Chris Watts Reaches Plea Deal in Triple Slaying of Pregnant Wife & Two Young Daughters: Reports - 24

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Chris Watts Reaches Plea Deal in Triple Slaying of Pregnant Wife & Two Young Daughters: Reports - 24
Chris Watts,Courts and Trials,Crime News,News,Watts Family Murders
In a bombshell turn of events Tuesday, authorities announced that triple murder suspect Chris Watts had reached a plea deal in the deaths of his pregnant wife and their young children, according to multiple news reports. Watts, 33, was arrested on Aug. 15 and charged with murdering his wife of nearly six years, 34-year-old Shan’ann Watts, and their daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. Get push notifications with news, features, and more. Follow Following You'll get the latest updates on this topic in your browser notifications. Shan’ann was 15 weeks pregnant with a son at the time and her family said she planned to name Nico Lee. Chris was additionally charged with first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy, to which he also said he would plead guilty, according to local news reports. Chris has been held in custody in the Weld County Jail since his arrest. He was previously scheduled to appear for a status conference in his case on Nov. 19, but the court date was moved to Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Weld County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement last week. Prosecutors did not say why the court date was moved. Chris waived his right to a preliminary hearing at an earlier court appearance. Shan’ann and her girls vanished after she returned home from a business trip in the early hours of Aug. 13. In the ensuing days, Chris made a televised plea for their safe return, raising suspicions with his calm demeanor. During police questioning, Chris allegedly said he would “tell the truth” after investigators told him they found out he was having an affair with a co-worker, according to an affidavit supporting his arrest that was unsealed in late August. Chris then admitted he killed Shan’ann after allegedly flying “into a rage” when he saw her strangling one of their daughters via a baby monitor after he had told her he wanted a separation, according to the arrest affidavit. The bodies of Shan’ann and her girls were found the day after Chris’ arrest on an oil site owned by the company where he was working and from where he has since been fired. He allegedly buried Shan’ann in a shallow grave and hid his daughters’ bodies in oil tanks, where they stayed for roughly four days. Those who knew the couple said they seemed happy until not long before the killings. One friend told ABC News that Chris had grown distant: “He wasn’t being the loving Chris that he normally was. He wasn’t touching or hugging or doing stuff like that.” But family was everything to Shan’ann. “That’s all she talked about,” Kris Landon previously told PEOPLE. “She talked about her girls as miracles, because she had some health problems and didn’t know if she’d have kids. But she really embraced motherhood, and I thought she embraced her marriage, too. They seemed like partners. Amazing partners.” Chris in Jail: ‘Willing to Confront Reality’ Chris was previously on suicide watch in jail. A sou