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Chris Watts ordered to pay murdered wife's family $6M in wrongful death lawsuit

Watts agreed to the terms of the lawsuit, which include a $1 million payout to the Rzuceks for each of the deaths of Shanann, Bella and Celeste.

Colorado father Chris Watts, who admitted to killing his pregnant wife and two daughters last year, has agreed to pay more than $6 million in damages to his slain wife's family.

A judge ordered the payout Nov. 18 — almost exactly one year after Watts was sentenced to three life terms plus 84 years in prison for killing his 34-year-old pregnant wife, Shanann, and the couple's two daughters: 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste.

Shanann Watts' parents, Frank and Sandra Rzucek, filed the civil lawsuit in Weld County last year on the same day Watts was sentenced for killing his family — a crime the Rzuceks said in the lawsuit has caused them to suffer "extreme emotional stress and damage." 

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The Rzuceks claimed Watts mislead investigators from the beginning of the missing-persons-turned-murder investigation by providing "patently false" statements to "conceal his crimes."

Watts gave television interviews in August 2018 pleading for his family's safe return just one day before he told investigators he killed Shanann in a fit of rage after she killed their daughters.

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However, in a jailhouse interview between Watts and Colorado investigators in February, he admitted to killing his children at the oil site where he dumped all three bodies. 

On Nov. 5, Watts agreed to the terms of the Rzuceks' lawsuit, which include a $1 million payout to the Rzuceks for each of the deaths of Shanann, Bella and Celeste and $3 million for the "grief, pain and suffering, emotional stress, and loss of companionship," according to the lawsuit. Court documents indicate Watts never fought the lawsuit.

Continue reading this story at The Coloradoan.  

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