What Netflix’s ‘American Murder’ Didn’t Tell You About Chris and Shanann Watts
Warning: Graphic discussion of family annihilation and toxic masculinity.
After watching American Murder: The Family Next Door more than once, I had questions. A lot of questions. For one thing, I didn’t feel like I was getting the whole story. If you’ve watched the Netflix documentary, you might know what I mean.
Call it women’s intuition, or simply the effects of having survived a few dysfunctional relationships myself, but I noticed several red flags that seemed to get glossed over in the film.
I took my interest in the tragic story over to Facebook, where a couple of friends echoed my concerns. As a result of those conversations, I spent an afternoon going down the rabbit hole of information about the 2018 murders of Shanann Watts and her two young daughters.
If you’re reading this story, I’m assuming that you’ve either seen the Netflix documentary, or you’re okay with the “spoilers” ahead.
In the Netflix documentary, we find out that within a couple of days of Shanann’s, Celeste’s, and Bella’s disappearances, husband and father Chris Watts’s story completely falls apart. After failing a polygraph test, Chris finally admits to killing his two children and…