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Chris Watts is serving five life sentences for the brutal murder of his pregnant wife and two young daughters.
The twisted father brutally killed his wife, Shan’ann, shortly after she returned home from a business trip.
Watts then went on to suffocate his two daughters, Celeste, three, and four-year-old Bella to death before dumping Shan’ann’s body in a shallow grave and her children in tankers.
He then quietly returned home, where he contacted the police and reported his entire family missing.
But the officers, and even the family’s own neighbors, quickly saw his act and he was arrested, charged, and ultimately pleaded guilty to killing Shan’ann, Bella, and Celeste.
(Image: 9 News)
To the outside world, Watts seemed like the perfect father and devoted husband and seemed delighted that his wife was expecting their third child, a boy they had planned to name Nico.
But what the devout Shan’ann didn’t know was that her husband was cheating on her and hatched a devious plan to kill his wife and children.
To the outside world, Watts seemed like the perfect father and devoted husband and seemed delighted that his wife was expecting their third child, a boy they had planned to name Nico.
But what the devout Shan’ann did not know was that her husband was cheating on her and hatched a devious plan to kill his wife and children.
It was when Shan’ann returned to the family home in Colorado after a business trip that Watts put his plan into action.
(Image: Netflix)
Shan’ann and her husband had a big fight when he confessed his affair and in the heat of the moment she told him that she would have full custody of their children.
In cold blood, Watts later strangled his wife to death, but his brutal actions were witnessed.
Steven Lambert, the attorney representing the Shannan Watts family in a wrongful death lawsuit, told America’s Dr. Phil Show: “On the night in question, Shanann came home.
“She and Chris had quarreled. They reconciled. They got along really well. Later, they got into a fight again. In that fight, he essentially confessed to having an affair, that he wanted a divorce.”
“That it was all over between them and that she had said something like, ‘Well, you won’t see the children again.’
(Image: Netflix)
“As a consequence of that conversation, he strangled her to death.”
But after Watts murdered her mother and wrapped Shan’ann’s body in a blanket, little Bella came into the room and asked “what are you doing to mom?”
The four-year-old, who was said to be bright for her age “knew something was up,” according to Lambert.
What happened next was truly chilling. Watts put Shan’ann’s body in the trunk of the family car, put his two girls in the back seat and buckled them up.
The murderous father drove 45 minutes to an oil field before carrying out the second part of his gruesome plan.
During the trip, Bella is said to have begged her father to take 34-year-old Shan’ann to the hospital.
(Image: Netflix)
When they got to the oil field, they first covered Celeste with her favorite blanket. Bella witnessed the murder and begged her father not to kill her before trying to escape.
Mr. Lamber explained, “At this point, Bella had unbuckled from the vehicle.”
The prosecution in the Watts court case claimed that he had killed the girl “deliberately and cruelly.”
Watts then buried his wife in a shallow grave before disposing of the bodies of their two daughters in an oil tanker before returning to the family home and reporting all three missing.
The killer even gave interviews to the press, pleading with his family to come home and stating that he had no idea where they had gone.
Watts even sent text messages to his wife, asking where she was, after he killed her.
(Image: Netflix)
But the network was fast closing in on the killer father and within days he had failed a polygraph test and then he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Watts has never revealed any details about how he killed his entire family, and because he pleaded guilty, the details were not released in court.
Last year, Watts spoke with FBI and CBI agents, as well as a member of the Frederick Police Department, about the killings.
Shan’ann’s parents, the Rzucek, were briefed on what was said and it has been claimed that the father murdered his wife Shan’ann in an act of anger after she murdered their two young daughters.
Watts had claimed that he saw the couple’s daughter, Bella, dead in his bed and Shanann in the process of strangling Celeste on the baby monitor.
(Image: Instagram)
Local police and the FBI did not believe his story and eventually charged the father with three counts of first degree murder.
Watts is currently behind bars in Wisconsin, United States, after being sentenced in November to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
He only escaped the death penalty because he pleaded guilty to all the charges against him.
Last year, horrific letters from the triple killer surfaced, detailing how he had murdered his family and talking about his obsession with the woman he was having an affair with, Nichol Kessinger.
Nichol knew nothing about Watts’ chilling plan and believed that he had separated from his wife when she began a relationship with his colleague.
She also did not know that Shan’ann was pregnant and when she found out what Watts had done, Nichol told police everything she knew about the man she had been dating.
(Image: Instagram)
Following her testimony, Nichol has been placed under witness protection and is believed to have changed her identity.
Written by Cherlyn Cadle, she and the killer wrote to each other and their haunting confessions became the book Letters from Christopher.
He told her, “All I could feel was that I was now free to be with Nikki. The feelings of my love for her were getting over me. I didn’t feel any remorse.
“The darkness within me had won, it was still in me, yet I thought maybe permanently. I felt bad, swallowed up by this thing inside me. I felt like I could kill anything and be justified in doing it.”
The chilling collection of letters included in the book also details gruesome details about how Watts killed his family, including suffocating his daughters twice.
He says that even before his argument with Shan’ann, he went to Bella’s room first and then to Celeste’s and used a pillow to suffocate them.
(Image: Facebook)
Then the killer calmly returned to bed with his wife, argued with her, and then killed her.
Watts described in horrifying detail what his wife looked like as he strangled her to death.
She said to Cherlyn, “Isn’t it weird how I look back and what I remember so much is that her face went all black with smears of mascara?
“His eyes filled with blood; when he looked at me and died. I knew he was gone when he relieved himself.”
Watts wrote: “After Shanann passed away, Bella and Cece woke up again. I’m not sure how they woke up, but they did.
“Bella’s eyes were purple and both girls seemed to have been through trauma. That made the act that much worse.”
It was then that he wrapped his wife in a sheet and put her in the car while his terrified daughters watched. He told Bella and Celeste that Shan’ann was “sick”.
He then drove to the oil field where he threw his wife’s body into her shallow grave with such force that she partially gave birth to the baby she was carrying.
Watts told Cherlyn, “She landed upside down, I remember I was so mad at her that I wasn’t going to change how she landed.”
He then suffocated his youngest daughter with the blanket he was carrying before dropping her into an oil tank.
Watts told the author, “I couldn’t believe how easy it was to drop it down the hole and let it go. I heard the splash when it hit the oil.”
He then turned his attention to four-year-old Bella, who begged her father for her life.
Watts said: “Bella calmly wanted to live. Of the three, Bella is the only one who resisted.
“I’ll listen to her soft little voice for the rest of my life, saying, ‘Daddy, NO! She knew what she was doing to him. She may not understand death, but she knew it was killing her.”
- An American Murder: The Family Next Door is streaming on Netflix now.
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