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New documents in Christopher Watts triple murder case released

Tyler Silvy/Greeley Tribune
Text messages between Christopher Watts (in gray) and a co-worker).
Courtesy Image

WELD COUNTY — 11:55 a.m. — Text messages between Christopher Watts and an Anadarko co-worker are part of the new data released by the Weld District Attorney’s Office on Friday. The texts, previously detailed in written form, show Watts on the night of Aug. 12 was eager to go to the job site alone the next morning. He had good reason: He would later dump the bodies of his wife and kids he had killed at the site. In one text, Watts says “I can go out there though. No sense in both of us going out there lol.” The next morning, according to photos of the texts, Watts checked in with his co-worker about 6:30 a.m.

“Where you at?” he asked.

Then: “Where you going first?”

His co-worker responded with a different location than where Watts had taken his family members’ bodies. Watts’ response? A thumbs up emoji.

11:30 a.m. — One video from inside the Weld County Jail shows investigators collecting DNA, as well as fingerprints and footprints, and taking pictures of Christopher Watts’ hands. The video, from Oct. 4, came days after Weld District Court Judge Marcelo Kopcow ordered Watts to provide those things. The evidence the district attorney’s office requested included DNA swabs of Watts’ saliva, finger and palm prints, digital photographs of Watts’ right and left hands, a Polaroid photograph of the defendant, and the collection of inked footprints of Watts’ left and right feet.

One of several photos of Christopher Watts’ hands taken in jail. More information from the case file was released Friday, shedding more light on Watts’ August murder of his family. (Court documents)
In this screenshot of a video, Christopher Watts submits to fingerprinting Oct. 4 at the Weld County Jail. (Court records).

The Weld District Attorney’s Office on Friday released more information and evidence from the now-infamous Christopher Watts triple murder case.

Watts was sentenced this past month to life in prison without parole for the murder of his wife, Shanann, 34, and daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste. Watts killed his family sometime around Aug. 13, burying his wife in a shallow grave near and Anadarko Petroleum tank battery and stuffing his daughters in separate oil tanks.

The Weld District Attorney’s Office has now released all of the files, documents, photos and videos related to the case, and the investigation, the total data amounting to three terabytes — a huge amount of data.

In the various document dumps, details of the investigation, including interviews with Watts and his mistress, photos and videos of the scene where the bodies were taken and video of searches inside the Watts residence have been revealed.

The Friday release contained, among other things, photographs of Watts’ hands, ostensibly to see if he had defensive wounds from the killing of his family, as well as video from within the jail where Watts was held.

The Tribune is poring through the latest batch of evidence, and will update this story throughout the day Friday.

Here is more of our coverage from the Watts case:


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