Chris Watts, who is currently serving multiple life sentences for the 2018 murders of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, has reportedly applied to get married while incarcerated. According to People, Watts, 41, is currently held at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin. Reports indicate that he has been in a relationship with Lizzie Henderson, a 39-year-old realtor from Cleveland, Ohio.
According to reports, Henderson has already taken steps toward their potential future together by applying to legally change her name to Lizzie Watts. While court records confirm that a Lizzie Henderson applied for a confidential name change, the specifics of that case remain sealed. Henderson has also relocated from Ohio to Wisconsin to be closer to the prison, and she has reportedly become a frequent visitor to the facility.
When asked about the relationship, Henderson confirmed it during a phone call. She acknowledged that many people might find the dynamic of her relationship with a convicted triple murderer to be weird, but she declined to go into detail about how they first connected. She simply stated, “How things began is between me, him and God.” Regarding the horrific crimes that put Watts behind bars, she noted, “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 further described the 2018 killings as “something harsh for anyone to experience.”
How the murders unfolded
The history behind Watts’ incarceration is grim and well-documented. On August 13, 2018, his wife, Shanann Watts, was reported missing at 1:40 PM by her friend, Nickole Atkinson. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant with a boy they planned to name Niko at the time of her disappearance. While Watts initially feigned ignorance and even publicly pleaded for his family to return home, the truth was far darker.
He had strangled his wife in their Colorado home before driving her body to an oil field where he worked. He then smothered his two daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste, and placed their bodies in oil tanks. A similarly devastating case unfolded when a Texas restaurateur and her two children were killed in a murder-suicide, with her husband taking his own life after the killings.
Investigators eventually uncovered that Watts was motivated by an affair he was having with a co-worker, Nichol Kessinger. Kessinger later stated that she believed Watts was going through a divorce and was a rational man and good father. Following his arrest, Watts initially tried to blame his wife for the death of their daughters, claiming she had killed them in a rage. However, he eventually pleaded guilty in November 2018 to avoid a potential death sentence, receiving five life sentences without the possibility of parole.
During a later interview with investigators, he admitted to the murders, stating, “I didn’t want to do this, but I did it. I don’t even want to say it felt like I had to; it just felt like there was already something in my mind that was implanted that I was gonna do it, and when I woke up that morning, it was gonna happen, and I had no control over it.”
Since his imprisonment, it appears that Watts has cultivated a life behind bars that includes corresponding with various women. Sources have indicated that he began receiving a large volume of mail, particularly after the 2020 release of the documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door. Some of these correspondents reportedly viewed him as handsome and misunderstood.
An insider previously shared that Watts engaged in exchanging letters, including suggestive photos, to feed his ego because he is not popular among the general prison population and remains in protective custody. It seems these penpals became his primary social outlet.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has been contacted regarding the application, though the situation continues to draw significant attention due to the nature of the crimes committed by the man at the center of it all.
Published: Aug 13, 2026 05:30 pm