From a happy pregnancy announcement to a shallow grave: The full timeline of the Chris Watts murder case

chris shanann watts extra wide

A blended prototype of Chris Watts in court, and a photo of his family: wife Shanann and daughters Bella and Celeste.
AP/AP
  • In Nov 19, 2018, Chris Watts received three consecutive life sentences for the Baronial 2018 deaths of his pregnant married woman, Shanann Watts, and their daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, iii.
  • That summer, Chris had gone from a loving married man to a cheater to a killer.
  • This is the full timeline of his murder case, complete with phone records, texts, photos, and police force records.
  • Visit Insider'southward homepage for more stories.

Editor's Annotation: Some readers may observe details in this story disturbing.

On August 13, 2018, missing-person posters were showing the faces of significant Shanann Watts and her two daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste, after they suddenly disappeared from their dwelling in Frederick, Colorado.

At first, Watts' husband, Chris Watts, agreed to Television set interviews, where he appeared torn up over their disappearance and begged for their safe return.

Two days afterwards, he was arrested in connection with their deaths.

On social media, the couple seemed like they had a perfect union. Simply Chris had been secretly seeing a coworker, telling her that he and his wife were in the process of separating.

Over the summertime, Shanann noticed that Chris was growing increasingly distant, and badly tried to save their relationship.

When she returned from a business trip on the morning time of August xiii, 2018, she and Chris got into a fight, which ended with Shanann — who was 15 weeks pregnant — being strangled, and their two daughters smothered, to death.

Despite Chris's waning affections, zilch seems to explicate why he killed his family unit. This is the full timeline of the grisly case.

June xi, 2018: Shanann records videos of her surprising her husband with the news that she'south pregnant with their 3rd kid.

9News

Chris seems genuinely excited in the video.

"That'south awesome," he tells his married woman before kissing her. "I guess when you lot want to, information technology happens."

June 14, 2018: Shanann records a video of Bella, 4, singing a song nearly how much she loves her dad.

YouTube/News Leak Replacement

Bella sings in the video: "My daddy is a hero/ He helps me grow up strong/ He helps me snuggle also/ He reads me books/ He ties my shoes/ You're a hero through and through/ Daddy, Daddy, I love you."

June 17, 2018: Some fourth dimension around this date Chris tells Kessinger he is married and has kids, only is in the process of separating, Kessinger later told police. On Father'south Solar day, Shanann writes a tribute to her husband on Facebook.

Above, a photo that was taken but a few days before Shanann, her unborn babe and two daughters were killed.
Weld County DA

"Chris, we are and then incredibly blessed to take you!" she wrote, according to HuffPost. "You do and so much everyday for us and take such keen intendance of us. You lot are the reason I was brave enough to concur to number 3!"

June 27, 2018: Shanann takes Bella and Celeste to N Carolina for a five-week vacation, while her husband stays at home and works.

From left to right: Celeste, Shanann, and Bella Watts.
Shanann Watts/Facebook

July 4, 2018: Kessinger goes to Chris' house for the showtime time to "fix his diet and weight loss/exercise goals," as she later told police.

The Watts' house in Frederick, Colorado.
Denver seven

Co-ordinate to police documents, "he invited her to his home, he cooked lunch, they ate and she left."

But Watts told a different story to investigators in February 2019. He said he woke up at Kessinger'southward domicile on the forenoon of July 4 to several missed calls from his wife.

He said he told Kessinger he needed to go domicile in example his married woman called dorsum and that Kessinger got mad, realizing that she would always exist the "other person" and that he would put his wife offset.

He told investigators she told him it would be best if they didn't come across each other for the rest of the day, only later invited him dorsum to her firm.

July seven, 2018: A showtime phone phone call is logged between Chris and Kessinger.

Watts and Kessinger in July.
Weld Canton DA

July x, 2018: Signs of tension begin to bear witness in the Watts' wedlock, co-ordinate to their text messages:

A transcription of the Watts' text-message exchanges on July 10, according the official review of their phone data.
Weld County DA

July xiv, 2018: Chris and Kessinger go on a date to a automobile museum. That afternoon, Shanann makes four calls to her husband, which all went unanswered.

The Shelby American Collection in Boulder, Colarado, which Watts and Kessinger visited.
Shelby American Collection/Facebook

July 18, 2018: Kessinger sends Chris seminude photos of herself, which he stores on a secret calculator app on his telephone.

1 of the pictures of Kessinger found on Watts' phone.
Weld County DA

Watts told investigators that function of what drew him to Kessinger was the feeling that she was pursuing him, instead of the other way effectually.

July 28, 2018: Chris and Kessinger visit the Great Sand Dunes National Park and spend the night at a nearby campground.

The two went sandboarding during their two-twenty-four hours trip.
Weld County DA

July xxx: Chris gives Kessinger a love letter before leaving town to join his family on their summertime vacation.

Weld County DA

The inside of the letter contains lyrics to the vocal "Down to World" by the ring Through the Roots.

Weld Canton DA

July 31, 2018: Chris flies to North Carolina for the terminal week of his family'southward holiday. His and Shanann'southward reunion does not appear to exist happy, according to a re-create of a text Shanann sent to Chris, which she later forwarded to a friend.

Weld Canton DA

August 4, 2018, 12:45 a.m.: Shanann sends her married man a long text message accusing him of failing to stand up for her after his parents exposed their daughter Celeste to basics, which she was allergic to.

Weld County DA

In the text, Shanann as well tells Chris that he hasn't shown any signs of missing her in the weeks they take been apart.

Watts later told investigators that he should have ended things with Kessinger and focused on his family after learning about the peanut fracas, which he referred to as "nutgate."

Later that twenty-four hour period, Shanann appears to have had a fight with her in-laws, which prompted them to skip Celeste's altogether party that summer. Here are texts she exchanged with a friend at the time:

Weld Canton DA

Watts later on told investigators that he believes he may take killed his married woman and kids due to pent-up anger he harbored toward Shanann for what he described as driving a wedge between him and his family unit — feelings he said dated dorsum to the beginning of their relationship.

Baronial 4, 2018: While Chris is away, Kessinger searches for hymeneals dresses on the internet for over two hours, according to a review of her cellphone data.

Chris Watts and Kessinger in July.
Weld County DA

August 7, 2018: Shanann confides in friends about her bug with her married man.

Weld County DA

"He has inverse. I don't know who he is," Shanann can exist seen texting. "He hasn't touched me all week, kissed me, talked to me except for when I'm trying to figure out what is incorrect."

"Addy, I accept no idea what happened?" she afterward added.

August 9, 2018: Shanann tells a friend that Chris Watts went to her ultrasound but was cold to her, and then she decided to cancel the baby's gender-reveal political party.

Weld County DA

Baronial 9, 2018: Shanann leaves for a business trip to Arizona. On the way at that place, she tells a friend that she had her "best talk yet" with Chris the night before.

Weld County DA

August 9, 2018: Shanann texts a friend a handwritten letter she drafted to give to her husband, in which she says she doesn't know how they "fell out of compatibility," quoting him.

Weld County DA

August eleven, 2018: Chris hires a babysitter, proverb he'southward going to a Colorado Rockies game with his coworkers. In fact, he is taking Kessinger on a appointment to a sports bar in Erie, Colorado.

The Lazy Dog Sports Bar and Grill in Erie, Colorado.
Google Streetview

August 12, 2018: Shanann sends a friend a draft of a oral communication she plans to requite to her husband when she returns to Colorado the next day.

From the official review of Shanann Watts' cellphone information.
Weld County DA

"I endeavor to ready things and make them ameliorate and this is making me crazy," she plans to say.

August 13, 2018, i:48 a.chiliad.: A neighbor'due south surveillance camera captures Shanann returning dwelling from her business trip.

CBS Denver

Chris told investigators he was sleeping when his wife came dwelling. He said she initiated sex and then they went to bed.

Afterward that morn, Chris and Shanann get into an argument when he wakes upwards for work, according to his testimony. He told investigators his wife accused him of cheating, he "snapped," and so he strangled her to death.

Chris and Shanann.
Facebook/Shanann Watts

Co-ordinate to Chris, the noise of the fight wakes Bella up, and she enters the bedroom and asks: "What's incorrect with Mommy?"

An investigator holds up the bed sheet that Shanann was wrapped in when she was buried.
YouTube/The Sun

According to Chris, Bella watches every bit he wraps his wife's body in a sail and drags it out to his truck.

Baronial 13, 2018, 5:27 a.yard.: Surveillance footage shows Watts loading up his work truck and leaving dwelling house. Chris afterward tells investigators both girls saturday on the bench seat of his truck every bit he collection out to an oil site where he works to dump Shanann's body.

The red circle shows Chris Watts past his work truck.
YouTube/CBS Denver

At the oil fields, Chris smothers his daughters with a blanket, earlier dropping their bodies into 2 separate oil tanks.

Investigators seen nigh the oil wells where Bella and Celeste's bodies were hidden.
ix News

Information technology should exist noted that until his Nov 2018 trial, Chris had maintained that his wife killed their daughters.

Simply after his conviction, besides in November, did Chris detail to investigators how he also killed Bella and Celeste.

August 13, 2018, 12:27 p.grand.: The Watts' realtor texts the couple, and Chris chats with her virtually the electric current state of their abode and what they're looking for in a new house.

Weld Canton DA

At one bespeak the realtor questions why Shanann hasn't weighed in on their chat. "She hasn't been around all day," Chris responds. "It'due south very odd."

Weld County DA

August 13, 2018, 1:40 p.m.: Shanann'southward friend Nickole Atkinson, left, reports her missing when she can't get ahold of her.

Weld Canton DA

Atkinson told the police at the time she went to the Watts' domicile, saw Shanann's car in the garage, and institute it suspicious when no one answered the door.

When Chris spoke to the police that twenty-four hour period, he said his wife told him she was taking the girls to a friend's house, simply didn't specify which friend.

After looking through the house, a neighbor invites Chris and a police officer to his property to review his abode-surveillance footage, which disproves Chris' story that his married woman left with the girls while he was at work.

An officeholder's body photographic camera captures Chris Watts' reaction as his alibi falls autonomously.
Weld County DA

Baronial fourteen, 2018, in the afternoon: Chris appears on Denver 7 to talk almost his wife and daughters' disappearance.

YouTube/Denver7

At ane bespeak, he says: "Shanann, Bella, Celeste, if you're out there, just come back. If somebody has her, only please bring her dorsum. I need to see everybody, I need to come across everybody once more. This house is not complete without anybody hither."

August fifteen, 2018, in the evening: Later on police discover Chris Watts has a mistress and he fails a prevarication detector examination, he admits to strangling his wife and burying her in a shallow grave at an oil site.

An prototype of Chris Watts (right) confessing to killing his married woman to his male parent (left)..
The Denver Post

At the time, he refused to take responsibility for the deaths of his daughters, maxim Shanann smothered them.

August 15, 2018, 11:30 p.m.: Chris Watts is arrested on suspicion of 3 kickoff-degree-murder charges and three charges of tampering with a deceased homo body.

Weld County DA

August 16, 2018, in the afternoon: Shanann Watts' body is discovered in a shallow grave near this oil site. The bodies of the girls are found in the two oil tanks.

Weld Canton DA

August 21, 2018: Shanann'south family unit appears in courtroom as Chris is arraigned.

Shanann Watts' father, Frank Rzucek, cries during the court hearing as his son, Frankie, comforts him.
RJ Sangosti - Pool/Getty Images

November six, 2018: Chris Watts pleads guilty to all nine counts against him.

A Polaroid picture of Chris Watts in jail in October 2018.
Weld Canton DA

In pleading guilty to five counts of first-degree murder, Chris Watts negated his initial story that his married woman killed their daughters, and assumed responsibility to killing all iii himself.

Two boosted murder charges were added considering the children were under the ages of 12.

He also pleaded guilty to three counts of tampering with a deceased human body and one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

Nov xv, 2018: Kessinger speaks out in an interview with The Denver Post.

Kessinger.
RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images

In the interview, Kessinger said Chris Watts told her he was separating from his married woman and that she never knew that Shanann Watts was pregnant.

"He lied about everything," she said.

Feb 18, 2019: Chris speaks to 3 investigators at the federal prison where he is serving his sentence, and finally tells them the whole story of how he killed his wife and kids.

This photo was taken of Watts on the twenty-four hour period he was interviewed in February 2019.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation

September 30, 2020: Netflix releases a documentary on the case called "American Murder: The Family Next Door."

The documentary includes family videos, including from the couple's hymeneals.
YouTube/Netflix

Watch the full trailer below:

October 6, 2020: People magazine reports that Watts has received an influx of messages from women since the Netflix documentary came out.

The Dodge Correctional Facility, where Watts is currently serving out his judgement, is seen in 2018.
TMJ4

"He got a lot of letters at kickoff," a source who has spoken with Watts in jail told People.

"Many of them are from women who idea he was handsome and felt pity for him. He had zilch better to exercise, and so he wrote them back. And he started having penpals. A couple of them stood out, and they've kept in contact."

October 8, 2020: Meanwhile, Chris Watts' parents, Ronnie and Cindy Watts, tells The Sun that they nonetheless love their son despite what he did.

Ronnie and Cindy Watts are seen in a 2018 interview with Denver vii.
YouTube/Denver 7

Ronnie told The Sunday that they regularly speak with their son, who is "heartbroken" and has become religious.

Cindy said in that location's "not one 24-hour interval that goes by" that she doesn't think about what her son did to her girl-in-constabulary and grandchildren.

"I go to slumber with them on my mind, I volition never, ever go over this. It's something that stays with you lot," Cindy said.

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