Chris Watts' daughter's devastating final words before being killed by her dad
Chris Watt dismissed his child's last words before murdering her in his vehicle, marking one of history's most disturbing homicide cases. The parent of two now serves five life sentences for killing his expectant spouse, Shannan Watt, and their young daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, in a brutal family slaying that occurred in Frederick, Colorado, during August 2018.
The crime was exceptionally heinous—Colorado residents were horrified to discover Watts not only slaughtered his family, including an unborn child, but also placed his daughters' bodies in an oil container, while investigators later discovered their mother in a shallow burial site. The girls were inserted into tanks with eight-inch openings at the top.
Shannan's parents requested prosecutors refrain from pursuing capital punishment, resulting in Watts entering a guilty plea and receiving five life terms, with three running consecutively. The 39-year-old admitted to choking his wife and suffocating his two children, who pleaded for their lives, according to the Mirror US.
He later confessed in correspondence that he attempted to give his wife OxyContin to terminate her pregnancy, and had contemplated killing her for "weeks." The American had begun an extramarital relationship that same summer, and Watts stated the violence started after Shanann confronted him about his affair.
A February 2019 report released through ABC News revealed the murderer acknowledged telling his wife he didn't love her, prompting her response: "You're never gonna see the kids again." He then strangled her with both hands at their residence, reflecting: "Every time I think about it, I wonder if I knew I would do that before I got on top of her."
"It felt like something was already planted in my mind that I would do it and when I awoke that morning it was going to happen and I had no control," he claimed.
Watts stated his wife neither resisted nor fought back, and Bella entered the room soon after, asking: "What's wrong with mommy?" The Colorado Bureau of Investigation report included Watts' statement that he placed his daughters in his truck's back seat, with Shannan's body on the floor, and drove to his workplace oil site, with the girls falling asleep in each other's laps.
He subsequently used Celeste's blue Yankees blanket to strangle her, while Bella remained quiet, as Watts transported the body to the oil tank. Bella then questioned: "Is the same thing gonna happen to me as Cece?" before beginning to struggle. Her last statement to her father was: "Daddy, no!" He admitted that he hears these two words whenever he shuts his eyes.
Watts disclosed to officials that he positioned Shannan's ring on the counter to create the impression she wanted a divorce, and in August 2018, he deceived journalists. In his statement to KMGH, he claimed he departed early: "When I returned and entered the house, nothing. Disappeared. Nothing remained here."
Within days, authorities recovered the bodies and arrested Watts. During questioning, he explained in the report that he couldn't acknowledge his actions to himself or law enforcement, mentioning he hadn't considered fabricating a story about his wife killing their children until someone suggested it to him.
