The Colorado husband and father who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and their young daughters in horrific fashion has provided more details to authorities about the murders, details that will likely come out on March 7.
Nothing Chris Watts does from now until his death will enable him to taste freedom again. In Nov. 2018, Watts was sentenced the three lifetimes in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders of his wife Shanann and daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. Watts was sentenced to an additional 12 years for each of three counts of tampering with the bodies, plus 48 years for ending his wife’s pregnancy. Their unborn son was to be named Nico.
Watts, however, has told investigators more about his heinous crimes, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has announced. ABC News reported on Thursday afternoon that Watts “provided investigators with additional information about the murders of Shanann, Bella, and Celeste” during a visit from investigators on Feb. 18.
Watts is incarcerated at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisc.
Although the details of what was said have not yet been made public, the CBI anticipates publicizing a written report and audio of the interview on March 7.
After his wife and kids disappeared, Watts shamelessly begged for the safe return of his family on a local news broadcast. The man who presented himself as a concerned husband and father turned out to be the one who murdered them all. He even tried to blame the murders of the girls on Shanann, saying that he only killed his wife because she murdered their children.
The facts didn’t match his claims and the prosecution made that abundantly clear the day Watts was put away for life.
Weld County DA Michael Rourke said that Watts “coldly and deliberately ended four lives,” not in a fit of rage as Watts initially claimed, but in a “calculating manner.” Rourke said that Watts strangled Shanann to death with his own hands and “slowly took her life.”
“It was not done in an uncontrolled vengeful manner,” Rourke said.
“The man she loved choked the life out of her,” Rourke said. “What must Bella, age 4, and Celeste, age 3, thought as their father, the one man on this earth who was supposed to protect them […] snuffed out their lives?”
He said the girls both died from smothering and one of them fought back.
“The man seated to my right smothered his daughters,” Rourke said. “Bella fought back for her life.”
“She bit her tongue multiple times before she died,” he added. Rourke said that the autopsy did not show that Celeste had similar signs of external injury, but “Celeste was smothered nonetheless.”
Then Watts “calmly and methodically loaded their bodies into his work truck,” Rourke said. “In one final sign of callousness he drove them to a location where he thought no one would ever find them.”
“He ensured that they would not be together, even in death,” disposing of their bodies in separate locations.
“Bella and Celeste were thrown away,” Rourke said, adding that Bella was shoved through an 8-inch hatch at the top of the oil tank she was dumped in. He said Bella had scratches on her buttocks from being shoved through that hatch.
The prosecution would conclude that Watts killed his family because he wanted to start a new life with his mistress. The judge called this a “senseless crime” and a “vicious” crime.
“The despicable act of disposing of the bodies in the manner in which they were done in this case,” the judge said. “I could objectively say that this is the perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime that I have handled out of the thousands of cases that I have seen.”
“Nothing less than a maximum sentence would be appropriate,” he said.
[Image via RJ Sangosti, Pool/Getty Images]
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