Chris Watts has stated that he believes God has ‘forgiven him’ for the murder of his wife and children in a series of unsettling letters.
In August 2018, Chris Watts strangled his 34-year-old pregnant wife, Shannan, and suffocated their daughters, Bella, aged four, and Celeste, aged three, at their home in Colorado.
Shannan’s body was eventually found in a shallow grave at an oil and gas company site, while the bodies of the young girls were discovered in nearby oil tanks.
Despite initially claiming ignorance about his family’s whereabouts, and even making a public appeal for their return, authorities soon arrested him for murder.
Watts confessed to the brutal crimes and received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
From his prison cell in Wisconsin, the 40-year-old has developed relationships with several penpals, including author Cheryln Cadle. In these exchanges, he has provided graphic details of his crimes.
In one letter to another inmate, he tried to justify his actions, labeling Shannan a ‘control freak’ and alluding to his affair with Nichol Kessinger as the ‘forbidden fruit.’
Reports suggest that Shannan had confronted Watts about his affair with a co-worker and requested a divorce.
Watts has now written more letters claiming he has become a ‘new man’ through religion, which has allowed him to ‘forgive [himself].’
In confessions shared with the Daily Mail, he wrote: “I am a new man. I am not the person who committed those horrible acts. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says ‘if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’ That’s me. I’m a new creature.
“I know that God does not see me as a sinner who killed his family; he sees me as His child. I have confessed my sins. I am forgiven. The hardest thing I have had to do was to forgive myself,” he added.
“God has separated me from my sin as far as the east is from the west. But forgiveness of self is another matter entirely and it has taken me years to find my peace, the peace that passes all understanding.”
The convicted murderer concluded: “I am finally at peace with myself.”
In another letter to a penpal dated April, Watts again implicated Kessinger, alleging she was the catalyst for his murderous actions.
“I have always taken full responsibility for what I did, even though I was misled by a wicked woman,” Watts wrote.
“She was a harlot, a Jezebel who led me astray. Who spoke sweet words of destruction.
“But I will let God have his justice with her. I was weak and I let her cloud my morals and my judgement.”
Watts has previously blamed the woman, who reportedly believed Watts was undergoing a divorce when their relationship began.
“I was having an affair with this girl and I ended up in love with two women at the same time,” he admitted in a 2019 letter.
“It’s what led up to what happened. She is of evil spirits, like Jezebel.”
In 2020, he also wrote to God, attributing his downfall to the ‘words of a harlot’ and her enticing speech, describing it as ‘drops of honey that pierced my heart.’
Authorities do not consider Kessinger complicit in the murders and she has not been charged with any crimes.
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