Case File: Chris Watts

Shanann Rzucek was born in New Jersey and raised in a close-knit family in North Carolina. Described by friends as driven and competent, she faced a series of health issues, including lupus. In 2010, she received a Facebook friend request from Chris Watts, a fellow North Carolinian. Although she wasn’t initially interested in Watts romantically, she would later tell friends and family that the two grew closer due to his support and patience during a low emotional and physical stage of her life. 

The Watts family expressed displeasure with the outspoken Shanann, but the pair married in 2012 and moved to Colorado to begin a new life. Their first daughter, Bella, was born in 2013 and Celeste Cathryn, nicknamed “CeCe,” was born two years later. Shanann worked as a promoter for a health supplement company, frequently showcasing her work and growing family on social media. 

To her followers, Shanann presented a successful and loving family facade. But there was turmoil below the surface. The couple experienced struggles, declaring bankruptcy in 2015, and the financial difficulties weighed on their relationship. In 2018, Shanann became pregnant with their third child, a boy they planned to name Nico. But tensions worsened, as Shanann feared that Chris, already the more reserved and emotionally withdrawn of the two, was becoming increasingly isolated from her. He’d recently dropped a significant amount of weight, and Shanann told friends that she feared he might become unfaithful to her. 

In the summer of 2018, Shanann flew to North Carolina with her daughters to visit family while Chris remained in Colorado. During the visit, Shanann got into a fight with her mother-in-law that flared tensions with his family. Chris became even more distant, and Shanann claimed to friends and family he was avoiding her calls and messages. 

Shanann was right to be concerned. It was later revealed that while she was in North Carolina, Chris began seeing a co-worker named Nichol Kessinger, even vacationing with her while his family was away. He told Kessinger that he was separated and in the process of divorcing Shanann. In late July, Chris traveled to North Carolina for the last week of the family’s vacation, and friends would later note he seemed increasingly withdrawn, while Shanann continued to document their life and her growing pregnancy on social media. Shanann sent a long text message to Chris expressing heartbreak over his emotional distance and lack of affection and fears that Chris was unhappy about her pregnancy. Chris, however, gave vague replies, avoiding direct answers about the state of their relationship.

On August 13, Shanann returned home from a business trip in Arizona around 2 a.m., the last time she was seen alive. When she uncharacteristically missed a prenatal doctor’s visit later that morning and failed to return calls, friends alerted the police. They arrived at the home just as Chris did, and when they checked the house, they discovered Shanann’s car and personal belongings there, but she and the children were missing. 

Chris initially seemed cooperative with investigators, even appearing on local TV pleading for his family’s safe return. But many grew suspicious when he began giving conflicting statements about both the state of his and Shanann’s relationship and his whereabouts on the morning of the disappearance. 

Surveillance footage from a neighbor’s house showed Chris backing his truck into his garage around 5:17 a.m., just hours after Shanann arrived home. It struck neighbors as odd, since he normally parked on the street. The footage also showed Chris walking back and forth several times carrying bundles that he loaded into the truck. Police recovered phone data and text messages that confirmed both the contractor’s adulterous relationship and the growing distance between him and Shanann.

Two days after the disappearances, Chris failed a polygraph test, and faced with mounting evidence, he confessed during an interrogation to killing Shanann. But he claimed it was an act of revenge because Shanann had strangled their two daughters early that morning. 

Chris later admitted that he had killed Shanann at the family’s home, loaded her body into his truck and drove to an oil field owned by his company. Once there, he’d suffocated Bella and CeCe. Chris led investigators to the oil field, where Shanann was found buried in a shallow grave, and Bella and CeCe in nearby oil tanks. 

Chris was charged with five counts of first-degree murder (two each for the murders of Bella and CeCe due to their young age), one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy (for unborn Nico) and three counts of tampering with a deceased body. When Colorado officials announced plans to seek the death penalty in the case, Chris agreed to a plea deal in November 2018. 

Shanann’s family had also expressed their concerns over a potential death sentence, and their desire to avoid a lengthy trial. In the aftermath of their daughter’s death, they became advocates for domestic violence prevention and providing support to surviving families. In 2019, they won a $6 million civil lawsuit against Chris Watts, although his imprisonment means they are unlikely to receive any of the judgment.

Watts was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. The presiding judge described the case as “perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime” he had ever handled. In 2019, Chris gave a jailhouse interview in which he admitted that the murders were premeditated, and he had been planning to kill his family for several weeks in a desire to start a new life.

The Watts family murders triggered intense media coverage, much of which focused on the seemingly happy family Shanann presented online, which stood in stark contrast to the couple’s deteriorating relationship. It was also notable for the young ages and vulnerability of the victims, with both the public and media touched by family videos of the children.

The case has been the subject of several podcasts, documentaries and movies, such as Lifetime’s Chris Watts: Confessions of a Killer, and has served as a painful reminder of how control and manipulation within relationships can escalate into lethal violence and the importance of access to support for those in abusive situations.