Baumhover’s flashbacks started soon after returning from Wisconsin, where he interviewed Christopher Watts in prison and
learned the exact horrific manner of how he murdered his wife and children.
During the prison interview, Watts revealed how he killed Shanann and put her body on the floor in the back seat of his truck. How he then put the girls in the back seat, their feet dangling above their pregnant mother’s body during the entire ride to the rural oil site. He explained how he smothered the girls individually, how 4-year-old Bella had to watch her little sister die.
Baumhover went to Wisconsin because he needed to know what happened. He thought knowing would give him closure.
And it did, he said, but the answers came at a price.
The night after the confession, Baumhover lay on his hotel room bed. Anxious calls and texts from his wife lit up his phone. But Baumhover couldn’t answer. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t understand how such horror was possible and how Watts could coldly detail it step by step. It seemed surreal.
His first morning back at home in Frederick, Baumhover broke down sobbing at his kitchen table. He didn’t know how he was going to tell Shanann’s parents. He knew it would destroy them. It was the first time his wife, Lori, had seen him cry.
Shanann Watts, Christopher Watts murders: Law enforcement grapples with trauma, PTSD one year later
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