Original subtitles

He said, you're not going to walk out of here alive unless you tell me where

those drugs are.

I had 500 doses of LSD.

I had started something that I was going to regret.

Scared out of my mind.

I had this one chance and I just had to take it no matter what.

We're... Fugitives on the run.

Just struggling to survive.

The only way I was going to get out of there was to escape.

I was just going south, down through Mexico, down through Central America and

into South America.

I was 24 years old, from Santa Barbara, California.

My girlfriend at the time was Crystal.

We had been together probably three or four years at that time.

I mean, she was the...

First love of my life.

But Crystal had gotten involved with someone that I knew, and I was

heartbroken. So I took off.

I didn't foresee that it would eventually lead to my being imprisoned

forced to run for my life.

I ended up in Lima, the capital of Peru.

Most of the people in the hotel were in their 20s or early 30s that were just

like me, traveling around.

You know, you'd do a little party and a little drinking.

That's where I first started using cocaine.

It wasn't that I intended to try it, it's just that it was available.

It was just something that I hadn't done before, so I thought I'd...

Give it a shot and see what it was like.

You get this big

jolt of energy through your body.

You feel super powerful all of a sudden.

Nobody really thought about it as being an addictive type drug, just a party

drug.

Within a month, I was pretty much addicted to the cocaine.

I was snoring coke pretty much every day.

Sounds crazy, but you fall in love with the drug and it won't let you stop

thinking about it.

I actually started running out of money.

I just thought it was time to go back.

But I started thinking, you know, it sure would be nice to have this stuff

in California.

I got about maybe an ounce and a half of coke, which cost me a

couple hundred dollars.

I had never had more than, say, a gram at a time in my possession before, so it

was pretty scary. I didn't really like having it at all.

This friend of mine told me that you didn't have to carry it yourself or

about walking through customs.

You just mail it back to the United States.

He showed me exactly how to do it.

I got a cardboard box and I started to carefully peel the outer layer off.

It took a while to do it. You had to be real careful not to ruin the box.

Took the cocaine and just kind of worked it into the cardboard until it was

flat.

And then glued that outside layer back on.

It looked pretty good. I mean, it looked pretty much the same as the box

did before I put it in there.

I put some blankets and some Cheerios in there and wrapped it all up.

I shook it around and everything, make sure it wasn't going to leak out of

there.

It didn't. It was ready to go.

But for some reason, I was worried about the box getting stolen.

I mean, the post offices down there were not real reliable.

To me, it wasn't a lot of drugs, and I'd gone through a lot of trouble to get it

and to package it.

And I just thought, well...

I really don't want to lose this.

So then I decided, well, if it's such a good method, I think I'll just carry it

back with me instead of mailing it.

We had to stop over in Quito, Ecuador, where we had to change planes.

They told us to get in line for the next flight, but I didn't realize there was

a checkpoint before getting on the plane.

I'm felt nervous and a lot of apprehension, but you can't let it show

just tipping them off to what you're doing.

I was thinking, just keep your eyes ahead of you and don't look at anybody

because you're going to be in a world of...

Or if something goes wrong here, I was just going to walk up there and they

going to check my passport and I was going to get on this airplane and

everything would be fine.

But when I got up to the counter, they looked at me and my mind just kind of

went blank.

They just kind of said, sir, would you please come this way?

We'd like to check your bags.

They weren't pulling anybody else out of line, so I thought, geez, I wonder,

maybe they know.

We went down a little hallway, and then there was a room.

They started taking everything out of my backpack and going through everything

piece by piece.

They opened up the box.

And they were going through it, looking, shaking everything.

I had some blankets in there, and they were like, take a knife and cut the

open to see if there was anything in the blankets.

I was starting to get more and more worried that that wasn't just a chance.

Because he seemed to be pretty sure that I had something in there.

But they weren't finding anything.

Sergeant.

Then they brought in another person who was a higher up person.

Maybe a sergeant.

What's your name?

Tom Hanway. Speak loud when I can't hear you. Tom Hanway.

We have an attraction on you.

I just looked at him and said, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't

have any drugs.

And all of a sudden, he pulls his gun out and sticks it in my face and says,

Now, Gringo, you need to tell me where those drugs are, because I know you have

them.

And he cocked the trigger of the pistol.

He said, you're not going to walk out of here alive unless you tell me.

I never had a gun pointed at me before.

It's really scary. I mean, you have a gun, you know, a couple inches from your

face.

And some crazy friggin' police officer that you don't know from Adam is behind

that gun. You don't know what's going to happen. I don't have no drugs, okay?

The box with the cocaine in it was sitting on the floor.

I wasn't looking at that box at all. I just told myself, this is exactly what

wants you to do. He wants you to be scared out of your mind and tell him

whatever he wants to hear. That's what he wants, and I'm not going to give him

what he wants.

I said, well, I don't have any drugs.

Are you going to shoot me?

He just looked at me.

And then you pick up your stuff and get out of here.

Just like that, it was all over.

I picked that box up and I thought, well, this is a good box.

I found myself back in the United States and I was exuberant.

I took the coke to a friend of mine that was selling LSD at the time.

He tried some of the cocaine and he really liked it.

That's awesome.

He told me that if I could get him some of the cocaine from South America, he

would front me some LSD to take down there.

He gave me 500 doses of LSD.

500 hits.

It was just so easy to hide.

It was just a piece of paper no bigger than a ladder.

Say $1 per dose for LSD in California.

In South America, it might be worth $10 a dose.

I figured I could get probably close to a kilo of coke from that amount of LSD.

I could probably make somewhere around $20 ,000 maybe.

I told him, yeah, let's just go ahead and do this thing.

Let's do it, yeah.

Within about four or five hours, I was headed back to South America.

The coke had just totally distorted my mind. It was pretty much the dumbest

thing I ever thought in my life.

When I landed in Lima, I went straight to the same hotel.

And there was this guy named Steve. He was from Texas.

I told him that I wanted to try and get a kilo of coke

and trade it for LSD.

And he said he knew people down in Chile would do it.

I didn't know anybody down there that had any.

quantity of drugs, so it was pretty much the only option on the table.

Got on a bus the next day and headed south.

We got a room in a small hotel that was only maybe a block away from the center

of town.

Steve said, well, I'm going to go out and see if I can find this friend of

that I know and get a sample from him and bring it back to you so you can see

what we're talking about.

He was gone for maybe an hour.

That's my connection.

And he said that he had talked to his connection and that he'd be willing to

a trade for the LSD and had a small bindle of cocaine that

he had brought back as a sample.

I wanted to make sure it was real high -grade cocaine.

And it was.

But then he said, now you need to give me a sample of the LSD so I can take it

and show it to my connection.

I was a little bit apprehensive, but I went and got my pack, and

I showed him the piece of paper with the acid doses on it.

I tore one of the doses off and gave it to him.

I'll catch you later.

I put it back in the book and put it back in my pack.

That was really a big mistake because when you have any kind of stash of

if you have to show it to somebody, you never put it back in the same place.

Kind of shows, you know, that, you know, I was just an amateur.

He took off to go meet his connection.

There wasn't much I could do. He was in control at that point, and it was his

game, so I just had to sit back and wait, hoping that it was going to work

I did a bunch of lines, and my worries kind of went away because I got high,

know.

And then I heard some cars.

Pulling up outside the room, I looked out the window,

and I saw a bunch of police.

I knew they were there for a reason, and I was the reason.

I was definitely trapped.

My immediate action was to get rid of the evidence.

I didn't want to go to jail at all, but they just kicked the door in.

They pointed a gun at me and told me to put my hands up in the air, and they

pulled me out into the main room, threw me on the ground, and cuffed me.

They meant business.

One of them was in the bathroom trying to get remnants of the coke out of the

toilet or something, and I was hoping that they didn't know that I had the

I see one of them pull this book out of my backpack.

And he took that acid out of there, and he knew exactly what it was.

I could tell by the look in his face that he had found what he came to find.

We call it the We Got You Look.

That's when I realized that my days were over.

They took me to a central police office and threw me in a room.

But I could see out into the hallway, and I saw Steve,

and it just flashed in my mind.

Steve had been the one that had turned me in and that he was working for them.

That's when I started thinking, boy, I really screwed up this time.

They sent a man in there and he had a club like a baseball bat.

Just came to this look like, you poor dumb sucker.

Now you get to find out what a South American jail is really like.

I was just lost in a haze of, you know, terrible feelings.

I think I'm going to be here until I'm over 30 years old.

I'm going to lose the prime of my life.

I was looking around thinking, what's going on here? What kind of people are

these?

I thought about Crystal, how nice it would be if I could just stay there and

back to her, you know. But my life as I knew it was over.

We were lit outside every morning, probably about 7 o 'clock.

I would walk around in the courtyard a lot just to get some exercise.

They were all kind of staring at me, you know, because they didn't see too many

gringos coming to that jail.

I mean, these guys were totally messed up, you know, and I immediately knew

there was no way that I could stay in this place for five years.

The only way I was going to get out of there and not go crazy.

was to escape.

I had heard about a man named Tosco that was in the jail that had apparently

escaped from a prison in Peru.

The guards took him serious because they knew that If they double -crossed him,

there was a good chance that he would come back and kill him.

I thought, well, he'd be a good partner.

I walked up next to him and started talking to him.

What's up? No worries.

Kafka liked to joke around and seemed like a pretty normal person to me.

I told him that I wanted to finance an escape.

Yeah, I see it.

He told me that he thought we could buy off the two guards in the tower for

about $100 each.

Down there, the guards were probably only paid $3 a day, so $100 to

them was a fair amount.

But we also needed to bribe one of the guards on the inside so we could get a

duplicate of the key for the...

The door going from the inside cell to the outside part of the jail.

So, what did he think when he got there?

Chas seemed to know what he was doing.

When you trusted somebody, you were taking a big chance.

But I was willing to risk my life and a chance to get out of there.

I wasn't going to be able to get out of there without any money, so I started

writing letters to my parents, pretty much begging for money.

I was actually quite ashamed to write these letters.

I had let them down quite a bit by getting myself involved in drugs in the

place and then getting caught in a foreign country and thrown in jail.

It was something, I'm sure, to their minds was just an unthinkable thing.

Eventually, I got about $200 or $300.

We had it pretty well planned out exactly what we were going to do.

Yeah.

Chasko had paid a guard to make a copy of the key to the gate through the

bathroom that would let us outside.

He kept it on himself.

He found two guards that he knew would be willing to take money and he thought

would keep their word.

They rotated guards in the tower, so we had to wait until the two guards that we

had picked were in the tower at the same time.

It took about three or four weeks.

They were putting us back into cells, and Chaska said, tonight is the night.

We just went back into our cells like everything was normal.

We didn't want anybody to sense that.

We were going to try to get out of there that night.

Around 11 o 'clock, they would let the cells out one at a time to go into the

bathroom.

The plan was to, once everybody had cleared out of the bathroom, we were

to open up the door, go outside, and climb the fence.

Get out of there.

My cell was one of the last to be let out.

When I went into the bathroom area, I thought Chaska was over in the corner.

There was only one guard inside of the cell area.

Once you're in the bathroom, you're pretty much out of sight of the guard.

It wasn't very long until they called the rest of the people back to their

cells.

Once everybody was out of the

bathroom, Chaska moved over that gate real fast and then

slowly turned the key as quietly as it could.

Part of me was saying, this is crazy. You're going to risk your life.

You'll be fine. You just have to sit here in this jail for another five

But I had this one chance, and I just had to take it no matter what.

Chalko came out and shut the gate again, but he shut it a little bit too hard,

and there was a pretty big clang.

I immediately thought, oh.

This whole thing's going to end before it even starts.

We knew that the guard inside had heard that clang, and I thought, we need to

get down and hide.

Well, sure enough, the guard came over to the gate.

I could tell that he thought something was wrong.

I was just thinking, he's got to go back inside, or we're done, and this whole

thing is just over with.

He was looking around, and he could have been looking straight at me.

I was scared out of my mind.

My heart was beating about as fast as it could. To me, it sounded like there was

this big kaboom, kaboom, kaboom going on. I was almost afraid that he could

my heart pounding.

But he just turned around and went back inside.

We started crawling.

My adrenaline was pumping so fast.

We were still worried about that guard inside maybe coming out if he heard

something else.

I felt like, you know, there was this weight in my body that was just slowing

down.

Once we got to the base of the fence, I looked at the guard up there in the

tower.

That was when I thought to myself, well, if this guard is going to decide to

renege on us, or if he just goes bananas, he'll start shooting.

But I just really didn't have any choice at that point.

We just climbed up there inch by inch.

Attaining fence is not the easiest thing in the world to climb up.

We clawed our way up to the top and just kind of rolled over the barbed wire to

the other side.

But we still weren't out of the jail yet.

We started running.

If they decided to shoot us, there was nowhere to really hide.

I needed to get to that outside wall as quick as possible.

It was just a brick wall and only about eight feet tall.

So we just climbed right over it immediately.

We were landed in the street. We were in the town. We were out of the jail.

And it was just a strange feeling, you know, that we actually had made it and

made it alive.

The gospel had arranged for the safe house.

We had planned to stay there for a couple of weeks.

We were in kind of a party and mood and we had a few drinks.

We're free, man.

We were really relieved that we had made it.

But that feeling didn't last very long.

The next morning, Chaska brought back the local newspaper.

And there was my picture on the front page, big letters on top, daring gringo

escape.

Once I saw it in print, my mind realized that they were going to do everything

and anything they could to get me back in that jail.

And we were really fugitives on the run.

You're famous now. I knew I wouldn't feel safe until I was out of that

A man named Enrique showed up at the house.

Chasco introduced him as a guide that could help me escape.

But I couldn't trust anybody anymore.

I felt like I had to give them some reason to help me get out of the

So I convinced them that I had money on me.

And that I also had money in a bank in La Paz, Bolivia.

I was relying on their word that we could do this.

The plan was that we would walk across the desert and eventually get into the

mountains. They were telling me that it would be maybe 10 days at the most.

In retrospect, it was just totally insane.

Chasco and Enrique were pretty much all business.

They were trying to walk as fast as they could.

I was trying to keep up with them, but it almost immediately hit me that this

was not going to be easy, that this was going to be a real physical test, and I

wasn't in any kind of shape to be doing this.

I was beginning to feel more and more unsure about what we had embarked on.

The next day we got into a valley.

They were becoming more and more annoyed with me because I was falling further

and further behind them on the trail.

I was out in the wilderness with these two guys that I didn't really know, and

was becoming more and more a target of their raft rather than a partner of

theirs.

Josco started asking me for the money that I had.

I told him, let's just keep going.

You'll get your share of the money when the time comes.

You'll get the money. Just keep walking.

I think they had started to doubt the fact that I had money in Bolivia.

Chasko started becoming more assistant.

I told him to stay calm.

Take it easy, all right? He got mad.

I want the money right now.

He tried to knock me down.

My reflexes just kicked in.

But then Enrique got his revolver out.

I was spinning Chasco around, holding him by the neck.

I had to use him as a shield to keep Enrique from shooting

me.

Then all of a sudden, Enrique lowered his weapon and darted behind a rock.

I had no clue what was happening.

I turned around and looked, and down coming up the trail, up the valley,

were a couple of people on horses.

I immediately thought that they must be police.

I let go of Chasco and jumped down and hid behind a rock.

Eventually, the people on the horses made it up to where we were, and then

Enrique went over there and started talking to them to see that they were

civilians and they weren't the police.

And Enrique turned around and said that they're going to supply us with

horses up the canyon.

That's when I thought, well, great, I can get the money out and pay for the

horses and everything will be smooth again.

But Tosco turned around and said, you better keep up with us because if you

don't, we're just going to leave you behind.

After four or five hours, I couldn't even see them anymore.

so far ahead of me on the trail.

The trail was getting steeper and steeper and my legs were getting so

I could barely walk anymore.

I really didn't have much gas left in the tank.

I was getting more and more kind of delirious.

I saw a couple of structures up ahead.

This had to be the place where we were supposed to meet the people with the

horses.

But the closer I got to the place, I just started getting this eerie feeling.

The first thing I saw was a bunch of clothes and blankets strewn out on the

ground.

Some of these were the blankets that we had brought with us.

And then as I crawled further,

I saw a couple of old people over a fire pit.

As I got closer, I realized there was like a body lying in the

fire pit.

It was brown and charcoal -y looking.

And then I knew it was Chaska.

My whole head just exploded. I just was, it was just, I couldn't believe it.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream as loud as I could.

But I just turned around and started running.

A million thoughts started going through my mind and my head started spinning

around and spinning around and I just went and went and went.

I was like a wounded animal just trying to get to a safe place.

I thought, I need to get my head clear and figure out what I'm going to do

At that point, I saw a barn.

There was a farmer, and I went over and talked to him and asked him if I could

sleep in his barn. I told him that I was a tourist and that I was lost.

He kind of looked at me strangely, but he said, okay, yeah, go ahead.

So I went in there, and I pretty much just passed out.

It must have been four or five hours later that I started hearing noises like

trucks driving by.

I looked through the cracks in the wall. I could see that there were soldiers.

I was talking to the farmer, and I saw the farmer turn and point straight at

barn.

And then I knew that the soldiers were coming any minute.

The feeling of just helplessness started overtaking me.

I could hear the sound of their gun holsters flapping on their thighs.

And I felt like a condemned man standing on the gallows must feel when they

slowly tighten the noose around his neck.

When they walked in that door with their guns drawn and pointed at me, the world

just collapsed.

They just moved right toward me and grabbed me and took me outside.

And they surrounded me and started asking me who I was and what I

was doing there.

My mind started working over time, thinking there must be some way I can

of this.

The first thing I thought was I was pretending like I'm not me.

I just told them I was a French tourist and that I'd been hiking down from

Bolivia and I encountered these three banditos that had

robbed me and stolen my money and my passport and hit me over the head and

me on the side of the road. And the more I talked and the better the story got,

the more they seemed to believe it.

But the next thing they told me was, well, we're going to have to take you

to town and find out who exactly you really are.

I was headed back to jail, and my mind started really racing.

I was sitting in the back seat.

We were getting closer and closer to the city, and I was running out of time.

The policeman that was sitting on the right side, he had laid his gun on the

open glove box.

I thought to myself, well, I might be able to just lunge over the seat

quickly and grab the gun.

My mind was telling me, you can do this if you have to. But another part of my

mind was thinking, you know, you don't want to do this.

This is going to push everything into a whole new level.

I had to make a decision quick.

I was really just about to grab the gun when they pulled over.

It was a cocinera place where they specialized in chicken.

Well, I said, can I buy you chicken and beers?

We were in there for 15 or 20 minutes, and they were starting to get even a

little bit loose.

So I asked them if it was all right if I went to the restroom.

One of them said, okay.

He went with me and looked inside and said, all right, it looks all right. You

can go in there.

So I went inside the restroom, and he walked back to the table.

I started looking around, and the first thing I saw was that there was a window.

I took the wastebasket, stood on it.

I just pulled myself up there and flew out the window.

I started running across the rooftop.

I didn't know where I was going. I just knew that I had to get away from them.

I saw a cab sitting there.

I just got in the back seat, and the driver turned around, and he goes,

the man that escaped from the jail.

I was running out of options. I had to do something.

I had to trust somebody.

And I said, yeah, that's me.

And he said, well, where can I take you? Do you have somewhere to hide?

I just need to get out of the country.

I thought to myself, this is very odd because everybody I've met so far just

wanted to kill me.

I just laid there and I couldn't see where we were going or what we were

At some point, he pulled off the main road and told me, all right, we're here.

Good luck.

I knew that tomorrow was going to be a new day.

and a whole new world was gonna be in front of me.

Escaping was the only way that I was ever gonna get back to life and become a

normal human being again.

I definitely regret the time that I wasted doing

drugs, and it was lost, and I would never get it back again.