On Father’s Day, imprisoned man longs for beloved son
COVID-19 puts more restrictions on visits
Ryan Widmer has never wavered from three contentions: He says he was wrongfully convicted of murder, was unjustly separated from the son he loves dearly — and he still hopes that the truth will someday set him free, so he can reunite with his little boy.
Now 40, the former resident of Warren County, Ohio, has been behind bars since early 2011, when he was convicted of murder in the bathtub drowning of his wife, Sarah — a conviction that remains in dispute. Ryan, who had no prior history of violence and was a college-educated newlywed, was sentenced to 15-to-life when he was 30. At the time, his son was only a few months old; the boy is now almost 11.
As of June 2021, Ryan has been waiting seven and a half years for a federal court to rule on contentions that he was convicted based on a flawed trial and insufficient evidence; some people believe he was justly convicted. Others argue there is reason to believe that his wife was not murdered, but instead drowned because of an undetected medical issue. (I first wrote about the controversy here on Medium in this 2019 story.)
Unusual path to fatherhood — and to prison
In 2009, a year after his wife drowned, a new woman came into Ryan’s life because of national publicity about his case; his murder conviction had been overturned because of jury misconduct.
In 2010, shortly after a second trial ended in a hung jury, Ryan’s new girlfriend became the mother of his child — a situation that set up Ryan for ridicule. When his fatherhood came to light, Ryan’s detractors were disgusted; some supporters even recoiled. They thought he should behave more like a “grieving husband” instead of hooking up with a new woman. But Ryan thought God might have blessed him with this baby as a sign that he was headed for an acquittal in his third trial in 2011.
Instead, when Ryan was hauled off to prison, away from his son, he felt like his heart was ripped from his chest. Even though father and son only spent five months of freedom together, that little boy will always hold his daddy’s heart; Ryan’s son remains one of his reasons for living, for remaining hopeful.
Shortly after Ryan was imprisoned, I interviewed him for The Cincinnati Enquirer; Ryan wept when he talked about missing his son. And when I re-established contact with Ryan five years later to begin researching SUBMERGED, the book I wrote about his case, it became clear that thoughts of his son were never far from his mind.
Thoughts of other fathers in prison
Tens of thousands of fathers are behind bars in my state, Ohio, and in states throughout our nation. At last check, Ohio prisons held 39,645 men; some percentage of them are believed to be wrongfully convicted, as Ryan claims to be. Whether justly or unjustly incarcerated, many of those men are fathers to children whose hearts are aching for their dads on Father’s Day— and every day.
As anyone who has “done time” will tell you, each day behind bars has a “sameness.” Kind of like the feeling you might have experienced during the government-ordered COVID-19 lockdown that kept you cooped up in your home. During those dark days, I often thought about Ryan and other prisoners, realizing: As prisoners in our own homes, all of us here on the outside were getting a taste of what it’s like to lose your freedom. But at least we still enjoyed the comforts of home, the ability to choose our own mealtimes, food, bedtimes — everyday liberties that real prisons don’t allow.
Yet, even in prison, Father’s Day is one of the few days of the year that, for many, feels a little more special. Traditionally, on that day, dozens of dads would sit with their kids in a crowded visiting room, sharing plates of no-frills hamburgers and cheeseburgers that fellow inmates grilled outdoors — almost like a family cookout. Except all the dads would be wearing prison blues and no one could come and go as he or she pleased.
Pandemic still preventing many prison visits
In Ohio prisons, there were no happy Father’s Day reunion scenes in 2020, a year when almost nothing seemed “normal,” thanks, in large part, to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though much of Ohio has reopened this year, prisons are still under tight visitation restrictions: Visitors must undergo tests for the virus. Each inmate at Ryan’s institution is allowed one visitor per month. Plastic partitions separate each inmate from his visitor. So that means, on this Father’s Day, there again will be no joyful hugs behind the razor wire.
As a result of COVID-19 restrictions, the best that many incarcerated dads could have hoped for on Father’s Day 2020 — and perhaps now, in 2021 — would be a “video visit” via an online service that prisoners’ families pay to access; the next-best thing: a 15-minute phone call. That’s the time limit on all prepaid calls coming from Ohio prisons. From what I understand, Ryan and his son typically have gotten in touch in one of those ways on Father’s Day. When I last spoke to Ryan, he was hopeful that he would hear from his son that day.
Yet even if Ryan were able to visit in person with his son on Father’s Day — or any day — that’s a poor substitute for actually getting to live with his son, to be able to hug and to exchange “I love you’s” every day.
Lessons for all of us
Above all, prisoners lack what every one of us has learned to cherish even more as a result of our lockdowns: the physical presence and companionship of those we love most. There’s nothing like just BEING with those we love.
So we, here on the outside, STILL have no real idea what it’s like for imprisoned dads to be away from those they love — especially their children.
Even if you have zero sympathy for the convicted men who are missing Father’s Day, surely every person with any decency would hurt for any child whose dad is locked up. Regardless of their dads’ misdeeds, those children are truly blameless victims — and they may suffer lifelong ramifications from growing up without fathers in their lives. Sometimes, grandparents or other relatives step up and fill the voids as best they can; indeed, Ryan’s son is fortunate to have a pair of deeply devoted grandparents who have cared for him during his dad’s forced absence.
On two previous Father’s Days, I happened to be visiting Ryan at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, near Columbus. I witnessed other dads’ happy reunions with their smiling children — as Ryan sat there trying to put on a happy face for me and for other visitors. Yet I detected a wistful look in his eyes, clearly longing for his son…and surely imagining what it would be like to do something he’d never done before: spend Father’s Day together with his son outside the confines of prison walls.
After working more than two decades as a daily newspaper journalist, Janice Hisle became a freelance writer and author. Her book on the Widmer case has won two national true-crime book awards. Janice is also the author of a 2020 biography, A Comforting Light: Cancer Crusader Mary Jo Cropper & Her Legacy of Hope. All proceeds from that book benefit the breast care center that Mrs. Cropper founded at Bethesda North Hospital in Montgomery, Ohio.
