A real estate agent married a stranger in prison after he proposed within six weeks.
Real estate agent Laura Gehrke met her future husband Joshua Stewart on the social networking site WriteAPrisoner.com after feeling lonely last December.
The 27-year-old, who starred in the Netflix series Too Hot To Handle Germany, was unable to travel home for Christmas due to a visa issue and was forced to spend the holidays alone in Dubai.
While scrolling through TikTok, Laura came across a video on how to write a letter to a prisoner online. She decided to wish the prisoner a Merry Christmas.
Laura Gehrke, 27, fell in love with inmate Joshua Stewart, 21, after meeting online
The realtor married a stranger in prison after proposing within six weeks
One particular profile caught Laura’s attention and she began exchanging messages with 21-year-old Joshua Stewart.
Soon the two were speaking on the phone for up to 11 hours a day and it wasn’t long before Joshua, after knowing each other for six weeks, proposed to her.
Laura flew to Washington in June to marry her criminal boyfriend in a 90-minute prison ceremony.
Although Laura was convicted of drug-related murder, she says she never judged her husband for the reason he was incarcerated.
Laura said: ‘I was sitting here at home alone and feeling very sad because I couldn’t be with my family. [due to the visa issue] and then I was scrolling through TikTok and saw a video about WriteAPrisoner.com.
“I thought I could just send a message to one of them saying, ‘Merry Christmas.’
“I went to the website and saw my husband’s account. He was the second person I clicked on and I saw on his profile that he said he liked poetry and that I was interested in it.”
Laura Gehrke, 27, and Joshua Stewart, 21, pose by the prison’s Coca-Cola vending machine on their wedding day
One particular profile caught Laura’s attention and she began exchanging messages with 21-year-old Joshua Stewart
After exchanging messages about his poetry, Laura and Joshua began talking on the phone, sometimes for up to eleven hours a day.
Laura said: ‘We really clicked. He was just open about everything from the beginning. He told me so many stories about his life. I thought he was really emotionally intelligent.
‘I didn’t ask about the crime right away because I didn’t want to convict him on that basis alone.
‘I heard a lot of stories about him growing up, before I knew all the details of what he was incarcerated for, so I saw it all a little differently.
“Knowing the backstory didn’t change my opinion of him.”
In February, Joshua proposed to Laura during a phone call and four months later the couple married in a prison ceremony.
The couple both wore white on their wedding day, a change for Stewart from his usual orange
Although they will not be able to spend their wedding night together, the couple hopes to be granted permission for conjugal visits later this year.
Laura said: ‘I flew there and we saw each other 12 times and the 13th time I saw him was our wedding. I wanted to see him before we got married.
‘It was a prison wedding – one of the other prisoners was his best man. We were all in white and had our own colour theme.
“It felt really good. Our families are super supportive. Obviously my mom had questions, but she was really supportive.”
There are plenty of skeptics online who don’t believe the romance will last once Stewart is out.
But this unconventional relationship has been met with widespread criticism online, with internet trolls claiming Joshua was ‘just using’ his wife.
A TikTok user said, “Bro just secured his financial future after getting out.”
Another added: ‘You definitely have your priorities wrong.’
A third said: ‘He will disappear after his release.’
In February, Joshua popped the question to Laura during a phone call and four months later the couple married in a prison ceremony
Laura said: ‘People just look at it with a determined mind – they can’t believe we got married for love. They just think I’m using him or he’s using me.
“They can’t believe it’s real love. We have a lot of support, but also a lot of haters.”
Laura hopes to live with her husband in the US when he is released from house arrest in December 2025.
