Hybristophilia: Why Some Women (and Men) Write Penpal Letters to Convicted Killers in Prison

First in Popular Rationalism's "Irrationalism in Psychology" Series. Subscribe for More in the Inbox.

NB: If you know someone placing their well-being at risk by a master manipulator, and if it is safe to do so, let them know- while their feelings may be real, their sense of risk and benefit may not be. Emotional conviction does not guarantee sound judgment. They may need help seeing what their own reasoning by examples with bad outcomes if they can no longer evaluate clearly without them.

What makes a woman reach out and seek a romantic connection to a man who murdered his wife? This article explores the dark psychology behind these relationships—from rescue fantasies to trauma loops—and asks what draws people to the heart of danger. We examine the psychological underpinnings of hybristophilia—a phenomenon in which individuals, predominantly women, are romantically or sexually attracted to men convicted of violent crimes, including murder. Specifically, it investigates why some women initiate correspondence with men who have killed their wives, drawing on empirical data, psychological theory, and cultural narratives.

In 2018, shortly after Chris Watts was convicted of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters, women began sending him letters. One wrote, “You’re handsome, and I believe you just made a mistake.”

While this may seem shocking, it isn’t new. Serial killers like Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez also received fan mail and marriage proposals. But what compels women to write to men who have killed their intimate partners?

Hybristophilia—an attraction to people who have committed horrific crimes—has long puzzled psychologists. Though media portrayals often lean toward sensationalism, empirical studies offer deeper insights. This first installment in the Irrationalism in Psychology series explores this phenomenon in detail, seeking to understand its emotional basis in illogic.

Empirical Demographics and Trends

In a study by Slavikova and Panza (2014) of 89 women who actively sought romantic relationships with incarcerated men, participants ranged in age from 19 to 62, with an average around 36. Over half were engaged or married to the inmate. Forty percent reported prior victimization, with around a quarter experiencing childhood abuse. Personality profiles commonly fell into either Manipulator/Pragmatist or Anxious/Introspective styles.

These women are not caricatures. They are often educated, employed, and articulate. However, many share certain relational and emotional patterns: a history of trauma, exposure to chaos, and a deep yearning for stability wrapped in intensity. Other qualitative studies (Gelt-Price, Silverwood) affirm that these relationships often reflect deeper unresolved dynamics rather than impulsive fascination.

Psychological Mechanisms

Some women perceive their love as uniquely powerful—capable of redeeming a man the world has written off. This fantasy often parallels savior complexes or patterns of co-dependence, where self-worth becomes tied to “fixing” another. In cases involving intimate-partner homicide, this morphs into comparative logic: “He lost control with her; I can help him heal.”

Attachment theory provides a powerful lens. Women with anxious attachment often crave intense emotional closeness but fear abandonment. Those with avoidant attachment may fear engulfment. In either case, prison offers a paradoxically ideal situation: the man is emotionally available yet physically restrained. He cannot leave, cheat, or overwhelm. Communication is scheduled, structured, and often deeply emotional—a blueprint for perceived emotional safety.

For many, violence is not unfamiliar—it is formative. Childhood exposure to abuse or instability can normalize chaos. For these women, relationships with violent men may feel both familiar and manageable. The logic is often subconscious: “This time, I will do it right. I will control the chaos.”

The idea that lethal violence equals erotic appeal may seem counterintuitive. But for some, the killer represents pure power—unfiltered, dominant, and decisive. Being chosen by such a man can feel like being elevated above all others. It is not submission; it is fusion with force.

Some psychologists argue that aligning with danger is a coping mechanism. If the source of fear becomes your partner, the fear itself may diminish. As twisted as it seems: if a man who killed once chooses you, then you must be exceptional, invulnerable even. It is a perverse form of security.

Media Influence and Mythology

Modern media distorts risk, blurs fact and fiction, and constructs seductive narratives. In studies of TikTok and YouTube comments on true crime cases, researchers found women expressing sympathy, romantic longing, and moral certainty. Many conflate remorseful courtroom imagery with evidence of goodness. Others mistake actors for the real men they portray.

Social Media and the Rise of Digital Hybristophilia

Recent research by Treggia et al. (2025) has brought into sharp relief the role of social media platforms, especially TikTok, in fueling a new wave of hybristophilia among Gen Z women. Unlike the traditional form, in which women wrote private letters to incarcerated men, this digital variant unfolds in public and semi-public spaces, where content about violent offenders is posted, shared, and algorithmically amplified.

The study analyzed TikTok content and surveyed 95 women aged 18 to 27. It identified seven common themes in hybristophilic content and responses: the Halo Effect (perceived physical attractiveness leading to moral leniency), Actor-Offender Transference (romantic feelings projected onto the real man based on portrayals by actors), Sympathy, I Can Fix Him narratives, Protection and Loyalty fantasies, ironic humor, and identification with victimhood. These patterns, once whispered in penpal circles, now circulate at scale, encouraging emotional reinforcement through likes, comments, and shares.

Notably, the study found that active engagement with this type of content — watching, liking, and commenting — predicted significantly higher hybristophilia scores. The women who interacted most often with videos romanticizing offenders were more likely to report attraction, empathy, and a desire to redeem or support the men involved. The behavior was not merely observational but participatory, suggesting that the digital environment doesn’t just reflect existing hybristophilia — it cultivates it.

Crucially, Treggia and colleagues found that certain personality traits predicted this attraction. Women scoring higher in Machiavellianism and psychopathy — two components of the so-called “Dark Triad” — were significantly more likely to show hybristophilic tendencies. Empathy, by contrast, did not predict attraction. This finding disrupts popular narratives about hybristophiles as merely compassionate or misled. Instead, it points toward a subset of women for whom control, moral inversion, or fascination with dominance may be emotionally or erotically charged.

This study grounds the psychological discussion in the contemporary moment. What once unfolded in private letters now blooms under algorithmic light. The viral nature of content centered on convicted killers means that hybridstophilic impulses are no longer confined to the few. They are visible, clickable, and potentially contagious.

The digital hybristophile might never send a letter or attend a court hearing. But she may engage in a thousand micro-acts of affirmation — watching a trial clip repeatedly, commenting on a mugshot with heart emojis, creating montages set to romantic music. In aggregate, these acts amount to a new kind of intimacy with violence: one that is distributed, disinhibited, and dangerously aestheticized

These distortions create a simplified myth: the brooding, misunderstood man; the cruel, manipulative woman who drove him to the edge; the one loyal woman who could save him. In the vacuum of direct experience, fantasy fills the void.

The Structure of Penpal Relationships

Writing to a prisoner creates a relationship framed by distance and control. Letters and calls are scheduled and deliberate. The inmate often curates his self-presentation: articulate, remorseful, emotionally vulnerable. The writer has emotional control over the pacing and frequency of communication.

For some women, this is the perfect dynamic. There are few surprises, no unpredictability in daily behavior. The man exists in a state of emotional availability but physical containment. It is a fantasy under glass.

Moreover, many women report existential fulfillment. Being the only source of love for someone condemned by the world can feel deeply meaningful. The relationship becomes a mirror of identity: “I am the one who sees his true soul.”

Why Wife-Killers?

When the crime involves a murdered wife or girlfriend, several narratives emerge. She is often seen as having provoked him. The man is framed as reactive, not evil. The act is treated as a tragic mistake, isolated from his core character. And frequently, the story told by the new partner is that he was never truly loved until now. Her love becomes a redemptive arc.

In this logic, the dead woman is both rival and scapegoat. The living woman sees herself as the better option—the woman who will soothe, understand, and transform.

Paraphilic Dynamics and Fetishistic Structures in Hybristophilia

While hybristophilia is often framed as a product of trauma, misjudgment, or attachment dysfunction, it also presents with a more specific and underrecognized structure: that of a paraphilia. John Money originally defined hybristophilia as a condition in which sexual arousal is explicitly tied to a partner’s history of violent or predatory acts. In this formulation, the criminal act is not incidental — it is the erotic trigger, the core around which desire is organized.

DSM Criteria Walkthrough

Modern diagnostic psychiatry distinguishes between paraphilias and paraphilic disorders, and that distinction helps clarify where hybristophilia fits. According to DSM-5 criteria, a paraphilia is defined by “intense and recurrent sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors” involving atypical targets — including objects, suffering, humiliation, or power dynamics. A paraphilic disorder exists when these urges cause distress, impairment, or involve harm to others.

Hybristophilia is not formally recognized in the DSM. However, when an individual exhibits sustained sexual arousal specifically in response to criminal violence — and where that attraction is persistent and non-incidental — it conforms in structure to other listed paraphilias such as sexual sadism, sexual masochism, or fetishistic disorder. The paraphilic mechanism is not the violence per se, but the eroticization of its symbolism: power, transgression, control.

Conditioning and Reward‑Loop Mechanisms

Research into the development of paraphilic patterns suggests that atypical sexual fixations often emerge from associative learning. If repeated exposure to violence, fear, or emotional chaos precedes sexual arousal — especially in individuals with early trauma or attachment disruption — the nervous system may neurologically “bind” those elements together. In effect, the dangerous figure becomes a conditioned stimulus for desire.

Over time, prison bars, handcuffs, trial footage, even the crime scene narrative can function as fetish objects — psychologically charged symbols that replace or override typical romantic cues. These women are not simply overlooking the violence. The violence is, in part, the appeal. This framing radically distinguishes these cases from trauma repetition or co-dependent attachment, where the individual seeks safety or control. Here, arousal is tied directly to danger.

Uncomfortable but Necessary Clarity

This distinction matters. When hybristophilia is driven by fetishistic dynamics, the pathology lies not merely in emotional misjudgment but in the miswiring of desire itself. These individuals are not simply mistaken — they are aroused by what should repel. Recognizing this does not indict them morally, but it demands conceptual honesty. Without that, public understanding remains mired in shallow pop psychology and victim-blaming.

The implications are serious: romantic delusion cannot be corrected if its root is erotic fixation. These cases require a different kind of intervention — one that acknowledges how arousal pathways form, and how they might be unlearned. Only with that clarity can we begin to distinguish between misguided emotional rescue and structurally disordered attraction to violence.

It’s Not Just Women

Although most documented cases of hybristophilia involve women writing to male prisoners, men also initiate contact with convicted female murderers, sometimes developing strong emotional or romantic attachments. The 2019 case of Jodi Arias, convicted of the brutal murder of her ex-boyfriend, saw a surge of male admirers. One man, Donovan Bering, befriended Arias while they were both in jail and continued supporting her publicly after release.

Similarly, Casey Anthony, though acquitted, received numerous love letters and proposals from male admirers following her trial. Men who write to incarcerated women often frame their letters around themes of protection, redemption, and misunderstood innocence—echoing, in reverse, the themes seen in women writing to male killers.

Psychologically, these male correspondents may share some of the same underlying dynamics: fantasy-driven idealization, desire for control over a constrained partner, savior complexes, and unresolved trauma projected into a romantic narrative. While less studied, male hybristophilia exists and warrants parallel attention.

When Guards Cross the Line

While civilian pen-pal relationships often make headlines, another form of hybristophilic entanglement can have even more devastating consequences: correctional staff who fall for inmates and assist in their escape. These cases demonstrate how intense emotional attachment, blurred boundaries, and manipulation can override even institutional loyalty and personal safety.

One of the most high-profile examples occurred in 2022 when Vicky White, a respected corrections officer in Alabama, helped inmate Casey White escape from jail. Though not related, the two had developed a secret relationship during his incarceration. She facilitated his escape plan, emptied her bank accounts, and went on the run with him. Eleven days later, she was found dead by suicide as authorities closed in.

In another case, Joyce Mitchell, a civilian prison employee in New York, was seduced by two convicted murderers, Richard Matt and David Sweat. She provided them with tools to saw through their prison walls and smuggle out supplies. Her involvement, which included plans to run away with them, eventually led to her arrest and imprisonment. The manhunt ended in one inmate’s death and the other’s capture.

These events highlight the psychological mechanisms described earlier—rescue fantasies, power inversion, emotional control, and projection of unmet needs—magnified within a professional context. A guard may believe she is loved, chosen, trusted. But the moment she risks her life and freedom for the inmate, that belief collapses. If he truly loved her, he would never ask her to sacrifice everything. Nor would he accept her taking on the risk herself.

These women are not irrational in the casual sense of the word. Their choices are deeply shaped by human vulnerabilities: the longing to be seen, needed, special. But they are also examples of how dangerous emotional investments can become when anchored in illusion.

It’s Not Just Women

Although most documented cases of hybristophilia involve women writing to male prisoners, men also initiate contact with convicted female murderers, sometimes developing strong emotional or romantic attachments. The 2019 case of Jodi Arias, convicted of the brutal murder of her ex-boyfriend, saw a surge of male admirers. One man, Donovan Bering, befriended Arias while they were both in jail and continued supporting her publicly after release.

Similarly, Casey Anthony, though acquitted, received numerous love letters and proposals from male admirers following her trial. Men who write to incarcerated women often frame their letters around themes of protection, redemption, and misunderstood innocence—echoing, in reverse, the themes seen in women writing to male killers.

Psychologically, these male correspondents may share some of the same underlying dynamics: fantasy-driven idealization, desire for control over a constrained partner, savior complexes, and unresolved trauma projected into a romantic narrative. While less studied, male hybristophilia exists and warrants parallel attention.

Ethical Considerations

These relationships raise difficult ethical questions. Victims’ families often experience renewed trauma seeing the killer receive affection or attention. The risk of manipulation is real: many inmates exploit correspondents for money or advocacy. Media reinforcement can glamorize killers and perpetuate dangerous myths.

Public fascination with these women—and men—often crosses into ridicule. But cruelty obscures the deeper truth: these are not just bizarre anomalies. They are signals of unresolved pain, unmet needs, and the complex ways trauma distorts attachment.

What the Evidence Cannot Yet Say

We have no reliable base-rate data: we don’t know how common this is. No study isolates wife-killers as a specific offender type. Long-term outcomes are rarely tracked. We don’t know what happens in these relationships five or ten years on. Diagnostic clarity is lacking; “Hybristophilia” is more descriptive than explanatory.

Conclusion

Hybristophilia, especially in cases where a man has killed a partner, is not irrational in the sense of being incomprehensible. It is irrational in the classic psychological sense: it prioritizes emotional resolution over self-protection, meaning over safety.

These women—and sometimes men—are not naive. They are often aware of the risk. But they are also often trying to rewrite old stories—to find control where there was chaos, to make love where there was violence, to be seen where they were once erased.

Their choices should not be romanticized. But they should be understood. Because until we understand what unmet needs these relationships fulfill, we cannot truly say that hybristophilia is an aberration. In many ways, it is a mirror held up to human desperation, longing, and the fragile architecture of emotional hope.

The topic of hybristophilia may seem peripheral or extreme, but it shines a spotlight on a much larger and urgent question: how does irrationality take root, and why does it so often override self-preservation, ethics, or common sense? These women — and sometimes men — are not simply broken or naïve. They are navigating emotional terrain where longing, trauma, fantasy, and unmet psychological needs become louder than evidence, reason, or consequence. Studying these extreme forms of attraction to danger forces us to confront the edges of the human condition where logic has lost its grip. But in doing so, it also clarifies why rationality matters. Logic and reason are not sterile constraints — they are scaffolding. They are the mental architecture that allows individuals to differentiate between desire and delusion, between risk and refuge, between fantasy and fact. By understanding what happens when that structure collapses, we reawaken to its necessity — not as dogma, but as protection. The irrational, when examined honestly, teaches us why the rational must be cultivated, taught, and fiercely defended.

Related Conditions

To fully understand the psychological architecture of hybristophilia, it is necessary to look beyond the surface behavior and into the deeper structural pathologies that fuel it. The following table organizes ten such constructs—ranging from trauma repetition and identity hunger to dark-triad personality traits and eroticized risk. Each represents a different lens through which this phenomenon can be interpreted, offering insight into how fantasy, unresolved need, and emotional distortion override logic and self-preservation. By mapping hybristophilia onto these related mentalities, we gain a more integrated view of how irrational attractions form, persist, and entangle otherwise functional individuals in destructive relational loops. This taxonomy sharpens our diagnostic clarity and underscores the protective role of rational thought in navigating emotionally charged territory.

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Author Note:
This article is part of the Irrationalism in Psychology series, which explores the limits of rational behavior in the face of deep psychological drives. Upcoming entries include analyses of Stockholm Syndrome, pathological altruism, eroticized obsession and other oddities that deserve a moment of your attention.

Citations

Slavikova, M., & Panza, N. R. (2014). Characteristics and Personality Styles of Women Who Seek Incarcerated Men as Romantic Partners: Survey Results and Directions for Future Research. Deviant Behavior, 35(11), 885–902. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2014.897120

Treggia, E. V., Ioannou, M., Tzani, C., Lester, D., Rogers, L., Williams, T. J. V., Synnott, J., & Drouin, M. (2025). Gen Z Hybristophilia: The Role of TikTok in Young Women’s Attraction to Deviant Men. Deviant Behavior. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2025.2520587