Chris Watts Murder Case | True Crime, Tragic Murder, Lies & Paranormal Evidence (Ep 373)

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There's a lot of paranormal activity that came out after police body cam footage would later reveal numerous messages from Shenan and her daughters Bella and Cece sent from beyond the grave. This is the case of the Watts family.

Yeah.

Very spooky.

Hello. Hi everyone. This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

Two Girls, One Ghost. We are your ghostesses. That's Karin.

Hello.

I'm Sabrina. And I realized I never

Iceland & Northern Lights

talked about Iceland.

Oh, yeah. You didn't.

We just kind of just joined [laughter] into recording. Yeah, cuz I really cuz people were asking about it on my Instagram when I had posted a couple of things and I was like, "Oh, I'll talk

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about on the podcast."

You asked for recommendations too originally, right?

Yeah.

You saw the Northern Lights.

That was the coolest thing in the world. We can put a video in the beginning here.

Oh my god. I was in such shock watching like we watched the Northern Lights dance.

Yeah. What's better honestly than the Northern Lights in the video is your reaction to it. Like you're like, "Oh my god." And you're like laughing like you can just tell how my mom mind blown you guys are.

Oh, cuz it was it was wild.

Yeah. And because prior to that moment, one, it was freezing. Like so goddamn cold that I was like, I don't know how long I can stay out here because you go out really late at night, too. Like we were out until like 2:00 a.m. And the

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first couple of times, like, yes, it was really, really pretty, but you could really only kind of see the colors in the sky, but you could see it better on your phone,

right?

But then this moment when it was dancing, it literally felt like aliens were coming down. I The first thing I thought was, "Wow, it's like Disney's Fantasia. [laughter]

[gasps]

Sometimes I look at Northern Lights cameras cuz I have an app to track the Northern Lights on my phone so that when they come here every once in a while I can see, but it's not like there's no dancing when they're here. I've never seen that.

So cool. So, we'll put the little video into this episode.

It was a really cool trip physically. Very cool. Cold.

Did you get ice cream?

Uh, we got one, but I will say the one waffle was the best part.

The food in Iceland. I am not a foodie. I like what I like. I I like hyperfixate on certain meals and I eat that until I literally get nauseous thinking about it. But the food in Iceland was so good.

Yeah.

There was not a single thing and we're vegetarians. There's not a single thing that we had that we were not happy with

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except for grilled cheese at like a random little like tourist site that [laughter] we got.

Yeah.

But otherwise, everything was so good.

Oh my gosh. And it's like kind of trendy. Like the places are very aesthetically beautiful. the restaurants.

Yeah, Ray Hivic was very cool. There was a lot of like bad weather. So, there were a couple of days that we had things planned like snowmmoiling

that everything got cancelled because the roads like I don't know how I don't think they plow like I'm like like how do you get around?

Yeah. I don't know. In Rig at least they have uh heated sidewalks.

Yeah.

Smell like ice on the sidewalks.

But no, it was really really cool. And we went and saw like glaciers and ice caves. It was really cool. Did you walk by the penis museum in Reikovic?

We walked past it. So I stayed at the hostel across from it. So that was like my very first impression of Iceland. When I got there, I like checked in and looked outside and I was like, "Oh, that's the nature."

Rise and shine.

Rise and shine.

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Grab your coffee and stare at the penis museum. One thing that I really wish that we had done and we didn't get the time to do and also my mom wanted to do it with me but my sister had absolutely no interest was snorkel the continental divide.

I would have no interest too cuz it's scary and people have died there diving.

Yeah, scuba diving but like snorkeling and apparently the water is like so beautiful and clear.

Yeah, but right now it's actually freaking freezing. Well, you get like like all the like heavy duty gear

enough to do it right now. The dead of winter. Damn.

Yeah.

See, we were cold and I went in August or whatever. So, I can't even imagine going in.

Yeah.

So, if anyone is going, no matter what time of year you're going, pack extra layers, more layers than you think you need. Like, you layer up when you're skiing, you need more layers than that.

Yeah. I wore a winter coat and hat when I went

Yeah.

in the dead of summer.

So,

yeah. [laughter] It's a very very cold place.

Did you go to see The Continental

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Divide?

So the day that everything got cancelled was the day we were supposed to see it.

M okay.

Yeah. And then we cuz we drove to this area called Yoko Sarland which is a 5-hour drive and we were supposed to spend two nights there

and we got there and we were spending one night there and as we were there they were like tomorrow night there's supposed to be like a massive snowstorm. So like Thursday morning was supposed to be a massive snowstorm and our flight was on Friday. We were supposed to drive back to Reikavik on Thursday and we were like we have to drive back on Wednesday. So there were like just so many things that you had You're at the whims of nature when you're in Iceland.

Yeah.

It was a very cool very cool experience.

Amazing.

Yeah.

I do remember when cuz the Continental Divide was like a stop on one of the tours that Marissa and I did when we went years ago. But there were so many like Game of Thrones tours going on there cuz that was one of the filming locations. So it's just like all these Game of Thrones super fans.

Yep. There's a beach that we went to on our drive to Yoko Sarland. It's like

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right next to Vic V that town with the church where you're like, "Oh, my friends I think got married there."

You took a picture of a church and I was like, I swear to God I've seen that church in wedding photos before. Because I know someone who got married in Iceland in this like cute little

It probably looks like that. Yeah.

Yeah. But also maybe every church looks like that.

[laughter]

He very well could have not

where I took that picture from was it was called like Black Sand Beach where Game of Thrones was filmed.

Oh, cool.

Yeah. And then the tomato farm. [gasps] It was the coolest thing. There's this little tomato farm. It's kind of in the Golden Circle area.

Uhhuh.

And because the day we were supposed to do the whole Golden Circle, see the continental divide, like that tour got cancelled. The day we were driving to Yokosarland, we kind of stopped. We drove a little bit out of the way to go see the geysers. My mom really wanted to see the geysers.

Underwhelming, but cool in concept.

Also just scary to be like near.

Yeah. But also crazy

guys are water cuz you could die.

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Well, and it's the fact that all of Iceland's like a volcano or a glacier and the geysers are literally hot lava like releasing the gases.

Did you go to the geothermal like museum or It's not really a museum. It's like the plant.

No. Oh, it's like not for I swear it's only like 20 minutes outside of Rebec or something.

Probably we didn't

Marissa and I went [laughter] and did a little nerdy tour.

Oh my god, it was like I can't even repeat anything that I learned from there, but it was unreal how they harness all of the energy to like power basically

everything.

Everything.

Literally everything.

And you're learning this and you're like, number one, how the [ __ ] did we learn to do this? And number two, why is this knowledge not applied everywhere that this exists like in in the earth? Yeah. And it just makes you realize how shady some other countries [laughter] can be.

To be fair, also they have to do that because there's nothing else to rely on in Iceland. Like you are isolated. You are alone. But it was it was I was mind blown. And the person giving me the tour, I was like, you are 100 times

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smarter than me and you're just giving a tour,

right?

Like this is insane.

Yeah. No, it was a very cool place. It is so expensive, so know that before you go. And then Yeah. The want to go to a gastro pub, make sure to read the menu [laughter]

first cuz often it just means straight food.

Yeah.

Okay. Wait, the tomato farm. Did it have tomatoes? It

It was a whole tomato farm. Like

I'm so confused cuz you were there in the dead of winter.

So, it's a bunch of green houses.

Okay.

And they grow tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, I think a couple of other things. They supply all of the I think it's in Greenland has never been able to like grow I think it's strawberries or blueberries one of the two. So they supply all of it to Greenland

a to their neighbors Greenland.

Yeah. But it's like all these green green houses and they have a restaurant in one and then they have this like beastro in another. So cool. You walk in, it smells like tomatoes. Their menus are very tomato themed like the tomato

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soup.

Did you find all of this stuff on your own or were these like recommendations. People recommended these to us

or to me. Yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah.

It makes me want to go back.

I know. I don't think I'll ever go back. Like it is one of those like I feel like I saw most of the things. Like I'm bummed I didn't get to do the Continental Divide, but

it was so cold and I'm glad I went,

but I feel like there's also so many other places in the world that I would want to go see before going back there.

True. I also feel like seasonally you might have a different experience, too.

Yeah. cuz I feel like there's things that you got to do that like were not an option for me when I went and probably vice

versa. [clears throat] Yeah.

Damn.

What a cool experience.

Loved it.

Well, that was our upper for this [laughter] episode.

I know

cuz we're about to take a downer.

the perfect family

Content warning.

This episode contains detailed descriptions of abuse, domestic violence, murder of children, just general violence. So please listen with

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care

and will be a lot of anger from us.

Yeah. And I told you that I I've never baldled like I've baldled researching and writing and I

could not like get a grip. I think I have no tears left to cry. We'll see. I might be able to bring mess again by the end.

But we're going to talk about a case that many of us might be familiar with. It's a little more close to home and it really started on the morning of August 13th, 2018. A Monday morning in Frederick, Colorado. The sun is coming up over the Colorado Plains, hitting the quiet suburb of beige houses and wide streets. A neighborhood where you know your neighbors. The kids are outside. They're riding their bikes. Everyone is hanging out, dropping off casserles when someone has a baby. That sort of thing. The dream. A perfect place to have a family. At 2825 Saratoga Trail, there's a five-bedroom house. It's a very nice house. A baby swing in the backyard, a dog named Teeter, drawings on the fridge, tiny shoes by the door.

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Everything looks as it's supposed to. Everything looks perfect. But just a few hours before, at 1:48 a.m., a car pulled up to the house. Shannan Watts climbed out exhausted, 15 weeks pregnant. She had been on a business trip in Arizona, and she was finally home. her friend Nicole who picked her up from the airport hugs her, has her get out of the car and watches Shannan walk up to the door. A good friend, right? Like she's

dropping her off in the middle of the night, make sure that she gets

picked her up from the airport. Like Yeah.

Yeah. Great friends.

Great friend. They are best friends. And Nicole will play a larger part later, too.

Can I say one thing about you that I admire so much? What

is anytime I came to visit you prior to living here, you always except for when I arrived at like 6:00 a.m., you always picked me up from the airport.

Oh, yeah.

Like that's French.

Now that I don't live [laughter] very close,

you don't. But

Well, no, it's not it's not proximity-wise now. It's that I have a

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child. Yeah,

because one time it was during co Marissa came to visit and we had already pre-planned when she was coming but it was like a few months into co but I was up in Vermont and she had tickets in and out of Boston and I was like don't worry I have nothing to do [laughter]

just drove three and a half hours.

Yeah, that's wild for

Yeah.

Oh man, it changes things.

Well, I can't say I am that person. I say [laughter] and I get that from my family because my family is not a drive you to the airport, pick you up from the airport.

Anyway, Nicole is the friend that goes and gets her pregnant friend in the in the middle of the night. So, we're happy happy about that.

Feel like her.

She watches her friend Shannan walk through the door safely is home. A few hours later, when the sun is rising, Nicole is getting ready. She's supposed to accompany Shannan again to an OB appointment. She's been to a few before cuz she's a great friend. So, she calls Shannan, but there's no answer. She texts Shannan, but there's no answer. Okay, she just came back from a business trip. She's back with her family. Like,

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she might be super tired, but this is so unlike her. She's never missed an OB appointment. She doesn't not respond. She's very active on like social media, on her phone, communicating with friends. So, even though there can be all of these excuses as to why she's not responding, it's still concerning. Right. By 9:00 a.m., Nicole knows that there has to be something wrong. And so, she drives over to her friend's house. She rings the doorbell and there's nothing. She peers through the windows and she can see Shannan's favorite shoes sitting by the door. She sees her friend Shannan's car in the garage. She calls. She calls. She calls. Nothing. No answer every single time. So, now she's like, "I'm not hesitating. I'm calling the police. We're having like a welfare check. Something is wrong." She had just seen her

hours before.

Yeah.

Officers show up and then minutes after the officers show up, Shannan's husband, Chris Watts, pulls up in his work truck, fresh from a shift at the oil field. He

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seems calm, very measured, and when questioned about his wife's whereabouts, he says that earlier in the we hours at the morning, they had this like emotional conversation, like bordering on a fight. It was basically like a disagreement and that she was like, "I'm taking the kids and leaving the house." So Chris said basically that he didn't know exactly where she went. He presumed to a friend's house, but that she wasn't there and the kids weren't there either and that it was due to their fight in the morning, but her car is still on the driveway or in the garage

and she has told her best friend.

Yeah, it seems like all of her belongings, like just like the basics you would need to leave the house are all right there. So it doesn't make total sense. And then the neighbor across the street seeing this sort of commotion, seeing what's going on, he's like, "Hey, I have a security camera outside of my house and it picks up their house, the Watts house. I can put the roll the footage back for the police and we can look for anything that might have happened between when Nicole dropped off Shannan and her being

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missing right now." The footage rolls and the only person who ever left that house after Shannan had walked into the door was Chris Watts and it was like

Thank God for neighborhood footage like or security systems in general.

It is invented by a woman cases.

Yeah. No, totally. It's it's like it almost is mindboggling that anyone could get away with a crime these days, right?

Just because of how much evidence there is. Like that's why I feel like some disappearances of people where it's like last seen on this video camera like running off in this direction into a field. You're like how right

how was that the last time? There's so much footage. There's

you're thinking of Lars Matonic.

Yes. Or just like even the background of like people's Snapchats. Like there's got to be something. There's evidence of something,

right?

But it doesn't always get pieced together. In this case, it wasn't just neighbors and friends providing evidence to help Shannan and her two kids be found. Police body cam footage would later reveal numerous messages from Shannan and her daughters Bella and

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Cece. Messages sent from beyond the grave.

I already have chills again.

See, this is a part of the case I had no idea about.

Yeah, that's the only reason I'm covering it. I never would have touched something that happened so soon and is so tragic, right?

And like I like still feel kind of icky about it. Yeah,

but [clears throat] there's a lot of paranormal activity that came out after everything happened.

Body cam footage.

Mhm. This is the case of the Watts family.

And if what's a Netflix documentary like America?

Hold on. I wrote it down at the very end cuz there's multiple documentaries. The Netflix one is American Murder: The Family Next Door.

Yeah.

And that's actually where a lot of the paranormal evidence was first seen.

Oh, interesting.

They didn't cover the paranormal evidence,

right? just didn't and they didn't.

People watching were like, "What was that?"

Oh, this case is really heartbreaking.

It really is.

Grab your stuffed animal.

Grab like whatever comfort

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item you can.

Weighted blanket

or like I understand if you don't want to listen to this one.

Mhm.

Cuz it it really is tragic and it's a little different from what we normally do.

I did pick an uplifting, heartwarming listener story to wrap us up at the end of this.

Yeah. We start with tomato farms and we end with uplifting [laughter] ghostly tales.

the Watts family

All right. So, before meeting Chris, Shannan grew up in Aberdine, North Carolina in a very close-knit family. Her two loving parents and her brother Frankie. And pretty much from day one, her personality was very loud. She was very loving. She was very enthusiastic about like absolutely everything. So, she had that energy that pulled you in. So, she had a lot of friends. And also, I didn't include this in in my research, but she was really big on Facebook, like posting videos. I think she was totally the person that now would be like on Facebook Live like I'm at so and so's birthday party and like narrating it. So, people felt very invested in her life, even if they weren't close friends

because she just shared so much about

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like her children and her life and things that would come. So she was always this very personable, very easy to connect with, very kind and loving friend.

Yeah. So this is who she was. But that doesn't mean that her life didn't come without some struggles.

Shannan was diagnosed with lupus at a very young age, which is an autoimmune disease that can be very debilitating. Isn't that what Selena

Gomez has?

And she had to be very careful about what she ate, careful about stress, careful in ways that a lot of people her age were not thinking about at such a young age. And also as a young young adult, she was kind of having moments of financial struggle, which

as many people do. Yeah. Especially in this day and age.

Guilty of spending my last $30 on a sound bath one time and then not eating for a couple days.

Yeah.

Priorities. [laughter] When Shannan was just about 30, she met Christopher Watts. Wow. I said that weird cuz I was going to say Chris Watts and then I was like, I'll say his full name.

Yeah.

And two years later, they married. They packed up their life and they moved to Colorado. They moved to Colorado because

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Chris had taken a job with Anadarko Petroleum which was one of the biggest oil and gas companies operating in the state and it was very good stable work and they were like sure big skies wide roads Colorado living clean air let's

Colorado has the most sun like days of sunlight in the US

which is so wild because you would like I would have guessed Florida or something like that.

Colorado.

Colorado.

Mhm. sunny, beautiful, clean air Colorado.

They bought a five-bedroom home in Frederick for just under $400,000 and they started to build their life. On December 17th, 2013, their first daughter, Bella Marie Watts, was born.

And then on July 17th, 2015, Celeste Catherine, who they called Cece, came along, too. So they were basically like a year and a half apart in each.

So these girls were going to be best friends,

like my nieces.

Yes. Exactly. You're going to cry in this episode. It's terrible.

For sure. Like I Yeah. [sighs and gasps]

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I FaceTime with my nieces literally 2 seconds before coming in here.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So, something about having these kids and having these girls, Shenan just it like completely lit her up. She was always a positive person and always a kind person, but like this was everything. Like she was mom

and giving these girls the best possible life ever was just that was like her purpose.

She posted on social media constantly. She posted about them going to gymnastics and doing silly little dances and making funny faces and all of this stuff, which I didn't look it up, but apparently the Facebook is still up, I think, and people have said it does feel like they're still here

because

you get to see them live their life.

That's the wildest thing about social media is even after someone's gone,

their presence exists online as if they're still here.

I know. It's almost like uncomfortable in a way. Like sometimes I'm like it feels wrong to be able to just like for

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you to not have control anymore over your profile. Like you can't go back and take a photo down or post an update if you want. Like it's just

it's just there.

It's just there. Yeah.

So what a lot of people felt connected to in Shannan's posts were not just like this perfect family pictured on Facebook, but she really wasn't embarrassed or ashamed to show all of it. It was like the chaos, the laundry, the mess. It was like M truly like she was like mom blogging like a day in our life sort of thing. Sometimes the kids would be crying in the background. Days didn't go perfectly, but that just made people feel more connected to her. And this was sort of the thing that she brought to her close friendships, too, where she was just so completely open and blatantly honest about what was going on.

Yeah.

She talked a lot about Chris in her videos and how amazing he was, how much he meant to her, how in love they were. So, Christopher Lee Watts, he grew up in North Carolina as well, not far from where Shenan had grown up, and his life was a little bit different. He was pretty quiet. He kept to himself. His

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parents, Ronnie and Cindy Watts, would later describe their son as a gentle, sweet, and not capable of violence type of guy. And he lived this kind of mild life. So, he wasn't particularly ambitious. He wasn't particularly dramatic. He wasn't super loud. You didn't really notice him as the focal point of a party.

Average.

Average. Yeah. He was the guy who went to work, came home, watched TV, liked the Colorado Rockies, liked cars, just like honestly, it's it's a life a lot of people dream of having like a normal

life. Quiet, drama-free life.

I feel like I'm just making the same face this whole episode.

Well, because you know what's going to happen. And I think a lot of people who are listening to this know this is a very popular is not the like it feels

it's very mainstream case.

Yeah. Friends of Shenan described the early years of their marriage as genuinely very sweet. Chris seemed very devoted. He played with the girls on the floor. He helped with bath time. He was very present and people who knew both of them thought that they were actually really good match for each other. Shenan

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had this fire and drive. Chris was very easygoing. It seemed to like pair well. There weren't many conflicts, but behind the scenes things weren't going as smoothly as they appeared. The couple declared bankruptcy in 2015, which was the same year Cece was born, their second. And obviously, a financial strain is terrible for anyone to go through, but especially for a young family who like just moved to this area more recently, there's so much pressure on them. And it's like, it's not just you, it's your children that you're having to take care of.

So, that's when their second kid was born.

Yeah.

They filed for bankruptcy.

That's very stressful. Shannan's friends would later tell investigators that there was something about the dynamic between them that actually seemed a little imbalanced for many years. So Shannan was the decision maker. She was the planner. She was the one who managed the house, managed the kids, managed the schedule. And Chris just like basically went along with any with everything. He didn't really take the lead on anything.

And on the surface it looked like, okay,

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that works for them, right? He like doesn't have a very strong opinion. She gets to make the decisions and he's just like, sure. and goes along and and helps but isn't contributing ideas.

Can I just say there's literally nothing more unattractive than someone who's unmotivated.

Yeah. [laughter] [gasps] Uh well, yeah,

he appeared to be unmotivated, but what he said he felt was that he didn't have a say in anything. That he couldn't hang a picture without her giving input. That he felt very controlled. That he wasn't happy for a really long time. that he didn't know how unhappy he was until someone came along to show him.

Which all of these things are real experiences that so many people feel and experience throughout their lives. I felt it in my marriage. I felt alone in a relationship where I should have been partner.

But the way you deal with that is your responsibility. And this is an [ __ ]

Like beyond an [ __ ]

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This is a horrible monstrous person. This is like

disgusting.

I know that I shouldn't wish death on people, but like the I do feel like sometimes

for him 100%.

Unfortunately, Darwinism and evolution I know

doesn't weed out the evil.

I wish it did.

Is it bonobos? Those monkeys that will

do they was a big story. I think it was bonobos. It's a matriarchy. And recently there was a story about how they found a male bonobo like the the colony the trap I don't know what they're called the group of monkeys

they found a male bonobo abusing a young bonobo like a a youth a child bonobo and they beat and tore him to death immediately.

The female bonobos.

Mhm. Yes. And they're like in all the history of bonobos and all the studies of bonobos like the there has really been very little evidence of them having any sort of aggression. They're a very like peaceful group. But if you mess with the peace and if you do something

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evil, you're immediately eliminated.

Wow.

And I feel like that energy

should be brought to human beings.

Yeah. Anyone who can hurt a child

gone.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Better luck in your next life. Okay. So this is what he said. These are like parts of his excuses as to like what went on. But first, let's talk about May 29th, 2018. On May 29th, Shannan set up a camera in their kitchen. She walked in wearing a shirt that said, "Oops, we did it again." She waited for Chris to come home and when he walked in, she stepped in front of the camera. He saw the shirt. He grabbed the pregnancy test. He's grinning. He seems very excited. He kisses her. Seems genuinely happy. I can't remember like what the comment was. Uh I think they had like what he had actually said but he

appears happy

appears very happy that they are pregnant with their third child.

Later they would find out that they were pregnant with a boy and they were planning on naming him Nico. But 76 days later Shannan, Nico, Bella, and Celeste

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Cece were no longer alive.

Mill

Recently Brian and I were discussing just how much trash we produce as

as humans.

Yeah. And we realized how much of it is food waste. And then we started talking about like, okay, what are our options? Cuz it feels like we need to start composting and be more responsible here. And we got Mill. Mill is the odorless, effortless, fully automated food recycler. Potato peels, avocado pits, chicken bones, even dairy. Mill takes almost anything. There's no mess, there's no smell, there's no fruit flies. And what I love about it is on the Mill app, you can program when it actually starts. And so I have mine overnight because then We can use it during the day and overnight it just like works and starts turnurning everything into compost. Like it breaks it down.

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the affair

In June of 2018, Shenan took the girls to North Carolina for an extended summer visit with family. So, she and her girls were going to be gone for 6 weeks. And they and they were gone for 6 weeks

without Chris.

Yep. So, six weeks, she has the girls. Six weeks where the house is quiet, his family isn't there, there's no schedule to adhere to, and his wife is not present. At work, Chris Watts needed to drop off a dysfunctional gas meter to the environmental department, which I guess is like a it was a normal brain. [laughter]

Yeah, it's his whole being. But this is where everything changed. So he goes to drop it off and he in this moment meets a colleague that he has never met before. Her name is Nicole Kessinger. So

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there's two Nicoles in the story. One is Shenan's friend Nicole. Nicole Kessinger is not friends with Shannan. She's Yeah,

different. So I'll just say Nicole Kessinger every single time I'm referencing

the woman who ends up um having an affair with Chris. She's 30 years old. She has dark hair. She's very outdoorsy. She's very confident in a way that is new for him, which I'm like, I feel like Shannana is pretty damn confident. But

for sure, if anything, it's he feels like someone's giving him attention, making him feel a way that he himself can't make himself feel.

Yeah, there we go.

Yeah,

he needs therapy or for Sabrina to just tell him exactly what is going on with his little messed up brain. According to Chris, they kept running into each other in the office. And the fourth time they crossed paths, she asked what we meant when he said that we moved from North Carolina in conversation.

So that's when he shows pictures of Bella and Cece, his daughters on his phone. So she knew he had kids. His lock

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screen was also Shannan, his wife on his phone.

But does he purposely leave out Shannan when he shows the pictures of the kids?

Um, no. I think she knew that he was married, but I think he was like, "We're at the end of our marriage." I think he lied about where they were in their relationship.

Most people just get a divorce.

Yeah.

And move out. So, basically, that's what he said. He said that they were separating, that they had filed for divorce, it was almost final, and that he was currently looking for an apartment.

Right.

That is what Nicole Kessinger told investigators. He told her, Chris told investigators that she actually knew that he was married with a family and that she was just saying that to save face. So, there's conflicting stories between the two of them as well.

Listen, I don't trust a thing that Chris has to say. So,

no. What we do know for certain is that by late June, Nicole Kessinger and Chris Watts were meeting up outside of work. By early July, they were in a physical relationship, and Chris was seeing Nicole four to five times a week while Shannan and the girls were gone. They

31:00

were only gone for six weeks. So this is like

So this is the whirlwind romance is happening in this six week span.

Yeah.

He took her to the car museum in Boulder. They went on an overnight camping trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park. They were using a secret app, something called Secret Calculator to send private messages and photos to each other on an app that their partners couldn't discover. Or I guess she didn't have a partner, but Shannan couldn't discover. And in early August, he told Nicole Kassinger that he was in love with her. So within this six weekek period that his wife, his pregnant wife and two daughters are visiting family,

he just builds a full-blown relationship.

Yep. Yeah. He falls in love with someone else. Full relationship. They're going on vacation. All of this. Nicole Kessinger will say later that she had been told about Shannan. She had been told about his kids. She had not been told that Shannan was pregnant. So she says she did not know that Shannan was 15 weeks pregnant. And I'm not trying to excuse Nicole in any way because it

32:00

takes two people for a relationship.

Well, and also I'll say some things later where yeah, you might feel she's

lying. But the fact that Shannan is out of town,

like it would make you believe, oh, they're not in a relationship,

right?

Cuz she's not

They're like separated.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's not his weekend. It's not his six weeks.

Full six weeks. I understand that totally. Apparently, when Nicole found out about the pregnancy after everything went down and she's talking to police and working with investigators, she said, quote, "I thought if he was able to lie to me and hide something that big, what else is he lying about?"

So, she's kind of trying to plant the seed of doubt as well. And maybe, like Chris was saying, save face a little bit because like we're not really sure how much she truly knew or not.

Okay. Meanwhile, Chris and Nicole had begun this whirlwind affair, and back in North Carolina, Shannan was picking up on something. She and Chris video called

33:00

each other, and she started to notice that he was seeming different over these six weeks. He was a lot more distant. And like I said before, Shannana's a very open book. She confides a lot in her friends. She's very blatantly honest about what she's going through.

Yeah.

She gets a lot of emotional support. And so, she texts her friends like, "Something is off. Like I don't know what it is, but he seems really distracted when he's on the phone with me and I just feel like there's something weird going on.

Women's intuition. So because of this, she decides to end the trip a little bit early. They were supposed to be gone for 6 weeks early as I think they came back at like 5 and 1/2 weeks. So it was like just enough where she was like, "Okay, I like can't do this anymore. I can't wait. I have to

anxiety." She must have felt totally.

On August 5th, Shannan texted her husband Chris. I don't know how you fell out of love with me in 5 and 1/2 weeks or if this has been going on for a long time, but you don't plan to have another baby if you're not in love. He texted back the next morning.

Oh my god.

That he didn't want to erase the 8 years

34:00

together. He just wasn't sure what he wanted and what was going on in his head. So, not really some real reassurance there. Like, that's not really the text you want to get back. But, it's also not him walking away from his family. It's a very like non-committal response. So, she's like, "Okay, there's a chance that we might be able to figure things out." And for the

warning signs

next couple weeks, Shannan is trying so so hard to fix their family.

She [clears throat] confided in friends, several of them, that her marriage was in trouble. She suspected Chris was having an affair, but she couldn't fully bring herself to believe it because she she like literally texted a friend saying that the only thing she could think of to make this happen would be that there was another girl, but she didn't think Chris had it in him to do that to her

and their family. She told another friend that he hadn't touched her in weeks, hadn't kissed her, barely spoke to her unless she pushed. She texted, quote, "He has changed. I don't know who he is." She ordered a relationship book on Amazon called Hold Me Tight and wanted

35:00

Chris to read it and he threw it in the garbage without opening it. She wanted to go to coup's counseling. He refused. On August 8th, she texted her friend Taylor. Quote, "Chris said we are not compatible anymore."

Ew.

He refused to hug me.

Said he thought another baby would fix his feelings. Said he refused couples counseling. Taylor, who had just landed in Chicago, saw the messages and typed back, "Oh my god, what?" And Shannan replied, "I've cried myself to sleep over a week now

and she's pregnant."

Yeah. And there are, like I just pulled up a few of the texts. There are This case was investigated so heavily. There are multiple documentaries, multiple spotlights on what happened. And because she was so Yes. There are lots and lots of screenshots as to what she was telling her friends and whole threads that people can read on the internet.

It it just makes it more and more devastating. She told another friend

36:00

that she no longer felt safe, that she felt scared, but she was going to keep trying. She talked to

which is such a distinction like a lot of people going through that are just feeling the sadness and the pain of it

to feel scared,

right? Like there's something really cold where you're like, "Who is this, right?

Did they have a mental break? Like, what's going on? Am I okay?"

Oh, that breaks my heart. [sighs]

Yeah. She talked to a lawyer about custody. She thought about moving with kids back to North Carolina. She thought about fighting for her marriage, but she just couldn't decide. And in the middle of all this, she's 15 weeks pregnant. She's running a business. She's managing two toddlers. She's trying to figure out how the man that she built her entire adult life around had just stopped loving her. in five and a half weeks. And mind you, this is this is all happening. The trip she went on was five and a half weeks. Then she fought to get their marriage back on track for a couple weeks. Like this is 2 months.

Yeah.

That all of this is happening in like just a few weeks span. Before she left

37:00

for her final business trip to Arizona, she wrote a letter to Chris, a handwritten letter, and she left it for him on the counter. And at first, you can find it on the internet. At first I like put screenshots for like the YouTube video of her handwritten letter and then I felt so

icky

because like this is her

it's her like little bubbly handwriting on like a piece of like lined notebook paper just pouring her heart out and trying it's so intimate. So if you want to read the whole note if you want to look it up it's there. I'm just going to read a couple sentences. Basically, she essentially said, "I can't even explain how much this pain hurts. The last 5 weeks have been so hard. I missed everything about you. I missed your morning breath, your touch, your lips against mine. I miss holding you. I miss smelling you in the sheets. I miss talking to you in person. I missed watching you laugh and play with the kids."

Yeah. And then at the very end, she signed it, I love you, baby, with all my heart with love, Shenan. And she also

38:00

wrote like, "Happy anniversary." So, I'm not sure if it was

on their anniversary or not. Chris Watts did not respond to the letter. On August 11th, Chris met Nicole Kessinger for dinner in Denver. And this was the last time that Nicole Kessinger and Chris would see each other in person.

Wait, so like literally Shenan goes on a work trip. Chris is responsible taking care of the kids.

And he goes on a date with the second she leaves.

Yeah.

Okay.

On August 12th, Shannan texted Chris from her business trip asking, "What kind of vegetables do you want with dinner tonight?" Literally, she's preparing the meal when she gets home.

Yep. She's just trying. Yes,

she's still normal life

oper. And that he doesn't respond to any of this other stuff, but he responds to this. Broccoli works. Green beans work, too. [ __ ] you.

I hate him.

Hate him so much. I was really craving green beans last night, though, and now this makes me want green beans more.

Sorry. Should have [laughter] warned you.

Godamn it. Green beans.

Mention of green beans in this episode.

39:00

Content warning.

Green beans. [laughter] Apparently, this is the last text message that Shannan Watts would ever send to Chris. Shannan got home just

August 13th

before 2 a.m. dropped off by her friend Nicole

on Monday, August 13th. The security camera across the street, caught the moment that her friend Nicole's car pulled up. Shannan climbed out, walked up the driveway. She's tired. She's pregnant. She's carrying her bags. She's finally home with her family, with her daughters.

Oh, and also like probably so excited to go see her daughters.

Oh my god. Yes. Yes, but they're sleeping and she's probably like, I don't want to wake them up.

Right. The house is quiet. The girls are asleep. Chris is in bed. And according to Chris's later confession, he woke up around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. to get ready for work. And at some point, Shenan woke up, too. And this is when they began to talk. She said she knew he was cheating. She'd been putting it together for weeks, so she confronted him. And he did not deny it. He told her he didn't love her anymore and that their marriage was over. Shannan, who had been fighting for

40:00

weeks to save their marriage, who had cried herself to sleep almost every night, who had written him a love letter, who was 15 weeks pregnant with their third child, was now just told by the love of her life that he did not love her anymore, and that their marriage was over,

which could have been the end of this story, and it could have just been a heartbreaking end to a marriage. She felt so broken in that moment, so she didn't know what else to say and she just said, "Well, I don't think you're ever going to see your children again."

Also very valid and fair. Chris then put both of his hands around his wife's neck and strangled her to death.

I'm already going to start crying cuz now we're going to get to the kids.

I'm going to cry probably for like 10 minutes straight. I wrote this in my pajamas. I was like have not even brushed my teeth and I was like just a mess. Okay.

I mean, you're pregnant, too. Like it's just like all of these things. Yeah. I I am shocked you chose to cover this case.

Yeah. It does feel more like close to

41:00

home cuz I'm living every day with like a child who's the same age.

Yeah.

In his confession to investigators months later, he said every time I think about it, I'm just like, did I know I was going to do that before I got on top of her? It just felt like there was already something in my mind that was implanted that I was going to do it. And when I woke up that morning, it was going to happen. and I had no control over it.

So basically, he was admitting that like kind of premeditated,

but still taking no accountability, being like, I had no control.

I had no control. My mind just made me do it. I've been thinking about it forever. Is that not premeditated murder? Basically, he later admitted to investigators that he'd also been giving Shenan oxycodin for weeks.

What the [ __ ]

Trying to end her pregnancy.

I did not know that part.

Mhm. Yep. I know. There's been a lot like since it first poisoning her.

He was poisoning her. He Yeah. He thought if there was no baby that leaving her

and for weeks,

Bella and Cece would be easier. For weeks. Yeah. Letters he wrote from

42:00

prison later confirmed this. He had been planning this for a long time. I don't He might have been planning this before Nicole Kessinger was even in the picture, but basically it all indicated that this wasn't this like heat of the moment crime. This was premeditated. He wrapped Shenan's body in their bed sheets and attempted to carry her downstairs. He lost his grip, so he ended up dragging her down the staircase. [sighs] We're getting to the bad part.

Worst part, but it's really bad.

I don't know how I'm going to do it.

Do you want me to read that part?

Yeah. [laughter]

I didn't know it was

I know it's so bad. There's bad parts after that that I'm going to skip the first sentence. [laughter] Why did I choose this? Also, why did you write it like this?

I don't know. I'm sorry.

Oh god. Okay. Yeah, if you don't want to hear this part cuz it is

the whole episode because it doesn't get better.

But like specifically this detail like

43:00

Yeah. Maybe like fast forward a couple minutes. Okay. So, that is when a small voice came from the hallway. It was four-year-old Bella. She had a pink blanket in her hands. She was standing in the doorway and asked, "What's wrong with mommy?" Chris told his four-year-old daughter, "She doesn't feel good." [sighs] Chris backed his truck into the driveway, loaded Shannan's body into the back. He came back inside, and by then Cece had woken up, too. He put both girls in the back seat without car seats, just the girls with their blankets, and CeCe had her stuffed animal with her. And then he drove in the dark down the Colorado plains toward the Anadarko oil field where Chris worked. And on the drive, the girls dozed on and off in the back seat, laying against one another. Bella asked again, "Is mommy okay?" And he told them she was going to be okay. Karen wrote

the oil field

another content warning here, cuz these

44:00

are the last moments of CeCe and Bella's lives. A three and fouryear-old who were truly just babies. Oh, who loved Minnie Mouse and reading and spending time with mom [laughter] and dad.

God damn it.

That's the thing. It's like Shenan shared so much of their lives that like you you know who the kids are.

Chris Watts took Shenan's body out of the truck when they arrived and he turned back to his girls and he smothered CC in the back seat with her own blanket. The opening at the top of the oil tanks at this work site measured 8 in in diameter. 8 in. That's less than a foot.

Babies are basically that size. Like, it's so small.

Chris Watts forced his three-year-old daughter's body through an 8 in opening. He then walked back to the truck where Bella was still there. This four-year-old who had seen things that she never should have seen and couldn't even comprehend.

45:00

She looked at her father and asked, "Is the same thing going to happen to me as Cece?" And then he smothered Bella with the same blanket, but Bella fought, and her last words were, "Daddy, no." And then Chris Watts placed her in the tank as well. The medical examiner later found evidence which Gren said I won't share every graphic detail but it showed where her body had been forced through the 8 in opening. [sighs]

Thank you for your help. Sorry [laughter] again.

Some of the worst of it.

My eye twitch has been going on for like 4 months but it's now recently changed to when things are like triggering or I don't like agree with it morally my eye twitches.

Yeah. That's the only time my eye twitch is.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, it's like your little

It's my [laughter] So Raven.

Something's off with this.

I don't think we need to twitch

46:00

to know this.

No. No. My Twitch. Yeah, my Twitch is like Karen from Mean Girls where it's like [laughter] there's a 30% chance it's already raining. No, it's like this is obvious information and now my eye is twitching. Gh.

Okay. Sorry to everyone.

Chris Watts then dug a shallow grave nearby and buried his pregnant wife, Shannan. He then drove back home. He removed Shannan's wedding ring, left it on the counter so that it would look like she had taken it off herself. I think he also I didn't write this down, but it was in a bunch of the articles and stuff. I think he like did something with the book that she had given him about like a marriage help or whatever, right? like relationship counseling book and displayed it in some sort of way to make it look like she had like given up that she was leaving be like I'm done with the relationship my ring is off

and calculated and evil.

Yes.

And also the manner in which he killed all of them is the most

he looks into his children's eyes.

47:00

There's no situation in which killing your children, your wife and your children, your pregnant wife and your children is okay. But the manner in which he chose to do it is so intimate and violent.

We talk about like demons and poltergeists and this is like the most evil case I've ever

People are a million times worse than demons.

Yeah. This is not why we're not a weekly true crime podcast.

I literally could not handle it.

Yeah.

Chris made himself breakfast. He went on about his day. And that same morning, when it got a little bit later and more appropriate to make a phone call, he called Bella and Cece's preschool, said that they wouldn't be coming back. He then called a realtor, asked about listing the house.

What a disgusting human being.

It like zero time to even accept what happened, just fully moving on with his next life.

There's no shock. There's no like going through motions. No, he's literally Yeah. a monster.

Yeah. He's like, "Perfect. It's done. I

48:00

can move on with my life. He texted Nicole Kessinger that he was moving on. By midm morning on August

the murderer is caught

13th, Nicole Atkinson, Shannan's best friend, arrived at the house. She had already called the police. The officers had already arrived. And Nicole, Chris, and the officers were inside of the house looking around. Chris went around the house, checked on the girls' room. Nothing was out of place. He came back downstairs. He smiled for the cameras.

Is this the like body cam footage they show in the Netflix documentary? It is so chilling. He is cool as a godamn cucumber. And I'm so sad that cucumbers are brought into this. But like [laughter] truly

green beans, cucumbers justice for the vegetable.

Leave my vegetables alone. No, the body cam footage there's so much that you can cuz the Netflix documentary has a good amount of it.

Mhm.

And there are some others that like you can see, but I think that there's a good amount that's just available online like fulllength clips.

Well, because this was in tri like shown in court. It's evidence. Yeah, it's very

49:00

disturbing.

Yeah.

He told officers he wasn't concerned. This was Shenan's choice. She'd taken the kids and left. Nicole, Shannan's friend, who had known her for years, told investigators, "No, there is something deeply wrong here." She pointed out Shenan's shoes by the door, her car in the garage. "Shannan doesn't leave without shoes," she said. Then the neighbor across the street, Nathan Trinstitch, offered up his security cam footage. They stand in front of the TV. the police, Chris, the neighbor, and on the TV is an intro to American Horror Story. Chris is getting visibly more uncomfortable as they're about to pull up the security camera footage.

Well, also, did Shenan text Nicole about the marital issues? Probably. So, like Nicole already

there was something going on. She knew he's visibly more and more shaken. The like cool as a cucumber facade is starting to drop. He's getting nervous. He's like standing right by the TV almost like as if he's going to step in

50:00

front of it and block it.

And as they're getting ready to fast forward with the remote or whatever, like change the settings to go to the security camera footage, the American Horror Story promo plays next to Chris showing a fetus, then an explosion, then a skull floating in dark liquid. And people believe that this is a message from Shannan.

I mean, that is so chilling.

Yeah. We're going to play that clip.

She's pregnant as well.

How far along?

14 to 15 weeks.

No, but the chances of that being the first thing prior to watching the video. That's Yep. I mean,

this is where the paranormal starts coming in.

Okay.

Then the footage plays. It shows Chris loading something into the back of his truck in the wee hours of the morning. Something long, something wrapped. The truck backs out of the garage and drives away.

Wait, like that part shock I didn't realize. So he loads the car

51:00

carrying Shenan's body

and that is caught on camera. [clears throat]

Yep. I'm pretty sure you can see like

not only is he a goddamn monster, he's a [ __ ] idiot.

Such an idiot. Well, I he didn't know he clearly did not know or didn't think at all about security. He's an idiot.

He's an idiot. And even this wasn't in the part that I watched, but I remember this from like the original case. I believe even the neighbor was like, "He's acting weird." So everyone was like, "There's something off." Like everyone who was around

even before they It's not like, "Oh, after the fact they were like, "Oh, I thought he was acting weird." No, it's in the moment. They're like, "He's weird."

Like, "There's something weird going on. This guy's acting weird." Like pulling the police aside like there's something not right about the way he's acting.

By the next morning, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation had issued an endangered missing alert. FBI joined the search. The story was going national and everyone was looking for Shannan, Bella, and Cece. Chris Watts walked outside of his house to give an interview to the Denver's local ABC affiliate and said,

52:00

"Shannan, Bella, Celeste, if you're out there, just come back. If somebody has her, just please bring her back."

What a monster.

It's just like this whole thing about like, "Oh, the house is incomplete without you." It's so it feels like Gone Girl.

I was just thinking about that. But Gone Girl, he's actually innocent.

He's actually innocent, [laughter] but like it's that where like people watching you're like some people were very convinced by it.

Yeah, he's a psychopath. That's That's psychotic.

It is. Those close to Shenan did not buy

guilty

Chris's [ __ ] for a single second. By August 15th, the investigation had honed in. Police were watching Chris. They found inconsistencies. They had the security footage. They talked to Shenan's friends and on the morning of August 15th, Chris Watts walked into the Frederick Police Department with his father, Ronnie, who had flown in that morning from North Carolina. He sat down across from investigators. He agreed to take a polygraph. He failed

still,

which doesn't really mean anything, but like

53:00

So, he's still proclaiming to know nothing

at that moment, but then he asks if he can speak with his father alone. And this is not something that like the police would normally say yes to, but they're like, "Okay, like let's just see what he says cuz he's miked up, hot mic, whatever."

Oh, so it's like they can listen in on this conversation.

So Ronnie Watts is sitting with his son, Chris Watts. The investigators leave the room. I don't know if they knew that they were being watched through the glass. Again, I feel like that's kind of idiotic if you

Right. because only if you were with a lawyer, right? Like that conversation couldn't be.

Yes. But he's just talking to his dad. Chris cries to his father and said that he had walked in on Shannan strangling the girls and he snapped and killed her.

Are you [ __ ] kidding me?

So he This is a planned false admission. At 11:40 p.m. on August 15th, Christopher Lee Watts was arrested on suspicion of three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of tampering with a deceased body, which I'm like so glad the police are are

54:00

like, we see through this. Even the story he's trying to spin. No, he is 100%.

He's already lied.

Yeah.

He's handcuffed. He's taken into custody. On August 16th, investigators were already looking at the Anadarko Petroleum Work site near Rogen or Rajin, Colorado. It was about 40 miles northeast of Frederick. And this is where Chris worked.

They had gotten there because Chris's cell phone data and GPS tracking put him in that area the morning of August 13th. Around this site, investigators had spotted something from a distance. There was a patch of white sheet and some disturbed earth. So they brought in some excavators

at a distance of about 100 ft from the cluster of oil storage tanks. There was like two big tanks. They found Shenan's body in a shallow grave. She had been buried face down, still wrapped in part of her bed sheets that she had shared with her husband Chris, 15 weeks pregnant with her now deceased son, Nico.

Four lives.

55:00

Mhm. Then they looked into the tanks. The tanks at his work site were crude oil storage containers. They were not transparent, so you could not see inside from the outside. So they opened the top of each tank. And the only way in or out was a diameter of about 8 in. And to put that into perspective, a standard dinner plate is 10 and 1/2 in.

10.5 in,

I think. So smaller than your dinner plate. The tanks were drained. Investigators waited as the crude oil pumped out. Then they looked inside. In tank one, there was Cece. In the other tank, there was Bella. This is what Christopher Watts did with his children. This is how he disposed of his beloved family. These are the details that Judge Marcelo Copcow would later call at sentencing perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime I have handled out of thousands of cases that I have seen. Shannan, Bella, Cece, and Nico were buried together in September of 2018 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church

56:00

in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

To find one silver lining here, like there are so many cases where bodies are never discovered. At least

they were found and given this burial together, like that they can rest together.

Well, I'll say in the beginning of this episode too, I have pictures of the whole family together. And the second that we get to the part where he murders all the photos, he's I chose all the ones where it's just Shenan and her daughters. He's not in the room.

He's disgusting.

A 90minute service was held for the family and Chris Watts was not mentioned once.

Good.

Shannan's father, Frank, read a statement that said, "You are nothing but pure love, always caring for everyone. You will always be daddy's little girl." Investigators knew about Nicole Kessinger before Chris admitted to the affair. They found evidence on his phone and emails in the cards that he'd sent her, photos of the two of them together on their overnight trips, their camping trip, whatever, the secret calculator

57:00

app, all of that. When police informed Chris during the investigation that they had already known about the affair, something visibly shifted in him. It was like the wall came down and he knew he was caught. a [ __ ] idiot. Like, I'm sorry. What do you think's going to happen?

Also, like how evil, too. Like, the shift of being like, "Oh, fuck." Like,

I've been caught.

The evil guy. Yeah. The villain gets caught and they're finally like, "Okay, I'll take my mask off."

I mean, the level of delusion.

Totally. Nicole Kessinger, for her part, had already gone to investigators herself. She called them because there was something about Chris's behavior in the few days after Shannan had disappeared that felt deeply wronged her.

So before he ever confessed.

Yeah.

She went to police.

Yes. He had texted her the day that Shenan went missing. He asked to FaceTime her and she told investigators that the call made her really uncomfortable because she saw that there were sheets missing from his bed. He

58:00

seemed disturbingly fixated on Nicole like nothing else existed. And literally he had a missing pregnant wife and his two daughters were missing and it was like never came up in it didn't matter like

it's you and I baby.

Yes. So she was like that seemed disturbing.

So that's what drew her to go to police and this is where she kind of becomes a complicated figure in the story

and there's a lot more about her but I didn't want to focus on

on her in in this case. She did cooperate with investigators and her information was described by the Weld County District Attorney Michael Ror as bombshell. So, she really did help build the case. She had a lot of evidence and a lot of stuff that indicated that this was like premeditated and that what he did was um planned.

Yeah,

she seemed genuinely to not know at that time that Shannan was pregnant. But then, this is where it gets a little complicated. They did look into her own phone searches and before the bodies

59:00

were found in the days when Shannan and the girls were technically still missing, Nicole Kessinger was googling Shannan's name, which I feel like that part is normal.

So normal.

But then she searched, "Can cops trace text messages? Do people hate Amber Frey?" which was a mistress of uh Scott Peterson who murdered his pregnant wife Lacy Peterson in 2004. M.

And then she Googled phrase net worth and book deal.

Oh Jesus. She searched for wedding dresses.

No, that part's crazy.

Oh yeah. And just like some other things that kind of made it a little more gray area where it was like, did she actually know what happened?

Okay, here's my question, and you might not even have the answer, but we would probably have text messages or some type of evidence if he had told her he was going to do this

prior. and she clearly was suspicious. I would be looking up that information, too. And did she specifically search

1:00:00

Amber Frey's net worth and book deal or did it like naturally come like was it like she clicked the next hyperlink or whatever?

That's a good question. I don't have the answer to it.

Not to excuse her involvement with Chris, but like

I mean also like he could have told her on that phone call.

Sure. True.

Right. And then she has a few days to like think about things and kind of

question where she wants to be in this story. I don't know. All I know is that she wasn't charged of any crime. She cooperated with the investigation and after the Netflix documentary dropped, she basically realized how much scrutiny was brought on to her in this case and so she petitioned the Colorado court for a legal name change. She then moved out of state and as of 2026, she has successfully disappeared from public view and is living under a new identity,

which I think is the best because

yeah,

regardless of her involvement,

we don't truly know what her involvement was, so there's too much speculation. She could be totally innocent anyway.

And also, that's what I'm saying like

1:01:00

she she's not the monster who committed the he murders.

There's so much more information on her role here, but I was like again like this isn't about her.

Let's talk about the monster. Yes. Yeah.

The case against Chris was pretty airtight. The neighbors had footage showing him backing a truck out of the garage in the early morning hours with the dark shape of a body being brought into the car. They traced his cell phone and GPS to the work site where the bodies were found, his call log, his text, calling the preschool to have his kids removed that Shannan took the kids and left. Like, it's just there's so many things that don't add up. Yeah.

Yeah. He literally was trying to start a new life while his daughter's bodies were still warm. It's so deeply disgusting. On November 6th, 2018, Christopher Watts pleaded guilty to all nine charges, five counts of first-degree murder, one count for unlawful termination of a pregnancy, three counts for tampering with a deceased human body, and in exchange,

1:02:00

the Weld County DA, at a specific request of Shenan's family, who did not want another life taken, took the death penalty off the table for Chris.

Like Shenan's family,

which like in a way

such good people. Yeah, they're being good people, but I'm like like what's worse?

Force this person to live in prison and have face what he's dealt like what he's done. Yeah,

I do feel like that is more of a fair punishment. Like you have to live with the consequences of your actions.

Yeah. On November 19th, 2018, Judge Marcelo Copcow sentenced Christopher Watts to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 48 years for the unlawful termination of Shenan's pregnancy with their son, Nico, and 36 years for tampering with the bodies. So, Chris Watts literally will never leave prison.

Yeah.

evidence

Okay. So, now we'll talk about the body cam footage because this is the only

1:03:00

reason why this is on two girls one ghost feed is because there's paranormal evidence involved.

Yeah. When police arrive on August 13th and enter the home with Chris and Shannan's friend Nicole, the officers were wearing body cams, which is standard procedure, right? The footage is rolling the entire time that they move through the house, through the living room, upstairs, down the halls, into the girls' room, into the master bedroom where Shenan's phone was still sitting on the nightstand. And a lot of this footage later became part of the Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door, which was released in 2020. Millions of people watched it. And that is when people started saying, "Hey, we're noticing something in the body cam footage." In an early scene, while the officer was speaking with Chris on the second floor of the house, in the hallway in the girls corridor, something appears in a room behind them just for a second. A small figure low to the ground. People paused it, screenshotted it, posted it, and was like, "Oh my god, this is the little girl. It has to be Bella or Cece." Now,

1:04:00

I will debunk this very first one, but everything I tell you after is not debunked.

Okay.

Nicole Atinson did bring her young daughter into the house that day.

Oh.

So, at the time, she very much could match the height of these other small children, Bella and Cece. And so that specific scene where people are thinking that they're seeing a little girl playing and like walking through the door frame, that is Nicole's daughter

because they are seeing a little girl playing.

They are seeing a little girl.

It's not a ghost.

But there's another video, a shadowy apparition about the height of a child descending the stairs.

Oh my gosh.

That is definitely not a living child. [gasps]

So, we're going to watch that

right now. God. slow down again. Do you see that?

Oh, it's not even like shadowy. It It like fully looks

It looks like a person start It like only becomes kind of shadowy. Like it almost like disintegrates as it goes.

Oh my god.

1:05:00

Right. Then later in the body cam footage, there's a dog that's brought from the canine unit and the canine the dog and the handler are going into Shenan's closet and another officer is the body cam footage is like picking this up cuz there's another officer, female officer that's like right behind [laughter] kind of like in the bedroom watching them go in and you hear a giggle and the officers both stop and they're like, "Did you hear that? What was that?" So it wasn't just later caught on body cam footage.

They react to it in the moment.

They react in the moment and they

get so many chills.

Me too. And they even say like, "Okay, well there's this thing on the floor. Like maybe it's that." And they're like stepping on it to try to they're trying to recreate the noise cuz they're like, "What the [ __ ] was that?" Okay, we're going to listen to that. There's plenty of

Yes.

1:06:00

Oh my gosh.

Wow.

My eye twitched again.

Yeah. So, what's creepy about this too is at first people were like, "Oh, it's like a little girl's laugh." But in the evidence that came out with Nicole Kessinger and her relationship with Chris Watts, there are voicemails left and messages and whatnot. And you actually there's a recording of Nicole Kessingers's laugh and it sounds exactly like this.

So that kind of fueled some more theories that like she was working with dark magic and like all this other stuff because they're like why is her laugh just like existing

in here? Unless it was

could also just be people trying to connect things that

right but it literally that you hear on the video.

Oh my god.

And they recognize it live.

That is wild. Some people who've watched the original uncut body cam footage, not the documentary cut, but the raw footage

1:07:00

have seen a lot of other stuff. There's lights turning on and off behind officers when no one else is in the room behind them. There's shadows. There's numerous EVPs. And there have even been people of the public who have gone to the house with their cell phones with thermal cameras with just different evidence to or

which does make me sad,

right? Cuz now it's like this spectacle basically.

Um but they have captured things. They've captured what looks to be a shadowy figure like walking at the top of the stairs. They've captured in thermal body cameras what looks to be a person moving through the house. And so there are a lot of pieces of tons of pieces of evidence. We're barely gonna even like scratch the surface of how much yeah paranormally is here. But I did grab a clip from Tik Tok. I did edit it a little bit so that it's shorter. But this was from the user This can't be real with Kayla who had a compilation of some of the EVPs.

Just a few of the EVPs. It's like every compilation that you can look up on TikTok, it's like different EVPs presented. There's a lot of like moaning that was caught on camera. There's EVPs

1:08:00

saying like get out alive and like just different different things. You can look them up and and see a lot of them, but we're just going to watch a compilation of

just a few. Oh my gosh. Oh

yeah, there's a lot.

Whoa, that breaks my heart. And it it is really sad. I mean, I have so many thoughts. I mean, one, if we believe these are all EVPs from

Shannan or the children, it does sound like they're active and they're trying to share messages with the police to help solve the crime. And it gives me hope that they're all together in spirit form. And like it's less confusion that

1:09:00

people were said like it's clear like they went back home

together

and that they're in their home and that they're providing clues to investigators but like they are together in their family home

where there was a lot of love until this sudden cuz it was very sudden. There wasn't much of a buildup to

their father/husband just absolutely losing it and doing this. Yeah. So it is said that they are together. One more thing later, Chris Watts was transferred to Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin to serve his life sentence. And he has a bunch of pen pals and I think like relationships or whatever. But he did reportedly tell a pen pal that the ghosts of his daughters keep coming to visit him in prison. It's almost like tormenting him where it's like he has to keep seeing them and be reminded of what he did. Oh, it also breaks my heart because I'm thinking of these like little children who don't realize like they think of

they just want to go see daddy. Yeah,

cuz he was a really good dad before.

1:10:00

After the case broke and the documentary aired, reports of strange activity at 2825 Saratoga Trail did not stop. Neighbors reported seeing lights turned on in the house at night that had been vacated. One neighbor called police in August of 2018 after Chris was already in custody to report that the garage lights were being turned on and that there appeared to be a dark-haired female intruder moving about the property.

Shannan had dark

Shannan had very dark hair. investigators checked it out and there was no evidence of anyone on the property or any signs of forced entry

because unfortunately when there are big cases like this that do become mainstream I'm sure there are some questionably that meant I don't know what's going on in their minds but people who are like oo I'm going to go break into that house

totally yes

yeah there are a lot of houses that even remember when I covered American Horror Story and like the American Horror Story house which was the set

was like being bombarded with people coming just to see it and it's This is just like the Breaking Bad House, there's so many things that aren't even in crime that people just can't stop.

1:11:00

And then when there is a horrible crime for a long time, there's a lot of

Well, there's like a gross community of people who like sell serial killer memorabilia like stealing was it Ed Keer's grave? Like people were stealing pieces of his gravestone. Like it's just

it is icky.

Get a better hobby. Like I I do feel like if I was like in a thrift store or something and saw something like that and knew what it was, then I might purchase it to make sure no one else does. But I don't think I'd go on like eBay and actively grab things cuz then then you're just like you're actually like paying the people.

You're encouraging it in a way.

Yeah.

When we went to Zach Bagan's museum in Vegas, there's a lot of it.

So disturbing.

We were very disturbed by it.

Very disturbing.

This is the hard thing about paranormal. It's like it borders so much on true crime, but we usually get away with like skirting past the really

horrific things because we're either like a century apart from this horrific

1:12:00

crime or there's enough paranormally that we like don't have to overly focus on

right

on the terrors before, but there is such a like mashup sometimes and it's it's hard cuz it's like I find one piece very interesting and then the rest very disturbing,

right? Because like how come we can talk about like I think about the Tower of London and like ambulins and like all the King Henry the I think it's the eighth like wives who were brutally murdered but because it took place so long ago it doesn't feel as raw emotionally.

It's like you can distance yourself from it. You're like oh well those are people of another time. They don't even think like me. I'm not connected to that.

Meanwhile, [sighs and gasps]

but it's all the same all the time. Like humans have always been horrible.

Yeah. There's actually a stand-up comedian that made a joke about that about how like humans have always been terrible and that was it like the fourth person that ever existed in the Bible then like killed his brother or something like Abel or Cain and Able.

Yeah, Cain and Abel. He's like so from the start of humanity 25% of humans have been murderers and bad.

One of my favorite books is East of Eden

1:13:00

from it's written by John Steinbeck. It's an older book. It's tangentially related to like biblical stories, but it is kind of a human experience story about how kind of monstrous we are.

Yeah, I hate this for us. And I think we should channel Bonobo energy.

Let's go to Iceland and sleep beneath the northern lights and ask the aliens to come take us away.

Iceland has very low crime rate.

See, do you understand now why I so badly want to be abducted by aliens? Yeah, but I just don't know what the aliens are bringing. I'm sure not.

It can't be worse than what we have.

Yeah, that's true.

There are enough stories that sound better than humans.

Yeah.

That I'm willing to take the risk,

man.

All right. So, the house itself went into foreclosure. The lender tried to auction it off in 2018, but there were no takers. You can like look at when they were trying to list it, and they constantly are changing the price,

attempting to like get anyone to buy it.

There should be some type of law. I

1:14:00

don't know. I mean, or something that goes into motion where those houses can't be sold again. People can't live in them, but like a community center or something is built in place of it that is more of like a place of peace. Like I'm thinking about a playground.

Just think about like how many places like it's so

I know. I know.

Unfortunately, there's like luckily there's not a familiar as as often.

Yeah. But like

I know even the people are renting like there's just horrible things happening to people everywhere. It's really

Yeah.

terrible. But I love that idea and the energy [laughter] that you're bringing towards this. But that's unfortunately not what happened. The house that cost them nearly $400,000 in a neighborhood where houses were selling and like hot on the market. Nobody would come near it because of what happened.

Fair. It did finally sell four years later in 2022 and then again in 2024. Shannan's family asked that people honor

1:15:00

the girls and their mother not with grief but with action. By supporting domestic violence prevention, by looking out for people in your life who might be in a dangerous situation. By believing women when they say something feels wrong. And because Shenan said something was wrong, she texted her friends that she didn't feel safe, that she didn't know who Chris was anymore. That the only thing she could think of was that there had to be another girl. She knew on some level and her friends came to support her.

Yeah. She couldn't have known how far this would go.

Well, this is like the most horrible thing. and and we recorded an encounters that that comes out in June, so after this episode. But we were talking about this in that episode where it's so upsetting in specifically domestic violence cases where there are so many reports, there are so many things that lead up to what ultimately sometimes does end in like death.

Yeah. We were talking specifically about stalking.

Yeah. And it's just like there's just not a system set up to intervene or like

1:16:00

help. there's not enough protection

efficiently

because it's like the mentality of like well until something happens we can't do something but when that thing happens it's already too late.

Yeah. It's like the aura of a crime just like circling around someone isn't enough. But in those cases when it is enough it's too much. It's gone. It's done. I don't and I don't know the specific statistic, so don't quote me on this, but I think the statistic is most violent crimes related to domestic violence actually happens when someone tries to leave

or after a um what's it called? Like

separation

or a what's the warrant the legal thing? Why am I blanking? Where you can't be around that person?

Oh my god, why can't I remember either? Oh, restraining order. Before even Google, it finally came back to me. Just have to start typing in the process of like describing what you're doing. Restraining order.

Okay. To end this episode, we can

1:17:00

remember that Shannan and her children, Bella, Cece, and Nico are together at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Close to home, close to family, in a town that loved them together forever. And also, if someone in your life is showing warning signs of domestic danger, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1 800799-7233, also in the show notes. It's free, confidential, and available 247. You can also chat at thehotline.org.

Um, okay.

Aren't you glad I didn't make this a two-parter?

Yeah, absolutely. Originally, I was going to do two parts cuz there's so much to the crime piece, and I was like, I can't. I'm a blubbering mess.

Instead, you got over a lot of this.

Instead, you got a two-parter about a haunted doll, [laughter]

which was going to be a one-part episode, and then I was like, actually, I can make this.

Okay, that's perfect.

listener story

Okay. And this is from our listener, Amy. And like I said, it is heartwarming. We'll end on something

1:18:00

heartwarming. Hi, I would love to share a story that still gives me chills. It is about how my daughter's greatgrandfather saved her life when she was a baby and then a couple of years later taught her how to tie her shoes.

A thank you for choosing this. This is so [laughter] much better.

I was like, I don't know what to pick for this. And then I was like, I have to do like something where a spirit like saves a child.

Okay, so my husband and I live in a farmhouse that was built in the 1700s in Maine. The house has a lot of original features. wood pine floorboards nearly 2 feet across weren't smooth by centuries of footsteps, handcarved etchings and wood paneled walls, and staircases that are narrow, steep, and frankly unforgiving. But one staircase in particular curves sharply from our first floor hallway, right by our laundry room, up to the entrance of our daughter's bedroom on the second floor. It's dangerous enough that when we first moved in, my grandmother actually broke a bone in her back falling down that staircase.

Oh, damn.

So, yeah, dangerous. Anyway, one morning

1:19:00

when our daughter was about a year old, I left her upstairs with my husband and went downstairs to switch the laundry. I had been gone for maybe 60 seconds. When I went back to the staircase, my heart stopped. There was my daughter, completely alone, sitting perfectly still on the very top step, and her legs were dangling over the edge. She was calmly sucking on her pacifier, not moving at all. Any parent knows that moment of pure terror when a crawling baby gets anywhere near stairs. And this isn't just any staircase. It is the one with the history I had just told you.

If she leaned forward less than an inch, she would have fallen an entire flight of wooden steps straight into a wooden wall. And I was panicking in that moment. I screamed for my husband. Obvious obviously angry, panic, shaking. But it was an honest mistake. He thought I had her with me and I thought he had her. And this had never happened before and has never happened since. Somehow though, she did not fall. Hold on to that. We'll come back to it. So, fast forward 2 years. My daughter is now 3 years old at this point and she woke up

1:20:00

one morning and casually starts tying her shoes like [laughter] perfectly. Oh my god.

No instruction, no practice. I had never ever taught her how to do this, shown her how to do it. There's never been help.

Incredible. You don't have to go through that frustrating process.

Yeah. This is a three-year-old who never knew how to tie her shoes all of a sudden knowing how to tie shoes perfectly out of the blue. So I asked, "Where did you learn how to do that?" Without hesitation, in a little singong toddler voice, she said, "From Grandpa Haron." I asked who Grandpa Haron was. He said, "You know, Grandpa Haron with the dark, wrinkly skin. He showed me." Now, here's the thing. My husband's middle name is Harrison, named after his grandfather, Harrison, who passed away in his 70s, long before my husband and I even met. Oh my god.

We don't mention him, not because of any reason, but just because he had passed away so long ago. We don't have photos

1:21:00

of him in the house. My daughter had never heard stories about him or seen pictures. But from everything my husband told me, that was the exact description of Harrison. He lived in Florida.

How cool.

Loved being outside and because of this had very tanned, weathered, wrinkled skin. I was caught off guard by her answer. So I asked one more question. Have you seen him before? She didn't pause. She didn't think about it. She just said, "Yeah, mama. He kept me from falling down the stairs when I was a baby."

I love this because they have not called out to him. They don't talk about him. They don't They're not even really thinking about him. But he's like, "Your guardian is my great grandchild and I will protect her

and teach her how to tie her shoes."

Yeah. I honestly feel like this brings the most grandparent energy I've ever heard because like just thinking about my parents when they come to see Noah, they very frequently forget to say hi to me and Brian and it'll take them like a good 8 minutes and they go, "Oh, hi Bri." And we'll go like give him a hug or like, "Oh, Chris to see you." I get

1:22:00

like a pat on the shoulder, like barely any recognition. And that is exactly what this great grandpa is bringing. He's like, "I don't I'm not here for them. I'm here for the baby.

I'm here for the wechild."

But this is like 2 years after the stairs accident. Yeah,

that Amy is figuring this all out. In that moment, everything snapped into place. And my best guess is that she was trying to say Harrison, but she's three and said Heron. And somehow someway, this man she had never met not only stopped her from falling down those stairs as a baby, but later came back to teach her how to tie her shoes. So, yeah, she's a very helpful guardian angel. We've had other unexplained experiences like the time my husband once saw a full body apparition in our old 1800s Portland apartment, but this one is truly so special. So, I'll see you on the other side, but hopefully not just yet, Amy.

Wow, I love that. That's so special.

And Amy did say after that experience with the stairs, they ripped them out and redid those stairs.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, cuz it's not a normal flight of stairs. That's like you

1:23:00

pick up speed going down those ones. Your daughter's going to have the coolest two truths in a lie.

Yeah.

The ghost of my great grandpa taught me to tie my shoes.

Yeah.

This is making me realize I need to come up with some more creative. I'm going to start using people's other real experiences as my life [laughter] for cuz like that's so cool.

That is very cool and amazing. And also just like she may not have ever known that stare experience.

Totally.

And for her to like she was three and that happened two years earlier.

I know. Yeah. She I mean there's no way for her to know.

Grandpa

until her daughter started talking.

The one with the dark wrinkly skin cuz he [laughter] he tanned a lot in Florida.

The floor the Floridaian.

That's so good.

Wow.

Oh my god. Thank you for picking that.

Yeah. Thank you everyone for joining us. Please email us any paranormal experiences you have. Email us at two girls one ghost podcast@gmail.com. And you can join us on Patreon for episodes that are at early Whoa. add

1:24:00

early, one week early and add sounded right to me.

Um, and we also have a bunch of other bonus content on Patreon, bonus episodes, witch classes, book club, all the good stuff over there.

Thank you to Jamie Ryan who edits and produces our podcast.

And sorry for making you cry. This is a really tough case. But

we very rarely almost never do stuff like this. So,

you know what it actually reminds me of

next week?

Actually, next week is um vampires.

Lovely.

We do know what we're doing. It's vampire suck your blood

and a collab with crimes of

true crime but

vampire.

So not tragic. I meant to say earlier this reminds me of the case that recently has been in the news about the man in Hawaii who tried to kill his wife on a hike.

Oh my god. Yes.

And thank goodness she was able to get away and these like bystanders were able to help her and

he like smashed her face with a rock or something.

1:25:00

over the edge.

Yeah.

Wasn't he a doctor?

He is a monster. I know that for a fact.

Yeah. Thank God. Like seeing the pictures of her or it wasn't even pictures. I was watching like videos of her just like

bloodied and like panicked and like breathing and all these other

Yeah.

hikers just going and trying to like help her and and wrap her up. And

thank God.

I don't trust men.

I don't trust men.

There's Did you see the thing? There's like some sort of like quote who knows where it came from but it was like when people say oh like without men in the world who would protect you and then

yeah from what

protect me from what

the thing we need protection from is men [laughter] like like if you're saying oh you're such men here look at statistics

I it speaks for the for itself

there are plenty of lovely men in our lives but we're talking about the general

the number the statistics

and the men as Women are men.

Yes.

Yeah. So, you can't get mad at someone

1:26:00

who lives in bear country for constantly talking about the threat of a bear attack.

We live in men country.

Yeah.

Any um we love you all

and we will see you on the other side.

Very spooky.