Blood & Marriage: Chris Watts: With these hands

In August of 2018, in a wealthy Denver suburb, a shocked and horrified nation learned that Christopher Lee Watts had murdered his pregnant wife, their two little girls and their unborn son.

But shock was soon replaced by puzzlement. Why?

And the surprising answer is that a standard Anadarko Petroleum employee policy led, unintentionally of course, to the murders.

By early 2018, the Watts family finances were beyond dire again after a recent shattering bankruptcy, then Chris Watts' employer, Anardarko Petroleum, offered him a life insurance policy on the lives of his wife, Shan'ann, and his very young daughters, Bella and CeCe, for a total of $450,000.

Wouldn't that get him out of a spot?

After that, Shan'ann's days were numbered, preferably via a perceived oxycontin overdose.

Well, Chris Watts tried that twice and failed. Then he decided to go for the jackpot. Shan'ann would 'murder' the girls, and would then disappear. Nobody was going to find her body in the Cervi 19 oil storage tanks. He would collect on the girls immediately and then get the rest when Shan'ann was legally declared dead.

It was an excellent plan, to be carried out by a complete moron.

On the night of Sunday August 12, 2018, two things went catastrophically wrong, leaving Chris Watts to dispose of three bodies, not one, and facing a nail-biting time crunch.

Then a friend of Shan'ann's called in the cops on the morning of Monday August 13, and it was game over.

But, for some, that's when the party started.

(The paperback contains photographs)