From real estate to prison romance: Laura Gehrke's unexpected journey
Laura Gehrke met her husband through correspondence. As part of a prisoner writing programme, she sent him Christmas greetings.
Real estate agent Laura Gehrke met her future husband Joshua Stewart on the social networking site WriteAPrisoner.com. This is a website through which you can correspond with inmates in prisons in the United States. Gehrke found it when she felt lonely in December last year.
She met her future husband through correspondence
The 27-year-old, who appeared on the Netflix reality show "Too Hot To Handle Germany," could not return home for Christmas due to visa issues. She was thus forced to spend the holiday season alone in Dubai. While browsing TikTok, Gehrke came across a video about writing to prisoners online and decided to wish another lonely person a Merry Christmas.
One specific profile caught the young woman’s attention. She began exchanging messages with 21-year-old Joshua Stewart. What caught her attention was the fact that the young man was interested in poetry. Soon the couple was talking on the phone for 11 hours a day. Stewart proposed after just six weeks of knowing each other. Gehrke flew to Washington to marry the criminal in June 2024, during a 90-minute ceremony in the prison.
She did not judge her future husband based on the sentence
Stewart is serving a sentence for murder involving controlled substances. In Washington State, this means providing another person with a substance that led to their death.
Despite being unable to spend their wedding night together, the couple hopes to gain approval for conjugal visits later this year. Stewart will be released to house arrest in December 2025 (GMT).
