unearthingthedead

theconcretemama:

A Colorado man has been charged with murdering his wife and two young daughters, after being interviewed by local television stations and pleading for their safe return.

Police first visited the home of Chris and Shannan Watts in Denver, after a friend asked officers to check on Shannan, who was 15 weeks pregnant and had missed a doctor’s appointment. She had just returned from a business trip and hadn’t returned repeated phone calls and text messages. Chris Watts allowed detectives inside the house where they found Shannan’s cell phone stuffed inside a couch cushion, and a suitcase packed with her clothes at the bottom of their stairs. Chris told detectives that in the middle of the night, he and his wife had had an “intense conversation” in which he told her that he wanted a separation. He said they were “both upset and crying” and that she said she would go to a friend’s house. He said he left for work at 5:27am and when he returned home, his wife and daughters were gone. When they didn’t return the next day, the investigation broadened to include the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of investigation. In an interview with local television stations, he pleaded “Shanann, Bella, Celeste, if you’re out there, just come back, If somebody has her, just bring her back. I need to see everybody, I need to see everybody again. This house is not complete without anybody here.”

Investigators learned that Chris Watts was “actively involved in an affair with a co-worker”, something he had previously denied. During interviews with the police, Watts asked to speak to his father. Following this conversation, he agreed to tell police “the truth”. Watts claimed that after discussing the separation with his wife, he walked downstairs for a short while. When he returned to their bedroom to speak with her, he looked at the baby monitor in the room and saw his daughter Bella “sprawled out on her bed and blue and Shannan actively strangling Celeste.” Watts claimed he went into a rage, and strangled Shannan to death. He then loaded all three bodies into the back seat of his truck and took them to the property of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, where he worked. He said he buried Shannan “near two oil tanks and dumped the girls inside the oil tanks”. The girls had been submerged in crude oil for four days when their bodies were found.

Watts has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of killing a child under 12, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. In court on Tuesday, August 21st 2018, Watts did not enter a plea. His next court date is on November 16th. The investigation is ongoing.

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