The Netflix platform is definitely changing the way we consume audiovisual products. Not only because of the creation of original series and its determination to release them with all the full chapters at once, so that whoever wishes can carry out a useful marathon, but also because of how it has aroused the interest of the audience by genres that didn’t seem so important until the arrival of the big red N. The science fiction and suspense series, or the period ones, have become a wonderful claim for the platform. But also his documentaries, both in series format and in film format. Even those who claimed to hate this type of filming have fallen hooked on what Netflix offers, documentaries that, for the most part, are focused on morbid and ghoulish crimes.
One of the last to see the light was The Watts Case: The Murderous Father, a documentary of just 82 minutes based on the terrible crime that Christopher Watts committed a couple of years ago in Denver, Colorado, murdering his two daughters and his wife, Shannan , who was also pregnant. The triple – or quadruple, if we count the unborn – murder shocked American society, not only because of its cruelty, but because of the development of the case, and the murderer’s cold blood when sitting with the authorities and on television programs asking to find his daughters and his wife , who at first were considered missing, until the police put him against a rock and a hard place and he ended up confessing his horrible crimes. Is it a well-documented work or does it incur errors and falsehoods? That is what we are going to see in this article.
Christopher Watts and his perfect family
Christopher Watts was a 35-year-old man who lived with his wife Shannan and their daughters, Belle and Celeste, 4 and 3 years old respectively, in a town near the city of Devenr , in the state of Colorado, United States. The Watts bought a house in the area in 2015, worth $ 400,000, and they had to suffer enough to pay it, since shortly after that purchase, the family stopped putting in money. Fortunately, Chris found work nearby, and life seemed to smile for them in the summer of 2018. Shannan was pregnant with her third baby, and the family took pictures and videos posing together, like the pure image of perfection. However, something dark was hidden under all that ideal image…
Christopher would later admit that he had met a younger girl named Nikki, and that he had fallen in love with her. The situation, as is evident, began to erode the apparently perfect marriage, and caused a schism from which he would no longer recover . Financial problems were also the order of the day, despite the fact that, together, the couple earned almost $ 90,000 annually. Much of that money came from Chris’s job, but Shannan also contributed a portion of his new job at a grocery store, where he also had paid trips. Perhaps it was jealousy over seeing his wife begin to break free, or perhaps his intention to start a new life with his lover, which led Christopher to commit his horrible crime that night in August 2018.
Disappearance of the family and Christopher’s confession
On August 13, Christopher Watts went to the police to report the disappearance of his wife, who was also pregnant, and his two daughters. He looked sad, totally saddened and desperate for not knowing where his family was. The man even sat on television sets asking for help from anyone who could give a clue as to the whereabouts of his wife and daughters. He shared the search with his wife’s family, with all the coldness of the world , pretending to be the victim and being very sorry for the situation . But the Denver police knew there was something odd about all of this.
Christopher was sometimes nervous during interrogations , and his statements contradicted each other. The police ended up arresting him and accusing him of being a murder suspect. After lengthy interrogations, Watts confessed to strangling his wife , but only because she was trying to kill one of his daughters. That crude lie did not take long to fall under its own weight, and finally the murderer ended up confessing that it was he who had committed the crimes, and even giving details of the same, including the location of the bodies of his family. These were recovered in an oil field, very close to where Chris worked. He had buried his wife in a pit in a field, and thrown his daughters into an oil tank . He was sentenced to three life sentences and almost 90 years for termination of pregnancy and handling of corpses.
The Netflix documentary
On September 15, 2020, Netflix premiered the documentary El Caso Watts, showing unpublished images of the interrogations and the Watts family itself, with videos recorded by Shannan, conversations that the woman He had with his family and friends, and even statements from some of the friends by letter that Christopher had made in pressure, where many women sent him letters of love and even erotic content. The documentary, barely 82 minutes long, aims to shed light on the darkest corners of the case, but it is left half because it also ignores much of the useful information about the murderer’s own psychology, or about the not very good economic situation that the family was going through at that time.
Reception of the series
Although Netflix did not announce the premiere of this documentary with great fanfare, as it has done with many other productions, The Watts Case drew attention among the followers of the platform for its insight into one of the most cruel recent crimes in the United States. The femicide has become a notable figure in his prison, and a public figure in the country, albeit because of the hatred he generates for his crimes. Users welcomed the documentary with high marks, for how well it was put together and how interesting it was, also showing new facets of a case that undoubtedly shocked the American population a couple of years ago, and is still he does not fully recover from that gruesome crime.