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Researchers intrigued why women marry convicts

Rhonda Bodfield Bloom Arizona Daily Star

About the time Nikki Byrd's 23-year marriage broke up in 1998, she learned she had contracted the potentially lethal liver disease hepatitis C during a blood transfusion decades earlier. Reeling from the blows, she confided in her ex-husband's brother, who became her best friend and a source of comfort.

Ultimately, the two fell in love.

What made their case infinitely more interesting was that when she fell in love with her brother-in-law, Patrick, he still had more than four years to go on a 19-year prison sentence.

Falling in love with prisoners may not be an easy choice, but with 2 million Americans incarcerated at any given time, it's also not unusual.

It happens even in the most high-profile and disturbing of cases. Satanic serial murderer Richard Ramirez, better known perhaps as the Nightstalker, married a freelance magazine editor with a bachelor's degree. Lyle and Erik Menendez, convicted of the shotgun slayings of their parents, wed in prison. Convicted terrorist "Carlos the Jackal" became engaged to his attorney despite his life sentence.

It happens with calculated steps as women cruise the Web sites where prisoners list the kind of pen pals they're looking for. Take Penpals-N-Prison.com. On the site, Ely, a tattoo artist getting out this year, says without a hint of irony that he's "not afraid of commitment." In what could well be an overstatement, Craig, a 37- year-old doing life, says he has "no bad habits." Then there's Leonard, who will get out in 2058 and who is looking for a full- figured woman.

It happens, too, in cases of circumstance, like Nikki Byrd. Patrick told her he loved her six months after her 1999 divorce.

Theories abound about why women are attracted to prisoners.

Caroline Isaacs, criminal justice program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, has a fairly straightforward answer. "There are good people and bad people out here and good and bad relationships out here, just as there are in there. People can't help who they fall in love with."

Mike Aamodt, a professor of psychology at Radford University in Virginia, has looked at the question. The women who go for the serial killers, he said, tend to like the notoriety and the rebelliousness of it all. The ones who go for the lesser criminals, he said, are more varied.

For those who came from abusive relationships with little control, this is a way to get that control back. The nurturers believe people can change and it's up to them to do the saving. Some think the system convicted the wrong guy. Some are attracted to the "bad boy" image, but in a safe sort of way, since the men are locked up. The lack of sex focuses the relationship on other emotional factors.

"From anecdotal examples or case studies, we've found bright, successful women you wouldn't classify as being losers," he said.

While it's hard to get any data on prison-marriage track records, he said, "I think in general, and certainly for the ones who intentionally try to date someone who has killed or raped someone, it's not psychologically healthy. And it's not the way you'd advise getting control back into your life."

Although there's a paucity of research on prison relationships, the studies that have been done show they are notoriously hard to maintain. The nonprofit Aleph Institute of Surfside, Fla., pegs the divorce rate at 85 percent for marriages in which one spouse is imprisoned for more than one year.

Nikki Byrd's path came as a surprise also. The well-spoken woman with a bachelor's degree in human resources said that if someone had told her she'd end up with someone behind bars, she would have said, "No way." She's not one to excuse actions based on upbringing, saying people make choices in life. She's not proud that Patrick was in prison. But inmates, she said, are people too, and some just made terrible mistakes in judgment.

She describes Patrick as "very sweet." While she was away on a trip recently, he put eight little stuffed bears around the house and lined the bathtub with red glass hearts to welcome her home.

He also killed four people in an accident. He was 22 years old in 1985 and driving drunk. Three of his best friends died that night, along with a young woman who was to be engaged the next day.

In June 2003 he got out of prison.

She had a first-date-fluttery stomach. "Part of me was so happy, anticipating it, but at the same time I was scared because I knew it would mean big changes. No matter how well you know each other, the reality hits you that, 'Oh, my God.' It's like a stranger coming into your home."

A stranger coming from a vastly different place.

Their first night together, she made steak. He couldn't get over the fact that he was holding a knife for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Then there's just the fact that he missed all that time. He hadn't done much living when he went in at 22. He's 41 now.

The two say they've been blessed, despite everything. He had Nikki's home to come to. He found a job in construction right away, even after sharing his history. He doesn't drink at all anymore. One of the first things he did when he got out was visit the cemetery. There isn't a day that passes that he doesn't think of that night.

Although they're committed to each other, whether they'll stay together is something that Nikki is giving Patrick time to work out. "I don't want him to be with me because I'm a security blanket for him. And he has the opportunity to discover that about himself. I love him enough to say, 'I want what's best for you.' "

"Time will tell. But, then again, time will tell with any relationship."

Copyright C 2004 Deseret News Publishing Co.
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