It’s hard to imagine what might drive a person to love a serial killer, a phenomenon society has witnessed over decades. It leaves most of us with a feeling of unease, confusion, and slightly repulsed by the idea. Kids are conditioned to associate love with Walt Disney fairytales and while serial killers do not match the description of prince charming, these following women still chose to love some of the very worst of them.
Doreen Lioy and Richard Ramirez
Richard Ramirez shocked the world in the mid-'80s with a killing spree that claimed the lives of 14 people across California. Known as the Night Stalker, his killings often involved burglary, rape, and Satanic symbols. Ramirez was eventually caught, convicted, and imprisoned in 1985 before being sentenced to death and placed on Death Row.
However, the indisputable evidence of his grisly crimes didn't deter a swathe of lovers that attempted to contact Ramirez in prison. One woman, in particular, Doreen Lioy, persistently wrote to Ramirez until they eventually got married in 1996. However, the love fizzled out and the couple stopped seeing each other a few years before Ramirez's death in 2013.
Afton Burton and Charles Manson
One of the world's most infamous criminals, Charles Manson was no stranger to the love of women. The cult leader known for his part in the 1969 Tate-Labianca murders was convicted in 1971 and sentenced to life in prison. However, his cult-like influence continued to spread beyond prison, capturing the love of 17-year old Afton "Star" Burton.
In 2007, Burton sold everything she had and gave up her life in Illinois to move to California and visit Manson in prison. The pair became a couple and eventually secured a marriage license in 2014 when Burton was only 26 years old and Manson was 80. However, they never managed to tie the knot before Manson's death in 2017, with the killer quoted as saying the whole thing was just a publicity stunt.
Carole Ann Boone and Ted Bundy
America witnessed one of its worst serial killer cases in 1973 when the Ted Bundy trial became the first ever to show live on national television. It was a shocking truth the world faced not just for the vicious crimes he had committed but also for the celebrity response he got from women, which ultimately led to his marriage to Carole Ann Boone. The two met in 1974 while working together at the Department of Emergency services in Washington. Their day job was searching for women who were declared missing, but on the side, Bundy was killing them and disposing of their bodies at night.
By the time Bundy confessed to 30 murders (which the court estimated around 100), he and Carole were married with a daughter after bribing a prison guard for a conjugal visit. She divorced him in 1986 just three years before his execution. They never spoke again after their divorce and Carole and daughter Rose have not been seen since.
Rebecca Sneed and Lyle Menendez
In 1989, 21-year-old Lyle Menendez and his 18-year-old brother Erik brutally murdered their parents with a shotgun. Despite claims of self-defense against an abusive father, the brothers were both convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The media circus that followed put the brothers into the spotlight, attracting several fans including Playboy model Anna Eriksson who was briefly married to Lyle until 2001.
However, his true love came later in the form of Rebecca Sneed whom he married in 2003 and remains with to this day. Despite a Californian law restricting conjugal visits to prisoners with life sentences, Lyle described the marriage as "healthy" and without complications.
Judith Mawson and Gary Ridgway
The two fell madly in love after meeting at a bar in Seattle in 1985, leading to their wedding three years later. The chemistry was instant as they shared a love for the same music and dancing. Ridgeway, also known as the Green River Killer, was one of the most prolific serial killers the US ever saw which brought their 13-year marriage to an end after he confessed to the murder of 49 women. He committed his first murder in 1982 and continued murdering women for 20 years before authorities got hold of him (in fact, with the help and advice of Ted Bundy).
By 2017, Judith was able to channel her pain and trauma by writing and publishing her biography called Green River Serial Killer, co-written by Pennie Morehead. The devastation and betrayal Ridgway caused has disinclined Judith from ever dating again as she has not yet learned to trust another man to this day.
Rosalie Martinez and Oscar Ray Bolin
In an odd twist of fate, married mother-of-four and attorney Rosalie Martinez met her would-be lover, the serial killer Oscar Ray Bolin, when she was assigned to his case. Despite eventually being found guilty of multiple murders, Martinez refused to believe that Bolin was guilty and dedicated her life to proving his innocence.
In an odd twist of fate, married mother-of-four and attorney Rosalie Martinez met her would-be lover, the serial killer Oscar Ray Bolin, when she was assigned to his case. Despite eventually being found guilty of multiple murders, Martinez refused to believe that Bolin was guilty and dedicated her life to proving his innocence.
Linda and Robert Yates
Despite many bizarre findings throughout their 26-year marriage, Yates suspected her husband of nothing more than cheating. Whether it was for financial reasons or their children, she stayed with him. She admits to many scaley incidents ranging from credit card charges for dodgy motels, bloody car seats, being covered in gravel and weird smells after supposable hunting trips, and spying on the neighbors while they were having sex through a peeping hole he made in the attic wall.
She eventually left her husband only to get back together with him after a very brief period which did not stop him from committing more murders. It was only after police informed her that they discovered a body in their yard when she acknowledged that her husband might be a serial killer.
Darcie and Jerome Brudos
Darcie never once questioned her husband’s crazy demands, requests, and strange behaviors which makes us doubt her sanity too. Which woman in their right mind would accept when told by their husband that certain rooms in their own house were forbidden to enter? She never questioned any of it, not even when a woman's breast was brought home one day and used as a paperweight, blood found all over the car seat, unusually thick doors to muffle out sound, loved cross-dressing, or when she was forced to stay in the house wearing nothing but a birthday suit and high heels and make an announcement on the intercom before entering any of the rooms he was in.
Both of them were arguably clinically insane, yet Darcie managed to divorce the now-dead Jerome Brudos, took the kids, and left. Their location is unknown.
Mary Elizabeth Harriman and Russel Williams
Married for 19 years to the notorious panty thief, Elizabeth claims to not have known anything about her husbands killings despite all the sex toys, pictures, and videos of his victims he left hidden in duffle bags, the piano, and boxes all over the basements and garages of their two houses. It’s hard to tell if she knew anything or if she was ignorant due to fear and denial, as Russel Williams was a well-respected colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, and like in most of these killers’ cases with well-respected jobs, they do tend to take pride in their ability to fool the public.
Rumors proved her guilty of knowing as her divorce papers, or better known “domestic contract” as it gave her full ownership to one of their houses yet no one will ever know as she had all her files sealed.
Carol Hoff and John Wayne Gacy
Hoff was one of John Wayne Gacy’s two wives and also the more “hands-on” wife of the two. 1972 saw their marriage begin as well as his full-blown serial killer period. Another “good public persona” by yet another serial killer, married to a deranged woman dumb enough to think the deadly smells coming from the crawlspace under the house were just rats.
Knowing very well that Gacy had previously been imprisoned for raping a young boy, she still didn’t question when young boys and men were going missing around the neighborhood and one that even spent some time living in their house. In 1975 Gacy confessed to being bisexual and soon after Hoff filed for divorce, blaming only his crazy mood swings and obsession with male pornographic magazines.
Paula and Dennis Rader
How do you turn a blind eye for 34 years? Well, just ask Paula Rader who spent that long ignoring all the red flags indicating her husband to be the BTK serial killer. Dead bodies turned up after spending the night out, his voice was played repeatedly on recorded 911 calls luring police to his dead victims, all the letters and poems Paula Rader read of her university professor husband were published in the newspapers and on the news all leading to him, yet, she claims innocence to any knowledge of her husband to be a serial killer.
Dennis Rader got off leading police on a wild goose chase, sometimes taking them straight to the murdered victims yet always staying a few steps ahead of them. Dennis Rader also kept momentums of all of his killings in a box very easily accessible to his wife, yet, conveniently, nothing was found.
Julie and Herb Baumeister
Debatably the most in-denial of the lot, Julie Baumeister denied her husband was a killer even after skulls and bones of murder victims ended up in their backyard, found by their son. They quickly disappeared and Herb convinced his wife they were from the medical school owned by his anesthesiologist father. Herb was active in the gay scene around Indianapolis, and when many of his gay bar friends started going missing, police managed to trace these events back to Herb.
Somehow Herb later convinced Julie that police were framing him for theft and prohibited her from letting them into the house at any point. They later managed to talk to Julie alone and explained their reasons for searching the house but she still wouldn’t allow them in. It was only after his psychotic episodes that she accepted the truth but Herb committed suicide before any arrests could be made.
Alice and Harvey Carignan
Out of all the killers’ significant others, Alice Harvey seems to have acted the quickest by kicking her serial killer husband out after a little more than just 12 months. It saved her life as he was extremely abusive and did a lot of physical damage to her and her two kids. “Harv the Hammer” left only to murder his follow-up girlfriend whose body was found in the forest soon after.
Alice found a button of a woman’s dress in Harvey’s car and we suspect that it might’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back as their marriage ended around this time.
Fayina and Andrei Chikatilo
Suspected of raping and killing over 100 women, Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo was married to his wife Fayina for over 30 years. Fayina recalls many “overlooked” signs proving her husband to be a killer, like constant bloodstains on his clothes, long business trips, and constantly getting fired from his teaching jobs due to molesting children, yet, that too didn’t make her see the truth.
She even accepted the fact that her husband was, as he declared, impotent and stopped having sex with her and was completely shocked when police told her he had committed sex-related crimes. She is still suspected of withholding a true statement in court as her alibi got Andrei relieved of a child murder crime which he later confessed to.
Nancy Jo Lynch and John Robinson
By their mid-twenties, Nancy and John had already been married with four children after John proposed on their first date, and constantly moving around to avoid John’s run-ins with the law. Before knowing he was a serial killer, Nancy was well aware of her young husband’s embezzlements, forgeries, and kidnappings due to his arrests and constantly being in and out of jail.
Said to be a great father and neighbor half of the time, the other half displayed John Robinson’s double life killing innocent people and brutally assaulting women. Later, two barrels of dead bodies were found on their farm sending him to life in prison. They divorced in 2005 after many chaotic years of lies, murder crimes, and deceit.
Elena and Mikhail Popkov
2015 gave way to Mikhail Popkov’s confession of 22 murders while there were believed to be over 80 victims, which he much later confessed to. Yet throughout all of this, his wife Elena, mother, and sister all believed that he was innocent. They claimed he never showed any aggression towards them and that he was always calm in his role as husband, son, or brother.
Like many serial killers, he looked innocent as collected in the public eye as Mikhail served as a police officer during the times he committed these murders and even during confession still told his family that he was innocent. He was probably scared of his mommy.
Carol Spadoni and Phillip Jablonski
After responding to his ad in the paper, Carol Spadoni pursued a love relationship with serial killer Phillip Jablonski, knowing very well that he had murdered his previous wife and was therefore in jail. After many visits to Jablonski in prison from 1978, the two eventually got married in 1982 but the relationship turned sour when Spadoni started fearing for not only her own life but that of her mother’s too.
She soon heard that her imprisoned husband would be let out for good behavior and that he was heading to her home she shared with her mother after already sending all his belongings there. They informed the police of trouble and Jablonski was forbidden to go there but like any serial killer, he didn’t listen and murdered both his wife and mother-in-law in cold blood. Court declared him sane during his evaluation for release.
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
Sometimes the significant others are unaware of their partner’s crimes, and other times, the spouse gets in on the action, like in the case of Karla Homolka who was married to serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo. Together they raped and murdered Karla’s younger sister and reportedly two other female victims. The two met when Karla was only 17 years old; Paul was 23 at the time and they were engaged on Christmas Eve that same year.
The family welcomed Paul into their home where he became obsessed with Karla’s younger sister, who was their first victim. It only escalated from there on out as they found more innocent victims who they kidnaped, raped, and murdered while videotaping all of it. After 12 years in prison, Homolka was released and had a child of her own.
Rosemary and Fred West
One can understand when a child becomes psychologically damaged due to abuse from a parent, it’s not right to retaliate by becoming a serial killer, but it makes things rather more understandable when you hear stories like these. This was the case with Rosemary who was sexually abused by her father from young childhood well into her adult life. Between 1971 and 1987 Rosemary went on to murder about 10 people, torturing them beforehand.
In her case, she was not alone in her crimes: her husband Fred was by her side helping in the murders all the way. Rosemary is still serving life in prison while her husband committed suicide before the trial took place.
Cathy Wilson and Peter Tobin
Though only a three-year marriage, psychopath serial killer Peter Tobin, who was 20 years older than Wilson, displayed signs of unimaginable violence and abuse, throwing her to the wall and strangling her, bringing home prostitutes who he slapped around and forced Cathy to watch. She was prohibited from the basement and the drains were clogged regularly without any apparent reason.
Together they had a son, whom she brought to the abusive Tobin for regular visits after their divorce. It was only after his release for drug and violent crimes that the Police finally realized Peter Tobin was responsible for the death of an estimated 70 women. That was when the penny dropped for Cathy and through wanted pictures of Tobin on television, she realized he was a serial killer.
Kristin Svege and Charles “Tex” Watson
Despite Charles Manson taking most of the fame, it was, in fact, his protege Charles "Tex" Watson who committed most of the murders. Tex was convicted in 1972 of seven murders and was originally sentenced to death before receiving a life sentence instead due to a change in the law.
Soon after his incarceration, Tex began communicating with an enamored fan, Kristin Svege, and a budding romance developed. Eventually, the couple married in 1979 and birthed four children before a change in the law banned conjugal visits for prisoners with life sentences. However, the love didn't last and the couple divorced in 2003. Watson remains in prison, having been denied parole 17 times.
Christine Kizuka and Angelo Buono Jr.
From 1977 till 1978, Angelo Buono, with the help of his cousin, raped and murdered 10 women in an alarmingly brutal way which sent him to life in prison, but not even Folsom Prison could stop the killer from finding “love”. He wed 35-year-old Christine Kizuka in the waiting area, a ceremony that lasted five minutes, and was under complete supervision by a correctional official in March of 1986.
The two met through Christine’s first husband who did time for assault with a rifle. Whether Christine or any of the women who desire marrying killers in prison, did it for love of a deep internal need to change these men, their reasons will forever be a mystery. Buono passed away in prison after suffering a heart attack, which is rather a peaceful way to die considering the torture he forced on the women he killed.
Zhang Qingfeng and Gao Chengyong
Gao, known as the “Chinese Jack The Ripper”, committed heinous crimes between 1988 and 2002 and was sentenced to life in prison after DNA evidence led him to the murder of 11 females. His wife stayed married to him throughout his life sentence until his execution. Zhang hoped they made a mistake and kept believing law officials had the wrong person and that eventually Gao would be set free.
Gao had a very brutal way of mutilating his victims: after following them home during the daytime, he would rape them while alive or after he stabbed them to death. He was stripped of all his belongings in 2018 and executed in January 2019.
Shirlee Joyce Book and Kenneth Bianchi
Lesser-known serial killer Kenneth Bianchi, also known as The Hillside Strangler, murdered several young women and girls with the help of his cousin, Angelo Buono, Jr. The pair only operated in the Hollywood Hills for a short period between 1977 and 1978 but managed to take 10 lives in that time.
Despite being convicted of the rape and murder of underage girls, Bianchi still managed to attract the admiration of a Louisiana woman, Shirlee Joyce Book. After several years of correspondence, the couple met and were married in 1989. However, as is common in these instances, Book later divorced Bianchi after she discovered he was writing to other women. Turns out, convicted criminals can't be trusted - who would have thought!
Patrick Kearney and David Hill
During the '70s, gay men were being murdered and their bodies found along highways in California, cut up and left in trash bags to be found by anyone who dared to seek the root of the stench. They sexually assaulted and murdered men and young boys and it took the police years to get to any final number of victims.
Though they were able to confirm 21 murders it was believed to be around 43. Many people believe Keaney to have committed the crimes alone, but no one will ever know as Hill allowed Keaney to take the fall as he solely confessed and is currently still serving life in prison.
Up Next, the Full Story of a More Modern Killer Couple - One Whose Love Might End up With One of Them Knowingly Dying at the Hand of the Other...
Love You To Death: The Unlikely Romance of Tracy and Ernest
We're not the first ones to say it, and we won't be the last: love comes from where you least expect it. While some people meet in bars, others are introduced by friends, and others still have a fairytale story about a chance meeting on a New York street, a very lucky few get the strangest love stories you can imagine. That's exactly what we're going to share with you today.
This is an epic love story, taking place across thousands of miles between two people who you would never expect to know one another, much less develop feelings for each other, and yet, somehow, it works. This is the story of Tracy Bottomley and Ernest Otto Smith.
Ernest Otto Smith: Our Extremely Unlikely Romantic Hero
Ernest Otto Smith is a man who had a difficult life. Coming from Ohio, he had grown up around addiction, violence, and drug abuse, a curse that he inherited himself. Navigating the world was difficult; at one time he ran a tattoo parlor, at other times he was involved in various petty crimes, and occasionally ones that were less petty.
That road eventually led him to the night of January 3rd, 2005 when he robbed, shot, and killed James Dillingham in Toledo, Ohio. He was accompanied by Cathy Barnett, who witnessed the whole thing. Following the murder, the two hit the road and made tracks for Kentucky where things would get even worse for them.
The Second Murder
Ernest and Cathy had barely arrived in Fort Knox, Kentucky before paranoia started to overrun Ernest's mind. He became convinced that his partner-in-crime was going to turn heel on him and rat him out to the cops, and he found himself spiraling down into this belief.
Before long, the suspicion was too much to handle, and he resolved to do what he had to to end it. On January 7th, he took Cathy down a secluded service road, attacked her, and attempted to break her neck. When that failed, he found a heavy tree-branch, used it to bludgeon her to death, and went on the run.
Time
Ernest made it as far as Nashville, Tennessee before the police caught up with him. The following year, he was sentenced to 32 years in prison - only for the crime of killing Dillingham. Over the course of conversations with law enforcement officials during the next five years, Ernest eventually confessed to also killing Cathy Barnett.
He expressed guilt and sorrow for the crime and was resentenced in 2016 to life in prison. Things were pretty bleak for him: he knew what he had done was wrong and felt he deserved the time he was serving, but that did not change the life of abuse that had led him to where he sat in his cell. He was looking for some light to guide him through the long tunnel he was staring down, and it came from the most unexpected place...
Enter: Tracy Bottomley
Tracy Bottomley is not what you'd expect from a romantic heroine. If you were asked to draw the picture of such a woman, you probably wouldn't draw Tracy, and yet... here we are. She's a woman who also had a difficult past.
Born, raised, and currently living in the North of England in Yorkshire, in 2018 she had spent three years single after many unlucky relationships and a marriage that ended in divorce in 2003. Her dating history included abusers, both physical and emotional, and it'd had a profound effect on her outlook on life. She certainly wasn't expecting the universe to do her any favors, but little did she know that she'd also find hope in an unlikely place.
Tracy Bottomley: The Talent
It's unfair to categorize Tracy's life purely by its downswings, of course. In fact, Tracy loves to express herself. She has a StarNow page, setup by those looking to get involved in the performing arts. On it, she expresses an interest in acting, modeling, alternative clothing, rock music, and even boasts a little of her karaoke prowess.
She cites her musical influences as Lady Gaga, Guns N Roses, Black "Sabbeth", Children Of Bodem, and Ozzy Osbourne. Nevertheless, she had spent a life looking for love in all the wrong places. In some ways, she never stopped doing that... but somehow it paid off for her.
The Facebook Group
Tracy was on Facebook one day in 2018 and found a group that referred to itself as a facilitator for a "Prison Pen Pal" program, matching inmates with people on the outside to talk to. She approached it cautiously, but with curiosity.
On the group, she found an ad from a certain Mr. Ernest Otto Smith, a lonely inmate who was candid and upfront about his crimes and their severity. Only expecting to find someone new to talk to, Tracy decided to take up the ad's offer of conversation. Little did she know that she was about to meet the love of her life...
Just Two People Talking
Tracy was shocked to find that Ernest was easy to talk to. He had been, and still was, upfront about everything that he had done, but, more than that, he was nice, and she liked him.
"Ernest doesn't scare me - I've never been someone who gets frightened easily," she has said to press since, going on to say that "Ernest doesn’t sound like a murderer, you can’t hear anything crazy in his voice, he regrets what he’s done." Their friendship bloomed quickly, and things rapidly started to get deep between the unlikely pairing, separated by thousands of miles of ocean.
Talking About Everything
As emails went back and forth, Ernest and Tracy became more and more intimate and more and more open with one another. “[Ernest] spoke about what he’d been through and how he was a victim of child abuse which led to him using drugs to battle his depression and anxiety,” says Tracy. “I’ve been in an abusive relationship before and the way he spoke about how his experiences as a child changed him really resonated with me.”
The two of them sharing the harrowing experiences that had made them who they were, led to them finding a kind of solace, and each discovering a kindred spirit in the other. But would they be ready to go further with each other?
"Like" Can Lead to "Like Like" and "Like Like" Can Lead to "Love"
With the two of them firing intimate details back and forth to one another, the next step was almost inevitable: they started to fall for one another. In one of his letters, Ernest said, “Girl do you know how happy you make me? Where have you been all my life? I’m falling in love with you girl, I feel like you were meant to find me.” Tracy was only too happy to reciprocate, and before they both knew it, they were in a long-distance relationship. Somehow, through the bizarre world of the Internet, these two unlikely lovebirds found one another and became the source of each other's happiness.
Said Tracy, "Ernest doesn’t sound like a murderer, you can’t hear anything crazy in his voice, he regrets what he’s done...he's never literally gone out of his way to hurt somebody."
Their Love
The pair became as inseparable as it's possible to be when the two of them are continents apart, and one is imprisoned. They developed nicknames, with Ernest calling Tracy "Little 'Un", a name he got tattooed on himself inside a heart.
Their different, yet parallel experiences of abuse and trauma cemented them together, for better or for worse. By Tracy's account, the pair exchange email messages as often as three times a day, and after six weeks, Ernest asked for her number and the two moved to phone calls. Even Tracy, however, was not quite prepared for what happened next...
The Proposal
After roughly a year of being each other's constant digital companion, something that Tracy dared not dream possible happened. Ernest proposed to her with a video, popping the question and sending it off to his love, saying "We gotta figure out a way for me to marry you. I know it's hard. You make me a very happy person, more happy than I've been in years." How did she respond?
“I [was] in shock that Ernest proposed, I didn’t see it coming at all but I love him so obviously I said, ‘Yes.’ ” she shares. The madness of the situation might be a red flag to many, but to two people with a difficult history in love, it seemed like the only thing in the world to do. But what about the logistics?
Wedding Planning
Tracy has plans to travel to the United States and marry Ernest at the Ohio State Penitentiary where he is set to spend the rest of his life. Smith’s son, who is responsible for managing his father’s bank accounts, sent Tracy money to buy wedding bands, a gesture that delighted her. She said that Ernest's children have signed off on the union...as long as they don't have to call her 'Mom'!
“Ernest didn’t want me to pay for the rings myself — he’s quite old school, very traditional,” she gushes. “I am marrying an old man at the end of the day!” No one can say that they are not head-over-heels for one another, but we're sure several of you are wondering about how Tracy feels about marrying a convicted killer.
Is This Safe?
The completely understandable question that Tracy is constantly asked by family and friends is: "Is this a good idea, do you feel safe?" Her attitude is not simply devotional, but resolute. She undoubtedly believes in Ernest's inherent goodness but has also accepted that her death is... possible at his hands. When asked if she was afraid that he might harm her, she said that she didn't fear him at all, adding, “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... 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.”
Tracy focuses on the fact that life is short, and that death could come in many forms: "I'm going to die one day, I could die tomorrow from being allergic to something, I could go outside and get beaten up, you just don't know."
The Future
What's up next for the lovers? When last interviewed, Tracy reported that Ernest was writing a book “based on his own experience” about abuse, and how abused children can grow up to commit acts of violence of their own. “He’s even mentioning me in a few chapters,” she added, happily. That book has now come out and is available on Amazon. It is called Page and Dee: Against The Current.
Ernest promotes it through his Twitter account, where he also promotes awareness of abuse, opioid addiction, and shares apparently humorous thoughts such as "rehab is for quitters so i quit rehab". Whatever the world has in store for these two, there is no doubt it will be fascinating, and we wish them both a long and happy life together.