Convicted k!ller Chris Watts is trying to get married after falling in love while in jail for the murd£r of his family.
Watts, who is serving multiple life sentences in a Wisconsin prison for the murd£r of his pregnant wife and two daughters, has reportedly applied to marry a woman he met while behind bars.
The Daily Mail first reported that Watts, 41, was in a relationship with Lizzie Henderson, a 39-year-old realtor from Cleveland. Her relatives told the outlet that the pair have applied to marry within the prison system and that she has begun going by “Lizzie Watts” after filing an application to legally change her name.
Court records show that a Lizzie Henderson applied for a confidential name change, however, details of the case are sealed.
Lizzie Henderson
Henderson also relocated from Ohio to Wisconsin to be closer to Watts’ cell at Dodge Correctional Institution (DCI) in Waupun. Since then, she’s reportedly been a frequent visitor to the maximum-security prison.
Henderson confirmed her relationship with Watts over the phone to the Daily Mail. She acknowledged that others may perceive her relationship as “weird,” but refused to explain how the two met, stating, “How things began is between me, him and God.”
On August 13, 2018, Watts strangled his pregnant wife, Shanann, in their Colorado home. Then he drove her body to a job site at the oil company where he worked. He disposed of his wife’s body and then smothered his daughters — Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3.
After pleading guilty to the murd£rs, he received five life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Authorities said Watts committed the murd£rs because he was having an affair with a co-worker who thought he was already separated. In the days before the k!llings, Shanann reached out to a friend and shared her growing concerns about her marriage — but she never suspected her life was in danger.
When asked about Watts’ crimes, Henderson told the Daily Mail: “How I feel about it? He knows. He knows how I feel. I don’t know all the people involved but I would want to respect them.”
She then described the k!llings as “something harsh for anyone to experience.”
Watts was passing time in prison by corresponding with multiple women. A source who spoke with Watts in jail said,
He got a lot of letters at first. Many of them are from women who thought he was handsome and felt compassion for him. He had nothing better to do, so he wrote them back. And he started having penpals. A couple of them stood out, and they’ve kept in contact,” the source said.
Watts began to receive more mail after the 2020 release of the Netflix documentary about his infamous case, entitled American Murder: The Family NextDoor. By 2022, he was sending “racy” letters to some of his penpals.
“They send sexy pictures, and he responds,” a source, who had spoken with Watts several times in jail, told PEOPLE.
“There are a lot of women who think he’s handsome and misunderstood. They send a lot of letters.”
The source continued, “He’s got nothing else to do, so he feeds his ego in that way. Because he’s not popular at all in prison. He’s in protective custody. The only outlet he has is with these letters.”