STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) – In Oklahoma, Susan Powers is known as a mathematician who created a Web site for a group that cared for abused animals.

In Connecticut, she is the mysterious woman who became romantically involved with serial killer and rapist Michael Ross. She frequently travels across the country to see Ross on death row and promised to marry him and move closer if he will fight his execution.

Ross, who has confessed to raping and killing women in New York and Connecticut in the early 1980s, agreed last year to drop his appeals. His execution, scheduled for May 11, would be the first in New England in 45 years. But love is complicating the matter now.

“The woman of my life who I love, who abandoned me, has come back into my life,” Ross writes. “But now I must go and abandon her. And I hate that, because while I never hated her when she abandoned me, I fear that she will hate me and not be able to forgive me. And that I fear even more than the execution itself.”

Ross’ letters – decorated with hand-drawn hearts and flowers – and a deposition by Powers detail their relationship. They were part of six days of testimony that concluded last week before a Superior Court judge who will decide if Ross is competent to forgo his death row appeals.

Attorney Jim Nugent said he was curious when he spotted the “fairly attractive” woman at one of Ross’ court hearings. Guarded at first when Nugent asked why she was there, she finally identified herself as Ross’ girlfriend.

“It’s bizarre to me,” Nugent said. “It’s like something off a Jerry Springer show.”

But death row romance is not rare. Nationwide, about 23 percent of death row inmates had spouses in 2003, the most recent statistics available from the U.S. Justice Department. Others, like Ross, have girlfriends or boyfriends.

Ross and Powers chat on the phone regularly, discussing everything from life on death row to the latest episodes of “This Old House” and the “Twilight Zone.”

Powers, who declined comment, began corresponding with Ross in 2000 after her seven-year marriage ended, according to court documents. She had stumbled across an article he wrote about forgiveness, no matter how horrendous the sins. Powers began visiting Ross every six to eight weeks and a romance flared, despite a glass barrier that separated them.

They got engaged and discussed marriage, but Powers said the prison prohibited it. She ended their relationship on his 44th birthday, July 26, 2003, prompting him to attempt suicide.

Powers re-entered his life several months ago, before his January execution date was postponed. Since then, she has urged him to restart his appeals and even intimated suicide if he did not.

Ross says May 10 will be their last day together. But he is unsure whether she should attend his execution.

“I do want you here that night because I want to feel your love before these people kill me,” Ross wrote. “But for your own mental health, I’m not at all sure that you should be here, especially that night.”