Labor Day Family Massacre: Day 1 "CHRIS WATTS: The Facebook Dad Who Stuffed His Babies in Oil Tanks"

0:00 Warning. This special episode contains graphic descriptions of family murders, including violence against children and pregnant women. The content includes detailed forensic evidence and disturbing testimony from actual cases. This material may not be suitable for all listeners. Discretion is strongly advised. Calarugashock Media. Good morning, I'm read Carter. Saturday, August thirtieth, twenty twenty five, Labor Day weekend. While you're planning your family barbecue, let me tell you about Chris Watts, the Colorado dad who strangled his pregnant wife, smothered his two daughters, then stuffed their tiny bodies through eight inch hatches into oil tanks, where they floated in crude oil for three days. This is day one of our Labor Day a Family Massacre series, because nothing says end of summer like examining fathers who murdered everyone they were supposed to love. Today Chris Watts Tomorrow, John List Monday, Jeffrey MacDonald three days, three family Annihilators.

1:18 Three reminders that sometimes the most dangerous person at your family gathering is family. This is Celebrity Trials. August thirteenth, twenty eighteen, Frederick, Colorado, Shenan Watts, thirty four, pregnant with their third child, a boy they'd already named Nico Bella Watts, four years old Celeste Watts three years old. By sunrise, they'd all be dead, murdered by husband and father, Chris Watts, who would spend the next two days playing the concerned husband on national television while his daughters decomposed in oil tanks and his wife lay in a shallow grave. But let's start with the lie. They all lived before the murders.

2:04 The Facebook fantasy, the social media perfection that Chanan broadcast to the world. If you scrolled through Shanan's Facebook in summer twenty eighteen, you'd see the American dream, beautiful house, handsome husband, two adorable daughters, baby on the way, trips to North Carolina, matching family outfits, professional photos on Pristine Lawn's Best Husband Ever. Shanan posted constantly pictures of Chris with the girls, videos of him reading bedtime stories, Father's Day tributes about what an amazing daddy he was. She was a Thrive promoter that MLM nutrition patch scheme, and Chris was her trophy. Look at my perfect life, Look at my perfect husband. Buy these patches and you too can have what I have. Behind the ring light and tripod, Here's what was actually happening. They were seventy thousand dollars in debt, about to lose the house. Chris was having an affair with Nicol Kessinger, a coworker at Anadarko Petroleum.

3:06 He'd told Nichol he was separated, getting divorced. Nichol was googling wedding dresses while Chanan was posting about date nights that never happened. Chris had already mentally divorced his family. He saw a new life with Nicol, no kids, no debt, no pregnant wife selling patches on Facebook, just him and his mistress starting fresh. But divorce is expensive. Divorce means child support. Divorce means Schanan taking half of nothing and him paying for kids he didn't want anymore. Murder, though, murder meant freedom, insurance money, starting over, the grieving widower with a tragic story. On August fifth, Schanan took the girls to North Carolina to visit family. Chris had five weeks to play bachelor with Nickel. They went to car museums, had dinner, dates, had sex in the bed he shared with Shenan. Nichol later told investigators Chris seemed different that week, lighter, happier, like a weight had been lifted. The weight was his family, and he'd already decided how to remove it permanently. August twelfth, Shannan flew home from a Thrive conference in Arizona. Her flight was delayed. She didn't get home until two am on August thirteenth. Chris pretended to be asleep. They had sex.

4:33 Schanan thought they were reconciling. Chris knew he was saying goodbye. Between four and five am, Chris strangled Shanan in their bed. She fought back, defensive wounds on her neck, but she was fifteen weeks pregnant, exhausted from travel. He held her down and squeezed until she stopped moving. Then came the girls. This is where it gets even worse, if that's possible. Chris loaded Shannan's body into to his truck. Bella and Celeste woke up. He told the mommy was sick. They were going on a trip. He drove them alive, awake, aware, forty five minutes to the Survey Ranch oil field, where he worked in the back of the truck was their dead mother. For forty five minutes, these babies rode with their mother's corpse At the oil site, Chris dug a shallow grave and dumped Schanan face down in the dirt.

5:25 Then he dealt with the girls. He smothered three year old Celeste. First put his hands over her mouth and nose until she stopped breathing. Then he took her tiny body three years old, folks, and shoved it through an eight inch hatch into an oil tank. Had to break her shoulder to fit her through. Then came Bella, four years old. She'd watched him kill Celeste, she knew what was coming. According to Chris's own confession, Bella's last words were, Daddy, no, let me repeat that. A four year old begged her father not to murder her. Know he smothered her anyway, same hands that had tucked her in, same hands that had taught her to ride a bike. He put them over her face and suffocated his own daughter while she begged for her life. Then he shoved her through another eight inch hatch into a different oil tank, like she was trash, Like she was waste product. By six am, Chris Watts was at work, joking with coworkers. His family was dead, one in the ground, two in oil tanks, and he was discussing work orders like it was any other Monday. Here's where Chris Watts showed us what pure sociopathy looks like. Schanan's friend, Nicole Atkinson, knew something was wrong when Shanan missed a doctor's appointment that morning. Chanan never missed appointments. Nicole called Chris. Chris acted confused, Oh,

6:56 I don't know where she is. Maybe she went to a friend's house. Nicole called the police. Chris raced home, pretending to be the concerned husband. The bodycam footage from officer Konrod's first response is chilling when you know what Chris had done hours earlier. He's walking through the house, checking rooms he knows are empty, calling out names of people he'd murdered. Chanan, Bella, Celeste. Where are you guys? He knew exactly where they were decomposing in oil and dirt. Chris's performance continued on the front porch, nervous laughter, checking his phone constantly, not for news of his family, but texts from his mistress. At one point, he's literally sexting Nickel while cops search for the family he'd anihilated. Then came the media interviews. This is where Chris thought he'd seal the deal, the grieving husband pleading for his family's return.

7:53 Watch that interview. It's on YouTube. August fourteenth, twenty eighteen, Denver seven News. Chris stands on his porch in a tar heels t shirt, arms crossed and says, Shenan Bella, Celeste, if you're out there, just come back. If somebody has her, just please bring her back. I need to see everybody. I need to see everybody again. This house is not complete without anybody here. He's literally standing feet from where he loaded their bodies into his truck. He knows they're dead, he knows they're in oil tanks and a shallow grave, and he's begging for their return. His affect is completely flat, no tears, no emotion, just words like he's reading a weather report, not pleading for his family's lives. The tell he's already speaking about them in past tense. Bella was going to start kindergarten, was not is was Meanwhile, Nicol Kessinger was googling can cops trace deleted texts and trying to figure out if she was dating a murderer. She'd later claim she had no idea. Chris was still married, still living with his family. Right, the man who spent every night with you for five weeks never mentioned his pregnant wife. By August fifteenth, Chris was failing a polygraph spectacularly.

9:15 The examiner told him he scored the lowest I've ever seen. Chris's response, he blamed Shenan said maybe she killed the kids and he killed her in revenge. Think about that. His first backup story was to blame his dead pregnant wife for murdering their children. When that didn't work, he confessed, sort of. Version one Schanan strangled the girls after they had an emotional conversation about separating, and he strangled her in rage. Version two came later. He killed everyone, but it was in a rage, heat of passion, temporary insanity. Version three told to investigators from prison, he methodically killed them all because he wanted a new life. Version four told the prison pen pals, Nicol made him do it with mind control or something. There's probably a version five coming.

10:07 Sociopaths never stopped lying. We'll be right back with the investigation that revealed just how calculated this family annihilation was, and the mistress who googled wedding dresses while babies floated in oil. The investigation into Chris Watts revealed layer after layer of premeditation. First, the digital evidence. Chris's phone showed he was on dating apps before Shenan was dead. He'd googled apartment prices in new areas. He'd calculated his finances without a family. But here's the smoking gun. On August eighth, five days before the murders, Chris texted a coworker about going to a remote oil site called Survey Ranch, the exact site where he'd dumped the bodies. He was already planning where to hide them. His truck's GPS showed he'd visited that site alone multiple times in the weeks before the murders, scouting planning, deciding which tanks would hold his daughters.

11:15 Then there's Nicol Kessinger, the mistress who claims she barely knew him. Investigators found she'd googled Shenan Watts a year before the murders, a year before she supposedly met Chris. She'd searched for wedding dresses for How much do Anadarko employees make? Foreman I'm having affair with says he will leave his wife. After the murders, her searches got darker. Can police recover deleted texts? How long before bodies smell? Chris Watt's mistress book deals for crime witnesses book deals while those babies were still in oil tanks. She was thinking about book deals. Gave investigators her phone, but only after deleting everything. She destroyed her SIM card, lost her backup phone, had her dad dispose of other electronics, totally normal behavior for an innocent person. In her interviews with investigators, Nickel played dumb. She barely knew Chris, had no idea he was married, certainly didn't pressure him to leave his family, but Chris's friends said otherwise he'd told them. Nickel gave him an ultimatum, her or his family choose by the end of August. Schanan was due in January. Chris couldn't have a pregnant wife and a demanding mistress, so he chose and Shechanan, Bella, Celeste, and Nico paid the price.

12:42 The autopsies revealed the horror of their last moments chanan manual strangulation, defensive wounds. She fought for her life and her unborn child. Found face down wearing a tar heels, t shirt and underwear. Her wedding ring was on the nightstand. Bella Smothering bite marks on her tongue from fighting against suffocation, found with oil in her stomach. She was still alive when he shoved her through that hatch let. That sink in oil in her stomach means Bella was breathing in the tank. She didn't die from smothering. She died from drowning in crude oil. Celeste Smothering also had oil in her stomach and lungs. Both girls were alive when he put them in those tanks. Both girls drowned in oil.

13:30 Their last moments were darkness, petroleum filling their lungs alone, murdered by Daddy. The recovery of their bodies was nightmarish. The oil had partially dissolved their skin. They had to drain the tanks to get them out. These babies marinated in crude oil for three days while Chris gave TV interviews. Chris Watts pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. Life sentences three consecutive, two concurrent. He'll die in prison. From his cell in Wisconsin. He's found God, Praise Jesus. He gives phone interviews about finding peace. He corresponds with women who want to marry him. Yes, Chris Watts has prison groupies, women who think this family annihilator is boyfriend material. He's told multiple versions of why he did it. Claimed Nichol had dark energy, said he was possessed, blamed Shenan for being controlling everything except the truth. He's a narcissistic sociopath who saw his family as obstacles to remove Nichol. Kessinger disappeared, changed her name, entered witness protection. Essentially, she was never charged with anything, though many believe she knew more than she admitted. She got her wish though Shechanan was gone, the kids were gone. She just didn't get Chris. The Watts house sold for six hundred thousand dollars. The new owners have to live with people constantly driving by taking photos doing tiktoks about them. It's a murdered tourism destination.

15:04 Shanan's family, they are zoucheks, had to bury their daughter and grandchildren had to watch Chris Lie on TV had to hear him blame Shenan for killing the girls. They've sued. Chris won a six million dollar wrongful death settlement they'll never collect because he's in prison forever. But here's what this case really tells us. Social media is a lie. Shenan's Facebook showed perfection while her husband was planning her murder. Those happy family photos. Chris was already on dating apps, those best Daddy Ever videos. He was googling how to start a new life without them. The nuclear family is often a nuclear bomb. More women are killed by intimate partners than any other murderer, more children are killed by parents than strangers. The call is coming from inside the house, folks.

15:54 Chris Watts wasn't a monster who suddenly snapped. He was a man who decided his family was des who weighed the cost of divorce against murder and chose murder, Who looked at his daughters and sow problems to eliminate. The warning signs were there, the affair, the financial stress, the emotional distance, the sudden gym obsession, the criticism of Shenan to friends, the detachment from the kids. But nobody wants to believe daddy could be dangerous. We're programmed to trust fathers, to believe in paternal protection. Chris Watts used that trust to murder his entire family this Labor Day weekend. While you're at your family barbecue, look around. Statistically, someone there is capable of what Chris Watts did. They probably won't do it, but they could. The capacity for family annihilation lives in more people than we want to admit. Financial pressure, a fair fog, narcissistic injury, add them up, and loving fathers become family annihilators. Chris Watts strangled his pregnant wife in their bed, drove his living daughters to an oil field with their mother's corpse, smothered them one by one, shoved their bodies through eight inch hatches into oil tanks, where they drowned in petroleum. Then he went to work and joked with colleagues that's not insanity, that's evil, pure calculated evil, wearing a tar Heel's T shirt and pleading on TV for his family's return. Bella Wats's last words were, Daddy, no,

17:30 But Daddy did it anyway, because Chris Watts loved himself more than he ever loved them. The Facebook posts are still up. You can scroll through Shenan's page and see the countdown to murder, every best husband ever post, every family photo, every video of Chris with the girls. It's all still there. The digital ghost of a family that Chris Watts decided was better off dead than divorced. That celebrity trials for Saturday, August Tomorrow, we continue our Labor Day family Massacre series with John List, the New Jersey accountant who executed his entire family in their mansion, arranged their bodies in the ballroom, and disappeared for eighteen years.

18:15 He thought poverty was worse than death. His family paid the price for his pride. I'm Red Carter. While you're flipping burgers this weekend, remember Chris Watts. Remember that Daddy no, Remember that family photos lie and fathers can be monsters. Enjoy your barbecue, hug your kids, and maybe check your spouse's phone. See you tomorrow,