Finding love in lockup: Nancy Grace investigates why women marry murderers
Fox Nation special ‘Marrying a Murderer’ shares stories of women who wed convicted murderers
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Love has no bounds – even if you’re a convicted killer behind bars.
From felon to fiancé to forever, Fox Nation host and former prosecutor Nancy Grace investigates why women across America choose to find love with criminals in a new special, "Marrying a Murderer."
"Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, the Menendez brothers, Chris Watts," Grace lists at the start of the episode. "They all found love in lockup."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sheila Isenberg, author of "Women Who Love Men Who Kill,"says most women believe one of four things: that their husband is truly innocent, there were mitigating circumstances, he’s changed, or religion saved him.
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"Women don't go in to a prison and fall in love with a murderer because they want to save him. They want to save themselves," Isenberg tells Grace. "And they don't love bad boys because they don't think he's a bad boy."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Cathy Gonzales’ husband, Jeffrey "Tattoo" Gonzales, was found guilty of murdering his former boss. But Cathy calls him her "lighthouse" and believes he is her soulmate.
"Have you ever found somebody that you kind of feel like kind of saved you when you lost yourself?" Cathy asks. "He guided me back to where I really needed to be."
A mother of two young girls, Cathy firnly believes Jeffrey is not guilty.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Johnny Tiedjen (L) with Crystal Tiedjen (R). Photo courtesy of Fox Nation. (Fox Nation)
"Yes, he has a murder charge. But in no way do I feel that that should have actually been the charge he took," Cathy says.
She adds that her children accept Jeffrey as their father, writing letters back and forth and sometimes visiting him behind bars.
"My oldest daughter is extremely, extremely receptive. She calls him Dad," Cathy explains. "My baby, she's a little bit different. She has gone to visit. I know, by her actions and the way she talks to him, that she loves him."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Others' acceptance, Isenberg says, is a coping mechanism of women who love murderers in prison.
"I thought to myself, what planet are you living on that this 12 or 13-year-old girl love and respects the man in prison for murder that you're planning to marry?" Isenberg says in the Fox Nation special. "I don't buy it. I think it's part of the delusion."
Another woman named Crystal Tiedjen fell head over heels for the man who murdered her brother.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"My opinion why Johnny ended up in jail is because he's an airhead at times. There was drugs in the house. And he ended up turning himself in. They didn't come after him. He turned himself in," Crystal notes.
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"It’s the same thing," Isenberg reiterates. "She needed to forgive him so that she could fall in love with him, so that he could fit the profile of the man who was safe for her."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}To find out whether these lockup love stories end happily ever after, "Marrying a Murderer: A Nancy Grace Investigation" is streaming now exclusively on Fox Nation.
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