Seven years after convicted killer Chris Watts shocked the nation by murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters, one figure in the high-profile case has remained out of sight and out of reach.
And now Nichol Kessinger, the woman having an affair with Watts at the time of the 2018 slayings, has become the Where's Waldo of the true crime community.
Watts's mistress was never charged or even formally investigated in the case, despite online sleuths speculating that she played a role in the slayings or at least in helping cover up the evidence.
Shanann Watts, 34, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste Watts, were killed in their suburban Colorado home on August 13, 2018 while Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant.
But today, as Watts serves a life sentence in a Wisconsin prison, social media chatter is as active as ever about Kessinger, who is living under the radar, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Some true crime followers hope to avenge Shanann and her daughters' deaths by tracking Kessinger down and somehow forcing police to reopen the case by investigating if she were involved.
Others aim merely to expose wherever she is living in hopes of making her squirm.
Kessinger remains remarkably elusive in the meantime, clearly determined not to be found.
'It's no small task to disappear oneself nowadays and to do it successfully for as long as she has,' Alec Harris, an expert in so-called 'extreme privacy', 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, was an environmental health and safety contractor for the oil and gas industry.
She worked with Watts as a contractor for Anadarko Petroleum in Colorado, starting a relationship in the summer of 2018.
Shanann was pregnant at the time with the couple's third child, a son, and spent much of that summer back East with her girls at her parents' house in North Carolina.
Watts's affair with Kessinger became public after he confessed to their killings, admitting to burying his wife's body in a shallow grave and stuffing the remains of his daughters into oil tanks.
Kessinger Denied Involvement But Faced Public Suspicion
Police reviews of his phone, text messages and emails showed he was in near constant contact with Kessinger in the days before and after his family went missing.
Selfies before the murders showed her voguing for him in a bikini and him kissing her on a hike.
Kessinger denied her involvement in the murders, but faced intense public suspicion for several reasons:
- Her computer records showed she had been online researching Shanann before the killings. They also showed she was searching the internet for wedding dresses and otherwise fantasizing about marrying Chris.
- Cell phone records showed she was near the Watts' home in Frederick, Colorado, in the pre-dawn hours on August 13 when the killings and disposal of the three bodies took place.
- In the days after, she Googled 'Did people hate Amber Frey?' - the mistress of Scott Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife in 2002.
- She also researched Frey's book deals and net worth, all signs that she was considering cashing in on her own notoriety.
Plea Deal Meant No Trial
Kessinger cooperated with police, agreeing to several rounds of questioning. Watts, meantime, pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree murder in exchange for being spared a death sentence.
His plea deal meant there was no trial, enabling Kessinger to avoid taking the witness stand and disappear from public view.
There are few clues about what happened to her.
In interviews with police in the summer and fall of 2018, she said she had lost her job and was starting to see how the public was judging her.
'I think a lot of people are probably gonna assume I was a catalyst,' she told a detective.
She also was realizing, rightly, that her connection to the case would affect her life in the long term.
'I have a feeling that trying to get by for the next five to 10 years is gonna be really hard,' she said, discussing the possibility of moving out of state and asking a detective how to go about taking a new name.
Public records show that Kessinger may have changed her name to Nicole Miller, either legally or using an informal alias.
Obsession With Her Whereabouts Persists
A Daily Mail investigation into addresses associated with both identities shows no current sign of her.
Meanwhile, Kessinger's whereabouts remain an obsession for close followers of the case who have spent seven years trying to track her down.
One Reddit user found a Kessinger doppelganger in Scotland. Another believes she spotted her at a bookstore in Kansas.
Some close followers of the case have amassed recordings of Kessinger’s interviews with police.
Others have compiled YouTube playlists of media interviews about her. Videos upon videos continue being made about her.
Followers of the case chat regularly online and off, surmising about Kessinger’s life now, her mental state and even whether she is anonymously taking part in their conversation, tracking speculation about her.
Inhabitants of what they call ‘Watts Island’ hail from as far away as Australia, New Zealand and Peru.
Some are survivors of abusive relationships. Others are adult children of people who cheated on their spouses.
One Colorado woman the Daily Mail spoke with, but who asked to remain anonymous, miscarried the week after the Watts killings in 2018 and hasn’t been able to conceive since.
Possible Sighting Sparks Renewed Speculation
‘I haven’t been able to shake it,’ she said of the case she attributes to her own continued suffering.
Almost daily, she follows online efforts to find Kessinger in hopes ‘for some modicum of justice.’
‘Shame on prosecutors for going too light on her,’ she said. ‘Shame on her to hell and back. I hope she lives with that shame until she dies. A lot of us do.’
The true-crime community convulsed in January 2025 with news of a possible sighting at the funeral of the mother of one of Kessinger’s friends in Billings, Montana.
The service was live-streamed online, and some viewers are convinced that Kessinger pops onto the screen for a few seconds before it started.
The woman in the video looks notably older and heavier than Kessinger did at the time of her affair with Watts.
The online clip went viral, prompting more than a year of speculation about the woman, her nose, the shape of her jaw, her gait, her dress and absence of a wedding ring.
Kessinger's friend in Montana would not confirm whether it was in fact Kessinger at her mother's funeral.
Experts Say Inner Circle Has Helped Protect Her Privacy
'We're talking about my mother's death here. I think this is a very inconsiderate phone call,' she told the Daily Mail .
Kessinger's father, Dwayne Kessinger, cursed us when we ask about his daughter's whereabouts, threatening, 'How would you like it if I went around hunting down your family members?
'I'm gonna go stalk your mother.'
Several privacy experts we spoke with say family and friends of people who disappear from public view often struggle in the awkward position of having to protect their privacy.
In a case like Kessinger's, with so many people worldwide trying to track her down, three of those experts noticed that her inner-circle has been especially tight-lipped
'Finding people is not just about their behavior; it's their whole network around them -- siblings, employers, family members, friends.
Those around her have obviously kept her secret,' said Harris, CEO of HavenX,a firm that helps clients enhance their privacy.
At 43, he has been living under the radar for several years now - not, he notes,because of any involvement in a scandal like Kessinger's,but rather 'out of principle'and a strong desire not to be found.
'It takes more effort,morenknowledge than you'd think,'he says,noting that Kessinger seems to have been especially disciplined in guarding her privacy.
Experts Say Staying Hidden Requires Resources and Vigilance
Harris suspects that she has either rented a home with an alias or bought one through a trust or limited liability corporation that shrouds her identity.
He advises clients to have their mail sent to P.O. boxes, UPS stores or their offices rather than home,and to pay for utilities,subscriptions and other expenses using only special credit cards that mask their identities.
Multiple cell phone accounts,inclusive of burner phones ,are advisable .And home deliveries ranging from Amazon items to food orders are strongly discouraged .
'My guess is that if she's gone this long without being found,she's probably figured all this out,'he said of Kessinger ,noting that extreme privacy takes a 'lifetime of vigilance.'
As technology evolves - and especially as facial recognition technology becomes more sophisticated and widely available - he notes it'll become 'harder and harder' for Kessinger to go unrecognized.
'One thing about the privacy business is that it's expensive,'another expert told us ,noting that he charges as much as $80,000 a year to keep updating and honing his clients' extreme privacy measures .
True,lasting privacy is a luxury these days ,he said .
'Without extensive resources ,even Waldo can't go missing forever.'