So You Think Long-Distance Relationships Are Odd? This One’s Odder.

Liverpudlian nurse woos her death row pen-pal with Photoshopped images of him in places he might never get to see…

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by Sophie Wilkinson |
Published on

Long distance relationships (LDRs) can be tricky for some to get their head around - how can you be in love with someone you don't get to see that much? Can love really go part-time? And, most importantly, what happens if you get your period on the weekend you're meant to be seeing your far-flung beau?

Well, if you don't understand LDRs right now, you might not understand them for a lot longer. And if you do, because you're totally in one right now, rest assured that this story will make your commuted romance feel a lot more normal.

Let's cut to the chase - 29-year-old Kate Hughes, from Liverpool, is in love with a man on death row and so photoshops him into places she'd like to take him. Robert Pruett is facing the death sentence in Texas because he killed his neighbour and a prison guard. Now…just for the record, Kate doesn't believe Pruett actually committed the murders, it's not like she's attracted to him because of his crimes or anything.

READ MORE: Meet The American Women Using Social Media To Bag Inmate Boyfriends

But she does want to whisk him away from prison IRL, so she takes him to places via Photoshop: so far Pruett's been superimposed at The Vatican, the Isle of Skye, Liverpool, on a London bus and, um, in front of Radiohead.

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Kate, who is a nurse, found out about Pruett by way of BBC documentary* Life And Death Row* and then started writing to him, sending him a letter once a week since March 2014: 'I was so shocked about how much we have clicked. I feel like I've known him forever and he's told me he sees us as really good friends.' she told MailOnline.

'We just chat like normal pen pals do about music, films, funny memories and places in the world we would love to see.

'The only difference is that he'll never get that chance to see them. At least with the pictures I make, he can imagine himself there.'

READ MORE: Ask An Adult: How Do You Make A Long Distance Relationship Work?

Pruett is serving 99 years in prison right now, having been sentence in 1995 when he was just 16.

'I got the idea to do the first picture after he wrote and mentioned he'd always wanted to visit the Isle of Skye and I used an editing app on my mobile phone to show him standing in front of a harbour on the island.

'He wrote back to say he loved it so in my next letter I attached a photo of him superimposed on top of a double-decker London bus, as he'd talked about visiting the city.'

She conceded that some of them look a bit disjointed, though: 'I've done pictures of him with his favourite band Radiohead too, although that was much harder to make as you have these rock stars and then a white-faced convict in the middle in his boiler suit.'

Kate is also campaigning for Pruett, whose father has confessed that he killed the neighbour, to be re-tried: 'I am very passionate about Robert's case. I haven't stopped thinking about it. If we could just get his sentence reduced or get him off death row, it would be a huge triumph.'

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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson

Pictures: Cavendish Press

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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