Mistress of notorious family annihilator Chris Watts ‘spotted' for first time in 7 years

On August 13, 2018, Chris Watts brutally murdered his pregnant wife Shanann and his two daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three, in their idyllic home in Frederick, Colorado.

The now 39-year-old was a few months into a passionate affair with his colleague Nichol Kessinger when his wife told him she was pregnant with their third child.

Just a few weeks later, he would go on to murder his entire family, leaving his pregnant wife’s body in a shallow grave and stuffing the remains of his little girls into oil tanks.'

 

 

The last time anyone saw Kessinger was during an intense interrogation by police back in 2018 following the murders.

But now, eagle-eyed crime junkies have claimed to have spotted her at the funeral of her mother’s friend in Billings, Montana.

The service was live-streamed to the public online and viewers are convinced that Kessinger appears to be walking down the aisle during the procession.

“There appears to have been a Nichol Kessinger spotting over the weekend,” popular YouTuber Annie Elise, known for her true crime videos, said in a recent clip.

“I am just as floored as you are. We haven’t seen her in the wild since 2018 when everything first went down with Chris Watts.

“It is a very quick video, it’s really hard to catch, but she is at a funeral of a family friend. She is walking down, almost looking like she is exiting... but you see her walking out.

“It hasn’t been confirmed that it’s her. At first I wasn’t sure, because the person in this video is a little heavier than Nichol.

“But it’s been 7 years. She has the same kind of hair, hairline and facial features.

“I believe this was Nichol.”

There has been no confirmation that the woman in the clip is Nichol Kessinger.

Kessinger has always maintained her innocence and news.com.au is not suggesting any wrongdoing.

 

Last year, Chris Watts wrote a bizarre note from his jail cell at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, referring to Kessinger as “Jezebel” — a reference to a biblical woman who “mislead servants into sexual immorality”.

“I was having an affair with this girl and I ended up in love with two women at the same time,” Watts allegedly told his cell mate, Dylan Tallman, who later wrote a book about his time spent with the notorious family annihilator.

“It’s what led up to what happened. She is of evil spirits, like Jezebel.”

 

In one handwritten note, dated March 2020, Watts wrote a prayer of confession.

“The words of a harlot have brought me low. Her flattering speech was like drops of honey that pierced my heart and soul,” he penned.

“Little did I know that all her guests were in the chamber of death.”

He continued: “How did I let this happen? The blessings you have bestowed upon me were right in front of me, and still I followed the perfume of a strange woman.”

Watts claimed to Tallman that Kessinger told him to choose between her and his family on the night of the murders.

“Jezebel was the forbidden fruit,” he allegedly said, “and it was costly”.

“He admitted that he was stupid to cheat on his wife, and he asked God’s forgiveness every day for his infidelity,” Tallman writes in the book, the New York Post stated.

The notorious crime gained worldwide attention when it featured in a 2020 Netflix documentary entitled American Murder: The Family Next Door.

 

Unthinkable crime

In the early morning hours of August 13, 2018, Shanann Watts was caught on her doorbell camera returning home from a business trip to Arizona.

It was the last time she would ever be seen alive.

The next morning when she missed an important obstetric appointment, her best friend Nickole Atikinson just knew something was not quite right.

She was also not responding to any calls or texts, which was extremely unusual for the mother. When she went over to the house, there was no answer.

Concerned, she decided to contact the police.

 

“We were out of town for a business trip this weekend,” Nickole explained to officers at the front of the Watts house.

“I dropped her off at 2am. She had a doctor’s appointment this morning at 9am and she didn’t go to that appointment.”

After gaining access to the home, it was discovered that Shanann’s car and important belongings were still there, including vital medicines for her and her daughters, her mobile phone, handbag, purse and wedding ring.

The family’s sausage dog, Dieter, was found safe and well inside the home, but there was still no sign of Shanann or the girls.

Chris claimed that he and his wife had an “emotional conversation” the night before but was adamant that he last saw her when he left for work at 5am that morning.

 

In an eerie interview with multiple local media outlets, he gave a chilling plea asking for his wife and daughters to come home.

“I just want them back,” he said, arms crossed as he awkwardly laughed.

“And if they’re not safe right now that’s what’s tearing me apart. If they are safe they’re coming back but if they’re not this has got to stop.

“Like somebody has to come forward.”

 

From dream home to crime scene

On August 15, 2018, the FBI joined the frantic search for Shanann and the two girls.

As in any missing person case, the partner is one of the most likely suspects and needs to be ruled out before the investigation can continue.

Chris underwent a polygraph lie detector test where he was asked direct questions about whether he was involved in Shanann’s and his daughters’ disappearance.

 

They asked if he had “physically caused Shanann to disappear,”, if he was “lying about the last time he saw her,” and “whether he knew where Shanann was.”

Chris answered “no” to all three of these questions. The test indicated he was lying all three times.

Although there is much debate about the reliability of polygraph tests, they do hold some value. In this case, Chris not only failed the test, but got one of the lowest scores possible.

Generally, a score of -4 is considering failing a polygraph. Chris scored a -18.

Upon hearing that he had failed, Chris ‘confessed’ to the crime. But not completely.

He falsely claimed that strangled Shanann in a “fit of rage” after he said he discovered Bella’s dead body and caught his wife in the act of killing Celeste.

But this was a fabricated story and Chris eventually confessed the entire truth.

 

He had been having an affair with Nichol Kessinger, who he met at work. While his wife and children were interstate visiting family, he spent most of his time with his mistress.

Chris said he fell out of love with Shanann and was waiting for the right time to tell her.

After his pregnant wife returned home, the pair had sex at around 2:30am. They both fell asleep.

When he woke up in that morning to get ready for work, he decided he needed to talk to her about how he felt. He woke her up to chat and began straddling his wife.

She told him that he might be hurting their unborn son, Nico, but the pair continued to talk for 15 - 20 minutes.

Shanann told him she knew that he was having an affair, but he denied it. Instead, he just told her that he did not think their marriage was going to work and that he did not love her anymore.

In response, Shanann told him to get off her and said that he was never going to see his children again.

 

He immediately put both of his hands around his wife’s neck and strangled her to death.

“I told her I didn’t love her anymore. That’s when it happened,” he told investigators.

“She told me to get off her, and I put my hands around her. Why couldn’t I just let go?”

“What’s wrong with mommy?”

After killing his wife, little Bella walked into their bedroom holding her pink blanket and asked what was going on. Chris told her that mum was “sick”.

“I put Shanann in that sheet, carried her downstairs and pulled the truck up,” he said.

He attempted to carry his wife’s dead body down the stairs, but lost his grip and dragged her instead. He believes the thud of Shanann’s feet hitting the stairs woke up Celeste.

 

 

Chris then grabbed the two girls and put them in the back of the truck, their mother’s body laying just below their feet.

“[The girls] were sitting in the back, [Shanann] was below them on the floor of the truck,” he continued.

“They asked what was wrong with Mummy, I told them that she didn’t feel good.”

With Shanann’s body and his two little girls in the car, he drove an hour out to the oil site where he worked for Anadarko Petroleum Company.

During the ride, Bella reportedly said to her dad that it “smelt bad” inside the car.

Reaching the remote destination, Chris pulled Shanann’s body out of the car and coldly buried her in a shallow grave.

Then, he turned on his daughters.

Covering Celeste’s face with her little blue blanket, he strangled her in the back seat. He then took her body and shoved her into one of the two nearby crude oil tanks.

 

 

He walked back to the car, where Bella questioned what happened to Celeste and asked if the same thing was going to happen to her.

She uttered just two words before he put a blanket over her head: “Daddy, No!”.

Evidence showed that she had defensive wounds trying to stop her father from killing her.

Chris then took Bella’s body and shoved her into a different oil tank.

“Every time I close my eyes, I hear her saying ‘Daddy, No’ and that’s it,” he told police.

“I hear that everyday.”

After murdering his entire family, he did three things.

The first was to call the girls’ school to unenroll them. The second was calling a realtor about selling the house. And the third was texting his mistress about their future together.

 

Never to be released

On November 19, 2018, Chris pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The death penalty was not put forward on the request of Shanann’s family, who did not wish for any further deaths in the case. They were supportive of his decision to accept a plea deal.

Chris was sentenced to five life sentences – three consecutive and two concurrent – without the possibility of parole.

He received an additional 48 years for the unlawful termination of Shanann’s pregnancy and 36 years for three charges of tampering with a deceased body.

“I could objectively say that this is perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime that I have handled out of the thousands of cases that I have seen,” Judge Marcelo Kopcow said at the sentencing hearing.

“Nothing less than a maximum sentence would be appropriate and anything less than the maximum sentence would depreciate the seriousness of this offence.”

jasmine.kazlauskas@news.com.au