US3 min(s) read
Published 15:44 07 Jun 2026 GMT
Investigators have shared a potential motive for Chris Watts killing his pregnant wife and two young daughters after he shared a chilling confession about their last words.
On August 13, 2018, Watts killed his pregnant wife, Shanann, 34, along with their daughters, four-year-old Bella, and three-year-old Celeste.
He buried Shanann in a shallow grave near an oil-storage facility, and forced his children's bodies into crude oil tanks, before pretending that he had no knowledge of where his family had disappeared to.
Watts was arrested two days later after confessing to Shanann's murder, and pleaded guilty to killing his children as well, in order to avoid the death penalty.
Investigators who'd been assigned to the case shared the heartbreaking last words of one of Watts' daughters just moments before he brutally took her life.
FBI Special Agent Graham Coder and Colorado Bureau of Investigation Field Agent Tammy Lee revealed during a speech at the 2022 Northeast South Dakota Family Violence Prevention Conference that Watts finally confessed that he killed his family during a six-hour interview after he failed a polygraph test.
Coder explained: "Once his family was found, he confessed to everything. He knew he had no other choice. He told us what he had done."
In a police interview conducted in prison, Watts gave chilling details of the murders to Coder and Lee, telling them that Shanann "may have been" praying as he strangled her to death inside their bedroom.
Watts then revealed that he drove her lifeless body to his job site and buried it in a shallow grave as their two young daughters waited in the car, before he returned and smothered them both.
Watts confessed that their last words haunt him every time he closes his eyes, revealing that his older daughter, Bella, begged him not to kill her, screaming "Daddy, no!" as he went to suffocate her with the same blanket he'd killed her little sister Celeste with moments earlier.
The killer admitted: "I hear it every day, when Bella was talking to me. When she said, 'Daddy, no!'"
That particular detail of the "horrific" and "disgusting" murders has stuck with the investigators long after the case was closed, with Coder and Lee pointing out that Watts had no prior criminal record or history of domestic violence before killing his whole family.
Lee explained: "This case shows that domestic violence can happen anywhere. It affects so many families — and sometimes, the results can be deadly."
After Watts' sentencing prosecutors admitted they may never know what led Watts to kill his wife and daughters so callously.
Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said, per CNN: "I don’t think he will ever tell us. I don’t think he will give an honest assessment of why he did what he did, how he did what he did."
If you or anybody you know is experiencing domestic violence, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), text “STRENGTH” to 88788, or message online at https://www.thehotline.org/.
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