Speaker 1: A campsite media.
Speaker 2: Roger knew about punishment. He was a kid who'd been
Speaker 2: on the business end of a teacher's ruler, who had
Speaker 2: felt the impact of the back of his father's hand
Speaker 2: many times. But unfortunately for him, nothing he'd been through
Speaker 2: in his sixteen years of life prepared him for what
Speaker 2: he suffered in the limbo room. And unfortunately for us,
Speaker 2: there's no way to tell the Roger Karan story without
Speaker 2: describing specifically what happened to him in there. Let me
Speaker 2: ask you about the scars.
Speaker 3: I don't mean the physical scars, but the emotional scars.
Speaker 4: What was the worst of all the things that happened
Speaker 4: to you during that period.
Speaker 2: If you look back and say, the one thing that
Speaker 2: really strapped the strap.
Speaker 5: Happened twenty four years ago, when you're sixteen years old,
Speaker 5: and something very traumatic happens to your scars, it.
Speaker 2: After Roger smashed the guard's flashlight that fateful night in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty, he was dragged to a literal dungeon underneath
Speaker 2: the Gwelfer Formatory. The limbo room was painted a pristine white,
Speaker 2: and the pressure change of the door opening set the
Speaker 2: light bulb and their shadows into perverse motion. Roger watched
Speaker 2: his twelve officials filed in behind him when he first
Speaker 2: laid his eyes on the apparatus, and a fixed.
Speaker 1: To the far wall was a human course of the
Speaker 1: restraining straps. He metal pipings the neck.
Speaker 2: But what really concerned him was what was beside the apparatus,
Speaker 2: three wooden handled leather straps four feet long, four inches wide,
Speaker 2: the leather so thick and coarse they barely sagged when
Speaker 2: held upright. The superintendent motioned him forward, and.
Speaker 1: He says to me, okay, step in the machine. White.
Speaker 1: I took a few paces four and stepped in the
Speaker 1: sub course, and all of a sudend, drop your paints. White,
Speaker 1: I dropped my paint.
Speaker 2: He slowly moved his body into the device called the machine,
Speaker 2: as a guard tightened the restraints around his ankles and knees.
Speaker 5: Then took my hands and strapped him straight off in
Speaker 5: front of me and shackled me to the wall.
Speaker 1: And now I was naked from my neck and my ankles.
Speaker 2: Roger was secured in the most vulnerable position imaginable, as
Speaker 2: a black hood was.
Speaker 6: Pulled firmly over his head. And then for a moment
Speaker 6: it was darkness and quiet, and then an unsettling sound
Speaker 6: that he couldn't make out at.
Speaker 2: First, dragging, shuffling. It was the shuffling of feet of
Speaker 2: all twelve men's shoes against the concrete floor.
Speaker 5: So all of a sudden they have original and they'd
Speaker 5: all scraped their feet on the floor.
Speaker 1: That was the further confused you to get your hearers straight.
Speaker 2: And then it began, and.
Speaker 1: Then a super tended to say what then to hear
Speaker 1: this strap cutting through the air here and then it'll
Speaker 1: just itch. You go off like a shot when an
Speaker 1: itch you.
Speaker 5: Across the fire box and be wham and your whole
Speaker 5: hit what exploding and colius broke of colors and rockets.
Speaker 1: And remember to keep this cleaning from bursting from my lips.
Speaker 1: I had to fight down on my tongue, bit down
Speaker 1: on my lips.
Speaker 5: Blood just burst from under the wood down my chin
Speaker 5: and onto my chest.
Speaker 1: And then minute later togo and here scrape, scrape. Then
Speaker 1: here too the strap from cutting swilled, it gets and
Speaker 1: ashed up against the wall, just ringing inside your mind.
Speaker 5: Negatis walks broke just butchered me and knocking ergo hurt
Speaker 5: so much.
Speaker 1: Of my life.
Speaker 2: This was happening to a minor serving time for a
Speaker 2: nonviolent offense at the hands of a government employee on
Speaker 2: the grounds of a government institution. Roger was so carved
Speaker 2: up he had to lay on his stomach as his
Speaker 2: wounds healed. This wasn't the only time Roger got the
Speaker 2: strap in Gwelph either. One time he got it for
Speaker 2: just trying to free a bird that was trapped between
Speaker 2: two window panes. Words spread among the prison population about
Speaker 2: what had happened to Roger. Some of his peers swung
Speaker 2: by to see the damage to Roger's backside first hand,
Speaker 2: and they were horrified, which is why, after yet another
Speaker 2: gnarly experience in the limbo room, when Roger expressed a
Speaker 2: desire to break out of prison again, he had a
Speaker 2: dozen guys vow to help him. A well timed distraction
Speaker 2: in the rock quarry was all that it took, as
Speaker 2: Roger slipped past the armed guards and disappeared through the gate,
Speaker 2: a much easier go boy than his first, but a
Speaker 2: go boy all the same. With the welts on his
Speaker 2: backside still healing, still seeping through his clothing, Roger went
Speaker 2: on a crime spree. He broke into homes, stole cars,
Speaker 2: stole a safe, and everything was going great until he
Speaker 2: attempted to rob a post office which wait, this place
Speaker 2: happens to be literally a block from my house in Toronto.
Speaker 2: Sixty nine years ago this week, I brought my wife
Speaker 2: on her coffee break to this old brick corner store
Speaker 2: in our neighborhood at this intersection. In this building right here,
Speaker 2: this used to be a postal store slash grocery store.
Speaker 2: Roger had heard that this place had a safe full
Speaker 2: of money. But as soon as he pulled out his gun,
Speaker 2: the guy behind the counter grabbed onto him and starts
Speaker 2: strangling him, and the two have this epic fight in
Speaker 2: the store. Everything in the store is knocked over, there's
Speaker 2: broken glass everywhere, and the fight spills out onto the
Speaker 2: streets and everyone waiting for the street cars like, what
Speaker 2: the hell's going on? There's blood everywhere and this storekeeper
Speaker 2: he starts yelling help help. Roger runs across the st
Speaker 2: and disappears into a park when he hears the first siren.
Speaker 2: It's a rare all cars call on the Toronto Police radio.
Speaker 2: So while Roger is on the run down here, he
Speaker 2: hears the siren of literally every police car in Toronto.
Speaker 2: Desperate to find a place to hide, Roger storms into
Speaker 2: the home of a multi generational Japanese family, completely covered
Speaker 2: in blood, gun in hand, and he more or less
Speaker 2: holds this family hostage. There's a three year old and
Speaker 2: a five year old kid just sitting on the living
Speaker 2: room floor and they're watching Superman on TV. And in
Speaker 2: the newspaper article, I think it was their dad. He's like,
Speaker 2: he's like, not even a gunman in their living room
Speaker 2: could get them to stop watching Superman. Not too long
Speaker 2: after that, the cops surround the place, burst in and
Speaker 2: took Roger down. The photo of him after they caught
Speaker 2: him in the back seat of the police car, he
Speaker 2: just looks exactly like he's from the book The Outsiders,
Speaker 2: with his leather jacket and his tall, slicked hair, and
Speaker 2: he looked like a cartoon rendering of a troubled youth
Speaker 2: from the fifties. Yeah, so it would have been one
Speaker 2: of these houses. Okay, let's go, and then those were
Speaker 2: our girls. Takes one lessons. The disjointed Toronto Star headline
Speaker 2: says storekeeper slugged gun cow's family arrest gory suspect.
Speaker 4: I definitely remember that one because that hit the papers
Speaker 4: big time.
Speaker 2: That's Sue, Roger's sister. This was the first time Roger
Speaker 2: had a full page dedicated to his crimes. And when
Speaker 2: he had his day in court, the judge had before
Speaker 2: him a seventeen year old kid who'd broken out of
Speaker 2: prison twice in a little more than a year, and
Speaker 2: who'd basically been in trouble with the law since he
Speaker 2: was twelve years old. They needed to send a clear message.
Speaker 4: That's when Roger was given five years in the Kingston Penitentiary.
Speaker 4: He was thrown to the walls.
Speaker 2: What awaited seventeen year old Roger at Canada's most feared
Speaker 2: penal institution More pain, more suffering, sure, but also something
Speaker 2: he hadn't experienced yet in education.
Speaker 5: In the headlines you're trying to start with, graduated from
Speaker 5: reformatory with honors to the big.
Speaker 2: Hot from iHeart Podcasts and campsite Media. I'm Sam Mullens
Speaker 2: and this is Go Boy, Episode two. School of Crime.
Speaker 2: The Kingston Penitentiary or the pen KP, Canada's Alcatraz, was
Speaker 2: originally opened for business in eighteen thirty five. When it
Speaker 2: finally closed its doors nearly two centuries later, it was
Speaker 2: one of the oldest continuous use detention centers in North America.
Speaker 2: And to see it now, just looking at it, you
Speaker 2: can still feel the weight of the place. You can
Speaker 2: hear the foreboding music of it. Every large limestone boulder
Speaker 2: it's built with was broken loose in a quarry by prisoners,
Speaker 2: transported to the site by prisoner muscle, and set by
Speaker 2: prisoner hands. By the time Roger arrived, the place had
Speaker 2: already broken the spirits of generations of men. Roger was processed,
Speaker 2: assigned a cell number and a prison uniform. His number
Speaker 2: was unique because it started not with a digit, but
Speaker 2: with a letter Y for youth. He was only seventeen
Speaker 2: years old, and he was thrown into the snake pit
Speaker 2: containing almost a thousand of Canada's most dangerous men, because
Speaker 2: in the eyes of the law, he was one of them.
Speaker 2: A sobering thought for him to mull over as his
Speaker 2: seat door locked shut. It was a tiny space, just
Speaker 2: enough room for a flip down bed chained to the
Speaker 2: wall and a toilet and sink. Roger writes extensively about
Speaker 2: his time in the Kingston Pen, so we hired an
Speaker 2: actor to read his words.
Speaker 3: Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2: This is Jamie Cavanaugh. Whenever you hear Jamie's voice, Jamie
Speaker 2: say something.
Speaker 3: Hey, Sam, thanks for having me on perfect Whenever you
Speaker 3: hear Jamie's voice starting now. It is a verbatim from
Speaker 3: the writings of Roger Karan. In those days, the first
Speaker 3: thing he did when you moved into a cell was
Speaker 3: to make a heavy cover for the lidless toilet. The
Speaker 3: maze of sewers below were infested with bloated rats as
Speaker 3: big as a groundhog and with big yellow teeth. If
Speaker 3: you forgot to cover the toilet, you might suddenly wake
Speaker 3: up about three o'clock in the morning to find half
Speaker 3: your tow chewed away.
Speaker 2: Roger had no plan yet on how he was going
Speaker 2: to survive this place. Wherever he stood in the pecking
Speaker 2: order among the inmates at the Guelpher Formatory meant nothing.
Speaker 2: Here here he was no one. He had no one,
Speaker 2: he knew no one, and in a place like this,
Speaker 2: one wrong move could kill him.
Speaker 7: Prison life is definitely a society within a society.
Speaker 2: This is Bill Isaac's, a former headguard at the pen.
Speaker 2: Bill is the kind of person so radically unflappable you're
Speaker 2: afraid to ask what made him this way?
Speaker 7: You don't get too many frontline correction officers, you know,
Speaker 7: talking about their life behind bars. It's not a good environment.
Speaker 7: The norms and values are different inside prison to the
Speaker 7: norms and values that we in the community see on
Speaker 7: a daily basis. You could be physically assaulted, stabbed, piped, beaten.
Speaker 7: They don't think of ramifications.
Speaker 2: Roger had heard stories about predators and the warped sexual
Speaker 2: politics that can play out in a place like this,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to do everything he could to protect himself.
Speaker 7: It's an unpredictable, volatile environment. The inmate must to survive
Speaker 7: conform to those prison norms and values.
Speaker 2: If ever there was a time for discipline, this was it.
Speaker 2: He had to study the routines and movements and learn
Speaker 2: the structure of the place like his life depended on it.
Speaker 2: And he learned quickly that on the inside, it's all
Speaker 2: about the routine. It's all about learning the routine. Everything
Speaker 2: in the pen, and I mean everything begins and with
Speaker 2: the ring of the bell. The cell buildings were designed
Speaker 2: like a giant wheel, the cell blocks being the spokes
Speaker 2: extending outward four stories each and at the center of
Speaker 2: the wheel was the dome.
Speaker 7: They couldn't go anywhere off the range without going through
Speaker 7: the domes. It was basically the heart and soul of
Speaker 7: Kingston Penitentiary.
Speaker 2: And prominently in the center of the dome floor, usually
Speaker 2: surrounded by a small gang of guards, was the infamous
Speaker 2: Kingston Penitentiary Bell, a brassy behemoth loathed by most who
Speaker 2: had ever done time there.
Speaker 1: The bell told you what to do.
Speaker 2: Mike McGinn remembers the abrace of chime Well. He's an
Speaker 2: ex con who served at KP around the time that
Speaker 2: Roger did.
Speaker 7: The bell told you when to go to supper, when
Speaker 7: to go get your breakfast, when to get your launch,
Speaker 7: when to go to the yard, when to wake up,
Speaker 7: when to go to sleep. Quite a large number of
Speaker 7: the imates actualiated that bell. It was a source of soreness.
Speaker 2: By Roger's count, The thing chimed one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: seven times a day.
Speaker 7: It was ding ding ding, ding, ding ding ding ding.
Speaker 7: They hated it with a passion.
Speaker 1: It controlled your life. It controlled your life.
Speaker 2: Roger began obediently moving to the toll of the bell
Speaker 2: like a machine, to get his breakfast, to take a shower,
Speaker 2: and to head to work. Every inmate at KP is
Speaker 2: assigned a job in the institution. Different prisons are known
Speaker 2: for different lines of production. At one prison they might
Speaker 2: make license plates or make clothing for the armed forces.
Speaker 2: But a KP, one of the things the inmates made
Speaker 2: was mail bags for Canada Post. One wing was devoted
Speaker 2: to making them, the other for repairing them. So Roger
Speaker 2: learned the intricacies of a sewing machine in a hurry,
Speaker 2: and did his best to keep his eyes on his work,
Speaker 2: trying to be in visible. As he got a feel
Speaker 2: for the place.
Speaker 3: I sensed the prison atmosphere slowly. It was one of
Speaker 3: constant restraint, of suspicion and bitterness and secrecy. Men let
Speaker 3: down their guard only in intimate conversations with other cons
Speaker 3: They all wore a look that puzzled me. For a while,
Speaker 3: I couldn't begin to guess the cause of the unseeing,
Speaker 3: lost in contemplation vagueness. One day I realized that I
Speaker 3: was wearing it too.
Speaker 2: When he first arrived at KP, Roger used to spend
Speaker 2: eighteen hours a day stuck inside his cell, but he
Speaker 2: really didn't mind all the time alone in there. He
Speaker 2: could at least let his guard down a little bit.
Speaker 2: In the confines of his drum, no one could get
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 6: Here.
Speaker 2: At the end of each day, the bell would ring
Speaker 2: for dinner, or as the cons called it, jug up.
Speaker 2: There was no cafeteria or mess hall at KP with
Speaker 2: these types of men, and it wasn't worth the risk.
Speaker 2: So they'd go one cell block at a time, and
Speaker 2: they'd line up by the kitchen where a tray would
Speaker 2: be unlovingly shoved through a small opening, and then you'd
Speaker 2: shuffle back to your cell for the night to enjoy
Speaker 2: your dinner alone. As Roger would pick at the unsavory
Speaker 2: arrangement on this tray, and a guard would glide by
Speaker 2: for the final count of the night. He heard a
Speaker 2: saying that stuck with him in this place.
Speaker 3: They feed us like swine and count us like diamonds.
Speaker 2: Every day ended the same, with hundreds of locked doors
Speaker 2: and hundreds of men with nothing but time.
Speaker 3: You could read, listen to the radio, pace a few
Speaker 3: steps back and forth, dream, watch your neighbors through their
Speaker 3: reflections in the windows, crack up, smash your cell furniture,
Speaker 3: slash yourself with a razor blade to break the monotony,
Speaker 3: hang yourself, or join in on range conversations until the
Speaker 3: silence spells sound of it's o'clock. This would be followed
Speaker 3: by a gurgling of toilets, coughs, and curses, and then
Speaker 3: a long silence until morning, interrupted at intervals with nightmares
Speaker 3: or outbursts, as one prisoner warned another to come out
Speaker 3: swinging when the gates opened in the morning.
Speaker 7: On top of the monotony of prison routine, on top
Speaker 7: of being told what to do, when to do it,
Speaker 7: how to do it, et cetera, et cetera, they've got
Speaker 7: the additional stress of living in that volatile environment.
Speaker 2: Roger started to get a firm grasp of the routine
Speaker 2: and was beginning to understand the hierarchy of the place
Speaker 2: and the things to watch out for. The wolves of
Speaker 2: the institution would try to get young inmates to gamble
Speaker 2: with them, with the idea being that if they accrued
Speaker 2: enough of a gambling debt, they could then be coerced
Speaker 2: into performing sexual favors instead. Roger was determined to avoid
Speaker 2: that scene at all costs, and the best way could
Speaker 2: think of doing it was through silence. He didn't even
Speaker 2: realize what he was doing at first, but then a
Speaker 2: day would pass where he wouldn't say a single word
Speaker 2: to anyone, And then a week would go by.
Speaker 5: I figured out what was say the wrong, think of
Speaker 5: my number of friendship to the guards, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Going to stuff. But I decided not to talk. And
Speaker 1: when I went to talk, after a while, I could
Speaker 1: talk any more.
Speaker 2: But just because he wasn't saying anything didn't mean that
Speaker 2: he had nothing he needed to express. Inside. He was screaming.
Speaker 2: He was filled with hostility, with self hatred and regret.
Speaker 3: At night, alone in my cave, no smile would touch
Speaker 3: my face, often silent tears, but no smile. Loneliness sat
Speaker 3: heavily on my shoulders, and my throbbing temples made sleep
Speaker 3: more and more difficult to attain.
Speaker 2: He started getting migraine headaches, the pain so acute he
Speaker 2: struggled to fall asleep at night. He never felt so isolated,
Speaker 2: so alone in his whole life. It was as if
Speaker 2: he'd already left the world of the living. He'd rock
Speaker 2: and rock for hours, a mass of sweaty emotion, replaying
Speaker 2: everything he'd done to end up here, and then, seemingly
Speaker 2: at the moment he'd finally managed to slip off to sleep.
Speaker 2: As time marched on, Roger had managed to keep himself
Speaker 2: out of trouble and mostly was able to stay out
Speaker 2: of harm's way. But even when you're being a model inmate,
Speaker 2: not doing anything to draw attention to yourself, the horrors
Speaker 2: of KP will find you. Roger's little sister, Sue, would
Speaker 2: drive down to Kingston with her dad to visit him
Speaker 2: whenever she could. She was a teenager too, and even
Speaker 2: all these years later, she can still remember the feeling
Speaker 2: of sitting across from her brother and wanting to know
Speaker 2: how he was doing, but at the same time not
Speaker 2: wanting to know.
Speaker 4: I hate to think what's happened in there. I find
Speaker 4: it very difficult to even let my mind go there.
Speaker 2: Over the years, the two siblings would sit in many
Speaker 2: visitation rooms like this one, and Roger would not speak
Speaker 2: of the punishment he was subject to. He'd never tell
Speaker 2: his little sister about the limbo room or the fistfights.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't tell her that once in Gwelph he was
Speaker 2: thrown in a straight jacket and subject to an experimental
Speaker 2: gas treatment that made him thrash on the table and
Speaker 2: then black out. And it wasn't until several years later
Speaker 2: that he told Sue about the many shock treatments he received.
Speaker 1: Hey, put me on a table, He'd put a stick
Speaker 1: between my teeth.
Speaker 5: Elect who elector designed for hid pump Solian Fennis all
Speaker 5: by that car, making count back whis from one hundred
Speaker 5: and then might count about really groggy, and doctor would
Speaker 5: shoe a switch.
Speaker 4: They would give them shock treatments, lots of shock treatments.
Speaker 4: You know they're going to shock the devil right.
Speaker 7: Out of them.
Speaker 2: Even though it was hard for her to see her
Speaker 2: brother in this place, one thing that was never hard
Speaker 2: for Sue was to stand by Roger no matter what.
Speaker 2: She'd do her best to encourage him in their brief
Speaker 2: time together, but she'd always leave worrying about him.
Speaker 4: It's hard to see your family member or your loved
Speaker 4: one incarcerated, It really is. It's difficult when you drive away,
Speaker 4: you don't speak in the car all the way home.
Speaker 4: You feel guilty leaving them behind. I didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 4: but I feel bad leaving him behind.
Speaker 2: In prison, it's not uncommon for inmates to succumb to
Speaker 2: their hopelessness and take their own lives. Roger saw it
Speaker 2: all the time. Guys who were there one day would
Speaker 2: just be gone the next and given what Roger had
Speaker 2: suffered in places like this, It would have made sense
Speaker 2: if he considered his own disappearing act from this plane
Speaker 2: of existence, but he didn't, and one of the main
Speaker 2: reasons he didn't. The thing that turned his life around
Speaker 2: in there was when he discovered an outlet for his anguish.
Speaker 2: Every day, the inmates were allowed forty five minutes of
Speaker 2: free time in the recreation yard. Some guys would play
Speaker 2: baseball or just bullshit in the shade of the watch tower,
Speaker 2: where guards would peer down on them cradling rifles. But
Speaker 2: in the middle of the yard was a weight pit
Speaker 2: where the toughest guys in the prison would pump iron.
Speaker 2: Roger had a strict discipline for not participating in anything
Speaker 2: he didn't need to, but one day the barbells seemed
Speaker 2: to be calling out to him, so he walked over
Speaker 2: and worked his way in, not sure how his sudden
Speaker 2: boldness would be received, but no one said anything. Roger
Speaker 2: wasn't very big, but he was always athletic and determined,
Speaker 2: and with a high threshold for pain, the exact right
Speaker 2: mix of attributes to become a great lifter. He started
Speaker 2: showing up every day, hitting the same circuit, increasing the weight.
Speaker 2: Little by little, he had a normal practice.
Speaker 3: What was not normal was the black rage within me,
Speaker 3: and I desperately needed something to dispel it. And I
Speaker 3: found the heavy barbells a perfect distraction, and like a
Speaker 3: drowning man, I threw myself at them with a fury
Speaker 3: and advance.
Speaker 2: The resistance of the weights seemed to finally lift something
Speaker 2: off of him. Even his headaches went away. Roger's dogged
Speaker 2: determination with the weights caught the attention of the guys
Speaker 2: who ran the pit. They'd watch this kid pump iron
Speaker 2: day after day, pushing the bench press bar like he
Speaker 2: hated gravity. When one day they called him over, here's
Speaker 2: former KP guard Bill Isaacs again.
Speaker 7: So there are a number of groups inside present. The
Speaker 7: Clicks could be a muscle group. In other words, we're
Speaker 7: the weightlifting group. We're four five or six inmates that
Speaker 7: get together and we basically run in all the weight pets.
Speaker 2: Roger had observed enough to figure out that the weight
Speaker 2: pit guys were the most popular guys in the prison,
Speaker 2: the alphas, the best athletes, and the toughest guys in
Speaker 2: the place. So when they basically said, we've been watching you, kid,
Speaker 2: and we're wondering if you want to join our group?
Speaker 2: Roger smiled. He knew right away that this would change
Speaker 2: things for him, because he knew it meant that now
Speaker 2: people would be less inclined to fuck with him. Roger
Speaker 2: was still silent when they'd all hang out, of course,
Speaker 2: but it was remarkable what he could accomplish socially with
Speaker 2: a mute button on. And the beauty of the weight
Speaker 2: pit was that it rewarded those willing to listen. It
Speaker 2: was a hub of gossip and stimulating conversation. The thickest
Speaker 2: part of the prison grapevine ran right through the pit.
Speaker 3: You could also just sit around in the shade of
Speaker 3: the wall, or pace back and forth in the walking
Speaker 3: area and participate in the biggest pastime of all one
Speaker 3: thousand and one ways to better thieving. One of the
Speaker 3: main weight pit guys that Roger became friends with was
Speaker 3: a guy named Chuck. He was a war vet and
Speaker 3: as bright as he was grumpy, which was very Chuck
Speaker 3: also happened to be in a click of bank robbers.
Speaker 3: Roger was young and impressionable, and in the power rankings
Speaker 3: of the prison population. Nothing was cooler and more respected
Speaker 3: than being a bank robber, so.
Speaker 7: The very very top of the pyramid. Those inmates are
Speaker 7: considered the true inmates, the true cons The leaders, predominantly
Speaker 7: bank robbers, might not be smart from an educational perspective,
Speaker 7: but very very street smart, very very prison smart, so
Speaker 7: that they've got brains, so a bank robber. Those types
Speaker 7: of people would be at the top of the packing water.
Speaker 2: Rogers started spending more time with Chuck and the other
Speaker 2: bank guys on the inside. It was almost as if
Speaker 2: between games of handball or horseshoes or weightlifting sets, there'd
Speaker 2: be classes to audit on bank selection, how to build
Speaker 2: a solid crew, crowd management, and best practices for weapon usage.
Speaker 2: Chuck and the elite crew of cons knew all about
Speaker 2: the inner workings of bank voughts, or how best to
Speaker 2: sec convent the newest generation of alarm systems. They'd talk
Speaker 2: about these things openly, with the idea being that one day,
Speaker 2: maybe one of them in this dusty pit might pull
Speaker 2: off the perfect, big league heist. As Roger listened, he
Speaker 2: realized how much of a novice he'd been when robbing
Speaker 2: in the past. By hearing these guys talking shop every
Speaker 2: day in the yard or over the whir of the
Speaker 2: sewing machines at work was like having his own private
Speaker 2: Dillinger masterclass. One day, Roger would walk free from this
Speaker 2: place and he had no intention of ever coming back.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, if he ever was going
Speaker 2: to try robbing again, he at least knew now how
Speaker 2: to get away with him. The Kingston Pen was a
Speaker 2: place where there was constant turnover. For every new fish
Speaker 2: walking in, someone who seemed like they would never get
Speaker 2: out would be granted parole. One guy guy serving a
Speaker 2: long sentence. Lou, who'd been the way pit manager for
Speaker 2: over a decade, finally got his parole paper stamped, thus
Speaker 2: creating a job opening. The weight pit manager was one
Speaker 2: of the most coveted jobs in the whole prison. You're
Speaker 2: in charge of keeping everything clean and orderly, not just
Speaker 2: in the pit, but in the sports shack as well.
Speaker 2: Instead of the mere hour of recreation time, you would
Speaker 2: get six hours a day with all the athletic equipment
Speaker 2: to yourself. So naturally there were lots of guys clamoring
Speaker 2: for the job. But since Lou had held the job
Speaker 2: for so long, he was able to appoint his own successor,
Speaker 2: and he surprised everyone when he chose Roger. This was
Speaker 2: the cherry on top of Roger's miraculous social ascension. Without
Speaker 2: saying a single word to a single person in two
Speaker 2: full years, he went all the way from being a
Speaker 2: total outcast loaner to the top of the heap. He
Speaker 2: was respected, and much more importantly, he was protected. The
Speaker 2: day that Roger's vow of silence ended, he was lined
Speaker 2: up with some guys he knew from the pit waiting
Speaker 2: for their turn in the showers, when a new guy
Speaker 2: in the pen, a wolf, started whispering and eyeing up Roger.
Speaker 2: This wolf had no idea that the crew flanking Roger
Speaker 2: on either side were his good buddies, so imagine his
Speaker 2: surprise when seconds later he found himself laying on the
Speaker 2: floor of the showers with the full weight of a
Speaker 2: man compressing his windpipe as he gasped for breath. It
Speaker 2: was in this moment, as Roger watched his friend defend
Speaker 2: his honor, that he shouted the first words he'd said
Speaker 2: in two years. He yelled, don't you'll hang. Roger's buddy
Speaker 2: was so shocked to hear his voice from the first time,
Speaker 2: he released his grip and laughed and said leastwise, we
Speaker 2: got Roger talking again. When Roger hit the halfway point
Speaker 2: of his sentence, everyone assumed that he'd be paroled at
Speaker 2: the first opportunity. He was still so young and had
Speaker 2: been such a model inmate during his stint that it
Speaker 2: seemed a foregone conclusion that he'd get out any day.
Speaker 3: My parole never did materialize, and everyone was dismayed. My
Speaker 3: friends on the Sports Gang were ready to grab a
Speaker 3: hostage and demand my release.
Speaker 2: Roger started to get that old hopeless feeling that he
Speaker 2: got when he first landed on the inside, like society
Speaker 2: didn't want him, like he wasn't good enough to ever
Speaker 2: be free again. But then something unexpected happened. Someone busted
Speaker 2: him out. The first two times Roger left prison, he'd
Speaker 2: done it by escaping, but the third time he was
Speaker 2: sprung by the least likely person you can think of.
Speaker 2: The Queen of England, Her Majesty, was off to Canada
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty nine to cap the Great Saint Lawrence
Speaker 2: Seaway Project. The Queen came to Canada and with President
Speaker 2: Eisenhower by her side, she boarded a boat to officially
Speaker 2: and royally declare the project open. The Seaway project had
Speaker 2: taken five years and nearly half a billion mid century
Speaker 2: dollars to complete. It was one of the most ambitious
Speaker 2: projects in Canadian history, and it connected the Great Lakes
Speaker 2: to the Sea the Free world. Hail's this stupendous achievement.
Speaker 2: The Saint Lawrence seaway. As part of her royal trip
Speaker 2: to Canada. The Governor General sent out a wire to
Speaker 2: the penitentiaries alerting them that at the wish of Her
Speaker 2: Royal Highness, a general amnesty was being granted, whereby a
Speaker 2: fraction of all sentences being served would be terminated. So,
Speaker 2: just like that, in the fine month of June, Roger
Speaker 2: and five hundred and sixty eight other inmates from across
Speaker 2: the nation were told that the Queen was busting them out.
Speaker 3: A tremendous feeling of exhilaration filled my whole being the
Speaker 3: moment that I stepped through that big front gate into
Speaker 3: a perfect summer day. I stood at the edge of
Speaker 3: the old road that led into the city as shivers
Speaker 3: of anxiety made my legs tremble and perspiration break out
Speaker 3: on my brow.
Speaker 2: Naturally, his family was elated when they received word that
Speaker 2: their little Roger was finally going to be free.
Speaker 4: Will come Dad and I to pick him up.
Speaker 2: When Sue embraced her brother Roger, he looks much better
Speaker 2: than he had on previous visits. The light was back
Speaker 2: in his eyes, his boy's frame was gone, and he
Speaker 2: suddenly had the build of a man. Sue teased him
Speaker 2: for being so tanned and fit and joked that maybe
Speaker 2: she should go to prison. There was another thing that
Speaker 2: they had to do in Kingston before making the two
Speaker 2: hour drive back home to Cornwall. Roger's dad had an
Speaker 2: appointment at the hospital with a specialist. When Sue came
Speaker 2: back out, she brought Roger up to speed. Their dad
Speaker 2: had been sick and steadily getting worse. The cobalt treatments
Speaker 2: weren't working on the cancer, and they didn't know how
Speaker 2: much time he'd have. This was devastating news for Roger,
Speaker 2: a shadow cast on an otherwise wonderful day. There wasn't
Speaker 2: much time for sulking, though, because when his dad finally emerged,
Speaker 2: he gave Roger the keys.
Speaker 4: And he even let Roger drive the carmel.
Speaker 2: Sue had wanted to throw a proper welcome home party
Speaker 2: for Roger, but he had vetoed it to Roger homecomings
Speaker 2: are for soldiers, not ex cons, But Roger's arrival was
Speaker 2: too big to let pass with nothing. Relatives and old
Speaker 2: friends started popping in to congratulate him, and the beautiful
Speaker 2: woman from next door kissed Roger, still a virgin, on
Speaker 2: his blushing cheek.
Speaker 3: My mind went spinning back through all those endless nights
Speaker 3: of dreaming and yearning and hugging my pillow and wanting
Speaker 3: to be loved to return. I was now twenty one,
Speaker 3: and I still hadn't gotten around sleeping with a woman.
Speaker 3: Realizing that I was now a man, and that a
Speaker 3: profound change had occurred in me since leaving home five
Speaker 3: years earlier, I braced myself for the changes I was
Speaker 3: sure to find the people that I left behind.
Speaker 2: It was all very surreal to be back home. The
Speaker 2: space of his childhood home weirded him out. The hardwood
Speaker 2: floors felt foreign, the ceiling felt needlessly low. The silence
Speaker 2: of his childhood room at night was horrific. What was
Speaker 2: he going to do now? Since the seaway project had wrapped,
Speaker 2: the job market was suddenly flooded with twenty thousand men
Speaker 2: looking for employment. Roger took a job with the railway,
Speaker 2: replacing old rail lines, but the work was hard, even
Speaker 2: for a ripped x con, and the pay was criminally low,
Speaker 2: just ninety cents an hour. One night, Roger was soaking
Speaker 2: in the bathtub, having just walked off the railway job,
Speaker 2: and reflected on his parents' financial woes he had heard
Speaker 2: them talking about earlier.
Speaker 3: Since Dad was too weak to work and not bootlegging anymore,
Speaker 3: he was hard pressed to keep up the mortgages, so
Speaker 3: for the first time in their long marriage, Mom had
Speaker 3: to work to make ends meet, and for a proud
Speaker 3: man like Dad, it must have been more painful. In
Speaker 3: the cancer, soaking up water in the bathtub, I felt
Speaker 3: a profound love for my father for the first time
Speaker 3: in my life, but also anger and sorrow that such
Speaker 3: a proud man could not die in peace.
Speaker 2: Roger knew he had to do something. He could find
Speaker 2: another job, maybe lay some brick, get his foot in
Speaker 2: the door somewhere, maybe learn to be a carpenter or something,
Speaker 2: or or he could find another way to make some money.
Speaker 2: Go Boy is a production from Campside Media in partnership
Speaker 2: with iHeart Podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. Go Boy was written
Speaker 2: and hosted by me Sam Mollins. Our producer is Rob
Speaker 2: Lindsay of Paradox Pictures. Laine Rose is our senior producer.
Speaker 2: Sound design, mix and engineering by Garrett Tiedeman. Original music
Speaker 2: by Garrett Tiedemant fact checking by Michael Kenyon Meyer. Selected
Speaker 2: archival clips are from CBC Licensing. The book Go Boy
Speaker 2: was written by Roger Kuran. iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett. Excerpts from Roger Kuran's book
Speaker 2: Go Boy, read by Jamie Cavanaugh. Special thanks to Mike mcghinn,
Speaker 2: who passed away before we wrap production. Campside Media's executive
Speaker 2: producers are Josh Dean Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam hoff and Matt cher.
Speaker 2: A special thanks to our operations team Doug Slaywyn Ashley Warren,
Speaker 2: Sabina Marra and Destiny Dingle. If you enjoyed Go Boy,
Speaker 2: please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.