WEBVTT - School of Crime 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.560 A campsite media. 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.520 Roger knew about punishment. He was a kid who'd been 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.480 on the business end of a teacher's ruler, who had 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.079 felt the impact of the back of his father's hand 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.920 many times. But unfortunately for him, nothing he'd been through 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.919 in his sixteen years of life prepared him for what 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.040 he suffered in the limbo room. And unfortunately for us, 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.560 there's no way to tell the Roger Karan story without 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.440 describing specifically what happened to him in there. Let me 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:37.000 ask you about the scars. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.280 I don't mean the physical scars, but the emotional scars. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.880 What was the worst of all the things that happened 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:43.840 to you during that period. 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.239 If you look back and say, the one thing that 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.600 really strapped the strap. 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.080 Happened twenty four years ago, when you're sixteen years old, 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.800 and something very traumatic happens to your scars, it. 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.280 After Roger smashed the guard's flashlight that fateful night in 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.800 nineteen fifty, he was dragged to a literal dungeon underneath 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:09.160 the Gwelfer Formatory. The limbo room was painted a pristine white, 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.399 and the pressure change of the door opening set the 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:19.160 light bulb and their shadows into perverse motion. Roger watched 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.480 his twelve officials filed in behind him when he first 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.000 laid his eyes on the apparatus, and a fixed. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.360 To the far wall was a human course of the 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.560 restraining straps. He metal pipings the neck. 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.039 But what really concerned him was what was beside the apparatus, 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:41.160 three wooden handled leather straps four feet long, four inches wide, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.240 the leather so thick and coarse they barely sagged when 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:50.000 held upright. The superintendent motioned him forward, and. 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.400 He says to me, okay, step in the machine. White. 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.120 I took a few paces four and stepped in the 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.559 sub course, and all of a sudend, drop your paints. White, 0:01:58.200 --> 0:01:59.160 I dropped my paint. 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.120 He slowly moved his body into the device called the machine, 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:08.200 as a guard tightened the restraints around his ankles and knees. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:11.760 Then took my hands and strapped him straight off in 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.360 front of me and shackled me to the wall. 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:15.959 And now I was naked from my neck and my ankles. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.680 Roger was secured in the most vulnerable position imaginable, as 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:22.919 a black hood was. 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:26.840 Pulled firmly over his head. And then for a moment 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:32.359 it was darkness and quiet, and then an unsettling sound 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:34.280 that he couldn't make out at. 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:40.400 First, dragging, shuffling. It was the shuffling of feet of 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.560 all twelve men's shoes against the concrete floor. 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.359 So all of a sudden they have original and they'd 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:49.160 all scraped their feet on the floor. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.840 That was the further confused you to get your hearers straight. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.280 And then it began, and. 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.280 Then a super tended to say what then to hear 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.200 this strap cutting through the air here and then it'll 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.920 just itch. You go off like a shot when an 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:07.240 itch you. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.959 Across the fire box and be wham and your whole 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.240 hit what exploding and colius broke of colors and rockets. 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.400 And remember to keep this cleaning from bursting from my lips. 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.880 I had to fight down on my tongue, bit down 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:19.400 on my lips. 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.919 Blood just burst from under the wood down my chin 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:24.120 and onto my chest. 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.800 And then minute later togo and here scrape, scrape. Then 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.239 here too the strap from cutting swilled, it gets and 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.640 ashed up against the wall, just ringing inside your mind. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.839 Negatis walks broke just butchered me and knocking ergo hurt 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:40.440 so much. 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:41.680 Of my life. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.000 This was happening to a minor serving time for a 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.440 nonviolent offense at the hands of a government employee on 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:56.320 the grounds of a government institution. Roger was so carved 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.480 up he had to lay on his stomach as his 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.080 wounds healed. This wasn't the only time Roger got the 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.360 strap in Gwelph either. One time he got it for 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.200 just trying to free a bird that was trapped between 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:12.800 two window panes. Words spread among the prison population about 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.040 what had happened to Roger. Some of his peers swung 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.240 by to see the damage to Roger's backside first hand, 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.040 and they were horrified, which is why, after yet another 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.680 gnarly experience in the limbo room, when Roger expressed a 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.680 desire to break out of prison again, he had a 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.279 dozen guys vow to help him. A well timed distraction 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.000 in the rock quarry was all that it took, as 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:42.240 Roger slipped past the armed guards and disappeared through the gate, 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.400 a much easier go boy than his first, but a 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.919 go boy all the same. With the welts on his 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.440 backside still healing, still seeping through his clothing, Roger went 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.960 on a crime spree. He broke into homes, stole cars, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:03.440 stole a safe, and everything was going great until he 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:09.960 attempted to rob a post office which wait, this place 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.080 happens to be literally a block from my house in Toronto. 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:19.280 Sixty nine years ago this week, I brought my wife 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.400 on her coffee break to this old brick corner store 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:27.800 in our neighborhood at this intersection. In this building right here, 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:32.279 this used to be a postal store slash grocery store. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.240 Roger had heard that this place had a safe full 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.719 of money. But as soon as he pulled out his gun, 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.560 the guy behind the counter grabbed onto him and starts 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.560 strangling him, and the two have this epic fight in 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:46.960 the store. Everything in the store is knocked over, there's 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:50.560 broken glass everywhere, and the fight spills out onto the 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.280 streets and everyone waiting for the street cars like, what 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.120 the hell's going on? There's blood everywhere and this storekeeper 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.920 he starts yelling help help. Roger runs across the st 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.239 and disappears into a park when he hears the first siren. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:09.560 It's a rare all cars call on the Toronto Police radio. 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:14.680 So while Roger is on the run down here, he 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:19.719 hears the siren of literally every police car in Toronto. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.880 Desperate to find a place to hide, Roger storms into 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:27.200 the home of a multi generational Japanese family, completely covered 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.720 in blood, gun in hand, and he more or less 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.400 holds this family hostage. There's a three year old and 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.119 a five year old kid just sitting on the living 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:43.279 room floor and they're watching Superman on TV. And in 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.760 the newspaper article, I think it was their dad. He's like, 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.680 he's like, not even a gunman in their living room 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.920 could get them to stop watching Superman. Not too long 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.599 after that, the cops surround the place, burst in and 0:06:55.680 --> 0:07:00.560 took Roger down. The photo of him after they caught 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.000 him in the back seat of the police car, he 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.880 just looks exactly like he's from the book The Outsiders, 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:14.040 with his leather jacket and his tall, slicked hair, and 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.760 he looked like a cartoon rendering of a troubled youth 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:23.560 from the fifties. Yeah, so it would have been one 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:29.840 of these houses. Okay, let's go, and then those were 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:35.240 our girls. Takes one lessons. The disjointed Toronto Star headline 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:41.640 says storekeeper slugged gun cow's family arrest gory suspect. 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.240 I definitely remember that one because that hit the papers 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:45.800 big time. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.400 That's Sue, Roger's sister. This was the first time Roger 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.960 had a full page dedicated to his crimes. And when 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.120 he had his day in court, the judge had before 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.200 him a seventeen year old kid who'd broken out of 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.960 prison twice in a little more than a year, and 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.520 who'd basically been in trouble with the law since he 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:10.040 was twelve years old. They needed to send a clear message. 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.320 That's when Roger was given five years in the Kingston Penitentiary. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:16.480 He was thrown to the walls. 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:21.360 What awaited seventeen year old Roger at Canada's most feared 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:28.760 penal institution More pain, more suffering, sure, but also something 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:33.880 he hadn't experienced yet in education. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.760 In the headlines you're trying to start with, graduated from 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:38.400 reformatory with honors to the big. 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:43.960 Hot from iHeart Podcasts and campsite Media. I'm Sam Mullens 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:54.400 and this is Go Boy, Episode two. School of Crime. 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:08.360 The Kingston Penitentiary or the pen KP, Canada's Alcatraz, was 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.760 originally opened for business in eighteen thirty five. When it 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.360 finally closed its doors nearly two centuries later, it was 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.600 one of the oldest continuous use detention centers in North America. 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.200 And to see it now, just looking at it, you 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.439 can still feel the weight of the place. You can 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:33.120 hear the foreboding music of it. Every large limestone boulder 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.720 it's built with was broken loose in a quarry by prisoners, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.199 transported to the site by prisoner muscle, and set by 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:45.120 prisoner hands. By the time Roger arrived, the place had 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:51.000 already broken the spirits of generations of men. Roger was processed, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.880 assigned a cell number and a prison uniform. His number 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.920 was unique because it started not with a digit, but 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.920 with a letter Y for youth. He was only seventeen 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.920 years old, and he was thrown into the snake pit 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:10.080 containing almost a thousand of Canada's most dangerous men, because 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.120 in the eyes of the law, he was one of them. 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.480 A sobering thought for him to mull over as his 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:21.880 seat door locked shut. It was a tiny space, just 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.560 enough room for a flip down bed chained to the 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:29.240 wall and a toilet and sink. Roger writes extensively about 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.440 his time in the Kingston Pen, so we hired an 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.320 actor to read his words. 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:35.480 Hey, what's going on? 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.880 This is Jamie Cavanaugh. Whenever you hear Jamie's voice, Jamie 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:41.040 say something. 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.160 Hey, Sam, thanks for having me on perfect Whenever you 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.560 hear Jamie's voice starting now. It is a verbatim from 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.800 the writings of Roger Karan. In those days, the first 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:53.760 thing he did when you moved into a cell was 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.600 to make a heavy cover for the lidless toilet. The 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.640 maze of sewers below were infested with bloated rats as 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.400 big as a groundhog and with big yellow teeth. If 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.800 you forgot to cover the toilet, you might suddenly wake 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:07.880 up about three o'clock in the morning to find half 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:08.800 your tow chewed away. 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.000 Roger had no plan yet on how he was going 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.640 to survive this place. Wherever he stood in the pecking 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.400 order among the inmates at the Guelpher Formatory meant nothing. 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:23.320 Here here he was no one. He had no one, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.120 he knew no one, and in a place like this, 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.240 one wrong move could kill him. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.239 Prison life is definitely a society within a society. 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.640 This is Bill Isaac's, a former headguard at the pen. 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.280 Bill is the kind of person so radically unflappable you're 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.360 afraid to ask what made him this way? 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.440 You don't get too many frontline correction officers, you know, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:54.160 talking about their life behind bars. It's not a good environment. 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.920 The norms and values are different inside prison to the 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.720 norms and values that we in the community see on 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:07.079 a daily basis. You could be physically assaulted, stabbed, piped, beaten. 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:09.320 They don't think of ramifications. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:14.280 Roger had heard stories about predators and the warped sexual 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.800 politics that can play out in a place like this, 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.840 and he wanted to do everything he could to protect himself. 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:27.600 It's an unpredictable, volatile environment. The inmate must to survive 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.520 conform to those prison norms and values. 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.000 If ever there was a time for discipline, this was it. 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.880 He had to study the routines and movements and learn 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.760 the structure of the place like his life depended on it. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.400 And he learned quickly that on the inside, it's all 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:56.400 about the routine. It's all about learning the routine. Everything 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.640 in the pen, and I mean everything begins and with 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:05.520 the ring of the bell. The cell buildings were designed 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.720 like a giant wheel, the cell blocks being the spokes 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.280 extending outward four stories each and at the center of 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:14.880 the wheel was the dome. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.640 They couldn't go anywhere off the range without going through 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.600 the domes. It was basically the heart and soul of 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:23.160 Kingston Penitentiary. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.880 And prominently in the center of the dome floor, usually 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.280 surrounded by a small gang of guards, was the infamous 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:36.800 Kingston Penitentiary Bell, a brassy behemoth loathed by most who 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:37.920 had ever done time there. 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:42.560 The bell told you what to do. 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.080 Mike McGinn remembers the abrace of chime Well. He's an 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.960 ex con who served at KP around the time that 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:51.640 Roger did. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.640 The bell told you when to go to supper, when 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:56.760 to go get your breakfast, when to get your launch, 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.480 when to go to the yard, when to wake up, 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.120 when to go to sleep. Quite a large number of 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:06.040 the imates actualiated that bell. It was a source of soreness. 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.320 By Roger's count, The thing chimed one hundred and twenty 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:10.800 seven times a day. 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.760 It was ding ding ding, ding, ding ding ding ding. 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.000 They hated it with a passion. 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.000 It controlled your life. It controlled your life. 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.080 Roger began obediently moving to the toll of the bell 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.960 like a machine, to get his breakfast, to take a shower, 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.760 and to head to work. Every inmate at KP is 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.720 assigned a job in the institution. Different prisons are known 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.920 for different lines of production. At one prison they might 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.760 make license plates or make clothing for the armed forces. 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.840 But a KP, one of the things the inmates made 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.040 was mail bags for Canada Post. One wing was devoted 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.800 to making them, the other for repairing them. So Roger 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.840 learned the intricacies of a sewing machine in a hurry, 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.040 and did his best to keep his eyes on his work, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.760 trying to be in visible. As he got a feel 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:02.880 for the place. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.280 I sensed the prison atmosphere slowly. It was one of 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:13.280 constant restraint, of suspicion and bitterness and secrecy. Men let 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.440 down their guard only in intimate conversations with other cons 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.600 They all wore a look that puzzled me. For a while, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.720 I couldn't begin to guess the cause of the unseeing, 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:27.680 lost in contemplation vagueness. One day I realized that I 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:28.480 was wearing it too. 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.320 When he first arrived at KP, Roger used to spend 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.920 eighteen hours a day stuck inside his cell, but he 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.160 really didn't mind all the time alone in there. He 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.440 could at least let his guard down a little bit. 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.960 In the confines of his drum, no one could get 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:45.280 to him. 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:45.560 Here. 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.520 At the end of each day, the bell would ring 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:54.440 for dinner, or as the cons called it, jug up. 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.200 There was no cafeteria or mess hall at KP with 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:01.080 these types of men, and it wasn't worth the risk. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.680 So they'd go one cell block at a time, and 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.960 they'd line up by the kitchen where a tray would 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.360 be unlovingly shoved through a small opening, and then you'd 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.880 shuffle back to your cell for the night to enjoy 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.680 your dinner alone. As Roger would pick at the unsavory 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.840 arrangement on this tray, and a guard would glide by 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.480 for the final count of the night. He heard a 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.200 saying that stuck with him in this place. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.240 They feed us like swine and count us like diamonds. 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.160 Every day ended the same, with hundreds of locked doors 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.440 and hundreds of men with nothing but time. 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.040 You could read, listen to the radio, pace a few 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:47.200 steps back and forth, dream, watch your neighbors through their 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.360 reflections in the windows, crack up, smash your cell furniture, 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.960 slash yourself with a razor blade to break the monotony, 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.680 hang yourself, or join in on range conversations until the 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.040 silence spells sound of it's o'clock. This would be followed 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.320 by a gurgling of toilets, coughs, and curses, and then 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.560 a long silence until morning, interrupted at intervals with nightmares 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.920 or outbursts, as one prisoner warned another to come out 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:14.679 swinging when the gates opened in the morning. 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.640 On top of the monotony of prison routine, on top 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.480 of being told what to do, when to do it, 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:26.160 how to do it, et cetera, et cetera, they've got 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:30.160 the additional stress of living in that volatile environment. 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.280 Roger started to get a firm grasp of the routine 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.679 and was beginning to understand the hierarchy of the place 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:41.280 and the things to watch out for. The wolves of 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.560 the institution would try to get young inmates to gamble 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.160 with them, with the idea being that if they accrued 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.160 enough of a gambling debt, they could then be coerced 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:56.920 into performing sexual favors instead. Roger was determined to avoid 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.280 that scene at all costs, and the best way could 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:04.480 think of doing it was through silence. He didn't even 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.800 realize what he was doing at first, but then a 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.600 day would pass where he wouldn't say a single word 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.840 to anyone, And then a week would go by. 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.240 I figured out what was say the wrong, think of 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.080 my number of friendship to the guards, and I'm. 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.280 Going to stuff. But I decided not to talk. And 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.359 when I went to talk, after a while, I could 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:23.040 talk any more. 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.879 But just because he wasn't saying anything didn't mean that 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:32.320 he had nothing he needed to express. Inside. He was screaming. 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:37.280 He was filled with hostility, with self hatred and regret. 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.080 At night, alone in my cave, no smile would touch 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:46.200 my face, often silent tears, but no smile. Loneliness sat 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.639 heavily on my shoulders, and my throbbing temples made sleep 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.399 more and more difficult to attain. 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:56.439 He started getting migraine headaches, the pain so acute he 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.679 struggled to fall asleep at night. He never felt so isolated, 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.880 so alone in his whole life. It was as if 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.280 he'd already left the world of the living. He'd rock 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:13.320 and rock for hours, a mass of sweaty emotion, replaying 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.160 everything he'd done to end up here, and then, seemingly 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.439 at the moment he'd finally managed to slip off to sleep. 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.360 As time marched on, Roger had managed to keep himself 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.360 out of trouble and mostly was able to stay out 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.679 of harm's way. But even when you're being a model inmate, 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.400 not doing anything to draw attention to yourself, the horrors 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:53.520 of KP will find you. Roger's little sister, Sue, would 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.040 drive down to Kingston with her dad to visit him 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:00.280 whenever she could. She was a teenager too, and even 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.120 all these years later, she can still remember the feeling 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.680 of sitting across from her brother and wanting to know 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.199 how he was doing, but at the same time not 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:11.240 wanting to know. 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.160 I hate to think what's happened in there. I find 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.480 it very difficult to even let my mind go there. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.600 Over the years, the two siblings would sit in many 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:24.200 visitation rooms like this one, and Roger would not speak 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.520 of the punishment he was subject to. He'd never tell 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.280 his little sister about the limbo room or the fistfights. 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.639 He wouldn't tell her that once in Gwelph he was 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.080 thrown in a straight jacket and subject to an experimental 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.199 gas treatment that made him thrash on the table and 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.960 then black out. And it wasn't until several years later 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.480 that he told Sue about the many shock treatments he received. 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.280 Hey, put me on a table, He'd put a stick 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:57.119 between my teeth. 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:02.119 Elect who elector designed for hid pump Solian Fennis all 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:04.879 by that car, making count back whis from one hundred 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.720 and then might count about really groggy, and doctor would 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:08.320 shoe a switch. 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.800 They would give them shock treatments, lots of shock treatments. 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:18.640 You know they're going to shock the devil right. 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:18.920 Out of them. 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:21.879 Even though it was hard for her to see her 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.720 brother in this place, one thing that was never hard 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.760 for Sue was to stand by Roger no matter what. 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.520 She'd do her best to encourage him in their brief 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:35.520 time together, but she'd always leave worrying about him. 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.680 It's hard to see your family member or your loved 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:43.080 one incarcerated, It really is. It's difficult when you drive away, 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:46.680 you don't speak in the car all the way home. 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:52.480 You feel guilty leaving them behind. I didn't do anything wrong, 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.640 but I feel bad leaving him behind. 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.440 In prison, it's not uncommon for inmates to succumb to 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.280 their hopelessness and take their own lives. Roger saw it 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.240 all the time. Guys who were there one day would 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:11.080 just be gone the next and given what Roger had 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.240 suffered in places like this, It would have made sense 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:17.560 if he considered his own disappearing act from this plane 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:21.800 of existence, but he didn't, and one of the main 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.280 reasons he didn't. The thing that turned his life around 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.840 in there was when he discovered an outlet for his anguish. 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.480 Every day, the inmates were allowed forty five minutes of 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:40.200 free time in the recreation yard. Some guys would play 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:43.560 baseball or just bullshit in the shade of the watch tower, 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.560 where guards would peer down on them cradling rifles. But 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:50.120 in the middle of the yard was a weight pit 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.679 where the toughest guys in the prison would pump iron. 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:58.560 Roger had a strict discipline for not participating in anything 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.359 he didn't need to, but one day the barbells seemed 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:05.240 to be calling out to him, so he walked over 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.800 and worked his way in, not sure how his sudden 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:15.080 boldness would be received, but no one said anything. Roger 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:19.760 wasn't very big, but he was always athletic and determined, 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.840 and with a high threshold for pain, the exact right 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:28.439 mix of attributes to become a great lifter. He started 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:32.520 showing up every day, hitting the same circuit, increasing the weight. 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:36.400 Little by little, he had a normal practice. 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:40.840 What was not normal was the black rage within me, 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:44.399 and I desperately needed something to dispel it. And I 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.879 found the heavy barbells a perfect distraction, and like a 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.840 drowning man, I threw myself at them with a fury 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:51.879 and advance. 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:56.199 The resistance of the weights seemed to finally lift something 0:23:56.280 --> 0:24:02.960 off of him. Even his headaches went away. Roger's dogged 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:06.119 determination with the weights caught the attention of the guys 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:09.919 who ran the pit. They'd watch this kid pump iron 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:12.960 day after day, pushing the bench press bar like he 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:17.880 hated gravity. When one day they called him over, here's 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:20.440 former KP guard Bill Isaacs again. 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:23.440 So there are a number of groups inside present. The 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:27.200 Clicks could be a muscle group. In other words, we're 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.359 the weightlifting group. We're four five or six inmates that 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:34.600