‘I Just Couldn’t Let Go’: Chris Watts Details How He Strangled Pregnant Wife Shanann
July 12 2019, Updated 9:59 p.m. ET
As he sits behind bars for the murders of his pregnant wife and two young daughters, Chris Watts is finally telling all on his horrific crime.
In a chilling new jailhouse interview conducted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and obtained by RadarOnline.com, the most hated dad in America detailed how he killed his loving partner Shanann — and what exactly happened in the tragic last moments of her life.
“I woke up that morning and I knew I had to do it,” he said, recalling how he strangled his wife inside their bedroom.
“Why couldn’t I just let go? I don’t want to know what she saw when she looked back at me.”
On February 18 at approximately 7:45 a.m., CBI Agent Tammy Lee, FBI Special Agent Grahm Coder and Frederick Police Department Detective Dave Baumhover arrived at the prison to interview Chris, 33.
“Did you look at her while you strangled her?” one asked.
“Yes. She wasn’t fighting. Maybe she was praying. Maybe she was saying scripture. There wasn’t any defensive wounds because she couldn’t fight back. I just got on top of her and that was it. It is in my head, in the back of my head, that was going to happen,” answered the killer.
RadarOnline.com readers know Chris pled guilty to killing pregnant Shanann and their girls Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, days after going on record saying they had disappeared from their home and he missed them terribly.
Soon after, investigators began looking for the girls and mother, but only found footage of the creepy killer loading his pickup truck with what looked like his wife’s dead body. Eventually, Chris admitted to murdering them in hopes of starting a new life with his mistress.
“At the end of the conversation that is what happened. I just wish I could let go. It seemed like it was longer than two to four minutes. I just felt like time was standing still. I just couldn’t let go. It was like something else had taken over and I just couldn’t let go. I feel like I was in a rage. That is the only way I can describe it. Strangulation is a passionate type of thing but I don’t know how it could be passionate. It felt like someone was behind me. I just couldn’t let go,” continued Chris in his interview.
As soon as he woke up that day, Chris said he knew he was going to kill his wife. He said he felt like his girlfriend, Nikki, “had a leash on me” and the two of them could finally be free together.
“With Shanann I never felt like I could be myself. But with Nikki I could be myself. Nikki just wanted sex all the time, she wanted it when she wanted it. With Shanann it was just like okay,” he said.
The last time he slept with Shanann, it all became very clear to him.
“I felt like that last time sex with Shanann was a trigger point. So I woke her up and I told her that I don’t feel compatible. I don’t feel like it’s going to work. I asked her if we could cancel the trip to Aspen that she had booked,” Chris recalled.
He said he knew something was very wrong with him when he jumped from wanting to be apart from Shanann to wanting to move to another city with her.
“From what I remember I said, ‘Can we move to Brighton?’ Just to get out of the house. It went from staying together to not staying together. We are back and forth crying. She didn’t wash her face. Mascara is running all over. I just wish I could take it all back.” He said.
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The conversation took a turn when he told her it was over.
“I told her I didn’t love her anymore. She told me to get off of her. She told me that I was hurting the baby. I felt like I could get off of her but I stayed on top of her,” he said. “With everything that happened that morning, I just keep going back in my head. I didn’t want to do it, I just did it.”
Chris Watts is now serving three consecutive life sentences for the murders of Shanann, Bella, and Cece. He has no possibility of parole.
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