Prison Pen Pal Podcast

Jason Evick is currently serving time at the Toledo Correctional Institution in Ohio for a violent crime. In Ohio and many other states, inmates have access to an app called GettingOut, which allows them to receive emails directly on their prison tablets. While this technology can significantly enhance communication with pen pals outside, it also carries potential risks.

When we think about prison inmates and catfishing, the typ...

In the 1990s, DeWayne Lee Harris was responsible for the tragic deaths of multiple women, earning infamy in the Seattle, Washington area under chilling monikers such as Chilly Willy, The Seattle Jungle Killer, and The Seattle Shoelace Slasher. His heinous acts included tying up victims like Denise Marie Harris and Antoinette Jones with their own shoelaces, ultimately strangling them with a belt. His third known victim, Olivia Smith...

Jason Kurtz is a PenPals.Buzz member who lives and loves fitness. He remembers his first workout at the age of 11; since then, he never looked back. Over the past 30+ years, Jason has managed over 15 gyms, has worked for companies that sell fitness equipment, and even got arrested and sent to prison due to his involvement with a supplement he encountered during his fitness journey. In this episode, Jason Kurtz explains the importan...

Jacobi Thornsberry’s journey began in the vibrant streets of New Orleans, Louisiana. Seeking an escape from the bustling chaos of the city, he made the leap to Oregon. However, fate had other plans, and within three years, he found himself behind bars in an Oregon prison. Loneliness settled in, and the thought of finding a meaningful connection crossed his mind. He considered WriteAPrisoner.com as a way to meet that special s...

Changing your name while incarcerated is impossible in some states, and quite easy in others. There are countless reasons why someone behind bars might feel the need to legally reinvent themselves. In this episode, we’ll explore the inspiring story of Savannah Turner, formerly Gena, an incarcerated member of PenPals.Buzz. Currently incarcerated for identity theft, Savannah has moved beyond a troubled past filled with poor cho...

"Welcome to More than an Inmate's Girlfriend. I'm your host, Jae," speaks a soothing voice each week from her podcast studio in Canada. Since 2024, Jae Ely has been releasing podcast episodes aimed at reducing the stigma associated with prisoners, prison wives, and even pen pals who choose to write to prison inmates. Jae, who is married to an inmate (yet not allowed to communicate with him!) talks about her life, her podcast, and t...

Romantic relationships between an inmate and their free-world pen pal often start out like a whirlwind romance. After just a few letters exchanged, prisoners often feel like they met the person of their dreams, their true love, their soulmate. But is any of it actually real, or are they merely living in a fantasy world of false hopes and future faking? In this episode, Licensed Mental Health Counselor and founder of Gratitude and G...

Prison relationships can seem like a fairytale love story. Take Anthony Cloud, for instance. A few years ago, he met the love of his life, Melissa on PenPals.Buzz. They referred to each other as husband and wife. After all, Melissa told him she was pregnant with his twins. According to Anthony, she had the ultrasound pictures to prove it. Having grown up in foster care, he never had a family who loved him. When he met Melissa, all ...

Britney Gulley is his legal name, but this female to male transgender inmate is better known as Xandan. He's a political prisoner, activist, and published writer. Xandan Gulley enjoys football, reading, astrology, Greek mythology, women’s basketball, dogs, and listening to NPR. One minuscule tranquility for Xandan is being able to watch the sunrise and sunset every day, out his small window in the 6X9 solitary cell (where he...

Richard Strong was convicted of First-Degree Murder for the 2011 shooting of Ygnacio Bermudez, Jr., on the streets of Lansing, Michigan. Rick, who was sentenced to Life without Parole, claims he was wrongfully convicted of the murder and has polygraph test results to prove it. He admitted, however, that his past history of selling drugs and hanging around the wrong people contributed to his downfall, and he knew he "needed to just ...

Robert, a PenPals.Buzz Super Fan, works as a caretaker in Illinois. After some personal experiences with friends and family members being arrested and incarcerated, he decided it was time for less judgment and more kindness. In addition to helping the free-world senior citizen residents as his place of employment, he felt a strong desire to help those behind the walls, too. That's when, about a year ago, he happened across PenPals....

In 1993, Marc Rosemond was convicted of 3 counts of murder and sentenced to Life in prison. Now, 33 years later, he calls the Prison Pen Pal Podcast from his cell at the Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill, New York. Desperate to find answers about why he committed such horrible crimes, Marc Rosemond (inmate #93A1985) shares how art, poetry, and music helped him work through his childhood trauma, find clarity, and transfor...

Matt Reynolds, Prison Inmate #2014486 at the Great Plains Correctional Center, is quite possibly the most interesting man in Oklahoma. This former Marine, paint salesman, and toy store manager most recently worked as a groundbreaking animal trainer and behaviorist with giraffes, rhinos, and even an albino monkey. Now serving a 20-year sentence, Matt joins us via prison telephone to talk about the types of pen pals he hopes to meet,...

Thanksgiving in prison is a plate full of mixed emotions. On one hand, there's excitement with the special holiday meal (often including real turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie). It's a time for cellmates and friends to get together and create something unique and delcious, like Jovan Stewart's Famous Banana Pudding, Rachell House's Enchilada Bowls, or Angelina Omara's Vanilla Pancakes. But the Holiday also serves as a painfu...

When Ryan Rice was growing up in Illinois, his parents let him do anything he wanted. Spoiled might be the word that comes to mind. The "freedom" he was granted as a young child ultimately sculpted him into a man with no direction, quitting most of the things he set his mind to...until, that is, he was sentenced to 35 years in a Dixon, Illinois prison. That's when things had to change. Tired of "going nowhere fast," Rice, a prison ...

Prison Pen Pals, defined as prison inmates who write letters to people on the outside, may be incarcerated for doing really bad things, but they're STILL HUMAN. That's the belief of Salena in Indiana, a 22-year-old student (and soon to be school teacher) who has written over 30 prisoners in the past two years. "You think they're bad, but they're actually really sweet," Salena noted on this episode, adding that prison inmates (and h...

As we celebrate Halloween today, we thought we'd invite inmates around the USA to join in on the fun, eat some candy, and share their traditions both in and out of prison. We wondered if they watch scary movies from the prison dayroom, if they make homemade goodies or buy homemade candy from other inmates, or even if they give candy away to trick-or-treating cellmates. So we asked male and female prison inmates to call PenPals.Buzz...

Over 25 years ago, just a few days after the turn of the millennium and the Y2K madness, Marvin Dearing was arrested, interrogated, and ultimately convicted of murder. But did he do it? New DNA evidence suggests not, but the judge is unwilling to revisit the case. Mr. Dearing, a member of PenPals.Buzz, now in his early 50s, has spent over a quarter-century (and more than half of his life) locked up in Ohio. He hopes that someone, s...

Prison Pen Pal David Bomber has been incarcerated for 15 years at Nottoway Correctional Center in Burkeville, Virginia, but there's so much more to his story. This blogger and artist once acted in the same movie with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning -- War of the Worlds! During our interview, he shares fond memories of his brush with stardom. David, an avid blogger on both InmateBlogger.com and PenPals.Buzz, talks about his motivation...