Shanann Watts’ friend Nickole Atkinson expressed regrets after the pregnant woman’s husband, Chris Watts, was charged with murdering her and their two young daughters.
“I can speak for all of her friends and family and say that if we had any inkling, there are so many things that we would have done differently,” Atkinson said during a Wednesday, August 22, Facebook Live video Opens a New Window. . “To hug her one last time. To hug the girls one last time. So please, please be more aware of what’s going on in your life.”
Atkinson, who dropped the 34-year-old off at home in the early hours on August 13 after a business trip and went looking for her hours later when she didn’t respond to her texts and missed a doctor’s appointment, added: “I wanted people to know that I am not a hero. I was just a concerned friend. I talked to Shanann on a daily basis. I knew that it wasn’t normal for her to not text or call me.”
“The message that I want to get out is that if you’re concerned about a friend or a family member, take the time to go check on them and ask for a health and wellness check,” Atkinson told viewers. “The police will go check on them. It may start the process sooner to find them or to help them if they need help.”
“I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what,” she noted.
Shanann, who was 15 weeks pregnant at the time of her murder, and daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, went missing from their Frederick, Colorado, home on August 13. Her husband was charged on Monday, August 20, with five counts of first-degree murder, three counts of tampering with a deceased human body and one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy after the bodies were found on the property of Chris’ former employer.
According to an arrest affidavit obtained by Us Weekly earlier this week, Chris was having an affair with a coworker and “informed Shanann he wanted to go through with a separation, and they were both upset and crying” the night of her murder. He claimed to police that he later saw “Shanann actively strangling Celeste” on a baby monitor. The 34-year-old told authorities that “he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death."
