Christopher Watts is charged with murdering his pregnant wife and two young children. But he told the police that his wife strangled the children — then he strangled her.
The Colorado man who is accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters before dumping them at an oil work site told the police that it was his wife who strangled the children — and that he strangled her out of rage, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant released on Monday.
The man, Christopher Watts, 33, had been having an affair with a co-worker, the police said, and had told his wife he wanted to separate during an emotional conversation in the middle of the night on Aug. 13.
Afterward, he told the police, he had looked at the family’s baby monitor and seen his wife strangling their daughter Celeste, 3. Their other daughter, Bella, 4, was lying on her bed and appeared blue, he said. After that, he strangled his wife, he told the police.
But the authorities believe Mr. Watts — who gave a television interview pleading for the return of his family before he was arrested — is responsible for all three deaths.
On Monday, he was charged with murder in the deaths of his wife, Shanann, 34, as well as their daughters. He faces a total of nine criminal counts, including unlawful termination of a pregnancy and tampering with dead bodies.
James E. Merson, a public defender who is representing Mr. Watts, did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Though Mr. Watts said he did not kill his children, he said he did dump their bodies in oil tanks and bury their mother nearby, according to the affidavit.
The next day, Aug. 14, after his family was reported missing, he stood on his porch and pleaded in an interview with a television reporter for his wife and two young children to come home.
“Shanann, Bella, Celeste, if you’re out there, just come back,” Mr. Watts said, staring into the camera. “If somebody has her, just bring her back. I need to see everybody, I need to see everybody again. This house is not complete without anybody here.”
He eventually confessed to knowing where they were and showed investigators where to find them on an aerial photograph of the oil site, according to the affidavit.
The bodies were found on the property of the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, an oil company where Mr. Watts worked, the authorities said. He was fired on the day of his arrest, according to a company spokeswoman.
The defense has asked the authorities to take swabs of the children’s necks and suggested that DNA may still be present, despite the fact that their bodies were submerged in oil for several days, according to court records.
In a news conference on Monday, Michael J. Rourke, the Weld County district attorney, declined to answer specific questions about the case. Afterward, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment about Mr. Watts’s account of what happened.
Nickole Atkinson, a friend of Ms. Watts, said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” broadcast on Monday that she had reported her friend missing after Ms. Watts, who was 15 weeks pregnant, had missed a doctor’s appointment.
“She was going to get to hear the baby’s heartbeat,” Ms. Atkinson said in the interview.
She expressed little surprise that Mr. Watts had been implicated in the deaths. “He wasn’t being the loving Chris that he normally was,” Ms. Atkinson said. “He wasn’t touching or hugging or doing stuff like that. He wasn’t being as attentive to the girls as he normally is.”
At the prosecutor’s news conference on Monday, Ms. Watts’s father made a brief statement. Through tears, he thanked the authorities for their help and thanked the community for an outpouring of support.
“Keep the prayers coming for our family,” he said.
