Netflix’s American Murder: The Family Next Door is heartbreaking

American Murder: The Family Next Door is now on Netflix

American Murder: The Family Next Door hasn’t even been on Netflix for 24 hours yet and the buzz around their new Netflix original documentary is through the roof! People on social media can’t stop talking about this heartbreaking but very important documentary.

We are going to dive in and take a look at the many key points throughout American Murder: The Family Next Door.

There’s nothing to spoil here. By now most of America and people around the world know about the Watts family murders. We all know about the tragic events that took place on Aug. 13, 2018, in Fredrick, Colorado.

On Aug. 13, Shanann Watts returned home from a business at 2 in the morning. Later, that day her friend was worried about her because she had missed her 9 a.m. doctor’s appointment and hadn’t heard back from Shanann after blowing up her phone with calls and text messages. At this point, she had contacted the local police about her concerns.

Shanann’s husband claimed to have not heard from Shanann either as he returned home to meet with the local authorities. When searching the home, police found her cell phone and wedding ring as well.

A few days later after Chris had failed a polygraph test, he confessed to murdering Shanann. But at the time, he claimed that it was out of rage due to the fact that Shanann has strangled their daughters to death. The story didn’t make sense to authorities at all.

Chris later confessed in detail that he did in fact kill Celeste and Bella as well. We will get back to this.

This documentary is different than most. In most, we get an interview set up-type of ordeal where you hear from people close and people dealing with the investigation and case overall. This was not the case.

American Murder which is directed by the incredible Jenny Popplewell uses social media, police video, text messages, home videos, and more to tell its story. This entire documentary is told through the eyes and voice of the people involved in this case from archival never before seen footage.

For myself and I’m sure many of you, seeing this footage of the family, and especially Celeste and Bella, will have you tearing up throughout this hour and fifteen-minute documentary.

This story is sad enough, but I found that in the last 10 minutes of American Murder had me breaking down the most. I’m not going to say exactly what that is because frankly, I don’t want to. It’s that heartbreaking.

Despite how sad and hard American Murder may be to watch, I believe it’s a must-watch. It goes to show you that no matter how great things may seem on social media or on the outside, people can be dealing with serious issues. Unfortunately in this particular situation, Shanann, Celeste, and Bella were victims of a heinous act by a terrible person.

American Murder: The Family Next Door is now streaming on Netflix.