'He lied about everything': Chris Watts' girlfriend speaks to Denver Post
When Nichol Kessinger started dating Christopher Watts in July after meeting him at work, she thought of him as "soft spoken" and a "good listener," she said in an interview with the Denver Post.
Kessinger, 30, said Watts told her he and his wife were separated and were wrapping up their court proceedings.
The marriage actually ended in August after Watts’ wife, Shanann, and his two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, went missing, and Kessinger realized her short relationship with Watts had been filled with lies.
“He made me believe that he was doing all of the things that a rational man and good father would do,” she said.
The lies quickly unraveled, but it wasn't until she watched the news that she learned that his wife was pregnant.
“When I read the news, I found out he was still married and his wife was 15 weeks pregnant,” Kessinger said.
Kessinger told the Post she began to question the family's disappearance.
“It got to a point that he was telling me so many lies that I eventually told him that I did not want to speak to him again until his family was found,” she said in that interview.
As she grew more and more suspicious, Kessinger reached out to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office to tell them about their relationship and the lies, the Post reported.
On August 15, Watts was arrested for the murders.
Watts pleaded guilty November 6 under a plea deal allowing him to avoid the death penalty but putting him in jail for life without a chance of parole.
In court documents, investigators claimed that Watts admitted to police that he killed his wife. But he told police that he strangled her in "a rage" when he discovered she had strangled their two daughters after he sought a separation.
Kessinger said she does not believe that.
“He’s a liar,” she told the Post. “He lied about everything.”
His daughters’ bodies were found submerged in an oil tank, and Shanann Watts' body was found in a shallow grave.
