Chris Watts Wrote in Letters That He Planned Murders of Wife and Children for Weeks, Pen Pal Says

A woman who befriended Chris Watts, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of his pregnant wife and daughters, is now sharing secrets she learned about the killings that she says not even the FBI knew. 

Cheryln Cadle tells Inside Edition she was fascinated by the case and started exchanging letters with Watts. Eventually, she visited him at a maximum security prison in Wisconsin. She said it was “surreal” to meet the killer.

“At times, when he would talk about the murders, his eyes would turn so black. He just would get a different look on his face, and he talked about it so nonchalantly, like going down to get a cup of coffee,” Cadle said.

In letters to Cadle, Watts admits that he planned the murders for weeks, and that he had secretly given his wife the painkiller oxycontin to end her pregnancy. He wrote that he thought it would make it easier to leave her to be with his mistress, Nichol Kessinger.

“He was very mesmerized by her,” Cadle said of Kessinger. “He just said in his letters that had it not been for her, and the power that she had over him — she pulled at him constantly — that his family would still be alive today.”

Watts murdered 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old CeCe at the oil field where he worked. But in his letters, he revealed he tried to smother them hours earlier in their beds, but failed. 

Cadle and her letters are featured in the docuseries, “Cellmate Secrets: Chris Watts,” which premieres Friday on Lifetime. 

She says she doesn’t think the convicted killer is doing well. “He has finally realized that he’s going to be there for the rest of life.”

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