“He just kept saying that he didn’t know where she was and that she was on a play date,” said Atkinson, recalling the conversation she had with Chris the day Shanann went missing. “But he couldn’t give us the name of the friend. I knew he had something to do with it the day I was at his house with him, but I didn’t want to think that.”
Atkinson said she believed the couple were happily married—but that Chris Watts, unprompted, brought up the issue of separation when she called him the day Shanann went missing, which she thought was strange.
“She didn’t talk about leaving him or separating. She very much loved her family and wanted to be a family,” said Atkinson. “I didn’t find out that they were going to separate or anything like that until I called Chris that morning.
“When I called him and asked him where she was, that's when he told me and I basically told him that that wasn't my [concern] at that particular moment because it wasn't and that their business was their business, that they would either work it out or they wouldn't.”
She says he suspicions were further fueled when a neighbor's security video showed that Shanann didn't leave the house after she was dropped off—but Chris Watts did. Atkinson says that discovery proved to her that “there was something seriously wrong.”
“He wasn't being the loving Chris that he normally was,” said Atkinson. “He wasn't touching or hugging or doing stuff like that. He wasn't being as attentive to the girls as he normally is.”
Atkinson went on to say that when the bodies were discovered it was “one of my worst nightmares,” adding: “I sat on our bed for, I don’t know how long, and didn’t move because I didn’t want to think that they weren’t coming back.”
Neighbor knew something was 'seriously wrong' before man confessed to killing family
