Digital Social Hour - Surviving 33 Years in Prison: Roger Reaves' Shocking Tale | Roger Reaves DSH #1169

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Starting point is 00:02:00 I uh, they took me to the jail house and they just put me in with a prisoner there, a big nasty prisoner and he took a blackjack and robbed me of my 300. All right guys, we got Roger Reeves here today, come a long way from the south. Let's go. Thank you, Sean. Absolutely. You grew up in the south, right? In Georgia, yeah. How long were you there? 26 years. Wow. I'm 27, so that's my whole

Starting point is 00:02:31 life. What made you want to move out? Well, the bloodhounds was after me. The sheriff arrested me. You got ran out of there? And the, uh, every, every three months, the, um, what do you call it? The circuit judge came through and they have the 24 men for them to decide where they got enough to make a bill from you. I was around there in the soda fountain shaking everybody's hands. Remember me, I'm William Reeves' son, you know, and the lawyer grabbed me and said, get out of here, boy, you'll get more trouble interfering with the grand jury than you ever will without whiskey.

Starting point is 00:03:07 So that's when your life on the run began, 26. Well, no. I wasn't on the run because they didn't indict me. But that's the reason. I might have to back up here and just tell the whole story. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about that a little bit. All right.

Starting point is 00:03:20 I was raised on a three mule farm in Georgia. We had tobacco was about the only thing made any money. The other stuff we worked hard at, peanuts and cotton and some corn and wasn't much, a hundred acre farm. And my daddy was a bad alcoholic. And so we live poorer than we should have. And I worked in the grocery store from the time I was 14 years old until I was about 18.

Starting point is 00:03:47 And my daddy was 54 years old and I was 17. He died just one day, he had aneurysm. And seven little brothers and sisters had a baby sister six weeks old in the house. But my mother, she was beautiful, 41 years old, and he owed more money on the farm than it was worth. So we went to work. I mean, my mother, I went to work. And we grew tobacco mainly, what, should we paid it out in watermelons?

Starting point is 00:04:15 But when I got 18, I went up to Canada. I hitchhiked up there to crop tobacco, picking tobacco, a transit farm worker. It was 1,100 miles and they paid $20 a day in room and board up there. And in Georgia, he only made $3 or $4 a day, whatever you could get. And I went up there and, oh, I, big tobacco farm, beautiful, big Belgium draft horses, and I'd pick my foot up and one put his down behind me, and their nostrils was on me all day long. I was tough from working on the farm in Georgia, and the heat didn't bother me.

Starting point is 00:04:52 So after we was into the crop a couple of weeks, the boys came over from another farm and said, you want to go to the carnival tonight? Sure, I want to go to a carnival. So we got in a 1949 Ford, and away we went to Tiltsonburg, Ontario, Canada. I don't know how far it was, 50 miles. And we got there, and it was a huge fair carnival. Big tents. It was the first thing was the Hoochie Coochie show.

Starting point is 00:05:16 I'd never seen anything like that, and went in for our 50 cents, and going down the road a little bit. And there was a huge man on the platform, and he's got a little bear in a cage over there in a circus wagon. And he's saying, brand new five, $100 bill that anybody got

Starting point is 00:05:34 guts enough to rouse on my bear and get in that cage and get all four feet off the ground. What's your name, young man? Honey, Roger Reeves. How much you weigh, Roger? I weigh 145 pounds. 145 pound man against 600 pound beast. And he threw me in that cage with that little bear. That little bear wasn't little.

Starting point is 00:05:59 A tockle. When he started getting up, he got up all over that circus wagon. And he had big pads on his feet, on his hands and legs, and he had a muzzle on. I wasn't too much worried about it, so I ran into that bear, swam on, and all the things was loose, so it made a lot of noise for the crowd. That bear took one swipe at me and laid me out about six feet tall level, and I hit the ground, wow. And the crowd,, whoo, sick him, Roger. I'm not on my feet again before I'm laid out the other way.

Starting point is 00:06:32 Geez. So I thought something's got to change. So I grabbed the top of that cage and I kicked that bear with all my might with my shoes on right at the head. He went back up there and I run into him as hard as I could. And I mean, I had, I knocked him off his feet for sure. Wow. That bear went insane.

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Starting point is 00:09:40 Take the next step in your career by starting srgpros.com. You pissed him off. He threw me 20 feet into the other corner of that arch. I never had the breath knocked out of me so hard. He dove on me. I think he weighed 600 pounds. Holy crap. And he just tore my clothes off of him with him like, pause.

Starting point is 00:10:00 And the owner of the place came in and put a kick chain on him, snapped him on and ran it back and the bear run over him. The chain got caught in part of the tent, came down, I go, eee, stick him. Anyway, I couldn't work for a couple of days. So I went down to the lake there in the Lake Erie, Turkey Point. And I walked down on the long wooden pier and some guys tried to throw me in. I kind of throw them in a little bit. And on out there, there was three pretty girls

Starting point is 00:10:34 sitting on towels. And as I walked by, I just kind of tipped my hat. Wow, she's a heart stopper. And when I came back, she said, is that a university ring? I said, no, this is a high school ring. She said, we don't get high school rings in Canada. May I see it?

Starting point is 00:10:53 And I said, you're from the Netherlands, aren't you? She said, sit down here and tell me how you know about Dutch accents. I knew one person in the world that had that accent. And anyhow, that's my wife now. That was 64 years ago. Wow. So I towed person in the world that had that accent. And anyhow, that's my wife now. That was 64 years ago. Wow. So I threw that in. So a couple of years later, we got married

Starting point is 00:11:13 and I got a job on the railroad, driving trains, firemen on a diesel electric on the Atlantic coastline railroad. And I better back up a little bit. Yes. I want to tell you, I forgot about when we came, we went to my daddy's funeral. And when we came out of the church, the church was packed with white people and out under all the trees, it was just a multitude of black people. The men with the hat over there saying goodbye to Mr. William.

Starting point is 00:11:48 He was loved. Really, really my daddy was a nice man. Anyway, when we, when we were going home down the sandy road from the highway, there was two records. One had our pickup truck and the other one had our tractor behind it. And they was towing it away. Foskey auto parts, Douglas, Georgia. What?

Starting point is 00:12:05 That guy was three times big as I am in his overalls. Like Mr. Reeves owed us some money on this, so we got it. Yeah. So that's, that's how bad it was. Anyhow, I just wanted to put that out. So we were just devastated. No tractor, no way to go. Um, no money.

Starting point is 00:12:23 So now is when I went up to Canada and worked and come back. And a couple of years later, I went up there and got married and we got married and came on back to the farm. And I borrowed money against the farm. My mother signed for me and we put in 36,000 laying chickens. And the price of feed kept going up. And the price of eggs kept going down and the price of eggs kept going down. Until every time we'd pick up a dozen eggs, we lost a nickel.

Starting point is 00:12:48 So I was $78,000 in debt. Wow. And I thought, we're going to lose the farm for sure. So I started making moonshine whiskey. And I got bigger and bigger until I was making a thousand gallons a week. Wow. And so I was selling it at $3 a gallon. was making a thousand gallons a week. Wow. And so I was selling it at three dollars a gallon. It took a dollar to make it, so I was making two thousand dollars a week.

Starting point is 00:13:10 I was paying things off. And then somebody turned me in and I went by and going to the steel. I had the truck loaded with sugar and condensers and barrels. And I saw a car in a place it wasn't supposed to be. And I went down that little side road and two of them got after me and I went over logs and through the swamp and through the woods. Finally I jumped out and ran and eight doors opened

Starting point is 00:13:38 and those men shot, they emptied their pistols at me. I got nicked across the neck right there. Wasn't bad. And then I went into Horse Creek, the big Horse Creek, and it was so cold, I broke ice getting in it. And I must have swam down that creek two miles, getting away from them. And I go away from them, the bulldogs,

Starting point is 00:13:59 and I knew they was gonna be there soon. And I walked to my mother's house, and then I went to see a lawyer and he said, if they didn't catch you, you all right. But they didn't indict me. So I was arrested for it. That was the first thing. And I think with that, that I saw how easy it was to break the law. And if nobody knows, you're in pretty good shape.

Starting point is 00:14:22 So I think that was the beginning of my criminal career right there. If I hadn't done that, I would have never got into the drug business. Wow. So that didn't stop you from making moonshine? I quit making moonshine. So I went on that. There was nothing for me in Georgia. I lost my job at a railroad.

Starting point is 00:14:38 They fired me for making moonshine. And so I went out to California and I worked for a couple of years in construction. And then I got a job on the Redondo Beach Fire Department. And I thought I had won the lottery. I really did. And so I drove, I spent most of the four years that I was on the fire department, driving the back of a hook and ladder truck.

Starting point is 00:15:01 And on my days off, we only worked 10 days a month and we worked 24 hours a day. So we got 20 days off, we only worked 10 days a month and we worked 24 hours a day, so we got 20 days off. I would go back to Missouri and buy antiques. There was a lot of them there on the west side of the Mississippi River. As the settlers would come, the people going to California and Oregon, they would come with their furniture and their dishes and stoves. But when they crossed the river from getting off the train, they got across the river,

Starting point is 00:15:28 they couldn't get it in those wagons. Those wagons were Studebakers. Nobody much knows that. And they later were pereris schooners. But that's what came across and they couldn't get half their furniture in it. So millions of large pieces was left on the river there. And I'd get semi trucks and bring it back every month and have an auction. I was making pretty good money and on the fire department.

Starting point is 00:15:52 And so I bought an airplane and I bought a bedroom and another one. And I just, my hobby was fly. So I'd fly down to Mexico and Mule, particularly, and Mari would come with me and the babies with us. And she would lay in a hammock and read a book. Mexico and Mule particularly and Mari would come with me and the babies with us and she would lay in a hammock and read a book and I'd go fishing and she'd potty trained the babies there and So guys said why don't you bring some marijuana back with you? I said, I don't know anything about that mister. What what the deal? I said, it's the hottest thing since pancakes man. There is nothing nothing better than that. I

Starting point is 00:16:23 since pancakes, man, there is nothing, nothing better than that. I said, what'd it pay? He said, I'll introduce you to some, so someone. So he introduced me to a really nice guy. Really. He was paralyzed. I didn't realize he couldn't walk. Beautiful voice. And he said, you got an airplane, you bring some pot back.

Starting point is 00:16:37 I said, I don't know. What would you pay? And he said, let me bring somebody. So he called somebody came over. I'll give you $10,000. Wow. truck. Yeah, I said throw some shit in there That was about two years pay take on from the fire department at the time I went down there and it was nothing do it. They put some bales of marijuana in there and I flew it up and Unloaded and give it to them. They gave me a shopping bag full of money. I took it home, dumped it on the bed, and Mari put her hand over her mouth like, what?

Starting point is 00:17:08 And the babies grabbing hundred dollar bills and crawling around, and we just laughed and went out to dinner. And I thought, this can't be real. That's two years' pay. You could buy any house there in Torrance or Redondo Beach for $30,000 at that time. Wow. So I went to see a, a criminal defense attorney question. I put a hundred dollar bill on his yes.

Starting point is 00:17:30 Can I said, Mr. Lawyer, one question, what would happen if I got caught bringing pot from Mexico in my airplane? He said, what's your criminal history? So I don't have one. He said, Oh, tickets, speeding tickets. What I said, Mr. I've never had a parking ticket in my life. He said, what? He said, you have one. He said, oh, tickets, speeding tickets. I said, Mr. I've never had a parking ticket in my life.

Starting point is 00:17:47 He said, what? He said, you'll get probation. And you work on the fire department. I said, yes, sir. He says, you'll get probation at the very, very worst. If you got the worst judge in town, you get one year and you spend four months raking leaves at some base, some camp.

Starting point is 00:18:05 So I went and asked somebody else, and it's about the same thing. It was nothing to it. So I went and bought me a bigger airplane. I took that money and bought me a Cessna 207. That thing was big to me. And now I can bring 1,100 pounds and I make it $40,000. And so I was going to make 300,000 and go to the farm. Well I made 300,000 so quick that it wasn't even funny. And Mari says, Roger, you don't remember the mosquitoes and the ticks and the rattlesnakes

Starting point is 00:18:32 and the cottonmouth moccasins and the hard work. I'm not going back. So she put her heels in the ground. We didn't go back. So I just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Wow. And that's how it started. That was how it started.

Starting point is 00:18:48 That's great. And you ended up becoming the biggest drug smuggler of all time, right? International. That's what they claimed. That's what they say online. That's what the DEA said. When did it start getting serious, you'd say?

Starting point is 00:19:00 Like it started getting kind of risky and your life was on the line. Well, it came all of a sudden. I was, uh, I was at two Oh seven. I, uh, uh, I'll do a load every day and Mari would, uh, go to the store and buy toys or us. She'd buy little toys and put boxes of apples and candies and everything she could think of for the children

Starting point is 00:19:25 of that poor, poor village of called Pichilingi. And every day I'd land more and more children were showing up. So I was Mr. Santa Claus coming. I didn't. So on number 13, I thought, uh-oh, I had a little thing going off inside. Like don't do it. Got a feeling. And now I listened to it.

Starting point is 00:19:45 At that time I knew but I didn't listen. Now I will run. So I landed and stopped about halfway down the runway. I think the runway was 800 or 900 feet long. It was just enough takeoff empty with fuel. And I must have stopped about halfway down and the men came out and we fueled the airplane up and then I walked to the village through the starving donkeys and the washed out road roads and uh, it's a night there and uh, the next morning before daylight I walked down the river and brushed my teeth. The river's about knee

Starting point is 00:20:16 deep. And I got in the airplane and a young man named Pedro get him with me and he was maybe 100 pounds and he would fly with me and we'd go maybe 30 or 40 miles away To some highway and when I come a truck would come out and block the traffic And the guys with the guns on it then way down there mile or two down another truck would come across and block that way freeway they had big road and I'd land between them and The truck would come up with a marijuana and they put Put 1100 pounds in there. And I had plenty of time. I'd shake hands with everybody in their big sombreros.

Starting point is 00:20:49 And I get in the plane, take off over it. And I remember sometime they were just a row of traffic on the other side. And there was a highway patrolman sitting there with his blue dome, but it wasn't turning. Wow. So they were in on it. No, they were scared. You get that many men with guns, they ain't gonna bother you with their little pistol. So number 13, I got in and I fired the engine up. I heard pow, I thought a tire blew out.

Starting point is 00:21:18 And Pedro was punching me, police here, police here, police here. Well, it dawned on me. So I just shoved the throttle to the firewall. Didn't have a chance to go to the other end and turn around. I might've had 500 feet in front of me. And when I got right to the end of it,

Starting point is 00:21:35 I was about 40 knots, I reckon. And it would probably somewhat fly with full flaps. So I stood it up. And when I did, I was looking at airspeed indicator and it just disappeared cool a bullet hit it and just knocked it back into the dash Wow and the all the windows was mowed out and one bullet went up by my head and went into the

Starting point is 00:21:55 Gas tank and just ruptured it left of me and the water fuel just pouring over on me I had to lean way over to get out of it cheese and I was hit several times and I pouring over on me. I had to lean way over to get out of it. And I was hit several times. And I found out now that I thought that they had shot the elevator cables in two, but I found out now I was just hanging on a stall. And it feels that way. So I don't know if I did the right thing. And I just thought that thing was going to burst into flames any second that a spark flew in there. All that gasoline was all over me. So I pulled the power and I crashed into the river

Starting point is 00:22:27 and the first hit, the wings came off. And the second hit, the nose came underneath and just left me sitting up on top of that thing. And I must've been knocked out. God Pedro was saying, come on Roger, come on Roger. And I jumped out and coming down the runway, can't call it a runway, but the airstrip was two of those Federalis and they were coming, they were still shooting. And two of the bullets hit the plane right by us.

Starting point is 00:22:53 Pow, pow. Well, I carried a nine millimeter high powered Browning and I have a, my finger's a little short, the trigger finger. So I have to use that pistol some of them big pistols I have to shoot with the other finger, but I can shoot that Browning So I had it in a host host on top of a radio taped up there now The with the thing turned upside down that thing is laying right there. I pull it out and I fire a few Down I'm not trying to kill anybody. Certainly don't kill the policeman

Starting point is 00:23:22 Yeah, so they run in the rocks. And I say, remind me of the, when the rabbit get the gun, the farmer, he run. They ran in the rocks. And Pedro and I took off and up the mountain. And I wanted to go down through the river. Oh no, no, they'll come that way. So we went on up through the cactus.

Starting point is 00:23:42 And I looked and Pedro's foot was almost shot off. The bullet that hit him in the right hand side of the ankle and just tore it out. It wasn't even bleeding. It was in shock. And so we came to an old donkey, a long haired big donkey and she must've been 30 years old. She was from the village and named Charlotte. Pedro, Charlotte, Charlotte. And we jumped on that donkey and got away. No way. Yeah. So that's a whole chapter in my book about how we got away

Starting point is 00:24:09 and getting out of that place and being shot up like that. That's insane. And that wasn't enough to stop you, huh? No, I wouldn't. Bigger airplane now. Wow. Because I feel like that incident would scare a lot of people, you know, and they would stop.

Starting point is 00:24:23 It scared me because I didn't realize it. But I'd run over a rock in the road with my pickup and it would hit underneath the pickup and the hair would just stand up on the back of my, from memory of those bullets hitting that airplane, I reckon. Damn, that is crazy. So how did they get close to you guys?

Starting point is 00:24:40 I thought they were being blocked off. The guy just lying. Oh really? There's a hair lip piece of shit. You know what he was. A little starving donkeys and he's kind of head man there. He didn't pay anybody off. Damn, so he just kept the money. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:24:54 Wow, that's crazy. So what happened from there? Let me see. I got a bigger airplane. I bought a plane from the Beach Boys, a twin beach. That thing was so nice. It was criminal to take the inside of it out. Pig skin, all the seats with maps on it

Starting point is 00:25:13 from different woods, like a jigsaw puzzle. Oh, that thing was pretty. And I bought that and boy, that was big. Going up from a Cessna to a Beach 18 was something big for me. Flew to Atlanta and picked my wife up, Mari, and we had to roll out the carpet there on the international runway. So I flew with that plane. I flew so many loads until I brought the price down from $100 to $60 a pound in California.

Starting point is 00:25:42 Damn. That year. And they was catching a lot of pilots. They was catching almost everything coming across the border called Operation Star Trek. And so I figured out a way to beat it. I'd come out of Southern Mexico or wherever I was coming and go to the middle of Baja, California. And there was a ranch there, a goat ranch, where they made cheese.

Starting point is 00:26:03 It was 20 miles to the nearest road. And there was a ranch there, a goat ranch, where they made cheese. It was 20 miles to the nearest road. And there was a strip there. And I landed there and asked a guy named Juan if I could unload my marijuana there while I went to town for fuel. Sure. So I gave him $500 and I'd go to town. We put it under the muskete trees, the doves. It was such a beautiful place.

Starting point is 00:26:21 Unbelievable. Beautiful. And I'd go to Mule and they'd wash my plane, fill it up with fuel. I'd have lunch, maybe rent a room and have a nap. I'd fly back out there in the afternoon and load back up. And I would take off and go west and there was an island of Guadalupe, 200 miles off the coast of Baja. And I would go there and then I would head northwest until I was 300 miles off the coast

Starting point is 00:26:43 of San Diego and I put it down pretty low. Then I went north until I got behind the Santa Barbara islands and they're 4,000 feet tall. And then I'd come in low behind him and there was an airstrip there. And I'd pull up and go on out into the desert and unload. Wow. I did that over a hundred times. Holy crap. And they never caught on. Never caught on to what I was coming in. Dang. I didn't tell that until recently. So that was my marijuana.

Starting point is 00:27:09 I'd like to tell one about on the way down, I said, I better stop. I was going south and I better stop at the goat ranch and see if everything's okay before I go get a load. I'd usually go down to Cobb and and that was before the road was even made and it was dirt streets. Yeah. And so I stopped and Juan came up on his fast walking mule. Hey, little one, come and stop.

Starting point is 00:27:36 How is everything? Not so good, senor. I said, what's the matter? He said, when you left last time, the federal, the soldiers came, a whole 50 of them. And they camped under all these trees here waiting on you to come back. And they ate my goats. What?

Starting point is 00:27:56 I said, he said, look, and he took me out of the plot. It's a pile of bones that big. I saved the bones to show you. I said, how many? He said, they just shot the nannies, the ones closest to the pot, say my goats. And so I said, how many did they, and he said, I believe he said 50 that they ate. And there was a pile. I said, how much for each one of them? And I forget what it was. $30 a $50 piece. And I had money in my pocket. I gave it to him and he was happy again. Holy crap. That's ruthless.

Starting point is 00:28:25 So they did catch on a little bit. Well, then I couldn't use that place anymore. Oh, well I did. I put a piece of tin on top of the goat house. And if it was up, I was all right. If it was down, I knew not to land. But I said, is there any place here to grow marijuana? He said, he had 25,000 hectares, 60,000, 70,000 acres.

Starting point is 00:28:42 He said, no, here, senor, too many people, but I know a place. So I spent the night there in the airplane, and the next morning we went, got on two fast walking mules. And we went and it had rained in the country, and the whole place was covered in flowers. It was just heavenly. And we came by a mesa. He said, I killed two big mountain lions there last week.

Starting point is 00:29:06 What? Yes. I said, how'd you do it? He said, well, I roll rocks off of that mesa. And when they go down through the bush, the deer run out. So I killed, that's how I killed deer. But this time two mountain lions ran out. And I killed them. And I said, what do you do with them? He said, we ate them. And you ate the lions? He said, we ate them. And you ate the lunch? Geez, very good. So we stopped for lunch and he had a stack of tortillas. One of them had a big fly in it.

Starting point is 00:29:32 He just pints the fly out. And he had this dried meat and very nice. And he took some dry cactus and made a little invisible fire, but it was a fire. And he heated those tortillas up and put that little sauce in there and put that little invisible fire, but it was a fire. And he heated those tortillas up and put that little sauce in there and put that meat in there, ground up like sausage. I asked him, after about 10 of those,

Starting point is 00:29:52 I said, that's mighty good. What kind of meat is that? He said, Leon. Leon. So I had line for lunch there. Wow. That's cool. I wonder how that tasted.

Starting point is 00:30:01 I've never had it. It tastes like sausage. They put the hot spices in it and things. Damn, some mountain lion. Those things are big, right? Yeah, so that was what I did with those people, yes. And when was the first time you got arrested? Was it shortly after that? I'm trying to think just exactly how that happened. Oh yes, on the,

Starting point is 00:30:29 some back before that, after I got, it took me about three months to get over the gunshots in my, and I had to keep my foot above my head. That thing thumped, thumped every heart. Because your toe got shot off, right? Yeah, so it, when I went to Hawaii, we had a lovely time with children pouring piña coladas on me and a mari there.

Starting point is 00:30:48 So I went back to Mexico and I had another fellow from out there and he was going to come down and pick up the load that I'd paid for. So he got arrested in Hermosillo, somehow he messed up. And in his pocket was my phony name in the hotel I was staying. Oh. So a nice gentleman coming. I was in the pool. He said, are you Roger Reeves? I said, yes.

Starting point is 00:31:09 And he just shook my hand and put handcuffs on me. And they put me in jail. They put me to the jail. Let me stop by. And I remember Go Yan shirts was popular. And I got some clothes on and I, it took me to the jail house and they just put me in with a prisoner there, a big nasty prisoner. And he took a blackjack and robbed me of my $300 in my wallet,

Starting point is 00:31:33 everything I had. They put me in a little cell and I guess it was 20 feet long by 12 feet wide. And sometimes it must've been 20 prisoners come in there. And I stayed there three days and I And I didn't have anything to eat. And I had a Pepsi bottle and I'd get the boy to go and get a spigot and he'd get some warm water and bring it to me. There's some rough looking fellas came through, a handsome man. And they was being transferred from one prison to the other going to Trace Maria's out there

Starting point is 00:32:03 in the ocean. And he sat down and a little woman came. Very nice, beautiful. one prisoner to the other going to Trace Maria's out there in the ocean. And he sat down and a little woman came, very nice, beautiful, it was his mother, and she brought a basket of food and brought it in, give it to him. And I was sitting beside him on that concrete floor, and that stuff smelled so good. It was little chickens wrapped in tortillas, and he offered me some and I said, please. And so I ate two or three of them and it was just delicious. And I said, thank you, thank you.

Starting point is 00:32:31 So it might've been the best sermon I ever had. Don't thank me, thank God. That was nice. And so they put me back into the, after that they put me in the torture chamber. Geez. And they really did a number on me. They beat me until there wasn't anything on me.

Starting point is 00:32:45 It wasn't red, black, or blue. Oh my gosh. And then they put my head under like a seltzer water. And you had three of them that hold you down. If you took a swiff of that carbonated water, or whatever it was, I guarantee you, six of them couldn't hold you down. It would just make your head explode.

Starting point is 00:33:02 Wow. So I learned after the first time, right before you have to breathe, act like that, go into a frenzy. So they electrocuted me with caliprods and they had a paper, if you signed the paper, it's all over. Well, I knew if I signed the paper, I was in prison for at least six years. You don't sign it, somebody can get to somebody and pay out. So I'd already learned that, I knew that.

Starting point is 00:33:26 So they, I don't know how long I was back there for a month, I guess. They took me out and stripped me naked and wrapped me over a barrel or something and they had these winches and put my arms far apart like this and they come in and they buttered up my bum. Oh, what are they fixing to do now? Anyway, there's a terrible fellow. He come here and he just crammed me full, big, big thumb, crammed me full of hot chili pepper right up my rectum until it's full up. It was excruciating painful.

Starting point is 00:34:05 That's probably the nastiest pain I've ever had. And after that, I lay on the floor recovering and they brought a dead man in, a slim black man. And he was, he was dead and he was wrapped in newspaper, just like a mummy, from top of his head all the way down, all of them, you couldn't see anything. And they had a meat hook in him, and they hung it on a bolt on the side.

Starting point is 00:34:27 Of course they'd had that bolt there for ages. And you next, son of a bitch, you next. Well, that didn't bother me too bad, a dead man. Awful, but... And then he started thawing out, and it looked like he was crying. He had his head was like this, and the tears running down his face. It was the formaldehyde running out of him.

Starting point is 00:34:50 And then his orifices opened up and it's puddling down on the floor. What an awful smell. And I went smelling that formaldehyde. I had hallucinations. I saw pink flying pigs with wings from in that cell and I put my face under the door. There's about a half inch and I put it under that filthy bloodstained door, sucking air and of course I went unconscious. And I woke up in the hospital with a doctor with a respirator on me saying, breathe man, breathe man. I almost died from that.

Starting point is 00:35:22 Wow. So I was sick and I had a terrible headache for like two weeks. Anyhow, my wife came down and paid the bribe and one morning at four o'clock they threw something on me and come, come, come quick. And we went out the back door to prison like I'd escaped, but it was a payoff.

Starting point is 00:35:40 Holy crap. And that was the first of five prisons. That's the first of five prisons. Four more after that one. That one sounds like it might be the worst though, right? That sounds intense. Oh. Or was Germany worse? It was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life. By far.

Starting point is 00:35:55 Ain't nothing else even laughing at the rest of it. Damn. Yeah, that sounds insane. They were nasty. And I found out that there was seven DEA agents there. Really? To tell them to stop Roger Reeves, whatever you do, stop him. So he's got an. Wow. So the DEA has poll in other countries. Well, they were there. They was joint with them. And that was, they came,

Starting point is 00:36:18 and these federalities were not local. They were from Mexico city. They come to arrest me. So it was a put up job by the Americans, but they couldn't find any evidence on you. They had none. So they were going to get me stopped in Mexico. They were trying to get you to, to rat out people. Maybe they can put, no, they just won't put me in prison to stop me. I was bringing a load every week. And they knew it, but they didn't know I was getting it in. Yeah. Wow. That's insane. So where'd you go after that?

Starting point is 00:36:46 Did that scare you from Mexico? I know I had one more counter. I was in the hotel room and they arrested me. And they took me out to a, with the same DE agent, they took me out to a, passed a prison where I'd been, went on and passed a railroad track and they turned down the railroad track, bumpy road, and they stopped right in about an acre where they dumped the the cairn from the highway.

Starting point is 00:37:11 They pick up the dead cows and burrs with a winch and they're bringing them to this place to rot. And I guess every year they take a bulldozer and they push up the bones and the cow hides in this jungle right behind that. So they stopped right in the middle of that, three carloads. I was in the middle of the LTD forwards and you. And I stepped out to forward and they said, Don, where are your airplanes? I said, I don't speak Spanish, sir.

Starting point is 00:37:36 He slapped me upside the head with a big, knocked me plum off my feet. I said, my Spanish improved a little bit. So they tied my hand behind me with my own belt, and pulled shirt over me, and aw, did they work me over. And they had a caliprot, and they burnt me with that thing. And that guy was big, and he was red-faced, and that went on for about three hours, geez. And he looked like he was tired of it as I was. My nose was bloody, and I just, the shirt was bloody and my knees is all,

Starting point is 00:38:08 the meat was going off the inside of them where they had me squat it down like that. And so the batteries got bad on the caliprod, so they called the boss. And when there was five of them around me, and when four of them went up there where the car was to talk with that boss, I had got my hand loose and I got a rock, good size, about like a baseball and I had it in my hand.

Starting point is 00:38:29 And he'd been having that thing under my face and telling me to sign. And I went, senior, I signed, I signed. And he came over like, what? And when he did, I came over with that rock and I hit him in the head. And I took off. I mean, I took off. Sounds like a movie scene. It was at the time. head and I took off. I mean, I sounds like a movie scene.

Starting point is 00:38:46 It was at the time. And I guess 50 feet away or a hundred feet away was that pile of dirt and the cow hides and the bones. And I ran over that and the bullets started flying at me. They was, it was all dry and red and the bullets were flying. And right when I jumped over it, I, uh, a machine gun, little pistol, like probably a Mac 10, opened up. It just slid into the foliage above me and my nose caught right on a vine and it threw me backwards, wham!

Starting point is 00:39:15 And I'm behind three or four feet of dirt and I went holding, ah, ah! Like I'd been shot. Anyhow, I scrambled through the forest and got away. Wow. So I got to, oh yeah. That is insane. There's quite a bit to that story.

Starting point is 00:39:32 I wrote a whole chapter about that. I got to, I mean, I was just right next to one. I heard his radio crack and then I had to crawl across a little pasture with a horse playing with me. And I get across and there's like a thousand acres of mango trees. And I get up in the second row because I figured that there's a helicopter coming.

Starting point is 00:39:50 And I watched 17 soldiers get out of a big, so and go into those woods where I was. And I sat up there all day long on that little, and if I move the tree shakes. Oh my God. I could hardly when the helicopter flew away, I got down out of that tree after a while and I had to walk a mile or two across.

Starting point is 00:40:07 It was just, you could see forever under there. And I come to an old chicken house and there was some, I guess the water hadn't run, they telling, I washed the blood off of me and caught the back of a school bus. There was a lot of dirt on the back of it and I grabbed it and then I got away on the back of that school bus. That's insane. You've escaped that a lot of dirt on the back of it and I grabbed it and then I got away on the back of that school bus. That's insane.

Starting point is 00:40:26 You've escaped that a lot of times. That's when I found out that the Americans were there to stop me. So I quit Mexico. I said it was too dangerous now. And I didn't know how bad I'd hurt that, that federale. And I knew if I ever got caught again, they pay me back with spades. Yeah. They had to kill me yeah you

Starting point is 00:40:45 think he survived that federally oh yeah okay didn't that did not have been extra I back to Mexico for sure you ever find out who it was no really never even tried to yeah it's funny seeing the mob guys like talk to FBI agents now on podcast you know the guys that hunted them down. Yeah. So I wonder. Same thing, different side. Yeah. So which agency was after you? Was it the DEA?

Starting point is 00:41:11 Wow. That's crazy. So you went to a different country after that? I started in Columbia. You flew there or you took a ship? No, flying, flying out there, flying a DC-3, hauling pot out of there. And it was during the World Series baseball game in 1981 that I was down there.

Starting point is 00:41:33 And I was on a, I went, I had to go too far in, the guy who lied to me by how far it was. And I had to put it down on a strip. And I'm having lunch at the place till I'm waiting for the right time. It was in the guerrilla in the guerrilla territory close to Brazil. And I was having some lunch there and laying in a hammock and wham, I mean, whew. And I looked up in the ass and I saw two military jets going straight up, just turned.

Starting point is 00:42:04 They came back down that runway and just tore it up with machine guns. Damn. And I run, got in my airplane, and a couple other guys got in there with me. And the guy took off with my $80,000 in the truck, and I should have got on that truck with my money, but I got in the airplane. I didn't think they'd shoot me. So I took off, and the two planes were right beside me. So I took off and the two planes was right beside me and they were trying to get me to go to Via Vincenza. It's a military base not too far away. And I said, uh-uh, they were just right there, like you and I looking at, nice looking young men. And I

Starting point is 00:42:36 just hold up the old peace sign. I go, oh no. So one of them had to leave and the other one got underneath me and the 20 millimeter cannon was just shooting up. It looked like, and the tracers looked like they were curving up from my, they were close. So I pushed it over so that I couldn't, he couldn't get under me anymore. And he thought I was trying to run into him. And then he come in, he tore the wing up and put bullets in the tail. And I had a lot of barrels of fuel aviation.

Starting point is 00:43:06 I said, if one of those racers goes in that, I'm a fireball. Wow. So anyway, I got into a, I went into a thunderstorm, tried to get away. And I went up like 20,000 feet. And I come out there, he was right there. Jeez.

Starting point is 00:43:20 He had me on his radar. This guy was persistent. So I went back in and I pulled it up into a spiral stall. And I went down and I got away from him and I got under the clouds and I thought, I've done so far down here, I'll go get the marijuana now. I was bulletproof and the other two guys begging me to go out, let's go back to San Jose, Costa Rica.

Starting point is 00:43:43 But I went and I saw a long, long stretch by the River Guayabiere. And it looked like it was 10 miles long with just grass on it. And I said, that looked like a spot to stop and rest until I can go back to see the gorillas. And I've kept with that big airplane, that thing weighs 30 tons.

Starting point is 00:44:00 And one strip after the other, I'm just putting those big tires, the big semi tires, and it looked like a really good runway. And I had a guy, Al, he was a copilot. And so I'm gonna stop this time, Al. So when I stopped, I almost come to a stop and I said, take your feet off the brakes.

Starting point is 00:44:17 He said, not on the brakes. And I knew what had happened. That thing had fallen through, it was a hard crust, and underneath it was mud. And the plane started, and I just gave it full power, but it was too late. And it stood up, and it just stood up on its head, stood up, it's 100 feet long, 100 feet wingspan.

Starting point is 00:44:32 That plane stood right up on its head, and the two big engines kept it from caving in on me. Wow. The whole front caved in right to us, all the instrument panel and everything, just that close to getting killed. And when it stopped, the escape hatch is in the top,

Starting point is 00:44:52 just the bolt you're done doing. I stepped out on the grass and got my satchel. Al got out with me and the other guys had to get out, they had to skim me down hoses to get out. Anyway, we had quite a time with our suitcases and I tell the story in full in the book, but anyway, I went on down the road, they went on down the road and I went down the trail.

Starting point is 00:45:17 I said, I'm not going down the road after all this. And they went straight to prison. They spent a long time in Bogota. And I went on down, I was 11 days in the jungle. Wow. And I got rides and dug out canoes with the indigenous people and I bought a bucket of brown sugar, I think the caramel type stuff. And I'd put that in a bag from, a cleaner bag, shake it and that's what I lived off of. so the indigenous people there would give me some food too.

Starting point is 00:45:48 And this is in Columbia? Yeah, a hundred down there close to, yeah. Venezuela, Brazil, that area right in that corner. And so after 11 days, and here's this little spiritual, I was in a dugout commute and I was trying to communicate with Mari and I said, I'm all right Mari, I'm all right. Because they thought maybe I was dead.

Starting point is 00:46:08 I knew they would think that I was crashing an airplane like that. And she said she was taking a shower and she heard me say it clearly. Wow. So I don't know, but she said she wasn't worried anymore. So after 11 days, came to a place, I kept asking Indian Dandista avions, and where's airplanes? And Loma Linda, where is it? Lejos, a long way.

Starting point is 00:46:29 So I went to several hundred miles, and I came to Loma Linda, and it was like Hawaii World War II. Ship lap boards, beautiful, just like what in the world? Big airstrip there and several airplanes. Nice lady there said, how did you get here? Well, I'm just touring the Amazon. We don't have tours. And I said, what is this place?

Starting point is 00:46:57 And she said, you don't know. This is Loma Linda headquarters for Missionary Aviation Fellowship for the Amazon. And I had originally learned to fly to be a missionary aviation fellowship pilot to fly the missionaries in and out and to seek people. That was my idea when I was younger. And so they flew me out. They flew me right to that military base and a military policeman took my satchel out of

Starting point is 00:47:20 the, out of the plane and same military base of jets they tried to get me to go to. Wow. So I said, all right. So they interrupted the World Sea Race Baseball game. Said, American DC-3 has just been shot down by the Colombian Air Force. But he's up, he's up and away, ladies and gentlemen. I took off again the first time. And then they said, but anyway, this is the first plane shot down on Reagan,

Starting point is 00:47:45 on Reagan and New York war on drugs. So it did interrupt the world series baseball game in 1981. Wow. So they had to delay the game? Pardon? They had to delay the game or what happened? No, they just, when they speak in at halftime or something, they tell what's going on.

Starting point is 00:47:59 Oh God. That's crazy. I didn't hear it, but several people heard it. Wow. So that was your plane they were talking about? That was my plane. Holy crap. It wasn't hear it, several people heard it. Wow. So that was your plane? They were talking about? That was mine. Holy crap. It wasn't nobody else.

Starting point is 00:48:08 Dang. What a story. First plane shot down on the war on drugs. Yeah. So those two guys went to prison. Did you talk to them after? No, I never did talk to them. I sent one of them.

Starting point is 00:48:19 The one guy was all right, but I begged him to come with me. I said, you work for me. Yeah. Come on, man work for me. Yeah. Come on man, this is because that guy's seven feet tall and got big muscles don't mean he knows what he's talking about, he already got us in this trouble himself. I'm tired, I'm going with Dan.

Starting point is 00:48:35 Seemed like people with big muscles seem to talk, you know. So I said, you go with him, but you on your own. Were you worried about them stitching on you, riding on you? Nothing about that because in Mexico, in Columbia, and those but you own your own. Were you worried about them stinching on you, riding on you? Nothing about that because in Mexico, in Columbia, in those places, if they don't catch you, you're in pretty good shape. Oh, really?

Starting point is 00:48:50 Yeah. United States is one of the few places that just dog it after you from here to Vietnam to Russia. They go after you. Everywhere. Like they just, it's a game with them. They want to put people in prison. That's their, I put the cuffs on him.

Starting point is 00:49:05 I'm so proud of myself. I shot him and I killed him. Oh, they, and even in prison, they put the high five slap on him. Get out of here. There's 50 of you and those two little guys. Yeah. Cowardly.

Starting point is 00:49:17 Yeah, they take a lot of pride in arresting people in the US, right? Oh yeah. And then how many years you can get, like they ask for life sentence for me get you're insane We wanted life for you. Yeah, I asked you a life Wow a guy got 35 years for possession of marijuana whites Now it's legal exactly and I think all those guys jumping ahead of it a little bit. I know we ahead of it, but I Was um, I thought all right, I need a landing strip halfway

Starting point is 00:49:47 between Columbia or wherever I was hauling out of and Louisiana. So I went with my family to Honduras, San Pedro Sula. It's about halfway. And we went into Lake Azul. Oh, how beautiful. And we was looking at farms and ranches and we got muddy and we got in the river and had two little girls. And then we came back to the hotel

Starting point is 00:50:16 and we put our clothes in the laundry. And so went for me, went ready I said, come back in the morning. I said, well, our tickets to New Orleans is ready. But we got to go in the morning. So I told Mari, I said, I'll go to the laundry and you go take the children and get on that plane. It's easier for one, stand by, and then two. So I went to the laundry and got our clothes and there's a big bag of them. And got on the, got to taxiing the old man.

Starting point is 00:50:49 I was trying to get him to go faster and I gave him a hundred dollar bill, go faster. He just blew the horn faster and that old car, he didn't go any faster at all. So I got there and the plane was brand new 727, taxiing out. And I ran out around the building and I waved to him and the young pilot waved back at me. And then I saw Maurice facing the cockpit. At that time you could go up and she's telling him that. And so he stopped.

Starting point is 00:51:11 I saw the news wheel go down and he extended the ladder and I'm running for the ladder. Then he takes off again, just like you know a hitchhiker was. And he's playing with me. Then he stops and puts it out. And I get on the airplane and the whole crowd cheers. And I go back about halfway and my little girl, Miriam's about nine years old. And she's sitting there and she moves over to the middle seat and there's a gentleman there. Right here he is, Mr. Barry Seal.

Starting point is 00:51:41 And I sit on the outside and the plane takes off and the wheels come up with a thud. And then in a few minutes, it's another little click, click. And Miriam said, what was that, Dad? And I said, he just turned on his autopilot. The guy leans across, you fly these things? And I got a few hours, mister. He said, I do too. My name's Barry Seal.

Starting point is 00:52:03 And he talked and he said, he just got out of prison that morning. He had blue eyes. He looks like a, he looked like a CIA agent. He didn't look like a fella just got out of prison. And I thought he was just trying to get me to talk. So he chatted away all the way to New Orleans and I didn't believe a word he said. So when we got off though, there was a bunch of people. There was his mother and his wife and little children crying and egging on him, kissing him. He'd been in prison for a year down in Honduras. And I said, he's a sucker telling the truth. I told him, give him his father number and address.

Starting point is 00:52:38 So I went over, I said, Barry, come out and see me. I might have some work for you. That's how I met Barry Seale. see me, I might have some work for you. That's how I met Barry Seale. So after some kind of bad experiences down in Columbia, I'd get a load of pot and I'd come up and it wouldn't be anything like what I bought. But so I quit. And so I had the fellow, he says, I know the money's in cocaine. And so I had the fellow, he says, I know the money's in cocaine. Let me introduce you to someone. So we flew to Medellin and went to the top of one of those high rises. And there was a lavish apartment, a condominium there with glass all around.

Starting point is 00:53:20 And the guy was drunk. He could speak several languages, brilliant, but he was drunk. And he stayed drunk for months when he did. And while we were talking, in come a woman, high cheekbones, rabbit furs all over, rabbit fur boots, and she's sashaying around and she kisses everybody three or four times on the cheek. That Sonia Diatila from Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Starting point is 00:53:46 And she was his Bolivian collection. And I'm there with that lawyer and we're just sitting there. Now we're just, she don't pay us any attention. So Fernando asked her where she's going. She's going to Miami to buy an airplane. This lawyer's smarter than I am. And he says, Roger has an airplane for sale. And he winked at me.

Starting point is 00:54:05 And she asked, what kind of airplanes do you have? I said, I have a Queen Air. Queen Air, huh? She liked the idea of a Queen Air. She thought she was queen. Ah, yes. And she says, how much do you want for it? And the lawyer's going like this.

Starting point is 00:54:21 So I told her a price. She said, okay, you bring it. If I like it, I buy it. I said, well, now I tell you, this is a pretty long piece from California to Panama. Here, I said, I'll have a man to bring it down, but it cost $5,000 for fuel. And she said, oh, give the man $5,000, Miguel. He gave me $5,000 and brought the plane down. And so she liked it. And I flew around with her on charge and she all of a random just died out there on that island. We went out there and then she said, okay, you want the money to go to Santa Cruz, Bolivia,

Starting point is 00:54:55 take me. So her crew got all in there and we went to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. And you might want to cut this story out. We landed and the police was always bowing down to her and they put us in a police stack limousine and we go out through the town and the sirens going and the flags on the front of it, oh, she is queen. And we come to her house under the water tower there at Santa Cruz, Bolivia, big water tower. And it's looking like it's made of marble, looked like a mausoleum or something.

Starting point is 00:55:26 It has a wire fence all around it to protect it. And all the help is outside the gate and they're wringing their hands and crying. And she said, what's the matter with you fools? What are you doing? She said, your line is eating the baby. What? And she runs in and I walk in behind her and she has a mountain lion and he's eating a baby.

Starting point is 00:55:50 A little baby looked like about a year old on the floor. It was a terrible scene. Sometimes I tell it and it's too gross to tell, but that lion ate that baby, had blood all over its face and she grabbed little Tommy, put him in another room and goes out there, get away from here, you stupid people never want to see your ugly faces again. Leaving a line, leaving a baby on the floor with a line in the house. And that's what that that's my, uh, and then later on her baby. No,

Starting point is 00:56:15 it was one of the lines, one of the maids babies. Wow. So later on, if you want to read about her, she's in the book, the big white lie, and the CIA and the crack cocaine epidemic. She, she told on me. She told on a lot of people and put them in prison. So yeah, she was, she was bad. She was a black widow of Bolivia. Sonia de Attila. Sonia. Yes. So the DEA got to her? Pardon? DEA got to her. What happened? Oh, they got to her and they turned her and she just went, she just flipped. She didn't

Starting point is 00:56:43 care. Wow. Cause she wasn't, she just flipped, she didn't care. Wow. Cause she wasn't even a US citizen, right? No, but they, they was all, they all over, they'll extradite you out of there. I don't know how they got her. Damn. But that book, The Big White Lie,

Starting point is 00:56:53 The CIA and the Crack Cocaine Epidemic, it's a good book. And they put a whole chapter of me and her in that chapter. She brought down a lot of people. I don't know, but I'm, they did what, she did what she wanted to. She brought down a lot of people. I don't know. She did what she wanted to. She's living here in the United States in witness protection. You never wanted to go that route. Oh, absolutely not.

Starting point is 00:57:14 Which is respectful. You're either snitchy or not. A lot of people you worked with, like some guys here. Every one of them. Every one of them? Every single one of them. Wow. I was doing some work and I'll just tell you about this. I told my friend Jerry when I first started saying, Jerry that guy's an asshole. He said, Roger, remember this. In this business, if you don't work with assholes,

Starting point is 00:57:41 you're going to be lonely. I love that. About the truth. Not all of them, but there was plenty of them. They just low life that'll tell on you in a minute. Yeah. So you had to live pretty cautiously who you kept around you, right? I didn't, I didn't, I didn't smoke stuff. I didn't do it. I didn't fool with those people. So I had nobody around me. I come home and when my family went to church and went and bought groceries and went down the road and whatever I had to do, you know, plowed my garden and I lived a normal life.

Starting point is 00:58:11 Yeah. So Apple had, was gonna make a series of my life. And they were gonna make me sort of like Far as a gump, going out and doing all these things, getting blown up and coming home to a loving family. They were going to make me sort of like a, far as a gump, going out and doing all these things, getting blown up and coming home to a loving family. And anyhow, that didn't fly.

Starting point is 00:58:31 So we were starting over again. Yeah. I don't think that's the right angle for your story. No. I mean, you obviously were smart enough to survive it all. That's not a Forrest Gump portrayal to me. They were saying, well, he's going out, you know, getting Vietnam and getting shot and all these things. And he's coming back home with a

Starting point is 00:58:47 sweetheart, you know, whatever. Yeah. But anyhow, that's, that's how they wrote it. They piloted it. It didn't, it didn't work. Yeah. So after, uh, after Bolivia, you ended up in Germany at some point, right? No, I have a, some different between now. I, um, um, this guy, Fernando Correo, the one that where Sonia came in, his wife, he said, go see her Marta. She was a nice lady, too smart. And she said, he'll sober up one day

Starting point is 00:59:16 and he's got unlimited amounts of cocaine he wants to bring to the United States. He pays $5,000 a kilo and just wait, he will sober up. He may stay drunk for three months, but he was a brilliant man, really and truly, just unbelievable when he was, we could talk to you. So she called me and said, come down, Fernandez having a birthday party

Starting point is 00:59:37 and we're having it over on the coast. And we're flying over with Avianca Airlines, just flying the crew, everybody over. So I flew over, I got there and I flew down commercially and went to, I guess, Medellin, I guess it was, and we flew over, it might've been Cali. We flew over in the little shorts, and one right after the other, and we landed at runway,

Starting point is 01:00:00 it must've been two miles long, and that's where they loaded marijuana on the ocean. He owned miles and miles of that beach south of Panama. And so I landed there and I looked in there, there's airplanes up on the side, Walsh Nest under the wings. It was like, that's when if they wanted to buy a new airplane, they'd take the numbers off of that old one

Starting point is 01:00:21 and just buy a new one in the States and paint it on there. So those old airplanes, there was millions of dollars worth of junk there. D8 tractors just track off nothing. They didn't have anybody to fix anything. So I landed there and on the way over, I met Mario and Matilda Sanchez, beautiful couple. And she was trying to sell them launches to go out to load the boats with, I believe. But she spoke perfect English, beautiful English. So I walked down.

Starting point is 01:00:56 There was an old log house there on the fast flowing river. And I pulled my shoes off and was walking, walking on the beach. And a woman, a young woman started walking with me and was chatting along and it's all red clay in the beach. And Matilda and Mario come the other way and says, Roger, Mario tells me that you're walking with the girlfriend of the most vicious killer in Columbia. He suggests you get away from her. Thank you, Matilda.

Starting point is 01:01:28 So I excused myself from the young lady. She was telling me, I don't know, I've never rode in an airplane before. I don't know this man and just invited me. And I said, I know why he invited you, honey, you might not, but she looked like a poor girl from the barrios. And so that night I went in with a bunch of men in the, in the bunkhouse,

Starting point is 01:01:49 the, the important people got a house on stilts by the beach. Anyhow, that woman comes flying in the room, slams into me. And then that guy comes in and, uh, Jaime Ordonez, he had killed 16 judges. He got caught with a ton of cocaine. Whoa. So he was bad, but anyhow, his friends caught him up. So that weekend was a big, big meeting. And I believe that's when

Starting point is 01:02:17 the Medellin Cartel was formed. They had judges and actors and people putting on skits and police from every city in Columbia. And they decided to make an insurance policy. The cocaine's worth $10,000 a kilo in Columbia, and it's worth 40 or 50 in New York. If you give it to us, if it gets, if you give it to us, if it gets busted between you give it to us and we giving it to your man,

Starting point is 01:02:49 we will replace it in Columbia. So I understand they got a hundred tons put on them. Five guys, Gilchoa, Escobar, I don't know who all they were, but they had plenty of cocaine. So the important people left and we was waiting for the airline to come pick us up the next day and I got me a plate of food and went around behind the old log house and was laying in a hammock reading the book the

Starting point is 01:03:15 MMK the far pavilions. Pow! Pow! Right by my head. Blood spattered on me and spattered on the book. Wow. I rolled out of that hammock and I just kept rolling. When I looked up, there was a black man and he was tearing the pistol out of a white man's head. And his young black man looked like he was about 20 years old and a 60 year old Colombian. And he put that pistol right behind the other guy's, his head and click, click, click, click, click.

Starting point is 01:03:41 There were no more bullets. And I saw that the white man had shot and shot a dog right in the head. He had a big black spot around his eye, just like in the Little Rascals. And that dog was turning, flipping blood. And he had shot the black man in the leg in the femoral artery and he was bleeding profusely.

Starting point is 01:03:58 So he started hobbling off and I lied, I'm not a doctor. But I said, I'm a doctor. I do have a lot of first aid training. I said, I can save you. He put that pistol right at me and I didn't want to go but I said, I'm a doctor. I do have a lot of first aid training. I said, I can save you. He put that pistol right at me and I didn't want to go click, click, click. So he went on down the road and died. Wow.

Starting point is 01:04:11 So, oh, that native people under those trees back there, they was, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They was grieving and carrying on. And they come and said, you know, that the white people who come in here and was causing a lot of trouble and this and that and the other, and they killed that boy and there was going to be lots of trouble for daylight.

Starting point is 01:04:30 Well, it got dark and the generator went out. They'd poured sand and water in the tank. And I was, I was concerned. I would be too. Twenty or thirty of us white people left there and just the actresses and unimportant people, we just guessed. So I stayed right close to Matilda.

Starting point is 01:04:52 She had a little.32 pistol. And we put diesel in cans and put a little gasoline on the rags and had little tiny smudgy plots all night long. And the next morning the soldiers came and, of course, there's just a heck of a story. But anyway, that's how I met the people in the cocaine business. So Mario took me to Envigado and we went up a little road with the toll gate or the gate, we called it,

Starting point is 01:05:22 and went by the guns and then went up a little road and cobblestone for half a mile, wound around beautiful. Bromeliads and the trees above the road and come to an old house. And it was old, I mean, two or 300 years old. And men all out, 30 or 40 of them in the front yard were there for doors and hitching rails and stone. They was waiting to see El Hefe.

Starting point is 01:05:47 And I was ushered right in. Really pretty woman. Come in, watch, be careful for the hole in the floor. There was a hole that big in the floor, but it's all polished and the floor was uneven. That thing had been, it was nice. So they ushered us right in to see Jorge Ochoa. And he's sitting behind a desk, almost this big. And he shakes his hand.

Starting point is 01:06:09 He speaks a little English. And he got 12 telephones on his desk. And each one of them is a different color. And I, what's with these telephones? He said, well, each one of these from a different city. If that rings, it's New York. And that rings, it's Chicago. I know which one it is.

Starting point is 01:06:22 So anyway, we had a chat. And he asked what kind of airplanes you had. And I told him a DC-3, a Beech 18, turbojet, aero commander, and what kind of experience you have. And I told him a couple hundred loads coming across the border. So he said they had all the work I could do and $5,000 a kilo. I said, how much you put in there? 300, 500 kilos. I thought, well, that's two and a half million dollars a day. I think I want to work with you. So he said, how much you put in there? 300, 500 kilos. I thought, well, that's two and a half million dollars a day. I think I want to work with you. So he said, let me call my compadre. So he sent the pretty woman somewhere and she came back with a man introduced

Starting point is 01:06:54 himself, Pablew Escobar and just man my size, five, eight, whatever. And look about benign as you could and khaki pants. And did you know who he was at the time? No. You never heard of him? Never heard of him. Never heard any of them. They were not any famous at that time.

Starting point is 01:07:12 And so he told me the same thing. He didn't speak any English, but I spoke a little Spanish. He said, we have all the work you can do, Senor. So I went home and got my airplane and I started flying. And I mean, it was jam up. So they kept making me go further and further in the jungle down towards Brazil. And I went to see him.

Starting point is 01:07:34 I said, now listen, I just can't make it. It won't make it that far. And they said, well, next time I landed, Pablo Escobar landed in a new helicopter right beside me at a banana plantation down there. And he introduced me to a guy named Benjamin. And Benjamin got in the plane, he said, go where he tells you to. So we loaded up with cocaine and Benjamin got in there and we took off and went and landed in a military base in Nicaragua. I met the general there and

Starting point is 01:08:00 they cooked lunch and steaks and with the egg on top of it. And he said, land here anytime you want to, but in radio silence, we'll fill you, lane up with gas. You can spend the night, stay long as you want to and go north when you want. So, I mean, that was like unbelievable. So I, that was, uh, before the Oliver North and the Iran Contra. Yeah. But, uh, so I got above, um, I think I had about six or seven loads and I got above the clouds one night and couldn't get down.

Starting point is 01:08:32 I got above the fog. And so I was in dire states and I thought I was gonna die. I said, what am I gonna do? I can't get down. It was too foggy? It was just fog, just a layer of fog from, I guess, the cargo to Orlando or somewhere. I didn't have enough fuel to go where it wasn't. So it was late at night and moon was shining bright and I just had to go out and all the airports closed. So I came down the

Starting point is 01:09:01 glide slope at Louis Armstrong International Airport there in New Orleans and bounced down the runway. I couldn't see anything. And I'm not that good a pilot. Most people aren't. So I got stopped halfway down and I walked a mile to the end, a mile the other way, and I'm off in the gravel on one side between the lights. And I stayed there all night long,

Starting point is 01:09:27 it was still zero zero everywhere. So the next morning, I guess it got seven, eight o'clock, and the sun came out. You could see right up through it, but you couldn't see two lights down the runway. And I couldn't stand it any longer. I thought some little security truck or something's gonna come down this runway and find me.

Starting point is 01:09:45 I'll be a life in prison. Yeah. So when it just as little bit of cleared, I took off. And I didn't have to go over 30, 40 miles. Place called St. Timothy Aviation over at, across Lake Pontchartrain. And the guy Harvey that, I was paying the land, and nice fella.

Starting point is 01:10:04 I talked to him on a walkie-talkie and he said, it's still fogging in here, Roger, but it's breaking up and I can see up, I can see you. I said, I can see you too. He said, but when you get down in it's going to be snot. So I didn't have much fuel left. I just pulled the power and headed for that runway and I got landed. And I said, I am through. I'm never gonna do it again. It's just my life's not worth it. So, Leto was in Miami and when I took the load to him, I told him that was it, I was quitting. And of course he was making their living off of me

Starting point is 01:10:35 and oh please, Roger, please, no. And said, you have anybody, anybody, fly? And I, well heck, I got the thing down. So I said, I maybe have somebody. So I went and asked Barry Seale if he'd fly. Well, heck, I got the thing down. So I said, I'll maybe have somebody. So I went and asked Barry Seale if he'd fly. Yeah, so I put Barry to work and he started flying and they had so much. I bought him three or four of those Panther conversions. And so I asked my old friend, Jerry Wills, if he wanted to fly. Yeah. So I had two airlines running. Wow. They were bringing two loads a week up. So I was like $5 million a week.

Starting point is 01:11:06 Jeez. And so it was just, it was unbelievable amount of money coming up. And I could, I said, when you want me to come back, we waiting on you, Senor. That is nuts. Did you have an end game? Did you have a number in mind that made you want to quit?

Starting point is 01:11:24 Not really, but it all comes to a number in mind that made you want to quit? Not really, but, uh, it all comes to a screeching in for you expect it to. Right. I took a load of money to a grand Cayman Island. I, uh, uh, chartered a jet. I forgot what kind it is, but it was a pretty good size. Blue jet. I don't know how many millions of dollars. I think I had $15 million in it and flew down to grand Cayman Island. And, uh, the pilot says, Oh, we want to stay for a few days. And so I flew back commercially.

Starting point is 01:11:51 And, um, when I landed in Miami, I was arrested. I was charged with continuing primal enterprise, which cares life in prison for possession of marijuana. And, um, so I, um, I gave up my property, my home, money, millions, and I got down to possession of 400 pounds of marijuana and tax evasion. I got 35 years. Damn. And then the old judge was nice.

Starting point is 01:12:16 Judge Terry had her, and I think he'd have took me home with him if he could. He said, I see you. Raised on the farm, fed the hogs. I guess you want to come out to California and live high on the hog. But I don't know if you've, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I see all these nice things you've done for people. And I had 65 letters.

Starting point is 01:12:35 He said, I read every one of them. Wow. So he said, but I'm going to, I'm going to send a message to society. So he put me on 25 years special parole, five years probation, five years in prison. Damn. So that, uh, that was the end of that era. So that was the beginning of my 33 years in prison. Oh, that was the start of it? Yeah. Holy crap. So you did five years

Starting point is 01:13:00 in prison? Oh, I did about two and a half half then and then was out on parole. And then I'd heard Barry had turned. While you were in prison? Well yeah towards the end of it. I don't know how I heard somebody it was like it wasn't just right. So I was home and Mari had rented a house and it was nice and I was watching I was eating breakfast in there, I was Ronald Reagan faced on the news, and there was a seat 126 on Barry's, bailed in on the military strip there in Nicaragua. And Ronald Reagan's blue eyes said, we have absolute positive proof that the Communist Sandinista government is in the cocaine running business. And there it was.

Starting point is 01:13:44 So the phone rang, and Barry says, Roger, I'm coming out tonight. Meet me at such and such a little French restaurant there in town. So I met him at nine o'clock and I went in and he was sitting back at the back and the room was 20 people or more. All of them 25, 35 year old DEA agents, of course. Women with the leather skirts and men with a sport jacket. And Barry was leaning back and I said, Barry, you're wired. He said, no, I'm not wired. I said, well, I'm not going to say anything. Just tell me what's happening. So he went to tell me how that he had been protected by the Clintons, CIA, everybody in the onloading. I was giving him $50,000 every time I landed for his protection.

Starting point is 01:14:29 So he said, they all abandoned me. So I was facing three life sentence. So I told everybody, I told on all of them. And they said, I've told on your part of it too. I said, you can come to Miami and testify with me. You can keep, get a new passport, keep your money, live anywhere in the world you wanna live. I said, all of them, but he just put his fingers

Starting point is 01:14:51 over his eyes, I mean, he put his hands up and the tears run between his fingers. He said, I'm so sorry, Roger. I'm so sorry, I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do three life sentences. And I said, Barry, they gonna kill you for it. No, no, no. And I said, well, they're going to kill you for it. No, no, no. And I said, well, bring your head honcho over. And the guy was Jake Jacobson.

Starting point is 01:15:09 The guy that they had gone down and got one and a half tons and I put it in that C one 26 and bellied it in and the runway there in Nicaragua. And then they called Pablo Escobar and said, we need another airplane. And Barry had a camera inside clicking and one under the wing clicking. Wow. He said you could hear them clicking. And Pablo Escobar comes and you can see and you can read about this and he's got pictures of it in the book Kings of Cocaine.

Starting point is 01:15:39 He's got a chapter about me in there. So you see Pablo Escobar and some of those generals toting the cocaine from one plane to the other. And they fly, okay, get on into Florida, and then Leto, my friend, gets it, and they drive down the road in the motor home, and they have a dump truck with the EA that ram into it, and Leto's are less than that's the end of the game.

Starting point is 01:16:03 So Barry didn't, he's working for him. So I've got to go testify with Barry or spend the rest of my life in a penitentiary. That agent says, you can go down tomorrow in first class or I'll take you down tonight in chains. If I take you in chains, the only place you're ever gonna see your family again, I promise you, is in a federal penitentiary visiting room, as long as you live."

Starting point is 01:16:29 I said, I believe I'll go first class tomorrow. So I went down and I went to see a famous lawyer, one anyhow, and I was telling him what the situation was. He said, well, I'll represent you for $600,000, but I don't talk to snitches. I said, no, I'm not a snitch. I said, I gotta do something. I'm looking for professional help. What can I do?

Starting point is 01:16:52 He said, being a snitch is like being pregnant. You either are or you're not. I said, well, I'm not. So he said, well, there ain't nothing I can do for you. He said, if you go in that room and testify before the grand jury and you don't tell them one thing, they can use everything you said against you to convict you.

Starting point is 01:17:15 Then you gotta tell them everything. So I took Murray and the children, we fled to Brazil and he was down there a few months and Barry was assassinated. Wow. Shot in the parking lot. The DEA begged the judge not to put him into a place like that. It said he will be killed.

Starting point is 01:17:35 And the judge said he should have thought of that before he did this. So the judge gave him a death sentence. He had six months to go in every night at six o'clock to a halfway house. And the guy that I flew up on the first load was, was the guy that killed him. He just got out after 40 years, just got out here a few months ago. I don't know, 40 years maybe. We got 86, so he must've been 38 years. Holy crap. And he just got out. So he put the head out for him.

Starting point is 01:18:05 He put a head out for him. Pardon? He put a head on on Barry from prison. No, he killed him. No, no, no. The Ochoa brother, I believe put the head on and he sent that guy up to kill him. Oh wow. Yeah. That guy sitting on the back seat of that. It's kind of interesting. He sat on the back seat of the first load I did for him. Dang. And they had a little Mac 10 ugly man, skinny little ugly man. I mean, sure enough, ugly. And we took off and it was a banana plantation. A lot of that stuff was down in the banana fields. And it was clay. It was raining. So we took off the mud from the clay,

Starting point is 01:18:39 filled up my wheel wells with that little airplane. And I couldn't get the wheels up. Well, now they'd be going 300 mile an hour, I'm going about 200. I can't make Louisiana or Arkansas with that drag. So I tell the guy, we got to stop. And he'd be, no, no, Louisiana, Louisiana. I could have been going to Argentina, he wouldn't have known the difference.

Starting point is 01:18:59 But I told him, no, we got to stop in Belize. And I got a place there that it's safe to stop. I used to refuel for marijuana there. No, no, and he put the gun right up to my head. I said, go ahead and shoot, fool. You're gonna die too. Either way, you're gonna die. I landed with that gun to my head.

Starting point is 01:19:19 Mr. Carter was there and he welcomed me good and he had sent a boy out to watch the airplane and I stood up and we ate on the veranda and and that old guy, Ronaldo was happy as a lark. We had chicken and potatoes and we flew on in and that's when Barry unloaded me that load and that's how he met Barry so he knew who he was looking for. Wow. So that was the death of Barry Seal. And did all the cases get dismissed because he died?

Starting point is 01:19:42 Yes, but when they caught me, I had several. I'll jump ahead. When they caught me here in the United States, they made me do 11 years for parole violation. It's the longest in the world history. I've never heard of anybody. No, nothing in the United States. 132 months.

Starting point is 01:20:01 Geez. And I'll back up there. I'm getting ahead of myself there. But so anyway, I stayed in maximum security prison for that 11 years right there in Lompoc. Wow. So you ended up in Brazil, right? Yeah, we went on down there.

Starting point is 01:20:14 I took my family and fled. So I was living in Brazil and lived on the beach in an island called Guarajá. And I like it. When I got there, I was kind of looking over my shoulder but I didn't have good paperwork. And the helicopters and all kind of was there. Anyhow, they were looking for Mingal.

Starting point is 01:20:34 They had found his body, the angel of death. He had been just two or three houses from where I'd been. So anyway, I got a scare. So after a year, my little girl, she learned to speak Portuguese, and she was 10 or 11 years old. She played under the lifeguard place right in front of the house with all the children,

Starting point is 01:20:55 and she had a little moped on the... And we had a good time there in Brazil, and it went all over. So my wife, I was thinking about growing soybeans. So we got Brazilian passports. We got everything perfect. Our fingerprints in the system where we got married and inherited land, all of that was paid for. So we were Brazilians.

Starting point is 01:21:19 The only thing I didn't speak Portuguese. So I says, all right, let's go see what South Africa like. Mari did not like to live in the rest of our life in Brazil, but she's from Holland. So the Boer, the Dutch, settled in South Africa and the language is still there. It's a little different, but so we said, okay, let's go to Cape Town, South Africa and see if we can find a home. So we got off the plane first class, my wife and Miriam and our little son, like six years old and Miriam must have been 11. And when we got off the airplane, we just zippity-dooed off thinking nothing about it. And we come up to immigration

Starting point is 01:22:06 and there's a big, big Mexican-looking guy with a gold button and mustache. Bon dia! God, my knees went out from under me. I am wanted all over the world. I don't speak Portuguese and I got a Portuguese passport. It's like, really? I thought, what am I going to do? This is not going to work. And my daughter came quickly around and she said, sir, my father is deaf. And she said in Portuguese, oh gee, welcome family. Wow. That is brilliant.

Starting point is 01:22:41 So that was our sojourn. And so we lived a while in South Africa. We just loved it down there. I heard it's beautiful. It is. Cape Town is the hidden jewel. It costs 25% there, what it does now, and it is superb. Wow. Yeah, I want to get out there.

Starting point is 01:22:58 I've never been, but I've heard great things. Yes. You know? It's lovely. So you spent a lot of time in Africa? Yeah. I like Africa. It's got something of the, uh, find your spirit that I have, you know, it's just certainly, I travel all over. I have no trouble. Yeah. Man, uh, we'll do a part two, but anything you want to close off with here?

Starting point is 01:23:19 I know you got the book. Yeah. Let me, uh, I think it got, I'd like to read my daughter. When I got, I got after our Europe, I got arrested in the the book. Yeah, let me, I think I'd like to read my daughter. When I got, after Europe, I got arrested in the United States. I think I told you all I spent 33 years in prison. And this little girl that saved my butt there in Cape Town, she wrote me a poem. Here it is, daddy's poem. See, if you could see their picture,

Starting point is 01:23:46 there they are right there. I don't think you can see it. Yeah, we'll throw it up on the screen. Okay, all right. Daddy's poem, she wrote this when she was 17 years old after I got arrested and was back here. I do 11 years parole violation. A year ago, I became a poet when I wrote

Starting point is 01:23:59 your birthday prose. And here I am today, ready to give it another go. First, I would like to wish you a very happy birthday to be, and to thank you very much, for without you I would not be me. Secondly, I want to say that your suspense has been immense. It has been true, honest, and loving, and free of all pretense. Thirdly, it goes without saying, your love has surpassed all my wrongs, and you always made me smile with one of your

Starting point is 01:24:25 old country songs. Wow. Did she write this to you while you were in prison? Pardon? While you were in prison she wrote this to you? She wrote to me. She was just a little girl, 17 years old in high school. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:24:36 I remember on Cuervo, Daddy, with you holding me in your arms as you sang Jim Reeves songs and talked about the farm. I can see you walking through the door from one of your travels far and wide. And the thought of you coming home, Daddy, kept a twinkle in our eyes. I can smell you as I did when I used to climb into your bed and you would talk to me again

Starting point is 01:24:56 about one of the adventures that you led. I can see me and Mario asleep in one of your airplanes extraordinaire. I remember wondering to myself why there wasn't an available chairinaire and remember wondering to myself why there wasn't an available chair. I remember having to meet you and worrying that you wouldn't be there, but you would pop from behind some counter and give us all a happy scare.

Starting point is 01:25:15 You gave us presents in Key Biscayne and Hotel Pleasures Galore and three dozen roses as we came through the airport door. When I saw your face in Amsterdam at the luggage carousel, you looked like a boy with a secret that you were just dying to tell. You taught me mathematics in the sands of faraway places. You taught me to sail, and we sometimes left without any traces.

Starting point is 01:25:40 We climbed glaciers in Argentina and saw the blue of their beautiful caves and witnessed majestic beauty of such a jagged crystalline maze. I learned how to change gears on the dirt roads of Brazil. We ate hot dogs in Paraguay, a memory we stole from Guatil. We talked about lions, elephants, and bears on a hussy end in the Uruguay, but decided it was better to Europe we did fly. Oh, the old world and all its luxury, what a good time it was.

Starting point is 01:26:08 From South America to the Krasnopolski, I think we fell in love. European Chant, well, is to be considered a book all in itself, but it's a story about beauty and knowledge, suspense and worldly wealth. We went from Holland to Sweden and we went from France to Spain, and I promise you that I have no regrets. I would definitely do it all again. I would see the world with you anytime, sir. There's no doubt in my mind because being by your side, Daddy, always ensures a while good time. So our paths took a turn and we're back in the U.S. of A. But life here isn't so bad and I'm plumb content to stay. I'm happy to be near bad, and I'm plumb content to stay.

Starting point is 01:26:45 I'm happy to be near you, though I'm not as close as before, but because of your love and encouragement, I've been able to open new doors. I'm grateful to be in school, and I'm generally happy where I am, and I even like when you call and tell me to study for the next exam. What a life you've given me, Daddy. It's a tremendous and a magical gift. We already have so many stories to tell. There are far too many to list. But I want to thank you again this day with a very big happy birthday to you. And to tell you just a few more things that I know in my heart

Starting point is 01:27:17 to be true. I love you, Daddy, with all of your wrongs and your rights. That you're the head of our family and you've kept us all bound tight, that you have an honest love in your heart for God and all mankind, and you truly do believe in yourself when you say it will all be fine. I know you'll be there to catch me if ever I waver or slip,

Starting point is 01:27:38 and I know I'd want you as captain on any sinking ship. I also know when your chapter is written, it's almost time to move on. It's time to sail another sea and to witness a brand new dawn. It'd be good to see you at the helm again as you point out our destination and to laugh and dance as a boat glides through.

Starting point is 01:27:58 Be good to see you on the go as I know you like to be and to know you can open any door without requiring a key. But while we revel in our days together, we will know better than to hurry because if you told me many times, life is an incredible journey. Wow, with Miriam. That was beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, poetry's a lost art these days. Yes. Beautiful. We'll link the book in the description below. All right, good. Yeah, thanks for coming on, man. Stay tuned. Part link the book in the description below. Alright, good. Yeah, thanks for coming on man. Thank you.

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Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

Digital Social Hour - Surviving 33 Years in Prison: Roger Reaves' Shocking Tale | Roger Reaves DSH #1169

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Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

Digital Social Hour - Surviving 33 Years in Prison: Roger Reaves' Shocking Tale | Roger Reaves DSH #1169

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.