Latest / Be Amazed / This Man Escaped Prison FOUR Times

Transcript

This Man Escaped Prison FOUR Times · Be Amazed

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in the U.S. around 1 and every 200 people are incarcerated, but out of this staggering 1.9 million felons in the prison system, only 3% ever managed to break out, and most of those are from low security facilities.
0:15
[SPEAKER_00]: However in Japan, a prisoner named Yoshi Shiratori became infamous for escaping maximum security incarceration none once, not twice, but a whopping four times.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: and believe it or not, two of those times he used a bowl of miso soup to do it.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Unsurprisingly, his story is pretty crazy, so stick around to find out why no jail could hold this incredible escape artist.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd like to think life is fair, right?
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: The good get rewarded in the bad get punished accordingly.
0:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But does it actually work like that?
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: For Yoshi's Shiraturi, it didn't.
1:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Born in Almore, Egypt Pan in 1907, he never knew his mother, and his father tragically passed when Shiraturi was just two years old.
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Little orfriend Shiraturi was adopted by a new family who owned a tofu shop.
1:17
[SPEAKER_00]: However, this was no free board.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Every day, he'd have to work sunrise to sunset
1:22
[SPEAKER_00]: which he did, and by the age of 21 he had a wife of his own and three beautiful children.
1:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet she returried dreamed of giving his children a better life, so he left the tofu shop to work as a fisherman.
1:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But life aboard the fishing boats was grueling, many crewmates relied on on savory vices to get by.
1:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirtories became gambling.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The rush he got knowing one big win could change his family's life forever got too much, and he squandered every year he made until soon he was barring money to settle his gambling debts, then resorting to petty crimes to pay bank the money he'd borrowed.
1:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Even with the best intention, Shirtory's situation spiraled into desperation.
2:03
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1933 at the age of 25 Shirtory in an accomplice entered a general good store in the city of
2:11
[SPEAKER_00]: but they weren't there for light shopping.
2:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh no, they were there to rob the place.
2:17
[SPEAKER_00]: However, a concerned shop or name to Kzo stepped in, defended the store, and chased them down the street.
2:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Only there was a scuffle between the three men where to Kzo got seriously injured and devastatingly lost his life.
2:31
[SPEAKER_00]: To what degree sure a Tory was involved, we can't be sure.
2:35
[SPEAKER_00]: We do know, however, that both Shirtory and his accomplice fled and went into hiding.
2:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, El Mori police eventually tracked down Shirtory's accomplice who immediately snitched on Shirtory's whereabouts.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: After catching word of this Shirtory had two choices.
2:52
[SPEAKER_00]: He could run and pray the law or his conscious never got up with them.
2:56
[SPEAKER_00]: or he could be the bigger man in turn himself in.
2:59
[SPEAKER_00]: He chose the latter and put his fate in the hands of the law.
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Big mistake.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: After going to the police, he realized they were less interested in the truth, and more interested in getting someone, anyone, to pay for to kazos untimely passing.
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And it seemed sure Tori was there never one target.
3:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite some intense physical interrogation tactics by the police, however, sure Tori told them nothing.
3:23
[SPEAKER_00]: but that and itself was enough to find him guilty, and in 1936 he was sent to Almorey Prison.
3:29
[SPEAKER_00]: If life outside Almorey was hard for sureatory, like inside was even harder.
3:34
[SPEAKER_00]: His violent reputation had prompted the guards to give him extra special punishments, and I don't mean wet willies.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Sureatory was treated worse than any other inmate, and after enduring this for some time, he was thrown in solitary confinement where he spent four long months all alone.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, not quite alone, his guards would regularly stop by to rough him up.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Day in, day out, the violent treatment continued.
4:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Then early in the morning of June 18th, 1936, the police chiefs housewomen unexpectedly rang.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a phone call to the police chief that morning.
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It was from the guard on duty.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: At 5.30 a.m., he'd noticed something looked off about Shurator's bed and called out to check on him.
4:21
[SPEAKER_00]: there was no response so he'd called again, louder.
4:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Still no response.
4:27
[SPEAKER_00]: In a fit of rage the guard had marched in, ready to teach the disrespectful prisoner a lesson.
4:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Only when he pulled back the blanket he realized the bed was full of pillows, sheer a Tory had gone.
4:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Upon hearing this, the police chief immediately ordered a search party to set out and look for the jilting jailbird.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: In hours later, they returned empty handed.
4:48
[SPEAKER_00]: How had this happened?
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, Tori had been held in solitary confinement day at night.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems impossible he could've slipped out totally undetected.
4:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet somehow he had.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy, what a headscratcher.
5:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So what guess?
5:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Well remember, sure Tori had been spending almost every second of every day alone.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather than wasting that time, he'd quietly studied the guards.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd figured out that after passing a cell, it took them about 15 minutes to circle back around.
5:16
[SPEAKER_00]: This was the window of opportunity.
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The next issue was the hooking iron door he was locked behind.
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: However, Shirtory had a solution for that too.
5:25
[SPEAKER_00]: When he took a bath, he was given a bucket with a metal wire handle to wash with.
5:30
[SPEAKER_00]: He secretly removed this handle so it could use it as a makeshift lock-back.
5:36
[SPEAKER_00]: See, just beneath the lock of his cell door was a small window, guards used to pass his meals through.
5:42
[SPEAKER_00]: By sticking his hand out this window, sureatory could reach the lock and try to pick it.
5:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It must have taken months of persistent trial and error.
5:50
[SPEAKER_00]: but eventually sure Tori cracked it.
5:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Once it was done, he jammed the lock, made his bed up to look like he was still sleeping, then waited for the guard to pass.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, now he had 15 minutes to dash out, pick another lock at the end of the corridor and make his get away.
6:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Luckily, Tori didn't have to try and pick this one blind, so amazingly he pulled it off.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: A badver first time break out, eh?
6:16
[SPEAKER_00]: As the days passed, we're just spread around a mori about a vicious criminal who escaped isolation and was now stalking the streets looking for his next victim.
6:26
[SPEAKER_00]: In reality, sure, a Tory had run into the mountains and was living off whatever berries he could forage.
6:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But after three days, he had to head back towards the town and search of supplies.
6:36
[SPEAKER_00]: As an escape con, he couldn't just walk into a store and buy them.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: He had no dinner, and besides, someone might recognize him.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, he resorted to pre-present tactics.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Stealing But he got caught red handed trying to pull for supplies from a hospital.
6:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Dang!
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure Tory beg for forgiveness, and he'd only escaped because of how brutally he'd been treated by the guards.
6:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But nobody cared, he was sent back to Al-Morri Prison, only this time, with a life sentence.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, yikes.
7:08
[SPEAKER_00]: With this new sentence, Shiratori was transferred from Almari to Miyagi Prison where he spent three years before moving again to Kusugabe in Tokyo.
7:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I bet he tried to break out again like a hundred times, right?
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually now, he kept his head down and did as he was asked.
7:26
[SPEAKER_00]: This is because Shiratori actually had a good relationship with the guards, especially the headguard for you, Miyagi Kobayashi, who saw Shiratori as a model prisoner.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: As the years rolled by life at Kasuga was about as good as prison can be.
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: However, by 1941, Japan was drawn into World War II, and prisoners were evacuated out of Tokyo.
7:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Shiritori was moved once again this time to a key to prison, and here things really took a turn for the worse.
7:57
[SPEAKER_00]: In a key to years of good behavior, it means squat.
8:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Shiritori's reputation as a vicious man outside and a disappearing delinquent
8:06
[SPEAKER_00]: and the guards at Akita didn't take world of that.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: They placed them in a special cell, specifically designed for escape-est.
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The ceiling was too high to reach and the walls were too smooth to climb.
8:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Aside from a tiny skylight in the roof, there was practically no sunlight.
8:23
[SPEAKER_00]: There wasn't even a window to pass his food through.
8:25
[SPEAKER_00]: On top of that Akita was bitterly cold.
8:28
[SPEAKER_00]: The guards force sheuratory to stay in size, a kneeling position all day.
8:33
[SPEAKER_00]: If they caught him disobeying orders, well, they teach him a painful lesson.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite his terrible predicament, though, Shiratory states surprisingly resolute.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: He taunts at the guards, threatening to escape on their watch so they get punished.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: and response that became even more brutal.
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: All the while, sureatory was scheming his next escape, and this one would be far more ambitious than the first.
8:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The morning of June 15, 1942 was wet from a heavy storm the night before.
9:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The guards began their usual rounds banging on cell doors to wake the prisoners, but when they rattled sureatory's door, there was no response.
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: By now their mutual hatred had peaked, so this was no surprise.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The guard got ready to administer Shiratori's first lesson of the day, except when he swung the door open the room was empty.
9:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Against all odds, Shiratori had broken out from a south specially designed to keep him inside.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: and only he knew how.
9:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Immediately the guards contacted the district police who set up a court enough around the area to catch the prisoner.
9:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Last time, Shirtoria had shown up after just a couple of days, with enough patience he'd mess up again.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Or so they thought, they's went by with no sign of Shirtoria.
9:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Days became weeks and weeks became months.
9:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until three months after his escape, then an unlikely associate heard a knock at the door in the dead of the night.
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: When Riyomiya Kobayashi opened his door, he found a thin, frail man shivering in the cold.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It was sheeratory.
10:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Kobayashi had heard of sheeratory's escape, but never would have dreamed that he'd show up at his house.
10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: He invited him inside, fed him, and gave him tea.
10:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you're probably wondering why an escaped prisoner would visit his former keeper instead of, I don't know, writing my letter, but Kobayashi had been kind to share a story and he had nowhere else to turn.
10:27
[SPEAKER_00]: The journey from Akira to Kobayashi's house in Tokyo is an astonishing 339 miles.
10:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, Tori explained that he'd walked the whole way under the cover of darkness to avoid recapture, eating whatever he could forage or steal.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Once he'd arrived in Tokyo, he'd asked anyone that would listen if they knew where Kobe Ashi lived.
10:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually he got lucky.
10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Kobe Ashi was stunned.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew sure Tori was honest, but he also knew he couldn't stay here.
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Together they agreed sure Tori would turn himself in and cause Sugai police station and give evidence of his poor treatment at Akita.
11:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully they'd take video on him and he'd get a fair trial than before.
11:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what he did.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The only things didn't go exactly according to plan.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheeratory told the judge about the brutal punishments he'd severed at the key to the isolation, the kneeling, the violence, but the judge only cared about one thing.
11:21
[SPEAKER_00]: How he did scape the cell.
11:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheeratory sighed.
11:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It looked like coming clean was the only way to help his case.
11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Now sheeratory had two rather unique skills most people don't have.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Firstly, he could dislocate almost every joint in his body.
11:39
[SPEAKER_00]: This made him really good at squeezing through tight spaces.
11:42
[SPEAKER_00]: If a gap was big enough for his head, he could wriggle the rest of his body through.
11:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And the little skylight in his cell was just about big enough.
11:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold on though, wasn't the skylight really high up?
11:54
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no way sure Tori could have reached it to squeeze his body through, right?
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's where his second skill comes in.
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: way stronger than the average human.
12:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Aside from me, of course, I'm freaking youeped.
12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, remember I said the walls to a cell were deliberately smooth so you couldn't climb them vertically?
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the cell was so small that sure Tori could press his palms against one wall and his
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the only issue was removing the skylight, luckily Mother Nature had given him a head star.
12:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The wooden frame holding it in place was old and rotten.
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: With enough pressure, Shiratori could force it slightly open.
12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: That after night, he'd scale the wall to push the skylight a little further.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, he got loose enough that he could push his whole head through, so he knew his body could follow suit.
12:48
[SPEAKER_00]: All that was left to do was wait for a heavy storm so the guards wouldn't hear him scampering across the roof and make a break for it.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't, that's impressive.
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone in the courtroom was Bill Wildern.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone that is except a judge.
13:03
[SPEAKER_00]: He added three years to share a story's life sentence and sent him back to jail.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold up, how do you add to a life sentence?
13:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, life sentence doesn't necessarily mean the rest of your life.
13:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's indefinite, but most have a clause called Parole where the prisoner makes a case for their release by showing evidence they've changed.
13:22
[SPEAKER_00]: If sure Tori got Parole, he'd still have to serve three years after having his life sentence dropped.
13:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Combranding?
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
13:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully you'll never need that information again.
13:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheerator it was prepared to go back to jail, after all he was still a criminal, only the cold of the Kita had got to him, so he asked the judge if he could do his time in Tokyo where it was warmer.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: The judge laughed and instead sent Sheerator to have a sheery in the very north of Japan, and if you thought a Kita sounded bad, you ain't seen nothing.
13:53
[SPEAKER_00]: have a sheery was so numbingly cold your breath rose against your eyebrows.
13:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Now 35 years old sheuratory was thrown into a bitter cell and nothing more than then summer clothes.
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: His new guards were taking no chances this time, cuffing both hands and feet and banning him from working outside his cell like the other prisoners.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: and because he didn't work, Shirtauri was only given half the amount of food that his fellow prisoners ate, which was basic at best.
14:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Japanese prison food mainly consisted of a bowl of rice and some salty miso soup.
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Still, I'd rather than than British food, Shirtauri's only connection to the outside world was a small surveillance window in the door of his cell.
14:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirtauri ignored any instructions or demands the guards made of him, wants a model prisoner, now he lay bound
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: One morning a passing guard saw Shirtori on his knees face down with the handcuffs removed from his wrist and laid out in front of him.
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: They charged in, searched his cell, and found a piece of metal wire wrapped in parapherf and paper.
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we've got a hold of this nobody knew, the one thing was clear, Shirtori was sending them a message.
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You could escape no matter what they did to him, the guards were shaken.
15:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It was on them to send a message in response, and boy oh boy, they did.
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirtori's handcuffs were replaced with new, four more burdens some ones.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The new cuffs weighed over 40 pounds and fastened behind his back with a thick metal bolt that needed two men to tighten it.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, there was no keyhole for him to pick.
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Washing her bathing became impossible as removing the cuffs meant filing through the metal.
15:31
[SPEAKER_00]: All they could do was sit there.
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: As the weeks and months went by, the cuffs rubbed on his wrist and ankles and they became infested with maggots.
15:42
[SPEAKER_00]: As for meal times, its food portions were cut in half again.
15:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Now sure, tourist rations were a measly quarter of what his fellow prisoners ate.
15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And because of the heavy cuffs he had to eat face down in his soup bowl like a pig.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, a tour was in such dire straits that some guards even felt bad for him, but their job was to stop him escaping, and that's exactly what they've done.
16:04
[SPEAKER_00]: or so they thought.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Whilst on evening patrol on the 26th of August 1944, two guards heard a shattering crash above them, as they looked up, they saw a darting figure disappear through broken skylight.
16:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Panics set in as they rushed to check which prisoner hit escaped.
16:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone was accounted for, exceptionatory.
16:26
[SPEAKER_00]: When they looked through his cell window, they saw his bed was made, his clothes folded on top, and the special handcuffs were lying on the floor.
16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: A search party immediately set out to look for him, but after a few fruitless hours, they gave up.
16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Their cruel efforts to contain him had failed.
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheeratory was gone again.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Only this time it didn't take them long to figure out how.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The thick metal bulb which held the handcuffs together was horribly corroded.
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Over years, this will happen in most metals, but the bolt showed decades of where after mere months, and it had this weird residue on the surface.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: A guard rather bravely tasted it and realized it was salty.
17:07
[SPEAKER_00]: At same salty residue was found on the bolts that held the surveillance window of Shirtory
17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, answers locked in, excellent day.
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, I said prison food was mostly rice and salty miso soup.
17:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, any other prisoner would go up down the hard soup to abate the deathly chill.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, a story, though differently.
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Eat save a tiny amount of soup every day to drip onto the handcuffs and the bolts on the surveillance windows frame.
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: To understand why we're going to have to do a little bit of science.
17:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, when water touches metal, it creates something called an oxidation reaction.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: where the metal loses electrons to the oxygen present in water.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: This makes the metal corrode in rust.
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: With me so far?
17:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
17:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Now salt is an electrolyte, meaning when it's mixed with water, like in a soup, the resulting solution conducts electrons much quicker than normal water.
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So the oxidation reaction happens faster, and the metal corrode's faster, too.
18:13
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, the salty soup was perfect for wearing down the metal bolts and facilitating
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But wait, how the devil would he know this?
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure, but he was a fisherman at sea, saltwater, the ocean, big metal ships, agnab it he's a genius.
18:33
[SPEAKER_00]: After months of dripping soup onto the bolts they finally corroded and came loose.
18:37
[SPEAKER_00]: The door bolts went first, but sure Tory left the men so the guards wouldn't notice.
18:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Then about a month before the escape the large bolts on the cuffs came loose too.
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: After squeezing out of the shackles and getting Lucy Goosey with his joints through the surveillance window, Shirtory scampered up the wall and burst out through the skylight.
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Boom!
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Gone.
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Nine freaking blown.
18:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not all.
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirtory had planned to escape the night prior the 25th, but the patrol guards that night had been kind to him.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: At a escape while they were on duty, they'd have gotten trouble for it.
19:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So Shirtory held on one day longer, further risking his plan getting foiled, all for the guards.
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a real bro!
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: After this escape, Shira Tori went totally off-grid.
19:22
[SPEAKER_00]: By now, he'd lost all faith in the justice system and returning to society would be too great of a risk, so he spent almost two years living entirely by himself in the mountains.
19:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to know if he even saw another person during this time.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: However, even with all his experience in solitary confinement, living so disconnected took its toll.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: When evening in 1946, Shiratori traveled down into a nearby town, snuck into the school and found a newspaper.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: As he read, it dawned on him how much he'd missed in the year since his last escape.
19:55
[SPEAKER_00]: He was shocked to read that two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japanese cities.
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Shiratori hadn't even known Japan had lost the war.
20:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe seeing life returning to normal even after such tragedy gave Shirtori hoped that his life too could do the same.
20:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it was, he knew he couldn't continue living in the mountains alone.
20:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So he decided to head towards the nearby city of Sapporo and figure out his next steps.
20:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Regrettably, things didn't go to plan.
20:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Along the way, stumbled across a vegetable garden.
20:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether he tried to steal from it or not, we'll never know, but the owner of the garden mistook Shitori for a local thief who'd been plundering his reels.
20:34
[SPEAKER_00]: He chased Shirtori and attacked him, as Shirtori tried to defend himself the gardener suffered a mortal wound and bled out.
20:42
[SPEAKER_00]: No, rats, the commotion alerted local police and Shirtauri was quickly arrested again.
20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: His pleas of self-defense were useless, his extensive record of murder, theory, and well-present breaks, and otherwise, Shirtauri was sent to support a prison and sentenced to death.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, yikes, there you go, my hopes for a happy ending.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold up, didn't I say you skipped prison four times?
21:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I only count three so far.
21:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirley's slippery sheuratory can escape dead though, right?
21:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha ha, just you wait and see.
21:15
[SPEAKER_00]: See, Sephora Prison tried to play its mark.
21:18
[SPEAKER_00]: They acquired his previous escape records and reinforced sheuratory cell accordingly.
21:22
[SPEAKER_00]: A pair of armed guards kept permanent watch outside, and every day sheuratory and his cell were searched for any evidence of an escape attempt.
21:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They never found anything.
21:32
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, your toy was on his best behavior.
21:35
[SPEAKER_00]: He did everything the guards asked.
21:37
[SPEAKER_00]: They were so confident he'd never escape that they didn't even bother handcuffing him.
21:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Their only suspicion was he kept looking up, like he was scanning for an exit.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing his previous skylight antics, the guards knew better than to take this lightly.
21:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But so once a week when Shirtory was bathing, they thoroughly inspect the ceiling.
21:55
[SPEAKER_00]: They found nothing.
21:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Nevertheless on April 1, 1947, Shirtory disappeared for a fourth and final time.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the best efforts of the Sephora guards, Shirtory had outsmarted them.
22:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so what the hell happened this time?
22:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, those looks he shot up at the ceiling were to draw their eye away from where the action was really happening.
22:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Right below their feet.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Upon inspecting Shiratori's empty cell, a guard found one of the wooden floorboards beneath this bed was sawn and half.
22:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But neat that was a small alcove and stashed inside was a metal hoop that had once been wrapped around the cell toilet.
22:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it was fashioned into a saw and lay beside a soup bowl left over from one of Shira Toru's mails.
22:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It turns out Shira Toru had used an old nail to make serrated teeth on the hoop.
22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: For months he'd been secretly sawing through the floorboard squeezing through the gap and using his trustee off from the soup bowl to gruelingly dig his way to freedom.
22:55
[SPEAKER_00]: He hadn't even had to remove any cuffs to do so, the guards over confidence had seen to that.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Once more, Serge team set out and came back empty handed.
23:05
[SPEAKER_00]: This was Shiratori's final and perhaps most ingenious escape.
23:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet again, he fled into the mountains and was lost to the world.
23:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Over nine months later, on January 19th, 1948, a police officer patrolling Katone Chow near Seporo spotted a strange-looking man carrying a large bundle.
23:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Sensing he was up to something shady the officer asked his name.
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: The man responded to Moura.
23:30
[SPEAKER_00]: The officer then asked if he could look inside his bag.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: For more happily obliged, inside were parts, kettles and bowls, loving and toward like the policeman and expected.
23:39
[SPEAKER_00]: He was ready to let Kamor go when the man quietly asked, excuse me sir, could you please spare me a cigarette?
23:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And the postwar years cigarettes were a lavish expense, but the officer took video of Kamor and gave him what he asked for.
23:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Come more smoke-tip for a while before whispering, thank you, Sarah.
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, my name is not Komora.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Yoshi's Shirtory.
24:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm an escaped convict who fled from support of prison last year.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirtory's life had been so devoid of kindness that the symbol act of being given a cigarette broke him.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: He followed the policeman to the spoil police station where he awaited his next trial.
24:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Except this time when he made it to court, something was different.
24:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The judge recognized the guard and accident outside Sephora was self-defense without militias attempt and revoked the death penalty.
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoa!
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Furthermore, the Judging Knowledge that, in spite of years of mistreatment by the prison service, Shiratori had never once tried to harm any of the guards.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't like he couldn't have.
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, apart from the original crime in Al-Mori, he'd never actively tried to hurt anyone.
24:41
[SPEAKER_00]: The judge gave him a revised sentence of 20 years imprisonment and granted his request to service time at Fuchu Prison in Tokyo as he wished.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirtories arrive a lead food tube with the guards on edge, but they try to softer approach towards them.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: They gave him a job looking after the prison gardens and letting participate in prison sports and athletics.
25:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though he was well into his forties, he'd now wrestle men half his age with ease.
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: One afternoon, whilst Shirtory was resting in the prison rounds, the prison warden called out to him.
25:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey Shira Tori, that wall is only six and a half feet high, someone with your skills could climb that easily.
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Why haven't you?
25:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Shira Tori looked at the man's mound and said, I'm tired.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: After escaping prison four times in 11 years and spending three years on the run, he'd had enough.
25:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a young man's game.
25:31
[SPEAKER_00]: He was still strong, yes, but not as strong as he once was.
25:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Moreover he simply lacked the motivation to escape again.
25:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirtory hadn't escaped so many times because of prison itself, it was for his own protection against the violent prison guards.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But at Fuchu, he finally felt safe.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: The warden smiled back at him and decided then and there to apply for Shiratori's parole.
25:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It still took a whopping 10 years to clear, but eventually on December 21st, 1961, Shiratori left prison for the final time.
26:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Not through a skylight or tunnel, but through the front door as a free man.
26:06
[SPEAKER_00]: After his release, he spent his final years in Tokyo working as a laborer, but even for our hoodlomu dini, there's one sentence none of us can escape.
26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1979, at the age of 71, Shirtory passed away, and his ashes were buried in a cemetery overlooking Mt.
26:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuji.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Whew, what a life!
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying he didn't do bad stuff, he definitely did.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Still, you see how one bad move can lead to a million others?
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a slippery slope out there.
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Criminals are complicated people too, just because your life may or may not have led you down that path, doesn't necessarily make you a good or bad person.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Take me.
26:44
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as the IRS don't figure out my true identity, my tiny auntie's never going anywhere near a jail.
26:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to the podcast.
26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you again next time.
26:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll want to be amazed.