In the weeks before her tragic death at the hands of her spouse Chris Watts, Shanann Watts was eagerly organizing a gender reveal party, as revealed by financial documents obtained by the Daily Mail.
The mother of two spent several hundred dollars on essentials such as a cake, cookie assortments, decorations, and floral arrangements.
However, a series of distressing text messages show that just 11 days before the scheduled event, she canceled the party after Chris confessed he wasn’t ready for a third child.
Shanann, then 34, had planned to host around 50 guests at their Frederick, Colorado home on August 19, 2018.
Her credit card statements detail purchases, including a $482.94 cake and other party foods from Costco, a $124.37 cookie display, $89 worth of flowers, and $168.40 in party supplies.
Yet the celebration was called off on August 8, and rather than welcoming a new family member, Shanann began asking Chris for a divorce.
Five days later and at 15 weeks pregnant, she was dead. Watts strangled her before fatally suffocating their two daughters Bella, four and Celeste, three.
The Daily Mail has obtained tragic texts Shanann sent to a friend revealing her anguish over her marriage in the run up to her murder.
Shanann Watts was 15 weeks pregnant with her third child when she was strangled to death by her husband Chris Watts. Pictured: The couple with their two daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three
She had planned a gender reveal for around 50 people to be held on August 19, 2018, which she ultimately canceled amid mounting tension in her marriage
The Daily Mail obtained credit card statements which outline the efforts that Shanann went to to plan her gender reveal before she was forced to cancel it
‘Chris told me last night he’s scared to death about this third baby and he’s happy with just Bella and Celeste and doesn’t want another baby,’ she texted one close friend just hours after she had gone shopping for the party on August 7.
‘He said we’re not compatible anymore. He refused to hug me after he said he will try to “work it out.”‘
In another message on the same date, Shanann wrote: ‘I grabbed his hand during ultrasound and he didn’t grab back.’
A disappointed Shanann decided to call off her party and disinvited her guests – but did not get a refund for the hundreds of dollars she had spent.
She had entrusted her friend Nicki Atkinson as the only person who knew her baby’s gender.
Had the celebration gone ahead, Shanann would have learned she was carrying a boy by popping a balloon which Atkinson would have filled with blue confetti.
The couple had settled on the name Nico for their unborn child, which many have pointed out was eerily similar to the name of Watt’s mistress, Nichol Kessinger.
Shanann’s family said the name was actually a nod to her Italian heritage.
Shanann canceled the party and later on August 7 asked Watts for a divorce after voicing suspicions he was cheating to a friend.
‘I haven’t slept most of the week. My eyes burn from crying so much,’ she wrote in a text to a friend. ‘I canceled gender reveal. Nicki is going to tell me [the baby’s gender] today. I need happy news today.’
Heartbreaking texts sent to a friend reveal the depth of Shanann’s anguish over her rapidly unraveling marriage as well as her suspicions Watts was cheating
Shanann splashed out hundreds of dollars for a cake, cookie arrangements, party supplies and flowers for the canceled party
‘This baby in my belly deserves his full love either way,’ she added.
But she never got to welcome Nico into the world.
The next day, Shanann headed to Arizona on a business trip, texting friends that she would figure things out upon her return.
According to Watts’s confession, Shanann returned home from her trip early on the morning of August 13 and the two had sex just hours before he went on to murder her.
The couple began arguing about their relationship and Watts confessed that he was having an affair.
Angry and hurt, Shanann allegedly threatened to take her daughters with her when they split. Watts admitted that he then strangled her in the bedroom of their home.
He wrapped her lifeless body in a blanket and dragged her down the stairs of their upscale home in Frederick, Colorado. He loaded her into the back of his truck.
Watts then bundled up his little daughters and put them in the passenger side of the truck. He drove to a job site at Anadarko, the oil company where he worked. There, he buried his wife in a shallow grave near an oil tank.
Watts would later tell police that he then turned on his daughters, smothering Celeste while Bella begged him to stop. Then he smothered Bella and dumped their little bodies in separate oil tanks nearby.
The family’s upscale home in Frederick, Colorado was to be the site of a massive gender reveal party for the couple’s unborn baby boy, Nico
Watts sits in court for his sentencing hearing at the Weld County Courthouse on November 19, 2018
Watts was having an affair with Nichol Kessinger (pictured) who sent him racy photos and had ‘continuous’ sex with him, according to his jailhouse letters
Watts then went on the local news after claiming that his family was missing and begged for their safe return.
But authorities weren’t buying it. They soon deduced that Watts was responsible for eradicating his entire family.
In a recorded confession, Watts gave an alleged motive: he had been carrying on an affair with a coworker Nichol Kessinger who thought he was separated. He later said that he killed his family because he wanted to be with his mistress.
After pleading guilty to the murders, Watts was sentenced to life in prison. He is being held in Wisconsin without the possibility of parole.
Last year the Daily Mail revealed the murderer’s prison letters in which he claims God has forgiven him for his sickening crimes.
‘I am a new man,’ he said in one letter viewed by the Daily Mail, whose recipient asked not to be identified. ‘I am not the person who committed those horrible acts.
‘I know that God does not see me as a sinner who killed his family; he sees me as His child.’
However, Watts is not an entirely changed man and has persisted with his womanizing ways, exchanging letters with around a dozen women on the outside according to his former cellmate.
The inmate described how the murderer would routinely become fixated on various women.
One admirer, who asked only to be identified as Deborah, told the Daily Mail Watts believes he has a divine purpose and likens himself to Jesus.
