Chris Watts' prison pen pal tells what it was like to meet him for the first time

A woman who wrote a letter to convicted murderer Chris Watts after the murder of his wife and children described her first meeting with him.

Watts was expecting his third child with his wife Shannan when she and their two daughters suddenly disappeared from their Colorado home in August 2018.

The father initially denied having any idea what had happened to his family, but it eventually emerged that Watts had killed all three and dumped his children's bodies in oil tanks and Shannan's in a shallow grave.

Watts pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to life in prison without parole, but his story captivated the public and prompted people to write him letters while he was in prison.

One of Watts' pen pals was Cherlyn Cadle, who later wrote two books about Watts' story and his confessions.

One of the books entitled Letters from Christopheris described as “an absolutely truthful account of what happened to Shanann, Bella, Celeste and (unborn baby) Nico Watts.”

After initially contacting Watts through letters, Cadle was placed on the visitor list to visit him in prison, but he reportedly feared that their conversations would be recorded and wrote down his confessions instead.

Chris Watts was sentenced to life imprisonment (RJ Sangosti – Pool/Getty Images)

Speech on the Lifetime documentary series Secrets of cellmatesCadle described her first meeting with Watts: “I hate to admit this, because he's a murderer and what he did is so horrific, but when I first met him he had this boyish demeanor.

“He was gentle, soft-spoken and just seemed like a nice guy. And he remained that way throughout our communication. That changed when he started talking about the murders.”

Cadle, who described the meeting with Watts to Inside Edition as “very surreal,” also remembered the look on Watts' face when he talked about what he was doing to his wife and young daughters.

She said: “Sometimes when he talked about the murders, his eyes would go completely black. His expression would just change and he would talk about it so calmly.”

Cadle said she was interested in Watts' story from his first television appearance, explaining: “When I saw his first interview, I don't know, I looked at him that morning and just felt like something really spoke to me.”

“It was like a call for me to contact him and ask if he would tell me his story. I knew he was guilty. You could tell by the way he talked, by his body language. But it was just one of those things where I really felt like I had to do it.”