When Chris Watts’ pregnant wife and two daughters went missing in August and were later found dead — deaths he’d ultimately confess to in order to avoid the death penalty — Colorado investigators began probing a part of his life that he’d kept hidden from his family: the affair he’d been carrying on with a co-worker.
That co-worker, Nichol Kessinger, would eventually come forward to authorities with information about their illicit relationship and say that she herself had been duped by the confessed killer into thinking his marriage to Shanann Watts was all but formally over.
Police have said they don’t believe she was involved in Watts’ horrific crime — he smothered daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, before strangling Shanann and dumping the bodies of all three at an oil site where he worked — but his relationship with her provides some key insight into what drove him to kill, or in the words of Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke at his sentencing, to seek a “fresh start.” Read the full story here ▶
