Dad who killed pregnant spouse and two daughters blames spouse for murders

Killer dad Chris Watts has secretly offered up a vile excuse for why he murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters, three and four, more than six years on from his horrific crimes.

Watts, 36, strangled his partner Shanann – who was 15 weeks pregnant with their son – inside their five-bed family home in Frederick, Colorado, on August 13, 2018 after she came back from a business trip to Arizona.

The killer, who is serving more than five life sentences for his sick crimes, took her body away in his truck with his two daughters, Bella, four, and Celeste, three, before smothering them both with a blanket. Watts buried his wife in a shallow grave, and dumped his daughters’ bodies in oil storage tanks. 

In newly revealed letters, seen by the New York Post, he said he sought refuge with his mistress Nichol Kessinger as she was ‘everything my wife wasn’t, adding that pregnant Shanann was a ‘control freak.’

The handwritten notes to Dylan Tallman, fellow inmate at Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, Watts said his marriage was unfulfilling as ‘she was really busy with her job and everything it required’, adding that he was often his daughters’ primary carer. 

Watts said he was tempted away from his marriage after he met Nichol following some weight loss in 2017. 

Chris Watts, 36, (pictured, top-left) strangled his partner Shanann (pictured, bottom-right) – who was 15 weeks pregnant with their son, and smothered his daughters Bella, 4, (pictured, top-right) and Celeste, 3, (pictured, bottom-left)

Watts is serving more than five life sentences for his sick crimes 

He was having an affair with Nichol Kessinger, who he worked with at the time

‘She was just everything my wife wasn’t like with me. She was just nice, and not a control freak. We could make decisions together.’

‘We knew each other for awhile, but we didn’t start messing around until 6 weeks before,’ he continued. ‘I was not thinking. We worked together, we had chemistry, and I fell into temptation. She was the forbidden fruit.’

But he has also blamed Nichol herself for being ‘the death of me.’

In a letter dated March 2020, he wrote: ‘The words of a harlot have brought me low. Her flattering speech was like drops of honey that pierced my heart and soul. Little did I know that all her guests were in the chamber of death.’

Watts seemingly has a habit of refusing to own up to his horrific crimes. 

In the two days after he slaughtered his family, he claimed that he had nothing to do with his family’s disappearance and even appeared on television to plead for them to come home.

In 2018, soon after the murders, visitors would come to the house and leave gifts and tributes for the murdered mother and daughters 

Watts is pictured standing near the front door of his old home

Police body camera footage shows the interior of the Watts home back in 2018

In text messages to his mistress just hours after he had killed his pregnant wife and children, Watts denied having anything to do with their disappearance, according to previously unreleased footage of his the woman’s interview with police. 

‘I was still in my head. I was stressed out,’ Kessinger told authorities, according to footage posted on March 2 by Frankie Rzucek, Jr., Shannan’s brother.

‘So I texted Chris one last time, and I told him, “If you did anything bad, you’re going to ruin your life and you’re going to ruin my life. I promise you that.”

And he responded, “I didn’t hurt my family, Nicky.” And that was the last text. I never said another word to him after that,’ she said.

After his arrest he initially claimed that Shanann had killed the girls after he had told her he wanted a separation, and then he had strangled her in anger. 

At his trial, he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty, which has since been abolished in Colorado.

He is serving five life sentences plus 48 years in prison without the possibility of parole at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin.