Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life, the average persons never exposed her.
Speaker 1: I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty
Speaker 1: five of those years I was catching killers. That's what
Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to part two of my chat with Cassie Sainsbury.
Speaker 1: You might know her as Cocaine Cassie. Cassie spent three
Speaker 1: years in what I would describe as a living hell
Speaker 1: after being caught trafficking cocaine out of Bogatar Port in Columbia.
Speaker 1: Welcome back for part two.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: Hey, I want to say up front, I'm sorry I
Speaker 1: making you relive these relieve these things. But I think
Speaker 1: that people when they do hear your story, will get
Speaker 1: a better understanding of who you are, what you went through,
Speaker 1: and might in a strange, bizarre soor the way find
Speaker 1: the inspiration because I find that fascinating human spirit. How
Speaker 1: you can some of those situations that you found yourself
Speaker 1: in prison, I don't know how you got up the
Speaker 1: next day or I'm sure, yeah, there were times when
Speaker 1: you didn't think you would survive. So I apologize up
Speaker 1: front dragging you back through it.
Speaker 3: So that's okay, it's fine.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to talk about we left in part
Speaker 1: one talking about the detention center, which I'm still scratching
Speaker 1: my head how a blonde female ends up in a
Speaker 1: South American detention center.
Speaker 2: Full of full of miles.
Speaker 1: You survived that, but that was only the start of you'll,
Speaker 1: let's call it your journey, because then you ended up
Speaker 1: in prison. Tell us about your first impressions of prison.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk about life in prison. So I'll hand
Speaker 1: it over this year.
Speaker 3: Okay. So I was taken to edbuin Pastor roughly six
Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning on a Monday, And when we're
Speaker 3: pulling up, all I can see is these massive blue
Speaker 3: doors and I couldn't see anything really far beyond that
Speaker 3: at that point, and I was like, oh, okay, this
Speaker 3: is not what I expected. Not that I knew what
Speaker 3: I was expecting, but it wasn't what I expected. And obviously,
Speaker 3: again the police went through the remaining stuff that I
Speaker 3: had and further took out more stuff just because they could.
Speaker 3: There was actually no real reason for them to keep
Speaker 3: doing it. And when I was taken to enter through
Speaker 3: the blue door, there was a small little blue door
Speaker 3: on the side, and I basically got pushed through it
Speaker 3: and I fell on the floor and I look up
Speaker 3: and I looked to my left and there was these
Speaker 3: buildings with clothes all hanging out the sides of them,
Speaker 3: like thousands of pieces of clothing, and I just remember
Speaker 3: it was a very peculiar thing to see, and I
Speaker 3: was like, well, why are these clothes out there? And
Speaker 3: it just came across as very dirty, very dirty. Instantly,
Speaker 3: I had a guard who just did not like me
Speaker 3: at all, pushed me around, was very very harsh physically
Speaker 3: with me, considering it's not that I could really run
Speaker 3: anywhere or do anything or even space or backchat to her.
Speaker 3: She was actually very very mean. I think that's the
Speaker 3: only word to put it. It was she was mean,
Speaker 3: and walking through I saw all these these guards blue
Speaker 3: blue military type uniform and then there was these other
Speaker 3: people walking around with these coffee color type uniforms, and
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, okay, who are those people? And it's
Speaker 3: really interesting, obviously, looking back on it, when I walk
Speaker 3: in there, I'm not really processing anything that's going on.
Speaker 3: You're kind of it's like watching something's happening to you,
Speaker 3: but you're not really a part of it. You're not
Speaker 3: there feeling like you're living that moment at all, because
Speaker 3: it is the moment you step through that blue door,
Speaker 3: your life stops. That's it. It's it pauses. And so
Speaker 3: when I get taken in, she obviously be processed, obviously
Speaker 3: again getting asked questions if I had any tattoos, if
Speaker 3: I was married, had kids, This guard also that I had.
Speaker 3: She spoke very little English. She did try to speak
Speaker 3: to me, and she was trying to be a little
Speaker 3: bit warming, kind of be like it's okay, it's fine,
Speaker 3: it's okay. You know, everything will be okay. And in
Speaker 3: my head, I'm like, I'm in prison, how can it
Speaker 3: be okay? You live here? Like why is this okay? Like,
Speaker 3: how can you say that to me right now? And
Speaker 3: but she was trying to do them. I guess a
Speaker 3: nice thing could have treated me like absolute crap there,
Speaker 3: and she didn't, And so I was processed and then
Speaker 3: I was put into this little room and she's like, stinky,
Speaker 3: you know, you stink? And in my head I was like, well,
Speaker 3: what do you think? Do you really think I was
Speaker 3: gonna strip down naked in front of a bunch of
Speaker 3: men and showers like because.
Speaker 2: You'd come from your detention, yeah.
Speaker 3: And not that I had any clothes to change into either,
Speaker 3: because I'd basically been left with nothing, and I knew
Speaker 3: I stank like it'd been well three or four days
Speaker 3: no shower. I can positively tell you that I think
Speaker 3: I held on to urine like two days. At one
Speaker 3: point it actually physically hurt. So I'm pointing to this
Speaker 3: little little what is it called over there, It's called
Speaker 3: a hula, So it's like this little cagy room and
Speaker 3: she goes shower, and there was in the on the
Speaker 3: left hand side, there was a little shower in the open,
Speaker 3: and then a toilet in the open, And in my
Speaker 3: head I was kind of like, well, this is my
Speaker 3: life now, going from being such an introvert. I don't
Speaker 3: like my body. I don't like showing off my body.
Speaker 3: You know, one of those people that would wear over
Speaker 3: size baggy stuff and then basically having to be naked
Speaker 3: in front of everyone. So the shower, I was over
Speaker 3: there freezing cold ice water. Naturally, coming from Australia, we
Speaker 3: have a luxury of very nice water. So this was
Speaker 3: the first shower that I had to have with freezing
Speaker 3: cold water, and so obviously strip off and I almost
Speaker 3: showered it as if I was a little cat.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: I was like put my foot in and it burnt
Speaker 3: that it was so cold, and so I not even
Speaker 3: a minute. I don't think I got water where I
Speaker 3: had to get water, and that was it. I was
Speaker 3: out and the guard had left some clothes. Oh I
Speaker 3: laugh at this now, but I wasn't in a good
Speaker 3: mood at the time. I had left some clothes on
Speaker 3: the sitting bench there for me. Where Now I've picked
Speaker 3: it up and it was like this size four top.
Speaker 3: Now I was I was quite big, so I would
Speaker 3: have been like a size fourteen, size sixteen, so I
Speaker 3: wouldn't even about it what like, So I had to
Speaker 3: put my dirty clothes back on, put my jenny clothes
Speaker 3: back on, and so the guys come back in, and
Speaker 3: she looked really upset with me, and she's like clean, clean,
Speaker 3: and I was like, they don't fit me, like I'm
Speaker 3: not walking around and stuff that doesn't fit me. So
Speaker 3: and she just avoided me after that because I stank,
Speaker 3: and I really did stink. And then bit by bit
Speaker 3: more people were starting to be processed, and probably within
Speaker 3: about the hour or two, this room was full, and
Speaker 3: these women just kept looking at me. A couple tried
Speaker 3: to talk to me, but I couldn't really say anything
Speaker 3: else no no, no Spanish, no Spanish, trying to be
Speaker 3: like smiling and not looking mean at anyone, because that
Speaker 3: also was I have quite a expressional face, so if
Speaker 3: I don't like someone, it's noticeable straight away, so that
Speaker 3: I was trying to be overcought, just of not making
Speaker 3: the wrong face at anyone, not making eye contact because
Speaker 3: we don't make eye contact in prison, all those sorts
Speaker 3: of things, and then still trying to be polite.
Speaker 1: And it was, yeah, look, it's if it wasn't so
Speaker 1: heavy and so serious, it's almost like a comedy, like
Speaker 1: you I think, what's that movie Bridget Jones Diary when
Speaker 1: she goes in in the tie prison or whatever and
Speaker 1: just totally inappropriate and just not understanding it. It's and look,
Speaker 1: we're not laughing at it, we're not laughing at the situation.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you just got to get what the help.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think now I can laugh at things
Speaker 3: because it it was hell going throughout that time, but
Speaker 3: now I kind of go, it's almost just so it's
Speaker 3: a real twisted humor towards it, because it's so funny
Speaker 3: that you just don't think it would happen. You go, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: you're in those situations you know you won't find something
Speaker 3: funny or and there are moments where you do laugh
Speaker 3: in prison. You do have okay days where you feel
Speaker 3: like a normal human being. And I think, yeah, I
Speaker 3: can look back at everything now and actually laugh at
Speaker 3: parts that probably were not that great at the time.
Speaker 3: But yeah, as I said, it's really twisted humor because
Speaker 3: if I'm waiting to be actually introduced into the prison
Speaker 3: and then there's just really random things that happen, and
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 1: Really like, can it get can it get any worse?
Speaker 1: They've given me clothes, I can't can't fit into them.
Speaker 1: What was your impression of the other prisoners, were they like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get all sorts in prisons, obviously, but you get
Speaker 1: the people that I The sense I get of a
Speaker 1: prison is that everyone's a potential threat, even if they're
Speaker 1: being nice to here, and it's hard to sort of
Speaker 1: navigate your way through that.
Speaker 3: I think it's worse if they're nice to you, to
Speaker 3: be honest, because you're always waiting for the other coin
Speaker 3: to flip. I think the people that were actually walking
Speaker 3: in with me, that had been processed with me, they
Speaker 3: it's going to sound very judging, but almost poor. They
Speaker 3: looked poor. They looked like they'd just been pulled off
Speaker 3: the street for something. And it was really sad because
Speaker 3: and I don't know how this started in such a time,
Speaker 3: Like at the very beginning of my process going through it,
Speaker 3: I felt bad for these women. Lots of them are crying,
Speaker 3: I presumed most of them. Obviously they're families over there,
Speaker 3: they're very tight knit families. They all have kids young,
Speaker 3: and I just looked at these women and I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: you poor people, Like I don't know what you did,
Speaker 3: and I'm not anyone to judge because I'm here too,
Speaker 3: but I just felt sad for these people because nobody
Speaker 3: wants to be there. Nobody wants to be there. There
Speaker 3: was a couple of scary looking people, obviously, some people
Speaker 3: that you just got this instant feeling that you you
Speaker 3: have to be nice to them, but stay away from them,
Speaker 3: type like if I'm not nice to you, it's going
Speaker 3: to bite me in the bum a little bit later. So,
Speaker 3: and I, in my head, prison was kind of like
Speaker 3: we're all in the same building, and we just all
Speaker 3: have our own little selse, kind of like what you
Speaker 3: see in the movies. Ah, obviously, because we don't.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm laughing now at you, like it just seems
Speaker 1: too ridiculous. You're so naive when you've got in there,
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, okay, we can all get on.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've only ever seen cell blocks, obviously in movies or something.
Speaker 3: And in my head, that's what I was walking into.
Speaker 3: Didn't matter what country I was in. That was kind
Speaker 3: of what was waiting for me, even though I'd just
Speaker 3: gone through a mini hell in a holding cell. But
Speaker 3: I kind of justified that by saying, but that's not
Speaker 3: a prison, that was just a holding cell. So when
Speaker 3: I'm actually before going into prison, I am strip searched
Speaker 3: again by mail guards, and particularly I got one who
Speaker 3: obviously again definitely went way past acceptable behavior, man handling, fondling, touching,
Speaker 3: feeling being very almost dominating in the sense of, you know,
Speaker 3: excuse a French, but you know you're a piece of
Speaker 3: shit kind of that's and I think in that moment,
Speaker 3: I've kind of gone how many times do I have
Speaker 3: to keep going through this? And I think the frustraate
Speaker 3: and the frustrations kind of stuck in that moment as well,
Speaker 3: because I thought, well, how many times do I have
Speaker 3: to be searched? If each time I get searched, I've
Speaker 3: got nothing, why do you think it's going to change.
Speaker 3: Like I don't have any connections to get anything in here,
Speaker 3: I don't speak to anyone. And it was almost every
Speaker 3: time I got searched, it just escalated a little bit.
Speaker 3: More and more got dressed, picked up, like my two
Speaker 3: two three pieces of items that I was given by
Speaker 3: the guard because she didn't take them away from me,
Speaker 3: maybe with the potential hope that I would squeeze myself
Speaker 3: into them. One day, I was finally walked through into
Speaker 3: the prism and it's still wasn't what I sek efected.
Speaker 3: So in my head, obviously I expected to see the
Speaker 3: prison block. That's what I expected. And I've walked through
Speaker 3: this door and the first thing I see is there's
Speaker 3: a patch of grass on my left hand side. Doors
Speaker 3: all around me and then the corridor, and I've be like, oh, okay.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, I can smell bread, like fresh bread.
Speaker 3: I was like, this is really weird. So we walked
Speaker 3: through and then I see these same people with the
Speaker 3: the coffee colored uniforms walking around as well, and I'm
Speaker 3: still still trying to figure out if they're guards, if
Speaker 3: they're volunteer workers, if they're inmates, and people still talking
Speaker 3: at me, and it was just way over my head.
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of looking at them and like processing, and.
Speaker 2: You're not you're not understanding the language of all ways.
Speaker 1: No, no other than a couple of couple of words,
Speaker 1: you had nothing at.
Speaker 3: That point, I forg even completely blanked that. You know, yes,
Speaker 3: is see, because if I was my head, my brain
Speaker 3: was under such dress that I wasn't even even if
Speaker 3: I think I'd just been a little bit I guess
Speaker 3: understood a little bit of Spanish. I don't think I
Speaker 3: would have been able to, because it was just so
Speaker 3: much emotional emotional stress that I just couldn't comprehend anything.
Speaker 3: And I think that's why I went in there, so
Speaker 3: in like ditsy kind of oh, kind of oh okay,
Speaker 3: wound up in prison. This is what it is. So
Speaker 3: walking through the corridor, it's when I come into the prison,
Speaker 3: essentially the actual where the yards start. So the yards
Speaker 3: they are broken up into what they call nine patios.
Speaker 3: So when you first just walked through the corridor, you've
Speaker 3: got Patio five, Patio four, Patio three, Patio two. Then
Speaker 3: in the middle there is there's a building. On your left,
Speaker 3: I'm just visualizing it. Just past that, there's like this
Speaker 3: stage and I remember looking at it going okay. Then
Speaker 3: there was this church, and I'm really abused. At this point,
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, this is not what I expected. And
Speaker 3: then passing that on my right hand side there is
Speaker 3: a park with a playground with kids on it, like
Speaker 3: little kids, And I just first thought was why the
Speaker 3: little kids in prison, Like what did they do something?
Speaker 3: Because this is not normal. This is not normal at all.
Speaker 3: And I knew later on i'd probably understand it, but
Speaker 3: that at that point it was mind blowing that there's
Speaker 3: a stage, there's a church, there's there's a playground, and
Speaker 3: I was mind blowing. Definitely was not what I imagined.
Speaker 3: Then you walk a little further down this corridor, because
Speaker 3: it seems like a corridor that just keeps on giving.
Speaker 3: There's Patio nine, Patio eight on the other side, and
Speaker 3: then right at the very end there's Patio one. Patio
Speaker 3: one is where all the newcomers go. It is the
Speaker 3: most there's no construction to this patio at all. Is
Speaker 3: probably the oldest part of the prison, so they use
Speaker 3: old tin sheds as the actual cells, and you're just
Speaker 3: all locked up in there together. No mattresses, no, no nothing.
Speaker 3: You just left to basically sleep on the floor. So
Speaker 3: I get in there and I see this phones on
Speaker 3: the wall. Oh they've got phones here? How do the
Speaker 3: phones work? And again, as I said, I can laugh
Speaker 3: about it now, but at that time, it was chaotic
Speaker 3: in my head because I wanted to understand everything that
Speaker 3: was being said, but I just wasn't comprehending anything. And
Speaker 3: then we're locked up in this tin chad, which was
Speaker 3: when I first come across Lovely lady with some nasty
Speaker 3: cuts in her face, lots of scars, she had a
Speaker 3: metal bar through her leg. And I walk in and
Speaker 3: it was almost like this instant. She looked at me.
Speaker 3: I looked at her, and I looked straight at the
Speaker 3: ground because I knew I just sat part of me knew.
Speaker 3: I knew she was going to be a nightmare for me.
Speaker 3: And we were kept in there and they did a
Speaker 3: roll call, and probably about thirty minutes later, we were released.
Speaker 3: And I've walked out into the little the little yard
Speaker 3: that they have within the patio, and a lady, an
Speaker 3: older lady, comes up to me and goes, oh, you're Gringer.
Speaker 3: Let's see. Yes, yes, a phone family, familiar family like
Speaker 3: uh no, no, no, have I got no money? And
Speaker 3: I remember speaking to her so quickly that we must
Speaker 3: have been like a mirror to each other when we were speaking,
Speaker 3: because she looked at me so confused, and so then
Speaker 3: as much as I tried to speak slower, I wasn't
Speaker 3: actually speaking slower. I think I was getting more frustrated
Speaker 3: that she didn't understand me. So the lovely lady, she
Speaker 3: actually lent me a phone card and she helped me
Speaker 3: call someone from my family, and that's so I decided
Speaker 3: to call my sister. Now it would have been maybe
Speaker 3: twelve one o'clock in the morning here in Australia and
Speaker 3: call and she's like hello, Hello, And then something was
Speaker 3: said in Spanish on the phone and I and it
Speaker 3: blocked out what she was saying, and so I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm in prison, I need a lawyer. I'm gonna die.
Speaker 3: These people are scary, and then it it was gone.
Speaker 1: Phone calls over Is that the first communication you had
Speaker 1: with your family?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, and I so that little Spanish voice was saying
Speaker 3: that there was thirty seconds of the call, so over there.
Speaker 3: Communication nearly didn't exist for me because the phone cards,
Speaker 3: because it was so expensive to call Australia. Five thousand
Speaker 3: pays so, which was the most you could get on
Speaker 3: a phone card, would last me like a minute. And
Speaker 3: obviously I didn't have displace all money to keep buying
Speaker 3: phone cards. So it was it was that was the
Speaker 3: first time I spoke to someone since being obviously process
Speaker 3: and entered in prison. Actually it was the first time
Speaker 3: I'd spoken I'd managed to speak to my family since
Speaker 3: being charged.
Speaker 1: So that would have been a traumatic, traumatic call for
Speaker 1: enda and then she.
Speaker 3: Still brings it up to today like that's the only
Speaker 3: thing you could have said that You're going to.
Speaker 1: Die had that play out with Missus slip cheeks. It
Speaker 1: was a conflict there. Did you avoid conflict?
Speaker 3: I avoided her as much as I could, but constantly
Speaker 3: finding myself in front of her, and we did have
Speaker 3: a lot of conflicts. So she was actually a band's leader,
Speaker 3: a gang leader of a group of women in there
Speaker 3: who when you're there on your first night, they go
Speaker 3: through your stuff and they steal what they want. And
Speaker 3: I was sexually assaulted by one of her, one of
Speaker 3: her gangs that first night, and it kind of set
Speaker 3: the pace for me there because I just remember going,
Speaker 3: how can women do this to other women? I think
Speaker 3: you expect it sounds really bad, you expect it from
Speaker 3: a man, but I didn't expect it from a woman.
Speaker 3: And so to go through that on my first night
Speaker 3: in there, it was I went into a very dark
Speaker 3: place and I couldn't tell anyone because I couldn't be
Speaker 3: a snitch. So I know people were aware of what
Speaker 3: happened to me that night, but nobody acknowledged it. And
Speaker 3: the next morning, obviously because they I got beat the
Speaker 3: living crap out of me. So I was covered in bruises,
Speaker 3: I couldn't walk properly, and people were like, oh, you're good.
Speaker 3: What was I going to say? Like, I would have
Speaker 3: made an instant enemy, more of an enemy that I
Speaker 3: already had.
Speaker 1: So I just and it wasn't in your You and
Speaker 1: I think you made a conscious decision. You weren't going
Speaker 1: to fight. You weren't a fight are You're not going
Speaker 1: to fight that. You just had to manage the way
Speaker 1: you could. You had enough sense to realize that you
Speaker 1: couldn't report it. If you're reporting it to people, you
Speaker 1: would have been known as a snitch and it would
Speaker 1: have been ten times les.
Speaker 3: So no, And I think one thing that I really
Speaker 3: wanted to set up and keep true to myself was
Speaker 3: I didn't want prison to change me. I refuse to
Speaker 3: let the environment make me become a nasty, vindictive, cold person,
Speaker 3: because within those places you do come across some of
Speaker 3: the nicest people you could ever imagine. So right, I
Speaker 3: couldn't obviously snitch on anyone. Everyone knew that I'd been
Speaker 3: sexually sold to that night, I was then taken to
Speaker 3: go and speak to the prison director who later decided
Speaker 3: to move me from Patio one to Patio five, where
Speaker 3: technically all the foreigners were now foreigners their means like
Speaker 3: Mexicans or Spanish, Peru, you know, Latin, Australia. No, I
Speaker 3: ain't know. I get in there and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's another Australian here, and I was like, what where
Speaker 3: and they're like, oh, no, she was released, and I
Speaker 3: was like, are we sure she was Australian? Still don't
Speaker 3: know till this day. But and then so there was
Speaker 3: a lady, she was an English teacher in the prison
Speaker 3: and she was a bit of a translator for me,
Speaker 3: which was my first grasp at actually being able to communicate,
Speaker 3: and it was really refreshing. But I still didn't know
Speaker 3: who I could trust. So at that point I just
Speaker 3: became very quiet person. I didn't want to speak to anyone.
Speaker 3: I didn't want anyone knowing why I was there, who
Speaker 3: put me there? Anything? Again, into a Patio five. Finally
Speaker 3: get a mattress and it's like this little paper fin
Speaker 3: foam type mattress and walk in. I'm obviously because ever
Speaker 3: I was already injured. All these people swarm down and
Speaker 3: they just pick up mattress, pick up my little baggy
Speaker 3: and they're gone. They took my stuff, and I remember
Speaker 3: just going, I just got robbed again. And when you
Speaker 3: walk into Patio five, there's this huge white white gate here,
Speaker 3: and then there's stairs and it's four flights of stairs,
Speaker 3: and I just remember standing there and I must have
Speaker 3: had the most dumbfounded look on my face and going
Speaker 3: did anyone else see that? Like? Is this normal? And
Speaker 3: then I finally get up to where I had to,
Speaker 3: where my cell was, and my stuff was there, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, okay, well, and then I was
Speaker 3: very fortunate. I my first cell mate. She was absolutely lovely.
Speaker 3: She gave me some clothes as she told me that
Speaker 3: I really stank.
Speaker 2: Maybe she did it for her own benefits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why I think so as well. And it was
Speaker 3: she made a point of, you know, giving me deodorant
Speaker 3: and soap, and and it was just, yeah, very surreal
Speaker 3: to now look back, but it was that kindness there
Speaker 3: in that precise moment that I was like, oh, not
Speaker 3: everyone's bad. Not everyone in this place is bad.
Speaker 1: I got the sense reading the book and there were yeah,
Speaker 1: some horrible, horrible situations that you found yourself in with
Speaker 1: the bashings, and if anyone gets a book, the picture
Speaker 1: of the bruises on your stomach and all that will
Speaker 1: give you the sense of the state of the bashings.
Speaker 1: But those little acts of humanity sort of, yeah, I think, Okay,
Speaker 1: there is something worth living for. There is some beauty
Speaker 1: in this horrible world. But look, we've talked about some
Speaker 1: of the hard times. I just want to get this
Speaker 1: out on a quote from your book, because you found
Speaker 1: a nice cell mate there, but it was just a
Speaker 1: journey for you the whole time, because you got moved
Speaker 1: around and different cell mates and different ones. But a
Speaker 1: quote from your book, you stabbed by your crazy cell mate.
Speaker 1: A y Jara's attack was relentless, fueled by a fury
Speaker 1: that seemed to transcend reason. The blade dance perisoley close,
Speaker 1: fear and adrenaline intermingled in me. The metallic tang of
Speaker 1: blood lingered in the air. I felt the sudden surge
Speaker 1: of pain each time the needle was pushed into my abdomen, legs,
Speaker 1: and arms. I couldn't stop her. She was crazy and
Speaker 1: I had no strength. I was certain that was the end.
Speaker 1: Your words, your your book. That's a pretty heavy situation.
Speaker 1: And just to put it in context before you talk
Speaker 1: about it was like a knitting needle that was filed
Speaker 1: filed down and serrated edge, and that was your cell
Speaker 1: mate that you knew something was brewing because you're just
Speaker 1: crazy talk us through through that situation.
Speaker 3: So I, as some of the guards might have said,
Speaker 3: I think I saw more of that prison than the
Speaker 3: common inmate. I was moved around a lot for my
Speaker 3: own security. I was put into a high security SECURITYO
Speaker 3: security patio. Technically I was supposed to live on my own.
Speaker 3: I received a cell mate who at the beginning seemed okay.
Speaker 3: She seemed like she was a bit of a hypocrite.
Speaker 3: She did give off that type of energy, but I
Speaker 3: at the same time, I'm in prison. I can't judge
Speaker 3: anyone either. We instantly didn't get along, and the more
Speaker 3: I got to see the type of person she was,
Speaker 3: the worse at God. And at this point I was
Speaker 3: starting to stand up for myself, so starting to not
Speaker 3: be such a pushover anymore. Not that I could speak
Speaker 3: great Spanish, but I was being able to defend myself.
Speaker 3: So this lady, in particular, she was the right hand
Speaker 3: man to one of the current worst cartels in Columbia.
Speaker 3: My pot luck.
Speaker 2: That's a good one to take on. Well done.
Speaker 3: And as soon as she realized that a lot of
Speaker 3: people in that patio, because we were a small group
Speaker 3: of people, they actually liked me, that they thought nice
Speaker 3: things of me, that I wasn't a bad person, and
Speaker 3: they kind of they looked after me as much as
Speaker 3: they could. And so this lady didn't like it. She
Speaker 3: liked being the center of attention. And we started getting
Speaker 3: into a lot of arguments and she started turning everyone
Speaker 3: against me, and I remember we had a fight. I
Speaker 3: think it was probably one of the first physical fights
Speaker 3: in that patio that I had, and she punched me
Speaker 3: and the person who lived next to me in the
Speaker 3: other cell, she came in and stopped what was going on.
Speaker 3: And then later that night, which was when she attacked me,
Speaker 3: so she knitted. She knit it. She attacked me with
Speaker 3: a knitting needle. And I knew something was coming that
Speaker 3: night because she just be a few hours beforehand. She
Speaker 3: just was out of character. She wasn't acting like she
Speaker 3: normally did, you know. She pretended to go to sleep early,
Speaker 3: and it was just lots of little things, and I
Speaker 3: remember the first initial feeling of that metal going through
Speaker 3: my stomach and the shock of it, and the first
Speaker 3: thought not because that first stab wound is what really
Speaker 3: caught me, and it was the main trigger pain that
Speaker 3: I was feeling, not the others she was doing. It
Speaker 3: was she's going to kill me here, and no guards
Speaker 3: will step into something like that and really stop it.
Speaker 3: So I was I knew I had just I knew
Speaker 3: that I just wasn't going to get through that, and
Speaker 3: if I did, it would have been a miracle because
Speaker 3: the amount of time she stabbed me, it was there
Speaker 3: was a lot of blood, the smell of blood, and
Speaker 3: I started losing consciousness and she just she was screaming
Speaker 3: towards the end. She was absolutely crazy. And I do
Speaker 3: remember the guards eventually coming in and obviously then being
Speaker 3: taken out into to medical and obviously getting because they
Speaker 3: don't do stitching, they don't do anything that little bits
Speaker 3: of glue put into all of these little stab wounds,
Speaker 3: and it was just nothing happened to her. They didn't
Speaker 3: do anything to her. It was just it happened, and
Speaker 3: now you live with it. And then I had to
Speaker 3: go back and still live with her kind of like, well,
Speaker 3: round two, let me do this again, it was so
Speaker 3: there was no order or anything in that prison at all.
Speaker 3: It was basically the inmates were to themselves regards to themselves.
Speaker 3: And she she was just a psycho. And she threatened
Speaker 3: me that I was gonna be killed, I was gonna
Speaker 3: be knocked off when I got out, that she was gonna,
Speaker 3: you know, have my prison sentence stretched out longer. That
Speaker 3: she threatened me with so much. And the problem was
Speaker 3: that because of her position in such a it's what
Speaker 3: is it called, It's called the Clandegolf, the cartel, and
Speaker 3: she just really got that into me. And so again
Speaker 3: felt terrified that the day that I am released, if
Speaker 3: I didn't have to worry about other people, do I
Speaker 3: now have to worry about this as well? Or because
Speaker 3: she just didn't like.
Speaker 1: Me, you got never giving your way through through that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the way you tell it and you relive it, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you're basically talking about someone trying to stab here to
Speaker 1: death and there's no then you've got to be put
Speaker 1: back in the same room. And anyway, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: too have saw about your differences. Now go to sleep,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it like it's madness. But when you
Speaker 1: talk about it out here. It sounds like insanity that
Speaker 1: the environment can operate that way, But that was your world.
Speaker 1: But one thing that when I say one thing, a
Speaker 1: lot of things shocked me in your book, but as
Speaker 1: a result of a punishment where and this is my
Speaker 1: take on it. They couldn't offices or the people are
Speaker 1: supposed to be looking after you, couldn't bash you in
Speaker 1: theory or there's potential trouble. But they did one of
Speaker 1: the most nasty way of torturing you by taking you,
Speaker 1: just grabbing you, taking you to place to see the dentist,
Speaker 1: even though you didn't have problems with your teeth, hold
Speaker 1: you down in the dentist's chair, and then have this
Speaker 1: psychopath dentist just drilling your teeth as punishment. And what
Speaker 1: are you going to complain that you got held down
Speaker 1: and had your teeth drilled?
Speaker 2: Do you want to?
Speaker 1: I can see the look on your face, and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I'm bringing this up.
Speaker 2: Now, you're smiling. I think you smile when you get
Speaker 2: nervous sometimes.
Speaker 1: But tell us about that, because that was horrendous what
Speaker 1: happened there.
Speaker 3: So it was a bit of a aftermath of that
Speaker 3: exact fight, not even fight, because it was one sided
Speaker 3: when my inmate did stab me, So it was basically
Speaker 3: a few days after that, and from what I understood,
Speaker 3: she actually arranged for it to somewhat be done. So
Speaker 3: I was taken to Sannida, which is where they have
Speaker 3: their dentist, and get in there and I see it.
Speaker 3: Obviously it's a dentist, and I thought, well, ikay. First
Speaker 3: initial thought was no, no, yeah, check up done, because
Speaker 3: I didn't think things like this could actually happen. Until
Speaker 3: obviously I'm put in the chair and they start looking
Speaker 3: at my teeth and then obviously pushing back, looking back
Speaker 3: at my back teeth, and all of a sudden, I
Speaker 3: feel the guard's hands gripped down my arms on the side,
Speaker 3: and chair goes back, and this dentist she just starts
Speaker 3: drilling into my back tooth and the pain, or that
Speaker 3: that nerve pain, it shot through my whole body. And
Speaker 3: I wasn't too bad with dentists before then to live
Speaker 3: through that agonizing pain. And it was about five minutes,
Speaker 3: but I can tell you it felt like an entire
Speaker 3: lifetime of being being drilled at this one tooth. And
Speaker 3: then when it was over, that was it, and they
Speaker 3: left it exposed. Oh they left it exposed for about
Speaker 3: three weeks, so it was this constant feeling there. But
Speaker 3: the thing is when they did fill it in, they
Speaker 3: didn't do it properly either. So over the years, obviously
Speaker 3: I think probably about two years ago part of the
Speaker 3: filling actually came out. Until today it still hasn't been fixed.
Speaker 3: Because I am so terrified to go into a dentist
Speaker 3: and have anything done. I think my wisdom teeth out
Speaker 3: and I went and got next ray and they actually started,
Speaker 3: you know, playing around and touching with the utensils, and
Speaker 3: I was like, don't you dare touch that side of
Speaker 3: my face and they're like, oh, it's okay. I'm like,
Speaker 3: don't touch it. Don't touch it. If you want to
Speaker 3: touch something in here, knock me out, Like I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't go through that again. And that is probably
Speaker 3: of all things, it is a trauma that will stay
Speaker 3: with me more than anything for the rest of my
Speaker 3: life and something that's so necessary in everyday life, because
Speaker 3: it's not every day I'm going to walk back into
Speaker 3: a prison and be in front of that trauma. This
Speaker 3: is something so simple.
Speaker 1: But it was their way of showing that they've got
Speaker 1: control of you, and there's consequences and there's not a
Speaker 1: thing you can do about it. But what a brutal
Speaker 1: way to be to be shown that one adventure after another.
Speaker 1: You also had to deal with a lot of media
Speaker 1: attention too, which yeah, that would have been hard, Like
Speaker 1: sixty minutes of interview interviewing you over there before you're
Speaker 1: even being sentenced at court, and you had I think
Speaker 1: one of you are one of the person that you
Speaker 1: considered the friend had taken the photo and sold it
Speaker 1: to the media, and then you became a hot ticket
Speaker 1: item in the jarl that people get fatos that sell
Speaker 1: it to the media, all of which would have made
Speaker 1: you stand out, and that's the last thing you want
Speaker 1: to want to do in the prison. I would imagine
Speaker 1: what was your take on the media and did you
Speaker 1: realize the extent of the media interest back here in
Speaker 1: Australia worldwide for that matter.
Speaker 3: I do remember one of the first things I said
Speaker 3: to my family when I was arrested, and that was
Speaker 3: I don't want it in the media. That was the
Speaker 3: very first thing I said, because if I ever had
Speaker 3: a chance of coming home and trying to move forward,
Speaker 3: whether it been five years, ten, years, twenty years, I
Speaker 3: couldn't have that all bearing down and I guess having
Speaker 3: that burden on my shoulders for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: But obviously, being in prison one doesn't get us say
Speaker 3: in much as far as what other people do. I
Speaker 3: And yes, I was completely exposed to media. I'm not
Speaker 3: a fan of the media, and I think it would
Speaker 3: have shown in probably my first court hearing where I
Speaker 3: walk into this courtroom and I look angry because I
Speaker 3: walk in and this whole courtroom is full of media.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is it, Like, this is my life.
Speaker 3: Whether I survive this prism, whether I don't, this is
Speaker 3: what I will be remembered for. And not coming out
Speaker 3: and speaking about what happened and what I went through,
Speaker 3: It'll just be trafficked five point eight kilos of cocaine.
Speaker 3: That's it. So media has has been quite harsh in
Speaker 3: the sense of it doesn't matter. Even if I have
Speaker 3: tried to, you know, tell all stuff, it's never been
Speaker 3: tell all. It's always been let's dramatize it, let's keep
Speaker 3: that out and let's change that and let's do this.
Speaker 3: So it hasn't really mattered what I've tried to do.
Speaker 3: This kind of way is the only way to actually
Speaker 3: get it out there where you can have a conversation
Speaker 3: with me. It's not, I guess under pressure, because nobody
Speaker 3: unless you have been on the other side of an interview.
Speaker 3: It is horrible. It is so horrible, and obviously with
Speaker 3: a sixty minutes I got crucified for absolutely anything. If
Speaker 3: I move my hands, if I got red on my chest,
Speaker 3: if I touched my face. It was behavioral instincts for lying.
Speaker 3: It was this, it was that. So it was just horror.
Speaker 3: Even till today, I think most people will find that
Speaker 3: I am very quiet on social media. I don't post
Speaker 3: my life on there. I might post bits and pieces.
Speaker 3: I have a very private, quiet life because I don't
Speaker 3: unless I'm trying to do something good with what's happened
Speaker 3: to me, I won't come out. I won't milk the
Speaker 3: situation at all. Although people obviously believe, you know that
Speaker 3: I get rich off of doing things and this and that,
Speaker 3: but I don't. And the real reason why I stopped,
Speaker 3: you know, I stepped out into the spotlight again, especially
Speaker 3: with this book, because I do believe that it can
Speaker 3: be of use and a reminder to some people that
Speaker 3: you can go through hell. You can go to hell
Speaker 3: and back. But it doesn't mean you have to give up.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean that's who you are. That on the
Speaker 3: other side of all these misfortunes, life can be nice.
Speaker 3: You can try again. There's no limit on how many
Speaker 3: times you can try to get it right, as long
Speaker 3: as you keep trying.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it comes across and just on the
Speaker 1: issue with the media, someone like you would be so
Speaker 1: easy to misrepresent. We could take snippets from here and ah,
Speaker 1: the prison was a walk in the park. You smile,
Speaker 1: you laugh, and that's your personality, that's you know, and
Speaker 1: full credit to you. You made a conscious decision to
Speaker 1: keep your humanity in prison, Like you could have turned
Speaker 1: into this nasty, evil human being and it would have
Speaker 1: been justified because that's the way that you've got to
Speaker 1: survive in prison. But you've chosen you can smile about
Speaker 1: talking about the most horrendous things, and you know media
Speaker 1: can take advantage of that. But yeah, I suppose on
Speaker 1: the back of Chappelle Corby who followed the prior to that,
Speaker 1: there was this interest and they Cocaine Cassie. The name
Speaker 1: stuck and people just tried to get.
Speaker 2: That, get that story out.
Speaker 1: I was just looking at it from the media point
Speaker 1: of view, some of the things that reported. I'm now
Speaker 1: working in the media, but a little bit disappointed in
Speaker 1: that there was a person I saw you as very
Speaker 1: vulnerable at that stage, as a twenty two year old
Speaker 1: in a South American prison, And yeah, yeah, we can all.
Speaker 2: Judge, but.
Speaker 1: Who will either judge on other people's actions when you're
Speaker 1: caught up in an environment like that. So I think
Speaker 1: it was unfair. And I'll say that that might put
Speaker 1: people's noses out of the joint, but I think it's
Speaker 1: unfair to exploit you in such a vulnerable situation.
Speaker 3: I actually I think that that interview in particular, especially
Speaker 3: with that person, and obviously I had another one with him.
Speaker 3: It was just it really marked the media for me.
Speaker 3: Obviously at first one, as I go into detail in
Speaker 3: the book, I wasn't technically supposed to be speaking about
Speaker 3: my case until I was either sentenced or anything. I
Speaker 3: was told not to. And then you know, all the
Speaker 3: pressure behind the scenes with everything that was actually happening
Speaker 3: in prison, and it was, it was, and I didn't
Speaker 3: want to do that interview above all, I didn't want
Speaker 3: to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to trip someone up in that environment, it's not
Speaker 1: hard to do. You're vulnerable, you're out of your depth
Speaker 1: in so many different different ways, and certainly certainly in
Speaker 1: the media. But it's another thing that you had to
Speaker 1: had to carry the burden of with your time in
Speaker 1: time in prison and you've got sense to six years,
Speaker 1: you had to do parole, and then you after three
Speaker 1: years you were released. Is that my understanding or those
Speaker 1: rough figures?
Speaker 3: So I was sentenced to six years seventy two months.
Speaker 3: I over in Colombia exists certain benefits for each stage
Speaker 3: of your sentence. I couldn't do seventy two hour release
Speaker 3: or home detention because of the severity of my charges
Speaker 3: because technically they were considered aggravated. They were aggravated charges.
Speaker 3: So the only thing that I could potentially get was
Speaker 3: something called libert dad connal, which is basically parole. So
Speaker 3: once you have completed three fifths of your sentence, which
Speaker 3: for me was if I remember correctly, it was like
Speaker 3: thirty nine and a half months, so it was just
Speaker 3: over three No, sorry, it was forty three and a
Speaker 3: half months, so just over three years. I did physically
Speaker 3: two years, eleven months and twenty one days in prison.
Speaker 3: I'd completed I think roughly six months worth of discount
Speaker 3: through teaching and everything else that I did, which meant
Speaker 3: I was above the scale to be released on parole.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately it actually happened around the same time that
Speaker 3: COVID hit Colombia.
Speaker 2: Great time to get the out of prison.
Speaker 3: I just got in to get released on obviously the
Speaker 3: because I'd done my time, not because I was released
Speaker 3: because of COVID. And then I was released the day,
Speaker 3: not even the day before. I was released thirteen minutes
Speaker 3: before Colombia went into lockdown. So I was released at
Speaker 3: eleven thirty at night, and it went from being confined
Speaker 3: in a building in a prison to being confined in
Speaker 3: a room in an apartment building. Although free, I didn't
Speaker 3: feel free, and I'd had this hole when I get out,
Speaker 3: I'm going to get a job, I'm going to do this,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do that, and I couldn't. So this
Speaker 3: whole mind set up, this structure that i'd put in
Speaker 3: place I couldn't do, and it was it was really
Speaker 3: hard to it's really hard to actually deal with COVID
Speaker 3: over there because I couldn't get any medical I couldn't
Speaker 3: do a lot of stuff, and I shouldn't complain, because
Speaker 3: anything was better than being in that prison. But I
Speaker 3: still felt like, in a certain way, I was still
Speaker 3: I was still in a prison because I had to
Speaker 3: stay in Colombia for another twenty seven months until I
Speaker 3: had completed the full physical term of my sentence, which
Speaker 3: meant every month I had to report myself to immigration.
Speaker 3: And I laughed because, ah, when COVID was in Colombia,
Speaker 3: I couldn't report myself to immigration because they were shut
Speaker 3: So I was technically undocumented for nearly seven months in Colombia.
Speaker 3: Couldn't get didn't get sent money, I couldn't get money
Speaker 3: out of a bank. I couldn't do anything.
Speaker 1: It's that's there's another podcast in the story of there.
Speaker 1: How How how you survived there? Because you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like you had known your way around Columbia before
Speaker 1: you got locked up. You'dn't even been there for eight
Speaker 1: or nine days or whatever it was, so it was
Speaker 1: you're completely completely foreign. One thing, and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the release from prison, but what we haven't
Speaker 1: touched on is that the work that you did in prison,
Speaker 1: and that you you alluded to it there with your
Speaker 1: your discounts because you were teaching English and that was
Speaker 1: something that you're really passionate about in prison and something
Speaker 1: that you were helping people in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I as soon as I could actually I
Speaker 3: guess speak and understand Spanish, the whole structure of prison
Speaker 3: life changed. So I went from being this enemy to
Speaker 3: all of my inmates to suddenly being this person of
Speaker 3: interest because they could suddenly talk to me. There wasn't
Speaker 3: just you know, this person that was ignorant, didn't want
Speaker 3: to learn the language, didn't want to fit in. So
Speaker 3: as soon as I started teaching English, it was scary.
Speaker 3: I'd never taught my own language to anyone before, and
Speaker 3: to go back and actually have to learn things about
Speaker 3: my own language, it was bizarre because you know, we
Speaker 3: might say something in a certain way because we say
Speaker 3: it that way, so to actually find why. And I
Speaker 3: was very fortunate that teaching English to my inmates, it
Speaker 3: was really fulfilling to watch them want to learn this
Speaker 3: life skill a language, because when they got out, they
Speaker 3: knew that this whole different set of opportunities would wait
Speaker 3: for them. Because English over there is such a huge,
Speaker 3: huge tool as far as getting head in life. And
Speaker 3: I would go above and beyond with all of my
Speaker 3: inmates to try and make sure that I was constantly
Speaker 3: advancing understanding, to the point where I actually managed to
Speaker 3: get an outside English college to actually basically team up,
Speaker 3: give me all the materials, give them certificates that reflected
Speaker 3: as if they were outside outside experience with speaking English
Speaker 3: to get a job. And this particular college was also
Speaker 3: working towards getting a call center set up for these
Speaker 3: ex inmates as well. So there was this huge project
Speaker 3: that I was involved in, and in those moments of teaching,
Speaker 3: I suddenly was one of the inmates, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I was one of them because they respected me. There's
Speaker 3: always this mutual respect between inmates because you don't know
Speaker 3: what they're capable of, and to be their teacher not
Speaker 3: misuse I guess the authority that I have as a
Speaker 3: teacher with them and still treat them as if we're
Speaker 3: an equal. I was helping them with funny enough, with
Speaker 3: their legal documents writing. I can write anything in Spanish perfectly.
Speaker 3: I know some of I know a lot of laws
Speaker 3: in Colombia. Studied a lot over there, studied nursing, studied criminology,
Speaker 3: studied lots of things, and it was really interesting to
Speaker 3: obviously be the person that they all turned to when
Speaker 3: they needed help. And I think I still remember this day,
Speaker 3: just this one, this inmate that was really really good
Speaker 3: with me. She was almost like a mum to me.
Speaker 3: She was a very motherly figure. I was crying one
Speaker 3: day in Patio seven. I hadn't been sentenced yet, and
Speaker 3: she wasn't meaning to be giving me tough love, but
Speaker 3: it was tough love because she goes, she spoke really
Speaker 3: broken English, by the way, to kind of give you
Speaker 3: a visual on this, she goes, stop crying, and when
Speaker 3: someone told you to stop crying, you naturally cry more.
Speaker 3: And she goes, but you're okay, you're healthy, you're fine.
Speaker 3: You don't have kids, and you kind of learn not
Speaker 3: to ask people why they're there. You wait for them
Speaker 3: to tell you. It's not something you obviously try to
Speaker 3: get out of them. And I sat there quiet because
Speaker 3: it was true I didn't have kids. And she goes,
Speaker 3: me and my husband are in prison, my kids are
Speaker 3: out there alone. We need a motion, and it was
Speaker 3: just sometimes we're so absorbed in our own problems that
Speaker 3: we don't stop and think how bad it is. For
Speaker 3: someone else, and that moment for me was very triggering
Speaker 3: because it was a focus point for me to go,
Speaker 3: what I'm going through is horrible, it sucks. My life
Speaker 3: is literally the definition of hell at the moment. But
Speaker 3: it could be worse. It could be so much worse,
Speaker 3: and she she made me understand that. And so from
Speaker 3: that moment, from so early on in my time in prison,
Speaker 3: I was going through such hard things, but I still
Speaker 3: went and said, somebody else has got it worse than me.
Speaker 3: Somebody else will always have it worse than what I've got.
Speaker 3: And I think the strength that I actually have within
Speaker 3: me to keep pushing through and keep going, Okay, I've
Speaker 3: got to pick myself up. I can do this, I
Speaker 3: can do better. I've run towards challenge knowing that I
Speaker 3: will very well full flat on my ass because unless
Speaker 3: I'm being challenged now, I know that I'm not really
Speaker 3: learning more about myself because unless we are pushed to
Speaker 3: our limit, we don't we don't grow, we don't learn
Speaker 3: to self reflect or anything. Really.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, wow, what you've said and what she said
Speaker 1: such a simple thing but so profound and obviously had
Speaker 1: an impact on you. But you talk about growing and
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you the person I imagine you to
Speaker 1: be at the time you went into prison to the
Speaker 1: person you are now. And there's been a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of growth. I see you're upset.
Speaker 1: Not sure if this will make you sad or put
Speaker 1: a smile on your face, but I think it's worth
Speaker 1: reading out because this is something that one of the
Speaker 1: prison guards said to you when you were leaving prison,
Speaker 1: and I've just made a note here. I think it
Speaker 1: sums up a lot about your time in prison. And
Speaker 1: I just read this quote out, and this is a
Speaker 1: prison guard saying this to you.
Speaker 2: I watched you grow in here.
Speaker 1: There were times where I thought you would be shipped
Speaker 1: home in the body bag, especially after the beating you took.
Speaker 1: But you show this all, not just strength and resilience,
Speaker 1: but you have such a kind heart. Take a look
Speaker 1: around you. You made a difference here. Not everyone does that.
Speaker 1: Be proud of leaving this place. You have no one
Speaker 1: to thank but yourself. I can't talk. You're going to
Speaker 1: have to talk. That's pretty heavy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the last thing I expected leaving tour.
Speaker 3: I guess have one of the people I guess acknowledge
Speaker 3: that even being in those situations that I tried constantly
Speaker 3: tried to be good and better and help because that
Speaker 3: place is it is hell. And there's not a day
Speaker 3: that I don't think about the people that are still there.
Speaker 3: I think that pretty much sums it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it says a lot about the person that you become, Cassie.
Speaker 1: And I know I look at even coming back to Australia.
Speaker 1: You've had your had your challenges there and the way
Speaker 1: that people look at you, and I think part of
Speaker 1: the book was, Okay, this is who I am there,
Speaker 1: it's all out there. You judge me for the person.
Speaker 1: But I invite anyone that's listened to this podcast not
Speaker 1: to look at you've been. Yeah, you've exposed yourself talking
Speaker 1: about your emotions, talking about the things that you've gone through.
Speaker 1: There was another benefit from your time over there. I
Speaker 1: might try and put a smile on your face here,
Speaker 1: but you did find.
Speaker 2: Love, yes at last. Okay, talk us through, Talk us
Speaker 2: through that.
Speaker 3: I am so roughly about a year, so she was
Speaker 3: nearly nearly a year on the dot. Just over a
Speaker 3: year after being out. I met that Doough and completely unexpected,
Speaker 3: really unexpected right place time because we were just coming
Speaker 3: out of certain parts of the pandemic, well not even
Speaker 3: the pandemic restrictions being lifted. But now it's really interesting
Speaker 3: when we have conversations and he will say, especially where
Speaker 3: he worked, I still believe we were destined to meet
Speaker 3: each other. It sounds really like corny because we were
Speaker 3: constantly in the same areas, on the same street, a
Speaker 3: few doors down from each other, because I gave English
Speaker 3: classes to a certain business on that area. So one
Speaker 3: day we were going to meet, and it just so
Speaker 3: happened that when we did meet, we were friends. And
Speaker 3: then eventually, I think after the first, first or second day,
Speaker 3: I sat him down and I told him, told him everything,
Speaker 3: because I didn't I didn't want that burden of trying
Speaker 3: to explain how I've been here for so long and
Speaker 3: I've seen so little of Colombia, or you know, those
Speaker 3: sorts of things. And all he said to me was,
Speaker 3: I can't judge you on your past, whether you did it,
Speaker 3: whether you didn't do it. I can't judge your past.
Speaker 3: All I can All I can do is watch and
Speaker 3: see what you do with your present and future. And
Speaker 3: that was it. And we've had heaps of conversations about
Speaker 3: everything that I've gone through in prison, he too can't
Speaker 3: believe what I went through. Him being from that country.
Speaker 3: He has basically said that's it's absolutely disgusting, and he goes,
Speaker 3: you should do something about it. I'm like, well, I
Speaker 3: can't really do anything about it from here now, can I?
Speaker 3: Because obviously, as most people know that, like I did
Speaker 3: want to study law, I did want to go back
Speaker 3: and study law. I feel like probably be quite a
Speaker 3: quite a harsh lawyer. Sometimes you'd be ruthless. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: So we got married in two thousand and twenty two
Speaker 3: in March. If you've ever seen like one of those
Speaker 3: comedy movies about where anything and everything can go wrong
Speaker 3: for a wedding, that was me very funny. Now to
Speaker 3: think about it, even when I speak about it, it's hilarious,
Speaker 3: but obviously at that point in time it was not
Speaker 3: hilarious at all. Still got married though, So we got married,
Speaker 3: and and we arrived back in Australia in August twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. And yeah, we've basically been constructing our life here.
Speaker 3: It's been tough. It's tough for me in general. But
Speaker 3: I think what makes it worse because I do carry
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of the weight and the
Speaker 3: burden of obviously having such a high profile for not
Speaker 3: a good thing. I'm constantly worried about the effect that
Speaker 3: that has on on my family, on my nephews, on
Speaker 3: my partner, because people can be really harsh in that aspect,
Speaker 3: like the problem is with me, it's not with them.
Speaker 3: And I think that's part of the reason why I
Speaker 3: constantly actually I think that's part of the reason why
Speaker 3: the book was so important to get it out there,
Speaker 3: because I don't I don't want them to think that
Speaker 3: I'm hiding from what I did or that it's okay too,
Speaker 3: I guess not. I don't even know the right word
Speaker 3: to say, Like, I want them to see that it's
Speaker 3: okay to make a mistake as long as as I said,
Speaker 3: as long as you keep trying and you take responsibility
Speaker 3: for it. And that's something that I would rather be
Speaker 3: remembered for somebody who who screwed up, made the biggest
Speaker 3: mistake of her life, but she still moved forward, rather
Speaker 3: than oh, she did this type thing. Because everything that
Speaker 3: I have managed to overcome since coming back to Australia,
Speaker 3: it is a whole nother ballgame to say there were
Speaker 3: many times that I could have just gone this is
Speaker 3: too hard. I can't do this because it's not been easy.
Speaker 3: It's been a constant battle with medicare, with my license,
Speaker 3: with banks, with absolutely everything I do get harshly judged
Speaker 3: by people. Some people are really good, some people can
Speaker 3: be really harsh, which obviously pushed me back in a perspective.
Speaker 3: When it does happen to me and someone treats me
Speaker 3: like absolute crap, I feel terrible and it knocks me
Speaker 3: back for a good, good week or so. I will
Speaker 3: crawl back into my little, my little safe retreat, and
Speaker 3: I go, ah, this is why I don't This is
Speaker 3: why I'm not in social media. This is why I
Speaker 3: don't do anything, because I'm so harsh on myself sometimes
Speaker 3: that I can't let myself go back to that point
Speaker 3: in my life so little, It wasn't that long ago
Speaker 3: where I hate myself, where I believe everything that people
Speaker 3: say about me. I refuse to go back there. And
Speaker 3: it's so easy to do it.
Speaker 1: Well, I can understand why. It's it's a battle for
Speaker 1: you continuously, But what sort of society have we got
Speaker 1: if people that make mistakes? It's not a justice system
Speaker 1: if you make a mistake, you pay pay the price
Speaker 1: for it, and you've got to be able to come
Speaker 1: out and live a good life. And that makes society
Speaker 1: a better place. Whether we going to be a better
Speaker 1: society if we can just keep kicking you every time
Speaker 1: you stick your head up to keep you down. I
Speaker 1: see the inspiration that you can show people you life
Speaker 1: can be at rock bottom and you can't get much
Speaker 1: further than being stabbed in a Columbian prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: You can be at rock bottom and work your way up,
Speaker 1: and that should inspire people and also show people that
Speaker 1: you can contribute to society. Who knows like that message
Speaker 1: that the prison guard gave you as you're walking out
Speaker 1: out the prison. I'm sure those sort of comments aren't
Speaker 1: handed out lightly.
Speaker 2: So you've made a.
Speaker 1: Difference in people's lives over there, So keep up the fight.
Speaker 1: I full full credit to you. I've been fascinated by
Speaker 1: our chat and really we've just scraped the scrape the
Speaker 1: surface of what you've experienced. But I've got to know you.
Speaker 1: By sitting down having a talk with you, can I
Speaker 1: dare ask what's your what's your plans your future? You've
Speaker 1: got some things going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so still very hands on with teaching English. I
Speaker 3: do have some project type stuff behind the scenes to
Speaker 3: do with I guess, trying to help people that have
Speaker 3: been through similar situations or not even similar situations, that
Speaker 3: have been through something that has made them pause in
Speaker 3: life and not know how to move forward. So I
Speaker 3: definitely do have a lot going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: I do tend to keep it very quiet until it's
Speaker 3: it's it's ready to go ahead family wise, possibly in
Speaker 3: the next couple of years, maybe moving forward and having
Speaker 3: a having a family as well. I think we're just
Speaker 3: really still trying to focus on whether it's here or there, okay,
Speaker 3: because I I don't think, I really really love Columbia.
Speaker 3: I think it's a great country once you get past
Speaker 3: the bad stuff. So I think, yeah, behind we're behind
Speaker 3: the scenes, we're still trying to figure out if it's
Speaker 3: here or there. And I guess, yeah, just moving forward
Speaker 3: with constantly wanting to help people. And I think that's
Speaker 3: a big part of why I decided that I wanted
Speaker 3: anything from the book to obviously go to charities that
Speaker 3: have vulnerable people, because you just never know what the
Speaker 3: most simple little bit of help, what it can do
Speaker 3: for someone, and people that need it most, they will
Speaker 3: never ask for it. They will suffer in silence until
Speaker 3: it's too late.
Speaker 1: Well Well said Gussie Well said, well, I think we'll
Speaker 1: wrap it up at this point, and I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you for coming on eye catch Killers and yeah,
Speaker 1: really giving us an insight into what you've been through.
Speaker 2: Get to understand.
Speaker 1: How you survived and how you're steering your life in
Speaker 1: the right direction. And congratulations to you. Know we talk
Speaker 1: about redemption here on I catch Killers, resience, human spirit.
Speaker 1: You've ticked all those boxes. I've got one favorite to
Speaker 1: ask of you. Can you say in Spanish? Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me on Ie Catch Killers?
Speaker 3: Well sure get asses a catch Killers beautiful.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Thanks Cassie, all the best for the future.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me I went soft on Cassie Sainsbury. I
Speaker 1: think it was about time people sat down and found
Speaker 1: out who this person is. We all make mistakes. She
Speaker 1: made a big one, but she paid the price. And
Speaker 1: I think she was very open and honest in the
Speaker 1: emotional told that her time in prison and the type
Speaker 1: of person she's turned in. Now, that's what the justice system.
Speaker 2: Is meant to be.
Speaker 1: All about if people commit offenses, they get punished, they
Speaker 1: pay a price. Cassie's done that, but I find inspiration
Speaker 1: not only the way she survived, how she kept her humanity.
Speaker 2: And what she's doing with her life now. Full credit
Speaker 2: to her