Killer Chris Watts Not A Psychopath, Says Forensic Psychologist

Killer Chris Watts is not a psychopath, a forensic psychologist has claimed. Watch here:

Watts is currently serving a life sentence without the chance of parole after he admitted to the brutal 2018 murders of his 15-week-pregnant wife Shanann, 34, and their two daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three.

His story became the subject of Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door in 2020, and viewers were stunned to watch the murderer feigning innocence.

Now, true-crime documentary Chris Watts: A Faking It Special explores how he attempted to conceal his heinous deeds before eventually confessing to the crimes.

In the show, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes shared her view that Watts is not a psychopath - rather, people like to tell themselves he must be because it makes them feel more comfortable.

She said: "What I think is fascinating about this case and why it's so compelling to people is that this just looks like the family next door.

"And we want to believe that Chris Watts is an absolute, out and out, psychopath, because it makes us feel more comfortable. But he's not.

"There is nothing in his history whatsoever that points to him being a psychopath. And you don't become a psychopath on one or two days out of the year.

"He is an emotionally inadequate man, and emotionally inadequate men are part of the society that we live in. They are in our communities, and that is the thing that is truly unnerving about this case. He could be one of our neighbours."

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As such, she does not think the killings were due to an absence of morals or violent tendencies, but the result of a prolonged period of bottling up his stress.

Kerry explained: "If we want to understand Chris Watts, this seemingly perfect husband, then we need to understand how he deals with stress. He bottles it.

"So, he is somebody who doesn't cope well with his own intense emotions and he really doesn't cope well with anybody else's intense emotions.

"He tends to just nod his head, appease people, goes along with things, doesn't say how he's truly feeling. But the problem with that is it's a really good way to store feelings of bitterness and resentment. That is what he was doing, he was storing up a real head of steam."

You can watch Chris Watts: A Faking It Special on discovery+.

Topics: TV and Film, Interesting, crime

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey