Chris Watts: Did he confess the real motive behind his murders?

The story of the Watts family is a tragic & horrifying one. A seemingly happy family has turned into the true crime spectacle of the 2010s. However, due to the fact the event originally happened in 2018, there are still a lot of people who still haven’t been able to peel their eyes away from the metaphorical trainwreck.

There have been multiple movies & documentaries made about Chris Watts – the heinous murderer – and his now deceased family. The most recent one will be debuting on Netflix in a few short weeks.

However, the story isn’t done quite yet, apparently – it has just been revealed that Chris Watts described in more detail than ever before why he murdered his pregnant wife and two young daughters.

Quick background

We’ve covered the story of the Watts family in more depth in other articles, so let’s just go over their history as a quick refresher. Chris Watts was married to Shanann Watts. The couple had two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, both under the age of five. Shanann Watts was also pregnant at the time of her murder.

The couple had been going through a rocky patch. Shanann had even spent time out of state with her parents & daughters because she could feel Chris growing more distant. She eventually came back to the family home. However, it wasn’t long before a friend reported Shannan missing.

Chris Watts pleaded on camera for anyone with information about his missing wife and daughters to come forward. However, he was the one who had killed them. Law enforcement quickly figured it out & arrested him.

Girlfriend

While Shanann was away Chris began seeing someone else. He lied to the woman, telling her that he was in the middle of a divorce, despite the fact that neither Chris nor Shanann had filed papers.

Many believed the girlfriend was ultimately the reason Chris decided to commit the murders. However Chris has maintained that he did it in a fit of rage.

Prison letters

Chris Watts has been sending letters to author Cherlyn Cadle while Watts is in prison. Cadle reached out to Chris in order to write a book about him. Apparently, the murders were not quite the heat of the moment acts Watts had once claimed. In his letters, he tells Cadle that “August 12th when I finished putting the girls to bed, I walked away and said ‘That’s the last time I’m going to be tucking my babies in’”.

This new information of premeditation makes his crimes all the more heinous. Watts apparently also admitted he had attempted to poison his wife, Shanann, with Oxycodone to make her have a miscarriage of their third child. “I thought it would be easier to be with Nichol if Shanann wasn’t pregnant.” (Nichol Kessinger was Watts’ girlfriend.)

Cadle interview

Cherlyn Cadle was interviewed by Doctor Oz back in 2019 regarding her book. She told Oz that she had gotten to know Watts fairly well & said she never once saw him emote. She never saw him laugh, smile, or show any kind of emotion. Oz then asks her about Watts’s claim that he believes he was possessed by a demon.

Cadle acknowledged that this is something Watts has said, noting he was aware of what he was doing during the murders, but couldn’t get himself to stop. Both Oz & Cadle seem skeptical, which is fair enough – it sounds an awful lot like someone trying to find any possible way to not take all the blame.

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Chris Watts is serving five life sentences in prison for the murders of his wife, two daughters, and unborn son.