Chilling reason why Chris Watts 'keeps photos of dead wife and two daughters' he killed in his prison cell
Topics: True crime, Crime
Thomas Bamford
Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: True crime, Crime
Chris Watts is serving a life sentence for killing his pregnant wife Shanann and their two daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3.
Now a chilling jailhouse interview has revealed he keeps pictures of his victims in his prison cell, and talks to them every single day.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation released recordings from a five-hour interview with Watts, conducted on February 18, as part of an open records request.
The revelations have sparked public outrage, with a Change.org petition amassing over 16,000 signatures demanding prison guards remove the photos.
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Prison officials have since confirmed they won't be doing so.
"Incarcerated inmates are permitted to possess certain identified items of property, including photographs," the Wisconsin Department of Corrections said in a statement. "Some photographs are not allowed, such as those depicting gang signs, colours, or insignias or photographs that include nudity."
In the interview, Watts told investigators he wished he had never killed his family.
"I have pictures of my wife and kids in my cell, and every morning and every night, I talk to them. I have this book I used to read for CeCe, and I remember that book, I read it to her every night," he said.
He also spoke about finding religion behind bars. "I never knew I could have a relationship with God like I do now. It's like the amazing grace with all of this, but I just wish nobody had to pay any kind of price for this."
Watts murdered Shanann, who was pregnant at the time, and their two daughters on August 13, 2018. In the interview, he described in harrowing detail how the killings unfolded.
He recalled that on the day of the murders, he and Shanann had sex before falling back asleep. He then woke up, made breakfast, and went back upstairs to tell her he no longer loved her. At the time, Watts was having an affair with a woman named Nichol Kessinger, who he had met at work.
Shanann began to cry, accused him of having an affair, and told him he would never see their daughters again. Watts then placed his arms around his pregnant wife and strangled her.
"I just wished I could've let go. But I just couldn't let go," he said. "Like someone was just holding you, keeping you from letting go."
He added that Shanann never fought back, and believed she may have been praying as he strangled her.
It was at that point that four-year-old Bella walked in.
"She had her little pink blanket with her. She was like, 'What is wrong with Mommy?'" Watts recalled. "I said, 'She doesn't feel good.'"
He put Shanann's body in his truck, told his daughters to get into the vehicle, and drove to a secluded oil field where he worked. He smothered both girls with Celeste's blue Yankees blanket. He strangled Celeste first, dumped her body in an oil tank, and then came back for Bella.
"[Bella] said, 'What happened to CeCe? Is the exact same thing going to happen to me as CeCe?'" Watts recalled.
He claims Bella's final words to him were "Daddy, no!", words he says haunt him in prison to this day.
"I hear it every day in prison when Bella was talking to me," he said.
Watts pleaded guilty to the murder charges to avoid a lengthy trial and was handed three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
“I didn’t want anybody else, I didn’t want them to go through this for 2 or 4 years…I didn’t want my attorneys to lie for me for 2-4 years…they would’ve done anything I told them to do," he said.