This is not your typical love story.
A British mom of three is hoping to marry an inmate from the U.S. later this year when her love is released on parole, the New York Daily News reports.
Jennifer Butler, who is 29 and a single mom to three kids under 10, is planning to fly from England to the U.S. to marry Minnesota inmate Christopher Mosier, whom she met online.
“Some people might think I’m bonkers for falling in love with a prisoner. And not everyone will agree with our relationship,” Butler said, according to the Daily News. “But Chris is a wonderful man. Sure, he made a few mistakes in the past, but everybody deserves a second chance.”
According to the report, Butler and Mosier first connected in July 2011, after the young mom saw his profile on a website that connects prisoners and pen pals, the Daily News notes. His profile on writeaprisoner.com said that he was sentenced to 15 years for violent burglary and drug offenses.
“I felt sorry for him being locked up, nobody to talk to except other prisoners. Of course, I didn’t condone his crimes. But he was still a human being, and deserved to have a friend,” Butler said.
They started writing often, up to three letters weekly until around June last year when the letters suddenly stopped. It was later revealed in a letter a month later that the prison had been on lockdown so he had been unable to write.
“I realized I was in love with him and that letter made me admit it to myself. I couldn’t bear to lose him,” Butler recalled.
In October, Butler finally saved up enough money as a part-time sales assistant to go to Minnesota to visit Mosier. It was a conversation through glass, as Mosier had gotten into trouble for fighting with another prisoner, but intimate all the same.
“We weren’t allowed to touch because he was a maximum-security prisoner at the time,” she said. “We had a glass window between us and had to talk through a phone. When I saw him walking down the corridor I knew he was the man for me. We talked for four hours and it felt like I’d known him all my life.”
“He held my hand and said how much I meant to him and he got emotional. He never usually does,” she added. “He then said he wanted to make me happy and asked me to marry him. I just broke down. I said of course I would.”
Read more at the New York Daily News.
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