DEFENSE DNA REQUEST DENIED IN DEATHS OF COLO. MOM, GIRLS
Father who spoke longingly for missing wife, daughters, accused of killing them
FREDERICK, Colo. — A Colorado judge denied a request by a defense attorney for a man accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters to require a coroner to collect DNA from the necks of the young girls.
The judge said in an order Friday he would not tell the medical examiner’s office involved in the case how to do its job, KMGH-TV and the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder reported.
Autopsies were completed Friday on Shanann Watts, 34, and her daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste. The cause of their deaths has not been made public. The motion seeking the DNA samples from the girls’ necks suggested that they may have been strangled.
Police arrested Chris Watts, 33, late Wednesday on suspicion of killing his wife and children. Their bodies were found on Thursday on property owned by Andarko Petroleum, one of Colorado’s largest oil and gas drillers, where Watts worked as an operator. Court documents filed by defense lawyer James Merson said the girls had been submerged in crude oil for four days.
After his wife and daughters were reported missing last week and before his arrest, Watts told reporters he missed them, and longed for the simple things like telling his girls to eat their dinner and gazing at them as they curled up to watch cartoons.
Shanann Watts had recently shared with family and friends that she was pregnant with their third child.
Authorities are expected to file formal charges Monday against Watts, an oil and gas worker who authorities said dumped his wife and daughters’ bodies on his employer’s property.
Watts was fired on Wednesday, the same day he was arrested, the company said. He did not respond to reporters’ questions when he was escorted into the courtroom Thursday.
Merson, Watts’ attorney through the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office, left Thursday’s court hearing without commenting to reporters. He did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment by The Associated Press.
Police have not released any information about a motive or how the three were killed.
The family’s two-story home is just outside Frederick, a small town on the grassy plains north of Denver, where fast-growing subdivisions intermingle with drilling rigs and oil wells.
According to a June 2015 bankruptcy filing, Christopher Watts had gotten a job six months earlier as an operator for Anadarko, and paystubs indicate his annual salary was about $61,500. Shanann Watts was working in a call center at a children’s hospital at the time, earning about $18 an hour — more for evenings, weekends or extra shifts she sometimes worked.
But the family remained caught between a promising future and financial strain from debt and other obligations.
The couple had a combined income of $90,000 in 2014. But they also had tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, along with some student loans and medical bills — for a total of $70,000 in unsecured claims on top of a sizable mortgage.
They said in the filing that their nearly $3,000 mortgage and $600 in monthly car payments formed the bulk of their $4,900 in monthly expenses.
Details about what led police to arrest Watts late Wednesday night on suspicion of three counts of murder and tampering with evidence likely were to be revealed next week.
Family and friends of Shanann Watts are left searching for answers, trying to reconcile Watts’ cheery Facebook posts about her daughters, her pregnancy and her love for her husband with the pending charges.
Ashley Bell met Shanann Watts about two years ago, when the mother of two came into Bell’s new tanning salon in nearby Dacono. The two women quickly became friends, and before long they were texting or calling each other almost daily. Their daughters played together during salon visits.
“I just don’t understand it,” said Bell, who described Christopher Watts as a loving father.