Chris Watts Pleads Guilty

[Howl]

Chris Watts has pled guilty to the murder of his pregnant wife, Shanann, and his two young daughters, in exchange for no death penalty.  He has been sentenced and has received multiple life sentences.  Apparently he strangled/suffocated all three.  Shanann's family approved taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for a guilty plea. 

The usual: he had begun an extramarital  relationship, telling the other woman that he was close to being divorced, against a background of  financial problems (big mortgage payment), previous bankruptcy, being sued by the HOA, new baby on the way. 

Colorado man pleads guilty to killing pregnant wife, daughters as part of plea deal

Shanann Watts' funeral was in a Catholic church in NC, so not seeing any fundy influence on the marriage. 

[Terrie]

On 11/20/2018 at 8:55 AM, Howl said:

Shanann Watts' funeral was in a Catholic church in NC, so not seeing any fundy influence on the marriage. 

Sadly, entitlement is not limited to male fundies.

[mstee]

I read an article on this and they said that he stuffed his daughters’ bodies in barrels of crude oil and that their bodies had to be flown separately to be buried in NC cause they are considered flammable from the oil. I have no words for that. Killing your babies then putting them in oil? I’m always surprised by how depraved people can be. I always wonder if people like him were always evil and hid it or if they became evil in that moment. 

[Howl]

'He has changed': Texts show gulf between Chris Watts and his wife before he killed her

This is so sad. It's obvious she was so in love with her husband.

[Briefly]

On 11/21/2018 at 5:41 PM, mstee said:

I read an article on this and they said that he stuffed his daughters’ bodies in barrels of crude oil and that their bodies had to be flown separately to be buried in NC cause they are considered flammable from the oil. I have no words for that. Killing your babies then putting them in oil? I’m always surprised by how depraved people can be. I always wonder if people like him were always evil and hid it or if they became evil in that moment. 

That would be hard to answer, but what he did took planning.  Lots of planning.

[mstee]

Oh @Briefly I didn’t realize that. I only really heard about how they died and the aftermath. 

[Briefly]

23 hours ago, mstee said:

Oh @Briefly I didn’t realize that. I only really heard about how they died and the aftermath. 

I work for an oil company.  Leases are not necessarily watched 24/7, but there are regular hours when there will be someone there.  Either to do needed maintenance or daily checks to look for any issues.  Our leases are usually checked a few times a day.  When I heard where the bodies were found, I had no doubt that he did it. He had to much specific knowledge about where to hide them as well as how and when he would be able to.

[The Mother Dust]

On 11/21/2018 at 6:41 PM, mstee said:

I read an article on this and they said that he stuffed his daughters’ bodies in barrels of crude oil and that their bodies had to be flown separately to be buried in NC cause they are considered flammable from the oil. I have no words for that. Killing your babies then putting them in oil? I’m always surprised by how depraved people can be. I always wonder if people like him were always evil and hid it or if they became evil in that moment. 

This is news to me.  How horrific.  I also read an article that said during the court hearing, prosecutors intimated that the mother was asleep when she died.  It was a bit odd because nothing was said outright and definitively in the article, but the gist I gathered is they think this because of the lack of defensive wounds on the mother.  I wonder if he drugged her.  What a fucking coward.  Has to wait until a woman is asleep to attack her.  I mean, of course it's abominable no matter how the attack is made, but that especially takes the fucking cake.

[Howl]

On 11/26/2018 at 6:03 PM, Briefly said:

I work for an oil company.  Leases are not necessarily watched 24/7, but there are regular hours when there will be someone there. 

@Briefly, I was guessing the locations where he left his wife and kids were locations that he was responsible for checking; was that your impressions? Drone footage showed that this was a remote area out in the sagebrush. 

 My experience with the oil patch in SW Colorado and SE Utah is that these immense areas are basically deserted except for oil field workers making their rounds, so maybe one worker visits scattered installations once a day.  Also, didn't he take the bodies there at night or in the very early morning hours?

I watched video footage of him confessing to his dad in a police interrogation room, and his subsequent confession to police.  You could tell that his father was totally undone; his son confessed to him that he killed his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. He also claimed that he was in a rage when he killed them. 

There are also audio statements from the mistress; she was shocked when she figured out that he was indeed still married with a pregnant wife and went to police.  However, she also googled how much Amber Frey (Scott Peterson's lady friend) made from her tell-all book.  

Edited November 30, 2018 by Howl

[luv2laugh]

@Howl where can I find the video and audio?

[Briefly]

8 hours ago, Howl said:

@Briefly, I was guessing the locations where he left his wife and kids were locations that he was responsible for checking; was that your impressions? Drone footage showed that this was a remote area out in the sagebrush. 

 My experience with the oil patch in SW Colorado and SE Utah is that these immense areas are basically deserted except for oil field workers making their rounds, so maybe one worker visits scattered installations once a day.  Also, didn't he take the bodies there at night or in the very early morning hours?

I watched video footage of him confessing to his dad in a police interrogation room, and his subsequent confession to police.  You could tell that his father was totally undone; his son confessed to him that he killed his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. He also claimed that he was in a rage when he killed them. 

There are also audio statements from the mistress; she was shocked when she figured out that he was indeed still married with a pregnant wife and went to police.  However, she also googled how much Amber Frey (Scott Peterson's lady friend) made from her tell-all book.  

My thought was that he was guilty based on the fact that he had previously worked for the company that owned the site where the bodies were found, and knowing that the site was fairly remote it would have been quite a rare fluke that anyone else would have known where the site was as well as when it would be vacant. Our leases are mostly in central and northeastern Oklahoma and Kansas.  They are not in totally isolated areas, but are not in the middle of populated areas and some of them are kind of hard to get to if you don't know where you are going.  They are usually locked, also.  Our Pumpers, people who check the leases and keep things running, are supposed to make regular visits on a daily basis and sometimes more than once a day. It depends on the specific lease and what equipment is there.  It's not necessarily rocket science, but it would be very difficult for someone who was not already familiar with the lease, the location of the lease and the specific equipment to hide the bodies where/how he did.

I really hurt for his father, that must have been so intensely painful for him.

[Howl]

Video shows Chris Watts confessing to killing wife, trove of information on case released

[Flossie]

I was neutral on the new girlfriend, thinking that as such a new relationship it was entirely possible that she didn't know Chris was still married and had a baby on the way.  But it didn't look good when it was also revealed she'd done Google searches about Amber Frey and the book she wrote about her affair with Scott Peterson.

[adidas]

Bumping this - a Netflix documentary has been released about the case. It is worth watching, but heartbreaking. 

[Ozlsn]

I caught the documentary completely by chance, and then saw this thread. I am still left just not understanding at all why, or how he could do that. The devastation of both extended families was terrible to see.

[danvillebelle]

The only thing I can come up with that makes any sense for me is that he is a true sociopath, and just managed to hide it/keep it under control until he met someone who made him think hmmm I could have another life if I wanted to.  His complete lack of emotion through the whole "they're missing" fiasco and his interrogation is so damning, along with the fact that the morning after he killed them he was texting his girlfriend, a fantasy football buddy and a realtor.  He seemed to truly think he could just disappear them with some flimsy side info like they had a fight and she left her wedding ring, everyone would buy it and he could make a new life.  

He only starts to cry once he confesses and knows he's going to jail.  Sorry for HIMSELF...not his wife and babies.  I hope he is mentally haunted every minute of every day for several decades.

 

[LilMissMetaphor]

I just heard of this for the first time last night via Netflix, too.  Terrible story.  Those poor little girls, you couldn't even say they didn't suffer. 

Not at all to victim-blame, but Shanann definitely had trust and control issues from her first relationship (which of course ended up being justified this time around, to a tragic degree obviously).  

A smaller thing, but it bothered me in the documentary that people kept pronouncing her name differently: was it Shan-ANN, Shannon, or Shan-Nahn?  

[FluffySnowball]

3 hours ago, LilMissMetaphor said:

A smaller thing, but it bothered me in the documentary that people kept pronouncing her name differently: was it Shan-ANN, Shannon, or Shan-Nahn?  

As far as I know, her name is pronounced Shan-Nahn. 

You, @LilMissMetaphor, and other posters here are correct, Chris Watts seems to be a truly horrible sociopath. However, his whole family appears very odd. I’ll link a video (under spoiler) that analyzes his mother. Watching it made me so upset, what a vile woman - she wrote a book about the case but instead of trying to show her daughter-in-law in a positive light, she attempts to drag her through the mud AFTERR HER OWN SON MURDERED HER! (Sorry for the caps, but it makes me angry to no end!) However, don’t let my reaction to the video discourage you from watching it, it is highly informative and eye-opening. 

Spoiler

 

 

[Ozlsn]

16 hours ago, FluffySnowball said:

As far as I know, her name is pronounced Shan-Nahn. 

You, @LilMissMetaphor, and other posters here are correct, Chris Watts seems to be a truly horrible sociopath. However, his whole family appears very odd. I’ll link a video (under spoiler) that analyzes his mother. Watching it made me so upset, what a vile woman - she wrote a book about the case but instead of trying to show her daughter-in-law in a positive light, she attempts to drag her through the mud AFTERR HER OWN SON MURDERED HER! (Sorry for the caps, but it makes me angry to no end!) However, don’t let my reaction to the video discourage you from watching it, it is highly informative and eye-opening. 

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I really want this woman to analyse JRod. That was very interesting.