Chris Watts’ Colorado Murder House Where He Killed His Pregnant Wife Is Officially Sold at a Steep Discount
(RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images; Realtor.com)
By Marianne Garvey
Oct 18, 2024
The notorious Colorado home where Chris Watts killed his pregnant wife has officially sold for $650,000, six years after the horrifying murder took place.
Watts’ former property, which is located in Frederick, was first listed for sale in April, with an asking price of $775,000. The listing description for the home, which was built in 2013, made no mention of its dark history, instead describing the home simply as “beautiful.”
“Nothing like this one for sale at this price, in the area,” it noted. Certainly no other home in the area comes with such a torrid backstory, nor with such gruesome notoriety.
It was inside the property that Watts, 39, strangled his wife, Shanann Watts, to death on Aug. 13, 2018, following an argument during which he admitted to having an affair before telling her he wanted a divorce.
He then suffocated their two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, in the back of his truck, and concealed all three bodies at a nearby oil storage facility where he worked, digging a shallow grave for his wife and leaving his children’s bodies in crude-oil tanks.
This latest sale marks the second time that the property has exchanged hands since Watts was convicted of the murders of his wife and children and given five life sentences.
It was previously sold in 2022 for $600,000 to a buyer who held it for less than two years before putting it back on the market in April 2024 at the elevated price of $775,000. In the months since, the price was cut several times, ultimately dropping to $699,000. It was sold at the discounted price of $650,000 on Oct. 17.
When the property first hit the market, real estate appraiser Randall Bell, CEO of Landmark Research Group, which specializes in real estate affected by tragedies or disasters, told Realtor.com® that selling a home that comes with such a morbid history is no easy feat.
“It’s a gruesome crime, and it’s not where a lot of people want to go home and relax with that kind of history,” Bell explained. “The unwanted notoriety is annoying, and it can go on for years.”
To make things that much harder for the seller, the home has been featured at the center of much of the coverage of the murders—including a 2020 Netflix documentary titled “American Murder: The Family Next Door,” which “examined the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children, and the terrible events that followed.”
The documentary featured never-before-seen home videos of the family, many of which were taken inside the property, as well as interviews with the family’s neighbors.
As a result, anyone who viewed the home was instructed not to take “any photos or videos” inside the residence, according to the listing notes.
That regulation was the only aspect of the listing that hinted at the home’s sordid history—while the rest of the description called attention to the home’s many amenities. The house has a three-car garage, an open floor plan, and a chef’s kitchen with granite countertops and double ovens.
The huge family room has a cozy gas fireplace as does the primary suite, which also features a tray ceiling, large bathroom, and large walk-in closet. Upstairs, there is a laundry room with a closet and folding table. The home is prewired for surround sound and had a new roof put on in 2023. Outside, there is a covered front porch and a back deck. The home spans nearly 6,200 square feet.
The Watts family purchased the house in May 2013 for just under $399,954 and lived there for five years—maintaining a picture-perfect image of a happy family until Aug. 13, 2018, when Shanann and her children were reported missing. Watts was arrested two days later after confessing to killing his wife during an interview with police. However, he told authorities at the time that he had only murdered Shanann because she had suffocated their two children. One day later, the bodies of Watts’ wife and daughters were discovered at the oil storage facility, and by November, he had pleaded guilty to all three murders.
Watts is currently incarcerated at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, WI, having been transferred there from a facility in Colorado in December 2018.
