Chris Watts Body Cam Footage: Inside, Surveillance, Arrest

The Chris Watts body cam footage, recorded by Frederick, Colorado police officer Scott Coonrod on August 13, 2018, shows Watts lying to officers during a welfare check at his home and reacting with visible unease while watching his neighbor’s surveillance video of his truck in the driveway hours earlier. The recordings captured a husband and father who paced, stuttered, bounced from foot to foot, and offered shifting explanations for why his pregnant wife Shanann and their two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, were missing. Within days, that footage helped investigators focus on Watts as the only suspect in their deaths.

Why Officers Were at the House

Shanann Watts had flown home from a business trip in Arizona in the early hours of August 13. Her home’s Vivint doorbell camera captured her walking to the front door before 2:00 a.m. with a suitcase and purse.¹ Later that morning she missed a doctor’s appointment at 15 weeks pregnant, and her friend Nickole Atkinson could not reach her by call or text.²

When Atkinson phoned Chris Watts, he said Shanann had gone on a “play date” with the children but could not say which friend she was visiting. Atkinson drove to the Watts home on Saratoga Trail and met Frederick police there for a welfare check. Inside, she pointed out things that did not match Shanann’s habits: the children’s beds were unmade, the master bed had been stripped with sheets piled in a corner, and the family vehicle and children’s car seats were still in the garage.³

What the Footage Showed Inside the Home

Officer Coonrod’s body-worn camera recorded Watts’s interactions with officers throughout the welfare check.⁴ On camera, Watts fidgeted, paced, and stuttered. When officers asked about Shanann’s passport, he began shifting around visibly. When asked about the children’s medication, which had been left behind despite Celeste’s severe nut allergy, he had no explanation.⁵

Watts told officers he had an “emotional” conversation with Shanann around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. about their separation and said she then left without telling him which friend she was going to visit. He claimed he had “exhausted every option,” calling friends, hospitals, and hotels. He said the sheets were off the beds because Shanann liked to wash them after flying, to get “the airport off of them.” He said he had left the garage door open when he went to work, then appeared confused when officers told him a friend had found it closed. He was described as nervous and sweaty throughout.⁵

The detail about the stripped sheets would matter later. Investigators eventually matched them to a fitted sheet found at the oil field site where Watts had buried Shanann’s body.³

The Neighbor’s Surveillance Video Scene

The most consequential moment on the body cam came next door, at the home of Nathaniel Trinastich. His security camera had recorded the Watts driveway from the early hours of August 13. The footage showed Shanann arriving home and, a few hours later, Chris Watts backing his truck into the garage at roughly 5:15 a.m., which neighbors described as “really unusual.”⁶ The video then showed Watts loading items into the truck bed and driving away. No one else was recorded leaving the house that morning, which directly contradicted his claim that Shanann had left on foot with the children.

Officer Coonrod’s body camera recorded the three men standing in Trinastich’s living room watching the surveillance footage together on the television. Watts tried to narrate what the video showed, claiming he was loading tools and a lunchbox for work.⁷ About a minute into the playback, he put his hands on his head and looked away from the screen. He bounced from foot to foot while rattling off items he said he had loaded: a lunchbox, backpack, water jugs, computers, tools.⁴ At one point he turned his back on the television entirely, glancing at it only briefly.

After Watts stepped out, Trinastich told Officer Coonrod, “He’s not acting right.” The neighbor said Watts did not appear worried and seemed to be “trying to cover his tracks.”⁷

How Investigators and Analysts Read the Footage

Homicide prosecutor Jarrett Ferentino later called the body cam recording of Watts watching his own surveillance footage “compelling” and “earth-shattering” evidence. Ferentino also noted that during the welfare check Watts offered “useless information” about Shanann’s medical history, mentioning her migraines, instead of acting like a husband desperate to find his missing family.⁶

Body language expert Susan Constantine, reviewing the footage for a television special, said Watts showed “no stress or pain or suffering” when he greeted officers and walked away from the group as they entered the house, behavior she characterized as an attempt to deflect attention from himself.⁶

From Footage to Arrest

The surveillance video and Watts’s recorded demeanor pushed the investigation toward him within hours. The FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation joined the Frederick Police Department, and on August 15, 2018, Watts was brought in for a formal interview. During an eight-hour interrogation he was given a polygraph, which he failed.⁸

Confronted with the results, Watts shifted his story. He admitted to an affair with a co-worker and said he had told Shanann that morning he wanted a separation. He then claimed Shanann had strangled their daughters and that he killed her in a rage after discovering it. Investigators brought his father, Ronnie, into the room during the interview. Watts was arrested that night at 11:30 p.m.⁸⁹

Investigators recovered the bodies at an Anadarko Petroleum oil field site north of Roggen, Colorado, on August 16. On November 6, 2018, Watts pleaded guilty to nine charges, including five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. On November 19, 2018, he was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole, two concurrent life sentences, 48 consecutive years for the unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and 12 consecutive years on each of the three tampering counts.¹⁰ The plea agreement removed the death penalty, a decision Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke reached after consulting Shanann’s family in North Carolina.¹¹ There have been no appeals.

How the Body Cam Footage Became Public

The body cam recordings, the neighbor’s surveillance footage, and thousands of pages of investigation documents were obtained by news organizations under the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act.¹² On December 7, 2018, the Weld County District Attorney’s Office released the full case file, roughly three terabytes of data, including text messages, crime scene photos and videos, interview transcripts, and jail recordings of investigators collecting DNA and fingerprints from Watts.¹³ The autopsy reports followed after a separate ruling by Judge Marcelo Kopcow in October 2018, which found that disputes over their release had to be handled under the Colorado Open Records Act rather than inside the criminal case.¹⁴

1
CBS News Colorado. Shanann Watts Doorbell Video
2
ABC30. Shanann Watts Friend Describes Disappearance
3
Craig Daily Press. Christopher Watts Neighbors Police Interview Details Suspicion, Eerie Feeling
4
Denver Post. Christopher Watts Neighbors Heard Screaming
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Oxygen. Bodycam Shows Chris Watts Lying to Police About Missing Family
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Oxygen. Capturing Chris Watts Lying Body Language Footage Special
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CBS News Colorado. Video Chris Watts Nervous After Murder
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ABC7 News. Confession Tapes: How Police Got Chris Watts to Change His Story
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Business Insider. Chris Watts Murder Timeline
10
Denver7. Chris Watts Sentenced to Five Life Terms Without Parole
11
Longmont Times-Call. Death Penalty Expert: Weld County DA Made Right Call
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Weld County DA. Information on Watts Case
13
Craig Daily Press. New Documents in Christopher Watts Triple Murder Case Released
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Colorado FOIC. Court in Watts Case Is Wrong Venue to Decide Access to Autopsies