By all accounts, Chris Watts is a man driven by and obsessed with sex.
Hours before he strangled his pregnant wife Shanann to death in 2018, he slept with her one last time. He then smothered his daughters – Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3 – and dumped their little bodies in crude oil tanks.
By his own admission, his motive was simply so that he could be free to pursue another sexual relationship – with his coworker turned mistress Nichol Kessinger.
And she wasn’t the only one.
Amanda McMahon, a hairdresser, detailed to the Daily Mail this summer how she had met a married Watts on the dating app Tinder the year before his murders. She claimed their sex was ‘animalistic’ and ‘aggressive’.
In November 2018, Watts pleaded guilty and was locked up on five consecutive life sentences. Behind bars, he has boasted to fellow inmates about his vigorous past sex life, allegedly flaunting tales of threesomes, outré sex acts and his use of pornography.
Despite his monstrous crimes, plenty of women write him doting letters that he spends his days reading in jail.
And there was even a brief prison fiancée, Lizzie Henderson, who adopted Watts’ last name and was seen kissing him during meeting hours last year. The union was recently broken off by Watts, however, after his devoted mother, Cindy, reportedly encouraged him to reconsider the romance.
Chris Watts has become the subject of growing speculation about his sexuality behind bars
Lizzie Henderson, 39, was in a romantic relationship with Watts earlier this year before he broke it off
‘He always said that women were his weakness,’ said a former fellow inmate.
‘Chris can’t be alone. He needs constant affection and attention, and he’ll get it from whoever is available,’ Cheryln Cadle, Watts’ regular pen pal and true crime author, told the Daily Mail.
So perhaps it isn’t surprising that, starved of unfettered access to women at Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, new accounts from inside the prison claim that Watts has found other ways to sate his sexual appetite.
Today, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal that Watts has engaged in same-sex romantic relationships while in jail, according to a well-placed source.
That source is an employee at his maximum-security prison and confirmed that Watts was recently separated from another male prisoner amid suspicions among guards of an ‘inappropriate’ relationship.
‘Younger guys flock to Chris,’ the prison employee told the Daily Mail. ‘He’s really got a hold over them and they’ll usually do whatever he wants.’
The source described a pattern in which these younger inmates become intensely attached to Watts, now 41, seeking his approval and competing for his affections while Watts showers them with gifts.
‘They follow him around, want to talk to him, want his attention,’ the prison employee said. ‘And he’s generous with his commissary, so he [gets] things for them, gifts, [or] whatever it takes for them to like him.’
Amanda McMahon (pictured) claims she had an affair with Watts before he murdered his family
Watts killed his wife Shanann and their two young daughters then pretended to be a concerned husband to police and local media
Most of the inmates in Dodge Correctional serving time alongside Watts are younger men in their twenties, the source said, and some appear to regard the family annihilator as an older brother or father figure.
As well as his external pen pals, Watts writes lengthy letters to the younger men he ‘bonds’ with inside, often after spending an entire day with them, the former inmate said.
‘Chris will see them all day and then at night write a long letter and hand it to them the next day. It really does make them feel special.’
Several of these younger inmates have developed ‘crushes’ on Watts, the source added, and ‘it is pretty clear that Chris is flirting back.’
These relationships have occasionally turned physical, the prison source added: ‘There have been times where it’s pretty obvious something happened. When I say these guys will do anything for him, I mean anything.
‘There is some thinking among guards that these relationships are too intimate.’
A former fellow inmate said that sex in a prison cell or bed is usually too risky, so inmates seeking homosexual liaisons tend to resort to using surveillance blind spots, which are only a couple of feet wide and often in communal areas.
Prisoners learn to ‘do it quickly,’ said the ex-inmate. ‘We’re on a constant lookout.’
Back in 2020, Watts was disciplined after guards discovered his underwear, petroleum jelly, baby oil and other personal effects inside the cell of fellow inmate Dylan Tallman (pictured)
A man named Trent Bolte came forward in 2018 claiming he had a secret, 10-month affair with Watts before he murdered his family in August 2018. The FBI could not confirm Bolte’s account
Back in 2020, Watts was disciplined after guards discovered his underwear, petroleum jelly, baby oil and other personal effects inside the cell of fellow inmate Dylan Tallman. The two men had become close while occupying adjoining cells.
According to prison records, Watts and Tallman would communicate for hours through an electrical outlet in the wall separating their cells, which the two men nicknamed the ‘holy outlet.’
They also collaborated on Christian devotional writings and described themselves as ‘brothers in spirit.’
But the discovery of Watts’ possessions in Tallman’s cell prompted widespread speculation that they were sexual partners. Both men were punished and subsequently separated.
Tallman, who denied the relationship with Watts turned sexual, told the Daily Mail of the latest allegations: ‘Nothing surprises me anymore. A lot happens in prison.’
Tallman, who is 38 and was serving time for drug-related charges, was released in 2021. He has since lost contact with Watts but said the killer is naturally charming.
Watts was having an affair with a coworker Nichol Kessinger when he annihilated his family in August 2018
Watts smothered his daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three before dumping their bodies in oil tanks
‘Chris is just super friendly, too nice for his own good being in prison,’ Tallman said.
The Daily Mail has been given the names of three other men suspected of having sexual relationships with Watts, but none would discuss the claims on the record.
A former inmate who spent considerable time around Watts, though asked to remain anonymous, described their relationship as ‘intimate.’
‘We were as close as two men can be,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying that nothing happened, but not everything that you probably think.’
‘Chris is a guy who knows how to say the right things, and he can get you to really like him,’ the former inmate added. ‘You find yourself kind of thinking about him when you’re in your cell and he’s in his. It’s not sex, it’s something more.’
He also described Watts frequently talking about religion and having a magnetic presence.
‘He talks a lot about God, and there’s a spiritual connection,’ he said.
‘It makes you think of him. If you’re just in the main area and he’s sitting somewhere with someone, you notice where he is and his energy, you are just always aware of him and what he’s doing. I don’t know what it is about him.
‘He’s got a lot of guys who would have sex with him if he asked.’
The question for those who have closely followed Watts’ case over the years will now be whether this behavior has been born out of necessity in prison or if it is something that was always there.
Watts blames Kessinger for enticing him to kill his family
The FBI investigated Bolte’s claims of an affair with Watts but could not substantiate his story
In late 2018, a man named Trent Bolte came forward claiming he had engaged in a secret, 10-month homosexual affair with Watts before the murders in August of that year.
Bolte, now 37, said their affair had included secret trysts in hotel rooms and at a Wyoming cabin, although the FBI could not substantiate his claims at the time.
In an interview after his sentencing, Watts denied ever knowing Bolte.
On the day of Watts’ arrest in August 2018, the Daily Mail saw a mysterious profile on the gay dating app Grindr while reporting outside the Watts family home in Colorado. The app is geolocation-based, displaying nearby users and sorting them by physical proximity.
The Grindr profile appeared to be located less than 25 feet from Watts’ front yard.
The profile’s photograph showed only the torso of a man who resembled Watts, including what looked to be the distinctive barbed-wire tattoo he has round his left bicep.
The Daily Mail could not independently establish whether Watts had created or operated the profile.
Watts did not comment on this reporting.
