At first Chris Watts said he had no idea what happened to his wife and children. Finally, the paranoid killer kills their family in what they imagine to be an attempt to protect them from something even worse.” The heat of the moment/”blind rage”

The self-righteous killer destroys the family to exact revenge upon the mother, in an act that he blames on her. The disappointed killer seeks to punish the family for not living up to his ideals of family life. One study on the motivation of men who murder their families found that “ Men who murder their entire families usually do so because they believe their spouse performed a wrongdoing and that the spouse needs to be punished, they feel that the family members caused a disappointment, they feel that their own financial failings ruined the point of having a family, and because they wish to save their family from a perceived threat.”Īnother study considered the motivations of four “types” of family annihilators: “In this typology, the anomic killer sees his family purely as a status symbol when his economic status collapses, he sees them as surplus to requirements. They also generally occur in response to relationship problems between the parents which either lead to a custody dispute or fear of a custody dispute. (Shanann and her children were murdered on the morning of August 13th). Interestingly, the most common month for family annihilators to strike is August. Most family annihilators are white men in their 30s. As absolutely gutting as the reality is, family annihilators like Chris Watts are the most common form of mass murder in the US. However, over half of mass murders are committed by someone in the victim’s immediate family.

When we hear about shootings or other mass murder situations, we generally think about a lone gunman attacking a group of strangers. Here’s what we know about family annihilators and what Chris has said himself motivated him to do something so evil: General psychology of family annihilatorsĪ family annihilator is someone who kills the members of their own family in a short time period. There may still be more justice that needs to be delivered in this case. I’m glad that Chris is in jail, by all accounts he deserves to be. I’m not the only true crime fan who thinks there’s something not right about this case. He confessed pretty much immediately and the investigation changed from figuring out what happened to Shanann and her kids to just gathering enough information to ensure Chris would be convicted. Chris Watts was a suspect in the murder of his pregnant wife and two children for all of 48 hours before he confessed to killing his family.

Chriss watts