Catfished in Prison?

Was Patrick Jones catfished in prison? He describes his experience finding connection behind prison walls, where letters, phone calls, and late-night conversations can feel real. Until they don’t.

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Life Behind Bars and the Loneliness That Comes With It

I’ve been incarcerated since September 6, 2003. With a release date set in the year 2032, I had little hope of having sustainable intimate relationships. I wasn’t married when I was incarcerated, but I did have a few girlfriends. Within my first few years, those relationships fell victim to my incarceration itself. Those women went on with their lives, leaving me as just a memory. While pragmatic, I was—and still am—a bit of a romantic, or at least I’ve grown into an awareness of how much love I have to give.

After five years, my desire to connect with women in society grew, so I decided to give myself an opportunity to meet and make some new friends—possibly even find love. In the fall of 2008, during a four-month period in the hole for a riot charge I’d later beat on appeal, I mailed out some pictures of myself with a short bio enclosed in a brochure for a pen-pal site called “Prison Voice” in hopes of fulfilling my desires. Using the inmate withdrawal system, it only cost me thirty dollars to be posted on Prison Voice for a year. I was transferred from Greensville Correctional’s segregation housing unit (the hole) to general population at Augusta Correctional Center in February of 2009.

Within a month, I started receiving letters from different women and occasionally men. It may have been rude, but I never responded to the men who obviously hoped that I might fit a prison stereotype.

For the next several years I had pen-pals from Canada, North and South Carolina, the state of Washington, London, and more. Some women wrote me for months, while others corresponded with me for years. Finding an intimate relationship always took a back seat to my desire to simply connect on a genuine level. I wasn’t fitting the stereotype of prisoners attempting to manipulate women for financial support or a place to stay upon release, which always surprised those who corresponded with me for years. It was as if they waited for a slip-up of mine to validate what they’d heard or seen on TV.

Eventually, though, they all stopped writing. I did develop some emotions for some of them, and it always hurt a little when months passed and I realized someone else had also stopped writing. After six or seven years the new connections dried up. All I had were my small group of family and friends and that familiar void. I still kept hope alive.

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Technology Changes Prison Communication

By 2018 the Virginia Department of Corrections had JPay, which allowed inmates to send and receive electronic messages and pictures. This upgrade made writing prisoners more convenient in a tech-dominated society. Around the same time, VA DOC lost a lawsuit that forced its telephone provider to lower the cost of in-state calls to just under one dollar and out-of-state calls not much higher. Before that lawsuit it cost close to eight dollars for me to call home within the state, and I only used the phone twice a month.

During that time I found myself in a relationship with a woman who I was put in contact with through a mutual friend. We messaged one another and spoke often. Then she started visiting me in person. Her visits breathed life and reality into our relationship. There was a physical presence to go with the voice I’d become used to hearing, the messages received, and the pictures gazed at.

Her name was Alexis, and we had an agreement that we’d share with one another when or if we met other new people. We were realistic about our situation, and of course I might have other pen-pals just as she’d possibly meet other men in society.

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Meeting Another Alexis

“Hey Alexis… this girl sent me a message,” I said into the phone with a grin on my face.

In an unexpectedly sharp tone of curiosity Alexis asked, “Well… what she say?”

I laughed out loud.

“What’s her name?” she demanded.

Alexis didn’t believe me when I told her the woman said she was from Miami and that they shared the same first name. Alexis really flipped when I said the woman was also an Aquarius. I laughed throughout the whole call at the irony of meeting a woman with the same name and zodiac as my girlfriend who insisted on an open relationship.

So this won’t get confusing, I’ll address one as “Miami Alexis” and my girlfriend as simply “Alexis.”

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A New Pen-Pal Connection

In the fall of 2020 I was back at Greensville Correctional, but this time in general population. I’d been there several months when Alexis met someone. True to our agreement, she made me aware and even asked for advice. Naturally, this made her less attentive to our relationship.

After I shared my frustrations with a friend named Shayda, she added me to a “Write a Prisoner” site. I hadn’t been on a site in years and was happy when I got that first message from Miami Alexis.

Aside from saying where she was from and mentioning her zodiac sign, Miami Alexis shared that she was about to turn thirty-three. She said she liked what she saw on the site and hoped to hear back from me.

After a few days exchanging messages about food, music, and movies, Miami Alexis sent me her phone number. Thus began the verbal aspect that could elevate the connection. I was still in a relationship with Alexis, but things were already drifting, and with our agreement I didn’t mind exploring the possibility of becoming friends with Miami Alexis—maybe more.

Accepting my first call with a “hello” that sounded more like a statement than a greeting, Miami Alexis seemed genuinely happy that I called. We talked about the same things we’d already discussed in messages. Hearing her voice simply gave those conversations a personality.

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The Photo That Started Everything

After about a week she sent me a picture of herself.

It was a selfie from what looked like a gym bathroom. She was sitting with one leg propped on a sink vanity, her face partially covered by her phone. She wore athletic clothes that made it clear she spent time working out. Her white top showed toned arms and torso twisting toward the mirror while black leggings hugged her curves as she leaned against the counter. Her black hair was pulled back into a ponytail and a small gold necklace rested above her chest.

Miami Alexis was very attractive.

Earlier I had joked with her about working out, so the picture felt like her playful way of proving the point. After I apologized for teasing her, she started sending a few more pictures over time.

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A Friendship That Slowly Changed

Our friendship grew steadily over the next several months. Miami Alexis told me she was a single mother with a ten-year-old son. After breaking up with the father, she preferred relationships with no strings attached. As she put it, “What better relationship than dating a prisoner? You can’t hurt me.”

She was surprised when I told her I had a girlfriend with the same name and zodiac sign. I explained our open arrangement and that I wasn’t actively searching for another relationship.

“So she knows about me?”

“Yeah… I told her who you were the same day I got your first message.”

“They say Aquariuses are crazy… so we must be. What if I take you from her?”

“Well… why you just sayin something?” she pressed.

I told Miami Alexis that I only mentioned my girlfriend after she admitted she was starting to develop feelings.

By early 2021 I was transferred to Lunenburg Correctional Center. Over time our conversations settled into a routine. Sometimes we talked about everyday things, sometimes we joked around, and sometimes the conversations drifted into flirting.

Like a lot of long-distance friendships, the tone shifted depending on the day. Sometimes we talked seriously, sometimes we joked around, and sometimes the calls turned sexual.

Eventually even that lost its excitement. I kept the friendship going mostly out of appreciation for the time she’d spent in my life.

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The Picture That Didn’t Make Sense

Then something happened that caught my attention.

One day in October 2021 Miami Alexis messaged me from work asking me to call. She managed a Taco Bell and was on her break. During the call she complained about headaches from tight cornrows and about how tight her uniform pants were.

Trying to lighten her mood, I joked and complimented how good she must look in those pants. I asked her to send a picture.

Right before the call ended she said, “I’m takin it now.”

The next day she sent a message that read “Long shift” with a photo attached.

But when I opened it, I realized it was a picture she had already sent me months earlier.

The words “I’m takin it now” stuck with me.

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The Investigation

Over the next few weeks I found myself asking Miami Alexis for pictures during our calls—little things about her hair or nails, anything that gave me a reason to ask for a quick photo. Sometimes she said she’d send one but never did. Other times she sent pictures I had already seen.

Eventually I called Alexis again.

“Patty… what’s her last name? She from Miami right?”

A few minutes later she said she found a Facebook page.

“Patty, how she look again?”

“Caramel skin, in shape, long black hair.”

“That ain’t what I’m seein Patty.”

She sent me a screenshot.

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The Catfished in Prison Reveal

I called Miami Alexis.

After some small talk I casually asked if she used social media.

She said she hated it and didn’t use any.

The call ended.

I called Alexis back.

“What she say Patty?”

“She said she ain’t on social media.”

“Hold on Patty… lemme check again.”

I spelled the last name slowly.

Then Alexis exploded.

“OH DIS BITCH!… DIS THE SHIT I DON’T LIKE… I’M UP HERE DEFENDING HER ASS.”

Within minutes the Facebook page had disappeared.

“Patty… this bitch been catfishing you the whole time.”

Now I knew.

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The Confrontation

I called Miami Alexis again.

“So you like going to water parks?”

“Huh?”

“You don’t like going to water parks with your son and your sister?”

Silence.

She knew the jig was up.

“You a big girl with dark brown skin,” I told her calmly. “You ain’t the girl in them pictures.”

After a long pause she started talking quickly, almost relieved.

She said she thought my “Write a Prisoner” bio was hyped up, but after speaking with me she realized it wasn’t. She thought I would have stopped calling if I knew what she really looked like. She also thought my girlfriend was fake.

Her explanations might have made sense to her, but they didn’t justify deceiving someone for nearly a year.

The sad thing is that I wouldn’t have cared what Miami Alexis looked like if she had just been honest from the beginning.

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Lessons From Being Catfished in Prison

In more than twenty-two years of incarceration I’ve had dozens of pen-pals. Until Miami Alexis, I never thought to question anyone’s identity.

For prisoners, meeting women isn’t simple. Saying “hello” while looking into the eyes of a woman who chooses to visit us is priceless. Even meeting someone through letters or messages can mean a lot.

But for almost a year I had been talking to someone who never really showed me who she was.

I no longer have a girlfriend and obviously stopped speaking with Miami Alexis. Turned out both of them had more in common with each other than with me.

I’m Patrick A. Jones, state #1022801, incarcerated in the state of Virginia. If you’ve read my story and choose to contact me via JPay or Path, just know my hook is big and I’ve already caught one.

I threw her back in the waters of M.I.A.

So game on.

Patrick Jones

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BIO:

My name is Patrick Jones but most people call me PJ. I’ve been incarcerated since September 6, 2003 and I have about 6 years left to serve. During the past twenty two years I’ve become a better person. A person I wouldn’t recognize in my youth. I’ve become a tattoo artist, a painter, and an avid reader. Most transformational, I’ve become a Yogi with a relationship with God and an aspiring writer who won’t allow my circumstances and lack of resources impede my ambitions. I choose every day to be better then the day before. If I have anything to do with it, my past won’t define my future.

VA CMDC
Patrick Jones 1022801
3521 Woods Way
State Farm, VA 23160

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