Seven years after convicted killer Chris Watts horrified the country by murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters, one person tied to the case has stayed out of public view — and seemingly out of reach.
Now Nichol Kessinger, who was having an affair with Watts around the time of the 2018 killings, has vanished, with online communities fixated on figuring out where she went.
Why Online Sleuths Keep Focusing on Nichol Kessinger
Kessinger was never charged — and was not even formally investigated — despite widespread speculation online that she may have been involved in the killings or in covering up evidence.
Shanann Watts, 34, and her daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three, were killed inside their suburban Colorado home on August 13, 2018. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant.
Watts is serving a life sentence in a Wisconsin prison, but discussion about Kessinger remains intense.
Some true-crime followers say they want to “avenge” Shanann and her daughters by locating Kessinger and pressuring authorities to revisit the case and investigate whether she played a role.
Others say their goal is simply to reveal where she lives, hoping to unsettle her. For now, Kessinger has remained difficult to track down.
‘Extreme Privacy’ Experts Say Vanishing Is Hard — But Not Impossible
Alec Harris, who specializes in what he calls “extreme privacy,” said disappearing for this long is no simple feat.
“It's no small task to disappear oneself nowadays and to do it successfully for as long as she has,” Harris told the Daily Mail.
“For someone who doesn't have professional help or experience in how to make yourself unfindable, it can be very, very hard.”
Kessinger, now 37, worked as an environmental health and safety contractor in the oil and gas industry. She met Watts through work as a contractor for Anadarko Petroleum in Colorado, and their relationship began in the summer of 2018.
At that time, Shanann was pregnant with the couple’s third child — a son — and she spent much of that summer in North Carolina with her daughters at her parents’ home.
The Affair Became Public After Watts Confessed
Kessinger’s relationship with Watts became public only after he admitted to killing his family. He confessed to burying Shanann in a shallow grave and placing the girls’ remains into oil tanks.
Investigators reviewing his phone, text messages, and emails found he was in frequent contact with Kessinger in the days before and after his family disappeared.
Photos taken before the murders showed Kessinger posing in a bikini for him, and another image showed him kissing her during a hike.
Kessinger denied she had anything to do with the murders.
A Possible New Identity — But No Clear Trail
Public records suggest Kessinger may have used the name Nicole Miller, either through a legal change or as an informal alias.
A Daily Mail investigation into addresses connected to both names found no current trace of her.
Meanwhile, her whereabouts continue to consume dedicated followers of the case, some of whom have spent the last seven years chasing tips and alleged sightings.
‘Watts Island’ and the Online Hunt for Answers
In the online community surrounding the case — a group some members refer to as “Watts Island” — speculation about Kessinger’s life has become a constant topic.
One Reddit user believed they found a Kessinger lookalike in Scotland. Another said they spotted her in a bookstore in Kansas.
Some followers have collected recordings of her police interviews. Others have built YouTube playlists compiling media coverage focused on her, and new videos continue to appear.
Participants regularly trade theories about her current life, her mental health, and even whether she might be silently monitoring their conversations.
The community includes people from places as far-flung as Australia, New Zealand, and Peru. Some members are survivors of abusive relationships, while others are adult children of people who cheated on spouses.
A Viral 2025 ‘Sighting’ and More Speculation
In January 2025, online true-crime circles erupted over claims that Kessinger had been seen at a funeral in Billings, Montana — the funeral of the mother of one of her friends.
The service was live-streamed, and some viewers became convinced Kessinger appeared briefly on screen before it began.
The woman shown looked older and heavier than Kessinger did during her relationship with Watts.
The clip spread widely, and discussion continued for more than a year, with people debating the woman’s appearance in detail — including her nose, jaw shape, walk, clothing, and the fact that she did not appear to be wearing a wedding ring.
Kessinger’s friend in Montana declined to confirm whether the person in the livestream was Kessinger.