Memory of Chris Watt

Daniel Ventura (11th), Reporter

Have you ever heard of Chris Watt? Before the incident, he was an employee who worked to observe and rate the progress of oil at Anadarko. Living beside him was his pregnant wife, Shannan Watt and his two daughters, Bella and Celeste Watt. They would’ve had a third kid, but S. Watt died by the hands of C. Watt. 

Before going directly toward the crime, let’s go back to when C. Watt was known as an ordinary and softhearted man. In 2010, C. W and S. W got married in the state of South Carolina and went on a trip shortly after. When viewing the scenery in the state of Colorado, the happy couple made the decision to move into a spacious house in Fredrick, Colorado. While living in their new estate in Colorado, S. Watt gave birth to their twin daughters, who were born in 2013. 

Chris then found himself a job at an oil extraction company, where he then met his mistress and S. Watt’s friend, Nichol Kessinger. C. Watt was attracted to her and he lied to her about being divorced with S. Watt. It was at that moment, where C. Watt started to consider the unthinkable. He made the decision to murder his family in the night. 

On the night of August 13, 2018, C. Watt had planned his fatal method of getting a divorce. They were in bed when he confessed to his wife about what he had been thinking. After his confession, C. Watt then went for the killing of his wife by strangulation. 

Shortly after the murder, C. Watt could hear his daughter, Bella, heading towards the bedrooms while dragging a blanket. C. Watt stepped out of the room and told her that they needed to find an oil tank. C. Watt then took his two daughters, along with the dead body of S. Watt, toward an oil tank from his job to dump the body in.

During the time of Chris dragging and dumping the body of his deceased wife, he was cited by Bella and Celeste. Chris had made the nefarious decision to have his two living daughters share the same fate as his dead wife. 

He struggled to dump them in the tank, but managed to put them, leading to their deaths. The last words that Belle said to his father were, “Daddy, no.” For a whole week, the bodies of S. Watt and her daughters were not discovered. 

From 2018 to this very day, C. Watt is spending the rest of life sentence at Dodge Correctional Institution, located in Waupun, Wisconsin. During that time, detectives have been trying to uncover the reason for murdering his wife and children, but no answer has been found. Leading to one question:

“What was Chris Watts’ instinct to kill his whole family, instead of confessing his divorce and leaving?”

  • 11th grade student at Pitman High school, Devaraj Singh says, “I think…he was going through a mental issue during that time.”
  • 11th grade student at Pitman High school, Sean Forte says, “I don’t know. I think the guy was mental.”

https://www.tyla.com/news/chris-watts-described-murdering-his-children-more-than-once-20220810