Chris Watts claims his father developed cocaine addiction after he got married to Shanann
Strange new details have emerged in connection with triple murderer Chris Watts' perspective on life before he went on to kill his pregnant wife Shanann and their two young daughters Bella and Celeste.
Chris told investigators that his parents, Cindy and Ronnie Watts, encouraged him to argue that he was a victim of emotional and mental abuse when the case went to trial. That said, it is yet to be known if they still believed that their son’s claim at the time that it was Shanann who killed their granddaughters.
Excerpts from Chris' conversations with investigators earlier this year highlight the family's relationship with his parents which affected their lives significantly, Daily Mail reports. This week, transcripts from the February interrogations were made public and revealed that Chris keeps photos of his deceased family members in his cellphone and regularly reads to an image of his youngest daughter. It also revealed the gruesome way in which he carried out the murders as well.
As his confessional tapes revealed it comes across that not all was well in his parents' house. That's when the topic of addiction came up. When he talked with his father about it, he felt 'cocaine' was his dad's way of coping with the fact that Chris had become distant from his own parents.
Ronnie Watts, his father, had reportedly developed a dependency on recreational drugs after Chris moved out of the family home. In his conversations with the police, Chris described a “white powdery substance” that was “possibly cocaine” as his father's favorite drug. “When he talked to his father about his addiction, his father immediately changed the subject,” a police report claimed.
Things were not well between his parents and at one point his mother, Cindy, believed that all that money that was being spent was on a mistress that his father may have picked up, the reports state. It further states that Chris had a conversation with his father regarding his drug use and pointed out that drugs were causing his sudden weight loss and nose bleeds and other illness. So when Chris asked his dad to stop using, his father did.
The reports further cite how things had soured between Shanann and her in-laws when she found that her mother-in-law had "mistakenly" fed Celeste peanut chips. Shanann believed Cindy wanted to kill Celeste because she knew the toddler was highly allergic to peanuts.
"You should call your dad and tell him you did not appreciate your mom putting your daughter at risk today, nor do you like that she teased our girls," Shanann wrote to her husband in a lengthy text that day. "You should also say you don't appreciate her saying they have to learn they can't always get what they want! They are 2 and 4!"
"l will call him and tell him what I think about this," Watts wrote in response, siding with his wife. "lt's not f***ing cool at all because it is the kids. I will set this right."
Then there were many tiny instances which created friction between Shanann and her in-laws like them not coming to CeCe's birthday party and more. Shanann wrote about all this in a text to Chris voicing her concern regarding the matter and the message further went to call Cindy evil and that Chris was behaving just like his dad and then onto addressing matters in their own fraught relationship.
In his confessions, the killer dad added that this friction between his Shanann and his parents may have motivated him to strangle his wife at some point. He was also aware that his parents were not always appreciative of his marriage with Shanann.