Friends struggle to answer the 'why' on night of vigil for Shanann Watts, daughters

Police said Thursday that Chris Watts is suspected of killing his pregnant wife and their two daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste.

Friends of the Watts family said this weekend was supposed to be a big weekend for the family. Shanann was going to have a gender reveal party on Saturday, but now there is a growing memorial outside of the family home.

Nick and Amanda Thayer let Chris stay with them this week after his wife and children "disappeared."

The two families spent Thanksgivings and Fourth of Julys together, but the couple said they had no idea something like this would happen.

"It was Tuesday afternoon, and I thought there were two easy ways of knowing where she could have been, and he didn't seem all that eager to look into it," Nick Thayer said.

Then, Chris Watts was arrested and a great trust was betrayed.

"Had we had any inclination that we thought he was involved at all, there is no way I would have let him in my house with my wife and kid," Thayer said.

Now, like the rest of the Watts’ friends and family, they struggle with the why.

Amanda Thayer said Shanann had recently mentioned infidelity.

"She said it possibly came to her mind that he could be cheating, but at the same time, she said, ‘he has no game,’" Amanda Thayer said.

"I just look at my own little girl, and I don't know how anybody could do that. There's no reason," Nick Thayer said.

The bodies of Shanann Watts and her two daughters were found Thursday afternoon on the property of one of Colorado's largest oil and gas drillers where her husband used to work. The girls' bodies were located inside an oil well, according to court documents. Authorities did not say how they had been killed.

Friday afternoon, a public defender came to the home with a DNA expert and Christopher Watts' attorneys requested that DNA swabs be taken from his wife and two children.

"Even thought the bodies of the decedents have been in an oil well filled with crude oil for several days, DNA would still be present," the document said.

Police have not publicly disclosed a motive in the case but the couple moved to Colorado from North Carolina about six years ago.

Court records show they filed for bankruptcy in 2015, reporting that they had less less than $10 left in their savings accounts, having amassed more than $70,000 in debt, most of it from credit card purchases. It was not known if money problems were a factor in the slayings.

Watts was being held in the Weld County Jail on three charges of first-degree murder and three charges of tampering with physical evidence in the deaths.