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Oct. 19, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:41
Chris Watts' Letters Revealed: A Family Tragedy | Dr. Oz | S11 | Ep 41 | Full Episode
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Time Text
Dear Sherilyn, I arrived at the Weld County Jail the night of August 15th.
Chris Watts, his letters from jail, and an Oz exclusive.
He admitted that he actually killed his daughters not once, but twice.
His words, his details, his confession.
When he put his hands on her neck, he couldn't let go.
Coming up next.
Season 11 starts now.
I became a doctor to help people heal.
Now I'm using the same science and medicine to take on true crime.
On today's True Crime, Colorado dad Chris Watts horrified the country when he confessed to brutally murdering his wife, Shanann.
Their unborn son and their daughters, Bella and Celeste.
Now, in a series of prison letters, he's revealing shocking new details about his crimes for the first time.
Today, I'm sitting down exclusively with the woman who received these letters from Watts so we can understand, why would a father do this?
But first, take a look at the monstrous acts Chris Watts committed that landed him in prison for the rest of his life.
The story shocked the world.
A devastated father pleading for the return of his pregnant wife and their two small daughters, who'd vanished after his wife returned from a weekend business trip.
If you're out there, just come back.
If somebody has her, just please bring her back.
I need to see everybody.
I need to see everybody again.
To the outside world and on social media, Chris and Shanann Watts appeared a picture-perfect couple, shown smiling together with their two young girls and happily anticipating the birth of their third.
But just hours after his impassioned plea for their return, Chris Watts would confess to his father that he'd killed his pregnant wife after accusing her of strangling their two young daughters.
I freaked out.
Not just this.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
But ultimately, Watts would be arrested and charged with killing 34-year-old Shanann, 4-year-old Bella, 3-year-old Cece, and his unborn child.
Their bodies were found on the grounds of the petroleum plant where Watts worked, Shanann in a shallow grave, and the little girls placed inside oil and gas tanks.
Chris Watts ultimately pleaded guilty to murdering his entire family.
The most inhumane and vicious crime that I have handled out of the thousands of cases that I have seen.
Watts was sentenced to life in prison, leaving Shanann's devastated family and friends with so many questions.
In search of answers, recently retired grandmother Sherilyn Cato approached Watts to take part in a book she was writing about the case.
Surprisingly, he agreed.
The result?
Startling new first-hand confessions Watts made to Cato in letters and during visits she made to him in prison.
Today, Sherilyn Cato shares insights into what really turned Chris Watts from a seemingly devoted husband and father into a cruel, cold-blooded killer.
Sherilyn Cato joins us now.
She's the author of the new book, Letters from Christopher, The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders.
Sherilyn, you've never written a book before.
You've never even reached out to a prisoner.
Why Chris Watts?
I don't know, just seeing him the morning on the front porch when he was looking for his family and telling the TV cameras that they just vanished.
I knew by watching him he was guilty.
It was easy to see that he was.
And I just felt something.
I felt called to write this story to help get in his mind enough to see why he would do something like that to his family.
In order to write the story, you have to get in touch with him.
You have to gain his confidence.
We're going to talk about a lot of these letters in a second, and I've read through them, and there are specific questions I have, but there are some horrific things that he admitted to you in conversations and in the letters.
One of the things that struck me powerfully as a father and his grandfather is he admitted that he actually killed his daughters not once, but twice.
What did he mean by that?
Well, the morning of, he went into his baby girls' rooms and took a pillow from their bed and smothered them.
And then he went into his room with Shanann and laid down next to her.
They argued a little, and he murdered her.
So then he was wrapping her in the sheets, and both girls got up.
And saw him and started questioning what's wrong with mommy?
What happened to mommy?
Bella, the oldest one, was crying.
She had obviously been traumatized.
She had bruises above her eyes and you could tell she'd been traumatized.
And also Cece was more Kind of confused, but she was awake, the younger one.
So they ran around the house, literally, and cried and was watching what was going on as he drug Shanann down the stairs.
He couldn't pick her up, or he tried to pick her up, but she was too heavy for him.
They were in a two-story home, so he drug her down the stairs.
Oh my goodness.
Put her in the back of his pickup truck and then proceeded to put each of the girls in the back seat with their little feet dangling over the seat on top of their mommy.
And they rode an hour like that to the oil fields.
He drove them to their burial ground.
Yes.
They trusted their father.
Of course they did.
You know, they loved him.
You know, Bella's seen on cameras singing the song, Daddy, You're My Hero.
He was the one that was entrusted to take care of them.
So Chris told Sherilyn that his daughter Bella was the only one who put up a fight, saying, I'm quoting this, I will hear her soft little voice for the rest of my life.
She was saying, Daddy, no.
Daddy, no.
I mean, you're a mom, a grandmom.
How hard is it to hear that even now?
It's very hard.
I have a three-year-old granddaughter myself, and I can't even imagine her skinning her knee.
It hurts me.
It's been difficult, yet best.
It's been very difficult.
He said lots of things to you, and I want to get into his mind, which is why I wanted to have you on.
Yes.
One issue is how aware is he of what he did and is currently doing.
He apparently made overtures to his ability to take care, for example, of that three-year-old granddaughter.
Is that true?
Yes.
He asked me if I was out of prison now, would you allow me to watch your grandchild?
And he, by saying that, was trying to say he has remorse enough that he would never hurt anyone again.
And it's easy for me to say, absolutely not.
I would never leave my grandchild.
Christopher, what are you thinking by asking that question?
What does it say about him that he even asked the question?
Does he think he's trustworthy?
I think he does.
He's narcissistic.
Very much everything is about him.
Through a lot of the confessions that he made to me, a lot of it has been about how badly he hurts and how badly it is for him, which seems very narcissistic to me.
Why does he say he did it?
This is a man, I've been...
Searching for clues that he could have even done this.
I can't find any reason why any of us sitting here right now would have suspected he could possibly even do it.
Right.
He was very much a seemingly family man, good dad, spent a lot of time with the girls, helped his wife around the house, helped her while she did her sales and that type of thing.
So, you know, asking him, why wouldn't you just get a divorce?
Because millions of people get divorces, so why wouldn't you just walk away if you had to be away from Shanann?
Because he says the reason is, well, he'll go back and forth with blaming different things.
You know, the mistress, the fact that he didn't pray for three months before this happened, that there's a darkness that was over him.
He's even went as far as saying a demon was in him, which maybe that's true.
If you can do something like that, it does seem a little evil, very evil, actually.
Although, evil is clearly the definition of it.
But I'm curious, does he blame his mistress, for example?
They say it was her.
If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have murdered my wife, unborn child, two beautiful daughters.
How does he excuse this in his mind?
I don't know, because that is exactly what he has said.
If I had never met Nikki, this would never have happened, he says.
Which makes absolutely no sense to anyone at all.
But he's very...
You know, Christopher has...
He's not outgoing at all.
He's very closed off.
I never saw emotions from him.
I didn't see him laugh.
I didn't see him cry.
I didn't see him excited.
He's very quiet.
So, you know, he's been harder to read than some people because you get nothing.
It's just like a blink.
Well, as I go through these letters, he's saying things to me in his writing, which I want to come to when we come back, because we're going to discuss the claims of demon possession.
We're also going to talk about the rumors of a gay affair which have been raised.
Sherilyn is revealing even more from her conversation with Chris Watts.
We'll be right back.
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That's coming up tomorrow.
In a letter to author Sherilyn Cato, convicted murderer Chris Watts writes, August 12th, when I finished putting the girls to bed, I walked away and said, that's the last time I'm going to be tucking my babies in.
I knew what was going to happen the day before, and I did nothing to stop it.
I couldn't stop myself from what I knew would occur the next morning.
I am so thankful the Lord has delivered me from whatever evil was tormenting me and my family.
I just wish they were still here.
We're back with exclusive new details on the shocking case of Chris Watts, the Colorado father currently serving five life sentences for brutally killing his wife, unborn child, and two daughters.
Over the past six months, he's opened up to a woman named Sherilyn Cato about why he committed this horrific crime.
Sherilyn's documented her letters, phone calls, and prison visits with Chris in a new book called Letters from Christopher, and she's joining us today.
Chris told you that he may have been possessed by demons before these brutal and very betraying murders.
Yes.
How did that take place in his mind?
How does he describe that?
Well, he says because he doesn't feel like it was really him that committed these murders.
That he knew ahead of time that he was going to do it, but he couldn't do anything to stop it.
He felt a darkness over him.
And in fact, when he killed his family, he said, especially Shanann, when he put his hands on her neck, he couldn't let go.
It was like a force holding him with his hands on her neck.
And looking at it, thinking he should pull his hands off, but couldn't.
Did he share that he could have gone on and killed others, that killing didn't really matter to him?
He said at that time, during that time, and all the way through up until after he left the oil field, that he could have killed anything that came in his path and felt justified doing it.
Felt justified?
Mm-hmm.
I'm just going to read, this is page 10 of one of the letters, and there's, you know...
He actually has neat handwriting.
I don't know what that says about somebody.
So he signs it up in Christ.
Signs his name.
Then he has scripture.
He quotes Timothy, Peter.
He's talking about...
To you anyway, the way a spiritual person might talk.
He says, God bless you at the end.
And I'm still trying to put my head around.
It seems like an apparently normal person, a man, committed the worst of all possible crimes.
You can begin to appreciate why churches, the Catholic Church in particular, might believe in demon possession.
Because it seems like something happened to him.
Yes, it does.
I mean, I have no idea about demon possession.
I'm not sure that that darkness wasn't always in him.
Even though he never showed signs of it that we can tell.
Right.
That we know.
Did you ever ask him if he tortured animals or did other things that say sociopaths, mass murders, serial murders?
I did, and he says no, that he had never done anything at all like that.
But it was kind of interesting, too.
Their dog, Dieter, didn't like him.
Did the dog sense something, or was it because of the way he treated the dog?
I don't know.
Very different.
Maybe both.
Maybe both.
In one letter to Cheryl and Chris wrote, the darkness inside of me had won.
It was still in me, though.
I felt like I could kill anything and be justified for doing it.
You mentioned that he had that sentiment.
Did you feel unsafe in his presence?
Well, I didn't because there was always at least three guards close by.
He was sat in a seat across the little table from me and he was not allowed to move as far as get up or anything.
He had to stay in that chair.
And if he hadn't, they would have been on him.
So after this horrific crime made headlines, a man came forward claiming he also had an affair with Chris Watts.
This, for a lot of people, muddied the waters quite a bit.
Did Chris have any thoughts on this?
Did he admit it?
Did he deny it?
Well, what's interesting is he didn't even know that he was accused of that until after he had already been sentenced and was in prison.
He said he has no idea who the person is and there was absolutely never a thought of him being gay or being in a gay relationship.
So he kind of brushed it off because he said he doesn't know anything about it.
Did you believe him?
I think I did.
Yeah, I think I did.
Did you become proficient in your mind, telling when he was lying and not?
I think so.
I'm not a doctor, so I can't diagnose him with, you know, that, but I could kind of tell.
When he was telling the truth, And I'm not kidding.
His eyes would go dark when he would talk about the murders.
And just, just dark.
And it was very strange to me.
And I asked him if anyone else had ever told him that since the murders, and he had been told that, that his eyes would go dark when he would talk about it.
Sinead's family has some very serious concerns with Sherilyn's book.
Coming up, we're going to hear how they feel about these horrific new details from Chris Watts' crimes being made public.
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It's a dimly lit room with a massage table.
Jeffrey came in.
He began to sexually abuse me.
That's coming up on Thursday.
On the morning of August the 13th, 2018, Chris Watts murdered his pregnant wife Shanann and their two young daughters, Bella and Cece.
He pled guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole.
From prison, he began writing to author Sherilyn Cato.
In an excerpt from one letter, Chris admits, I can say with a certainty that I always loved Shanann and always will, but there was always this lingering fear that I would do something wrong.
Those were the chilling words of convicted killer Chris Watts.
That's from just one of the many letters he wrote to Sherilyn Cato, who joins us exclusively today.
Sherilyn, I'm going to broach a sensitive topic.
Okay.
We reached out to Shanann's family for a response to the publication of Sherilyn's book, and they told us they had been led to believe the focus of the book would be about Christopher's journey to find redemption through Christ while in prison for his crimes.
I'm quoting them.
They now feel deceived that it's being marketed as a true crime story, and they say they're devastated.
They went on to say, Mr. Watts' crimes have been a tragic loss not only for them, But to those who knew and deeply loved their daughter and grandchildren, Ms. Cato took advantage of Mr. Watts and woefully deceived the family in mourning over a very recent and tragic loss.
You can read the Shanann family full statement on DrRoz.com.
So let me just ask you directly so you have a chance to defend yourself.
Did you misrepresent the intentions of your book?
Absolutely not.
When I first started writing the book, the word had gotten to Shanann's parents that I was writing a book.
Their attorney called me, and I told them then, well, we made a deal with each other.
And the deal was, because they wanted to know if I was going to share the money with the Ruzaks.
And I said, well, I was...
I made a deal with Christopher that there would be no money exchange between us.
He can't have money anyway.
And in exchange for that, I would write the story of his forgiveness and redemption in at least one chapter of the book.
And I told him I could not be held to any specific thing.
I said the book will be about, there will be his confession will be in there.
And at that time it was the beginning of the book.
So I didn't know what all I was in for yet.
I had not even received the letter yet talking about killing the girls twice.
And so Christopher was never deceived.
As you can see, he wrote all the letters, many, many letters to me.
But I was also told by my attorney not to reach out to them.
I wanted to tell them what he had told me, the more recent information about killing the girls twice.
And my attorneys advised me just to leave it alone.
Shanann's family is also arguing that you promised to send them a copy of the book before it was seen widely, an advanced copy.
Is that true?
No, it's not.
I asked their attorneys if they would like to have a voice in the book.
I was told no, that they would not.
And I understood that.
It was so soon after the crime.
My heart hurts for those people.
So I understand anger and upset, but I told him if she didn't want to have voice in the book that I would not be letting her read the book before.
And so that's the way we left it.
They never got a hold of me again.
Do you feel that you've treated Shanann's family fairly in your mind?
Oh, absolutely.
I've done nothing to hurt them.
My book is not in any way bashing Shanann or the girls.
My heart hurts for these people.
I have nothing in the world against them in any way.
And I just hope that they, if I've hurt them, that they will forgive me of that because I didn't hurt them intentionally.
I wanted the truth to be told to them so that maybe they can move forward with their lives.
Thank you for being with us.
You can read more of Sherilyn's conversations and letters with Chris Watson in her new book, Letters from Christopher, The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders.
Coming up, Chris claims that if he'd never met his mistress, he wouldn't have committed these murders.
But where is his ex-mistress, Nicole Kessinger, today?
And are there signs that Chris would kill again if given the opportunity?
Stay here.
He was a child predator who moved into my neighborhood.
Any kind of abuse that you can think of, he did to me.
I figured I would escape with my life or with my death.
That's coming up next week.
In a shocking letter to author Sherilyn Cato, convicted family murderer Chris Watts described previously unknown details of his horrifying crime.
August 13th, morning of.
I went to the girls' room first, before Shanann and I had our argument.
I went to Bella's room, then Cece's room.
I used a pillow from their bed.
That's why the cause of death was smothering.
After I left Cece's room, then I climbed back in bed with Shanann, and our argument ensued.
After Shanann had passed, Bella and Cece woke back up.
I'm not sure how they woke back up, but they did.
We're back with the latest on convicted killer Chris Watts.
The Colorado father is serving five life sentences for killing his wife, unborn child, and two daughters.
Here with the latest are investigative reporter Morris Gavacampo, CNN and HLN legal analyst and defense attorney Joy Jackson, and crime correspondent Melissa Moore.
So, I appreciate you all coming.
It's a sensitive topic.
We have these letters.
This is the first time being released to us, so we have deeper insights into what was going on in Chris Watts' mind.
You've read these letters, you've heard the stories, Sherilyn's comments earlier.
Mara, what do you make out of this?
What stands out the most to you about his tone?
And I'll pass these letters down, and we've all seen them.
In reading these letters, we realized that these crimes were even more horrifying than we'd initially realized.
When I was reading these letters, I literally felt nauseous.
And one of the most nauseating things about them is his tone.
The completely matter-of-fact way that he describes committing the most awful acts that a human being can commit.
Completely emotionally detached.
So I wanted a little bit of insight into that.
So I reached out to a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Clay Watson.
And he said that these letters show typical signs of a psychopath.
That psychopaths don't view people as people.
They view them as objects to be manipulated.
And another thing that stood out to me with the tone was the ego.
The tremendous ego and arrogance of Chris Watts.
And it's no surprise that he agreed to be part of a project that at least in part was supposed to be about his redemption.
Because Chris Watts cares about one person.
Chris Watts.
I have a problem with these letters, actually.
A really big problem.
As I read them, I realized something similar to my father.
And when I did the podcast Happy Face, it was a journey about, for me, to find out the true narrative of what really happened with my father's crimes.
Because at the end of the day, This is from Chris Watts.
He's the one speaking for the victims.
And what makes this gospel?
What makes this truth?
This is propaganda for his agenda.
He is a narcissist.
This is pushing forward what he wants to be pushed out into the world.
And that's what I have a problem with.
I couldn't help but notice that he's in jail for five life sentences.
Right.
That's what your father's in jail for.
My father, right, right.
Do you think your dad would have hurt you the way this man hurt his family?
Well, see, that's what was interesting for me.
When I was going on my journey, my grandfather, before he passed away, at the kitchen table, matter of fact, they told me, you know, your dad had confessed to me that he thought about killing you kids.
He did?
Yeah, he said that to him.
So I asked him, when did my dad say that to you?
And he said, he said it to me actually after he was arrested and when he did a prison visit with him.
And my grandpa looked at me like, that's unbelievable.
And so, but I thought the same too.
I thought like, how could we think about our parent Being able to kill us.
Like, it doesn't seem fathomable.
You can't wrap your head around that.
So I always had a question mark.
Is that possible?
Well, my father murdered eight women.
He tortured animals.
And I learned that sociopaths, psychopaths, they compartmentalize things.
You know, you're safe if you're not a threat.
It's all self-driven.
It's all about them.
And so if I was a conflict to him, to my father, and I had to be getting rid of, I would be in the way and he would have gotten rid of me.
And there was chances for him, too.
He almost confessed to me the murders.
And if he did, then I would have gone to the cops like he said I would have.
And I wouldn't be here today.
So I believe my father, absolutely, after reading these, I believe my father really truly That's not being overdramatic.
He would have killed me.
Jerry, what do you think, as a defense attorney, about Chris Watts participating in this book, writing these letters?
I mean, just saying things, these letters that are just unfathomable, unconscionable.
Yeah, it's shameful.
So there's two ways to answer it.
The first way is whether or not he has a right to do it.
The second issue is whether or not he should do it.
Now obviously everyone has a constitutional right to say what they want, right?
We're in a free country.
You can say, do what you want, and that's okay.
But the other thing has to do with whether it makes it right and makes it fair.
Now why should we expect anything less, right?
Or anything more from a serial killer, right?
To me, in my view, you're killing your family.
That's serial enough for me.
But the fact is that it comes down to basic decency, right?
I will stand up every day in a court of law.
I will defend someone's right.
Thereafter, there's a day of reckoning.
That reckoning comes, and it came in this case, with his plea of guilty, right, where he acknowledged his guilt.
Sometimes it comes before a jury, when members of the jury say you're guilty.
Thereafter, I think, there's an atonement period, and I think you have to be very respectful.
There's a family here that suffered a grievous loss.
Unimaginable.
A four-year-old, a three-year-old.
She's pregnant.
He kills.
He kills his wife.
How could you do such a thing?
What kind of human being does that?
And then to come out, and to your point about speaking about it, like, you know, it's you and I just having a conversation in the park.
What message does that send?
I think it sends the wrong message.
I think it's not fair.
It's not appropriate.
It's not right.
And I think it further condemns him.
And so he's serving five life sentences.
You know what?
If he could serve more, it should be.
Let me...
Passion, I get it.
Let me open this issue up to the whole panel.
I'm still fascinated that this man did not appear to have a history.
Yes, this is his story, his propaganda, but there doesn't seem to be anybody else saying that he was a bad apple before this all started.
He's claiming a demon Or an evil, a darkness came into him.
He says it in these letters.
Everyone in these letters, look at them.
They're all, God bless you.
I wish you and your family a wonderful time.
That's manipulation.
It might be.
Yeah, that's clearly manipulation.
What do you think of this demon idea, your take on that?
It is, in many faiths, fundamentally something they believe.
But here's what's certain.
He is demonic.
There's no question about that.
But the idea that a demon possessed him in a temporary way and that he's now free of that and filled with the Spirit of God is really unbelievable.
And the reason for that is that he doesn't seem to be remorseful If the Spirit of God was filling you and that demon had fled, you would be on your knees every night crying buckets of tears about your lost family.
This man seems only to care about himself, his image, and his future, which he seems to think one day will involve freedom.
This man is a narcissist.
I don't think there's anything to do with the supernatural, with demons.
This is science.
This man didn't just snap.
He didn't just start ruminating right before he killed his family.
This is something that was percolating years before this.
This kind of...
Psychopath, this kind of narcissism and grandioseness, this isn't something that he just developed.
This is something that he, this is nurture and nature coming together.
You know, from my study of psychopaths, we learned that there is a genetic part of this.
So I believe he was predispositioned to do this, that something, the motive of being with Nikki, drove him to do this.
What I found fascinating- Nikki the girlfriend.
Nikki the girlfriend.
What's fascinating to me, too, is that psychopaths aren't really They're cookie cutters of themselves.
I could basically say, put his name for my dad.
Like, they're the same.
And then when I read the letters, my father chased after his mistress after prison.
I believe part of his motive for these letters is a reach out to the mistress to come back to him and start talking to him.
Oh my goodness.
He talks so much about Nikki, you know?
Yeah, I don't see this as a genetic issue.
I see this as an issue that relates to him and his way out.
The fact is that I think this is something that he was very self-interested.
He wanted a way out.
You can blame things on demons and blame things on spirits, and the hardest thing to blame is on yourself.
And that's what I think he overlooks.
The fact is that he made a conscious choice.
We all make conscious choices every day.
That conscious choice was to get rid of his pregnant wife, was to, you know, completely, and I think Everyone here who has children, we would die for our kids, every day and twice on Sunday.
Not him.
What does he do?
He decides, because he wants to gallivant and do whatever he's doing, that he has to get rid of them, and therefore he kills them.
So I don't see demons, I don't see spirits, I don't see witches.
I see an individual who wanted a way out, this is the way he took, and as a result, that's why he's serving five life sentences.
Coming up, we're revealing the shocking way Chris Watts thinks he'll end up freed from prison someday.
November 2018, only three months after Chris Watts viciously murdered his pregnant wife Shanann and their young daughters Bella and Cece, Chris pled guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder.
He was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole.
This is perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime that I have handled out of the thousands of cases that I have seen.
We're back trying to understand the mind of convicted killer Chris Watts, who's serving five life sentences for brutally murdering his wife, unborn son, and two daughters.
In his conversations with author Sherilyn Cato, Watts said he's convinced that if he's well-behaved in prison, he'll be freed on good behavior in 25 years.
So, Joey, put your legal hat on.
That's what we call delusion, okay?
The fact is, is he's going nowhere, all right?
With good behavior.
You know, part of what we do in our system when we sentence people is three real prongs to it, very briefly.
One is punishment.
One is deterrence, right?
You want to punish people for what they did.
You want to deter their conduct and others' conduct.
The other is rehabilitation.
So I ask you, a person who would engage in this type of behavior, what measure of rehabilitation do they have in them?
Would anyone here feel safe and comfortable if he lived next door to you in the same village town in the same state as you did?
No one would feel safe.
And so I don't see any path for him absent a pardon by the governor for him to be out of jail.
And that pardoning is not happening anytime soon.
So, is he considering appealing?
Maybe he confessed because he was out of his mind that day.
Okay.
So, here's the process very simply.
When you are pleading guilty, a judge asks you questions, right?
We call it in law an allocution.
In an allocution, they say, Dr. Oz, have you had any drugs or intoxicants today?
No.
Are you a user of any drugs or intoxicants?
Yes.
When?
At what point?
You know, you state whatever it is.
Is there any time or anything today that's impairing your judgment?
No, there's not.
Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?
Yes.
Do you recognize you committed this crime, right?
Do you know you're giving away certain rights?
In other words, they question you chapter and verse.
Tell me what you did.
Tell me how you did it.
Tell me who you did it to.
So now I'm going to come back to the court and say, Judge, none of it was right.
I lied.
I was under intoxicants.
And so he's not getting his plea back.
And even if he did, what does that get you?
It gets you a new trial.
And what jury, having heard all the evidence and information, if he gets that new trial, is going to say, You know what?
You're not guilty.
You go home.
It's not going to happen.
You convinced me.
So let me go back to the theme of his mistress, Nicole.
So one thing that I was sort of taking away from this is that he would never have killed his family, he says, if it wasn't for his love for her.
And apparently, allegedly, she said something to the mistress that she wanted to bear his son.
And Shanann, his wife, who he murdered, was pregnant with a son.
I want to understand more about this relationship.
Mara, do you know where Nicole is?
Yeah, we don't know where Nicole is right now.
What we do know is that she fully cooperated with authorities, and there are reports that she's in the Witness Protection Program.
So she is presumably starting a new life with a new identity, but she really seems to be very concerned about what that new life looks like, because she reportedly told investigators she had been Googling information about Amber Frye.
Do you remember Amber Frye?
This was Scott Peterson's mistress.
She was caught up in Lacey Peterson's murder case.
And so this woman is presumably looking at Amber Frye to see what her life will look like 10, 15 years down the line.
But what's really interesting about their relationship, they were only together for a few months.
And this man is describing her as his soulmate.
She's the motive for killing his entire family.
But clearly, when you look at the narcissism of this man, it was still all about him.
What did she reflect that he wanted to see in himself?
Melissa, do you think That he would have murdered Nikki Nicole in the future.
It's very possible.
Yeah, very possible when...
I mean, that's just classic, the discard of a narcissist.
If she's no longer useful and he finds another mistress, another woman, yeah, she's out of the picture and possibly dead.
But I think with Nikki, what's interesting is, like, my mind goes to, I wonder what she's thinking.
I wonder what she's thinking, knowing that the man she was with murdered his family.
And she has to think...
He could have done this to me.
And I think that's why she was actually Googling Amber Fry, too, is to see a lot of people were angry with Amber for being a mistress.
So do I, you know, do I think she's fabulous for being the other woman?
No.
But I don't think she knew that he was capable of this at all.
And I think she is getting another take at life and afraid probably to come forward because people might assume she knew about this.
Understandably.
Yeah.
You guys have been wonderful.
Thanks for opening our eyes to so many opportunities to learn from this terrible case.
We'll be right back.
Coming up, we've obtained video of a Chilean college presentation Chris Watts gave years before these horrific murders.
What it reveals will really shock you.
In an undated 11-page letter from convicted murderer Chris Watts to author Sherilyn Cato, Chris writes, I can say with a certainty that I always loved Chanan and always will, but there was always this lingering fear that I would do something wrong.
It broke me down spiritually, emotionally and mentally.
Was I aware of it?
I don't think so.
It's like the frog that was put in a pot full of water and slowly the water turned to a boil and the frog boiled to death.
I didn't see what was happening until it was too late and that mistake cost me the chance to grow old with my family for the rest of my physical life.
Those are the words of convicted killer Chris Watts, a man who claims he'll always love his wife, and yet he killed her, their unborn son and their two young daughters.
He would help shed more light on this unfathomable crime is criminologist Dr. Casey Jordan.
Chris always feared that he would do something terribly wrong, and then he uses this metaphor of a boiling frog.
Which is so ironic because the frog boiling slowly is a metaphor we use usually in victimology and criminology to explain the psychology of a domestic violence victim or somebody who is being abused by their spouse.
And that's completely not the situation with Chris.
That whole idea that you acclimate to a situation over time.
But based on these letters, Chris Watts was actually stewing in this plan for many months.
And when he met Nicole and he says, if I'd never met Nikki, this never would have happened, basically what he's saying is that he had planned it all along and that she uncorked his lust.
So that metaphor of a frog boiling slowly doesn't fit him.
So when I've looked into his story, and you've spent a lot of time on this, I don't find any evidence of violence, any evidence that would have tipped me off that he could have done this.
What did we all miss?
Well, we always look for signs of violence after the fact, a kind of Monday morning quarterbacking.
And a lot of people always say there have to be signs.
And we think of serial killers, you know, that trifecta of torturing animals and bedwetting and fire setting, and none of that existed for him because his psychology is actually nothing like a serial killer.
It's not?
I don't think so.
And we always go around later when we have these men who kill their entire families, or women, They're really mass murderers.
We call them family annihilators.
And what they're really trying to do is clear the slate of this family so that they can start over anew.
And that is exactly what Chris admits in these letters.
He met Nikki.
He became almost intoxicated with this new life he had with her, which means the sex he was having with her on the side, you know, cheating on his wife.
He loved it.
He was like a teen.
We call this situational regression.
He's on fire, he's full of lust, and he's thinking, if I could just get rid of my family, I can be with her.
Turn the clock back.
Yeah.
Be the person I wanted to be.
Exactly.
He was like a teenager or somebody in their 20s who was in love for the first time.
So, Sherilyn Cato says that Chris claimed he may have been possessed by a demon.
Those are his words.
And you argue this is just an effort to control how he's perceived.
Correct.
I call this impression management.
I mean, he talks about a dark side must have taken over him, and he calls it a demon.
But we're not talking about an actual demon, like an exercisable demon.
We're just talking about his conscience.
He had to be using impression management to think that he wouldn't be the first suspect.
And now he scapegoats onto a demon.
Dr. Jordan says a 10-minute college presentation about relationship deterioration.
That's the topic, relationship deterioration.
It was in a communications class.
Chris Watts posted this online seven years ago.
Dr. Jordan thinks it'll help illuminate more about it.
Take a look at two of the things that Watts said his research uncovered on the subject of relationships ending.
Sometimes when you have children and your relationship starts to deteriorate, a child could help repair it.
Sometimes people When the relationship starts to dissolve, repair is not an option and they want to get away and start new.
Get away and start anew.
What does this video tell you about Watts?
You know, he prepared this video for a college class, and this was six months before he married Shanann.
He was already doing relationship dissolution research.
And to me, this is really, I don't know that he ever really loved her.
I think that he was just doing what society and his family and Shanann expected, and he felt like he was on a runaway train.
So he ended up in this marriage.
But then once he was in it, he experienced this transformation.
I mean, compare that image of him, Chris Watts there.
He's awkward.
He's a little stilted in his presentation.
He's overweight.
And then we see him after Shanann's gone missing.
Muscular, you know, really manly man.
And he's lost weight, and he's got his goatee, and he's a stud boy.
And I really think that transformation made him think, I can kill my wife and children And I can be with Nicole.
And then he couldn't see 30 seconds beyond that decision.
Dr. Jordan, profound insights.
Thank you very much.
Great to be here.
We'll be right back.
Tacos.
It's a fast food boom.
But what's really inside that crunchy shell?
You have chicken and a beef taco?
Yes.
That's coming up tomorrow.
On the next true crime, it's been nearly three months since convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell awaiting sex trafficking charges.
But this story is far from over.
In an iShow exclusive, I'll speak with a new Epstein accuser who is breaking her silence for the very first time.
And as many accusers continue to wait for long overdue justice, the world is now demanding answers.
Take a look.
Did Jeff know anybody's real true age or he didn't care?
I don't think he cared.
He told me the younger the better.
On August 10th, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy American financier, was found dead in his New York City jail cell.
The cause of death was determined to be hanged, and the matter was suicide.
Now, three months after his shocking death, the mystery around Jeffrey Epstein's many alleged crimes still continues to grow.
On the next True Crime, Epstein accuser Michelle Licata will also join us.
Who are the people that enabled Epstein's horrific behavior?
And will they ever face justice?
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