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'I Don't Feel Safe': Heartbreaking Texts Shanann Watts Sent Friends About Her Crumbling Marriage
“He told me he doesn't want this baby and he's happy with just Bella and Celeste,” the pregnant Shanann confided to a friend about her husband and eventual killer, Chris Watts.
Chris Watts' wife Shanann tried desperately to fix their marriage before he killed her and their two young daughters, Bella and Celeste. Dozens of messages the pregnant Shanann sent to friends leading up to her murder show just how much emotional agony she was going through.
Those communications were among the roughly 2,000 pages of documents released by the Weld County District Attorney's Office in the days after Watts was sentenced to life in prison for his grisly crime.
It was clear that Shanann suspected that her husband felt distant from her and that he was possibly cheating. While she was pleading with him to work on their marriage, buying self-help books, and even looking into couples therapy, Watts was telling his mistress that it was Shanann who had no interest in fixing their relationship.
Here are some of the most heartbreaking texts Shanann sent her friends about her crumbling relationship with her husband:
After she canceled a gender reveal party
Shanann was 15-weeks pregnant when Watts strangled her to death after murdering their daughters. On Aug. 8, days before her slaying, Shanann texted a friend about why the couple's planned gender reveal party, scheduled for Aug. 19, was canceled.
“Chris said we are not compatible anymore,” she wrote. Later she added, “he refused couples counseling!”
Her next text revealed how devastated she was: “I’ve cried myself to sleep over a week now.”
When she talked about her ultrasound appointment
In a text to another friend on Aug. 9, Shanann explained that she and Chris went to an ultrasound appointment and that he was very cold to her.
"I grabbed his hand during ultrasound and he didn't grab back." Her friend offered a crying face emoji.
Then, Shanann wrote, “I cringed."
She went on to explain how he recently rejected her for sex. She also wondered aloud if he was cheating. "Only thing I can think of even though I don't think he has it in him is another girl."
When she said Chris told her he doesn’t want their baby
“He told me he doesn't want this baby and he's happy with just Bella and Celeste,” Shanann texted another friend on Aug. 8. “He thought he wanted another one. l'm so sick to my stomach. Tried to have sex with him last night just to see if that would help him and he rejected me."
She then went on to say that she hasn't cried this hard in her life.
"He said he feels there's lack of communication and it's not from me,” she wrote. ‘I sent him 12 text over the month begging him to talk to me.”
Shanann said she wanted Watts to tell her “the damn truth on what the hell is wrong!"
When she said she didn’t feel safe
Shanann told a friend on Aug. 7 that “I don't feel safe with him after what he said about the baby and if he loves me he would hold me and tell me it will be ok. Give me something and he did nothing, but go to bed."
She was referencing when Watts said he didn’t want their new baby. Watts said “he's scared to death about this third baby.” Shanann told her friend.
Shanann added that Chris had changed.
"He has changed. I don't know who he is. ... He hasn't touched me all week, kissed me, talked to me except for when l'm trying to figure out what is wrong.”
When she expressed hope
Perhaps even sadder, given she was just days away from dying, she expressed some hope about the relationship after a friend texted her on Aug. 9 to check in and ask how everything was going.
“Omg much better,” Shanann texted. “We talked. He told me he loved me back. Still cold, but not as cold. He even kissed me before going to sleep in basement, which is second kiss since picking him up from airport."
[Photos: Facebook, Weld County District Attorney’s Office]
