Being a footie WAG may be challenging given the indiscretions of some pampered Premier League millionaires – but is nothing compared to dating a bloke on Death Row.
While you may think that a man ordered to die by lethal injection as punishment for a grisly murder is a red flag, not all women feel the same.
Below, we hear from some Death Row WAGs who fell in love with hardened killers – despite the inevitable backlash.
READ MORE: Horrors in shadow of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – torture, turf wars and drive-by murders
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Benjamin Ritchie
Benjamin Ritchie shot police officer William Toney dead after being chased for stealing a van in 2000.
Despite claiming the gun went off accidentally when it hit the floor – he was later handed the death penalty and he surely assumed his life was all but over.
But an attractive young woman called Ivana, 31, from Sweden was instantly drawn to the killer after seeing him on the news – and flew all the way to America to meet him.
She was allowed to spend days with the murderer and she spoke to the Soft White Underbelly podcast about seeing him face to face for the first time.
“I can’t put it in words,” she said. “It was just a feeling he gave me when I saw him the first time. When I looked into his eyes I just felt that I wanted to be with him forever.
“I couldn’t imagine a life without him so it was either be with him or die with him. I think he’s just so special. I’ve never seen someone like him. His eyes were so beautiful, and the way he talked to me and made me feel.
“He was funny, and even though he was on Death Row he was positive. He made me feel beautiful and loved and he made me feel like I was the only girl in the world.”
Ivana later planned to break the cop killer out of jail with a rented helicopter – but she became hooked on heroin after the mad plan collapsed.
Despite being certain the relationship would last the test of time, Ivana is no longer with Benjamin. She went on to get clean and have a daughter.
Alan Wade
Alan Wade was sentenced to die after the robbery, kidnapping and murders of retired couple Reggie and Carol Summer who he – along with accomplices – buried alive in 2005.
But Sigrid began sending letters to the killer before moving from France to live close to the Union Correctional Institution in Florida.
She later had a baby with Alan behind bars and she said in 2021: “I started writing to Death Row inmates because I was against the death penalty. I believe in second chances and rehabilitation.
“When I started to realise I was having feelings for him and him for me, we both got scared. We took a step back and we tried to stop writing to each other and we were both miserable. And after six weeks he wrote back – his first words were ‘I love you’.”
She added that her family were angry at her decision – saying they thought she was the “worst person ever”.
But Sigrid said Alan was the man who makes her happy and she therefore does not see why it bothers other people.
And as for educating her son about who his dad is, she said: “I will tell him his dad is not who people are going to tell him he is. He is an amazing person who is really caring and sweet and that he loves him very much.”
Wade had his death sentence overturned in 2022 but was instead handed a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Sigrid now helps inmates in America build relationships with people on the outside with her penpal website called Wire of Hope.
Manuel Ovante Jr
Mexican-American Manuel Ovante Jr shot a man and a woman dead in 2008 during a botched robbery after going to a house to look for drugs.
But the killer attracted the attention of a British woman who reportedly told her family she was going to Disney World – only to marry the double murderer behind bars.
Dental nurse Rebecca Short, from Oxfordshire, shared photos of her bonkers wedding day where her new husband wore his orange jumpsuit while she opted for a black dress.
The pair started their romance as penpals – and one of Rebecca’s pals told The Sun: “She was always obsessed with watching Netflix documentaries about serial killers in America, but no one thought she’d run off and marry one.”
Ovante’s mother, Bridget, wrote on Facebook: “My son Manuel N Becky got married today, congratulations.”
Carl Blue
Carl Blue lost his freedom after setting fire to his former girlfriend, Carmen Richards-Sanders, and leaving her to die in unimaginably agony back in 1995.
But ten years later, Carl put out a plea on a website asking for a penpal, and divorced Brit, Jan McDonnell, answered his call.
Jan, who worked for the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London, said: “He was just a wonderful man, he really was. He was a changed man. Twenty years ago he was a crack addict but he became a different person.”
She fell for him after travelling all the way to the Polunsky Unit in Livingstone, Texas, but said she was never permitted to touch or kiss him.
In 2013 she spoke of her devastation when her “soulmate” was executed for his despicable crime. His final words before being given lethal injections were: “I’m getting a ranch up in the sky and when you get there we will ride our horses together.”
Heartbroken, she told The Mirror: “I’ve lost my best friend, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face. There are no words to explain it.”
Tracy Bottomley
Ernest Otto Smith was never actually on Death Row – but rules are made to be broken and we have included the double murderer on our list.
He was jailed for life without the possibility of parole for murdering a man and a woman in 2005 before he joined the prison pen pal prison scheme.
And you guessed it, this is how he met Tracy Bottomley, a woman in her 40s from Shipley, West Yorks, who later agreed to marry him after he went all out and proposed via voicemail.
Speaking to the Daily Star in 2019, she said: “Ernest doesn’t scare me – I’ve never been someone who gets frightened easily. Yes he is a serial killer, he’s committed a few murders, but I understand the risks of what could happen and I still love him.
“Being killed isn’t the best way to go, but everybody dies one day. I’m going to die eventually and I don’t mind the fact it could be at the hands of him.”
And with those profound words, we hope you enjoy the rest of your day...
