2:12 a.m., August 13, 2018. Shanann Watts’ plane had just touched down in Denver. Exhausted, 15 weeks pregnant, stomach fluttering with little kicks, she still couldn’t wait another second to text her husband:

“Just landed. Miss you and the girls like crazy. Can’t wait to get home and hug everyone. ❤️❤️❤️”

Seen. No reply.

At that exact moment, inside their Frederick home, Chris Watts was lying next to his mistress, Nichol Kessinger, on the same bed he once shared with his wife. The phone kept buzzing. He glanced at the screen, then silently switched it to Do Not Disturb.

That was only the beginning of the final flood of messages from a desperate wife trying to save her family, and the last words Shanann would ever send before the man she loved strangled the life out of her.

In her final 48 hours, Shanann sent Chris more than 60 texts. Not one contained rage. Not one contained blame, even though she already knew about the affair. Only love. Only pleading. Only hope.

“I know I haven’t been the perfect wife, but I’m willing to change. I just want our family whole.” “Do you even love me anymore, Chris? Please just tell me the truth…” “I’ll lose the weight. I’ll work less. I’ll be home more. Just give me one chance.” “We’re having a boy, Chris. Nico. We’re going to have a son…”

Chris responded with silence. Or with short, dismissive lies:

“Asleep.” “With the girls.” “We’ll talk when you get home.”

In reality, he was at Nichol Kessinger’s apartment, mapping out the “new life” he wanted, one that had no room for a wife, two little girls, or the son he already knew was coming. He had already told his mistress they were “separated” and “about to divorce.” He lied to everyone, even the woman warming his bed.

But the most monstrous revelation was yet to come.

In a five-hour prison interview with the FBI in February 2019, recorded inside Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, Chris Watts admitted something that made seasoned agents go quiet:

“I crushed OxyContin and put it in her water. I was hoping she would miscarry. That way I’d only have to kill one person instead of three.”

He said it in the same flat, emotionless tone he used to order coffee.

He had calculated: if Shanann lost the baby, divorce would be cleaner. If she didn’t, he would finish the job himself. And he did.

When Shanann walked through the door at 1:48 a.m., she had exactly twenty minutes left to live. She still believed her husband was just “lost.” She still texted her best friend Nickole Atkinson right before crawling into bed:

“Chris says he doesn’t love me anymore. But I’m going to fight for this family.”

That was the very last message Shanann ever sent.

Hours later, after her body and those of her daughters had been stuffed into oil tanks, her phone kept lighting up, friends, coworkers, panic rising. Chris picked it up, read every worried text, and turned it off.

In court, prosecutors read aloud one final message Shanann sent at 12:36 a.m.:

“I love you so much. No matter what you’ve done, I still love you. I just want us to grow old together and watch our babies grow up. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Chris Watts sat in the defendant’s chair, face blank. Not a single tear.

He had already made his choice. Selfishness over love. Mistress over the mother of his children. Freedom purchased with the lives of four innocent people.

Shanann Watts died with her heart still full of hope. She never knew that her last “I love you”s fell into a void, sent to a man who had turned off every shred of humanity long before he turned off her phone.

This is not just the story of a murder. This is the story of absolute betrayal, when love collides with absolute coldness. When a husband and father is willing to erase his entire future just to “start over.”

Tonight, when you tuck your children in, remember Bella and Celeste. Remember Shanann and little Nico.