Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

A woman from Cleveland moved to Wisconsin, took the surname of Watts – a man serving five life sentences for killing his entire family – and filed to marry him. Women have been doing this for well over a century, and the ones who later walked away have almost never been asked why.

BOOK: “They Told Me My Newborn Died – They Lied” by Darren Marlar: https://amzn.to/4ihvu3k

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/wattsandlizzie

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yzmw3jdn
This episode includes references to suicide and to the deaths of children. If you are struggling, you are not alone, and help is available. https://WeirdDarkness.com/HOPE is a free directory of mental health resources, organized by country, for anyone anywhere in the world who needs somebody to talk to. And if you’re in the United States or Canada, you can get immediate help over the phone by dialing 988.

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Eight years after Chris Watts strangled his pregnant wife and smothered their two daughters, a woman from Cleveland has moved to Wisconsin, started signing his surname, and filed paperwork that now sits on a prison warden's desk. And Chris Watts is not the only man in permanent lockup who is seeking matrimony. Later, we’ll look at the women who build relationships with men who will die behind bars, and what draws them in.

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:51.635 = Show Open
00:03:19.353 = Ten Seconds At Dodge Correctional
00:20:26.768 = Shannan, Bella, Celeste and Nico ***
00:48:21.294 = He Will Write Back ***
01:04:25.333 = Dead In All Respects ***
01:24:35.204 = Nobody Counts Any Of This ***
01:29:55.177 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break

LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: August 19, 2026

This episode of Weird Darkness covers the marriage application Chris Watts filed from a Wisconsin prison eight years after murdering his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, and the long record of women who write to, visit and marry men who will never get out.It opens at Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin, where an inmate may touch a visitor twice, once at the start of a visit and once at the end, an embrace reporting puts at roughly ten seconds. On August 12th, 2026 the Daily Mail reported that Chris Watts, 41, and a 39-year-old Cleveland realtor named Lizzie Henderson had applied to marry inside the Wisconsin prison system. Lizzie had moved from Ohio to Wisconsin with her mother, filed a sealed petition for a confidential name change on September 12th, 2025, and appeared in prison visitor logs roughly twenty times during 2025, plus a visit on Christmas Day of 2024. Wisconsin handles these requests under policy 309.00.06, PIOC Marriages, which routes the application through a marriage coordinator and leaves the decision with the warden. No ceremony or license has been documented, and Watts has no projected release date.From there the episode goes back to the family. The Watts family doorbell camera recorded Shanann Watts arriving home at 1:48 in the morning on August 13th, 2018 at 2825 Saratoga Trail in Frederick, Colorado. She was 34 and fifteen weeks pregnant with a son the couple had named Nico, raising daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three, and selling Thrive for Le-Vel while her husband worked for Anadarko Petroleum and carried on an affair with co-worker Nichol Kessinger. Watts failed a polygraph administered by Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Tammy Lee, blamed Shanann for the girls' deaths, then retracted it. A drone over an Anadarko site called CERVI 319 found Shanann in a shallow grave and both girls submerged in crude oil inside storage tanks with eight-inch hatches. Judge Marcelo Kopcow sentenced him on November 19th, 2018 to five life sentences plus 84 years. In a February 2019 interview at Waupun, Watts described smothering Celeste in his truck while Bella sat beside her, and hearing Bella's last two words, "Daddy, no!", every time he closes his eyes.The second half opens in the autumn of 1921, when French railways ran extra trains to Versailles for the trial of Henri Désiré Landru, a furniture dealer who placed lonely-hearts advertisements in Paris newspapers and murdered eleven people. Women mailed him proposals of marriage while he awaited the guillotine. The modern version runs through Meet-An-Inmate, launched in 1998, and WriteAPrisoner, founded by Adam Lovell in 2000, which post profiles written on paper because American prisons allow no internet access; Susan Smith drew more than six thousand letters before pulling her listing in 2003. Hybristophilia, the term journalists reach for, was coined by sexologist John Money in 1986 and has never appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Sheila Isenberg's Women Who Love Men Who Kill, forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland's "perfect boyfriend" model, and sociologist Megan Comfort's San Quentin fieldwork in Doing Time Together supply what the women themselves say they are getting.Two 2025 studies found that actively seeking out romanticizing TikTok content correlated with attraction while passive exposure predicted nothing. The risk is documented in the killings of Regina Capobianco and John Mann by her pen pal Thomas Knuff in Parma Heights, Ohio, and in the strangling deaths of Stephanie Dowells and Tania Thomas during family visits at Mule Creek State Prison. The marriages run from Nina Van Zandt, who married Haymarket defendant August Spies by proxy in 1887 and may have married an innocent man, through Ted Bundy and Carole Ann Boone, Doreen Lioy and Richard Ramirez at San Quentin, the Twinkie that served as Erik Menendez and Tammi Saccoman's wedding cake, and James Whitehouse, who wrote to Susan Atkins in 1985 and went on to Harvard Law School to serve as her attorney. All of it rests on Turner v. Safley, the 1987 Supreme Court decision in which Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noted that most inmates are eventually released, leaving the man who never will be an untested case. Rhode Island's 1909 civil death statute declared lifers "dead in all respects", and Britain barred whole-life prisoners from marrying in 2024 after Milly Dowler's murderer Levi Bellfield was granted permission.The episode closes on the women who leave, absent from every study in the field. Lynn Hartman ended her engagement to Steven Avery in October of 2016 and wrote that she had been fooled by the Netflix documentary. Paula Williamson married Charles Bronson at HMP Wakefield in November of 2017, had it annulled in 2019, and died that July at thirty-eight. Anna Eriksson divorced Lyle Menendez in 2001 and still argues for his release. No agency counts prison marriages, and every figure circulating online is unsourced. Chris Watts belongs to a long file rather than a new one, having received his first letters from strangers within weeks of his December 2018 sentencing, before he had written a word to any of them.

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS has new episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit WeirdDarkness.com/Listen • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

A humanoid robot barista set a world record on its first weekend behind the counter in Beijing, and the balance of power between humans and machines now rests almost entirely on how politely people behave in line.

WEIRD DARKROAST COFFEE: https://weirddarkness.com/coffee/ (Yes, it’s a real thing!)

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/RobotBarista

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

A string of bizarre deaths, a secret defense program, and whispers of alien black goo — coincidence or cover-up? Is this mind-controlling, horrifying substance behind one of the strangest unsolved conspiracies in modern history?

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/blackgoo

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p95hnc5

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: The Freemasons. The Knights Templar. The Skull and Bones. Secret societies are already ripe for conspiracy theories – but what about the theory that they are also tied to extraterrestrials? (Secret Societies And Ancient Aliens) *** We have our own opinions about aliens and what their intentions might be – but what do the aliens think about us and what do they think our intentions are? If one scientist is to be believed, it isn’t flattering. (Aliens Consider Us a Threat To The Galaxy) *** Is an alien liquid invading our planet? We’ll look at covert operations, suspicious deaths, and what appear to be intelligent substances – all of which are being kept a secret from us. (The Alien Black Goo Invading Earth)

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00.00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:17.068 = Show Open
00:02:51.423 = The Alien Black Goo (Part 1)
00:15:02.584 = The Alien Black Good (Part 2) ***
00:26:53.447 = Secret Societies And Ancient Aliens ***
00:48:45.781 = Aliens Consider Us a Threat To The Galaxy ***
00:59:53.498 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break

LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“The Alien Black Goo Invading Earth” by Marcus Lowth for UFO Insight: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckuzjxb
VIDEO: David Griffin Interview About Black Goo, Marconi, etc: https://weirddarkness.com/david-griffin-interviewed-about-black-goo/
“Secret Societies And Ancient Aliens” by Marcus Lowth for UFO Insight: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdb9xzn2
BOOK: “Ancient Aliens and Secret Societies” by Mike Bara: https://amzn.to/3v2YSRH
BOOK: “Ancient Aliens and JFK” by Mike Bara: https://amzn.to/3PnJQ0P
PHOTO: Does this photo show Albert Thomas winking at President Lyndon Johnson? https://bit.ly/3PpMpzI
“Aliens Consider Us a Threat To The Galaxy” from Anomalien: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/my48zf3
(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: July, 2022

Murdoch Glourie has walked the halls of his family's Scottish castle every midnight for two hundred years, and now an American grocery millionaire has bought the place and means to ship it – ghost included – to Florida.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Good Times Express” (June 30, 1978) ***WD
00:43:19.189 = The Black Book, “My Favorite Corpse” (February 24, 1952) ***WD
00:57:46.529 = Globe Theater, “The Ghost Goes West” (August 21, 1944) ***WD
01:27:59.675 = Box 13, “Last Will and Nursery Rhyme” (February 06, 1949)
01:54:33.850 = Calling All Detectives, “The Times Bombing Case” (February 14, 1934)
02:23:57.194 = Casey Crime Photographer, “Christmas Shopping” (December 19, 1946)
02:53:24.508 = CBC Mystery Theater, “The Mines of Falun-Tales of Hoffman” (July 14, 1967) ***WD(LQ)
03:20:00.334 = Chet Chetter, “The Bitter Pill” (1992)
03:49:37.627 = The Clock, “Amazon Island” (January 31, 1956)
04:14:07.041 = The Crime Club, “Corpse Wore a Wig” (May 08, 1947)
04:43:18.525 = Crime Classics, “Mr. Throwers Hammer” (August 03, 1953)
05:13:02.636 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0749

A midwife is driven north to a castle at the top of the world to deliver a baby, and when she reaches the birthing room there is no cradle in it. She has brought hundreds of children into the world, but never one she was ordered not to save.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-snowqueenschildren

SOURCES and RESOURCES: 
“The Snow Queen’s Children” by Louise Latham, submitted directly to WeirdDarkness.com

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: August 19, 2026

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL