Original subtitles

I went to Peru to smuggle cocaine.

Little did I know that decision was going to change my

life forever.

They said it was the hardest prison in North America.

It was a living hell.

Then I fell in love.

I thought, I've got to get out of here.

I've made a plan.

Escape.

In 1970, I went to Peru for adventure.

I was 24 years old.

I had a degree in psychology and mathematics with anthropology, but I

to have always wanted to do exciting outdoors things.

I had always wanted to see Machu Picchu, seeing these incredible

stone ruins.

This was a dream come true.

I was young, I was free, and wanted to live life to the

fullest.

I arrived in Lima, and I met a person on the street.

I'd heard about cocaine.

I had never really done cocaine.

We chatted. He seemed educated.

He spoke English.

And I asked him about cocaine.

And he said, yes, he could get me some.

We did not think of coke as a bad thing then. We did not see it as a plague.

And so I bought a gram of cocaine.

And I took my first sniff.

I had tried other drugs, but it was something about cocaine, the way it hit

pressure centers in my brain.

I loved it.

It just felt wonderful. I thought life was good, but things go better

with coke.

I went back to California. I was working as an emergency medical technician, but

I came back different.

I started buying grams of cocaine, going to work and then going to the men's

room and taking a sniff.

I was enjoying the high more and more.

And at a certain point, my nose got bigger than my wallet.

And I was objecting to how much money I was paying for it in the United States.

And so I kept thinking, I ought to go back.

to South America and get some more coke.

I had put cast on people with broken limbs.

And while I was doing it one day, I thought, why couldn't

I put cocaine in a cast?

No customs agent would ever check that.

And I thought, yes.

It has to work.

My plan was to fake having a mountain climbing accident with a

broken shoulder.

I would then put the cocaine in my arm under a shoulder cap.

I also had forged x -rays.

I had all medical receipts showing that I had paid money to the doctor.

So if anything ever came up in customs, I would just show them all the medical

papers.

I thought, no one's done that before.

People told me, you had to be calm coming through customs.

Maybe I should take some Valium.

I thought, I'm way ahead of the game. I'm smarter than them. They're not going

to catch me.

In retrospect, this was a phantasmagorically complex plan.

But under cocaine, it all seemed so clear and unique and original.

First time I went to Lima, I was there to visit the city. This time, I came to

smuggle cocaine.

I found a cheap hotel downtown.

Then I called up Rene.

He's got the cocaine.

We sniff it.

And I feel the numbing, sensuous clarity of the rush of cocaine.

I showed him my plan.

And he said, Dwight, this is brilliant.

This is original.

We put my cocaine on up here.

I show Rene how to put the cast up.

I put a brace on my leg and crutches were walking.

And he says, I thought,

I trust this guy. This is going to work.

I was taking an overland bus to Ecuador.

This was the first phase.

Then I would fly from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Mexico.

on travel where I could just walk across the U .S. border.

Finally, the bus pulled up to the Peru -Ecuador border.

I was here three years ago. This was a cakewalk.

You showed them your passport, they stamped it, and they let you through.

I saw them searching.

Peruvians and Ecuadorians packing their bodies.

Body searches.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Were they going to body search me?

The customs man came aboard.

Then he said, Take your luggage out.

And this attractive young traveler sat next to me. He said, I bet you have a

kilo of cocaine under there. What?

I had a total panic reaction.

I am paranoid.

I realized I couldn't be inconspicuous with this cast.

I came up to the guard. He looked at me.

He looked at the cast, said, ¿Qué pasó?

And I thought I had a climbing accident.

He was opening the suitcase, and he sees mountain climbing gear in there. And I

grab it with my hand, I move it around, I explain.

I came out of the wall, and I fell.

I felt dread and panic.

If they body searched me, they would find the cocaine in the cup.

Every little thing, I interpret them as knowing what's going on.

But they just waved me through. Yeah?

I asked him to help with my suitcase, and he did.

Everyone was treating me like the injured person that I was portraying.

I had made it to the first board, across to Ecuador.

I thought, this is working.

I got to the airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

I wasn't sniffing coke.

And my straight self began to say, this is pretty dangerous.

I took two Valium to calm myself down.

They

take their effect, I am tranquilized.

Little did I know that decision to take from Valium was going to change my life

forever.

The plane lands at Benito Juarez Airport in Mexico City.

I am in a Valium -induced fog.

I am numb.

I see my luggage.

I point to a baggage man to lift it for me.

He carries it over to customs.

Everything is dulled for me right now.

The customs agent looks at me.

under the influence of Elion.

Time stopped.

I am paranoid.

Is he suspecting me?

I can't go back. I can't go forward.

But he just closes it and slides it off.

And I'm thinking, I made it.

And as I am walking through, a very muscular man comes up to me, grabs

me and says, I thought I had already cleared customs.

He had been sitting there watching people pass through.

I'm thinking, this isn't supposed to happen. This is not supposed to happen.

The customs agent took me into a back room, dragging my suitcase with me.

He says, take off your shirt.

And then, what do you have under the calves?

And I said, nothing.

I am shouting to him, oh, I'm injured.

He feels that I am tightening my stomach. And he says, loosen up, loosen

I don't.

And he slaps me in the face.

I thought, oh, this is serious.

He gets out these pliers and he feels a rustle.

He shouts, Droga.

Droga. And a doctor comes and he just cuts the cast off.

And there are the two bags of cocaine.

Cocaine, huh? Cocaine.

I am caught dead, no doubt whatsoever.

They get the handcuffs out.

I pull my pants down.

Another man says, Who are you working for? Nobody.

Who are you working for? Nobody.

They get out this metal rod.

And started shocking me with electricity.

They worked over my chest and waist, and then started going at my genitals.

I could

not endure the pain of electricity flowing through me.

And then I said, At

this point, They said,

sign the statement.

And I am thinking, if I don't sign it, they'll start the electricity again.

And so I signed some statement that was in Spanish. I had no idea of what I was

signing.

I didn't realize then, but effectively my trial was over.

He said, now you are going to your new home, the black...

Palace, Lakemberry, the dreaded prison of Mexico

and thought to be the hardest prison by far in North America.

I heard it was built for 800 people, but now held 4 ,000.

Rumor had it that there were 200 murders a year in Lakemberry.

You did your time or went out in a box.

Immediately, the commandos put me on work detail.

The commandos were other prisoners who worked for the mayor of the dormitory.

They wore white armbands.

They did the dirty work.

Three months.

And one day, there was a new American prisoner really getting beaten up.

He jumped in and pulled off the commando.

And then they began swinging at us.

And the next thing I knew, there were guards arching in.

a warden sees us, and he says to me, You are castigado now!

Castigado! on punishment detail.

They sent me to dorm A.

This was a dormitory of 400 prisoners.

who were recidivist murderers.

I am the only gringo in this door, and I am panicked.

And they start going, money, we need money, money, money.

Two guys grabbed each leg, and they bent me over, and they kind of lifted me up

in the air.

Then I see a person, and in my position, I can look down and I see he has

dropped his sword.

And I think, oh no, they're going to try to rape me.

I start shrieking and kicking.

I am in complete panic.

He's moving up on me like a thick boar.

in a rut and I am fighting like everything and he can't get close to me.

I managed to break an arm loose and I quickly reach back underneath me

and grab his testicle and I hear him scream.

I am holding and pulling and he's screaming and everyone lets go

of me.

I felt an arm going into my thigh.

I had my abdominal muscles cut through.

But I was lucky in that I hadn't any organs punctured.

I would survive.

After recovering, they sent me back to the maximum security dormitory O.

I led a hunger strike.

For 17 days, I did not eat anything.

I thought this could get enough attention and get me deported to the

States, but it didn't happen.

They took me to the psychiatrist.

I had not eaten for several weeks.

I told them I did not want to eat.

You can't eat.

We must begin the treatment then.

I said, what do you mean treatment?

And he said, electroshock therapy on your brain.

I experienced a neural panic.

They're going to take my mind away.

I could not suffer that possibility.

I saw some stale cookies.

And I started eating.

I've tasted better, but I'm eating, right?

The hunger strike was finally over.

They won.

After nine months, they sent me to Dormitory F.

I was able to pay $100 a month for special privileges, and that included

a single cell.

I still hadn't come to trial, but it was clear to me that I was going to do five

years anyhow.

I was starting to resign myself to the long crack of prison.

And then one day, I had a knock on the door.

My friend Stefan came to visit. And he introduces his friend,

Barbara, to me.

And immediately we make eye contact.

I began talking about prison.

looking at me.

I could not stop making eye contact with her.

I thought, in another world, I would like to find this person and know this

person better, but there was no sense fantasizing about someone I could not be

with.

I figured I probably would never see her again.

A few weeks later, I heard them announce, I had letter.

And I didn't have one letter, I had several letters that Barbara had

I began writing letters to her.

And we wrote and wrote and wrote.

I have never expressed myself more fully.

The letters went on and on.

She was expressing herself, too, about possibilities of life together.

And she wrote about her daughter, Gabrielle.

Finally, he said, Would you mind if I visited you again?

And I thought, This is great.

A few weeks later, she came to my cell door.

We fell into each other's arms.

I felt a sense of joy and liberation.

I felt humane, warm, loving feelings that I had not felt in years.

This woman was offering me a chance to save my soul and my heart.

I felt alive again.

I loved this woman, and we agreed we would spend our lives together.

But I could not see five more years of this.

I could not bear the thought of her going through that.

And I thought at some point I might lose her just because it was too much.

And as the visits went on, we finally talked about the

other alternative.

Barbara said you could escape from him.

The word about Lake and Berry is it was unescapable.

Prisoners said that if the guards caught you trying to escape, they killed you,

and that no one had escaped since Pancho Villa did in 1912.

Barbara began formulating a plan.

She says, I think you can escape from prison dressed as a woman.

And we analyzed it. How could I get out in drag?

Barbara was renting a room at a dear friend's home who had a sewing machine.

She had my sizes cut out for me.

She would then smuggle in clothes.

Where to hide the clothes?

Well, about the same time, I took some kittens into my cell.

I took the dress and the blouse, and I hid them as

lining for the cats.

Glitter.

So when the guards did their periodic searches, I would say, be

careful, don't hurt my gut teeth.

But what about the other things, the lipstick and the makeup?

One day, her daughter, Gabrielle, was in my cell.

She's reeking of perfume.

And she pulled out of the top of her bibs a partially opened vial of perfume.

At the same time, we had our eureka moment.

We'll let Gabrielle smuggle in the makeup.

Because if they searched her, well, all little girls like to play dress -up,

don't they?

We had to bring in lipstick, foundation makeup, eye shadow,

fingernail polish.

I hid them as best I could.

We could get the clothes in.

We could get the makeup in.

But the wig.

How did we get the wig in?

Barbara got a pillow and worked the wig in with all of the foam stuff.

There was a method where people could make deposits at the prison.

And she deposited the pillow at this point.

We began formulating a plan.

I've been studying the system for getting in and out of prison.

Barbara knew a side of the prison I would never see.

There were four checkpoints.

At the first checkpoint, she would get a body search.

Then I go on to checkpoint two, here.

Here they would fill out a paper pass and the guard signed his name.

Passes were made in eight different colors.

They changed the colors randomly each day.

I then go on to checkpoint three.

Here, I exchange the gas for a metal tag.

These metal tags could be of four different shapes.

The guard would write the number of the metal tag onto the paper pass and file

it away and then give her that tag.

Then I go to checkpoint four, the double gate, and I show the tag to get in the

dorm. When I leave the dorm, I have to show the tag again.

At checkpoint three, she would present a tag to the guard. He would go into his

file of paper receipts and find the one that he had written that number on, and

he would hand it back to her.

At checkpoint two, I hand back the pass to the guard who built it up.

He would then confirm that was his signature.

So we need perfect copies of the pass in all eight colors and we had a four

cigar signature.

From checkpoint two, she would go down around to the main

gate of the prison where two armed guards stood.

She would then step out onto the street.

For me to escape from Leckenbury Prison, this was the journey I would have to

make.

We took the metal tags and we did pencil scrapings on paper.

We marked how thick it was. We observed the type of metal.

We couldn't get a copy of the paper path.

But one day I was out, and I saw where there had been a fire,

and I couldn't believe it.

Here was a stack of burned, semi -burned, and unburned paper

passes.

This is my lucky day.

Now we had the template.

A few weeks later, Barbara returned absolutely exuberant. I got everything

She had perfectly forged paper passives and perfectly forged metal tags.

She brought the passives in in linings of books. Are you kidding me?

And she smuggled the tags in her sandal.

They had done a perfect job.

They were just incredible.

Now we had the metal tag.

And the paper passes.

But when do I walk out of my cell in full drag in front of hundreds of

prisoners who have seen my face 20 times a day for one year?

This was the most important probability analysis project in my life.

We determined that every 42 days conditions were optimal.

The next ideal day would be Wednesday, December 17th, 1975.

But what was the right time to leave the dorm?

We noticed that the moment 145 happened, they blew the bugle and all the

commandos rushed to the door to check the visitors leaving.

But in the few minutes before 145, there were two commandos at the gate and

maybe a guard.

If I could leave my cell on Wednesday between 1 .42 and 1 .45 p

.m., December 17th, we saw a window of three minutes where there was a hole in

the system.

I had been in prison 21 months.

Barbara and I wanted to get married.

17th?

Our reactions were, oh my God, no.

That's our escape date.

We thought, well, this is it.

We're going to get married, and then we're going to escape from prison.

Wednesday, December 17, 1975.

I knew this was it.

I began plucking my eyebrows.

I shaved my legs.

And then I put toenail polish on.

This is a strange wedding.

I wait for her, 9 o 'clock, 9 .15, 9 .30.

It's almost 10 o 'clock when she comes to the door.

She says, give me a piece of paper.

She begins writing the signature of the guard who had filled out the paper pass

from memory.

She says, Then

we took the

correct color -coded card, and she filled in all of the information,

his signature.

She shows me the metal tag that she has with her right now.

And I find the one that matches perfectly.

You are ready.

We wait for the 11 o 'clock call, too nervous to do anything but just hold

other and intermittently cry.

We know what the stakes are.

11 .20.

11 .30.

If this goes on much longer, I will not have time to come back to the cell

and do all of the necessary shaving and foundation work.

Finally, at 11 .30, they call it.

But they separate.

Getting married. Well, what reason we don't know? No.

I am paranoid.

Why did they separate us?

Why? Huh? She looked at the gate.

I get to the wedding point before her, and I think, oh, they know something.

They must know something. I'm truly panicked.

But about ten minutes later, she comes in.

And there's a number of other couples getting married, and he lets us get

married first.

It's somewhat after 11 .30.

We signed papers. We signed this, this, and this.

And we turned to each other. You may now kiss.

And we kissed.

More in panic than in joy.

But at least now I knew that she had legal protection if they caught me.

She and I were separated at that point.

This was do or die.

I went into my cell with my heart pounding, double locked the door.

And I quickly shaved and double shaved. Did it again and again.

Then I put foundation makeup on.

I put eyeliner on.

I put everything on.

I look at myself and I think I look garishly like a transvestite.

Time was moving. I had 30 more minutes.

I put my bra on and stuffed it with socks.

Then I took a foam pad that I had cut out and I sculpted it over my ass.

To give me more of the bell shape.

In the middle of this, there's a knock on the door.

My heart froze.

The guard says, who went to see the kitty cat?

If he comes in, I'm clearly dead.

And I shout out, no fizzy candy, God!

It's my marriage day.

Conjugal visit. Get out of here. Have you no respect.

I hear someone say, oh, I'm sorry.

And then they left.

I put the skirt on.

And then I cut open my pillow and I pull out the wig.

It's the first time I've ever seen it.

I put it on.

We had large sunglasses, just covered my face up in a

legitimate way.

I was amazed at how much more I looked like a woman.

I think, my God, this can work.

It's 1 .40. I am all dressed.

I have everything.

I have my metal tag and my paper pass.

I have to be out of the dorm by 1 .45.

I look out the

door, and there's Maru.

I had beaten Maru up badly months before, and he still hated me for it.

I closed the door, and I think, no, no, no.

What are you doing in front of myself?

I knew when I opened that door and walked out, I would never be in this

again.

It was only, would I be alive and free, or would I be dead?

I walked out the door.

Maru looked me straight in the eyes.

He had to know.

He didn't say a word.

I got to the stairway, and I walked thinking, low center of

gravity. You are a woman. You are a woman.

I kept repeating this to myself.

Checkpoint four. There were two commandos.

I held my metal tag up.

The guy barely looked at it.

I walked through.

Checkpoint three.

This is where I exchanged the metal tag for the paper path.

The most difficult checkpoint.

Right at this time, the bugle blew.

This meant that all of the pesetas had to leave immediately.

What I had to do now was stall and wait for a crowd.

I am paranoid at this point.

I fumbled around in my purse and acted like I was looking for something.

I expected any moment for commandos to come rushing after me, grab me, and drag

me back into the dorm.

I looked at my watch.

It was 1 .53.

Eight minutes after the bugle had blown, this eight minutes had seemed like a

lifetime.

Guards were very busy now, switching the tags for the passes.

This was it.

Now or never.

There were women in front of me, fighting, trying to get ahead and

their tags for a pass. I turned toward...

One of the guards.

I pulled out my paper pass.

I held my pass in the air for the guard to see.

But he was so busy, he didn't pay attention to me.

I was past checkpoint three.

I am now in a part of the prison I have never seen before, where all prisoners

are forbidden.

I had rehearsed this a hundred times in my mind, but now it was hot.

Checkpoint two.

I entered dream state at this point.

Everything was in slow motion.

Everything was eerie.

I took the forged path and I showed the guard his

forged signature.

If he saw the forgery, he would most likely kill me.

It was do or die.

He stared at it.

longer than he did the others.

Rather than wait for his verdict, I kept walking.

And I thought, ahead of me, checkpoint one.

There were two guards.

One of the guards went like this, and he reached.

Over to touch my foam -padded app, I put my handbag in

between me and his hand.

I was on the street.

There were a number of other armed guards.

I walked on away from the prison.

If they knew, now they would shoot me in the back.

I kept walking.

And ahead, I saw a taxi.

No gunshots.

No one chasing after me. I dared not look back.

There was a woman in the back seat.

the angel who had saved my life.

No one had escaped from Lakemberry since 1912.

Both of us were so awestruck.

It had actually happened.

I had them.

What have I learned from this?

That a meaningful life is worth far more than quick

riches.

I can honestly say that in the 30 plus years that I have been free, I have

woken up and not been thankful for the

freedom and the life that Barbara Sainz.