Heartbreaking last pleading words of daughter killed by her own dad Chris Watts

03 December 2023 , 07:00

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The world was shocked when it was discovered Watts had murdered his pregnant wife, Shanann, and their two daughters (Image: Netflix)

In a case that shocked the world, a dad of two strangled his pregnant wife before smothering his daughters and dumped their bodies inside an oil tank.

Horrifying details emerged as Christopher Watts faced justice for his heinous crimes, including the heart-wrenching last words of his four-year-old daughter. Bella, four, watched as her father dragged her mother's body out of his truck and smothered her three-year-old sister Celeste with her blanket before she herself was smothered to death by her dad.

On August 13, 2018, 34-year-old Shanann Watts was reported missing by her friend and colleague, Nicola Atkinson. Shanann, who was 15 weeks pregnant, and her two daughters, Bella and Celeste, weren't at home and Shanann wasn't answering messages from either Nicole or her husband, Christopher Watts.

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When Shanann missed a doctor's appointment, Nicole called and asked police to perform a welfare check. As they searched the family's Denver, Colorado, home, they found Shanann's phone between sofa cushions, her bag in the kitchen, and her car on the property. The next day she and the two young girls were declared missing.

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With his pregnant wife and two young daughters missing, Watts made televised pleas for their safe return. But police soon began to question his story.

Chris Watts claimed Shannan had taken the girls and vanished (Netflix)

All was not well in the Watts household. Shanann and Chris' relationship was struggling, and the pair had spent six weeks apart after she found out she was pregnant with their third child just months earlier. By the end of June, Chris was in a new relationship.

He was having an affair with a co-worker, Nichol Kessinger. She said Chris had told her he was in the process of separating from his wife. By July, Shanann began to question her husband's behaviour, claiming he was being distant.

By August 8, Shanann was telling friends that Chris wanted a divorce, while she didn't. She said he had told her he was "scared to death" about the baby on the way, saying he didn't want it. She added he had "changed" toward her, that he was cold and physically distant.

Chris and Shanann with Celeste and Bella (Instagram)

On August 9, Shanann left for a work trip in Arizona. She sent a friend a draft of a letter she was writing to Chris about their relationship, saying how much she had missed him while they were apart and how painful it had been for her. But while she was away, Chris had reportedly hired a babysitter for Bella and Celeste and took his new love interest out.

Two days after Shanann had been reported missing Nichol Kessinger told police about her affair with Chris after seeing him on the news and realising he had lied about the state of his marriage and Shanann's pregnancy. He was then formally accused of murder.

A photograph of Shanann Watts and her daughters, Bella, 4, left, and Celeste, 3, is shown at a makeshift memorial in Frederick, Colorado (AP)

He failed a lie detector test and then confessed to killing his pregnant wife. He presented multiple different accounts of what happened the night of August 13, including that he and Shanann had got into a fight, with him revealing he was having an affair and wanted a divorce, her threatening to take the kids away and then Chris saying Shanann killed her daughters in retaliation. He also said once he had killed Shanann, he told his daughter she was sick and had to go to the hospital.

But in 2019, Chris' story changed again. In a letter, he confessed the killings were premeditated, rather than committed in a fit of rage as he had previously claimed. He said he attempted to cause Shanan to miscarry by slipping her oxycodone, as he thought it would make it easier to leave her.

Chris Watts will spend the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters (AP)

He then revealed he had attempted to kill both of his daughters before he strangled Shanann - an attack they survived - before taking them all out to the site where they ultimately died. On February 18, 2019, Watts gave what authorities believe to be his first full confession.

Three months after he was sentenced to life in prison, authorities visited Watts in prison. They told him "his life and situation was unique and [they] wanted to fully understand what happened", according to a written summary of the interview.

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An audio recording of the interview indicates Watts, then 33, had no hesitation about talking. He acknowledged his previous story of killing Shanann after she strangled the two girls was a lie, admitting to being solely responsible for the killings.

In a chilling retelling of the gruesome crime, Watts said he strange Shanann in their bed after he told her their marriage was over and she would never see their children again. He said his wife correctly suspected he was having an affair, but he did not admit to this before killing her.

Chris' crimes were the subject of a Netflix documentary - American Murder: The Family Next Door (Netflix)

Chris Watts also confessed that he had slipped the potent painkiller Oxycodone to his wife in the hope of inducing a miscarriage

He told the investigators that Nichol Kessinger "never asked him to get rid of his family", but their relationship may have "contributed" to his actions. After he strangled his pregnant wife, Watts said Bella, the older daughter, came into their bedroom clutching a blanket.

She asked him what was wrong with her mum, with Watts claiming she wasn't feeling well. He said Bella watched as he wrapped the body in a bed sheet, and began crying as he pulled it down the stairs of their home.

Watts said he put her body on the floor of his truck's backseat, and when he went back inside, their youngest daughter, Celeste, was also awake. He said he put the girls in the backseat of the truck and they occasionally napped on each other's laps as he drove.

Shanann Watts with Celeste and Bella (Instagram)

Each child was holding a blanket and Celeste had also brought a stuffed animal. Watts claimed he had no plan for his daughters but drove to an oil worksite around 40 miles from the family's home in Frederick. He worked there as an operator for an oil and gas producer.

Watts told authorities he pulled Shanann's body from the truck as the girls asked: "What are you doing to mummy?" He then told how he went back to the truck, using Celeste's own blanket to smother her to death as Bella watched from the seat beside her sister.

He put his youngest daughter's body in an oil tank before returning to the truck and using the same blanket to smother Bella, his eldest daughter. He told police her last words were "Daddy, no!" as she struggled.

Chris Watts with his two daughters Celeste, left, and Bella, right (Instagram)

He then said he put her body inside another oil tank before burying Shanann's body in a shallow grave nearby. He insisted he did not plan to kill his wife or children, saying: "If I was thinking, this wouldn't have happened."

After Chris marked a photo of the oil field with the location of the bodies, investigators drove out on August 16 at 11pm. They excavated the dirt where they found Shanan.

"Shanan was curled up, as if just thrown in," said David Maloney, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Laboratory Manager at the Denver Forensic Science Laboratory. "It was almost discarded like trash and then covered with dirt."

Chris Watts recounted the gruesome story of his heinous acts to authorities who visited him in prison (AP)

However, investigators knew they weren't going to be able to retrieve the girls that night. They returned the next day to open up the tanks, revealing openings so small many questioned whether the girls would even fit in there.

Until that is, they found some hair belonging to one of the girls. The tanks had to be drained so that the girls could be removed, with Celeste found first, still in her nightdress. Bella was found after the second tank was drained.

It was a case that shocked the world, with many investigators who worked on the case still unable to shake the traumatic images, and some even being diagnosed with PTSD as a result of what they saw. Chris Watts was sentenced to five life sentences plus 48 years in prison without the possibility of parole.

Fiona Leishman