KEY POINTS
- Letters to a pen pal are filled with Bible verses and religious references.
- The killer said forgiving himself took years but he is now 'at peace'.
- The victims' relatives and the public refuse to accept his claims of redemption.
Chris Watts, the Colorado father who murdered his pregnant wife and two young daughters in 2018, has claimed he is a 'new man' and 'finally at peace with himself' after finding God in prison, according to newly surfaced letters.
The 40-year-old, who is serving multiple life sentences without parole, reportedly made the comments in handwritten notes to a female pen pal, saying he has been forgiven for his crimes and is no longer the person who carried them out.
Watts shocked the United States in August 2018 when his pregnant wife Shanann, 34, and their daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three, were reported missing. Appearing distraught, he gave televised appeals for their safe return and portrayed himself as a worried husband and father.
But within days, the façade collapsed. Investigators discovered that Watts had strangled Shanann in their Colorado home before smothering their two children. He buried his wife in a shallow grave at a work site owned by an oil and gas company, dumping his daughters' bodies in nearby oil tanks.
The murders were motivated, police said, by his affair with a co-worker, Nichol Kessinger, with whom he had hoped to start a new life.
Convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder, Watts was sentenced to life in prison in November 2018. He has since been housed at Dodge Correctional Institution, a maximum-security facility in Waupun, Wisconsin.
Letters from Prison
Seven years into his sentence, Watts has reportedly found solace in religion. According to the Daily Mail, he has been writing multi-page letters filled with Biblical references to a pen pal.
In one message, he allegedly wrote: 'I am a new man. I am not the person who committed those horrible acts.'
Citing scripture, he added: '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.'
Watts continued: '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.'
In another passage, the killer described how he has struggled to separate himself from his actions but claims he has reached inner peace: '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. I am finally at peace with myself.'
Shifting Blame
In what appears to be a recurring theme, Watts has also attempted to shift some responsibility to his former mistress. His letters reportedly include passages blaming Kessinger for leading him astray.
'I have always taken full responsibility for what I did, even though I was misled by a wicked woman. 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 is alleged to have written.
Kessinger, who has not been implicated in the murders, previously told police she believed Watts was going through an amicable divorce when they began their relationship.
Public Outrage
The emergence of the letters has reignited public debate over the killer's lack of remorse and his attempts to recast himself as redeemed. Critics argue that quoting Bible verses and proclaiming forgiveness does little to erase the brutality of his crimes.
'God may have forgiven you Chris. The rest of us, not so much,' a reader remarked..
'That does not sound like he's taking full responsibility at all. He is evil incarnate. Hope he doesn't mind the heat,because it's going be very hot where he's going,' another one commented.
For the families of Shanann, Bella and Celeste, the trauma remains raw. Watts' claim that he is a 'new man' has been met with scepticism by observers who say his actions were calculated, deceptive, and devastating.
Despite the killer's assertions that he has been forgiven, he remains one of the most reviled figures in recent American true-crime history — a father who murdered his entire family in pursuit of a fantasy life.
