DEC 13, 2018
Chris Watts Killed His Family. Then The Love Letters Started Rolling In. | HuffPost
But nestled among the documents was something unusual: a cache of adoring letters sent to Watts while he sat in jail awaiting trial. To some women observing from afar, Watts was a heartthrob ― and a potential romantic interest.
“I want to get to know you soooo bad its not even funny,” a 39-year-old woman from Colorado wrote to him. “Literally your on my mind almost every single day since you were in the news.” In a follow-up note, she said she would be “the happiest girl alive” if Watts wrote her back. She signed off with the hashtags #TEAMCHRIS, #CHRISISINNOCENT, #LOVEHIM and #SOOOOCUTE.
On its face, it’s difficult to comprehend why any woman would fall for a man known solely for committing a violent crime. Especially the vicious killing of his own family. And yet they do.
Nowhere is this more apparent than on Facebook, where true crime groupies gather to discuss cases. One such page, dedicated to the Watts murders, has over 19,000 members. In a recent thread, members debated whether Ryan Gosling or Jake Gyllenhaal should play Watts in a movie.
Women who are besotted with murderers often remain in denial about the crime. That way they can live inside a fantasy relationship, experts told HuffPost. There is a bizarre juxtaposition between the affectionate mood of the letters to Watts and the gruesome facts of his case.
Katherine Ramsland, a forensic psychology professor at DeSales University, said that in rare cases, women may be sexually aroused by the idea that the men committed a violent act, a condition called hybristophilia.
California psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, who wrote
Bad Boys: Why We Love Them, How to Live With Them and When to Leave Them, said in her experience, many women who reach out to men in prison have low self-esteem.