The Trial: USA

The murders made him famous. Then came a tidal wave of female admiration.

Chris Watts has a flourishing love life behind bars at the Dodge Correctional Facility in Wisconsin in spite of the unspeakable acts he committed against his family in 2018. He’s serving multiple life sentences for the murders of his wife Shannan, their daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, and his unborn son Nico.

The confessed murderer was driven by a desire to be clear of his suburban dad's existence.

Chris Watts’s daughters adored him as depicted in a large collection of home videos. Bella even joyfully performed a song from her car seat referring to him as “a hero.”

Yet there are a number of women clamoring for his attention including one who left her husband and uprooted her life to be one of Watts’s girlfriends.

The Trial: USA’s Kayla Brantley speaks to Crime Desk reporters Steve Helling, Ruth Bashinsky and Rachel Sharp about the women who fawn over Watts and enable his deranged self-image.

The entire Chris Watts Unmasked series is available right now, ad free, to crime desk subscribers. Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access to new shows, exclusive bonus episodes and complete access to our true-crime podcast collection. Visit plus.thecrimedesk.com/the-trial-usa for more information.

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Presenter: Kayla Brantley

Producers: Shayna Jacobs and Sam Morris

Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

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Presenter: Kayla Brantley
Producer: Shayna Jacobs
Editor: Sam Morris
Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham
Executive Producer: Jamie East

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The life that Chris and Shannan Watts had was slipping away.

The doting wife and mom fought to keep her family together. The couple was expecting another child — a son, Nico — and they had two happy and energetic little girls already.

As Shannan tried to keep her family together, her anxiety and fears intensified. Her husband had been acting strangely. She suspected an affair but he denied it as he went through the motions of his life as a suburban husband and father.

In actuality, Chris Watts had become a stranger.

This installment of The Trial: USA’s special series on Chris Watts explores his life of cheating, dating app activity and fabrications leading up to the point where he murdered his entire family on Aug. 13, 2018 — nearly eight years ago.

The couple’s children, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, became victims in one of the most heartbreaking and inexplicable domestic crimes in recent memory.

Along with their mother, the girls were callously killed by Chris Watts, who by all accounts has exhibited no remorse since it happened. Their remains were dumped in industrial oil tanks at a site belonging to Watts’s company. Shannan was discarded in a surrounding field.

You’ll hear from our interview with Amanda McMahon, who said she met Watts on Tinder and carried on a casual relationship with him for months beginning the spring of 2017.

We also explore his steamy romance with Nichol Kessinger, a co-worker who Watts was enamored with in the lead up to the killings.

The Trial: USA’s Kayla Brantley dives deep into Chris Watts’s sordid hidden life before he annihilated his family, joined by Crime Desk reporters Luke Kenton, Steve Helling and Rachel Sharp.

The entire Chris Watts Unmasked series is available right now, ad free, to crime desk subscribers. Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access to new shows, exclusive bonus episodes and complete access to our true-crime podcast collection. Visit plus.thecrimedesk.com/the-trial-usa for more information.

Click here to sign up to The Crime Desk's weekly newsletter. It's free and packed with exclusive interviews, expert insight, and gripping deep dive investigations from across the world.

Follow us on TikTok: @DailyMailCrime

Email us: thetrial@dailymail.com

WhatsApp us: +44 7796 657512 Start your message with Trial

Presenter: Kayla Brantley
Producers: Shayna Jacobs and Sam Morris
Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham
Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Follow us on TikTok: @DailyMailCrime
Email us: thetrial@dailymail.com
WhatsApp us: +44 7796 657512 Start your message with Trial

Presenter: Kayla Brantley
Producer: Shayna Jacobs
Editor: Sam Morris
Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham
Executive Producer: Jamie East

Click here to sign up to The Crime Desk's weekly newsletter.
It's free and packed with exclusive interviews, expert insight, and gripping deep dive investigations from across the world.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melissa Barthelemy went missing in 2009 when her doting kid sister Amanda Funderburg was just 15.

Amid a desperate search, Amanda began getting calls from Melissa's phone. The teen hoped it was good sign — that Melissa resurfaced or that someone had information.

Instead, it was the first of a series of calls from a deranged stranger who bragged about killing and sexually assaulting the 24-year-old Buffalo native.

The caller refused Amanda's pleas to share her sister's location. Amanda spent years dreading the possibility that the "repulsive monster" would reemerge.

Seventeen years after the first call, Amanda got to face Rex Heuermann in court. He was finally in custody and no longer a threat to Melissa’s family or anyone else.

Heuermann is serving more than three life sentences after pleading guilty in connection to eight murders. Investigators are trying to determine if he’s responsible for additional killings.

On this week’s The Trial: USA, Funderburg speaks to Daily Mail reporters Ruth Bashinsky and Rachel Sharp about her sister, her family’s struggle and what Heuermann deserves.

Follow us on TikTok: @DailyMailCrime
Email us: thetrial@dailymail.com
WhatsApp us: +44 7796 657512 Start your message with Trial

Presenter: Kayla Brantley
Producer: Shayna Jacobs
Editor: Sam Morris
Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham
Executive Producer: Jamie East

Click here to sign up to The Crime Desk's weekly newsletter.
It's free and packed with exclusive interviews, expert insight, and gripping deep dive investigations from across the world.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rex Heuermann’s victims got a measure of justice last month, but the pain and the questions linger for their families. The deranged former architect spent decades murdering sex workers and callously dumping their brutalized remains around Gilgo Beach, Long Island.

Heuermann, 62, was sentenced last month to more than three life sentences in prison for eight murders. He was captured in 2023 by investigators who stealthily captured him on a midtown Manhattan street after collecting DNA evidence and tracking his activities.

Anguished relatives of the young women he killed finally had the chance to address Heuermann at his June 17 sentencing. They shared with the world the torment of living without answers for years.

This week on The Trial: USA, we bring you a special interview from Daily Mail reporters Rachel Sharp and Ruth Bashinsky with the family of Gilgo Beach victim Megan Waterman, a 22-year-old Maine resident who was killed in 2010.

Elizabeth Meserve was among a group of victim relatives who doggedly pushed law enforcement to solve the Gilgo Beach case. She’s joined today by her niece, Liliana Waterman. Liliana is Megan’s daughter who was just 3 years old when her mom disappeared.

In this episode, you’ll hear their story of pain and perseverance — and what it was like to finally see Heuermann face consequences.
Follow us on TikTok: @DailyMailCrime
Email us: thetrial@dailymail.com
WhatsApp us: +44 7796 657512 Start your message with Trial

Presenter: Kayla Brantley
Producer: Shayna Jacobs
Editor: Sam Morris
Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham
Executive Producer: Jamie East

Click here to sign up to The Crime Desk's weekly newsletter.
It's free and packed with exclusive interviews, expert insight, and gripping deep dive investigations from across the world.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s another chance for Alex Murdaugh to try to prove he did not callously gun down his wife and youngest son.

Murdaugh was previously convicted of fatally shooting Maggie and Paul Murdaugh in a desolate area of his family’s sprawling South Carolina property.

The wealthy Lowcountry lawyer got a reprieve in May when the state’s top court found an elected clerk who managed the trial had inappropriate dealings with jurors.

Murdaugh was in court last week for the first time since that ruling.

On this episode, the Daily Mail’s Rachel Sharp joins The Trial: USA host Kayla Brantley to break down what happened in court and what may be next.

Follow us on TikTok: @DailyMailCrime
Email us: thetrial@dailymail.com
WhatsApp us: +44 7796 657512 Start your message with Trial

Presenter: Kayla Brantley
Producer: Shayna Jacobs
Editor: Sam Morris
Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham
Executive Producer: Jamie East

Click here to sign up to The Crime Desk's weekly newsletter.
It's free and packed with exclusive interviews, expert insight, and gripping deep dive investigations from across the world.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.