Watts pleads guilty to killing his family, avoids death penalty
Frederick man will serve life in prison for three murders
Christopher Watts, the Frederick man who killed his pregnant wife and two young daughters and then hid their bodies in an oil field, pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon to nine charges in exchange for avoiding the death penalty.
A plea deal was approved by Shanann Watts’ parents, who met a few weeks ago in their North Carolina home with Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke to discuss the death penalty and the risks and emotions that go with it.
In the end, the family did not want to go through the ordeal.
Shanann Watts’ mother, Sandra Rzucek, had offered the best explanation of the family’s decision, Rourke said during a news conference.
“She said, ‘He made the choice to take their lives,’ ” Rourke said. “‘I didn’t want to be in the position to make the choice to take his.’ ”
The plea agreement stipulates that Christopher Watts serve consecutive life sentences for the three murders. He pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. He will be sentenced Nov. 19.
The Weld County judge read each of the charges to Watts in court Tuesday, noting the full name of Shanann and the girls, Bella and Celeste, in each of the murder charges. Shanann also was pregnant with a baby boy that
she had planned to name Nico Lee.
Watts’ voice wavered as he answered “guilty” to each charge.
Police arrested Watts in August in connection to the killings of Shanann, 34, and Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. Investigators found the bodies of Shanann and the girls in rural Weld County on the property of Anadarko Petroleum, the company where Christopher Watts worked. The girls’ bodies were found in an oil tank and their mother’s body was found in a shallow grave nearby.
Watts and the district attorney reached the plea deal about four days ago, Rourke said.
Rourke said he traveled to North Carolina to discuss a proposed agreement in depth with Shanann Watts’ parents and brother after Watts’ defense attorneys first approached him about a deal. The family attended the hearing Tuesday, and they sat nearby, holding each other’s hands, as Rourke spoke to reporters on their behalf during the news conference.
“There were a lot of emotions that went through their minds,” Rourke said of the family. “It was a combination of relief, extreme sadness that we had to have that conversation in the first place.”
The prosecutor spoke with the family about the realities of pursuing death penalty cases in Colorado including “extreme delays,” specifically using the case of Nathan Dunlap as an example. Dunlap was sentenced to death in 1993 for murdering four people in a Chuck E. Cheese’s but re- mains alive as one of three people on Colorado’s death row.
The state has executed one person since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, and juries have decided to not impose the sentence in at least two high profile cases in which they were given the option, including that of the Aurora theater shooter trial in 2015.
Rourke said he would not have accepted a deal that permitted the dismissal of any of the charges against Watts. The proposed imposition of three consecutive life sentences was important even though it does not make any practical difference, he said.
“It was important that each of those beautiful human beings be reflected in the sentence,” Rourke said.
Watts, 33, had been scheduled to appear for a status hearing Nov. 19, but Rourke on Friday announced in a court filing that a hearing would be held Tuesday. The filing did not offer any information about what the hearing would concern and a spokeswoman for Rourke declined on Monday to explain what the hearing was about.
Watts remained in Weld County Jail on Tuesday without bail.
During sentencing hearings, victims are allowed to speak to the judge to explain the crime’s impact and what kind of punishment they want to impose. The defendant also gets to present a case for mercy.
Shanann Watts’ family continues to consider whether they will speak at the sentencing, Rourke said.
Rourke said he could not discuss many of the details of the case because sentencing is still pending but said investigators believed they had a partial motive as to why Watts killed his family. He did not reveal that motive Tuesday.
Officials have not released the cause of the deaths, but a defense motion filed in August suggested that the two girls had been strangled. Weld County coroners have completed autopsies on the three bodies, but those reports remained sealed. Rourke said he did not intend to keep them sealed after sentencing.
Watts attempted to blame the death of the two girls on his wife to police. But his statements were “a flat-out lie,” Rourke said.
Shanann, Bella and Celeste Watts were reported missing Aug. 13 by a family friend. Christopher Watts appeared on local television news pleading for his family’s safe return the day before he was arrested in their deaths.
Watts told police that he asked his wife for a separation on Aug. 12, according to his arrest affidavit. Investigators found that he had been in an affair with a coworker, the affidavit states.
He told police that he strangled Shanann to death in rage after he saw her strangling their daughter, Celeste, on a video baby monitor after they talked about the separation, according to the affidavit. He said their other daughter was “sprawled” on a bed and appeared blue on the monitor.
Watts told police that he then loaded the bodies into his truck and took them to the Anadarko work site, according to the affidavit. Investigators later found the bodies there. Shanann Watts was buried in a shallow grave, and the girls’ bodies were found in an oil tank.
While plea deals are sometimes celebrated by law enforcement, Tuesday’s deal was nothing to celebrate, Rourke said.
“No one wins today,” he said.