/biz/ - Business & Finance

Chris and Shanann Watts detailed their life on social media. They shared photos of beach vacations to San Diego and screengrabs of lovey-dovey text messages. They gushed about their daughters, Bella and Celeste, and posted photos of the little girls' gap-toothed grins and funny dances.

"Happy Husband Appreciation Day! I couldn't imagine a better man for us," Shanann Watts wrote next to their photo in April.

Four months after Shanann Watts posted that photo, her husband sits in a jail in Colorado, suspected of killing her, along with Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. As stunned friends and neighbors ask how the story of a couple that seemed so picture perfect could end so tragically, bankruptcy filings reveal a family that had struggled financially. Chris and Shanann Watts filed for bankruptcy in June 2015, according to documents in the court record. That was after they bought their house, an asset valued at $400,000, records show.

The year prior to the bankruptcy filing, the couple had a combined income of $91,000 -- most of it earned by Chris Watts, who made about $63,000 from his job at Anadarko Petroleum, records show. The rest was earned by Shanann Watts, who worked in 2014 at Children's Hospital Colorado. Still, they were about $70,000 in debt, most of it from student loans and credit card purchases, according to the filings. The couple reported two savings accounts with a total of $9.51 and a joint checking account with $864.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/18/us/colorado-watts-family-financial-struggles/index.html