The Chris Watts Interview: From Porch Plea to Prison Confession

Across three settings over six months, Chris Watts told three different stories about what happened to his wife Shanann and daughters Bella and Celeste. The Chris Watts interview sequence began on August 14, 2018, with a televised porch-side plea for his missing family’s safe return; moved to a Frederick, Colorado police room where a failed polygraph pushed him into blaming Shanann for killing the girls; and ended in a Wisconsin prison on February 18, 2019, when he admitted he had strangled his pregnant wife and smothered both children himself.

The Porch Interview With Denver7

One day after Shanann and the girls were reported missing, Watts spoke with Denver7 reporter Tomas Hoppough on the front porch of the family’s home. The interview ran about seven minutes.¹ Watts said Shanann had returned from an Arizona business trip around 2 a.m., that they had an “emotional conversation,” and that he left for work around 5:15 a.m. When he came back later that day, he said, the house was empty.²

Looking into the camera, he said: “Shanann, Bella, Celeste, if you’re out there, just come back… this house is not complete without anybody here.”¹ He said the house felt “horrible” without the sound of the children’s noise machines. The transcript also notes Watts laughing while describing missing the routine of telling his daughters they couldn’t have snacks, and smiling and laughing again in the middle of his plea for their return.²

Watts later told investigators he only agreed to the television interview because he didn’t want reporters knocking on his door, and said he does not remember what he told the camera.³

The Neighbor’s Camera

While Watts was still giving the public version, surveillance from neighbor Nathaniel Trinastich’s doorbell camera was already undercutting it. The footage showed Watts around 5 a.m. on August 13 backing his work truck into the garage, something Trinastich said was unusual because Watts normally parked on the street, then loading items into the truck bed before driving off.⁴ It showed only Watts leaving the house that morning, contradicting his claim that Shanann and the girls had gone somewhere while he was at work.⁵

When officers reviewed the footage at Trinastich’s home, Watts was in the room. Body camera video shows him fidgeting, rocking, looking down at his phone, and trying to explain that he had only been loading tools and a lunchbox. After he left, Trinastich told the officer: “He is not acting right.”⁴

The Police Interrogation

The formal interrogation took place over two days in August 2018 at the Frederick Police Department. The lead investigators were CBI Agent Tammy Lee, FBI Special Agent Grahm Coder, and Frederick Police Detective Dave Baumhover.⁶

Denial

In the first sitting, Watts acknowledged marital problems and admitted to an affair. He confirmed he and Shanann had discussed separating the morning she disappeared. But he denied harming anyone, telling detectives, “There’s no way I would harm anybody in my family at all.”⁷

The Failed Polygraph

On August 15, Watts agreed to a polygraph administered by a CBI investigator. He failed. Detectives told him directly: “It is completely clear that you were not honest during the testing. And I think you already know that. You did not pass the polygraph test.”⁸ Watts asked to speak with his father, who was brought into the room.

The First Confession: Blaming Shanann

With his father present, Watts changed his story. He said Shanann had strangled the girls, claiming “they were blue” when he found them, and that he had then killed her in a “rage,” describing “the evil” he said he saw in his wife.⁷ Investigators did not believe this account, but it was enough: Watts had admitted to killing Shanann and disclosed where the bodies were. He was arrested and charged.

On November 6, 2018, Watts pleaded guilty to nine counts, including five counts of first-degree murder, unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and three counts of tampering with a deceased body. Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange.⁹ At sentencing on November 19, Judge Marcelo Kopcow imposed three consecutive life sentences without parole, plus additional terms for the other counts.¹⁰

The February 2019 Prison Interview

On February 18, 2019, months after sentencing, the same core team of Lee, Coder, and Baumhover met Watts at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin, for a five-hour recorded interview in a prison computer room.¹¹ Agent Coder told Watts they were not pursuing an open case but wanted to “fully understand what happened,” and told him he could stop or take breaks at any point.¹²

Watts abandoned the story that Shanann had killed the girls. He said he had adopted that version in August because it was suggested to him during interrogation, and because he hadn’t wanted his attorneys “to lie for me for two to four years.”¹¹

What He Said He Did

Watts told investigators the morning began with intimacy. He then told Shanann he no longer loved her. She confronted him about his affair with Nichol Kessinger and threatened that he would “never see the kids again.” Watts said that hearing those words triggered something he described as “implanted” in his mind, something he claimed he had “no control over.” He strangled Shanann with his hands as she lay in bed.¹³

He wrapped Shanann’s body in a bed sheet, dragged her downstairs to his truck, and loaded both daughters, still alive, into the back seat above their mother’s body. He drove to an Anadarko oil and gas site where he worked. He buried Shanann in a shallow grave while the girls waited in the truck. He then strangled three-year-old Celeste in the back seat, placed a blanket over her head, and dropped her body into an oil storage tank. Four-year-old Bella watched her sister die. According to Watts, Bella asked, “Is the same thing gonna happen to me as Cece?” Watts told her yes. Her last words, he said, were “Daddy, no!” He killed her the same way and placed her body in a second tank.³

Watts said he then returned to the house and staged the scene, leaving Shanann’s wedding ring on the kitchen counter and throwing a therapy book in the trash to suggest she had walked out.¹¹

Agent Lee’s Reaction

CBI Agent Tammy Lee, who sat for both the August 2018 and February 2019 interviews, later said she “just couldn’t believe a father could do something so horrible to his children and his wife,” calling herself “completely disgusted” and the account “more horrible than I had even let my mind go to.” She called the killings “a complete act of evil.”¹⁴

What the Physical Evidence Showed

The Weld County Coroner’s autopsy reports lined up with the method Watts described in prison. Shanann died of asphyxiation by strangulation, with bruising around her neck consistent with manual strangulation. She was in the second trimester of pregnancy, and the unborn child had been partially expelled from her body. Both Bella and Celeste died of asphyxiation by smothering, and neither had the neck injuries found on their mother.¹⁵ An exact time of death was not determined for any of the victims.¹⁶

The Motive Investigators Could and Couldn’t Confirm

Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said investigators found through phone and internet searches that Watts had a “new love interest,” and that in Watts’s own thinking “divorce wasn’t an option.” Rourke said they could never pinpoint a single triggering moment that explained the decision to kill the entire family.¹⁷

The woman Watts had been seeing, coworker Nichol Kessinger, sat for a three-hour interview with police. She said Watts had told her he was separated and planning a divorce. After the disappearance became public, she texted him: “If you did anything bad, you’re going to ruin your life and you’re going to ruin my life. I promise you that.” Watts replied, “I didn’t hurt my family, Nicky.” Kessinger told police that was their last contact.¹⁸ Kessinger had deleted data from her phone during the investigation, which Rourke said “hampered” the probe, though he said he had no reason to believe she was involved in or had prior knowledge of the killings.¹⁷

Watts in Prison and What He Has Said Since

Watts was transferred in December 2018 to the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin, for safety reasons, and remains there serving five consecutive life sentences without parole. He is held in protective custody and works as a custodian.¹⁹

His disciplinary record includes a 2020 report for unauthorized communication and unauthorized transfer of property and a 2021 report for disobeying orders and possession of contraband. He reportedly corresponds with multiple women. In April 2024, handwritten notes attributed to Watts surfaced in which he called Shanann a “control freak” and described Kessinger as “everything” his wife was not.¹⁹ In more recent letters from prison, Watts has described himself as a “new creature,” written that he believes God has forgiven him, and said “the hardest thing I have had to do was to forgive myself.”²⁰

1
WRAL. Chris Watts Interview
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Denver7. Chris Watts Pleads for Kids, Wife to Return Day Before His Arrest
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KOAA. Transcript of Chris Watts Confession Released to the Public
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CBS News. Video Shows Chris Watts Nervous After Murder
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Business Insider. Video Shows Chris Watts Realizing He Was Caught
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People. Investigators Reveal Chris Watts Confession
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ABC7 NY. The Interrogation Tapes: Chris Watts Changes His Story
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9News. Newly Released Videos Show Chris Watts Failing Polygraph Test
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CBS News. Chris Watts Murder Plea Deal
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CBS News. Chris Watts Sentencing
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Denver7. In Prison Interview, Chris Watts Tells FBI, Police About Murders
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Scripps Media. Watts Interview Transcript
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ABC News. Chilling Confession: What Chris Watts Told Police
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Oxygen. CBI Agent Tammy Lee Cried Over Bella and Celeste Watts
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Craig Daily Press. Autopsy Reports Show Cruelty of Killings
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Denver7. Autopsy Reports Released in Chris Watts Case
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Denver7. Prosecutors and Police Discuss New Details in Chris Watts Case
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NBC Philadelphia. Chris Watts Mistress Shares Last Text He Sent Her
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People. Where Is Chris Watts Now
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NewsNation. Chris Watts New Creature Jail Letters