Latest / Blood Trails / Paradise Prison: Chapter 2

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Paradise Prison: Chapter 2 · Blood Trails

0:07
Speaker 1: A man is alone in a Caribbean prison. He hasn't
0:10
Speaker 1: hurt anyone, He didn't mean to break the law. He
0:13
Speaker 1: forgot some ammunition in his vacation luggage, and now he's
0:16
Speaker 1: been in a foreign jail cell for four weeks. The
0:19
Speaker 1: US government has refused to intervene. He knows there's no
0:23
Speaker 1: one to watch his back. He also knows that somewhere
0:26
Speaker 1: on his cell block there's a man who's threatened to
0:29
Speaker 1: kill him. So he puts his shoes on before he
0:31
Speaker 1: showers to be prepared for anything. What he doesn't know
0:38
Speaker 1: is that today a guard is going to call his
0:40
Speaker 1: name and send him to the nurses station. But when
0:43
Speaker 1: he gets there, the nurse will be gone.
0:46
Speaker 2: So I walk into the nurses station, there's nobody in there,
0:48
Speaker 2: and I'm like, like, am I about to get killed
0:50
Speaker 2: by somebody?
0:51
Speaker 1: That's next? On Blood Trails. Ryan Watson, Brian Hagrich, and
1:13
Speaker 1: Tyler Wenrick were in trouble. The three American tourists had
1:17
Speaker 1: been arrested in the Caribbean archipelago of Turks and Caicos
1:20
Speaker 1: for possessing forgotten ammunition in their luggage. Ryan had been
1:25
Speaker 1: detained with his wife Valerie, but After two stressful weeks,
1:28
Speaker 1: she'd been allowed to return home. Now, the three husbands
1:32
Speaker 1: and fathers faced over a decade in the Grand Turk Prison,
1:35
Speaker 1: a facility that just one year previously had been deemed
1:39
Speaker 1: not fit for human habitation. If they were going to survive,
1:43
Speaker 1: they needed help from someone who'd already been down that road.
1:48
Speaker 3: We had come by a phone number of a guy
1:49
Speaker 3: named Michael Graham, And the way that we came about
1:52
Speaker 3: it is unexplainable.
1:54
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm confident that it's divine intervention.
1:58
Speaker 1: As you heard in the last episod, Michael Grimm was
2:01
Speaker 1: the first American to be sentenced to prison for possessing
2:04
Speaker 1: ammunition in his carry on luggage. Ryan knew he needed
2:07
Speaker 1: to get in touch with Michael, but he didn't know how.
2:10
Speaker 1: That's when Ryan's father in law sent out a prayer
2:13
Speaker 1: request to his family in Texas, which included one of
2:16
Speaker 1: Valerie's cousins, a guy named.
2:18
Speaker 3: Ash Ash was training to be a firefighter in North
2:21
Speaker 3: Fort Worth. He had stopped to take his gear off.
2:24
Speaker 3: He pulls out his phone and he reads his phone
2:28
Speaker 3: in disbelief, says, my cousin and her husband were just
2:32
Speaker 3: arrested in Terse and Caicos because there was ammunition in
2:35
Speaker 3: their luggage.
2:35
Speaker 4: They're trying to put him in prison.
2:37
Speaker 3: This guy who he doesn't know standing behind him in
2:41
Speaker 3: this fire station in North Fort Worth, Texas like leans
2:44
Speaker 3: over and says, are you messing with me? Ash is like,
2:47
Speaker 3: why would I mess with you about this? And he goes,
2:50
Speaker 3: I'm from Indiana. My best friend is a guy named
2:53
Speaker 3: Michael Grimm. He was the first American to ever get
2:56
Speaker 3: sent to prison for having ammunition in his luggage.
3:00
Speaker 4: Let me put you in touch with him. He just
3:01
Speaker 4: got home two weeks ago.
3:03
Speaker 1: The contingent of Americans who've been arrested in Turks and
3:06
Speaker 1: Caicos is thankfully pretty small. The odds that the cousin
3:10
Speaker 1: of one of those Americans would be in the same
3:13
Speaker 1: fire station at the same time as the best friend
3:16
Speaker 1: of another are about as close to zero as you
3:19
Speaker 1: can get. You can see why Ryan thinks he was
3:22
Speaker 1: benefiting from some interdimensional assistance. But when Ryan finally got
3:27
Speaker 1: a chance to speak with Michael, the former inmate delivered
3:30
Speaker 1: a sobering message.
3:32
Speaker 3: He said, Hey, man, I heard about you. I was
3:36
Speaker 3: praying that you guys would somehow get in touch with me.
3:40
Speaker 3: He said, you're in deep, deep shit, man. And I
3:43
Speaker 3: was like, crap, okay, And I said, man, is it money?
3:48
Speaker 3: I said, do I need to pay somebody off? Is
3:50
Speaker 3: that what this is about?
3:51
Speaker 4: And he said no, man, he said, this isn't about money.
3:54
Speaker 4: He said this is about votes. I was like about votes, Like,
3:57
Speaker 4: what are you talking about.
3:58
Speaker 1: Michael explained that certain factions on the island, especially the
4:02
Speaker 1: influential families in government, had developed a potent anti American sentiment.
4:07
Speaker 1: Commercial development had forced residents inland and increased the cost
4:11
Speaker 1: of living, which created fertile ground for resentment to grow.
4:16
Speaker 1: That historic indignation, combined with the more recent perception that
4:20
Speaker 1: Americans were being given a slap on the wrist for
4:22
Speaker 1: violating the nation's gun laws, created a perfect storm for
4:26
Speaker 1: the latest batch of American offenders. Here's Michael.
4:30
Speaker 2: But the advice that I was given is that I
4:34
Speaker 2: got off easy, right. So like the sentiment when I
4:39
Speaker 2: got home from Oliver, like the attorney and other people
4:42
Speaker 2: on the island, was like, I only got six months,
4:46
Speaker 2: but the next guy is going to get devastated in
4:49
Speaker 2: turkic Caicos. As I learned, there are no rules. They
4:53
Speaker 2: say there are rules there's no rules.
4:56
Speaker 1: Brian was already terrified of being separated from his family
4:59
Speaker 1: for over a decade. Now he had to confront the
5:01
Speaker 1: reality that local prosecutors would try to throw the book
5:04
Speaker 1: at him. He was more desperate than ever to learn
5:07
Speaker 1: what he could from Michael's experience, how he was arrested
5:11
Speaker 1: and sentenced, how he survived his time in prison, and
5:14
Speaker 1: how he eventually escaped.
5:17
Speaker 3: Michael Graham was the first person to ever actually get
5:21
Speaker 3: sentenced to prison.
5:24
Speaker 4: He's truly where this story.
5:26
Speaker 1: Starts, and the story he told was terrifying.
5:30
Speaker 2: I'm watching my back like I'm wearing shorts and my
5:35
Speaker 2: tennis shoes into the shower on the expectation that like
5:39
Speaker 2: I'm about to get jumped in the shower. People were
5:41
Speaker 2: trying to kill me. People were trying to fight me,
5:43
Speaker 2: people are trying to extort me. Like shit is going down.
5:45
Speaker 2: This is not good, Like I need you to call
5:47
Speaker 2: the embassy, like do something please. I'm kind of a
5:49
Speaker 2: one man showing here.
5:51
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Sillers and this is Blood Trails Paradise Prison,
5:56
Speaker 1: Chapter two, Part one, Guilty. Michael Grimm is from southern Indiana.
6:09
Speaker 1: He works for a member of the US Congress, though
6:11
Speaker 1: he wouldn't tell me exactly who. He's also a big
6:14
Speaker 1: gun guy. He's competed in three gun events and on
6:17
Speaker 1: the National Pistol Shooting Circuit. He was an officer at
6:20
Speaker 1: a gun range, and he's trained with military and law
6:23
Speaker 1: enforcement personnel. In the US, a background in shooting and
6:27
Speaker 1: firearms training is often considered a marker of responsible ownership,
6:31
Speaker 1: but in Turks and Caicos, Michael's background, much like Tyler's
6:34
Speaker 1: concealed kerry permit, confirmed to local investigators that they were
6:38
Speaker 1: dealing with a potentially dangerous individual.
6:41
Speaker 2: So as far as Turks and Caicos was concerned, I
6:43
Speaker 2: may as well have just been a single military age
6:46
Speaker 2: male who was showing up with ammunition in their country,
6:50
Speaker 2: and that was their point of concern, and the prosecutor
6:54
Speaker 2: kind of reigned with.
6:54
Speaker 4: That as well.
6:56
Speaker 1: Michael was on vacation with his family and he told
6:58
Speaker 1: me he doesn't remember how that nine millimeter glock magazine
7:01
Speaker 1: ended up in his bag. He normally uses a different
7:04
Speaker 1: bag for his gear and ammunition, and this backpack was
7:07
Speaker 1: dedicated to non gun related items. That's the best system,
7:11
Speaker 1: but obviously it's not fool proof. Somehow, that twenty round
7:15
Speaker 1: magazine still ended up in the wrong bag, despite his
7:18
Speaker 1: family's best advice.
7:20
Speaker 2: Because even my family was like, hey, Michael, maybe double
7:24
Speaker 2: check your stuff to make sure you don't have anything
7:26
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to have. And I was like, haha, guys,
7:28
Speaker 2: very funny.
7:29
Speaker 1: Like Ryan and Brian. Michael was arrested at the airport
7:32
Speaker 1: and taken to the local police station.
7:34
Speaker 2: They were just like, well, we can hold you for
7:37
Speaker 2: a while until we charge you. And I was like, okay,
7:40
Speaker 2: so am I getting charged with the crime? We think
7:43
Speaker 2: we're going to charge you with a crime, but we
7:44
Speaker 2: don't really know yet, like we need to figure that out. Great, okay.
7:49
Speaker 1: Michael admitted to the officers that the nine millimeter cartridges
7:52
Speaker 1: were his, but reiterated that he didn't bring them into
7:54
Speaker 1: the country on purpose.
7:56
Speaker 2: What became a problem was there was this kind of
7:59
Speaker 2: set of like apathy from the law enforcement, where again
8:03
Speaker 2: every cop I interacted with was very much like you
8:07
Speaker 2: really shouldn't be here. Why is this our job? Like
8:10
Speaker 2: why do we have to deal with you? There was
8:12
Speaker 2: immediately followed by the police going yeah, but like somebody
8:17
Speaker 2: up high the rules say like we have to charge
8:19
Speaker 2: you with the crime.
8:21
Speaker 1: Michael had to wait around in a jail cell for
8:23
Speaker 1: three days while they figured it out. In the meantime,
8:25
Speaker 1: he secured the service of attorney Oliver Smith, who explained
8:29
Speaker 1: the seriousness of his situation. Still, Michael had reason to
8:32
Speaker 1: hope that he'd be allowed to leave in a few
8:34
Speaker 1: weeks after paying a fine.
8:37
Speaker 2: At the time of me going through all of this,
8:40
Speaker 2: they had not yet sentenced an American to prison on
8:43
Speaker 2: these charges, So there was no reason to believe that
8:46
Speaker 2: I would end up in prison, if that makes sense,
8:48
Speaker 2: because it was like, no, they've never like Americans have
8:51
Speaker 2: had firearms and ammunition and they haven't gotten prison sentences.
8:57
Speaker 2: They're not going to start with you.
8:59
Speaker 1: But that is he confidence started to fade at Michael's
9:02
Speaker 1: first hearing.
9:04
Speaker 2: So we get to the plea in direction hearing and
9:06
Speaker 2: the wheels started to fall off of my case. In
9:11
Speaker 2: my interrogation with the police officers, they had asked me
9:17
Speaker 2: on the record, did you know that you had the
9:20
Speaker 2: ammunition with you? And I said no, and they said
9:25
Speaker 2: is this your ammunition? And I said yes, like that
9:28
Speaker 2: is my AMMO. I just didn't know I had it
9:30
Speaker 2: in my back. And so the judge in my case
9:34
Speaker 2: immediately latched onto that as trying to force me into
9:39
Speaker 2: a not guilty plea. He refused. Initially, he refused to
9:43
Speaker 2: accept my guilty plea because he says, how can you
9:46
Speaker 2: plead guilty to a crime you didn't know you were committing.
9:50
Speaker 1: This bit of jurisprudence should make all the attorneys out
9:52
Speaker 1: there raise a well compensated eyebrow. Well, it's true that
9:56
Speaker 1: intent is a prerequisite for guilt. According to some statute,
10:00
Speaker 1: the Turks and Caicos Firearms Ordinance isn't one of them.
10:04
Speaker 1: According to that law, a person is guilty merely by
10:06
Speaker 1: possessing ammunition, regardless of whether they possessed it intentionally or knowingly.
10:11
Speaker 1: Michael said his lawyer was just as surprised as he
10:14
Speaker 1: was at the judge's contention.
10:17
Speaker 2: He calls me up and he's like, in order for
10:20
Speaker 2: you to plead guilty, you have to change your statement
10:23
Speaker 2: on the stand and you have to admit that you
10:26
Speaker 2: knew you had the ammunition. It's the only way I
10:28
Speaker 2: will plead guilty. And I was like, whatever, dude, Like okay, sure,
10:35
Speaker 2: Like I don't think that'll materially change the outcome, but
10:38
Speaker 2: I expect it probably will in some very negative and
10:42
Speaker 2: terrible way.
10:43
Speaker 1: Turns out it did. Michael was arrested on August first,
10:48
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and he had to wait until September
10:51
Speaker 1: eighteenth for his sentencing hearing.
10:53
Speaker 2: That weekend, everybody's kind of on nerves because of me,
10:58
Speaker 2: especially because it's like, I don't claim to have like
11:01
Speaker 2: known or like have like divine inspiration, but I had
11:05
Speaker 2: a gut feeling where I was just like, this is
11:07
Speaker 2: not good. Something is not going to go according to plan.
11:11
Speaker 2: The judge is twenty minutes late to the hearing. He
11:15
Speaker 2: immediately gets into my sentence and comments and he says that, well,
11:20
Speaker 2: he does find exceptional circumstances in my case, and then
11:25
Speaker 2: he says the forever burned into my memory. He goes,
11:28
Speaker 2: but I still find that a custodial sentence is mandatory,
11:35
Speaker 2: so essentially saying you don't have to do the twelve years,
11:39
Speaker 2: but you have to do something. And he says that
11:42
Speaker 2: because I retracted my statement on the stand to say
11:48
Speaker 2: that I knew I had knowledge of the ammunition, well
11:52
Speaker 2: that shows that he is irresponsible. He's careless, right, Like
11:56
Speaker 2: he started going down the list of like adjectives for
11:59
Speaker 2: like my behavior, and as a result of all of this,
12:04
Speaker 2: we find that a custodial sentence in prison is good
12:08
Speaker 2: for him.
12:09
Speaker 1: At this point, Michael still had hope that the judge
12:11
Speaker 1: would give him a sentence equal to the number of
12:14
Speaker 1: days he'd already spent in jail, But when the judge
12:17
Speaker 1: started the sentence at five years, he knew that wouldn't happen.
12:21
Speaker 2: Immediately, my heart sank and I remember, just like clear
12:25
Speaker 2: as day, turning and looking behind me and seeing like
12:28
Speaker 2: all of my family there, and their faces are just
12:31
Speaker 2: like a crazy like jaws wide open, people crying like
12:35
Speaker 2: they kind of believe that he just said, like, we're
12:37
Speaker 2: starting at five years.
12:39
Speaker 1: The judge let that hang in the air for a
12:40
Speaker 1: moment and then began reducing Michael's sentence a year or
12:43
Speaker 1: a month at a time. He cited Michael's lack of
12:46
Speaker 1: criminal record, his good standing at his job, and the
12:49
Speaker 1: character references submitted by Michael's friends and family.
12:53
Speaker 2: So he goes through all of this like we're reducing
12:55
Speaker 2: a sentence by x amount because of why, and he
12:58
Speaker 2: settles on and as such, we are giving him a
13:01
Speaker 2: custodial sentence of one year in his Majesty's prison and
13:06
Speaker 2: the court is taking off one third of his sentence
13:10
Speaker 2: because he's like an upstanding citizen. We're going to take
13:13
Speaker 2: off one third of a year. Which settled it like
13:16
Speaker 2: eight months and some change, and he's like, okay, adjourned,
13:20
Speaker 2: like thanks for your time. See an eight months.
13:25
Speaker 1: Michael was obviously devastated, as were his parents and girlfriend,
13:30
Speaker 1: but at the same time, he told me, he also
13:32
Speaker 1: felt oddly relieved.
13:35
Speaker 2: All of the anxiety like disappeared. It was this, it
13:38
Speaker 2: was this feeling of like there's no more guessing, there's
13:40
Speaker 2: no more like not knowing, because it's like, okay, they
13:44
Speaker 2: gave me eight months. Now it's literally just a matter
13:47
Speaker 2: of me running the clock down right.
13:50
Speaker 1: After weeks of waiting and wondering, Michael could finally focus
13:54
Speaker 1: on what was right in front of him. He told
13:56
Speaker 1: me he was actually in a pretty good mood, all
13:59
Speaker 1: things considered, as he was taken back to jail to
14:01
Speaker 1: await his flight to Grand Turk Prison, but he soon
14:05
Speaker 1: realized that he wouldn't be able to run out the
14:07
Speaker 1: clock by keeping his head down and minding his own business.
14:11
Speaker 1: As he was marched across the tarmac to the commercial
14:13
Speaker 1: jet that would take him to Grand Turk Island.
14:16
Speaker 2: I will never forget the look on the crew's face
14:20
Speaker 2: and on the faces of all the people as I
14:23
Speaker 2: like walk shackled up like Hannibal lefter to the very
14:27
Speaker 2: back of the aircraft and find my seat.
14:30
Speaker 1: When later that day he walked up to the large
14:32
Speaker 1: yellow gates of the prison, that unwanted attention ramped up
14:36
Speaker 1: to level ten.
14:38
Speaker 2: Everybody knew everything about me. They knew my full name,
14:42
Speaker 2: my home address, what I did for work, who my
14:45
Speaker 2: girlfriend was, who my parents were, Like everybody did. The inmates,
14:50
Speaker 2: the guards, guys in the yard were like, hey, Michael
14:53
Speaker 2: Grimm is here. The white boys here like yeah, don't
14:56
Speaker 2: you live it like blah blah blah. And I'm like,
14:57
Speaker 2: oh my god, Like this is not Like this is
14:59
Speaker 2: going off the r immediately, like this is not good.
15:01
Speaker 1: The unfortunate fact was that Michael's story had been widely
15:04
Speaker 1: circulated in local media outlets. One headline from a reporter
15:08
Speaker 1: named Wilkie Arthur read quote, Judge stunts sentences irresponsible Indiana
15:14
Speaker 1: tourist to eight months in prison for AMMO possession. Another
15:18
Speaker 1: read quote, Judge sends strong message to those who bring
15:21
Speaker 1: guns to Turks and Caicos Islands. Some on those islands
15:25
Speaker 1: admitted that the punishment didn't fit the crime, but others
15:28
Speaker 1: celebrated the fact that an American was finally going to prison.
15:32
Speaker 1: Here's Ryan explaining what happened in the aftermath of Michael's sentencing.
15:37
Speaker 4: The local families all celebrate.
15:39
Speaker 3: Finally American exceptionalism has ended today, is what the newspaper read.
15:44
Speaker 3: So they are finally scratching this just burning itch that
15:51
Speaker 3: they've had. Oh that's accumulated over the last five decades,
15:55
Speaker 3: with all the American development, the colonial rule that they've
15:58
Speaker 3: been under, to finally be able to stick it to
16:01
Speaker 3: the Americans. Their premier, which is the equivalent of their
16:04
Speaker 3: president's guy, named Charles Nissik, seized this public outcry and
16:09
Speaker 3: he at that point goes to the appellate court and says,
16:12
Speaker 3: I want to make this a twelve year minimum mandatory
16:14
Speaker 3: prison sentence.
16:14
Speaker 4: I'm going to give my people what they want.
16:16
Speaker 1: We reached out to the Turks and Kkos government for
16:19
Speaker 1: comment on this story, but as of this recording, have
16:21
Speaker 1: not received a response. But whatever their motivation, as you
16:25
Speaker 1: heard in the previous episode, the appellate court did rule
16:28
Speaker 1: that some prison time was required for possessing ammunition, even
16:32
Speaker 1: in exceptional circumstances. This is why Michael's case was so
16:36
Speaker 1: relevant to the other Americans, and it's also why these
16:39
Speaker 1: incidents caught the attention not only of local Turks and
16:42
Speaker 1: Caicos media, but of the United States government. If American
16:46
Speaker 1: citizens were being arrested and jailed for what most would
16:49
Speaker 1: consider innocent mistakes, it was the job of the State
16:52
Speaker 1: Department to step in and help. But when that help
16:56
Speaker 1: finally came, those citizens could hardly believe what they were hearing.
17:01
Speaker 1: That's next after the break Part two, Uncle Sam. One
17:19
Speaker 1: of the benefits of being an American citizen is that, theoretically,
17:22
Speaker 1: at least, you have the backing of the world's most
17:25
Speaker 1: powerful nation when you find yourself in trouble in a
17:28
Speaker 1: foreign country. We've all heard stories of State Department diplomats
17:32
Speaker 1: negotiating the release of American hostages, and if that doesn't work,
17:36
Speaker 1: dramatic rescue operations by special forces. If you're an American
17:40
Speaker 1: and you ever find yourself in trouble overseas, you're advised
17:43
Speaker 1: to call the local embassy as soon as possible. One
17:46
Speaker 1: of Michael's first calls after his arrest was to the
17:48
Speaker 1: closest US embassy in Nassau, Bahamas.
17:52
Speaker 2: I call the State Department, and the State Department is
17:56
Speaker 2: immediately unhelpful.
17:58
Speaker 1: The man on the phone explained that while Michael impending
18:00
Speaker 1: conviction wouldn't go on his criminal record in the US,
18:03
Speaker 1: there wasn't anything he could do to intervene.
18:06
Speaker 5: Their UK territory. Like they have real courts and like
18:10
Speaker 5: real prosecutors.
18:12
Speaker 2: Right.
18:12
Speaker 5: This isn't Iran or like Russia where they're just going
18:15
Speaker 5: to make stuff up and like throw you a jail
18:17
Speaker 5: and you'll never be seen again. This is a UK
18:20
Speaker 5: territory they have like a working system of law and order.
18:23
Speaker 5: You broke the law, you're on your own, like good luck, bye.
18:29
Speaker 2: And like hung on.
18:32
Speaker 1: While the State Department insisted on the integrity of the
18:34
Speaker 1: local legal system, navigating it would prove bewildering. What's more,
18:39
Speaker 1: for these families, the shock wasn't just the severity of
18:42
Speaker 1: the charges. It was the realization of how little leverage
18:45
Speaker 1: the American government was willing to exert when a citizen
18:48
Speaker 1: violated a foreign law. Here's Brian, you know, I.
18:52
Speaker 6: Didn't hear from the State departments. I think It was
18:54
Speaker 6: seventy three days until I was into to my detention,
19:00
Speaker 6: but the answers were mostly the same. Here in a
19:02
Speaker 6: foreign country, there's nothing we can do, and I just
19:05
Speaker 6: felt like, Hey, this is just it's falling on deaf years.
19:08
Speaker 1: The embassy was more communicative with Tyler, likely because he
19:11
Speaker 1: was arrested after Ryan and Bryan, but they fed him
19:15
Speaker 1: the same line they told Michael.
19:17
Speaker 7: They weren't very helpful. I mean they basically said that
19:21
Speaker 7: unless they're mistreating Americans or not giving you the accommodations
19:27
Speaker 7: for your health, they can't do anything. Like they have
19:30
Speaker 7: their own laws, we can't intervene or do anything about this.
19:37
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that this situation put the American government
19:39
Speaker 1: in a tough position. Turks and Caicos is a British
19:42
Speaker 1: overseas territory, so any action against the islands could impact
19:47
Speaker 1: our relationship with one of our closest allies. It's also
19:50
Speaker 1: true that Turks and Caicos manages its own affairs. They
19:54
Speaker 1: instituted a law against possessing even a single round of ammunition,
19:58
Speaker 1: and the Americans broke it. If Turks and Caicos officials
20:01
Speaker 1: felt like the US government wasn't respecting their sovereignty. They
20:05
Speaker 1: could make things even worse for the jailed Americans. Those
20:09
Speaker 1: are reasonable arguments, but they're tough to hear from a
20:12
Speaker 1: cockroach infested jail cell. What's more, the law may have
20:16
Speaker 1: been duly passed, but to these Americans, the penalty felt
20:19
Speaker 1: profoundly unjust that they thought should have warranted some kind
20:24
Speaker 1: of action by Uncle Sam. And despite the State Department's claims,
20:28
Speaker 1: they weren't powerless. The Turks and Caicos economy is largely
20:32
Speaker 1: funded by American tourism. If American officials issued a travel
20:36
Speaker 1: advisory warning against vacationing on the islands, the economy would
20:40
Speaker 1: collapse in a matter of months, if not sooner. Even
20:44
Speaker 1: a threat of a travel advisory would likely be enough
20:47
Speaker 1: to get the ball rolling, but much to Ryan's horror,
20:50
Speaker 1: the State Department maintained its hands off position.
20:53
Speaker 3: The State Department under that administration was pushing back on
20:56
Speaker 3: us hard. Nope, we're getting involved. We don't like those
20:59
Speaker 3: Americans are a black eye on our image. We don't
21:02
Speaker 3: want to be associated with that, And so they had
21:06
Speaker 3: completely distanced themselves from US.
21:09
Speaker 1: Ryan didn't cite any specific action State Department officials took
21:12
Speaker 1: that made their situation worse. But among the very limited
21:16
Speaker 1: interactions they had with embassy officials was one that backed
21:19
Speaker 1: up the Americans claims we.
21:21
Speaker 3: Have a consular show up. She requests to meet us
21:25
Speaker 3: at this random deli next to the airport. Brian and
21:28
Speaker 3: I go meet her and we sit down with her,
21:31
Speaker 3: and she kinda starts laughing under her breath, and she stops,
21:39
Speaker 3: and then she starts laughing.
21:40
Speaker 4: Again, and Brian and I are looking at each other
21:42
Speaker 4: like what's going on? This is Madden.
21:44
Speaker 3: We're both like fighting for our lives here and this
21:48
Speaker 3: lady's laughing.
21:50
Speaker 4: And I said, what are you laughing about?
21:52
Speaker 3: She said, well, I've been debating on whether or I
21:55
Speaker 3: should tell you this, but we're all joking. The big
21:59
Speaker 3: joke back in the office this is why did you?
22:01
Speaker 3: Why don't you to just get on a boat and
22:02
Speaker 3: make everybody's lives easier? And I was like, done, Can
22:05
Speaker 3: I get on a boat? Like You're like, this is
22:08
Speaker 3: like I'll get on a boat, And she said, no,
22:11
Speaker 3: you can't get on a boat. She's like it's not
22:13
Speaker 3: a serious option for you guys. She's like, it's just
22:15
Speaker 3: would everybody's it would make everybody's life easier. And I
22:19
Speaker 3: was like, because my life had joked to you right now,
22:22
Speaker 3: and she backed off a bit, so I'm not saying that.
22:26
Speaker 3: She's like, it's just we we it's just how.
22:29
Speaker 4: We joke around the office.
22:30
Speaker 3: I was like, you were joking about us going to
22:34
Speaker 3: prison for the next twelve years.
22:35
Speaker 4: You've got to be kidding me. It pissed me off.
22:39
Speaker 5: To no end.
22:40
Speaker 3: I had a photo of my wife and kids that
22:43
Speaker 3: I'd been keep annoying me at all times, and I
22:46
Speaker 3: pulled it out and I slammed it on the table
22:47
Speaker 3: in front of her, and I was like, I want
22:49
Speaker 3: you to look at those kids and look at my wife.
22:52
Speaker 4: And she.
22:55
Speaker 3: Cut the conversation to a different direction. She's well, I'm
22:58
Speaker 3: just here to do a welfare check. Need medication and
23:01
Speaker 3: I was like, nope. Brian shook his head no, and
23:05
Speaker 3: she said, all right, looks like you guys are healthy,
23:07
Speaker 3: got up and walked out, and I was like wow.
23:12
Speaker 1: I asked Brian about this interaction and he confirmed it at.
23:16
Speaker 2: Least in our cases.
23:17
Speaker 6: I can't speak for others, but clearly working against us
23:20
Speaker 6: and not with us, and that's very difficult to swallows
23:24
Speaker 6: a proud American.
23:25
Speaker 1: Michael had been in touch with the American embassy, but
23:28
Speaker 1: no government official had visited him during his eight weeks
23:31
Speaker 1: on the island.
23:32
Speaker 2: But after his sentencing, while I'm in jail awaiting transport,
23:39
Speaker 2: the State Department shows up. She kind of sat there,
23:42
Speaker 2: like she introduced herself, and then I think like she
23:44
Speaker 2: was like waiting for something, and I was like, can
23:47
Speaker 2: I help you, Like do you need something? Like where
23:49
Speaker 2: were you guys for the last sixty days? Right? And
23:52
Speaker 2: she's like, well, how are you feeling? And I was like,
23:57
Speaker 2: I will never forget because I said. I looked at
23:59
Speaker 2: her and I said, I'm going to fucking prison in
24:02
Speaker 2: a foreign country. I'm okay, I guess I have all
24:08
Speaker 2: my fingers and toes like I don't know. And she goes,
24:11
Speaker 2: he goes, do you think this is funny? And I said,
24:15
Speaker 2: you're asking me if I think this is funny? Like
24:17
Speaker 2: you guys left me behind? What are you talking about?
24:20
Speaker 2: Like you straight up left me behind, like the whole
24:22
Speaker 2: note no man left behind, Like you left me behind?
24:25
Speaker 2: And you're asking me do I think this is funny?
24:28
Speaker 3: No?
24:29
Speaker 1: To Michael, the timing of this visit was troubling to
24:32
Speaker 1: say the least. The official had traveled to the territory
24:35
Speaker 1: from the US Embassy in the Bahamas, yet she was
24:38
Speaker 1: nowhere to be seen during the critical hours of his
24:40
Speaker 1: formal sentencing, hearing you.
24:43
Speaker 2: Happen to be here coincidentally the same day that you
24:46
Speaker 2: knew I was being sentenced, and you didn't come to
24:49
Speaker 2: my sentencing. But I got sentenced and you showed up
24:53
Speaker 2: like two hours after I get to jail. And she goes, well,
24:57
Speaker 2: we were doing some like American Citizens Services, like we're
25:01
Speaker 2: helping some people with their passports and paperwork, and I
25:04
Speaker 2: figured i'd dropped by to check on you, and so
25:06
Speaker 2: I was like, are you here to like advocate for
25:08
Speaker 2: my release? And she goes, well, no, you broke the law.
25:10
Speaker 2: You pled guilty. And I said, okay, in your little notebook,
25:13
Speaker 2: write down whatever you want. I'm going to prison for
25:16
Speaker 2: eight months. And you fucking left me behind, Like, don't
25:19
Speaker 2: ever forget that. I hope you remember this when I
25:21
Speaker 2: come home in a box because I get killed in
25:23
Speaker 2: a foreign prison. And so I was a little heated, like, yeah,
25:25
Speaker 2: unless you're here with some magical paperwork that's going to
25:28
Speaker 2: put me on the next flight to Miami. I'm not
25:31
Speaker 2: interested in these pleasantries that were doing. So she leaves
25:34
Speaker 2: and that was like the last I heard from the
25:36
Speaker 2: State Department.
25:38
Speaker 1: With that, Michael lost his last hope of avoiding what
25:41
Speaker 1: was about to come. Next, he said goodbye to his family,
25:44
Speaker 1: boarded the flight from Provo to Grand Turk, and entered
25:47
Speaker 1: the most surreal and terrifying period of his life. Part
25:57
Speaker 1: three through the Looking Last.
26:01
Speaker 2: I'll never forget, because he goes couple things. In this prison.
26:05
Speaker 2: You will have to fight, So get ready because you're
26:10
Speaker 2: the only white guy, You're the only American. They know
26:14
Speaker 2: who you are and they know you're coming.
26:18
Speaker 1: This was one of the first things Michael was told
26:21
Speaker 1: by the chief deputy of the prison upon his arrival.
26:24
Speaker 2: His name is Crooks. Very ironic. It was not lost
26:28
Speaker 2: on me. Crooks was cool. I got along with Crooks.
26:31
Speaker 2: He was nice.
26:32
Speaker 1: As they sat at the picnic tables that served as
26:34
Speaker 1: a visitation and intake area, Crooks searched through the minimal
26:38
Speaker 1: possessions Michael had brought.
26:40
Speaker 2: Had like a draw string backpack or something that was
26:42
Speaker 2: in there, and he holds it up and he's like,
26:44
Speaker 2: you can't have this, but I'll just keep it in
26:46
Speaker 2: the office until you're released. And I said, Okay, I
26:50
Speaker 2: guess there's no rules, Like I guess I just have
26:52
Speaker 2: that waiting in the office for me. Whatever.
26:55
Speaker 1: Satisfied that the American hadn't tried to smuggle in any
26:58
Speaker 1: weapons or a munition, Crooks began giving Michael the lay
27:02
Speaker 1: of the land, and.
27:03
Speaker 2: He's like, all right, so sorry you're here. Kind of
27:09
Speaker 2: a pain in the ass that you're here, because again,
27:12
Speaker 2: the guards knew, like if I get killed, how fire
27:16
Speaker 2: is going to rain down on these guards.
27:18
Speaker 1: Crooks acknowledged that Michael might be receiving some unwonted attention
27:22
Speaker 1: and it was up to Michael to handle it. But
27:25
Speaker 1: Crooks also said that as long as Michael didn't start
27:27
Speaker 1: the trouble, they'd tried to intervene. If something began to
27:30
Speaker 1: spiral out of control, serious people would be asking serious
27:35
Speaker 1: questions if the American actually ended up dead. This wasn't
27:40
Speaker 1: as reassuring as Michael may have hoped, but Crooks did
27:43
Speaker 1: offer one piece of encouragement on a topic you may
27:46
Speaker 1: have already wondered about.
27:48
Speaker 2: He goes here, he like puts his finger on the table.
27:49
Speaker 2: He goes here. In turks of Caicos, he holds up
27:52
Speaker 2: his hands. He goes, we like women. Okay, that thing
27:56
Speaker 2: you guys do in American prisons. He throws his hands
27:59
Speaker 2: up and he goes, we don't do that here. In
28:01
Speaker 2: my mind, I was like, oh, fake god.
28:04
Speaker 1: Michael was twenty six years old in twenty twenty three.
28:07
Speaker 1: He stood five feet eleven inches tall, but he only
28:10
Speaker 1: weighed one hundred and twenty eight pounds. He'd had some
28:12
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu and boxing training, but he admits he wasn't
28:15
Speaker 1: an expert. If a larger inmate wanted to hurt him,
28:19
Speaker 1: there wasn't a whole lot he'd be able to do
28:21
Speaker 1: about it. But if Crooks was to be believed, he
28:24
Speaker 1: could at least take one kind of assault off the table.
28:27
Speaker 1: Crooks handed Michael a thin mattress which looked more like
28:30
Speaker 1: a yoga mat, and a plastic plate cup and disposable.
28:34
Speaker 2: Fork, and he leans in and he goes, do not
28:37
Speaker 2: lose the fork. And I said, okay, Roger, that message received, Dude.
28:44
Speaker 1: What a just a surreal experience that must have been.
28:47
Speaker 2: Like the entire thing. I was like, yeah, it sucks ass,
28:50
Speaker 2: I'm in prison, but the entire time, like I couldn't
28:52
Speaker 2: I couldn't help but be like this is ridiculous, Like
28:56
Speaker 2: this is just a giant joke. Okay, Like at some
28:59
Speaker 2: point somebody's gonna be like, ah, we gotcha, You've been
29:01
Speaker 2: on the Truman Show. The whole line.
29:03
Speaker 1: Crooks explained that Michael would have to be in solitary
29:05
Speaker 1: confinement for the first two weeks of his stay. This
29:08
Speaker 1: was ostensibly a COVID measure to quarantine potentially sick inmates,
29:13
Speaker 1: but Michael thinks it also served as a conditioning technique.
29:16
Speaker 1: If inmates spent their first two weeks in solitary, they'd
29:19
Speaker 1: be less likely to misbehave in ways that landed them
29:22
Speaker 1: back in that section of the prison.
29:24
Speaker 2: So they kind of lead me through the prison yard
29:27
Speaker 2: kind of around all the wings, and so people that
29:31
Speaker 2: are out in the yard are like on the fence
29:34
Speaker 2: like hey, white boy, Like what's up. Welcome to the jungle,
29:36
Speaker 2: white boy, like call me names and shit, And I
29:39
Speaker 2: was just like, what's up, guys, Like I couldn't think
29:41
Speaker 2: of anything to say, So I was like what's up?
29:44
Speaker 2: Everybody like thinking I would be funny, and everybody was like, hey,
29:48
Speaker 2: you just wait till you get in here with me,
29:50
Speaker 2: Like I'm at and I was like, okay, great, Like
29:52
Speaker 2: nothing I do is gonna change what's about to happen.
29:56
Speaker 1: Tyler Wendrick painted the same picture when he told me
29:58
Speaker 1: about being led back to matt which is what they
30:00
Speaker 1: called the solitary confinement area. Remember, Tyler had opted to
30:04
Speaker 1: go straight to prison instead of trying to make bail.
30:07
Speaker 1: While being held in jail, Tyler walked the same gauntlet
30:10
Speaker 1: Michael did. Just a few months after Michael's release.
30:13
Speaker 7: There was a lot of taunting walking up to that
30:16
Speaker 7: right area of building where I was going to be at,
30:18
Speaker 7: you know, the whole because it was mostly African American
30:22
Speaker 7: people likes you know, oh white boy, and you know
30:24
Speaker 7: all that kind of taunting, which I mean I wasn't
30:26
Speaker 7: used to. I mean, that's not something that you're used
30:28
Speaker 7: to on a daily basis, So I didn't really know
30:30
Speaker 7: what to think. I was just trying to ignore them
30:32
Speaker 7: and stay out of the way.
30:34
Speaker 1: Michael isn't sure if he and Tyler stayed in the
30:36
Speaker 1: same cell, but all the cells in the prison shared
30:39
Speaker 1: similar dimensions and layout. Michael estimates that it was five
30:43
Speaker 1: feet wide and nine or ten feet deep. He obviously
30:46
Speaker 1: didn't have a tape measure, but in another ironic coincidence,
30:50
Speaker 1: he did have Alexander Solzenitson's famous text Goolag Archipelago.
30:55
Speaker 2: To pass time. I was like, let's measure the cell.
30:57
Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, it's like it's like fifteen
31:00
Speaker 2: Goolag Archipela goes long like whatever, and so yeah, I
31:03
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know what that translates to.
31:05
Speaker 1: Unlike American prisons, which benefit from central heating and cooling,
31:09
Speaker 1: the cells in Grand Turk Prison are about two stories tall.
31:12
Speaker 1: This is theoretically designed to keep the air circulating and
31:15
Speaker 1: control the temperature, but Michael says it was still unbearably hot.
31:20
Speaker 2: It's a metal and concrete building that is suffocatingly dense.
31:26
Speaker 2: It just sits and bakes in the one hundred and
31:27
Speaker 2: ten degree heat all day. It's hotter in the building
31:31
Speaker 2: than it is outside. And there's one window up on
31:34
Speaker 2: the corner of the wall of the cell, and it's
31:37
Speaker 2: probably like two feet by two feet, and it's just
31:41
Speaker 2: got like literally like iron bars in the middle of it,
31:45
Speaker 2: and so you can literally climb up on your toilet
31:47
Speaker 2: and you can sit there if you want to, like
31:49
Speaker 2: Jack's barrow, with your face out the window.
31:51
Speaker 7: It was hot, so you know, you have the choice
31:54
Speaker 7: of either shutting that shutter and burning up, or keeping
31:57
Speaker 7: it open to let.
31:57
Speaker 1: Some air through and getting eaten up by mosquitoes. There
32:00
Speaker 1: was a water spigot in each cell along with a toilet,
32:03
Speaker 1: but the water wasn't for drinking. Instead, inmates had to
32:06
Speaker 1: fill up a five gallon bucket and dump it in
32:08
Speaker 1: the back of the toilet so it would flush. Those
32:11
Speaker 1: buckets also served as storage containers, and according to michael
32:15
Speaker 1: status symbols, I.
32:17
Speaker 2: Always like laugh when I tell the story because it's
32:19
Speaker 2: like a man is nothing without his five gallon bucket
32:22
Speaker 2: at HMP Grand Turk, right, Like the measure of a
32:25
Speaker 2: man is like how many buckets does he have? Because
32:29
Speaker 2: there was no storage either, and so we were allowed
32:32
Speaker 2: to have five gallon buckets to like keep clothes and
32:36
Speaker 2: stuff in.
32:37
Speaker 1: Completing the bizarre nightmare of Michael's first prison cell, was
32:41
Speaker 1: a giant mural on one of the walls, and it.
32:43
Speaker 2: Was a massive mural of a woman with her legs
32:48
Speaker 2: spread wide open, and then there were like messages that
32:51
Speaker 2: like people had like written like all around it on
32:55
Speaker 2: the wall. And so I'm sitting there and I'm like great,
32:59
Speaker 2: this is so like I'm this is like crazy again surreal,
33:03
Speaker 2: like okay, I guess this is my cell.
33:08
Speaker 1: He had plenty of time to get to know his
33:09
Speaker 1: new surroundings. His schedule those first two weeks consisted of
33:13
Speaker 1: twenty three hours in his cell and one hour out
33:16
Speaker 1: in the yard. In that one hour, Michael had to
33:18
Speaker 1: wash and dry his clothes as well as the dishes
33:21
Speaker 1: he used to eat. This was also his first chance
33:24
Speaker 1: to interact with the other inmates in MAX, who in
33:26
Speaker 1: this case were exclusively Haitians.
33:29
Speaker 2: Would just like hang out in the yard. The guards
33:32
Speaker 2: and the Haitians that were in there with me would
33:36
Speaker 2: go out and they would play dominoes on the picnic table.
33:39
Speaker 2: And so the Haitians who did not speak English, they
33:42
Speaker 2: taught me how to play dominoes because they'd be like no, no, no, no,
33:45
Speaker 2: like let me show you, right, And so they taught
33:46
Speaker 2: me how to play dominoes.
33:48
Speaker 1: Tyler's first interaction with his fellow inmates was somewhat more frightening.
33:53
Speaker 7: I got threatened by one prisoner right off the bat.
33:57
Speaker 7: Basically the first night he was like, you know, wait
33:59
Speaker 7: till tomorrow morning, you know, you know, beat you up.
34:02
Speaker 7: And you know, just talking about, you know, the white
34:05
Speaker 7: guy that's in here going to beat the crap out
34:07
Speaker 7: of you.
34:08
Speaker 1: Those threats turned out to be empty, and Tyler says
34:10
Speaker 1: one of the other inmates, a guy named Louis, was
34:13
Speaker 1: kind and helpful. But it didn't take many days in
34:16
Speaker 1: his Majesty's prison for bail to start looking a lot
34:19
Speaker 1: more attractive.
34:20
Speaker 7: The first day and Dad was actually able to visit
34:24
Speaker 7: me that day, and he had already started talking to
34:32
Speaker 7: some people, and he said that I needed to get
34:35
Speaker 7: out and start trying to fight for myself. You know,
34:39
Speaker 7: staying in the prison was not the best option because
34:41
Speaker 7: there was people doing things to try to.
34:43
Speaker 1: Help, Tyler says. The judge initially tried to raise the
34:46
Speaker 1: bail amount, which delayed his release, but eventually they were
34:50
Speaker 1: able to wire the funds to the island and Tyler
34:52
Speaker 1: was allowed to leave.
34:54
Speaker 7: Finally, it went through intension of wanting to get out
34:56
Speaker 7: because you're just miserable and you just want that piece
34:59
Speaker 7: of and you're still stuck here, but at least you're
35:01
Speaker 7: not in this confined, terrible place.
35:04
Speaker 1: Tyler didn't know if he'd be returning, but at least
35:06
Speaker 1: he was able to reconnect with his family. Michael wasn't
35:09
Speaker 1: so lucky. He knew he'd have to eventually leave solitary
35:12
Speaker 1: and join the general prison population. That transition opened up
35:16
Speaker 1: a whole new set of threats for the only American
35:19
Speaker 1: in Grand Turk Prison. Part four, Daily Insanity.
35:31
Speaker 2: They took me to gen Pop. I was in Gen Pop.
35:34
Speaker 2: They put me in the cell with literally the biggest
35:36
Speaker 2: guy in the prison, So that was awesome.
35:39
Speaker 1: Michael estimates that this guy was about six foot seven
35:42
Speaker 1: and just shy of three hundred pounds.
35:44
Speaker 2: If he wants to kill me, he's just gonna pick
35:46
Speaker 2: me up in the middle of the night and smashed
35:47
Speaker 2: me against the wall and I'm gonna die. He was
35:49
Speaker 2: known for having anger issues, and so I was like,
35:53
Speaker 2: I think they're trying to get me killed.
35:55
Speaker 1: Fortunately, Michael said he never had a problem with his
35:57
Speaker 1: first cellmate. He even had a chance to be helpful.
36:00
Speaker 2: He had a business plan for a septic tank truck,
36:04
Speaker 2: and he was like, well, you went to college, right,
36:05
Speaker 2: And I was like yeah, and he's like, well, can
36:08
Speaker 2: you take a look at my business plan. I saw
36:10
Speaker 2: it as an opportunity to be like yeah, I was thinking, oh,
36:13
Speaker 2: your business plan, how about you don't beat me to
36:15
Speaker 2: death in my sleep, and he's like, yeah, dude, I
36:17
Speaker 2: got you back. Like, if you take a look at this,
36:19
Speaker 2: I was like cool.
36:20
Speaker 5: Great.
36:20
Speaker 1: Michael says he expected some of these requests. I'll uh
36:23
Speaker 1: Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption, but he didn't survive by
36:27
Speaker 1: doing everyone's taxes. Instead, he acted as a kind of
36:30
Speaker 1: Switzerland in the prison's larger racial and gang based dynamics.
36:35
Speaker 2: About fifty percent hait. The other fifty percent was kind
36:38
Speaker 2: of like all the other islands in the Caribbean, predominantly Jamaicans, Bohemians,
36:45
Speaker 2: Turks Islanders, and then a handful of Dominicans, and then
36:49
Speaker 2: I rounded out the bell curve as like the white guy.
36:53
Speaker 2: So it wasn't a problem because I wasn't associated with
36:56
Speaker 2: any gangs like in America our prisons are, like we
36:59
Speaker 2: have racial gangs right down there. I'm the only white dude.
37:04
Speaker 2: I took a very neutral stance to everybody where. I
37:07
Speaker 2: was like, I'm here to do my time. I'm not
37:09
Speaker 2: here to get involved in your bullshit or whatever you
37:11
Speaker 2: got going on in your cell. Like I was very
37:13
Speaker 2: like Swiss in how I did it. Like I just
37:16
Speaker 2: was like I am. I have no problems with anybody.
37:19
Speaker 1: Now, this doesn't mean he escaped all conflict, and we'll
37:22
Speaker 1: get to a serious example of that in a minute.
37:25
Speaker 1: But he also had to deal with a kind of
37:27
Speaker 1: daily absurdity that made him wonder whether he should laugh
37:31
Speaker 1: or despair. For example, the beds in the cells were
37:35
Speaker 1: nothing more than concrete slabs sticking out of the walls.
37:38
Speaker 1: The beds protruded in a kind of bunk style, with
37:41
Speaker 1: a higher and lower slab in each cell. The top
37:44
Speaker 1: bunk was usually cooler at night, but it was also
37:47
Speaker 1: about seven feet off the ground and only a couple
37:50
Speaker 1: feet wide.
37:51
Speaker 2: And so while I was in a dude actually had
37:55
Speaker 2: a seizure on the top bunk and he rolled out
37:58
Speaker 2: of the bed and he broke both of his arms
38:01
Speaker 2: and one of his collar bones, and like had to
38:05
Speaker 2: be taking the hospital and stuff, and like the guards
38:07
Speaker 2: wouldn't come get him in the middle of the night
38:09
Speaker 2: and all this other bullshit. That was just like kind
38:12
Speaker 2: of the daily insanity of like being in the prison, right, Like,
38:16
Speaker 2: that's just like the shit that went down.
38:19
Speaker 1: Michael says the food was edible. Eight months of sitting
38:22
Speaker 1: around actually allowed him to gain some weight. But while
38:26
Speaker 1: some dishes were enjoyable, others were so bad that the
38:29
Speaker 1: inmates skipped the meal entirely.
38:32
Speaker 2: Wednesday was Vienna sausages in red sauce, and the red
38:37
Speaker 2: sauce had the consistency of like grease, like it was
38:42
Speaker 2: like a red grease, like I don't know what kind
38:45
Speaker 2: of sauce it was, because it wasn't tomato sauce. It
38:49
Speaker 2: had the consistency of like pancake syrup, but it was red,
38:53
Speaker 2: and it had no flavor. And when you got it
38:57
Speaker 2: on your hands, it was like it was like motor oil,
39:01
Speaker 2: like you couldn't get it off.
39:03
Speaker 1: Not every meal was this bad. Saturday they served chicken
39:06
Speaker 1: that the inmates referred to as jail fried chicken or JFC.
39:10
Speaker 2: Wanda, one of the cooks, one of the civilian cooks,
39:14
Speaker 2: would come in and she I'll never forget because I
39:17
Speaker 2: heard her in the kitchen loudly saying I'm seasoning until
39:21
Speaker 2: the spirits tell me to stop. And I was like, Wanda,
39:25
Speaker 2: you're after my own heart.
39:28
Speaker 1: The fried chicken was pretty good, but Michael says some
39:30
Speaker 1: of the inmates still tried to supplement their calorie intake
39:33
Speaker 1: in other ways. Content warning here for all the cat
39:37
Speaker 1: people out there.
39:38
Speaker 2: There were a bunch of feral cats that roamed the prison.
39:43
Speaker 2: You want to talk about hunting. So the Haitians would
39:45
Speaker 2: catch the cats and then they would use the lids
39:50
Speaker 2: of like soup cans to skin like field dress the
39:54
Speaker 2: cat like skin cat feel dress it real quick. I
39:56
Speaker 2: never saw it that I heard them doing it, and
39:59
Speaker 2: then I asked one of them, because again I'm bored.
40:02
Speaker 2: I asked one of the Haitians like, hey, like, how
40:04
Speaker 2: do you feel dressed a cat? And so it's he
40:06
Speaker 2: demonstrated it. He just kind of like showed me the
40:08
Speaker 2: hand motion, and it's like feel dressing a rabbit. And
40:11
Speaker 2: then what they would do is they would try to
40:13
Speaker 2: find all sorts of weird ingenious ways to cook the cats.
40:18
Speaker 2: And so one time what they tried to do was
40:22
Speaker 2: to take the wiring off of the wall, strip it down,
40:26
Speaker 2: and then basically like broil the cat like it's a
40:29
Speaker 2: car battery, and it like stunk up the whole place.
40:32
Speaker 2: This was not my take it a way a grain
40:34
Speaker 2: of salt, because this is not my wing. But I heard,
40:36
Speaker 2: like one of the guards was talking about it, and
40:39
Speaker 2: I'm like, you gotta be kidding me, because we could
40:40
Speaker 2: all smell it and we could hear it going down,
40:43
Speaker 2: and we were like, what the fuck is going on
40:45
Speaker 2: over there? And it's like, oh, yeah, they caught a
40:47
Speaker 2: cat and they'll try to like broil it alive. It's
40:49
Speaker 2: kind of like the daily picture of like the daily
40:53
Speaker 2: insanity that was just like every single day something is
40:56
Speaker 2: happening like that.
40:58
Speaker 1: Michael was able to stay away from much of this
41:00
Speaker 1: insanity in Gen Pop, but not all of it. And
41:03
Speaker 1: this is where things started to get serious.
41:06
Speaker 2: So I had been in Gen Pop, they moved me
41:08
Speaker 2: out of the big Dude's cell into someone else's cell.
41:13
Speaker 1: Michael's new cell mate was a guy named Smiley, which
41:16
Speaker 1: isn't really important to the story, but obviously something I
41:19
Speaker 1: wanted to mention. Michael had been in the prison for
41:21
Speaker 1: about four weeks and he'd been in Smiley's cell for
41:24
Speaker 1: about five days when another inmate walked in. This guy's
41:28
Speaker 1: name was Middle, which was shortened from Middle East, though
41:31
Speaker 1: Michael isn't sure why they called him that either.
41:34
Speaker 2: And Middle was kind of like the muscle on the block.
41:36
Speaker 2: But he was also like I was already small, right,
41:39
Speaker 2: he was smaller than I was but he had a
41:41
Speaker 2: really big head for like not a lot of a body.
41:44
Speaker 2: He was a very like he's very sinewy guy. Right,
41:47
Speaker 2: he's very stringy dude. And so Middle came in and
41:50
Speaker 2: he said, here's what you're gonna do. We're gonna bring
41:53
Speaker 2: you the phone, you're gonna call your family. You're gonna
41:57
Speaker 2: give us twenty thousand dollars, or we're gonna kill you
42:01
Speaker 2: in the shower.
42:02
Speaker 1: In this moment, Michael had to make a choice, and
42:05
Speaker 1: he didn't have much time. He wasn't sure how seriously
42:08
Speaker 1: to take Middle's threat. The other inmate was clearly high
42:12
Speaker 1: and again not a large person, but he was also
42:15
Speaker 1: in prison on a murder charge. Even more concerning, Michael
42:19
Speaker 1: didn't know whether Middle was acting alone or on behalf
42:22
Speaker 1: of other scarier people. It would have been safer in
42:25
Speaker 1: the moment to mollify the man, but if he allowed
42:28
Speaker 1: himself to be extorted once, who knows where it would end.
42:32
Speaker 2: So I stand up and he like, we're kind of
42:34
Speaker 2: facing each other, and I said, I looked him in
42:37
Speaker 2: the eye and I said, no, I'm not doing that.
42:41
Speaker 2: And so he I think because he was moving in
42:44
Speaker 2: slow motion because he had just smoked a lot, right,
42:49
Speaker 2: he takes the world's most telegraphed swing and it was
42:53
Speaker 2: like almost in slow motion, and so I immediately just
42:58
Speaker 2: like came up and just jabbed him right in the
43:02
Speaker 2: side of the neck. I'm not a professional fighter. I'm
43:05
Speaker 2: just a dude who's like taking some boxing glasses.
43:08
Speaker 4: That's it.
43:09
Speaker 2: And so I immediately just jabbed him right in the
43:12
Speaker 2: throat as hard as I could. When I hit him,
43:15
Speaker 2: I felt this like pain shoot up my arm, and
43:18
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, Like I just I'm
43:19
Speaker 2: a scrawny dude. I like there's not a lot of
43:21
Speaker 2: power in my fight. But I had to have thrown
43:23
Speaker 2: like the hardest punch I have ever thrown, and it
43:27
Speaker 2: slumped him, like it just took the fight out of him,
43:30
Speaker 2: and he just went down and he like fell to
43:34
Speaker 2: his knees, rolled over, and he on all fours scurried
43:40
Speaker 2: out of the cell.
43:41
Speaker 1: This interaction went about as well as Michael could have hoped,
43:45
Speaker 1: but now he had a new problem. So the next
43:47
Speaker 1: day he called his attorney.
43:49
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I gotta watch my fucking back because
43:53
Speaker 2: I middles the muscle in the cell and I'm screwed,
43:56
Speaker 2: Like it's over for me. I'm gonna get killed, like
43:58
Speaker 2: I have started a chaine of events that I is
44:00
Speaker 2: no longer in my control.
44:01
Speaker 1: Oliver said he'd tried to take care of things, but
44:04
Speaker 1: it would take some time time that Michael wasn't sure
44:07
Speaker 1: he had.
44:08
Speaker 2: I'm watching my back like I'm wearing shorts and my
44:12
Speaker 2: tennis shoes into the shower on the expectation that like
44:16
Speaker 2: I'm about to get jumped in the shower, like that
44:19
Speaker 2: was the joke. Do not talk to the dude with
44:20
Speaker 2: the shoes in the shower because he's there for business,
44:23
Speaker 2: right like he's there to fight.
44:25
Speaker 1: The very next day, Michael's family came for their first visit.
44:29
Speaker 2: And I'm like shaking and I'm explaining to them like
44:32
Speaker 2: people are trying to kill me. People were trying to
44:33
Speaker 2: fight me, people are trying to extort me, Like shit
44:35
Speaker 2: is going down? This is it not good? Like I
44:37
Speaker 2: need you to call the embassy, like do something please,
44:39
Speaker 2: I'm kind of a one man showing here. Nobody's really
44:41
Speaker 2: like helping me whatever.
44:43
Speaker 1: They also said they'd tried to help, but given the
44:45
Speaker 1: State Department's handling of the situation so far, Michael didn't
44:49
Speaker 1: have much confidence. He spent another stressful twenty four hours
44:52
Speaker 1: hiding out in his cell until the next morning when
44:56
Speaker 1: the guards called him up to the front of the wing.
44:58
Speaker 2: So they shout for me, like hey, like Michael, like
45:01
Speaker 2: get the get the white boy, Get the white boy.
45:02
Speaker 2: So I come in. I'm like hey, what's up. And
45:05
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, the nurse needs you. And I was
45:08
Speaker 2: like fuck, Like what now, Like what do you mean
45:11
Speaker 2: the nurse needs Like okay, whatever. So they're like, yeah,
45:13
Speaker 2: get a shirt on, like the nurse needs you. Let's go.
45:16
Speaker 1: The problem was Michael hadn't asked to see the nurse.
45:19
Speaker 1: He hadn't been injured in the fight, so he couldn't help.
45:22
Speaker 1: But wonder if this was a pretext for something on
45:24
Speaker 1: the opposite end of the spectrum for medical care.
45:28
Speaker 2: And so I walk in, there's nobody in there, and
45:31
Speaker 2: I'm like, am I about? Like am I about to
45:34
Speaker 2: get killed by somebody? Like I'm expecting like The Godfather
45:38
Speaker 2: where he walks into the room and he's like, oh,
45:40
Speaker 2: where is everybody to shoot him in the back of
45:41
Speaker 2: the head. So I walk in and I'm like, shit,
45:44
Speaker 2: like where is everybody?
45:47
Speaker 1: What Michael found in the supply closet of the nurses
45:50
Speaker 1: room is after the break Stay with Us Part five
46:00
Speaker 1: Read good story. As Michael looked around the empty nurses room,
46:04
Speaker 1: stealing himself for what was about to happen, he saw
46:07
Speaker 1: something move out of the corner of his eye.
46:09
Speaker 2: The door to the supply closet opens and Crooks steps out,
46:13
Speaker 2: and he goes, hey, come here real quick, don't let
46:15
Speaker 2: anybody see you. And so I'm like, oh fuck, So
46:17
Speaker 2: I like run in the supply closet. So Kurks like
46:20
Speaker 2: pulls me in and he shuts the door. He like
46:21
Speaker 2: leans and he's all right, here's the deal. We heard
46:24
Speaker 2: about your little altercation. You stood up for yourself. It's fine,
46:28
Speaker 2: Like that's no problems, but we're gonna have to transfer
46:32
Speaker 2: you to like a different wing. And he's like, we
46:35
Speaker 2: can't let people know that because you got in a fight.
46:39
Speaker 2: We're moving you because otherwise people will start fighting each
46:42
Speaker 2: other thinking they're going to get moved.
46:43
Speaker 1: Right, the other inmates might want to be moved, Crooks explained,
46:47
Speaker 1: because Michael was about to get an upgrade. This was
46:50
Speaker 1: the reason for the cloak and dagger routine. Crooks had
46:53
Speaker 1: decided to quietly transfer Michael to a maximum security wing
46:56
Speaker 1: of the prison, but he didn't want anyone else to know.
47:00
Speaker 1: This section housed the prison's worst offenders, murderers, violent thieves,
47:05
Speaker 1: and anyone else serving serious time in His Majesty's prison.
47:09
Speaker 1: This might not sound like the recipe for a positive
47:12
Speaker 1: living environment, but as Michael explained, it was.
47:16
Speaker 2: The attitude was different. So they were like, they were
47:19
Speaker 2: all like, this is just my apartment, Like I just
47:21
Speaker 2: live here, Like I want to keep it clean. I
47:24
Speaker 2: want to like take care of it. You're kind of
47:25
Speaker 2: in my house right now. The general attitude like they
47:28
Speaker 2: were a little bit more well behaved, and they were
47:30
Speaker 2: just generally like they were easier to get along with.
47:33
Speaker 2: They were more reasonable people.
47:35
Speaker 1: Michael had been hoping to get moved to this long
47:37
Speaker 1: term tier, and now it looked like his fight with
47:39
Speaker 1: Middle had unintentionally accomplished what he was hoping for.
47:44
Speaker 2: So they were like, congratulations on beating like the wing boss.
47:46
Speaker 2: You get like an upgrade in your living editions. I
47:48
Speaker 2: was like sick.
47:50
Speaker 1: Michael told me his transfer to this block was the
47:52
Speaker 1: turning point in his time at the Grand Turk Prison.
47:56
Speaker 2: Once I got settled, every day was pretty much the same.
48:01
Speaker 2: It was like groundhog Day, but like the food changed,
48:03
Speaker 2: the weather sucked, the mosquitoes ate you alive.
48:06
Speaker 1: But that drudgery also came with a certain level of
48:09
Speaker 1: peace he hadn't experienced in the other wings of the prison.
48:13
Speaker 2: The people problem started to go away. I started to
48:16
Speaker 2: make friends, Guys started to know they can like Michael's
48:20
Speaker 2: not a snitch, Like I'm not worried about somebody running
48:23
Speaker 2: up and like stabbing me in the back or whatever.
48:26
Speaker 2: I was more worried that the prison or the government
48:30
Speaker 2: of Turks and Caicos were going to start playing games
48:33
Speaker 2: with me as I was getting closer and closer to
48:36
Speaker 2: my release date.
48:38
Speaker 1: Michael was scheduled to be released in February of twenty
48:40
Speaker 1: twenty four, just a few weeks after Brian was arrested.
48:44
Speaker 1: There was a mix up with his passport and he
48:46
Speaker 1: spent a good deal of time and mental anxiety trying
48:49
Speaker 1: to confirm that the Turks and Keikos government still had
48:52
Speaker 1: it and was willing to give it back to him.
48:54
Speaker 1: He eventually got that sorted out, only to be confronted
48:57
Speaker 1: with a new problem.
48:58
Speaker 2: But a week before my release was when everything started
49:02
Speaker 2: to rapidly fall apart.
49:04
Speaker 1: The Turks and Caicos immigration authority showed up at the
49:07
Speaker 1: prison and gave Michael a deportation order. This might sound
49:11
Speaker 1: like a good thing for someone who really wanted to
49:13
Speaker 1: get off the islands, but it wasn't.
49:16
Speaker 2: The problem, as it was explained to me, is that
49:20
Speaker 2: they wouldn't just let me take that paper and go
49:23
Speaker 2: board a flight home. They would have to take me
49:26
Speaker 2: to a deportation center on a different island, where they
49:31
Speaker 2: would then keep me for an indefinite period of time
49:35
Speaker 2: until they arranged my travel back to the United States.
49:40
Speaker 2: And so that was a major issue. I feel like
49:43
Speaker 2: my head is just getting wrung out trying to keep
49:46
Speaker 2: myself saying in here and now you're telling me we
49:49
Speaker 2: may have to possibly keep you another six months, but
49:52
Speaker 2: we really don't know. We'll have to see what happens
49:54
Speaker 2: when you walk out the front gate. Like we can't
49:56
Speaker 2: give you a definitive answer.
49:58
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've been able to tell. But
50:00
Speaker 1: Michael is the kind of guy who tries to make
50:02
Speaker 1: the best of a bad situation. He approached his time
50:05
Speaker 1: in prison with a kind of dry humor that I
50:08
Speaker 1: don't think many people would have been able to pull off.
50:11
Speaker 1: But this news just a week before his release was
50:14
Speaker 1: a bridge too far, even for him.
50:17
Speaker 2: I remember going back to my cell and I like
50:21
Speaker 2: kind of crouched down and I just was like, God,
50:26
Speaker 2: if you are out there, I'm just lodging a complaint, Okay,
50:30
Speaker 2: Like I've kind of had enough, So like, if you're listening,
50:35
Speaker 2: just lodging a complaint with the big man upstairs, Like
50:39
Speaker 2: throw me a bone here.
50:41
Speaker 1: The big man apparently got the message, because about five
50:44
Speaker 1: hours later, the Immigration Office issued a new letter reversing
50:47
Speaker 1: the previous order and giving Michael what's called an unconditional release.
50:52
Speaker 1: After what Michael describes as the single longest week of
50:55
Speaker 1: his life, that day finally came on February twenty second,
50:59
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. He didn't eat breakfast, as per prison
51:02
Speaker 1: tradition for those being released. He also took his spoon
51:06
Speaker 1: and fork with him, because, as per another prison tradition,
51:09
Speaker 1: if he left them there, he might be back for them.
51:13
Speaker 1: When nine am finally rolled around, Crooks and the other
51:15
Speaker 1: prison guards couldn't help reviving a long standing joke with
51:18
Speaker 1: their first American tourist inmate.
51:21
Speaker 2: You know, the kind of sick joke that all the
51:24
Speaker 2: excuse me that all the police officers and even the
51:26
Speaker 2: courts and the prison guards were saying the entire time,
51:30
Speaker 2: from when I initially got brought into the police station
51:33
Speaker 2: all the way through the day, literally the morning of
51:35
Speaker 2: my release. The joke was like, Okay, well we'll see
51:39
Speaker 2: you next year, like sorry for the inconvenience, but like
51:42
Speaker 2: we'll see you when you come back next year, like
51:44
Speaker 2: hope you cash in your sandals rewards or whatever.
51:47
Speaker 1: Michael's family was there to meet him as he walked
51:49
Speaker 1: back through those giant yellow gates, but even in this
51:53
Speaker 1: joyous moment, he says, the weirdness didn't stop.
51:56
Speaker 2: The immigration guy. He looks at all of us and
51:58
Speaker 2: he's like, is there anything you got want to do
52:00
Speaker 2: before you leave? And I was like, what the fuck
52:05
Speaker 2: are you talking about? Like I remember feeling I felt
52:08
Speaker 2: like I was just like a madman. I felt like
52:10
Speaker 2: I was just like wide eyed like Doc Brown, where
52:13
Speaker 2: I was like what are you talking? Like what do
52:14
Speaker 2: you mean? Is there anything I want to do? Like
52:15
Speaker 2: I want to go I want to go home. And
52:17
Speaker 2: he goes he's like, well, like do you want to
52:18
Speaker 2: go get breakfast? Like do you want to go down
52:20
Speaker 2: to the beach for a little bit, like I have
52:22
Speaker 2: to escort you. This is all I'm doing today, Like
52:25
Speaker 2: we can you know, I just have to go with you.
52:27
Speaker 2: And I was like no, no, no, I want to
52:30
Speaker 2: get on the fucking plane, Like I want to go
52:31
Speaker 2: on a fucking plane, Like take me to the airport, please,
52:34
Speaker 2: for the love of God, take me to the airport.
52:36
Speaker 1: They arrived at the airport and made it through security, where,
52:39
Speaker 1: believe it or not, airport officials confiscated Michael's water bottle,
52:43
Speaker 1: but he eventually made his way onto the plane.
52:46
Speaker 2: We get on the plane, the pilots are like, once
52:49
Speaker 2: we shut the door, we cannot open it and we
52:51
Speaker 2: have to go to the United States. Great, so we
52:56
Speaker 2: have a very quiet flight home. I remember I cried
53:00
Speaker 2: on the plane.
53:01
Speaker 1: Once he arrived on US soil and passed through customs
53:04
Speaker 1: and border patrol, he knew he was finally safe.
53:07
Speaker 2: So I got down on my knees and I like
53:09
Speaker 2: kissed the ground and I was like I'm back in America,
53:12
Speaker 2: Like yeah, let's go, let's go, like we're back in America.
53:16
Speaker 2: From there, flew back to Indiana. By two pm that day,
53:20
Speaker 2: I was at home on the ground, so it was
53:23
Speaker 2: just a wild It was just a wild day of
53:25
Speaker 2: like I woke up in prison in a foreign country.
53:28
Speaker 2: By lunchtime, I'm home.
53:30
Speaker 1: You might be wondering if Michael experienced any negative mental
53:33
Speaker 1: health effects from his time in prison. Michael says his
53:36
Speaker 1: family fully expected to be helping him work through some
53:39
Speaker 1: level of PTSD, but they were happily surprised to find
53:43
Speaker 1: that he'd coped with his incarceration better than anyone could
53:46
Speaker 1: have hoped. I asked Michael why that was, and here's
53:49
Speaker 1: what he said.
53:50
Speaker 2: I talked to several professionals about it, and they and
53:53
Speaker 2: it was like it was an agency thing. Like even
53:56
Speaker 2: when it was like my passport doesn't exist, the US
53:59
Speaker 2: govern has literally left me behind. My family's sixteen hundred
54:04
Speaker 2: miles away back in Indiana. I'm still in control of me,
54:09
Speaker 2: Like I'm still in control of how I feel every
54:11
Speaker 2: single day, Like even sitting in a ford in prison,
54:14
Speaker 2: I'm like, we're gonna go have some fun today. You
54:16
Speaker 2: know what, The sun's not out today. It's kind of cloudy.
54:19
Speaker 2: Like that's kind of nice. Like it was hot as
54:21
Speaker 2: fuck yesterday, Like it's kind of nice. Some people say
54:24
Speaker 2: that's like you're diluting yourself. It's like, no, I am
54:26
Speaker 2: in control at all times of how I feel. I
54:30
Speaker 2: have a mentor, a gentleman very close to me who
54:33
Speaker 2: I look up to, I respect deeply, and he always
54:37
Speaker 2: would say, every good story sucks to make. Right, So
54:41
Speaker 2: I kind of said that to myself as I was
54:43
Speaker 2: going through this experience, where I was like, hey, man,
54:48
Speaker 2: every good story sucks to make. One day, this is
54:50
Speaker 2: gonna be a really good story.
55:00
Speaker 1: In the end, Michael served one hundred and fifty six
55:03
Speaker 1: days in prison, a shorter term than the judge ruled
55:06
Speaker 1: thanks to Michael's good behavior. But what if he'd been
55:09
Speaker 1: forced to stay in the prison for years instead of months.
55:12
Speaker 1: What if he hadn't gotten moved to the privileged wing
55:15
Speaker 1: and been forced to fight every day of his life
55:18
Speaker 1: for the other Americans. That was a real possibility. Brian
55:23
Speaker 1: was scheduled to be sentenced before Ryan and Tyler, and
55:25
Speaker 1: he told me, given the sentiment on the island, he
55:28
Speaker 1: fully expected his fate to be worse than Michael's.
55:31
Speaker 6: My case was never made public there. I'm not sure
55:34
Speaker 6: how or why, never published in their local media, but
55:38
Speaker 6: Michael found out, and you know, I would constantly just
55:41
Speaker 6: pick his brain just I mean, I was prepared to
55:43
Speaker 6: go to prison. He was the last one that was there.
55:45
Speaker 6: He went to prison. I mean, I kind of thought
55:47
Speaker 6: my fate would follow his, or be potentially worse.
55:50
Speaker 1: At that point, Michael was a great resource for all
55:53
Speaker 1: the Americans still on the islands, but he was going home.
55:56
Speaker 1: If Brian, Ryan and Tyler wanted to escape Grand Turk prison,
56:01
Speaker 1: they would need to take drastic action, which is exactly
56:05
Speaker 1: what they did.
56:06
Speaker 3: And it was late at night and he finally agreed.
56:08
Speaker 3: We all put our hands in the middle and we
56:10
Speaker 3: were like, all right, we're gonna do this, and we
56:13
Speaker 3: choke and said let's go to war.
56:15
Speaker 1: That's next week on Blood Trails.