The fact that her husband was capable of deadly violence still upset her though. It's the passion that comes from the bad boy that I think girls like," she said. "I've always liked the scruffy, the, you know, macho, the throw-you-on-the-ground type - not in the abusive physical sense, but in the passionate sense. It is said that some women seek out relationships with men who have a "bad boy" personality. I think women are crazy for romance," she said.
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She says her marriage to Dave gives her things that were absent in her marriage to a free man. When you know you're in the right relationship, you sacrifice," she said. "It's never enough, but I have friends whose husbands travel all the time and their relationship is strained from it and it's not enough for them. Sheila admits it's less than fulfilling physically, but she's willing to accept it.
She ultimately got a divorce in order to marry him. But 16 years later, in the midst of her second loveless marriage, Sheila found it possible to forgive her old friend. "I had to bring all the food, the sheets, everything else, and they would go through all of that and every few hours he would have to go outside and be accounted for," she said.īut there are no "family reunion" visits for Sheila Chenevert and her husband, Dave, who is serving a life term without parole at Louisiana's Angola Prison for murdering two people.ĭave and Sheila, childhood pals who grew up next door to each other, are both children of police officers. New York is one of six states that allow conjugal visits for inmates with spouses.Īfter they were married, it took four months to get permission for what the prison calls a family reunion visit, two days of privacy in a two-room trailer on prison grounds. I wanted him to wash my hair, I wanted to give him a massage, I wanted to have some sense of normalcy," she said. "I wanted to be alone with him, I wanted to cook a meal with him. The couple would talk for hours in the visiting room.īut their physical contact was limited to hand holding and a kiss and hug when she left. She would take a van from New York City to an upstate prison twice a week to visit Rashid. Still, Bandele wrote in her memoir, "The Prisoner's Wife," this was the most romantic time in her life.
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"She was just so brilliant, and so full of energy, so that you noticed her immediately," he said.īut their courtship took seven years - through visits, phone calls and countless letters - all of them monitored by prison security. His attraction to Bandele came as quickly as her feeling for him. Today, at 43, and a model inmate, he's earned a master's degree in theology, and often acts as the inmate liaison with groups like Bandele's college class. "I've taken full responsibility for the crime, and have done everything I can to make amends with this crime," he said. Rashid was 17 when he shot a man to death. The totality of who they are is not the worst thing they've ever done, neither is it the best thing they've ever done," she said. "I don't think I ever made Rashid just one thing.