Four body language gestures that revealed Chris Watts’ guilt

Chris Watts revealed his guilt with four gestures including a “look of pleasure” while he urged his wife and daughters to return home.

Killer dad Chris Watts revealed his guilt with four gestures including a “look of pleasure” while he urged his wife and daughters to return, experts claim.

Watts, 36, pleaded guilty to killing his pregnant wife Shanann and their two daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, in the early hours of August 13, 2018.

In the days immediately following their disappearance, Watts had cast himself as the doting husband and father, releasing several video appeals and aiding Colorado police with their investigation, The Sun reports.

RELATED: Chris Watts reveals details of grisly murders

Chris Watts gave away his guilt with four gestures, a body language expert claimed. Picture: Discovery+

Body language expert Dr Cliff Lansley claims that footage of Watts during these days reveals how he showcased his guilt in subtle gestures.

Dr Lansley told the documentary Chris Watts: A Faking It Special that early signs made it evident that Watts wasn’t as innocent as he claimed.

He says that Watts gave away a “cluster” of four gestures in one TV appeal.

It included him showing an “expression of pleasure” when he says he “wants his family back”.

“If you look at Watts’ face in more detail with a close-up, on the left-hand side you’ll see baseline. This is Watts’ normal face during the non-emotional parts of the interview,” Dr Lansley says, comparing two images of Watts’ face.

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Dr Cliff Lansley claims Watts showed signs of pleasure when speaking about his allegedly missing family. Picture: Discovery+

“But on the right, when he says, ‘I just want them back,’ and he’s talking about his children here, you see the lip corners raised; you see the eyes tighten.

“His cheeks are raised. This combination of these two muscles is an indicator of genuine pleasure.”

Dr Lansley alleges that even more clues came at the end of the interview when Watts looked down at the camera to make a direct appeal to Shanann, Bella, and Celeste to come home.

“While he’s saying that, he slings out a left hand – a hand shrug – which rotates anticlockwise,” Dr Lansley notes in the documentary that can be streamed on Discovery+.

Watts murdered his pregnant wife Shanann and their two daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. Picture: Supplied

“Now, a single hand shrug is not enough for a behavioural analyst to rely on, but when he closes his eyes for a full second, and you see a slight head shake ‘no’ when he’s making the claim he wants them back.

“We’ve got a cluster of four behaviours which say there’s nothing in this statement that you have confidence in, because it’s not true.”

Dawn Archer, a professor of linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, claims Watts’ speech was also a giveaway.

A body language expert claimed Watts showed guilt as he swayed. Picture: Weld County DA

Watts was seen swaying from side to side in cop body cam footage. Picture: Weld County DA

“It’s about him. And there’s a lot of ‘I’ statements in there,” she says.

“He then focuses on his apparent despair, but there’s no matching effect in the voice; we don’t hear that despair. More red flags.”

According to Dr Lansley, Watts also showed unease in the police body cam footage from the hours after he reported his family missing.

“We’ve got the swaying, we have the double-handed hand shrug, and we have a volume drop,” he explains.

“The swaying shows anxiety, so there’s anxiety going on.

“He’s making an affirmative claim that she was still here when I was here at 5.15am, but his hands are doing a partial gesture – it’s leakage, you can just see it on the bottom of the screen.

“That small movement of the hands, the rotation, is what we call a double-handed shrug, which is part of the full gesture, ‘I have no confidence in what I’ve just said.’”

He revealed he thought of killing his wife for ‘weeks’. Picture: Netflix

Watts also allegedly appeared “on edge” when police asked him to join them in watching surveillance footage of his truck captured on the night he killed his family, the experts say.

The convicted killer is currently serving five life sentences in a Wisconsin prison after pleading guilty in the shocking case.

He pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty which has since been banned in Colorado.

Watts reportedly killed his wife by strangling her after she returned from a business trip in Arizona.

He put her body and his two daughters in his truck and drove them to a remote oilfield owned by his former employer Anadarko.

Watts then buried Shanann in a shallow grave and smothered his two daughters.

He placed them inside the storage tanks.

Watts strangled his wife and suffocated his two daughters. Picture: Netflix

Watts pleaded his innocence for two days before police tracked down his actions on the night of their disappearance.

He initially claimed his wife killed their daughters after he told her he wanted a separation.

Watts said he had then strangled her in anger.

Further details were revealed in a bombshell message Watts sent from jail last October.

He revealed that he’d been thinking about killing the loving mum for “weeks”.

“She looked at me and she died. I knew she was gone when she relieved herself,” Watts recalled in the letter to author Cheryln Cadle.

He initially claimed Shanann killed their daughters. Picture: Supplied

He dumped their three bodies in an abandoned oilfield. Picture: Supplied

Details of the horrific murders have been shown in Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door, shocking viewers.

It examines the lead-up to the horrific triple homicide and includes never-before-seen footage and text messages.

The documentary was also the most-watched program on Netflix when it was released and has since thrust the famous case back into the spotlight.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission