Meeting my death-row pen pal after 20 years

While searching for story ideas, news cameraman Rhys Williams came across an article entitled: 'Welshman on death row.'

What followed was an unlikely 20-year-long friendship with convicted murderer Roderick Orme, which evolved as the pair exchanged hundreds of letters and emails.

Now, for the first time, Williams has travelled thousands of miles to meet Orme face-to-face.

But, as Orme, 64, waits to hear when he will be executed for the murder and rape of Lisa Redd, his victim's sister says she will "never forgive" the death row inmate - or Williams for his friendship with him.

US citizen Orme, who has family roots in Llandudno, north Wales, was looking for a Welsh pen pal when Williams got in touch to ask the death-row inmate if he would be willing to take part in a TV programme.

After a couple of months of silence, the murderer wrote back declining to take part in any filming, but said Williams, now a BBC cameraman, was welcome to keep in touch.

Speaking to BBC Radio Cymru's Dros Ginio, Williams said: " I could have stopped it there, because he was no use to me then."

However, not wanting to be "churlish", Williams opted to carry on writing to Orme - something he has done ever since - for more than 20 years.

"We just talk about nothing of note - sports, music, politics.

"I've travelled a lot, he's travelled a lot - before he was sentenced, so we have a lot of things to talk about."

Orme was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-partner, Lisa Redd, after he strangled the nurse in a Florida motel in 1992, while under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

When the pair first struck up their correspondence, Williams said he did not know any details about Orme's crime "at that point."

"I knew if he was on death row then he'd done something awful.

"I didn't ask much about what he had done. I thought he had enough on his plate, stuck in a cell every day, without me starting to ask him what he'd done, and stoking the fire."

He added: "I made a crazy policy of not saying anything about my personal life.

"Nothing about the fact that I was a husband and a father, and by now, a grandfather."

But that changed when Williams flew 4,300 miles (6,900km) to meet his pen pal for the first time, at Union Correctional Institution, Florida, for an S4C programme, Fy Frind ar Death Row (My Friend on Death Row).

"I always said I wanted to meet him - so it was nice to reach that point," said Williams.

Sitting in a room full of prisoners wearing orange jumpsuits was a sobering reminder of the seriousness of his, and their, crimes.

"These are incredibly bad men," acknowledged Williams. "Everyone [there] had killed a lot - and that was an odd thing to accept."

The pair met twice during Williams' time in Florida, but the cameraman's week-long stay in Florida "changed" their second encounter, he said.

After two appeals against his death sentence, Orme appears to have accepted his sentence - to "do right" by Redd's family - but Williams said the death-row inmate "still hasn't 100% admitted" that he is responsible for the crime.

As part of the programme, Williams met Carol Atwell, Lisa's Redd's sister.

Speaking about the days before her sister's murder, Atwell recalled how the two sisters had gone out for the day.

"He stopped us the whole time we were out that Sunday.

"He showed up at her house to see her - I told him: 'Lose her number, she doesn't want to see you'.

"He said, 'if I can't have her, no one can'. I said, 'what does that mean?' and he said: 'Take it as you will'. She was dead two days later."

Atwell is one of many people critical of Williams' relationship with Orme, with the cameraman calling her "incredibly angry and unforgiving" about the friendship generated by their letter-writing.

As he reflected on his encounter with Orme on his return to Wales, Williams said he would continue to write to the inmate, in spite of the criticism.

"I think it's within everyone to hit rock bottom and to find themselves in a big hole like that," said Williams, when filming finished.

" I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility for anyone," he said, noting Orme's drug-taking on the night of the murder and how "everything went wrong".

"I've been writing to him and we've built some kind of friendship.

He added: "I don't really want that to change."