Convicted killer Chris Watts sits behind bars for the murders of his wife and children in 2018 and worries about what people will think of him as a new documentary about his crimes streams on Netflix.
But before her death at the hands of her husband, Shanann Watts worried about how he felt about the work she did to keep their home together — all while working a full time job and caring for two young children, with a third on the way.
“One of the comments she made in one of her texts with something to the effect of I never really thought how it made him feel that I do all of these things and I like things a certain way,” said former FBI special agent Bobby Chacon, now a writer for “Criminal Minds,” on a recent episode of Nancy Grace’s “Crime Stories.”
The Netflix documentary, “American Murder: The Family Next Door,” reveals some never before seen texts from Shanann Watts and Chris Watts as well.
Chris Watts confessed to strangling Shanann in their Frederick, Colorado, home shortly after she returned from a business trip in August 2018, as CrimeOnline previously reported. He told investigators that after he killed Shanann, he attempted to smother his daughters to death in their beds, but they both survived his initial attempts to kill them. He then drove 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste to an oil field, with their dead mother in the car. After burying Shanann there, he smothered or strangled his daughters to death and dropped their bodies into an oil tank.
“It makes it even worse that she was trying so hard to please him,” Grace said on “Crime Stories.” “I noticed when I saw the video of their home that it looked like it was out of home magazine. Every room was staged beautifully. And I know she did all that. Did he not notice any of that?”
“What’s really funny is he takes credit for that,” said Cheryln Cadle, author of “Letters from Christopher” and the upcoming book, “The Murders of Christopher Watts.” “From the beginning, when I went to the christening and spoke with him, and from the beginning when his mother called me, they took all of the credit for Christopher for keeping the house the way that it was.”
Cadle said he likely helped out some, but it was all part of his effort to create the image of “a nice guy.”
But of course, he didn’t do everything. But see, this goes back from the beginning,” she said. “When this first happened, he made everyone think he was such a good person. Person after person that they were acquaintances with said on principle they had never met such a nice guy. Well, if you could take him and separate him completely from what happened, he seems like a very nice guy.”
Chris Watts’ family still believes that Watts killed Shanann because he found her killing the children, Cadle said. And, he’s still in touch with girlfriends and mistresses he had while married to Shanann.
Plus, People magazine reports, he’s gained pen pals while in prison, women who “thought he was handsome.” “A couple of them stood out, and they’ve kept in contact,” a source told the magazine.
They’re not troubled by the murders of his pregnant wife and children. “They have compassion on him, despite what he did,” the source said.
Read more about the murders of Shanann, Bella, and Celeste Watts on CrimeOnline.
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[Featured image: The Watts family/Handout]
