WATTS FAMILY MURDER New details
He pleaded guilty to killing his wife and children, now their last moments have been revealed
He received five life sentences without the possibility of parole on November 19 for the brutal August 13 killings of his wife and two young daughters. In the months since, more chilling details have come to light about Chris Watts’ final moments with his pregnant wife, Shanann, 34, and their daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3.
Newly released audio captures Watts’ confession from inside a Wisconsin prison as he was interviewed by officials from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of how he horrifically murdered his family and planned to start a new life with his mistress, 30-year-old Nichol Kessinger.
During his confession, Watts tells the investigators that Shanann had returned home from a business trip in Arizona on the day of her murder. The pair then had sex, before a fight later in the evening erupted with Watts coming clean about his affair. But when Shanann threatened to leave with their children, Watts attacked.
“It was like picturing someone around you, holding your hands, holding you and keeping you from letting go,” he said of the moment he jumped on Shanann and strangled her to death. “I don’t even want to say it felt like I had to, it just felt like there was already something in my mind that was implanted that I was going to do it and when I woke up that morning it was going to happen and I had no control over it.”
When Bella wandered into Watts’ bedroom, she “asked what was wrong with Mommy”, according to a report by the CBI. “He told Bella, ‘Mommy don’t feel good.’ Bella is a smart girl and knew what was going on.”
Watts confessed to murdering his wife, loading her body into the back of his truck and taking her to a remote oil field where he worked – their two young girls in tow. “As he drove to the oil site with Shanann, Bella and Celeste, he was nervous, shaking, and didn’t know what was going to happen,” reads the report, obtained by WHO. “He knew at that moment that his life was completely changed.”
Lawyer Stephen Lambert is representing Shanann’s family in a wrongful death suit against Watts. During the March 5 episode of Dr. Phil, Lambert detailed the family’s fateful final moments after Bella and Celeste watched their father dig a grave and bury their mother. “He walks over, takes Cece’s [Celeste’s] favourite blanket, and smothers her,” Lambert told Phil Mcgraw. “Then, he takes her body, takes it out of the vehicle. At this point, Bella had unbuckled herself from the vehicle.” Watts then smothered the 4-year-old with the blanket as she fought back, shouting: “Daddy, no!”
“Of the things that have been hard for [Shanann’s family] to comprehend and to accept in this reality, what happened to Bella in those last moments has been the hardest,” Lambert said.
Shanann’s heartbroken parents also appeared on Dr Phil, reacting with shock at Watts’ confession. “We thought that we had heard the worst already, we had no idea that it was worse than this.” her father Frank Rzucek said.
The CBI report reveals that Watts told investigators that “every time he sees pictures of Bella and Celeste, he doesn’t understand how it all could have happened. [He has] pictures of his wife and daughters in his prison cell and he talks to them.”
He reportedly “snapped” on the day of the murders and, speaking to investigators, commented on what his life might look like had he not taken their lives. “Right now,” he said, “I’d have a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and more than likely, a 1-month-old son and a beautiful wife, and right now it’s just me.”