29 August 2023 , 06:48
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Family killer Chris Watts described murdering his family in grim letters from behind bars and said he took two attempts to kill his own daughters.
Speaking to author Cheryln Cadle from the Dodge Correctional Institution, Wisconsin, in the US, Watts described how he had been "thinking about killing" his wife for weeks, as reported by the Mail. Infamously, Watts murdered his wife Shannan, 34, and smothered his two daughters Bella, four, and Cece, three. He then buried Shannan at a work site around 40 miles away, before dumping the bodies of his daughters in crude oil barrels.
The crimes stunned locals and people across the world as they gained notoriety, particularly when the Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door was released. Watts smothered his daughters unsuccessfully before moving on to his wife, saying "her eyes filled with blood".
Shanann Watts, 34, and two daughters, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste (Instagram)He noted how he remembers her face "getting all black with streaks of mascara". In a letter, Watts writes: "August 13, morning of, I went to the girls' room first, before Shanann and I had our argument. I went to Bella's room, then Cece's room and used a pillow from their bed (to kill them). That's why the cause of death was smothering. After I left Cece's room, then I climbed back in bed with Shanann and our argument ensued."
Horrifyingly, his two girls woke up and followed him around the house as he dealt with Shannan's body. She was pregnant at the time of her death. They were eventually killed at the site of their brief resting place, where "Bella is the only one that put up a fight" as "she knew I was killing her".
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The jailed killer said: "After Shannan had passed, Bella and Cece woke back up. I'm not sure how they woke back up, but they did. Bella's eyes were bruised and both girls looked like they had been through trauma." Dumping Shannan's body, Chris, who sought a runaway life with his secret partner Nicole Kessinger, said he still felt angry with Shannan after her death and noticed she had posthumously given birth.
He added: "When I dug the hole, it seemed a lot deeper than it was. As I pulled on the sheet she rolled out and into the hole. I think she had given birth. She landed face down, I remember being so angry with her that I was not going to change how she landed." Once considered a good family man, killer Watts tried to hide his awful crimes - but was only able to keep the charade going for a matter of days as the police zeroed in on him.
He initially said the murders were spontaneous, before later admitting that he had been planning them, including noting the occasion he was tucking his two girls into bed for the very last time. Watts revealed: "August 12 when I finished putting the girls to bed, I walked away and said ''That's the last time I'm going to be tucking my babies in.' I knew what was going to happen the day before and I did nothing to stop it."