A trend that sees women drawn to marry killers waiting...

A trend that sees women drawn to marry killers waiting to die on death row is increasing. According to Death Penalty News, a newsletter published by death penalty foes, 10 women have wed men on Florida's death row alone since 1997. Marriages between condemned men in America and women from Germany and the Scandinavian countries, where opposition to the US death penalty is strong, seem to be particularly common.
Like many of these women, Hester Patrick, a 47-year-old British stage designer, met her husband Jesse Patrick through a pen pal club that matches correspondents with some of the 3650 men facing death sentences in the US.
"I go over to Texas every two months. I get a non-contact visit. We were not allowed to be together even for our wedding. A friend stood in for Jesse," says Hester Patrick. Even death penalty opponents say they cannot understand what would impel women to marry men on death row.
"I don't know if I can explain why it happens," says Abraham Bonowitz, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
"Although some women may be looking for notoriety, most seem to have genuine feelings. They start corresponding with an inmate to provide comfort and support to someone in a terrible situation and it goes from there."
One defence lawyer says some women, who might lead dull everyday lives, seem to be attracted by the thrill of danger.
Hannah Floyd, a Danish, started writing to an inmate on Florida's Death row in 1997. After a year of correspondence, she decided to visit him.
"I went home after that first visit, packed my bags and went back to Florida with my two youngest kids. I knew it was the right thing to do. It was God's will," says Floyd, a committed Christian who converted her husband from Islam.
Unlike Texas, in Florida, death row inmates are allowed to meet their wives every weekend for six hours, during which they can hold hands, eat together and walk around in a room. But they are never alone together.
Dagmar Polzin, 30s, saw a picture of Bobby Lee Harris in an advertisement on a bus stop in Hamburg. Harris was one of seven inmates featured in advertising campaign by Italian clothing company Benetton.
"I knew he wasn't a killer. I could see it in his eyes," says Polzin, who quickly moved to North Carolina to be with him.Polzin continues to visit regularly, though she cannot touch her fiance.
Even serial killers can hope for love. Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker, married in 1996 in California's San Quentin prison to Doreen Lioy, a freelance editor.
In 1998, Rebecca Torrijas, a former prison nurse, married Henry Louis Wallace, who is on Death row in North Carolina for the murder of nine women.