It's a safe bet that this Netflix documentary, which focuses on the gripping disappearance
of Shanann Watts and her two young daughters in August 2018, is already on every true crime
fanatic's list.
Here's what we learned about the Chris Watts case from American Murder: The Family Next
Door.
The details of this case are extremely disturbing.
Some viewers may find this story upsetting.
One of the most disturbing aspects of American Murder: The Family Next Door is the fact that
immediately before Shanann's disappearance, she was blessed with what most families would
treat as some good news.
She and husband Chris - who already had a 4-year-old named Bella and 3-year-old named
Celeste - were expecting their third child.
According to various reports, sometime between May and June 2018, Shanann surprised Chris
with a pregnancy announcement and filmed his reaction for social media.
That resulting video, where Shanann dons a shirt emblazoned with the phrase, "Oops ... we
did it again," has now been widely circulated across news reports and social media.
At the time, it seemed like the couple had been trying for another child.
The clip clearly showed Chris laughing.
"That's awesome."
The expecting mother later gushed about her husband on Facebook, where she called him,
quote, "the best dad us girls could ask for."
This was just two months before Shanann went missing.
According to August 7th text messages obtained by Oxygen, the expecting mother revealed that
Chris had changed his mind about welcoming a third child, writing:
"I don't feel safe with him after what he said about the baby."
Not long after Shanann's pregnancy announcement, Chris entered into an affair with his co-worker,
Nichol Kessinger.
According to Insider, she claimed that they only "seriously" started dating at the end
of June 2018.
This matched police records, which showed that he first put her contact information
into his phone on June 14 of that year.
From there, it was a whirlwind.
By July - a month before the murders - Chris searched Google for "when to say I love you
for the first time in a new relationship," and left Kessinger a love letter, per People.
By August, Kessinger was looking at wedding dresses online.
Beyond that, it didn't seem like Kessinger was willingly a mistress.
She believed Chris' marriage was over, and told The Denver Post that November that he
wasn't wearing a wedding band when they first met.
She later found out about his wife and kids, telling police that Chris claimed to be in
the process of separating from Shanann.
However, this may not entirely be the truth.
The Frederick Police Department's discovery document, which outlined Kessinger's Google
searches, found that she looked up "man I'm having an affair with says he will leave his
wife" in late July, which could signal that she may not have thought the relationship
was over.
With Shanann's loved-up social media posts, it's hard to imagine that her marriage was
marred with some pretty deep issues.
In reality, things began unravelling at the end of June 2018, as Chris was deep in the
throes of his affair.
A good chunk of American Murder: The Family Next Door focuses on the events and aftermath
of the five-week vacation that the family took to North Carolina around this time.
There, they visited Chris' parents - but Shanann's relationship with her in-laws was clearly
tumultuous and a source of strain on their marriage.
"So, his parents did not like her?"
"No, they do not like her.
Yeah, they do not like her, his parents do not."
According to Insider, Shanann and the kids went ahead to the Tar Heel State while Chris
stayed behind to work.
He ended up joining his family later on, but Shanann had already started to notice that
he was acting distant.
A text message revealed a massive fight the couple had after Chris' mother was allegedly
less-than-cautious about their daughter's nut allergy.
Shanann called his mom "evil" and, quote, "willing to risk [their] daughter's life just
to get under [her] skin."
She also accused Chris of not really missing her.
The pair's rough patch was bad enough that Shanann began to vent to friends.
According to Oxygen, she canceled her baby's gender reveal party after Chris was, quote,
"very cold to her" at an ultrasound appointment.
If there's one thing the Netflix documentary did show us, it's that Shanann believed her
marriage was worth saving, no matter how difficult things had been.
By the time Shanann left for a business trip to Arizona on August 9, the mother-of-two
was feeling hopeful.
According to Insider, Shanann told a friend that they had their "best talk yet."
That same day, she texted a friend a draft of a handwritten letter that she planned to
give her husband.
In it, she claimed that she "missed the hell out of [him]" and that she "can't change what
happened," but she could "try to work things out" with him and his parents.
Unfortunately, it takes two people to fix a marriage - and Chris was using Shanann's
time away to see his mistress Nichol.
Shanann discovered Chris' affair through a $60 charge on their shared card from a local
restaurant.
"And then she checked her bank statement and he went out to dinner, which, that's not odd,
but the total was 60-some dollars."
She was due to return from her business trip the next day and planned to confront him,
hoping that they could work together to save their marriage.
Shanann kept close friends.
The mother-of-two wasn't gone for very long when she was reported missing by her friend,
Nickole Atkinson.
Atkinson didn't drop Shanann home until shortly before 2 a.m. on August 13, 2018.
The following day, Atkinson couldn't reach her - leaving dozens of calls and messages
- so she dropped by her house.
No one answered the door, but Shanann's car was in the garage.
Atkinson found this strange and alerted the police, who conducted a welfare check and
searched the premises after Chris let them inside.
There, police found Shanann's cell phone, purse, and medication, which prompted them
to open a missing person's case.
Chris initially had little explanation for his family's disappearance, only claiming
that Shanann had taken the girls to a friend's house.
It was a neighbor who suggested the father-of-two was acting odd.
"He's not acting right at all."
"No?"
"He's never fidgety."
The following day, Chris appeared on local TV and pleaded for his wife's return, saying:
"If you're out there, just come back."
Nichol Kessinger could have very easily been a villain, but American Murder: The Family
Next Door taught us that Chris' mistress was actually a key part of the investigation.
As the media circus surrounding Shanann's disappearance snowballed, Kessinger realized
the man she had loved had lied to her.
He wasn't in the midst of a divorce at all.
And Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant.
Kessinger told The Denver Post that she had texted Chris asking about, quote, "what he
had done" regarding his wife's disappearance.
He claimed he, quote, "would never hurt his family."
However, Kessinger revealed:
"It got to a point that he was telling me so many lies that I eventually told him that
I did not want to speak to him again until his family was found [...] I just wanted to
help.
With a pregnant woman and two children missing, I was going to do anything that I could."
"You know, like, had me convinced like, she's just upset, and then, and then…"
Kessinger ultimately went to the Weld County Sheriff's Office to tell the police about
her affair on August 15.
She met with FBI investigators that same day, and Chris was given a polygraph test.
He failed - and that's when the truth finally started coming out.
Most people familiar with this case don't realize that Chris initially tried to blame
his wife for the deaths of their young daughters, Bella and Celeste.
He confessed to killing Shanann - but he claimed it was only because she had already smothered
their children to death, first.
In his telling, his killing her was a passionate act of revenge.
As the documentary shows, it was a story that was fed to him by officers during questioning
in an effort to get him to confess to a crime.
"Did Shanann do something to them and then you felt like you had to do something to Shanann?
...Chicks are crazy."
In truth, Shanann had no motive to kill her kids.
Earlier in the month - during the pair's massive argument, Shanann had said:
"These kids are my world and I have to protect them from the evil of the world."
She didn't know the evil was actually living in her house.
Here's what actually happened: Shanann returned home from her business trip in the early morning
hours of August 13, 2018, she accused Chris of cheating, and he strangled her to death.
According to Insider, it was such a noisy argument that one of their daughters, Bella,
actually woke up.
Chris then wrapped Shanann's body in a sheet and put it into his truck.
Alhough it took just three days to recover all of the bodies, it took months for Chris
to come clean.
He only owned up to killing his daughters during his trial in November 2018, and it
wasn't even a flat-out admission.
It was the consequence of pleading guilty to all five counts of first-degree murder.
In February 2019, Chris finally shared the whole story.
"Couldn't I have like, saved my girls' life?
Couldn't I have done something?
Why'd I do it?
I don't know."
He claimed he drove his daughters and Shanann' body to the oil site where he worked.
There, he buried Shanann, smothered his two children, and disposed of their bodies in
two nearby oil tanks.
According to Chris, Bella's last words were devastating.
"Every time I close my eyes, I start to see her saying, 'Daddy, no!'
And that was it."
On Aug. 20, 2018, Chris Watts was officially charged with nine separate counts, after additional
charges were added because of his children's young age.
According to The New York Times, Chris ended up pleading guilty to all nine charges in
a deal that spared him from the death penalty.
Death ultimately wasn't what Shanann’s family wanted.
CNN reports that her mother Sandy believed that it wasn't her "right" to take Chris'
life, saying in court that his life was, quote, "between [him] and God."
Chris was given the maximum punishment: five consecutive life sentences with no possibility
of parole.
"This is perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime that I have handled."
Though Chris, who is imprisoned in Wisconsin, was reportedly aware of Netflix's documentary.
According to a report by People, he's ashamed of the documentary, and the publicity that
comes with it, with a source claiming, quote, "He'll probably never see it."