Stories of "A woman meets a man who committed some unspeakably vile crime in his past, but now he appears to be fully reformed and a model citizen, and in fact

Stories of "A woman meets a man who committed some unspeakably vile crime in his past, but now he appears to be fully reformed and a model citizen, and in fact he is" are probably less newsworthy, so there's a selection bias in play here. I say that with the same agnosticism that you related your observation. I don't know whether such stories exist at all, or if they're a majority or a minority compared to the recidivist stories.