A 42-year-old woman is planning to tie the knot with an American serial killer.
Tracy Bottomley from Shipley, West Yorkshire has fallen over heels in love with Ernest Otto Smith, 53, who is currently serving life in prison at Ohio State Penitentiary after killing two people within a week.
But the divorcee says ‘she understands the risks’ after she said yes to Smith’s marriage proposal.
According to Manchester Evening News, Smith robbed, shot, and murdered James Dillingham on January 2, 2005.
He killed his partner Cathy Barnett for fear she would call the police on him.
Despite his crimes, Tracy said she is not scared of tying the knot with the double murderer, who broke Barnett’s neck before beating her with a tree branch.
Tracy told Real Fix podcast: “Ernest doesn’t scare me. I’ve never been someone who gets frightened easily.
“Yes he is a serial killer. He’s committed a few murders, but I understand the risks of what could happen and I still love him.
“At first I had slight intuition that these things could happen to me. He’s killed these other people. As time went along, we started getting close and trusting each other more to feel secure.”
It was in 2018 when Tracy started talking to Smith after she saw an advert for him on social media. The two immediately struck up a friendship and they confessed their feelings for one another one year later.
Smith proposed to Tracy on a voicemail from jail and they are now planning to get married soon.
He said in his phone proposal: “Please you have got to figure out a way for me to marry you. It’s hard. You make me a very a happy person, more happy than I have been in years.
“You’re crazy just like me so we should be married. What do you think?”
Speaking about Smith’s proposal, Tracy said: “I’m still in shock that Ernest proposed. I didn’t see it coming at all, but I love him so obviously I said ‘yes.’
“You can’t help who you fall in love with no matter what the circumstances. Just because it’s a situation like that, it doesn’t mean you are deluded.”
Tracy also said that her boyfriend’s crimes were influenced by his troubled childhood.
“They were explaining that deep down he did have problems in his past but he’s never literally gone out of his way to hurt somebody,” she expressed.
“I connected to his problems and I was interested in finding out more about what he’d been through.”
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