Chris Watts forced to pay $US6 million to murdered wife’s parents

Convicted family killer Chris Watts has been ordered to pay millions to his murdered wife’s parents after they sued for damages.

WARNING: Graphic

Colorado dad Chris Watts has agreed to pay $US6 million ($A8.85 million) to the parents of his wife Shanann, who he murdered along with their two little girls.

Last week, a judge ordered Watts to pay the hefty sum to Frank and Sandy Rzucek which will mark the end of the civil case.

Watts, 34, pleaded guilty in November last year to killing his pregnant wife Shanann, 34, and their two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, dumping all three bodies in a shallow grave and oil tank at a site where he once worked.

Shanann’s parents filed the lawsuit on the same day Watts pleaded guilty to collect any money he might have and prevent him from profiting from the murders, should he ever decide to write a book or sell the rights to his story, the Denver Post reported.

RELATED: Chris Watts makes bizarre claims about his dead daughter

Chris Watts, 34, killed his wife Shanann, 34, and daughters Bella, 4 and Celeste, 3. He has been ordered to pay Shanann’s parent’s $US6 million.

$US1 million ($A1.5 million) from the $US6 million is for each of the deaths and $US3 million ($A4.4 million) is for emotional pain.

The amount owed, which marks the end of the civil case, will grow at an 8 per cent annual interest rate.

“The Rzucek family has not been the same since August 13, 2018,” the publication reported, citing a court document.

“They have suffered with anger, loneliness, sadness, and depression. For a substantial period of time following the discovery of their daughter and grandchildren’s murders, they were unable to work, leave the house, or even eat.”

Watts is serving a life sentence in the Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin for the brutal murder of his family.

Frank Rzucek, the father of Shanann Watts, left, and her brother Frankie Rzucek in court for Chris Watts arraignment in 2018. Picture: RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool

He strangled his pregnant wife Shanann to death, wrapping her body in a blanket. It woke his two daughters who then began to cry after seeing their mother’s lifeless body.

Watts dumped her body in the back of his truck, drove it to a remote oil work site and buried her in a shallow grave.

He would later suffocate Celeste with a blanket and dispose of her body in an oil tank.

After witnessing what he did to her little sister, a fearful Bella yelled the chilling words, “Daddy no!” — the last words she spoke before he suffocated her and disposed of her body in a separate, eight-inch oil tank.

A family friend reported Shanann — who was 15 weeks pregnant — and her daughters missing after the devoted mother missed a scheduled meeting.

Hours before allegedly confessing to the murders Watts gave a series of chilling TV interviews pleading for the trio’s safe return.

He allegedly confessed to the crimes before leading investigators to a property owned by his former employer Anadarko Petroleum — one of the state’s largest oil and gas drillers — where the bodies of Shanann, Bella and Celeste were found.

Watts accepted a deal of life in prison after confessing to the murders.

Watts suffocated his wife Shanann. She was pregnant with their son Nico.

CHILLING LETTER

In a detailed prison letter obtained by the Daily Mail, Watts claimed he smothered the two girls first, using a pillow from their bed (to kill them) — but they woke up.

Watts told police he then killed his wife but when the two little girls woke, they moved to the bedroom and watched on as he began to wrap his wife in a bed sheet.

“That’s why the cause of death was smothering. After I left Cece’s room, then I climbed back in bed with Shanann and our argument ensued,” Watts writes.

“After Shanann had passed, Bella and Cece woke back up. I’m not sure how they woke back up, but they did. Bella’s eyes were bruised and both girls looked like they had been through trauma. That made the act that much worse knowing I went to their rooms first and knowing I still took their lives at the location of the batteries.”

The letter was sent to Cheryln Cadle, an author behind the explosive new book Letters From Christopher that will be published on October 7.

He also smothered his two girls but shockingly they woke up, with Watts saying both girls ‘looked like they had been through trauma’.

Cadle was communicating with Watts after he was jailed, with the letters and her one-on-one conversations forming part of her new book.

According to the letters, Watts had been plotting the murders for some time and it was not a spontaneous outburst as he previously claimed.

“August 12th when I finished putting the girls to bed, I walked away and said, ‘That’s the last time I’m going to be tucking my babies in.’

“I knew what was going to happen the day before and I did nothing to stop it,” he wrote.

The letters further explained the moment he killed his wife and to his shock, how his daughters came walking into the room while he was wrapping Shanann after she had died from passing out.

In a chilling prison letter, Watts explained how he could still remember Shanann’s face ‘getting all black with mascara’ with her eyes filled with blood, as she looked at him and died.

Bella and Celeste came into the room asking what was wrong with their mother, to which Watts told them she wasn’t feeling well.

“The girls were just kind of running around the house, and watching me with scared looks on their faces. Bella started to cry and when she did, Celeste started whimpering. What a nightmare this was,” Watts told Cadle.

When the FBI asked if he was going to take his own life when they found shovels, a rake and a gas can — Watts told Cadle: “ … I told them I thought about it but honestly no, I was not going to take my own life.”

Watts is serving life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to murdering Shanann, Bella, Celeste and Nico (his unborn son).