Tag: Life Partners

Scott Harmon and Mark Williams met each other in a maximum-security prison in the heart of Pennsylvania coal country in 2012.

They had both grown up in the Philly area; both were in their early 20s, at the very beginning of life sentences without the possibility of parole for homicide convictions. Both had sons.

They were also both desperate to leave State Correctional Institution (SCI) Greene, the isolated prison where they met and which they described as harrowing. They aimed to appeal their convictions and get free.

They clicked as lifelong friends.

In 2018, Williams was transferred to the more desirable SCI Phoenix, in Montgomery County, and soon Harmon was transferred there as well. Both saw the reunion as an unexpected gift, and they became cellmates, or “cellies.”

While organizing with the activist group the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration and working with the same attorney to appeal their separate cases, they maintained a similar mindset: Despite what the courts said, their sentences would not last the length of their lives.

“When you’re sentenced to life, there’s really very little reason to hope that you’re ever going to get out again,” said Catherine Trama, an attorney with Wiseman, Schwartz, Cioschi & Trama who represented both men. They showed “a positivity that would be impossible for most people.”

Harmon was 22 when he was arrested for killing a 24-year-old man, Timothy Haines, in North Philadelphia. In 2011, he was convicted and given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. He maintained his innocence for the next decade-plus.

In 2024, his murder conviction was overturned. The District Attorney’s Office stopped short of endorsing his innocence but offered him a plea deal, in which he pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and firearms violations to get out of prison in April 2025. (“When that opportunity is offered to you: you can go home today, or you can take a chance fighting the system again, you don’t fight the system again,” Harmon, 39, said).

Harmon and Williams, who call each other chosen brothers, had been working toward the same goal, but now one had achieved freedom and the other had not.

“It was really difficult for a while. I didn’t want him to feel as though I was upset that he was leaving, or wasn’t happy for him,” Williams, 36, said.

Williams is still incarcerated at SCI Phoenix, and is currently challenging his conviction through the Post Conviction Relief Act, claiming the state violated his right to due process. He was 21 when he was convicted of killing a 21-year-old man, Isaiah McLendon, in Darby Borough and also given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Harmon is now a utility worker at a country club and lives in the Philadelphia suburbs. He has a girlfriend who he met as a teenager and reconnected with while in prison.

It is against state Department of Corrections policy for Harmon and Williams to meet in person because Harmon was formerly incarcerated, a spokesperson for the PA DOC said. Instead, they speak almost every day by phone.

The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg in separate interviews, has been edited for length and clarity and combined.

On meeting at a maximum-security prison in southwestern Pa.

Mark: Everybody calls Scott “Slim.” I met Slim when he came upstate in 2012. We were young. Just seeing the shock of our new reality setting in with him, I had just experienced that a year ago. I could share how I made it through and hopefully it could help.

Scott: He seemed like a cool dude. We didn’t dive into each other’s cases, we just both knew that we were sentenced to die at such a young age. We call it death by incarceration, or a “DBI” sentence.

We had the same intention, which was getting out of prison.

On boiling water in buckets and grueling workouts together

Scott: We ate together all the time. The commissary is extremely limited — for the bags of instant rice that they sell, you need really hot water, which we figured out ways to make.

We would buy an extra bucket, put water and baking soda or denture tabs in it with an extension cord, and it heats up. You put your food inside a trash bag, you put a trash bag over the bucket, and you set your food on it, and it cooks.

We also started working out together. In prison, we work out so hard because it’s stress relief. We punish our bodies physically: 100 burpees may be a warm-up.

On the outside, I tried to do 10 sets of 10 pull-ups. Mark laughed at me when I told him I couldn’t.

On being transferred to the same prison, 35 miles from Philly

Mark: SCI Greene was in a very, very racist part of the state. That environment kind of makes tighter bonds in people.

I transferred to SCI Phoenix [35 miles from Philly] maybe six months before Slim did. When I got transferred, it was an emotional time. It was hard. I didn’t really understand how close we were, until it was severed in that way.

Scott: You can’t choose what prison you go to. It’s like rolling a dice.

For those that were sentenced to “death by incarceration,” you have to stay seven years write-up free to get transferred. Now, mind you, you can get a write-up for having the thing that I just told you that we used to cook with. [The state DOC confirmed this.]

Mark: When he got here, that was a huge relief. To have someone back where it’s like, I know this is one of my brothers. It’s something I wasn’t expecting.

At the time, I think I was collecting trash on the walk. He was coming around the walk. And I saw him. We just were yelling and hugging.

On becoming cellies at SCI Phoenix

Mark: As soon as he got to Phoenix, we start pulling strings to get in the cell together. We had to talk to the unit managers, talk about why we wanted to be cellmates, how it would make sense for our incarceration. Our argument was all about compatibility: I’m compatible with this person, and I won’t keep asking you to move me from cell to cell to cell.

Scott: We had bunk beds — two grown men. It’s not normal for two fully grown men to be in such a small space: maybe eight steps to the door, and four steps sideways.

We talked about being free, and what that freedom will look like, and reaching back for each other. He would say, “If I get out, you don’t have to worry, I’m not gonna be like other guys,” and I’m saying the same thing.

On trying to stay connected to the outside together

Scott: I was trying to build a relationship with my son. Mark told me, “Just keep at it, just keep writing, just keep calling.”

It is extremely frustrating when you want to be there, and you’re not being allowed. Had Mark not been there to advise me about the best way to go about it, I may not have the relationship I have with my son today.

Mark: Going through COVID was one of the hardest times. We were locked down all the time — we were getting out less than an hour a day.

The person that you were living with, you had to really be able to tolerate. We were in there, tight, every day, annoying each other, annoyed with what was going on.

You don’t know what your relationship will be with somebody until you’re actually trapped in a small space with them for a year.

On freedom — for one of them

Scott: I get on the phone and my attorney is like, “We heard back from the judge, and they overturned your conviction.”

I lost my breath, got nauseated, I started crying. Mark is two phones down. He started hugging me. It was a moment, man. I couldn’t even talk to him, snot was running down my nose. He was just happy for me, man. So happy for me.

Mark: It was a shock to me, just like it was a shock to him. Immediately I just felt joy, and excitement.

Then as time passed, it was more complicated. It wasn’t anger or jealousy. It was more of maybe sadness, and trying to reconcile the feelings of gain and loss at the same time. The situation was bringing up all types of feelings.

Scott: It’s never a conversation about him not getting out. The conversation is always like, “You’ll be out here soon.”

On saying goodbye

Mark: I think I probably did have a fear that we wouldn’t be as close as we are. Over the years, we experienced a lot of people that we built bonds with who went home. We might still be close with them, but we don’t talk as frequently. It’s not what it was.

Scott: We both worked in hospice, so the nurse allowed us to come down to the hospital and say goodbye to each other a day or two before I left.

I left him all my property. I left my TV to him. I left the books and stuff that he wanted, any clothes or sneakers that I had that he might want. I didn’t take anything out with me.

On keeping in touch now

Scott: I talk to him every day. I know intimately what type of support he needs. Our conversations have changed in that it’s not about our freedom, it’s about his freedom.

The experience is like how guys are in the Army: because I was dead to the world. I was maybe in contact with 10 people out of the billions and billions of people on the Earth. He talks to maybe 20 people outside of prison. That’s nothing.

Mark: We talk about the new realities that he’s facing, and some of the ones that I have to look forward to.

It might have been harder for me to leave him behind. Survivor’s remorse — that can be tough to deal with.

Yes, I want my freedom, but it’s not much more than I wanted him to have his freedom.

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This story is part of a new series about life partners across the Philadelphia area.

If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically or otherwise, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.

Chris Summers was born in South Philly and raised by her grandmother and her mother. She knew she was supposed to get married, but she never felt exactly like the people around her.

The main sticking point was sex: She didn’t want to have it, yet she still longed for romantic companionship.

“I really crave connection and spending time with somebody. I would be happy to spend a romantic weekend where we didn’t have to sleep together,” said Summers, 73. ”We would stay up talking and drinking tea and drawing and reading to each other.”

Summers married Fred, whom The Inquirer is referring to by his first name to protect his privacy, in 1975. The two had sex throughout their marriage, because Summers figured that was what a wife was supposed to do, but she never cared about it. They divorced in 1980 after Fred had a series of affairs, she said.

She continued to date men, all the while wondering if she might be a lesbian. Above all, she was attracted to people’s minds; she wanted a connection that had nothing to do with the “groping, kissing, fumbling, and activity that led to orgasms,” as she described it.

“At that time, there was no vocabulary for that. There was no saying: Sex does not interest me at all. Sex is not part of my reality,” she said. It wasn’t until the 2010s that she began reading about asexuality — the term for people who do not experience sexual attraction.

About 1.7% of lesbian, gay, or bisexual adults identify as asexual, according to the Williams Institute, a research center focused on sexual orientation and gender identity at UCLA. The vast majority are young, under 27; a Williams Institute scholar noted that asexuality is an “emerging identity,” and probably likely to become more widespread in the future.

Summers, who describes herself as neuroatypical, now lives with her two cats in Wissahickon. She has posted personal ads on Craigslist and forums for asexual people, but at this point has mostly resigned herself to being alone.

The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg, has been edited for length and clarity.

On meeting her husband

I put an ad in the personals in 1972. I was definitely hoping for romance, but also I was just looking for somebody to hang out and smoke dope with. Fred answered the ad, and he showed up at my house on his Honda 350 motorcycle. He was kind of like my knight in shining armor. We dated for a few months, and then I moved in with him.

On a less-than-romantic proposal

There was no real romance involved in getting married. We were living in West Philly, and I was setting the table for dinner. He came into the kitchen and said, “What do you think about getting married?” I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, and I just said, “Yeah, OK, that’s a cool idea.” I didn’t realize that was a proposal. He said, “I’ll call my parents and let them know we’re going to get married.” I thought, This is what it’s like?

Fred’s a Libra, and he likes to be doing what other people are doing. Friends and people in our age group were getting married. I guess he thought, Everybody else is doing this. So this should be something that we’re doing.

On her mother offering her husband-to-be cash to marry her

Fred and I had been married for several months, and we were having dinner one night. I was complaining about my mother; I always had a troubled relationship with her.

He said, “Did you know that your mother offered me money to marry you?” I thought he was kidding. I said, “What did she offer?” He said, “$1,000.” I said, “Did you take it?” And he said, “Of course not.”

I was horrified. I was raised by my mother to think I better get married, because that way I would have somebody to take care of me. She didn’t believe I could navigate life on my own. I think that on some level, my mother meant well. She thought, I’m going to offer a guy money to marry my daughter, and that way I’ll feel that I’ve done my part.

On her husband’s (“pedestrian”) fantasies and her evolving sexuality

Fred was into fantasizing. One of his favorites was: you work in a massage parlor, and you’re really a hooker. I like playing, and I like fantasy and dressing up, and I just thought that was so pedestrian. I mean, if he had said, “Let’s dress up like aliens,” I would have thought, This could be fun.

I still thought that it was quite possible that I was a lesbian. I liked looking at women, I found women attractive. When I was in 8th grade, I had a serious crush on my best friend. But in a working-class, blue-collar family, it was not something that you talked about.

On her husband’s infidelities

I thought we were happy. But Fred was a philanderer. He always had a little something on the side, and one of his big things that he really enjoyed doing was confessing his sins later.

For our first wedding anniversary, we saved money so we could take our honeymoon, and we went all the way up through the Eastern Seaboard.

We were at a lovely restaurant having a nice meal. Fred leaned over and said, “Um, there’s something I have to tell you.” I thought, Oh, God, no.

I knew he was going to confess something, and he told me that he had been having an affair with the woman who was our matron of honor. I said, “Why did you have to tell me this on our wedding anniversary?”

On life after divorce and discovering asexuality

I initiated the divorce in 1980 because I was tired of Fred not being faithful. I made sure that he was served at work with the divorce papers, to embarrass him.

After that, I was in California and I was looking for a partner. But I was not looking for somebody to sleep with. Sex to me is like having anchovies — yeah, I suppose I could, but I’d really rather not.

I was always attracted to people who were very intelligent and on the quirky side. For me, it was never about: I want to get in their pants. It was more like, I want to get in their brain.

In the last 10 years, I was trying to figure out, what is different about me? I started seeing things about asexuality. It made me feel like less of a freak, realizing: OK, this me. This is where I fit.

On searching for love but not sex

I’d always been homesick for Philadelphia, and returned in 2015.

At one point I was part of a now-defunct Meetup group for alternative sexualities. I was an old lady in the midst of these 20- and 30-year-olds. They were very dear, they were very accepting. But I was not really considered dating material due to my age.

Since I’ve been back, I have not really had much of a romantic life. I dated a few guys, a few women. But when you say “I really don’t want to have sex with you” — there’s no nice way to say that.

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This story is part of a series about life partners across the Philadelphia area. See other stories in the series here and here.

If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically or otherwise, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.

The Rachels met each other when they were 5 and 6 years old, and they met Lizzy Seitel — who would come to be known as one of the Rachels despite her name — in middle school.

They all lived in the D.C. area, and one weekend they took part in a retreat with Cheder, a progressive Jewish community in the area. In Seitel’s recollection, they listened to Ani DiFranco, went skinny-dipping, and talked about their fears.

“It was just a really crazy, beautiful, life-affirming teenage moment,” Seitel, now 38, said.

It also marked the beginning of a very long friendship.

Soon after, Rachel (Luban), Rachel (Neuschatz), and Seitel began celebrating winter solstice together with a witchy ritual drawn from a pagan book. In the quarter-century since, they’ve never missed the solstice.

The Rachels went to the same college; Lizzy went elsewhere. Then, after living apart for some years in their 20s, they decided to settle down, together. By that point, Seitel had married Serge Levin (he grew up in a communal house in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and was game for an alternative arrangement) and was pregnant with their first child.

In 2022 the four bought a giant old stone house in Mount Airy, where they now live communally. They have a shared bank account for the mortgage, house maintenance, and utilities, along with a shared backyard, basement, porch, and Google calendar.

The Rachels, who both have romantic partners living elsewhere, coparent a dog. Seitel and Levin’s two young children call the Rachels Aunt Lu and Aunt Nu.

The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg in separate interviews, has been edited for length and clarity and combined.

On meeting each other as kids

Rachel Neuschatz: I consider myself a red diaper baby [a term to describe the kids of radical/Communist parents]. We lived in a single family home, but we were always involved with the Jewish community Cheder. Rachel Luban and I were in it starting from age 5.

Lizzy Seitel: I grew up in a pretty typical nuclear family, in most ways. But my parents always had an extra room, and they were always having people come stay with us. There was this feeling of people coming in and out, and I really loved that — just the idea of family being expansive.

It was always my fantasy to live in a boarding house.

Rachel Luban: I feel like we raised each other, and those relationships have always felt as central to me as romantic relationships. Romantic partnership was part of my vision, but as a kid I would never dream about getting married.

On the ‘palace of dreams’

Lizzy Seitel: The Rachels and I always talked about creating a palace of dreams.

Rachel Neuschatz: We’d always talked very vaguely about living together. Of course, people loved to tell us it wouldn’t work, which is a very funny, ubiquitous response.

Rachel Luban: We had been talking for many years about wanting a more communal living situation, some kind of cohousing. We didn’t know exactly what that would look like.

Lizzy was very rooted in Philly. She’d been here for maybe 10 years, she was married, she was pregnant.

So both Rachel and I decided to move to Philly in 2019. We moved within a month of each other, and we were all living in separate apartments in South Philly.

On choosing to buy a house together

Lizzy Seitel: Having a kid, and then it being the pandemic, it was like, “Oh yeah, the nuclear family is bulls—. This is not how anyone should raise kids.”

Rachel Luban: Even though we were all living in South Philly, less than a half hour walk from each other, it felt like seeing each other had to be this big planned thing and you had to clear your night for it.

We wanted lower barriers to spending time together, and more incidental interactions.

On searching for the right place

Rachel Luban: There was really no road map, and that was very challenging. We didn’t have many people to talk to. There are all of these logistics to figure out: Should we become an LLC? We decided not to do that, because then we would need a commercial mortgage.

We wanted a single structure that had separate units. So everyone has their own door, everyone has their own kitchen, but there are some common spaces, and we’re all really close together.

We made our own basic boundaries about what percentage of the property each person would own and therefore, what percentage of the finances they would be responsible for.

Our runner-up was this former nunnery that was three huge conjoined West Philly rowhomes. It had one giant kitchen, 13 bathrooms, and a lot of institutional carpeting. It was kind of cool, but also just an insane space.

The place we eventually found felt like it fell from heaven, because nothing else came close.

On committing

Lizzy Seitel: I knew that these are the people that are the most committed to me, besides Serge. I know we can fight and that we’re always gonna want to come back together. There’s no question of, is this friendship gonna last? We’re gonna make it last.

Rachel Luban: A lot of people, including lawyers, told us not to do this. They were like, “You intertwine your lives, and then somebody has a falling out, or somebody wants to move, and then you’re in a mess.”

In a certain way, I think it required the kind of psychological commitment that people make when they get married, where they’re throwing their chips in together. Knowing that if something happens, it could be really messy.

We decided we trust each other enough to think that if something changes, everyone will act with good faith.

On their friendships now

Rachel Luban: You get to know people in a different way, and your fates are more tied together. We had to replace our entire heating system, which is actually three different heating systems. There’s a range of different feelings about spending money and what kind of upkeep the house needs. Even whether we should mow the lawn was a discussion that we had to have.

Lizzy Seitel: We might not live in this house or in this arrangement for every year until we die, but we’re thinking that far ahead — about aging and wanting to be together in this life. That feels like a commitment to each other’s future.

Rachel Neuschatz: Probably I will not formally parent. Maybe it’ll still happen, but that’s not on my bucket list. Lizzy’s kids are like my niblings — nieces and nephews.

On telling other people:

Rachel Luban: Most people are like, “I’m jealous. I want to do that.” Then a minority of people are like, “That’s my personal hell.”

Lizzy Seitel: I feel like there’s this thing of people not knowing that they’re allowed to commit to their friends, or have their friends commit to them.

Rachel Neuschatz: I cap myself from gushing too much, because I don’t want to be a jerk. But yeah, it’s a goddamn paradise that we’ve made ourselves.

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This is part of an occasional series about life partners across the Philadelphia area. If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically or otherwise, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.