"A Colorado father was sentenced to three consecutive lifetimes in prison after a prosecutor detailed for the first time how Christopher Watts planned the August murders of his pregnant wife and two young daughters — apparently in the hope of starting a new life with his girlfriend, but neither prosecutors nor the surviving relatives of Shanann, Bella, and Celeste Watts expected to ever understand how ‘‘a seemingly normal person [could] annihilate his entire family,’’ as Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke put it, and then methodically cover his tracks. Watts, 33, had told reporters on Aug. 13 that he had rushed home from work upon hearing that Shanann’s friends couldn’t find her or reach her, but a day after the disappearance, a woman named Nichol Kessinger contacted the sheriff’s office, The Denver Post reported. She told investigators that she had been dating him for several weeks. ‘‘He lied about everything,’’ Kessinger later told the Denver Post."
FLASHBACKS:
"‘The kids are my life,’ a dad said of his missing family. Then he was charged with killing them" by Avi Selk Washington Post August 16, 2018
A day after his pregnant wife and two daughters vanished, Christopher Watts stood in his front yard and faced the parade of news cameras with uniform solemnity.
‘‘I came home and walked in the house and nothing. Just vanished,’’ the 33-year-old husband and father told Denver 7 ABC on Tuesday.
‘‘It just seems like I’m living in a nightmare and I can’t get out of it,’’ he told KUSA-NBC, as officers from the Frederick Police Department led search dogs through the family’s 4,000-square-foot house.
‘‘In my heart I believe she is somewhere, and I hope she is safe,’’ Watts told Fox 31 the same day, while dogs barked in the house behind him.
There were no interviews the next day. Shortly before midnight, police returned to the house, quietly arrested Watts, and began hauling trash bags out the front door.
Now the same TV stations that had interviewed the father are reporting that he has been jailed on charges of murder, and his family is dead.
Earlier in the week, when there seemed to be some hope of a happy ending, idyllic photos of the family plastered the news.
Hey, whatever happened to that compound in New Mexico anyway?
This month, his wife, Shanann, who was in her second trimester with the newest Watts member, took a trip to Arizona to see her family and attend a conference for her new occupation, marketing a ‘‘lifestyle system’’ called Thrive.
They deal in second-hand clothing?
KDVR reported that a friend picked Shanann Watts up at the airport when she flew home on Monday, dropped her off at home about 2 a.m., and never saw her again.
Another friend called police after Shanann missed a doctor’s appointment that morning, then didn’t answer her door, ABC11 reported.
By Tuesday, state investigators and the FBI had joined the search. Posters of the family were being handed out to drivers around the neighborhood as Watts stepped into his driveway to tell the reporters what it felt like to find out they were missing.
‘‘I was blowing through stoplights. I was blowing through everything just trying to get home as fast as I can, because none of this made sense,’’ he told KUSA.
He said he had left the house for work shortly after 5 a.m. on Monday — just a few hours after his wife came home from the airport.
‘‘I texted her a few times, called her, but she never got back to me,’’ he told Denver 7.
He figured she was just busy, he said. Only after one of Shanann’s friends called him and said she wasn’t at the house, he said, did he begin to worry.
Watts wanted to drive around looking for them, he said, but police told him it wouldn’t do any good. All he could do was sit in his house or stand in his yard, listening to police dogs bark while he described his emotions.
A few oddities about the search began to leak out. Shanann’s friends said her phone, keys, and wallet had all been found in the house, ABC11 reported. Her car was still in the garage, per NBC News.
No one who knew her said she was the type to just pick up and leave.
Late that afternoon, Frederick police held a short news conference.
‘‘There is a lot at stake here, and we are exploring all avenues to not rule anything out,’’ a spokesman said.
After dark, more police vehicles began to show up at the Watts house.
Reporters photographed officers taking bags of evidence out and towing a pickup away. Things became clearer on Thursday morning.
At a terse new conference in the late morning, flanked by police and FBI agents, Colorado Bureau of Investigations Director John Camper announced ‘‘absolutely the worst possible outcome anybody could imagine.’’
‘‘We’ve recovered a body we’re quite certain is Shanann Watts,’’ he said. ‘‘We have strong reason to believe we know where bodies of the children are.’’
Their father was now officially a ‘‘suspect,’’ he said. His arrest warrant had been sealed by court order, and he remained jailed on three counts of evidence tampering and three counts of first-degree murder. The district attorney’s office is now reviewing whether to bring formal charges by Monday.
Investigators released almost no other details about the killings or what made them suspect Watts, citing the need to protect an investigation that was only just beginning.....
And here my interest has already ended!
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I hope he has a good lawyer, and here's a cigarette. He probably needs one.
"Authorities are expected to file formal charges Monday against a Colorado oil and gas worker who authorities said killed his wife and daughters, and dumped their bodies on the property of Anadarko Petroleum, his employer. Christopher Watts, 33, of Frederick, was arrested after reporting them missing. The victims were identified as Shanann Watts, 34; Bella Watts, 4; and Celeste Watts, 3. Tests are planned to determine how they died (AP)."
"Colorado man told of murder charges as wife’s father sobs" by Dan Elliott Associated Press August 22, 2018
GREELEY, Colo. — A Colorado man told a judge he understood he has been charged with killing his pregnant wife and two young daughters and then hiding their bodies in an oil field as his father-in-law sobbed in the courtroom Tuesday.
Christopher Watts, wearing an orange jail suit and cuffed at the wrists and ankle, stoically answered, ‘‘Yes sir,’’ as District Judge Marcelo Kopcow formally advised him of the murder charges and that he could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of killing his wife, Shanann, 34, and their daughters Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4.
Shanann’s father, Frank Rzucek Sr., wept with his face in his hands. Shanann’s brother, Frank Rzucek Jr., rubbed his father’s shoulders and glared unflinchingly at Watts. A bailiff stood between them.
Watts didn’t enter a plea to three first-degree murder charges, two counts of killing a child under 12, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.
Shanann’s body was buried in a shallow grave in an oil field north of Denver and the girls’ bodies were found submerged in nearby oil tanks, according to a police arrest affidavit.
Watts told authorities his wife killed the children after he told her he wanted a separation. He said he erupted in a rage after seeing her strangle one of the kids on a baby monitor and then strangled their mother inside the family’s home, according to court documents.
Police first visited the home on Aug. 13, after a friend asked officers to check on Shanann. She had missed a doctor’s appointment and wasn’t answering calls or text messages hours after returning home from a business trip, the friend said.
Police searched the house and found Shanann’s cellphone stuffed inside a couch. Her purse was in the kitchen and a suitcase was at the bottom of the stairs.
A detective spoke to Watts and learned about his plan to leave his wife. He said the conversation with Shanann was civil at first but that later ‘‘they were both upset and crying’’ and she planned to go to a friend’s house, the court papers said.
When she and the girls did not return home Aug. 14, investigators ramped up their efforts with help from the FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Christopher Watts was interviewed by several local television stations, saying he missed his family and wanted them back.
It wasn’t until last Wednesday night that he told investigators ‘‘he would tell the truth.’’ Watts asked to speak with his father, then acknowledged killing his wife.
In court papers released Monday, investigators said they learned that Watts was ‘‘actively involved in an affair with a co-worker,’’ something he denied in earlier conversations with police.
Didn't want them to have a motive.
According to Watts’ account, Aug. 13 began with an intense conversation. He said he told his wife that he wanted a separation, then walked downstairs.
When he returned, he said he spotted a baby monitor on his wife’s nightstand and saw her ‘‘actively strangling’’ Celeste. He said it also showed their other daughter, Bella, ‘‘sprawled out on her bed and blue.’’
‘‘Chris said he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death,’’ the document said. Police found surveillance video from a neighbor showing Watts’ truck backing into the driveway at 5:27 a.m., and then driving away from the house in Frederick, a small town on the grassy plains north of Denver where fast-growing subdivisions intermingle with drilling rigs and oil wells.
Watts, who worked as an operator for Anadarko Petroleum, said he loaded his wife and daughters’ bodies into the backseat of his truck and drove to an oil work site about 40 miles east of the family’s home. He buried Shanann’s body and ‘‘dumped the girls inside’’ oil tanks, according to court documents.
Separate documents filed by Watts’ defense attorney last week said the girls’ bodies were submerged in crude oil for four days before police found them late Thursday. Their mother’s body was found in a shallow grave nearby, prosecutors said.
The court filing says Watts gave police an aerial photograph and identified three areas where he placed the bodies. Investigators searched with a drone and spotted a bedsheet that matched other linens in the family home and fresh dirt.
Shanann’s social media accounts are filled with photos and videos of the girls playing with their father and the couple smiling. They married in North Carolina nearly six years ago and moved to Colorado soon afterward.
District Attorney Michael Rourke said Monday it was too early to discuss whether he will seek the death penalty. Watts will next be in court Nov. 16.
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That's the last I ever saw of it in the Globe.
Related:
"The fiance of a Colorado woman who has been missing since Thanksgiving Day was arrested Friday on allegations of killing the mother of his child, and police said she likely died at her house in a mountain town, but authorities declined to say whether they had found the body of Kelsey Berreth, 29, what led to the arrest of Patrick Michael Frazee and what motive there might be for Berreth’s disappearance and slaying. Frazee, 32, was arrested at his home in the alpine town of Florissant on suspicion of murder and solicitation of murder, said Miles de Young, chief of police in neighboring Woodland Park, where Berreth lived. ‘‘As you can tell from the arrest, sadly, we do not believe that Kelsey is still alive,’’ De Young said. Authorities also declined to elaborate on the solicitation of murder charge, how they believe Berreth was killed or other aspects of the investigation. Police have said Frazee was the last person to see Berreth alive. The couple shared a baby daughter but didn’t live together. Her mother previously said financial struggles delayed them from moving in together, but her daughter was excited to get married. The disappearance of the young pilot mystified family and friends and led to a social media push for information."
Must be something in the water out there (or is it the legal pot?).
UPDATE:
"9-year-old boy helps repeal snowball throwing ban in Colorado town" by Emily S. Rueb New York Times December 05, 2018
This week, a 9-year-old boy threw the first “legal” snowball in Severance, Colo. It was the culmination of a campaign that Dane Best had led to repeal a nearly century-old ban on snowball throwing in Severance, a town of about 6,000 people about 50 miles north of Denver.
There was no snow on the ground outside Town Hall on Monday night, but after the Town Board’s trustees were swayed by Dane’s presentation, members of the town staff presented a snowball preserved in a freezer to Dane. Then, before a scrum of television cameras and reporters, he leaned back and hurled the snowball into the air.
At the mayor’s office Tuesday morning, Dane fielded calls from news outlets from around the world with his mother, Brooke Best.
He had been up late the night before taping an appearance for “Good Morning America” and had also been featured in local newspapers and USA Today as well as on National Public Radio and several television networks.
In an interview with The New York Times, he gave a succinct explanation of his motivation for civic engagement.
“Because snowball fights are fun in the winter,” he said.
To be sure, it is not entirely clear whether snowball fights in particular were illegal in Severance — at least not in the past decade or so — but the town encouraged Dane’s participation in local government.
To be sure, but!
Dane’s campaign began in October during a third-grade class trip to Town Hall, an annual educational exercise meant to teach students at Range View Elementary school about governance.
“The mayor told us about crazy laws,” Dane said, including the one forbidding snowball throwing.
The ordinance in question, approved sometime in the 1920s, is Chapter 2, Section 13 of the original town charter, which prohibited the throwing of projectiles, but in 2007, the town simplified the language when the laws were posted online, said Kyle Rietkerk, the assistant to the Severance town administrator. He said town officials are searching for printed documents that may have included original language classifying snowballs as offensive objects.
Mayor Donald McLeod acknowledged the town had never enforced the ban, and didn’t know what the actual penalty would be, but because of Dane’s efforts, there has been an official recognition that snowballs are no longer an offensive object.....
OMFG, this ma$$ media sensation is nothing but fluffy filler!!
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Yeah, that is the NYT's version of civic engagement!
Also see:
"With drought entering a second decade and reservoirs continuing to shrink, seven Southwestern US states that depend on the overtaxed Colorado River for crop irrigation and drinking water had been expected to ink a crucial share-the-pain contingency plan by the end of 2018. They’re not going to make it — at least not in time for upcoming meetings in Las Vegas....."
Oh, the drought is simply an excuse for them to get their watering holes wet -- and maybe bump around and do some gambling.
