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Friday, December 7, 2012

Prison penpals IV

Still searching for a correspondent on Prisonpenpals.com. My latest findings:


Crystal Lewis (carjacking)

Single, 28 yr. old W/F is a mistress. Seeking submissive correspondents. Very outgoing, open-minded, enjoys music, movies, cooking, traveling and obedience.

Seeking good fun correspondence, also seeking that special someone.
I enjoy sense of humor and laughter as well as non-judgmental open-minded people. 


Made poor choices in the past led to my imprisonment but I yearn and desire a better future and lifestyle. Will you accept me with open arms? I am up for visits and willing to relocate upon release.

Somehow the crime of carjacking seems appropriate for a dominatrix: "Get out of the car now, you sniveling little worm! You don't even deserve to have this nice car! Get out! It's mine now, you piece of garbage! Now kiss my feet before I get in the car!"

I'm not sure exactly what sort of circumstances turn women into doms, but I suspect that they are not dissimilar to those which make a woman feel she is entitled to another's car.

Note to all prospective parents: please don't name your child Crystal (no matter how much you enjoy crystal meth). I've never seen a single Crystal who's turned out well.



Elizabeth Miller (2nd degree murder)

My name is Elizabeth. I have blue eyes, brown hair, 5'3" and weigh 155 lbs. I am a very artistic person who loves to sing, act, draw, dance, to craft work....I'm very kind, caring and have a big heart. I would like to be an international  pastry chef in hopes to own my own bakery. 

I'm open to all types of people. I always get to know someone before I form an opinion. Family is a very port (sic) part of my life...My heart is full of compassion and is very empathetic. I'm very open-minded, optimistic and determined person with lots of goals in life... 


Note that Elizabeth is kind, caring, and has a big heart. On top of that, her heart is full of compassion and she is very empathetic.

Those qualities must have been missing the day she smothered a 2-year-old boy whom she was baby-sitting. Elizabeth held Ashtyn Lynn face down on a couch while he struggled and screamed and slowly died. 

A perfect example of how the worse a person is, the more she talks about how good she is. 



Lavender Perkins

Lavender didn't write any copy for her ad, nor did she list her crime. But if you Google her, you'll find that she stabbed her boyfriend to death four years ago, at age 40. I include her ad because her picture is rather fetching, and will probably get a lot of men excited. 

But they should realize that the picture has a certain professional quality to it that often implies retouching, and the woman portrayed certainly doesn't look 44, Lavender's current age. They should also realize that she was given a 25 year sentence, which means that she won't be out until she's 65 (possibly earlier with parole).

Lavender certainly won't look like that photo when she's 65. The good news is, at that age she is less likely to be the kind of spitfire who will sink a knife into you if you displease her. 



Meghan Powell (burglary/murder)

I have been locked up since I was 16 years old. I was a kid who made terrible decisions that landed me here. I have grown up and have changed from the kid I was, to the woman I am today. I have learned the difference between right and wrong....

I'm currently in college, working on getting a degree through correspondence courses. When I get out my ultimate goal is to get into law, I will be devoted to helping young people.

If I sound like someone you would like to get to know please write and if ot just take from this that if you or someone you know are on a bad path it is very easy to end up here. Any felony, even say for example you know about a burglary, you weren't even there, but someone dies, you get murder. The justice system can be very cruel...


Meghan has such a sweet face, I just had to look her up to find out more about what landed her in jail. It turns out that she and four friends plotted the murder of her own mother. (All of this happened right off Highway 299, which was mentioned in the previous post.) 

She says that she has learned the difference between right and wrong. Did she not know at age 16 that murder is wrong?

She says she's "currently in college." Ahem, she's actually in jail, she's just taking correspondence courses to get a college degree.

Meghan says she wants to "get into law." I assume this means she wants to be a lawyer, since she doesn't really have the kind of background that law enforcement generally looks for.

Funny, the way she says "someone dies." She neither uses the word "kill" nor mentions that the "someone" happened to be her own mother. A minor oversight, I'm sure.

Also, she says that the justice system can be cruel. True enough -- but at least the justice system didn't kill its own mother.

If Meghan and I were to walk down the street together and it was announced that one of us was a murderer, 99 people out of 100 would assume it was me. I should be walking around with her face and she with mine.

Luckily, she won't be walking down any streets until 2020.


Jacquiline Reynolds (2nd degree murder)

I am a young attractive woman who is honest and open about herself. I have long brown hair and green eyes....I'm 5'6" 145 pounds and 32 years old....I love animals and children. I love to learn and explore new things. I am single and have no one special in my life. I have about 3 years left to do and look forward to starting a life beyond prison. 

Feel free to ask me anything you want. I have a void in my life that needs to be filled and I'm also seek to fill a void in someone's life. I'm a very happy, positive person. Please do not mention this ad when responding.


Jacquiline is in jail for having, at age 17, stabbed her mother to death after an argument. (She had planned to kill her father and ex-boyfriend too, but gave up on that plan when she realized how physically demanding it was to stab someone to death.) According to neighbors, both parents were nice and the mother was proud of Jacquiline.

There seems to be a little bit of a contradiction in her second paragraph: she starts out by telling potential penpals to feel free to ask anything they want. But in the last sentence she asks them to not mention the ad when responding. 

Jacquiline also says that she is a "very happy, positive person." At her trial, her lawyer, angling for an insanity defense, said that she suffered from serious depression.

But the most interesting thing about Jacquiline is that she was adopted. It seems that in an awfully high proportion of these cases where a child murders his parents, the child was adopted. (It does make more evolutionary sense that way.) 

Adopter beware.

31 comments:

Quartermain said...

Somehow I get the feeling that it is not going to end well for some guys that would correspond with them.

John Craig said...

Allan --
Agreed.

Anonymous said...

I know it sounds cliche, but if just one of these beauties was seeking "a closed-minded, judgmental pessimist", I might finally find true happiness. Alas, I fear it is never to be.

John Craig said...

Anon --
Ha!

lowly said...

Looks like the case was covered on some sort of TV show circa three years ago. There is more on Nikki here:

http://www.oxygen.com/tvshows/snapped/photos/episode11.aspx

There are some comments by folks claiming to have known the girl through childhood.

Seems to me that what you have with Nikki is a r strategy chick with k strategy adoptive parents. I think the poor impulse control is hard wired into the r strategy types. Nikki might have been marginally better off with a better fit of adoptive parents. But what do I know. And, r/K selection theory is dated, but hey, it makes a decent explanation.

John Craig said...

Lowly --
That is a good analysis of the situation, though Jacquiline's (Nikki's) particular situation is complicated by the fact that her biological mother -- Katrina Ramos -- testified during the trial that she had severe psychological problems herself and when pregnant with Jacquiline tried to induce an abortion by throwing herself down the stairs.

Of course, this could just have been an attempt by Ramos to get a shorter sentence for her daughter (and thereby enhance her own reproductive fitness). But if it's true, it's quite possible that Jacquiline sustained some sort of brain damage while in the womb.

I agree with the basic r/K hypothesis though.

Dave Moriarty said...

i have to wonder--if one is charmed by Nikki and were to weave here into one's life when she gets to experience fresh air ... does the fact she might stab you on a whim give one some hesitation to take naps or sleep at all? or is the fact she can turn so quickly a bit of her charm?

what surprises me about her is her solutions to what seems to be minor obstacles are so extreme. of course minor obstacles while you are prepping to go stab someone might seem like a larger obstacles to one with a such a sense of purpose.


what happens if you took her out for chinese food and they didn't have her favorite on the menu? is the cook a goner? i suppose it makes those nights out a tad more interesting.

John Craig said...

Dave --
Ha! Well, life with Nikki would never be boring, that's true.

You're obviously more open-minded than me, you should write her.

Anonymous said...

John,

I was intrigued when I came across the lovely picture of Lavender Perkins in your post this morning. Perhaps she has never heard of Google, but I would hope that anyone with half a brain would consult with the site before writing to her. Follow the link below to her mugshot image. I just had to see for myself, and when I did, I realized why she
surreptitiously used the picture she did. It looks like prison has not done anything for her.

http://www.mugshotsworld.com/lavender-denise-perkins

John Craig said...

Amy --
Wow, you're not kidding. Recognizably the same person, yet she's gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. I've noticed that with other inmates, too, very few of the women use recent pictures, they almost all use shots from younger and happier times.

Thanks for sending that.

Unknown said...

You wrote that Meghan Powell "won't be walking down any streets until 2020." It was my understanding she was serving 35 years to life and won't even have a parole hearing until around 2039. However, that's dated information.426

John Craig said...

Stettin --
I was just going on what I read in her prisoner penpal information page. I have no way of ascertaining whether that was accurate or not; you could well be right.

You and Whose Army? said...

For the record, at the current time Florida is EXTREMELY strict when it comes to Pen Pals behind bars. They will send any letter back if its mentioned.

Its kind of a catch 22, because we preach that we want these people rehabilitated but at the same time, 3 states want to cut off potential human contact.

Let the punishment fit the crime without compromising our 1st amendment rights. Recidivism has to be high.

Unknown said...

Nikki Reynolds is my cousin. I have absolutely NO sympathy for her and for all I care she can live with a " void" for the rest of her life. Just as her family must live with the void of a family member that was murdered over her selfish psychotic-ness. She absolutely disgusts me!

John Craig said...

Jessica --
My condolences. She disgusts me too.

She is not psychotic, by the way; she is a sociopath, who feels no remorse and has no conscience. Unfortunately, well-meaning parents will sometimes adopt a child who has already been damaged beyond repair psychologically, and no matter how much love they try to give that child, there's nothing they can do to prevent that poisonous seed from growing up to be a sociopath.

You and Whose Army? said...

I'm not in the cell with her John Craig, but how to you know how she feels after 18 years of incarceration. Do you have your PhD in psychiatry?

John Craig said...

You and Whose Army --
How would a PhD in Psychiatry know how she feels?

But one doesn't need to have a PhD to know that sociopaths never lose their sociopathy. It's "incurable.'

Former Attractive Person said...

Frightening

John Craig said...

FAP --
Are you referring to one of them in particular or all of them?

(I seem to have gotten a lot of Google inquiries on Nikki Reynolds today.)

Paulie said...

No one knows or cares how she feels, but there is a lot of evidence she is a sociopath. She stabbed her mother even as she begged for her life and incredibly said she loved her. She didn't even hesitate.Also planned to kill pops and a boyfriend. Didn't do it because it was hard work stabbing mom. Despite being tired, she kept whacking mom, till she was good and dead. There's no cure for sociopathy. Its who and what she is.

October Mist said...

I certainly hope that Nikki changes because soon she will be amongst us. It is now July 2016 and she will be out in a few years. Have mercy.

You and Whose Army? said...

She's been out almost a year already.

Unknown said...

Sociopathy is so very "in" right now in pop culture, most people don't know what they're talking about. Why does it take a degree in psychiatry? For the same reason it would take a degree in law to defend a client. I mean, sure, you could try, but you probably wouldn't fair very well because you wouldn't have the underlying understanding. It takes many, many, MANY years of medical training to get your Ph.d and MD, notwithstanding how much longer it takes for certain certifications in criminal or forensic psychiatry, and training curses to work with inmates and those with severe mental illness who have been incarcerated or adjudicated to a psychiatric hospital in leu of prison time. The only REAL diagnosis of sociopathy is ASPD in the DSM V (that's anti-social personality disorder for those who don't know). Anti-social personality disorder is a fairly high axis diagnosis and is very difficult to diagnose, and to treat--however it is not impossible. Those who are diagnosed need a LOT of mental health help, but they are not beyond repair. Having "sociopathic traits" is a different thing altogether, as is being on the "sociopathic spectrum". Taking these tests (just search, tons will pop up online) is all the rage these days, as are films and books about sociopaths (the sociopath next door for example, confessions of a sociopath). when i read that, i was like, damn, that was what i was going to name my blog! ;D Anyway, I empathize with the family who are left behind--who we are taught in law school to call co-victims, as their lives are forever changed, the lives they used to live come to a complete halt when their loved one dies, just like the life of that person comes to a complete halt. I don't blame anyone for using 'psychotic', "sociopathic", "nuts", "crazy", "cold blooded", etc interchangeably because this is what our society teaches and these co-victims of homicide have complete right to feel enraged to this day, and perhaps until the day they die. I also don't fault someone for doing online diagnoses--however spreading misinformation IS dangerous and people tend to jump on any pop culture band wagon along with the fire starter. Please inform yourself about ASPD before you throw the term "sociopath" around. Psychopath actually MAY be a better possibility as the rough definition of a psychopath that is generally accepted in psychiatry is someone who exhibits clear cut sociopathy (ASPD) and also has brain injuries that can cause things like poor impulse control and other issues you see with frontol lobe damage. It is quite possible also, that these damaged children and adults have brain injuries that have caused damage to the frontol lobe or another part of the brain to cause them to act in a manner that is not fitting with societal expectations, and that causes them and their familes great distress. Does anyone know which of these ladies are out yet? Are there lesbian or bisexual women out there?
Thank you,
Ayasha

Anonymous said...

One thing I can say is I remember how intence young "love" was as a teenager I remember how much breaking up hurt so deply HAVING THE ABILITY & MATURITY TO DEAL WITH THE UP'S & DOWNS OF LOVE ONLY COMES WITH MUTURITY The intensity & pain doesn't change you just learn to suppress the feelings FORGET & move on For a teenager with a weak mind or mental illness I can them possibly coming undone & losing a grip and losing control of reality Coming from a mother of two I've seen the change in my children's personality THE INTENCITY as they go through puberty and the hormonal change/imbalance that creates highs & lowes I myself am going through menopause and before I could put my finger on it I felt that I was falling apart LOOSING MY MIND and was totally aware that whatever was happening to me I COULD NOT CONTROL IT "I WAS NOT IN CONTROL!" It was and I'm an adult I can only imagine what BECAUSE I CAN'T REMEMBER FULLY MY OWN EXPERANCY WITH PUBERTY BUT DO REMEMBER EMOTIOL STRUGGLE'S a teen goes thought, through in LOVE or BULLING or any of the things a teen has to go through and a weak state of mind well it's A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN I'm not saying she should get away with killing in any way but I do see her confession as a young girl being completely honest about her crazy thinking/thoughts after snapping and having to face the horrible thing she has done I believe that is why this young girl need a lawyer present because WHAT YOU SAY CAN & WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU and she was not a criminal without remorse

Anonymous said...

FYI, you can have depression and still be happy and positive. HAVING depression and BEING depressed are two different things. As a depressed person myself, I have days where I feel great and happy and normal. Then there are days where I cry for no reason and can't get out of bed.

John Craig said...

Anon --
Of course depressed people have their up moments. And some depressed people are bipolar, which is an altogether different thing. But would someone with depression described themselves the way Ms. Reynolds did?

"I'm a very happy, positive person."

Doubtful.

Anonymous said...

LOL! For the sake of privacy, I'm going to remain anonymous, but I will say that my girlfriend had a past that caught up to her and did some time in the same prison as Meghan Powell who I got to know a little. Visiting room. When I met her I asked her if she was in for stealing all the books in the library. She laughed and I said "oh....so you're more the type who's silent but deadly" and she said "basically." She's a very nice gal, but your analysis of her being the last person you'd suspect of carrying out a crime that heinous is spot-on. And relative to her sentence's length, 2020 is just around the corner, so she's hoping those correspondance college courses come in handy. She does have a boyfriend now, though, and he seems like a nice enough guy. I can say from my own girl's time (we were together before she went to prison, not pen pals,) that post-release comes with its own challenges, so I guess we'll see how that goes for them if they make it to 2020.

Can't tell you much about the other girls though. But I will say this...while we've kept in touch with a few of the ladies my girl was locked up with, and while a few would definitely benefit and thrive with the love and support of someone on the outside, for the most part these girls are nothing to mess with. Even the sweetest-looking or best-sounding of them are involved with one scam or another, and I won't get into some of the ways they tried to get one over on us on a few different occasions. If anyone reading this blog is thinking about corresponding with one of these lovelies or anyone of their ilk, they should go in being cautious, not getting their hopes up too much, and being very guarded over their money.

John Craig said...

Anon --
Thank you for that. Sounds as if you have them pegged just about right.

Female sociopaths are even scarier in a way just because they can look so sweet and innocent. I've been writing about another one recently, Michelle Carter, the one who basically pushed her boyfriend into suicide so she could appear to be the bereaved girlfriend and get lots of attention and sympathy that way. same story: sweet on the outside, the opposite inside.

And you're right, one thing the pretty sociopaths learn early is how to use sex as a lure.

Anonymous said...

You're welcome John. And if I can give one more little bit of advice to your readers.....if they do want to send any of these ladies money, of course it is at their own risk and even money sent to a legitimate commissary account service such as Access Corrections or JPay can be used to buy things to trade for drugs or other contraband (but of course it may also be legitimately used to buy commissary food and hygiene products.)

What I would like to warn readers about if they do decide to correspond...we recently got wind of a situation involving female inmates at one of the womens prisons who attempted to extort several thousand dollars out of a man who was corresponding with one of the women (who he had met using a PenPal site) using PayPal QuickCash cards (sort of the current version of GreenDot MoneyPaks which are used for all sorts of illegal purposes.) The scheme was pretty complex though.

What happened was that one of the other women used a cell phone and a spoof app to make it appear that phone calls were coming from the prison offices and claiming to be a corrections counselor. She even used the name of one of the corrections staff and set up a spoof Gmail account which she also used to correspond with the victim. The victim, who lived in Arizona, was told that if he paid his pen pal's girlfriend's restitution off, she was eligible for release on ACP (an ankle monitoring program for non-violent inmates with less than a year to go on their sentence who hae been on good behavior) and that a prison van would personally deliver her to him by a certain date. They requested payment be made in, you guessed it, PayPal QuickCash. All told the man lost about $750 and, as you might expect, no prison van pulled up and when he contacted the local state parole office they told him they had no record of it and that they didn't allow California inmates on ankle monitors to transfer parole to Arizona either and that they only allowed Interstate Compact agreements for people who had actually completed their terms and did not require GPS monitoring. They also informed him that while released inmates were still responsible to pay restitution, that an inmate released with restitution still owed would not be prevented from transferring to Arizona if they had an established residence to go to (although they would need to arrange to pay their restitution over time.)

I've been reading up on Michelle Carter. Definitely a bit of a sick puppy, and I'll go take a read on what you've got. Based on what I've read elsewhere....while only she knows for sure what her real intention was, my impression is that she knew damn well that her boyfriend's psyche was fragile and that him actually killing himself was a potential outcome. A sick way to get attention, in my opinion. I can't speak a lot to other states, but I can say that California does little to really help rehabilitate people like her and that it also does little to protect the general public who seek pen pal relationships with these women from the scams that some of them perpetuate.

Definitely a cool little blog you keep here though, especially since there's a lot less attempts to gain insight into the female criminal mind than the male....thanks for sharing your thoughts!

John Craig said...

Anon --
Thank you very much.

Yeah, the inmates have nothing to do but sit around and think up scams all day long, so they come up with some pretty good ones. And since a fair percentage them are sociopaths, they often think of ones which you'd have to be absolutely shameless to pull off, which means they're less likely to be suspected by the naive.

I've always fund PrisonPenPals a great place to study sociopathy. Not all inmates are that way, of course, but plenty are, and when they put their personalities down in an advertisement, their character is there for all to see, if you know what to look for.

Here's my advice to prospective pen pals (on the outside): don't go for the inmates who tell you what warm, wonderful people they are. Usually, it means just the opposite.

Anonymous said...

I would really love to correspond with one of the women honestly