How did Chris Watts kill his daughters? (2024)

DERANGED murderer Chris Watts admitted that he smothered his two daughters to death before dumping their bodies in oil tanks.

He also admitted to killing his pregnant wife Shanann Watts in the same fashion before tossing her body in a shallow grave.

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How did Chris Watts kill his daughters?

Chris Watts was convicted for the murder of his pregnant wife and two daughters after their bodies were found at a nearby oil plant.

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Chris said he strangled Shanann in their bed on August 13, 2018, after he told her their marriage was over and she said he would never see their children again.

After he strangled Shanann, Chris said daughter Bella came into their bedroom clutching a blanket and asked what was wrong with mom – who the dad said just wasn’t feeling well.

Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant with their third child at the time.

Chris said he rolled up Shanann’s body in a sheet, put it on the floor of the backseat of his truck before placing the two girls on the backseat.

The dad said he didn’t plan to kill his three and four-year-old daughters, but drove out to an oil work site roughly 40 miles from their home.

There, he smothered his two daughters before dropping their bodies into separate oil tanks.

Cops say the Colorado man confessed to killing them just hours after appealing for help to a TV audience.

He pleaded guiltyto their murders during a court appearance on November 6, and was sentenced onNovember 19.

Watts has claimed he carried out the brutal murders so he could be with his mistress of two months, Nichol Kessinger.

The five-bedroom Colorado house where Watts murdered his pregnant wife remains in legal purgatory and sits empty.

The horrific incident garnered national attention and a 2020 Netflix documentary called American Murder: The Family Next Door was created around it.

It examines the lead-up to the horrific triple homicide and includes never-before-seen footage and text messages.

How did Chris Watts get his daughters in the oil tanks?

Shanann's body was found buried in a shallow grave and the girls had been dumped in oil tanks on the property of Watts' former employer - the Anadarko oil and gas site.

In a confession letter written from jail, Watts said he tossed Shanann's body face-first into the hole - forcing her to partly give birth to their dead fetus, who was to be a son named Nico.

Watts forced Celeste's body through an eight-inch hatch in one of the tankers - recalling: "I couldn't believe how easily it was to just let her drop through the hole and let her go.

"I heard the splash as she hit the oil."

Watts then describes in appalling detail how he turned his murderous intent to Bella - who desperately tried to save herself.

Telling of his surprise, he says: "Little quiet Bella had a will to live.

"Out of all three, Bella is the only one that put up a fight."

Chris was handed five life sentences for the murders without the possibility of parole afterpleading guilty to the murders.

What did Chris Watts' daughter say to him?

When Chris and his girls arrived at the oil field and Chris took Shanann’s body out of the truck, one of the girls asked, “What are you doing to mommy?”

Chris said that’s when he smothered both Celeste and Bella, whose last words were: “Daddy, no!”

Chris said he tried smothering the girls in their bed, but failed, as they woke up and saw him smothering Shanann – whose eyes were filled with blood.

He wrote in his letters: "Isn't it weird how I look back and what I remember so much is her face getting all black with streaks of mascara.

"Her eyes filled with blood; as she looked at me and she died. I knew she was gone when she relieved herself."

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Chris claimed that if he was thinking that day in August 2018, the deaths wouldn’t have happened – but letters he wrote goes against that claim.

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He writes of thinking to himself as he said goodnight to the girls the previous evening: "That's the last time I'm going to be tucking my babies in.

"I knew what was going to happen the day before and I did nothing to stop it!"

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