Hey, it's Christopher Kimball from Milk Street Radio.
Sounds like I'm bragging and I am.
We're the number one most downloaded food podcast in America.
You know, Milk Street Radio travels the world in search of the very best food stories.
You'll hear about smuggling eels on the black market, the secret intelligence of plants and insider tips to eating in Paris.
And every week, listeners call in with their toughest culinary mysteries.
Discover a world of food stories by searching your podcast app for Milk Street Radio.
You only get 20 minutes, and every call begins with a reminder.
This call is not private.
It will be recorded and may be monitored.
To accept charges, press 1.
To refuse, you may start the conversation now.
Hello?
The people are here.
Meet Venus Friend and Cornelius Brown.
They've been together for more than six years. and engaged for five.
If you listened to the first episode in our series, you heard the story of Charlene and Blake, two people who met and got married while Blake was in prison.
The story of Venus and Cornelius is similar in some ways.
For example, Venus first met Cornelius, rather unexpectedly too, at a time when love was the last thing on her mind.
But unlike Charlene and Blake, Venus and Cornelius are still separated by the walls of the state prison, where Cornelius is serving a life sentence.
Their relationship exists largely on the phone.
I know that he's calling.
If he's not calling, sometimes I get a little scared because I can't call him.
I'm Ivy Scott, a criminal justice reporter at the Boston Globe.
I recently went to meet Venus, who just turned 49, at her home in Weymouth Massachusetts, about a 30-minute drive south of Boston.
Cornelius calls Venus at least three times a day, every day.
And this day was no exception.
Their conversations are pretty short and always recorded, available for law enforcement to access at any time.
But one thing I noticed about them is that, despite the limitations, Venus and Cornelius have the ease of a couple who've been dating for a long time.
They switch comfortably between a teasing joke one moment And words of sincere affection the next.
We talk, we laugh.
He tells me he loves me.
I'd be like, whatever.
But that, you know, I know it's the truth.
But it's just, I don't know.
It's like sometimes I'm going through something and he just calls.
It's like we just have this thing between us.
Venus tries to visit monthly, or as often as she can.
Visiting room sessions can last for hours, or be as short as five minutes.
There are no conjugal visits.
On a good day, Cornelius might get to hold her hand.
And there's also no clear timeline for when, or if, he'll get out.
Even so, the couple cling tightly to the possibility of a future together on the outside and plan to make their marriage official if and when Cornelius is released.
And everybody's like oh, as soon as he comes home, he's going to leave you, he's going to walk away from you.
So it's like that you have all these thoughts inside your mind, inside your head, and it's like that you really don't know what is true.
But he's like my person.
He really is my person.
So like, I don't think I could walk away.
From the Boston Globe and PRX, this is Love Letters.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
And I'm Ivy Scott, back with episode two in a special love letter series we're calling we found love, where criminal justice reporter ivy scott brings us three stories about how romantic love and partnership run up against and sometimes transcend the justice system.
You know ivy, something you said in the first episode really struck me this idea that prison quite literally puts a relationship in a box and It makes me wonder if, in addition to the obvious, really hard things about being separated, there's a way that Venus and Cornelius' situation also protects their relationship.
I wonder the exact same things.
And one of the things that I really respect about this couple is their willingness to wrestle with those hard, uncertain questions.
Can you tell me a little bit about how they got together?
So Venus isn't expecting to fall in love when she meets Cornelius in August of 2017.
In fact, she isn't expecting to meet him at all.
Wait, did they meet by accident then?
Sort of, yeah.
All Venus has agreed to is an occasional phone call with a different inmate as a favor to her cousin.
It's purely an act of good Samaritanism for a man she's been told is serving a life sentence at MCI Norfolk, a medium security prison southwest of Boston.
But then at the last minute, some things get switched around.
And when Venus picks up the phone, she hears Cornelius's voice.
I didn't really know anything about him. but he made me laugh, and I was like, oh, goodness.
I think I liked him from the beginning, but I was trying to hold out because I just got my own stuff.
You know, I had breast issues and a lot of other things.
On the other end of the phone that day, Cornelius also feels an immediate connection.
Unfortunately.
You know, growing up hanging on the streets and stuff, you meet a lot of characters and you better learn fast to read people.
And from day one, she was just a plus brother to me.
Like, it's odd, like, you know, just literally, day one.
— Cornelius, who is 49 years old, grew up in Boston.
He's 14 years into a life sentence for first-degree murder.
He was convicted in 2009 of shooting 22-year-old Michael Wiggins after a fight broke out at a Fourth of July family barbecue two years earlier.
Cornelius contends there were multiple flaws in his case, including that his attorney failed to advocate effectively on his behalf.
His motion for a new trial was denied in 2022, but Cornelius says he plans to keep fighting.
Before meeting Venus, Cornelius had a few brief relationships with other women pen pals he met online and ex-girlfriends from before his conviction.
But with Venus, Cornelius discovers for the first time a woman who doesn't balk at the length of his sentence or seem frightened by the details of his case.
I walked in, eyes wide open.
He kind of told me everything, basically the first two phone calls.
And it was like, oh shit, like this is a whole thing.
Because it was no, okay, I'm going to be in here for five years.
I'm going to be in here for 10 years.
It was nothing like that.
It was like, this is life.
She showed me her patience because she never asks when I'm coming home.
I've had a past relationship where every two weeks, when you coming home, what your lawyer say?
It doesn't work that way.
I'm not going back to court for nine months.
Oh my goodness.
So, you know, it takes patience, you know, and she has it.
But at this point, Venus is 43 and her life is already pretty full.
She's dealing with a slew of health issues and and caring for her 20-year-old son Antoine, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and type 1 diabetes, all while she's working as a teacher's aide at his special needs school.
Falling in love is definitely not part of the plan.
When he came along, it was like that I had the full plate.
And then he came, and it was like, oh, wow, can I make some space?
And so, despite early signs of attraction, she does her best to push Cornelius away.
I lied about stuff.
I told him I had like six kids.
I think I told him I was a stripper.
I told him a whole bunch of stuff and he still didn't leave.
So I was like, I guess, hey, it's like he's a persistent fucker.
She even tries telling him she already has a boyfriend.
But Cornelius is no fool.
The more they talk, the more easily he can see past her defenses.
I so-called had a boyfriend, but I always picked up.
So that kind of gave me like a way, because if that you have someone, how are you always picking up?
You're picking up on holidays and you're just picking up.
And it's like, oh God.
So yeah, he caught me.
He caught me lying.
But even as she admits to herself, but feelings are developing, Venus is determined to take things slow.
She knows the responsible thing to do is to keep the guardrails around her heart up, at least for the time being.
You know, I've been through a lot of things in my life.
And emotionally, it's kind of like my mind's like a wall and there's cracks in it.
And some of them cracks still haven't healed.
Cornelius keeps calling, and Venus keeps answering.
But for months, she shows no interest in making the trip to visit him in prison.
It's a place that reminds her of her dad, who passed away in 1999, and the near decade of his life that he spent incarcerated.
I had a lot of anxiety about that whole jail thing because of my father.
You know, I would go see my father in and out of jail since I was like probably five to maybe 14.
Still, the longer they talk, the more Venus and Cornelius realize they have in common from sense of humor to mutual friends.
And ironically, what really seals the deal is when Cornelius happens to call Venus on her dad's birthday.
It's December 21st, and he happened to call.
And I was sitting like right there on that couch, I was watching something.
And at first I looked at the phone, I was like, oh God.
Like, did you know?
Because I was just into my own... at that time.
And you know, him and me just started talking and talking about stuff and was like how do you know that person?
I was like, oh, that's my cousin.
He's like, really?
And, you know what I mean?
And we was just talking and just laughing and it was like, wow.
He just made me feel like way better.
And then, a few months later, Cornelius does it again.
He calls at the very moment Venus needs someone to talk to.
This time, just minutes after a storm knocks out the power in her apartment.
All the lights had gone out.
And I remember he was like, I feel so bad, he said, because I can't help you.
He's like, it makes me feel less than a man because I can't help you, especially someone that I care about.
And it was like, I said that you like me.
He was like, yeah.
I was like, I'm as strong like you, too.
Do you have like memories of your favorite phone calls with her or just like particularly memorable conversations that you guys had?
Early on in the beginning, one of my uncles passed away.
And we wasn't an item or anything.
And she was really trying to ghost me, I guess.
Isn't that the term?
But I was persistent, you know, and she didn't want to pick up, but she happened to pick up when I told her about my uncle and she just sat there and listened, you know, and she didn't have to when she didn't want to.
That's what kind of propelled everything as well.
Roughly eight months in, around the spring of 2018, Venus decides she's waited long enough.
She has to find out whether the voice on the phone she's grown so attached to matches up with someone real.
When I first went Like, I probably changed my clothes like five or six times.
Part of me didn't really want to go, but I was like, I got to go.
Because it was like all this talking on the phone.
I got to kind of see him face to face.
One thing Venus doesn't realize is that the Massachusetts Department of Correction has a policy barring visitors from wearing any kind of makeup or nail polish with glitter in it.
And so as she's being searched, she's informed that her sparkly acrylic nails...
When she finally sees him, Venus is relieved to discover Cornelius is a little nervous, too.
But even with some initial jitters, they both consider the first encounter to be a success.
His hands was all wet and clammy and I was a little clammy.
Then we're like sitting there with talking and it was just like happened to be OK.
What was your first impression of him?
Was he different than you expected him to be from over the phone?
No, not at all.
He's the same person.
And that's the part about him that I truly love is because he doesn't change.
Cornelius asks Venus if she'll come back up to see him.
Happily, she agrees.
And those first-date nerves turn out to be nothing compared with the somersaults her stomach starts doing as her feelings intensify.
For a long time, probably first, like yeah, but I was like guess I like him.
And I remember saying to him right before I went up there I was like if I don't feel no kind of butterflies or anything or sparks flying, we gonna be all done.
So once I got up there and all that stuff started happening, I was like, oh shit, I shouldn't say that.
So yeah, But that first visit is also a huge reality check.
Coming up to see Cornelius in person marks a new level of commitment to their relationship that Venus is still figuring out if she's ready for.
She knows, if she decides to stay, she needs to root out any last uncertainties about who this man is.
She knows she needs to read his case.
Every single page of it.
I kind of felt bad.
I was like, am I like invading this? his privacy because I like read the whole thing.
I read it twice.
Far from offended, Cornelius is surprised and grateful that someone, especially a woman who's never done time herself, would take such an interest in the most complicated parts of his story.
This only deepens his appreciation for her.
She was able to break the case down more than some lawyers I've had.
A lot of the things that didn't make sense, you know, like how the two eyewitnesses from the night of the crime Never seen my photo of Ray.
So, you know, it's just a lot of things down those lines which made her read the case, you know, and stick it through, because she realizes that there's a shot.
Venus soon feels comfortable enough to introduce her son Antoine to Cornelius on a phone call.
From there, the relationship picks up speed.
And in the fall of 2018, a little more than a year after their first phone call, Cornelius takes Venus by the hand in the visiting room.
And asks her to marry him.
Well, sort of.
He didn't even ask me.
He just told me.
He just gave me the ring and was like, I take you and I'll get crazy.
I said, I could take you and I'll get crazy too.
And that's what it was.
It's just good to know that someone has your back.
And you know it's authentic.
It's not false.
It's nothing.
No pretext to it.
It's just she has me.
Story continues after this quick break.
The holidays sneak up fast, but it's not too early to get your shopping done and actually have fun with it.
Uncommon goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and joyful, with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts you can't find anywhere else.
They're exactly what the name sounds like unique products that feel personal.
Uncommon Goods has actually been a go-to for me, especially for friends who need something crafty and special.
I bought one friend a succulent clay craft kit to work on while he was recovering from a surgery, and I bought another friend a DIY Dream Library bookend kit to build when she had to be housebound for a bit.
Uncommon Goods really has something for everyone.
Parents, kids, teens, foodies, sports fans, gardeners, bookworms, you name it.
Shopping there feels like less of a chore and more of a treasure hunt.
And I love that when you shop at Uncommon Goods, you're supporting small businesses and independent artists.
So shop early, have fun, and cross some names off your list today.
To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com slash loveletters.
That's uncommongoods.com slash loveletters for 15% off.
Don't miss out on this limited time offer.
Uncommon Goods.
We're all out of the ordinary.
There's a battle playing out right now over who should control American universities.
We're going to bankrupt these universities.
In season one, we were guessing what was to come.
Now, we know.
We want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard.
From the Boston Globe and on the media, it's season two of The Harvard Plan.
This time, it really is personal.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay, we're back.
Here's where our familiar, albeit slightly unconventional, girl meets boy story takes a bit of a turn.
Because, even for the most unorthodox couples, the presentation of a ring often signals the launch of wedding planning.
There's the search for a gown or a suit, the careful selection of bridesmaids and groomsmen, the passionate scribbling of vows and the psychological preparation for all it is to follow for what is hopefully a joy-filled lifelong marriage.
For some, the shiny excitement of the word bride overtakes the sturdier implications of the word wife.
I'm sure we all know a couple or two who got so carried away with perfecting every detail of the so-called best day of their lives that they didn't stop to think nearly hard enough about all the days after that and the person they'd committed to spending them with.
Not so for Venus and Cornelius.
On the contrary, even with a ring on her finger, Venus's life circumstances remain more or less unchanged.
She stays out here, caring for her son, and Cornelius stays in there, working on his case.
There's nothing for either of them to rush into, no future to go hurtling towards.
Instead, what they get is what they had before.
Phone calls, video chats, and the prison visiting room.
It's definitely not the most romantic setting to begin a life partnership, which I can tell you firsthand because I've been there.
When I interviewed Cornelius in prison, I had to go through all the same steps Venus does each time.
She just wants to see her partner.
The paperwork, the multiple security checkpoints, the walk through the prison courtyard under the shadow of the high walls to the heavily bolted doors of the visiting room.
Inside is a large circular room full of blue plastic chairs, like the ones you'd see in elementary school, but for adults.
Cornelius shows me the corner he and Venus like to sit in, when it's not too full.
On busy days, they don't have much of a choice.
So I don't really like having my back to the doors.
I kind of like to see both doors.
It's just, I don't know, it's just a prison thing, I guess.
Correctional officers stand watch at either end of the room using mirrors hanging from the ceiling for a full view of each entrance.
A large sign reads Video Monitoring in Use which, as Venus told me before, is pretty hard to ignore.
It's like a camera right there.
Then there's a camera right there.
Then there's a camera right there.
There's a camera right there.
The walls are lined with vending machines, which are only accessible to visitors.
Inmates must sit and wait for the food to come to them.
There's soda, candy, chips.
There's an ice cream machine, too, but it's out of order.
There are even prepackaged burgers and sandwiches wrapped in shiny, clear plastic, ready to throw into the microwave.
I can't say they look particularly appetizing, but Venus told me you get used to it.
I can't lie, some of the food have been alright.
I don't eat a lot of the food that they have in there, but I do eat the Sour Patch Kids.
We don't have it on canteens, so I kind of binge eat that when I come out here.
What is your favorite part about the visits, and then what is most challenging?
The favorite part of Just being around someone that you love and loves you.
You know just a woman's touch, you know holding her hand, you know smelling a perfume.
It's huge.
The rough part about it is the limited amount of touching you can do.
And the fact that when they say this is over, you're going separate ways.
You know what I mean?
So you never get used to that because you want to leave.
You don't want to walk this way.
You want to go that way.
What went into the thinking and the decision behind, like deciding.
This is somebody that I want to be my life partner.
This is somebody that I want to propose to.
Well, in the beginning you don't want to scare anybody off, you know, but I was just more concerned about her being patient.
You know you can have a visit scheduled for Wednesday and then if something happens in here, that's really bad.
She can't get in now.
So now she's wasting her day, you know, stuff like that.
So it takes patience for this.
This is, like I said, it's a tough assignment.
She's never once lied to me.
Whatever it is, she tells me.
And I honor that, because for some reason, a lot of people feel as though they have to lie to you while you're in prison, thinking that they didn't want to upset your day or anything.
But we wake up in here and it's a bad day every day.
You have to make your day better.
You can ask guys in my unit.
They get mad at me.
But every morning I wake up, I go up and down the tier and I sing.
It's a beautiful morning.
When the both of us found each other, I was in a bad space.
You know, I was in a spot where as though I didn't even care about me.
I was just going on fumes.
It's like my gas tank was empty.
And it was just, I think it was God that just put him there.
I was not a vulnerable person at all.
I wasn't affectionate.
But it was something about him that I could not put my mask on.
I could be me.
Despite Venus's growing confidence in Cornelius, her family did have some reservations at the start.
And I get it, you know, because it's like, who would want that for their kid?
Like, if I had a girl...
I would probably feel the same way.
But it would be like if I seen him and I met him and I talked to him on the phone and I felt how he is and he treated my baby girl like that.
I would be all right.
It helps that Venus had already met many of Cornelius's family members through mutual childhood friends.
When she introduces herself to his mother for the first time, she's received with a warmth she never expected.
I made out so good.
I got into a very good family.
Some folks, they can't say that.
Like, his mom is wonderful.
Even if him and me don't happen to, you know, become one, I'd still call her.
I'd still go see her, you know, because it's like she's been there and she's here for me.
And my son.
Like I said, I would win a lottery on that.
Another pleasant surprise for Venus.
Perhaps the sweetest of all is how Cornelius and her son Antoine turn out to be two peas in a pod.
This makes it even easier for the couple to see themselves as a family.
Antoine's very like him.
He's very unselfish.
He's very affectionate.
He's very sweet.
That you would think he was his son because they act so much alike.
One thing I was really curious about was, with so much distance and so much surveillance, what their relationship looks like on a day-to-day basis.
For you guys.
Of course, dating doesn't look quite like dinner in a movie.
But how do you replicate that?
The feeling of dating,
Is that something you even think about I'm living vicariously through the video visit.
I'm getting to see things.
I've gone a few places.
I've been to the club.
You know what I mean?
I've been to a little cookout.
I've been to Juneteenth.
So she'll schedule certain visits, certain events she knows she's going to be at.
Make sure you schedule visits so I can see it.
So that's a date for me.
And any time she comes here, it's a date for me.
For both Venus and Cornelius, this is the first time either of them has been in a relationship where sex isn't involved.
At best, it's something to look forward to.
But they also know there are far more important qualities to a successful partnership.
We still can hang out.
We still can do other things.
But some folks are so, oh, sex, sex, sex.
When the sex is over, what's going to happen?
What can y'all do?
Y'all can't do shit because there is no foundation.
It's like losing one of your senses.
The other one it is.
So you lose your sight.
You smell better.
You have a better sense of touch.
So with having the sex taken away, everything else becomes better.
You become more emotional towards one another.
You become mentally stronger.
Everything else becomes your nucleus.
I can put my head on his shoulder over the phone.
I can feel him hugging me over the phone.
Do you ever find yourself just like frustrated by the situation and like wishing that you know you could be together without the restrictions, or are there like other challenges about sort of what the situation is?
Well, from 930 to 930 pm, or for a day, you know, and you come back to it, you come back to the prison.
You know why has that stopped?
States like Connecticut, New York, you know California they have conjugal visits from those that are buried.
You know, that keeps people calm.
You have a whole lot of testosterone running around here and a whole lot of alpha males.
What do you think is going to happen?
In our interview with the prison, Cornelius added that a justice system that's more hospitable to love would benefit more than just individual prisoners.
It would also benefit society.
People who have support systems.
You know, if you notice a lot of those guys, when they do get a chance to go home, they don't come back.
You know, whether they say a village to raise a family, or sometimes an inmate, a convict, when he goes home he needs that village as well.
He needs a support system.
He needs someone to tell you it's going to be okay, a job.
Just moral support in general.
You know, if you can't have that, or if your family ties have been ruined through your incarceration, then what are you going home to?
So that's why it's big.
The visitor room, furloughs, free phone calls.
I mean, just keep going on and on.
The couple are the type to focus on what they have, not what they're missing.
But one of the biggest things that gives them hope is the possibility of Cornelius' freedom.
The idea that he could one day come home and they could finally have a chance at a normal life together.
I do want to go to Hawaii, so I'm trying to wait for him, because I really don't want to go with somebody else.
I just want to be happy, and maybe a white fence, who knows, pulling it back.
I can't wait for those days, and he's watching football, I'm cooking, like, stuff like that.
And while Cornelius has been constant and steady in his commitment to Venus, she admits that she still worries sometimes that things might be different if he was on the outside.
On the one hand, she would do anything to help him get his freedom.
But on the other, she and Cornelius have worked hard to find a way for their relationship to thrive amid the existing challenges.
So the idea of facing new ones?
It's a little scary.
He said he had to peel that onion, but it was more to.
I had to kind of peel his because I didn't know anything.
So I would do certain things just so I can see him jump or see what you know things was going to make him jump, because I didn't know that part about him.
I only know the part about him in there.
I don't know the part about him outside. is the same as me.
He don't know the part about me outside.
He only knows a part about me in there.
I've never cohabitated with no man besides my son.
So I really don't know how to do that.
What happens if he snores?
Oh, Lord.
I wouldn't be shocked, because I tend to get guys who do snore.
So I try to go to sleep first.
It's not easy staring down a future of holding hands over vending machine sandwiches.
A future that could last years.
Or even forever.
Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a new bill, which you'll hear more about in the last episode, that could give Cornelius another way to get home.
But in the meantime, however long Cornelius remains behind the wall, he and Venus have committed to sticking it out together to keep building on the foundation that's gotten them this far.
Day after day, year after year.
Throughout my years, I believe I met a few good women, and I wasn't ready.
And when you're not ready, you might lose somebody that you should have held on to.
So I always said, the next time I meet someone of that caliber, I'm going to hold on.
And I realized she was of that caliber so I wasn't going to let her go, gave me a choice and I made my choice and I walked in and closed the door and I locked it.
Honestly, I didn't think I was gonna make it past two years.
He said he didn't think I was gonna make it past a year and a half, but it's going on.
Six who knew?
Next week the final episode in our series We Found Love.
We explore the psychology behind prison relationships a proposed law in Massachusetts that would eliminate life sentences without parole, and the story of a man in prison who's wrestling with the pressures of a new relationship.
Love Letters is a production of the Boston Globe and PRX.
Today's episode was reported by Ivy Scott and produced by Jesse Remedios.
Our editor is Scott Hellman.
Ned Porter does our audio mixing, sound design, and mastering.
Maddie Mortell does our audience engagement.
Love Letters Illustrations by Ali Riza.
Our marketing coordinator is Maggie Taylor.
Special thanks to Linda Henry.
Our music is from APM.
We're online at loveletters.show.
I asked her this question, but what happens if she snores?
I'm in sales with men that are 260, 62.
Snoring's not an issue.
Snoring, that's not a problem.
We're going to get one.
There was that Navaj, the new commercial, the nasal thing.
We'll get us some Navaj.
We'll help that out.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
Thanks for listening.
