‘In America, three women are killed by their current or ex-partner every day. Parents who murder their children and partners are most often men. This crime is virtually always premediated.’
These are the harrowing words that appear ominously on your screen as you come to the end of Netflix’s American Murder: The Family Next Door. The new documentary sitting in Netflix’s Top 10 follows the murder of Shannan Watts and her two children, Celeste and Bella, by husband and father Chris Watts.
The statistics are purposeful. After 90-minutes of detailing his relationship with his so-called ‘bossy’ wife and affair with co-worker, Nichol Kessinger, they act as a pointed reminder that this was not a case of a man driven crazy by lust for a beautiful women or hate for his ‘high-strung wife but the work of a calculated, murderer. And given the fact three women a day are murdered by partners or exes, he’s not one of few.
Watching the show, you’d be remiss not to feel irked by the narrative the statistics intend to dispel. Shannan is described as ‘bossy’, ‘high-strung’ and ‘dominant’. Chris tells Officers his mother and sister didn’t like her, that they felt she was taking him away from them. All the while, these quotes are edited in between home video footage of Chris surprising his children dressed as Father Christmas while Shanann tells him off for forgetting to bring a phone so she can photograph their reactions.
‘He’s such a great guy for putting up with me,’ Shannan is quoted saying in a different home video. This seven-minute segment is irritating to watch. You know there will be countless people concluding that Shanann drove her husband to murder by being too high maintenance. In fact, that very judgement spread massively online after Chris was arrested – with countless people spending hours deep-diving into commentary on family videos posted to her Facebook.
In an article on Crime Rocket titled, ‘Did Chris Watts not mind his wife Shanann humiliating him on Facebook?’ comments from readers include the likes of ‘I think she was a controlling, insecure selfish, greedy, imbecile.’
‘I couldn’t stand to hear her talk,’ another read. ‘Chris Watts is that guy that is just so quiet he will not fight back, he will just take it and take it and take it like the kid at school that is being bullied and he finally snapped. Shannon Watts drove him to kill her kids and to kill her.’
This subject was explored in the documentary, and was undoubtedly why producers felt it necessary to include statistics around how often crimes like Chris’s are not rage-fuelled breakdowns, but premeditated crimes. But Shanann wasn’t the only victim of this sexist narrative.
Falling down the rabbit hole that is googling any true crime documentary, you’ll notice endless debate around the other woman in Chris’s life, Nichol Kessinger. In Netflix’s documentary, Nichol is shown to be one of the most important witnesses in the case that ultimately convicted Chris. After denying he had an affair, she comes forward and offers a statement contradicting his story – explaining they had been dating seriously for months prior to the murder.
In their portrayal of Chris and Nichol’s affair, pictures of Nichol posing for Chris in a bikini are shown. She’s introduced to us in silhouette form, striking a yoga pose that shows her slender figure as a recording of her statement to the police plays over more images and videos of her sandboarding on holiday with him. You can see where I’m going with this, she’s portrayed as a beautiful, free-spirit, the ideal ‘mistress’ a man couldn’t help but lust over.
Now, the internet is filled with judgement of her. ‘Most hated woman in America,’ reads the text on an Instagram post featuring a picture of convicted-murderer Casey Anthony. Underneath, a picture of Nichol with the text ‘hold my beer.’ ‘Nichol will never hold a candle to Shanann, even on her best day,’ reads the caption of the post.
The hatred of Nichol has not just been limited to Facebook comments and reddit pages, it’s inspired research blogs and countless articles in crime magazines about her alleged involvement in the crimes. Nichol has never been charged with a single crime related to the murders, in fact, she’s currently in witness protection.
But that doesn’t stop conspiracy theorists online delving into details made public by the Weld Country District Attorney’s Office. The most supposedly damning discovery was that she performed an internet search for ‘Shanann Watts’ in September 2017, six months before she says she met Chris. Records supervisor Amanda Purcell told CrimeOnline it was a typo, but Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke later said, in a December 2018 interview with CrimeOnline, that the items in the report accurately reflected what was found in the data review.
‘The dates to which you are referring — in 2017 where it appears she Googled or otherwise searched Shanann — was data that came off her phone,’ he told them. Grazia has reached out to his office for clarification, but ultimately, whether typo or not, the discovery was not deemed worthy enough to even consider Nichol an accomplice to Chris’s crime.
Because, whether or not Nichol may’ve lied to the police about when she met Chris, there are countless reasonable explanations as to why that do not involve premeditated murder. For one, they worked together. Perhaps she knew Chris was married all along and she felt too ashamed to tell police, perhaps she had a crush on him before they officially met or started their affair. Whatever the reason, it’s illogical to see that evidence and jump to blaming Nichol for something her husband has already been convicted of and never once alluded to having an accomplice.
Attempting to explain his horrific crime humanises him while dehumanising the women whose lives he ruined.
And yet, the hatred of Nichol rages on. In one CrimePiper blog, researcher Andrew Bales explains that some need to blame Kessinger to understand the ‘why’ of such a terrible crime.
‘They need Kessinger to be a shallow and reprehensible family-jacking whore with no morals and no integrity,’ he explains. ‘Thinking of her as a flawed human being who willingly got involved in an affair with a then married man (who spent a great deal of his time convincing her that his marriage was fractured and damaged beyond repair) humanizes her... The wild idea that a man capable of murdering his wife and young children might also be capable of manipulating a female colleague into believing that his marriage was terminally wrecked, is completely lost on them…They want to lock away what she represents. She represents the very rational fear of profound personal betrayal.’
You can see how psychology applies to the blaming of Shanann too. People want to believe such a harrowing crime would never happen to them, they want to close their eyes to the fact that one in three murders are by one of the people you trust, or trusted, most – a romantic partner or ex. By implying Shanann brought her murder – and her children’s – on herself helps people separate themselves from her. By blaming Nichol for bewitching Chris, they can separate their husbands from him. Or at least, they can have something to look out for to protect themselves.
But ultimately, whether you can see the logic behind such obvious victim-blaming or not, what comes from trolling Shanann and Nichol is that Chris is relieved of his evil. Attempting to explain his horrific crime humanises him while dehumanising the women whose lives he ruined. It might strike impossible fear in your heart seeing someone who comes across so normal kill the family that adored and trusted him, but that fear should embolden a passion to protect women from domestic violence, not blame them for it.
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