Chris Watts with his mistress Nichol Kessinger. Photo / Weld County District Attorney's Office
Chris Watts with his mistress Nichol Kessinger. Photo / Weld County District Attorney's Office
The mistress who "softly spoken" father-of-two Chris Watts murdered his family to be with is back in touch with him, three years after changing her identity and disappearing, the killer has claimed from jail.
Watts – who along with wife Shanann and their daughters Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4, were the subject of last year's chilling Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door – was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and their daughters because he wanted to start a new life with his mistress, Nichol Kessinger.
He dumped the bodies of his family in a remote oilfield owned by his former employer in August 2018, and is now serving multiple life sentences in a Wisconsin prison – while Kessinger applied to change her name and disappeared after being linked to the brutal murders.
Now, under her new name, Watts has claimed that Kessinger wrote to him inside the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin, fellow inmate David Carter told the Daily Mail.
"He told me she said that she needed to speak to him to clear some things up," Carter said.
"He wouldn't tell me exactly what she had said."
Chris Watts with his mistress Nichol Kessinger. Photo / Weld County District Attorney's Office
Kessinger, a field engineer for Tasman Geosciences, met Watts at his former workplace, Anadarko Petroleum Co, with their love affair lasting just over a month before he was found guilty of murdering his family.
The pair's secret relationship began when Watts' wife and daughters spent several weeks away from him over the summer visiting his in-laws in North Carolina — a period during which Shanann continuously reached out to him in hopes of repairing their struggling marriage.
After they returned home to Frederick, Colorado, Shanann took a short solo work trip. She returned home again on August 13, when Watts strangled her and smothered the two girls with his bare hands.
In 2019, Watts told his "pen pal" Cheryln Cadle that he was still in love with Kessinger, and believed that some of the letters he had received in prison were from her, supposedly writing under an assumed name.
Chris Watts with his wife, Shanann, and their daughters Bella and Celeste. Photo /Supplied
The 35-year-old also supposedly told Carter last September that Kessinger was writing to him, claiming prison authorities had discovered what was happening and punished Watts by suspending his email account.
"He wasn't supposed to have any contact with her, but she initiated it by writing to him," Carter said.
Kessinger, 30, spoke about the case for the first time in an interview with The Denver Post on November 15, 2018 where she claimed the triple-murderer was a liar.
She said she was tricked into believing Watts was a loving father, finalising a divorce and she had no idea his wife was 15 weeks' pregnant.
"He lied about everything.
Chris Watts murdered his wife and their two daughters in August 2018. Photo /Supplied
"I don't think there is a logical explanation for what he did.
"It's a senseless act, and it's horrific."
Kessinger approached investigators before Watts' arrest and participated in multiple police interviews, describing details of their relationship and what he had told her about his missing family.
A week before Watts killed his family, Kessinger spent more than two hours searching the internet for wedding dresses.
A search of Watts' phone found hidden pictures of a nude or semi-naked Kessinger. They were located in a secret calculator app that could only be accessed by typing in a four digit code.
