Clicking for love from the clink
Dating website has lonely inmates making their own connection
MONTREAL— Bachelor No. 1 boasts about his “bad-boy body and sweetguy attitude” and Bachelor No. 2 wants a woman to join him as he closes a dark chapter from his past.
Bachelor No. 3, meanwhile, says he can’t be available for a first date for a while — at least not before 2021.
Not only do these men share a quest for love, they have something else in common: they’re all in prison for murder.
The suitors are among dozens of male and female cons who have posted personal profiles and photos on a matchmaking website with a twist. This site hooks up people on the inside with those on the outside.
The federal prisoners, many behind bars for violent offences like attempted murder, sexual assault and first-degree murder, have written blurbs highlighting their personal qualities — and, in some cases, their crimes. Which leads us to Bachelor No. 4. He claims to hold the Toronto record for robbing the most banks in the shortest span: 11 financial institutions knocked off in four-anda-half hours.
“Not something I am really proud of,” Alex Nikoloski writes in his profile. The page indicates that any prospective partner should be ready to wait for his expected May 2015 release date, adding: “But I am worth it.”
Canadian Inmates Connect Inc. showcases numerous prisoners serving life sentences and helps the incarcerated find pen pals and, perhaps, much more.
The 16-month-old website, which promotes some 40 convict profiles, has even churned out a few lock-up love stories. The site’s founder says several prisoners have asked her to remove their bios because they have already found that special someone.
Melissa, who does not want her family name published due to privacy and safety concerns, was inspired to start the website after seeing similar ones in the United States.
Initially, the 35-year-old Toronto mom thought she would make a profit for her effort, but she said she quickly realized she would have to spend her own money to keep it alive. It doesn’t matter, insists Melissa, who says the site helps prisoners pass the time and “get back into the swing of things” as they reconnect with women. Since inmates don’t have Internet access in the clink, initial contact must be made via snail-mail to their respective penitentiary. Melissa says most of the profiled prisoners heard about the website through word of mouth and inmate committees. They mailed her a blurb, photos of themselves and a $35 annual membership fee. For some, the results have led to jailhouse bliss. Julie Young, a 24-year-old single mother from Truro, N.S., credits the website for introducing her to a convicted bank robber she hopes to marry one day. “I would marry him because I love him and I see him having a really good future now,” said Young, whose sweetheart, Steve Mehlenbacher, 42, is serving his fourth federal sentence after a total of 16 bank-heist convictions. Young plans to move this month to be closer to her man, who’s locked up in the medium-security Mountain Institution in Agassiz, B.C., about 140 kilometres east of Vancouver. Not every prison love story, though, has a fairy-tale ending. Young is separated from another federal inmate she married in a jailhouse wedding, just last summer. She said her ex-husband is actually the one who told her about the website.