Chris Watts, the convicted family killer whose crimes were examined in Netflix’s “American Murder: The Family Next Door,” is reportedly planning to marry his partner, Lizzie Henderson, while serving multiple life sentences without parole for murdering his pregnant wife, Shanann Watts, and their two young daughters.
The relationship appears to have moved well beyond prison correspondence. Henderson reportedly visited Watts 23 times over roughly 15 months and a marriage request has been submitted through the Wisconsin prison system. Henderson filed paperwork in September 2025 seeking to legally change her surname and has been using the name Lizzie Watts.
Henderson has confirmed the relationship while keeping its origin private.
“How things began is between me, him and God,” she told the Daily Mail. When asked about the murders that put Watts behind bars, she said, “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.”
For anyone revisiting the Chris Watts marriage news without remembering the full case, the history behind it is especially disturbing. His former wife Shanann Watts and their daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, were reported missing on August 13, 2018, in Frederick, Colorado. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant with a son the family planned to name Niko.
Watts initially appeared publicly as a husband searching for his missing family, but investigators quickly focused on him. He eventually admitted killing Shanann and later confessed to killing Bella and Celeste as well. Investigators said Watts strangled Shanann, transported her body and his daughters to an oil site connected to his job, buried Shanann in a shallow grave and placed his daughters’ bodies inside separate oil tanks.
The case later became the subject of Netflix’s “American Murder: The Family Next Door.” Netflix describes the 2020 documentary as an examination of Shanann and her children’s disappearance using raw, firsthand footage and the events that followed. The documentary brought renewed global attention to a case already known for Watts’ televised pleas, his changing story and the digital trail showing his marriage unraveling before the murders.
The latest development also brings renewed attention to the affair prosecutors said played a major role in the killings. According to ABC News, Watts had been secretly seeing coworker Nichol Kessinger while Shanann believed their marriage was in trouble. Kessinger told investigators Watts represented himself as separated and said he and Shanann were working toward divorce.
At sentencing, prosecutors did not claim there was one psychological explanation capable of fully explaining the murders. However, Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said Watts “had a desire for a fresh start, to begin a new relationship with a new love.” Rourke then confronted the obvious alternative Watts refused to take. “None of this answers the question of why, however,” he said. “If [Chris] was this unhappy and wanted a new start, get a divorce. You don’t annihilate your family and throw them away like garbage.”
Watts himself has offered disturbing and sometimes shifting explanations. During a later confession, he said, “I didn’t want to do this, but I did it.” He continued, “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.”
Watts pleaded guilty in November 2018 to nine charges, including five counts of first degree murder, unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts involving tampering with a deceased human body. Judge Marcelo Kopcow imposed five life terms without parole. Three life sentences run consecutively, while two run concurrently. Watts also received 48 years for unlawfully terminating Shanann’s pregnancy and three consecutive 12 year sentences for tampering with the bodies.
That sentence means the entire marriage would exist entirely within the prison system. Current reports say Henderson and Watts are planning to marry, but there is no verified public confirmation that a wedding has already taken place. Whatever happens with the request, Watts will remain imprisoned for the murders of Shanann, Bella and Celeste, a crime prosecutors said followed his pursuit of a new life with another woman.
