Infamous killer Chris Watts has claimed that God has “forgiven” him seven years after he was found guilty of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters.
The chilling story of Watts’ crimes is one very few people can truly get their heads around. He led a seemingly pleasant life, with a beautiful family, stable employment, and a third child on the way.
Yet in August, 2018, the now-40-year-old’s wife, Shanann, and two daughters, Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4, suddenly went missing, sparking a search that made national news within hours. Watts endeavoured to push the narrative that Shanann had taken the kids and ran away, or that his family had perhaps been abducted.
Heartbreakingly, however, Shannan, Celeste, and Bella were already dead, slain by Watts’ own hands. Watts reportedly strangled Shannan before suffocating his two daughters. He then disposed of their bodies at the site of an oil and gas company in Frederick, Colorado, dumping Celeste and Bella in crude oil tanks and burying his wife in a shallow grave close by.
It later came to light that Watts had been having an affair with one of his colleagues, Nichol Kessinger, with the aim of beginning a new life with her after murdering his family.
Kessinger, for her part, was cleared of any wrongdoing by police, having claimed that Watts informed her he was in the process of negotiating an amicable divorce.
Watts’ ill-conceived lies were soon picked apart by detectives and it wasn’t long before the ‘concerned’ father had become the number one suspect in the crime. Instead of immediately admitting his guilty, however, Watts then attempted to put his deceased wife in the firing line, claiming that Shannan had murdered Celeste and Bella, after which he had in turn killed her in a fit of rage.
Ultimately Watts had no choice but to admit the horrific truth that he had murdered his family. He was handed three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus 84 years, avoiding the death penalty as part of his plea.
Since then, Watts has been incarcerated in the maximum-security Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin.
Despite living in constant fear of other inmates – Watts reportedly hardly talks to anyone, instead opting to read his bible – he now believes he has been forgiven by God, and even gave a chilling reason as to why.
In a series of handwritten letters – the contents of which have been published by the Daily Mail – Watts declared: “I am a new man. I am not the person who committed those horrible acts. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says ‘if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’ That’s me. I’m a new creature.
“I know that God does not see me as a sinner who killed his family; he sees me as His child. I have confessed my sins. I am forgiven. The hardest thing I have had to do was to forgive myself,” he added.
“God has separated me from my sin as far as the east is from the west. But forgiveness of self is another matter entirely and it has taken me years to find my peace, the peace that passes all understanding.”
Back in April, Watts also blamed Kessinger, suggesting that he was “misled”.
“I have always taken full responsibility for what I did, even though I was misled by a wicked woman,” Watts penned.
“She was a harlot, a Jezebel who led me astray. Who spoke sweet words of destruction.
“But I will let God have his justice with her. I was weak and I let her cloud my morals and my judgement.”
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