knowing I went to their rooms first and knowing I still took their lives at the location.”

Later in the letter, he is said to have written that on the night of August 12th, he knew that would be the last night he tucked his daughters into bed. “I knew what would happen the day before, and I did nothing to stop it. I was numb to the entire world,” he wrote. The report also says that in the letter, Chris said he gave Shanann the painkiller Oxycodone to induce a miscarriage as he “thought it would be easier to be with Nichol if Shanann wasn’t pregnant”.

In another letter, it is said that Watts wrote: “All the weeks of me thinking about killing her [Shanann], and now I was faced with it.” The only reasoning he gave in the letters as to why he did what he did is because “she would keep me from Nikki” (Nichol Kessinger).

What is Family Annihilation?

Many family annihilation cases occur in August, before school starts, which may delay detection and investigation. According to former FBI profiler Candice DeLong, such instances as Watts are rare because "family annihilators usually commit suicide after the murders," an action that he claimed to have contemplated out of guilt for his actions.

A study has been published that analyses three decades of criminal records of British murder cases, drawing up psychological profiles of the four types of men who kill members of their own families. "Family annihilators have received little attention as a separate category of the killer," said Professor David Wilson, one of the paper's three authors and Director of the Centre of Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University. Newspaper articles from 1980 to 2012 were used to find and analyse cases for the study, which is published in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice.

Of the seventy-one family "annihilators" identified for the study, 59 were male, and 55 per cent were in their thirties when they committed the crime. The frequency with which these kinds of murder cases are occurring is also increasing, the study found.

Over half of the murders that were identified took place between 2000 and 2010. “Ordinary family men” could do quite extraordinarily appalling things to their partners, ex-partners and their children.

Family annihilators were overwhelmingly not known to criminal justice or mental health services. They were usually holding down good jobs.

Family break-up, including related issues, such as access to children, was the most common cause of family murders, followed by financial troubles, honour killings and mental illness.

Eighty-one per cent of men who killed members of their family attempted to kill themselves afterwards. People who are murdered usually have some existing relationship with their murderer, and those who committed family annihilation were in no way "typical" murderers.

Examining all the cases led to the identification of four distinct characteristics that drove the murderer, which helps to dismantle the common myth that family killings are motivated either by "revenge" or "altruism".

• Self-righteous killers - hold the mother responsible for the breakdown of the family and will often call her before to explain what he is about to do. Disappointed killers - believe their family has let them down, and the killing could be sparked by something like children not choosing to follow religious customs.

• Anomic killers see the family as a symbol of their economic success, but if they suffer some financial failure, e.g. bankruptcy, the family no longer serves this function.

• Paranoid killers are often motivated by a desire to protect their family from a perceived threat, such as having children taken away by social services.

Most family annihilators fell into the self-righteous or anomic categories, whilst those who were self-righteous were often "histrionic and dramatic", choosing significant dates such as Father's Day to commit their crimes. It's clear that it's men who usually resort to this type of violence, and these four characteristics are closely related to a man's ideas about gender roles and his place within the family.

Interestingly, Chris Watts does not fit into any of the four categories associated with family annihilators. Typically, someone who wants to leave their partner divorces them rather than killing the whole family. Murdering his wife and children seems crazy for Chris Watts. He contacted the school on the morning of the murders to say they were leaving the area and immediately got on selling the house. He seemed to be utterly naive that leaving his wife in a shallow grave, leaving evidence like the phone and medication in the house, would not lead investigators immediately to Chris Watts. Yet, Watts did not seem a stupid man. What happened in the man’s mind seems incomprehensible.

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Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_family_murders

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6479963/The-painstaking-process-retrieving-Chris-Watts-daughters-oil-drums-three-days-murders.html

https://thetab.com/uk/2020/10/01/american-murder-what-happened-to-chris-watts-other-girlfriend-nichol-kessinger-177101

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/family-killers