Chris Watts Unmasked Pt.1 - Sex, Secrets and Lies: How Watts Betrayed Wife Before Killings

2026-07-29

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The life that Chris and Shannan Watts had was slipping away. The doting wife and mom fought to keep her family together. The couple was expecting another child — a son, Nico — and they had two happy and energetic little girls already. As Shannan tried to keep her family together, her anxiety and fears intensified. Her husband had been acting strangely. She suspected an affair but he denied it as he went through the motions of his life as a suburban husband and father.In actuality, Chris Watts had become a str...

The life that Chris and Shannan Watts had was slipping away.

The doting wife and mom fought to keep her family together. The couple was expecting another child — a son, Nico — and they had two happy and energetic little girls already.

As Shannan tried to keep her family together, her anxiety and fears intensified. Her husband had been acting strangely. She suspected an affair but he denied it as he went through the motions of his life as a suburban husband and father.

In actuality, Chris Watts had become a stranger.

This installment of The Trial: USA’s special series on Chris Watts explores his life of cheating, dating app activity and fabrications leading up to the point where he murdered his entire family on Aug. 13, 2018 — nearly eight years ago.

The couple’s children, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, became victims in one of the most heartbreaking and inexplicable domestic crimes in recent memory.

Along with their mother, the girls were callously killed by Chris Watts, who by all accounts has exhibited no remorse since it happened. Their remains were dumped in industrial oil tanks at a site belonging to Watts’s company. Shannan was discarded in a surrounding field.

You’ll hear from our interview with Amanda McMahon, who said she met Watts on Tinder and carried on a casual relationship with him for months beginning the spring of 2017.

We also explore his steamy romance with Nichol Kessinger, a co-worker who Watts was enamored with in the lead up to the killings.

The Trial: USA’s Kayla Brantley dives deep into Chris Watts’s sordid hidden life before he annihilated his family, joined by Crime Desk reporters Luke Kenton, Steve Helling and Rachel Sharp.

The entire Chris Watts Unmasked series is available right now, ad free, to crime desk subscribers. Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access to new shows, exclusive bonus episodes and complete access to our true-crime podcast collection. Visit plus.thecrimedesk.com/the-trial-usa for more information.

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Email us: thetrial@dailymail.com

WhatsApp us: +44 7796 657512 Start your message with Trial

Presenter: Kayla Brantley

Producers: Shayna Jacobs and Sam Morris

Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham

Executive Producer: Jamie East

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Email us: thetrial@dailymail.com

WhatsApp us: +44 7796 657512 Start your message with Trial

Presenter: Kayla Brantley

Producer: Shayna Jacobs