DA describes how Chris Watts "coldly and deliberately ended four lives"

Your Honor there are no words to adequately describe the unimaginable tragedy that brings us before this court today by my comments I'm not even going to try to express the horror the pain or the suffering that the defendant has caused to these families to this community and to all who were a part of this investigation however I do want to spend a few minutes sharing with the court the details of the crime has so far you've only had an opportunity to review the affidavit and a few facts here and there that have been offered to the court in the motions and pleadings that have been filed the questions that have screamed out to anyone who will listen since August 13th of 2018 are why and how why did this have to happen how could a seemingly normal husband and father annihilate his entire family for what these are the questions that only one individual in this courtroom or on this planet knows the answers to I fully expect we will not receive the answers to these questions today normally will we at any point in the future I don't expect that he will ever tell the truth about what truly happened or why even if he did there is no rational way that any human being could find those answers acceptable responses to such horrific questions the best we can do is try to piece together some kind of understanding from the evidence that is available to us and the evidence tells us this the defendant coldly and deliberately ended four lives not in a fit of rage not by way of accident but in a calculated and sickening manner Sheen and was 34 years old she married the defendant in November of 2012 over the weekend leading up to August 13th she had been at a work conference in Phoenix Arizona and was returned home in the early morning hours of August 13th we know that she got home about 1:45 in the morning the doorbell camera on their home shows her arriving back home from the airport shortly thereafter at least according to the defendant they had a what he referred to as an emotional conversation about the state of their marriage and about what their lives would look like going forward what was said during that emotional conversation only he knows what we do know is that shortly after that the defendant strangled her to death with his own hands we know that he slowly took her life the morning of August 13th we know that this was not done in an uncontrolled vengeful manner that he tried to describe to agents from CBI and the FBI if that were the case you would expect to see vicious horrible bruising about her neck shoulders and face you would expect to see the hyoid bone in her neck broken you would expect to see some kind of defensive wounds on his body as she struggled and fought for her own life none of those are present the only injuries that were on Shannon's body were one set of finger or bruising what appeared to be fingernail or finger mark bruising to the right side of her neck we know that our experts will tell us that it takes two to four minutes to strangle someone to death manually with their own hands the horror that she felt is the man that she loved wrapped his hands around her throat and choked the life out of her must have been unimaginable even worse what must Bella age for and Celeste h-3 must have experienced her thought is their father the one man on this planet who was supposed to nurture and protect them was snuffing out their lives they both died from smothering let me say that again the man seated to my right smothered his daughters why imagine the horror in Bella's mind as her father took her last last breaths away your honor understand very clearly Bella fought back for her life the frenulum the connective tissue between her upper lip and her gum had an inch and a half excuse me a centimeter and a half laceration she bit her tongue multiple times before she died she fought back for her life as her father smothered her Celeste had no such injuries in fact she had no external injuries at all but according to the medical examiner she was smothered nonetheless the defendant then methodically and calmly loaded their bodies into his work truck not in a hayseed hasty or disorganized way he was seen from the neighbors doorbell camera backing his truck into the driveway going back and forth into the house and back out to the truck three different times one time for each of their bodies he then drove them away from their family home one final time intent on hiding any evidence of the crimes that he had just committed in one final sign of callousness for his wife his daughters and their unborn son and their remains he drove them to a location that he thought no one would ever find them to one of the oil tank batteries with which he was so familiar he knew this was safe he had texted a co-worker the night before saying I'll head out to that site I'll take care of it he had carefully ensured that he would be alone in the middle of the plains to secrete away the remains of his family in a place that he hoped they would never be found in one final measure of disrespect for the family he once had he ensured that they would not be together even in death or he so he thought he disposed of them in different locations he buried Shannon and Nico in a shallow grave away from the oil tanks Bella and Celeste were thrown away in the oil tanks at this facility different tanks so these little girls wouldn't be together in death imagine this your honor this defended took those little girls and put them through a hatch at the top of an oil tank eight inches in diameter Bella had scratches on her left buttocks from being shoved through this hole a tuft of blond hair was found on the edge of one of these hatches the venit told investigators that Bella's tank seemed emptier than CeCe's because of the sound that the splashes made these were his daughters significantly when his co-workers arrived at the tank battery later that morning to a person they all described him as acting completely normally it was a normal workday even while his daughter sank in the oil and water not far away from him and then his efforts at deception truly began we've all seen the emotionless interviews that the defendant gives to the local media asking for help in locating his family we watched as he claimed that the house was empty without them and that he hoped that they were somewhere safe and he just wanted them to come home he told investigators that they were at home sleeping when he left for work that morning and that Shannon had told him that he was she was taking the girls to a friend's house for the day what is striking about this case your honor beyond the horrors that I've already described to you is the number of collateral victims that he created by his actions while he stood in front of TV cameras asking for the safe return of his family scores of law enforcement officers neighbors friends and family scoured the area fretted for their safe return they texted him begging for any information and sending him their best wishes all the while he hid what he had done the list of indirect victims does not end there think of the firefighters in the Colorado State Patrol hazmat experts who had to Don protective suits and who were called upon to pull Bella and Celeste out of those oil tanks or the coroner employees who had to conduct these autopsies or the victim assistance who franked frantically attempted to ease the suffering of those affected all of this your honor for what why why did this have to happen his motive was simple your honor he had a desire for a fresh start to begin a relationship with a new love that overpowered all decency and feelings for his wife his daughters and unborn son while Shannon texted the defendant over and over again in the days and weeks leading up to her death attempting to save her marriage the defendant secreted pictures of his girlfriend into his phone and searched and texted excuse me texted her at all hours of the night while Shannon said the defendant self hoped self-help and relationship counselling books one of which ironically enough was thrown in the garbage he was searching the internet for secluded vacation spots to take his new love in researching jewelry and while Shannon took the girls to visit family in North Carolina the defendant went to car museums and the sand dunes with his new girlfriend the stark contrast between the subjects of their internet and text content is absolutely stunning even the morning after he killed them and disposed of their bodies he made several phone calls one was to the school where the girls were supposed to start telling the school that he would that the girls would not be coming to school any more that they were being unenrolled presumably to give him some more time before a lot of law enforcement notification about them going missing he contacted a realtor to start discussing the selling of his house and he texted with his girlfriend about their future none of this answers the questions of why however if he was this happy and wanted a new start get a divorce you don't annihilate your family and throw them away like garbage why did Nikko Celeste Bela and Shannon have to lose their lives in order for him to get what he wanted Your Honor justice demands the maximum sentence under the agreement reached by the parties as you will recall the agreement calls for life sentences as to Shannon Bella and Celeste and all of those to run consecutively to one another it also calls for the count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy as to Nikko to run consecutively two counts one two and three I would suggest that the extreme aggravation present in the defendants conduct and it is that the efforts that I have described mandate that the sentences four counts seven eight and nine the tampering with a deceased human body each be the maximum of 12 years and that those sentences run consecutively to one another it is very clear that each of these acts excuse me that these were not the subject of one act but each oil tank that he walked up with his daughter's bodies and the hole that he dug for his wife and unborn son mandate a mandatory consecutive sentence it's been alluded to this morning but the defendant was certainly eligible for the death penalty in this case under the existing law in the state of Colorado as you heard Shannon's family strongly opposed my office seeking the death penalty and being bound to the groom of the criminal justice system for the next several decades that's in large part as you've heard why we have reached agreement that we have four lives were lost at the hands of the defendant on August 13th for reasons that we will never fully understand we know in the end the rusik family was much more merciful towards him than he was towards his wife his daughters and his unborn son prison for the remainder of his life is exactly where he belongs for murdering his entire family thank you you see 91 days to file requests for restitution I am your honor please

Channel: 9NEWS

Views: 7,173,621

Rating: 4.8332396 out of 5

Keywords: Chris Watts murders, Shanann Watts, crime

Id: CugmDXYX7P8

Length: 13min 1sec (781 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 19 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Ooudhi_Fyooms]

There's a colossal amount of footage about the Chris Watts case on youtube ... but I've never encountred this court footage before.

 

Here's a post-conviction interview

Audio: Chris Watts prison interview, part 1 - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duu2NePfEo0

Audio: Chris Watts prison interview, part 2 - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4oun0hm3q0

 

Bodycam arrival onscene then search of his house footage.

Chris Watts Body Cam Footage on the Day Watts Family Reported Missing (RAW) - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy2_CqLMU0s

 

A compilation of similar footage.

https://youtu.be/dhMwzuTMev0

 

Police interview footage.

https://youtu.be/dhMwzuTMev0

https://youtu.be/xoxb3iLkVNQ

https://youtu.be/TXOoW_miMU4

 

Sentencing.

https://youtu.be/JZPt3uvJZAU

 

Psychological analysis: there is an entire series of these about a variety of cases ... & I would say they are rather good.

https://youtu.be/Xfg861hO-Ag

 

Victim impact.

https://youtu.be/COHty3iEFqM

 

Police at-first-scene footage with commentary analysing the slips he made.

https://youtu.be/2ZJzEZ8Y-rM

 

Yet more interview footage + analysis

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nVZhV7M3mNE

https://youtu.be/yS3k_Inm45Q

 

Another psychological analysis.

https://youtu.be/E8yPWbKYdXA

 

Yet anoððre! ... I'm beginning to think there might be a positive obsession @large about this guy!

https://youtu.be/iyndzKXJdMA

 

Chris arriving at the prison. (I seem to be on firstname terms with him already!) Not any interview or incident or anything : just Chris generically arriving @ the prison.

https://youtu.be/PIWNTBAx5qY

 

My need to say this has been building for a while now. In an interview I once saw with Eileen Wuornos (who is a nasty piece-o'-work, & I'm not taking her side), she rails against the prosecution for going-on about her crimes being 'the most despicable imaginable' ... blah blah, when they were not, as murders go , particularly extraördinary ones. But folks do do that: & it's a very valid point: the 'unimaginable' 'unspeakable' murders are the ones in which there's extraördinary cruelty, & mutilation, & stuff like that. It's just inane to pile all that kind of rhetoric on by default in a murder-case.

And I think it applies to this one: indeed it was a murder , and moreover, murder of his wife & young daughters, & therefore an extremely heinous act ... but it was not one of those that was extreme in the sense of there being any torture or mutilation over-&-above what was necessary to committ it ... & it's in those kinds of murder that that kind of holding-forth about horror & unspeakability & unimaginability is warranted.

It's like folks seem to have just completely forgotten about the existence of war .

But ofcourse : no-one wishes to be the one quoted as saying "but he only strangled them!" ... so the sillity gets 'lockt' into-place.

[u/hopscotchking]

Jim Can’t Swim (r/Jimcantswim) does an excellent video on this guy.