Scores of singles ditch dating apps for prisoner pen pals

A Facebook group is helping prisoners match with lonely hearts, including one convicted killer who is out to meet someone “fun, exciting and down to earth”.

Convicted killer Elias Herodotou and notorious bad boy Brayden Gates are among the many high-security prisoners who are trying to form romantic connections on the outside.

Scores of Melbourne women have ditched the dating apps to find love behind bars.

The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal convicted killer Elias Herodotou and notorious bad boy Brayden Gates are among the many high-security prisoners who are trying to form romantic connections on the outside.

Jailhouse images of the criminals have been posted on a Facebook site seeking pen pals for prisoners.

Herodotou, who stabbed to death a man at Crown Metropol in 2015, was said to be after someone “fun, exciting and down to earth” while he serves his 18-year minimum sentence at Barwon Prison.

Gates – involved in the 2015 monkey bike crash that claimed the life of mother-of-two Andrea Lehane – was also looking for love from his Metropolitan Remand Centre cell.

A friend posted on his behalf: “Ladies, this is Brayden … Brayden this is the ladies.”

Jailhouse picture of Elias Herodotou who stabbed to death a man at Crown Metropol in 2015.

Brayden Gates rose to notoriety as the pillion passenger of the monkey bike that killed mother-of-two Andrea Lehane in Carrum Downs in 2015.

The site has over 11,000 pen pal hopefuls.

One woman told the Sunday Herald Sun she exclusively dates prisoners after finding men on the outside were only after one thing.

“All they want is sex,” she said.

She said it was easier to form meaningful connections with prisoners because physical intimacy was off the table.

Another woman told the Sunday Herald Sun she liked “bad boys” and would even consider dating prisoners in for murder or manslaughter.

“Everyone deserves a second chance in life,” she said.

“I send pictures (and) write. (I like) tattoos, muscles (and those) who can have a good talk. I would like a relationship with someone if it works out that way.”

Asked about men on the outside she said: “They don’t seem to be my type out here.”

The phenomenon of women seeking criminal lovers is nothing new.

Armed robber Brett Maston and his girlfriend Christine Evagora.

In 1995, Melbourne woman Christine Evagora armed herself with a shotgun and burst into a Fremantle Hospital waiting room.

She was there to secure the escape of her armed robber boyfriend Brett Maston, who had faked a suicide attempt to get the medical transfer.

John Killick was in 1999 busted out of Sydney’s Silverwater jail by his besotted lover Lucy Dudko.

Dudko chartered a chopper then forced its terrified pilot to land inside the prison and collect career criminal Killick.

Career criminal John Killick and his girlfriend Lucy Dudko at Rosehill.

Serial killer Richard Ramirez became known as the Night Stalker in Los Angeles during the 1980s when he murdered 13 people, raped women and molested children in the 1980s.

But that was not enough to put off women who turned up at the trial which ultimately ended with him being handed the death penalty.

“I know that he’s a nice person,” one said.

The same type of “fangirls” once doted over Ted Bundy, another reviled US mass killer.

Women assigned to minding men behind bars have also been shown to be vulnerable to their outlaw charms.

There is a long catalogue of female staff prosecuted or quietly ushered out of their jobs after being busted having affairs with renegade Romeos.

Heather Parker is captured near Jamieson after helping Peter Gibb and Archie Butterly escape from the Melbourne Remand Centre.

In 2017, a female corrections officer was forced to quit after compromising photos of her were found in the cell of senior Mongol bikie Shane Bowden.

Bowden was never really a long-term proposition for the woman.

He was dead by 2020 after a brutal gangland hit on the Gold Coast.

Prison warder Heather Parker was so smitten with career armed robber Peter Gibb that she helped him and Archie Butterly blast their way out of the Melbourne Remand Centre in 1993.

Rumours had previously swept the prison that the married mother-of-two was in some kind of secret relationship with him.

Prison guard Melissa Goodwin sent letters to an inmate. Picture: Gaye Gerard

New South Wales prison guard Melissa Goodwin lost her career two years ago after love letters to inmate Corey London were exposed.

A woman who once dated a Melbourne career criminal said, from her point of view, the appeal was clear.

“I started off as a friend and he wooed me,” she said.

“Ask a woman when she sees an accountant in a suit and a bloke in leathers on the street. She’ll be wishing she was on the back of the Harley.

“It’s something to do with the way our brains are set up.”

One former jailbird was sceptical about the additional sex appeal that comes with being a criminal.

That man prefers to think a storeroom tryst he had with a female prison manager was not the result of any bad-boy factor.

“Her and I just hit it off,” he said.

“Girls like bad boys but, most of the time, it’s blokes who’ve had publicity about their cases,” he said.

That ex-con said sparks could fly between women and men who were both in the clink.

“I know blokes who’ve hooked up with chicks they’ve been in the same prison van with coming back from court. They can’t even see them. I’ve got no idea why but good luck to them,” he said.