'Heartless Monster' Chris Watts Googled: 'When to Say I Love You When Starting a New Relationship'

Prosecutors have cited Chris Watts' desire for a fresh start with a coworker as his motive for killing pregnant wife

Weeks before he killed his wife and two daughters amidst an affair he was having with a co-worker, Chris Watts typed into Google, “When to say I love you for the first time in a new relationship.”

On that same day of July 25, less than three weeks before the Aug. 13 murders, Watts Googled, “What do you feel when someone tells you they love you” and “How does it feel when someone says I love you.”

These Google searches are detailed in the nearly 2,000 pages of documents released by the Weld County District Attorney’s Office after Watts pleaded guilty earlier this month to murdering his pregnant wife Shanann, 34, and daughters Bella, 4, and 3-year-old Celeste.

Prosecutors have cited Watts’ desire for a fresh start with his mistress, coworker Nichol Kessinger, 30, as his motive in the killings — and the Google searches, as well as other facts made public in the documents, provide insight into the state of mind of a man Shanann’s father described as a “heartless monster.”

For much of the summer before she was killed, Watts was home in Frederick, Colorado, while Shanann was in North Carolina visiting her parents with her kids and working at her part-time sales job.

Chris Watts. RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post/Getty Images

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During this period, Shanann desperately tried to salvage the couple’s crumbling marriage, prosecutors have said, citing pleading text messages and self-help books she got for her husband, including one he threw in the garbage.

Weld County District Attorney's Office

Meanwhile, Watts was having an affair, spending the time going to bars restaurants, car museums and sand dunes with Kessinger as well as “searching the internet for secluded vacation spots,” District Attorney Michael Rourke has said.

The day before Watts’ searched on Google about love and new relationships, Shanann texted her husband, “l realized during this trip what’s missing in our relationship! lt’s only one way emotions and feelings. I can’t come back like this. I need you to meet me halfway. You don’t consider others at all, nor think about others feelings.”

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Watts responded he loved Shanann and was sorry.

Chris and Shanann Watts. Shanann Watts/Facebook

Shanann wrote back: “l try to give you space, but while you are working and living the bachelor life l’m carrying our 3rd and fighting with our two kids daily and trying to work and make money.”

“lt’s not hard texting love you and miss you,” she added. “lf you don’t mean it then I get it, but we need to talk. I kept looking at my phone all night and no response from you. Like seriously! We didn’t just start dating yesterday! We’ve been together 8 years and have 2.5 kids together.”