DENVER -- Christopher Watts, who is charged with killing his family and dumping their bodies at an oil worksite, taped a video presentation six years ago about saving or abandoning relationships. A YouTube video posted in April 2012 shows Watts giving a PowerPoint presentation that he titled, "Communication Speech, Relationship Deterioration and Repair."
He opened the presentation by saying it is for a course he was taking. He then speaks of infidelity — possibly with someone at work — as a reason that relationships fail.
Watch the video below or here on YouTube.
Police in suburban Denver say Watts was having an affair with a co-worker before he was arrested last week in the slayings of his wife, Shanann Watts, and their two young daughters, Bella, 3, and Celeste, 4. He has not entered a plea to murder and other felony charges.
According to court documents, Watts told police in Frederick, a Colorado community in the oil and gas fields north of Denver, that he told his wife on August 13 that he wanted to separate. A police investigation determined that Watts "was actively involved in an affair with a co-worker," the documents state.
Watts worked at Anadarko Petroleum and was fired on August 15, the day he was arrested. He told investigators that he killed his wife but claimed that she had strangled their two daughters after he told her he wanted to separate.
In the 2012 video posted online about six months before the couple wed, Watts said he was in suburban Broomfield, where the Watts family once lived.
"Sometimes you find your partner no longer attractive physically or in their personality," he said in the presentation. "When you are in a relationship you have to show desire, lust toward your partner. Sometimes when you get married that the lust and the desire kind of fall by the wayside a little bit."
At another point, Watts said: "Even at the job, you might meet a new person and (it) could strengthen into something else and could weaken the bond you have with the partner you have."
"And you feel that you might be better with someone else that you've met," he declared. "You think that you can no longer do — that your partner is someone that you can't be with."
Krista Henery, a spokeswoman for the Weld County district attorney's office, declined comment about the video Wednesday. Watts' public defender, James Merson, did not immediately return a phone message.
Watts in the video cites various experts in recommending steps to strengthen and salvage relationships, including listening attentively, thinking before speaking, and openly expressing support and affection.
"Sometimes when you have children and your relationship starts to deteriorate a child could help repair it," he said.
