Suspect “went into a rage”

Frederick man told police he killed wife after catching her strangling child, court records show

GREELEY» The Frederick man charged with murder Monday in the deaths of his pregnant wife and two preschool-aged daughters told police he caught his wife strangling one of their children, leading him to then strangle her in “a rage.”

Christopher Watts told a Frederick Police Department detective that he saw his wife, Shanann, strangling their youngest daughter, 3-year-old Celeste, on a baby monitor. Their oldest daughter, 4year-old Bella, already was “sprawled out on her bed and blue,” according to an arrest-warrant affidavit released by the courts Monday. The affidavit offered new details about the investigation of Christopher Watts, 33, and the deaths of his 34-year-old wife and two daughters.

“Chris said he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death,” the affidavit said.

After Watts killed his wife, he loaded all three bodies into his pickup truck and drove them to an oil field in Weld County, where he dumped the girls’ bodies into an oil tank and buried his wife in a shallow grave near the tanks, the affidavit said.

The affidavit was unsealed by a judge Monday afternoon after Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke filed charges

against Watts, including five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of pregnancy in the first degree and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

Watts will appear in Weld County District Court at 10 a.m. Tuesday for an advisement hearing.

On Monday, Shanann Watts’ family made their first public statement since her and the girls’ deaths when her father, Frank Rzucek, addressed the media at a news conference at the Weld County Courthouse. Reading from a folded piece of paper and with his voice shaking, he thanked the Frederick police for their investigation and locating his family’s burial sites. He also thanked the public for their outpouring of support.

“Keep the prayers coming for our family,” Rzucek said.

The deaths have shaken Watts’ friends and family as well as strangers who have been horrified of accusations of a man killing his pregnant wife and two young daughters.

On Friday night, more than 150 people attended a candlelight vigil outside the Watts family home, where a growing memorial of stuffed animals, flowers and candles rests. National media attended Monday’s news conference at which Rourke announced the charges.

Before Watts confessed to police, he told them his wife and children were missing. Shanann had returned home around 1:48 a.m. Tuesday from a work trip in Arizona, and Watts said he asked her for a separation around 4 a.m. He was having an affair with a coworker, the affidavit said.

“Chris stated it was a civil conversation and they were not arguing but emotional,” the affidavit said.

He also told the detective that they both cried. Shanann Watts wanted to go to a friend’s house the next day, the affidavit said.

Shanann Watts was reported missing on Wednesday after fail- ing to answer messages from a friend and missing a doctor’s appointment. Watts was 15 weeks pregnant with a son, who would have been named Neko. The pregnancy had been difficult, the affidavit said.

The friend who reported her missing also called Watts and asked him to come home to check on his family. Police arrived at their Frederick house before Watts, the affidavit said. An officer who went into the house with Watts’ permission found Shanann’s purse, cellphone and medication inside.

The next day, after the mother and children had not come home, police issued a public notification that they were missing. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI joined the search.

As the search intensified, Watts gave interviews to Denver TV stations in which he pleaded for his wife and children to come home.

Two days into the investigation, Watts told a detective “he would tell the truth after speaking with his dad,” the affidavit said. Watts’ father already was at the police station.

“After being allowed to speak with his father, Chris stated (that) after he told Shanann he wanted a separation, he walked downstairs for a moment and then returned to his bedroom to speak to Shanann again,” the affidavit said.

That’s when Watts told police he saw his wife strangling Celeste on the baby monitor, which was on a nightstand by their bed.

Rourke was tight-lipped during the Monday news conference, citing the ongoing investigation. It is too early to say whether he’ll consider the death penalty in this case, to which he has assigned three prosecutors, Rourke said.

He explained the charge of unlawful termination of a pregnancy, which is a relatively new crime in Colorado.

The state does not have a law that allows district attorneys to charge someone with murder over the death of a fetus. In 2015, Dynel Lane, who cut an unborn child out of Longmont woman Michelle Wilkins’ womb, was convicted of unlawful termination of a pregnancy, along with attempted first-degree murder and four counts of assault.

On Friday, the Weld County Coroner’s Office confirmed the three bodies found at the oil tanks, which are owned by Anadarko Petroleum Company, belonged to Shanann, Bella and Celeste.

However, a cause of death has not yet been determined.

Police discovered a bed sheet in the field near the tank battery that matched the pattern of other linens found in a kitchen trash can at the Watts home earlier that day, according to the affidavit.

Watts had worked for Anadarko until Wednesday, when he was fired.