Christopher Watts, the Frederick man accused of killing his pregnant wife and two children in August, pleaded guilty to all nine counts against him on Tuesday.Watts, 33, appeared at 2 p.m Tuesday for what was billed as a status conference in Weld District Court. When he entered the courtroom, Watts was wearing an Army green bullet-proof vest over his orange jail jumpsuit. During a news conference after the hearing, Weld District Attorney Michael Rourke said the Weld County Sheriff’s Office sometimes outfits inmates in bullet-proof vests for their own protection during court appearances.As part of the plea deal, Watts faces consecutive life terms on three of the five first-degree murder counts and on the one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy; one life term for each victim including his wife, Shanann, 34, their two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, and the couple’s unborn son, Nico.In exchange for his guilty pleas, Rourke took the death penalty off the table. Watts faces the statutory sentences on the other five charges, which include two more counts of first-degree murder and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.During the post-hearing news conference, Rourke talked about how his office had reached this point in the case, saying never in his career had a deal been struck so quickly during murder proceedings. The Colorado Public Defender’s Office approached the district attorney’s office with the deal, Rourke said.The offer was compelling enough Rourke and his team flew to North Carolina to tell Shanann’s parents, Frank and Sandra Rzucek, and her brother, Frank Jr., about it in person. Rourke declined to speculate about what made Watts’ attorneys reach out with the deal.[swift-infobox title=”UP NEXT“]Watts will return to Weld District Court at 10 a.m. Nov. 19 for a sentencing hearing.[/swift-infobox]While in North Carolina, the Rzuceks were interested in the state of the death penalty in Colorado, Rourke said. He had difficulty answering the family’s questions, but said he cited death row inmate Nathan Dunlap, who in 2013 received an indefinite reprieve from Gov. John Hickenlooper for murdering four people and wounding one more in 1993 after being fired from a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant in Aurora.Dunlap is one of three convicts on death row in Colorado. Going back to 1977, only one person, Gary Lee Davis, has been executed in the state.”They (the Rzucek family) were strongly in favor of a resolution in this case, short of the death penalty,” Rourke said, adding he had no idea if the death penalty would ever again be enforced in Colorado. “I could not ask Sandra to commit the next 25 years of her life to the Colorado criminal justice system.”Rourke said he came to the decision to accept the offer and take the death penalty off the table four days ago.”No one wins today; there is no cause for celebration,” Rourke said. “We lost four beautiful lives. No matter what happens today or at a sentencing hearing down the road, we are not going to get those lives back.”Rourke formally charged Watts about three months ago with five counts of first-degree murder, three counts of tampering with a deceased human body and one count of unlawful termination of pregnancy. Watts was accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters, and then dumping their bodies at an oil and gas site near Hudson.Watts will remain in the Weld County Jail without bond. Rourke said his office won’t try to keep the autopsy reports for Shanann, Bella, and Celeste sealed after Watts’ Nov. 19 sentencing.

A quick recap of this case:

-Tribune Real-time Reporter Kelsy Schlotthauer contributed to this report.