According to his prisoner outreach web site, Watson converted to Christianity in 1975. "Will You Die for Me?", Watson's autobiography, as told to "Chaplain Ray" (Ray Hoekstra), was published in 1978. In 1979, he married Kristin Joan Svege. Through conjugal visits they were able to have four children (three boys, one girl), but those visits for life prisoners were banned in October 1996. After 24 years of marriage, Svege divorced Watson after meeting another man in 2003. Svege and Watson remain friends. He had become an ordained minister in 1981, and received a B.S. in Business Management in 2009 from California Coast University, a distance-learning college.