(NewsNation) — A Colorado dad now blames his wife for her and his two daughters over six years ago.
Chris Watts, 39, described his wife Shanann, as a “control freak,” according to handwritten notes obtained by The New York Post.
Watts confessed to strangling Shanann, who was pregnant, in their home in Frederick on August 13, 2018, after she returned from a business trip. He then drove her body to his job site and disposed of it. He also suffocated his two daughters, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste, and hid their bodies in oil drums.
His alleged motive was to be with his mistress, Nichol Kessinger.
In his letters, Watts shared most of his thoughts with Dylan Tallman, a fellow inmate at the Wisconsin prison who befriended him. However, after Watts backed out of a plan to co-write a prayer book, Tallman released a series of three books titled “The Cell Next Door.”
According to the letters, Watts confided to Tallman that his marriage to Shannon was unhappy, and he mentioned that she was very busy with her job, leaving him as the primary caregiver to his daughters.
Watts claims he started attracting attention from women after losing weight and working out in 2017. He eventually met Kessinger.
“She was just everything my wife wasn’t like with me. She was just nice, and not a control freak. We could make decisions together,” he said.
Watts also confided to Tallman that Kessinger became “the death of me.” In one letter obtained by The New York Post, he referred to as a “harlot” and a “jezebel.”
“Her flattering speech was like drops of honey that pierced my heart and soul. Little did I know that all her guests were in the chamber of death,” Watts wrote this prayer of confession in a letter dated March 2020.
Watts pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. For his safety, he was transferred to Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.