Since American Murder (opens in a new tab) arrived on Netflix at the end of September, enthusiastic viewers have sought out all manner of information about Chris Watts. They started Reddit threads, tweeted increasingly ludicrous theories, and generally spent hours scouring the Internet for even the tiniest detail about Watts' crimes that couldn't fit into the documentary's 82 minutes of footage.

To summarize the gist: Watts is currently serving five life sentences (open in new tab) in a Wisconsin maximum security prison after murdering his wife Shan'an and two daughters, who were 15 weeks pregnant at the time of their deaths in August 2018. Watts initially claimed he had no involvement in the disappearance of his wife and daughters, but that story fell apart within days and he was eventually convicted of the two murders.

Needless to say, it would be nearly impossible to include every detail about Chris, Shannan, their relationship, the murders, and the aftermath in a single documentary. So here are a few key points that were omitted from "American Murder."

The couple filed for bankruptcy in 2015, court documents show, CNN (opens in new tab) reported shortly after Chris' arrest. At the time, they had just purchased a $400,000 home and had combined student loan and credit card debt of about $70,000. According to the documents, Chris was the family's primary breadwinner, earning about $63,000 of the $91,000 in co-worker income.

In 2018, however, Shan'an began a new job with a lifestyle company. Her salary increased significantly, she began driving a Lexus, she was sent on paid business trips to Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and Chris was left at home to take care of their daughters. It is unclear how Shan'an's sudden financial success affected her marriage, but as she was out of town more often than not, Chris began secretly dating colleague Nicole Kessinger

, who was also a member of the firm.

The documentary seems to advocate the theory that Chris killed her family to be with Kessinger, but it skims over the extent of her involvement (open in new tab) in criminal investigations. when they began dating in July 2018, Chris was still married. The geologist, who says she did not know he was married, called him and questioned him when she learned of his family's disappearance on the news. Upon learning the extent of his lies and finding his responses to his questions "strange," Kessinger immediately approached the agent to tell him everything he knew about Chris.

Kessinger, now living quietly and inconspicuously, was soon convinced of his guilt, and a few months later wrote in the Denver Post, "He is a liar. He lied about everything. If he could lie to me and hide something that big, what else could he have lied about?"

Kessinger was also a member of the Kessinger family.

Kessinger's information was crucial to the investigation; in a 2019 Investigation Discovery interview (opens in new tab), Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said, "Nicole Kessinger is the bomb that I can best describe It turns out that she has the kind of information that I can best describe."

Trigger warning: disturbing details about attempted murder While at the Dodge Correctional Facility in Waupun, Wisconsin (opens in new tab), Chris reportedly corresponded with family and strangers, including Sherrin Cadle, who wrote many of the letters in Letters From Christopher": a book published in 2019 as "Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders". In several letters (open in new tab), Chris provides insight into his feelings at the time of the murders and harrowing new facts about the crimes.

For one, he writes that he knew long before he did so that he was going to kill his wife and daughters. The night before, after putting the children to bed, he wrote: "I am not sure how I would have felt about the death of Shan'an. About Shan'an's death, he wrote in another letter, " I have been thinking about killing her for weeks and now I am facing it."

Elsewhere in the letter, Chris revealed that he first tried to suffocate his daughters in their beds before returning to their bedroom to kill Shan'an, but the two girls somehow "woke up." He continued, "The act gets worse when you realize that I went to their room first and took their lives in that place."

Finally, in his letter, Chris appeared to acknowledge the theory that he killed his wife and daughters to be with Kessinger. He admitted that he had given Shan'an oxycodone in an attempt to make her miscarry, explaining to Cadle that he "thought it would be easier for Shan'an to be with Nicole if she wasn't pregnant."