Falling in Love with a Convict

I know Santa Camacho as my boyfriend’s aunt. When I reached out looking for this week’s profile, she volunteered. As we spoke, I decided that I simply wanted to tell her story, because it is so often left unheard. No numbers, no figures, just her story.

It was a fluke how Santa Camacho met her husband, Jose Carlos.

In 1997, before they’d met, he was convicted of burglary and robbery in the second degree and given 10 years.

Her best friend at the time was close with his mother, who was dating an inmate at the same facility. She wanted to see her son as well when visiting to save her a second trip, but a visitor can only see one inmate per visit, Camacho said. His mom also had been trying to get her to date him and so, in the summer of 1999, Camacho was asked to accompany her.

I teased her, “So when you walked in, you must have just took one look and said ‘dang this man is fine, huh?”

She laughed, but surprised me by saying, “That is exactly what I thought.”

She said the conversation flowed. They shared a lot in common and to her surprise, she genuinely liked him. A favor for a friend had quickly turned into something much more.

Later, a letter from him arrived. She hadn’t told him her address, but he was able to memorize it from the I.D. she’d used to sign into the prison. She’d kept it out as they spoke, not thinking much of it. Instead of being troubled by this, she was genuinely happy. So, she wrote him back, responding to each letter he sent. Eventually, they were writing 2-3 letters a month.

 “You don’t realize how much you express in letters,” she said. She soon felt like she knew him and she realized she was falling in love.

But this love cost. She was struggling financially as the single mother of an infant and his incarceration was a drain on resources. She estimates it cost $200 to see him monthly.

“You’re talking about gas, food, toll-booths, a hotel if it’s far,” she said. Camacho was able to drive up with his mom, which helped her because she didn’t have a car.

Jose Carlos did the majority of his time in Watertown. 

And he’d call her a lot. Throw in another $30 every 2-3 weeks for that as well.

Heaped onto the financial struggle, was her emotional battles, both internally and with friends and family.

“There was definitely tension and anger,” she said about the relationship. She was frustrated that he was so far away and that she would have to wait so long to be with him.

And not everyone was happy for her. Many of her family members suggested she move on, that he was not worth waiting for. It caused Camacho to question herself and the relationship.

“Should I listen to them or follow my heart?” Camacho remembers asking herself. “It’s my happiness, and I prayed about it. But I kept coming back to the same conclusion: Go for it.”

Her sister, Eloisa Zarate, was supportive, urging her to stand by him during the tense periods that pressure from her family weighed on her and the times she felt the most frustrated with having to wait. Zarate assured Camacho he was a good man and was not to be defined by the mistakes he was already paying penance for.

“Sometimes it felt like she did the whole bid with me,” Camacho said, chuckling.

He came home in 2007 and their relationship flourished, she said.  

“The love was already there,” she said. “When he came home it just got stronger. Everything was really good, and he was just the way he told me he was going to be.”

“Every time he hangs up he has to tell me he loves me,” she continued.” Every time he leaves the house he tells me he loves me. When we argue he just leave. He has never raised a hand at me and he’s never raised his voice. I can’t ask for a better man.”