American Murder: Family Next Door is a harrowing true-crime documentary released on Netflix. The one-off special looks at the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her two daughters. However, while watching the documentary, some viewers wondered what happened during Chris Watts’ polygraph test.
Did Chris Watts fail the polygraph test?
Netflix documentary American Murder: Family Next Door slowly reveals what happened to a pregnant woman and her two daughters after they went missing.
The film begins with her husband Watts arriving at home after police officers have received a call concerned about the welfare of his wife.
Then over the course of the special, viewers find out about Watts’ involvement in what happened.
This is peppered with real footage of the family uploaded to social media along with messages the couple exchanged.
READ MORE: American Murder The Family Next Door: Is Chris Watts still in prison?
She spoke about the process in the 2018 Lifetime documentary Chris Watts: Confessions of a Killer.
Lee said: “The type of testing format that I used, we would consider someone to be deceptive if it were a negative four or below. Chris Watts scored negative 18.”
Following the polygraph test results, Watts initially maintained his innocence.
However, after being joined by his father in the interrogation room, he confessed to killing his wife Shanann while he maintained it was because she had killed their daughters.
He later recanted the statement and admitted to killing his daughters as well.
The crime saw him then bury his wife in a remote part of Colorado before dropping his daughters’ bodies in an oil tank.
In November 2018, he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder, unlawful termination of his wife’s pregnancy and three charges of tampering with a deceased body.
This was part of a plea deal with prosecutors to remove the death penalty from his sentencing.
He was sentenced to five life sentences and is currently imprisoned in the Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.
American Murder: Family Next Door is available to stream on Netflix now.