CO Man Charged in Pregnant Wife & Daughters Deaths (Multi-Video)

Tammy Waitt

August 20, 2018

Prosecutors charged a Colorado man with murder Monday in the deaths of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, a crime that left loved ones searching for answers. (Courtesy of Facebook)

By Ralph Ellis, CNN

A Colorado man was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the killings of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, according to court papers.

Chris Watts is charged in the deaths of Shanann Watts, 34, and daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3.

Watts also faces three counts of tampering with a body, and a count of first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy, according to court filings in Weld County.

Officials were planning an afternoon news conference in the case.

Watts, 33, is being held without bond, with his next court appearance scheduled for Tuesday.

(Colorado man Christopher Watts is expected to be formally charged today with the murder of his pregnant wife Shanann and their two daughters, who were missing for days before being found dead. Courtesy of CBS News and YouTube. Posted on Aug 20, 2018.)

Shanann, Bella and Celeste were reported missing last Monday from their home in Frederick, a town of about 8,600 people 30 miles north of Denver.

Their bodies were found Thursday at the site of a petroleum and natural gas company where Chris Watts had worked, authorities said.

A court filing by prosecutors says Shanann Watts’ body was “recovered from a shallow grave near an oil tank,” and that “law enforcement recovered the bodies of defendant’s two daughters from inside oil tanks located near the grave of their mother.”

Prosecutors have not provided a motive in the killings.

A judge sealed the arrest affidavit, which might provide information about why Chris Watts was arrested and other details.

(Christopher Watts was in court Thursday after police found the body of his wife at an oil field where he works. Courtesy of CBS News and YouTube. Posted on Aug 16, 2018.)

Autopsy results have not been released, but documents filed Friday in Chris Watts’ arrest reveal some of the victims may have been strangled, along with other grim details.

Chris Watts’ attorneys asked a court to require pathologists to swab the little girls’ necks, throats and hands for DNA as well as the hands and fingernails of Shanann Watts, court filings show.

The judge denied those requests.

Defense attorneys asked the court to allow one of Watts’ lawyers and an investigator to be present during autopsies. Judge Marcelo Kopcow also denied that motion.

In a Monday interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” friend Nicole Atkinson said she dropped Shanann off at home about 2 a.m. August 13 after they finished a business trip.

“She went inside, turned around and waved at me and shut the door,” Atkinson said.

Shanann didn’t return calls later that day and missed a medical appointment at which she was expected to hear her unborn child’s heartbeat, Atkinson said.

Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant.

Atkinson said she contacted Chris Watts, but he didn’t seem as worried as she thought he should be. Atkinson said she then contacted police.

In an interview with a local news station Tuesday — after his family disappeared but before his arrest — Chris Watts also said his wife got home around 2 a.m.

(Listen to what Christopher Watts told KUSA the day before he was arrested in the murders of his pregnant wife Shanann and their two young daughters. Courtesy of USA TODAY and YouTube. Posted on Aug 16, 2018.)

“We had an emotional conversation, I’ll leave it at that,” Watts told a reporter who asked whether they’d argued.

“I just want them back. I just want them to come back.”

Watts said he left for work about 5:15 a.m. that day and wasn’t concerned when his wife didn’t respond to his texts and phone calls since she’d just returned from being out of town.

But he grew worried, he said, when one of her friends contacted him around noon and said she wasn’t responding to messages.

“I walked in the house and — nothing,” Chris Watts told KMGH.

“She wasn’t here. The kids weren’t here.”

Shanann Watts’ body was found on the property of Anadarko Petroleum, authorities said.

The girls’ bodies were in an “oil well filled with crude oil for several days,” Chris Watts’ attorneys indicated in a court filing.

(On social media, the Watts family appeared happy. But now Chris Watts is accused of killing his wife Shanann and two daughters. So how do investigators find the clues underneath those seemingly perfect images? Retired senior FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole joined CBSN with what investigators will be looking at. Courtesy of CBS News and YouTube. Posted on Aug 20, 2018.)

Chris Watts was terminated from Anadarko Petroleum on Wednesday, August 15, company communications manager Jennifer Brice said.

Watts was taken into custody late that day by the Frederick Police Department.

Chris and Shanann Watts faced financial problems in recent years and filed for bankruptcy in 2015.

Their homeowners association, Wyndham Hill Master Association, recently sued the couple, saying they owed $1,533.80, according to a civil suit obtained by CNN.

CNN’s Kaylee Hartung and Konstantin Toropin reported from Greeley, Colorado. Ralph Ellis wrote in Atlanta. Faith Karimi, Joe Sterling Sheena Jones, Dave Alsup and Darran Simon contributed to this report from Atlanta.

Original post https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/20/us/colorado-watts-investigation/index.html