In the first part of a multi-hour recorded interview with convicted family killer Chris Watts at a Wisconsin prison released by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, investigators appear to be trying to figure out what led the soft-spoken family man to murder his wife and two young daughters in cold blood.
“I told them I pled guilty for a reason,” Watts told investigators about conversations with his family about entering into a plea arrangement, adding that his family said they felt he was “railroaded” into it. Watts indicated that his parents believed Watts did not kill his daughters, and that they did not think prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him at a murder trial.
Watts said his parents still sometimes tell him to “fight it,” and revealed in the interview that he was not planning on telling his parents the full story until they visited him in prison this coming spring.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Watts initially claimed to investigators that he killed Shanann in a “rage” on August 13 after seeing via a baby monitor that Shanann had strangled their daughters. But in November, Watts pleaded guilty to all three murders.
Watts said in the February interview with investigators, some who were present at his interrogation in August, that it was the investigators who gave him the idea to claim that Shanann killed their daughters. In transcripts and video of Watts’ initial police interrogation following his August arrest, an agent floats the idea that Shanann may have hurt her children. Shortly after that, Watts relayed his initial story about Shanann appearing to strangle the girls.
Watts also seemed concerned about protecting his parents from the truth, and indicated he was motivated to pin the blame for the children’s death on his wife in part because he thought his family would buy that story.
“I knew they would probably believe it… because my mom and my sister just never really liked Shanann,” Watts is heard saying in the audio recording of the February interview, as the investigators press him for confirmation.
“You’re not just telling us you did it because you feel bad for Shanann’s memory? You did it?,” one of the agents asked.
Watts’s response was inaudible, but the investigators moved on to the next question, indicating that he gestured an answer.
The investigators interviewing Watts repeatedly said they were having a hard time understanding how someone like Watts could have committed these crimes, given he had no history of violence and appearing to be a loving father and husband.
“One of the reasons we are here, we keep telling ourselves, Chris just does not fit the mold,” one of the agents is heard saying in the audio recording.
The investigators asked several questions about Watts’s use of the “Thrive” nutrition and fitness patches that he was using at the time of the deaths, and tell him that they have others say they suspect Nichol Kessinger, Watts’s mistress, may have been involved somehow in the murders.
Watts denied that Kessinger put him up to the murders in any way, while admitting that the Thrive patches seemed to have a strong effect on him.
Watts said in the interview that he was using something called “Dual Burn” patches, which made him feel “like he was working out even though he wasn’t.” He said he was averaging about three hours of sleep a night, and that he lost so much weight that his wedding ring fell off while he was doing yard work.
Part 1 of the interview is included below. WARNING: Please use discretion, as the interview contains graphic and upsetting details about the Watts family murders.
