Abstract
Chris Watts is one of the most high-profile prisoners in the United States currently. Despite Watts’s promising future at his tender age, his dissatisfied marriage life ruined it. The problem arose when he started an affair with Nichol Kissinger, losing interest in his wife, Shan’ann. Watts’s request for a divorce inspired a response, which led to the homicides. He killed Shan’ann together with their two daughters and buried the former in a shallow grave while putting the latter in oil tanks. The police investigations based on the searches and Watts’s questioning resulted in his arrest. Later, he confessed to having murdered his family and was condemned to life imprisonment in jail without an option for parole. Therefore, examining the sequence of events and Watts’s present life help readers understand the tribulations and regrets, that killers experience in the correctional facilities.
Introduction
Chris Watts attracted public attention in 2018 after the disappearance of his wife and two daughters. During the time, Watts lived with his family in Frederick, Colorado (Glatt, 2020). He collaborated with the investigators, expressing his desire to welcome his family back and remained optimistic about their safety. Watts confirmed he did not know his family’s whereabouts and he was shocked by their disappearance. However, he was arrested a few days later after the investigations revealed that Watts and his wife, Shan’ann, disagreed for a considerable time before she and her daughters vanished. Indeed, Watts’s mistress, Nichol Kessinger, volunteered to help the investigators uncover the whole story, thus inspiring his arrest. Watts pleaded guilty to committing the murders in a Colorado court in November 2018, and the judge ruled he should serve a total of 5 life sentences (Nicki Swift, 2020). Therefore, Chris Watt is a high-profile inmate who continues to serve life imprisonment without a possibility of parole due to his unreasonable actions, which presently contribute to his regrets.
Early Life, Marriage, and Crime History
Watts was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1985 and lived there with his parents for most of his life. According to Glatt (2020), Watts attended the Pine Forest High School, where he excelled and received a scholarship to continue with his education. After completing his studies, he started working at Anadarko Petroleum. In 2010, Watts met his wife, and they got married in November 2012 (Mervosh, 2019). They started living in Colorado, and they were blessed with two daughters, Bella and Celeste. Watts had no history of criminal activities before he murdered his entire family. The only lawsuits the family faced were civil cases revolving around debts to third parties. For example, in 2015, Watts and his wife were declared bankrupt due to failure to pay a loan of $70,000, which they had borrowed to buy a house in Fredrick, Colorado (Glatt, 2020). In addition, a particular homeowner association had filed a case against them for about $1500 debt. Consequently, apart from these two civil complaints, Watts had never faced criminal charges before 2018.
Family Disappearance and Investigation
Shan’ann was a marketing representative, and she attended a leadership seminar in Scottsdale, Arizona. She and her colleague, Nickole Utoft Atkinson, returned home together. Atkinson expected a call from Shan’ann confirming the Ob-gyn appointment (Glatt, 2020). However, Atkinson became concerned about Shan’ann’s welfare after failing to respond to her text messages and missing the business meeting. Atkinson went to Shan’ann’s home to inquire what might be the problem, but there was nobody to answer her upon arrival. She decided to inform Watts about the situation and also reported it to the Frederick Police Department. The police officers launched their investigation and began by visiting the Watts’s house for a welfare inquiry. Upon searching the home, the police found Shan’ann’s keys, phone, wedding ring, and purse in the household. They also discovered her vehicle together with the children’s car seats within the compound. As the case progressed, the police officers collaborated with the federal bureau of investigation (FBI) and the Colorado bureau of investigation to conduct a comprehensive search and scrutiny.
The police also interviewed Watts to get more information concerning his family’s disappearance. According to Mervosh (2019), Watts confirmed he had a disagreement with his wife when he asked for a divorce. With extended investigations, the FBI and police established that Watts had an affair with Nichol Kessinger. Upon further inquiry, Kissinger confirmed they were involved in a romantic relationship, and Watt has promised to marry her after divorcing his wife (Glatt, 2020). Indeed, she added that Watts had requested her to assist him in finding an apartment because the divorce was already complete. Based on the available evidence, the police were convinced that Watt was the primary suspect, and thus, arrested him.
Arrest, Confession, and Charges
The details relating to the divorce and an affair served as a reason for Watts’s arrest. Significantly, the police subjected Watts to a polygraph test, and he failed. Later, Watts admitted to killing his wife, who was pregnant by the time, and his two daughters. Before the confession, Watts requested to speak with his father, Ronnie Watts. He explained to his father that they got into an argument with Shan’ann when he asked for a divorce. According to Glatt (2020), Watts’s lawyer later explained in Dr. Phil’s interview that Watts had murdered his wife when he told Bella that her mother was ill and needed to be taken to the medical center. Watts then enfolded his wife’s body with a bedsheet, dragged it down the stairs, and put it in his car. Bella followed his father crying, and Watt also put her and Celeste in his truck’s backseat.
Watts also confessed that he drove his family to the petroleum site where he worked. On arrival, he wrapped Celeste with a blanket and submerged her in an oil tank. Despite Bella pleading with him for her life, having witnessed her younger sister’s tribulations, Watts equally murdered her. The police utilized a drone to survey the crime scene. On August 16, 2018, they found two children’s bodies in oil tanks and that of their mother buried in a narrow and shallow grave (Nicki Swift, 2020). The police officers also identified matching bed sheets and pillowcases in Watts’s trash can.
The follow-up inquiries established that Watts had called the Primrose school administrator on the day of the killings and informed him that his daughters would no longer attend that school. Besides, he also told a real estate representative known as Ann Meadows that he wanted to sell his house and downgrade to a smaller home. Upon Meadows’ suggestion for an option, Watts downplayed her options and said he would think about it. Based on the confessions and the resulting evidence, the prosecutor charged Watts with five accounts of first-degree murders, three counts of interfering with dead bodies, and illegal pregnancy termination (Mervosh, 2019). Although Watts confessed his wrongdoings, the court followed its legal procedure and scheduled a hearing day when he would either accept or deny the charges.
Plea and Sentencing
Watts pleaded guilty to the killings of his children and wife. However, upon accepting the charges, Shan’ann’s family requested the court not convict him of the death penalty (Mervosh, 2019). The judge accepted the family’s demand and granted the plea deal. After the entire litigation, the court provided a verdict, which condemned Watts to five-life jail terms, three successive and two simultaneous, without parole (Lavender, 2020). The juror also added 36 years for unlawful meddling with dead bodies and 48 years for illegally terminating Shan’ann’s pregnancy to Watts’s sentence. After the verdict, Watts was imprisoned in a state jail and was later transferred to a location outside the state for security reasons. Presently, Watts serves his sentences in the Dodge correctional institution located in Waupun, Wisconsin.
Life in Prison and Legacy
In his interview at the Dodge correctional facility, Watts expressed his regrets for murdering his entire family. He attributed his actions to anger after Shan’ann told him that he will never see the children (Lavender, 2020). Watts explained to the investigator that after his wife said those words, he placed his hands on her neck and strangled her. Watts also clarified that every time his actions came into his mind, he started asking rhetorical questions about why he had done it. Indeed, Watts felt that the murder desire was already fixed in his mind, and thus, he had no control over it. He was ashamed of what happened because it caused daily frustrations and negative feelings, which hurt his soul and mind. Watts concluded the interview by saying he was sorry and repented for his actions after seeking refuge in God.
To date, Watts has pictures of his wife and daughters in the jail cell. Since he cannot meet or see them, he only reads positive messages to their photographs hoping they can forgive him. Watts also confessed that pictures of any crime scene stimulate negative emotions, and thus, he strives not to observe them (Lavender, 2020). Indeed, he prays for Hazmat employees who were adversely affected by the aftermath of his actions. In the correctional facility, he spends most of the time writing letters. After considerable media coverage of Watts’s case, he receives many love letters, especially from women, as a sign of compassion. Consequently, he has to keep himself busy replying to them because he has nothing better to do in jail. Watts is one most high-profile prisoners, and thus, everyone, including other inmates, wants to gain more insights into his case. Despite committing a first-degree crime, Watts made a legacy by accepting and confessing his crimes, thus attracting admiration from a significant part of the population.
Conclusions
Watts was a promising young man who hoped for a good future. He worked hard to take care of his family until his disagreement with his wife emerged. Nevertheless, he can only blame himself because his desire to have a mistress ruined his marriage and ultimately led him to prison. Arguably, Watts had the urge to kill engrained in his mind if he could murder his wife and continue to his children without a second thought. He deserved life imprisonment, and indeed, Shan’ann’s family’s request was rational because his stay in prison has helped him envision his mistakes. Although he committed first-degree crimes, he is one of the people who made a legacy for owning their criminal activities irrespective of the potential consequences. Irrefutably, Watts’s interview on his regrets and negative feelings for killing his family serves as a lesson to young couples to find logical methods of solving their marriage differences.
References
Glatt, J. (2020). The perfect father: The true story of Chris Watts, his all-American family, and a shocking murder. St. Martin’s Press.
Lavender, J. (2020). Chris Watts’s horrifying letters explain gruesome details of the murder of his wife and kids. The Mirror.
Mervosh, S. (2019). Chris Watts describes killing his wife and daughters in a chilling confession. The New York Times.
Nicki Swift. (2020). We now understand why Chris Watts confessed to killing his wife [Video]. YouTube.