Speaker 1: This is great as Escapes, a show bringing you the
Speaker 1: wildest true escape stories of all time. Now, in this episode,
Speaker 1: we're headed to Paris, you guys, for a bonker's jail
Speaker 1: break by a French gangster who declared on society. I'm
Speaker 1: Marto Castro and I'm here with a wizard of the
Speaker 1: comedy world, my dear friend, and a man absolutely obsessed
Speaker 1: with short short pants, Jay Martel. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: Today I'm joined by Jane Martel. Yes. I gotta tell
Speaker 1: the audience that Jay catfished me in the sense that
Speaker 1: when we we we sat for an interview for the
Speaker 1: head writer position of Alternatino, and Jay showed up into
Speaker 1: like a button down and like these nice pants, and
Speaker 1: then yes, and then I never saw him wear pants ever. Again,
Speaker 1: Jay always showed up.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a this is a cultural language thing. Okay,
Speaker 2: I wore pants to the office. They were just short pants,
Speaker 2: but in your mind they were so short and Guatemala,
Speaker 2: I guess they don't call short pants pants.
Speaker 1: Listen, listen, we do not show another man or thoughts.
Speaker 1: And as we'm in business and you really and I
Speaker 1: was just throwing them out there in your face every
Speaker 1: day for free. I always say that Jay, like always
Speaker 1: looks like he just smits his flight, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like he's in the Atlanta airport. He fucking
Speaker 1: had to go get that neck pillow and his fucking
Speaker 1: left him. He's just looking around, looking.
Speaker 2: Like always a little like rumbled a little just enough?
Speaker 1: All right, you ready for a little escaping, Yes, definitely.
Speaker 1: So today instead of a cell block, we're gonna start
Speaker 1: on a launch pad. Ooh, and the year is nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, which is the year I was born. Great
Speaker 1: year for babies, Am I right?
Speaker 2: Jay?
Speaker 1: It was so fantastic? Okay? And we're in Ansei in
Speaker 1: the Alps of southern France. Now, a woman, Lena Ruigon
Speaker 1: has started taking helicopter lessons from a guy named Ghi,
Speaker 1: a flight instructor at a local airport. Now, he didn't
Speaker 1: think anything of it, except that he noticed that she
Speaker 1: showed great commitment to learning. So in fact, she booked
Speaker 1: a hotel by the airport for a whole month, and
Speaker 1: she spent two or three hours every day practicing in
Speaker 1: the air with her instructor. As her teacher, monsieur GhIE
Speaker 1: felt like he was getting to know her pretty well.
Speaker 1: For him. That apparently means remembering that she was blonde.
Speaker 1: I love giving it, like, yes, I know everything about her.
Speaker 1: She is a blonde, so is it. Yeah. So that
Speaker 1: September she took her flying exam and she passed with
Speaker 1: flying colors. Wow. Nice, And she got a fifty eight
Speaker 1: out of sixty required points, which I guess is enough.
Speaker 1: I don't. This is such a French way of scoring,
Speaker 1: isn't it. The rest of the world is like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's one hundred, and friends is like, I feel sixty
Speaker 1: is fine, sixty is maxim.
Speaker 2: You would be ahead of yeah, if you had any
Speaker 2: moles in sixty.
Speaker 1: This man is apparently close to death. This frenchman him
Speaker 1: dying and right flying. It's a French pirate in this situation.
Speaker 1: Remember Jay that there was a sketch that we never
Speaker 1: quite made work about a Frenchman who was unimpressed by
Speaker 1: everything and called everything shit. Oh oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was good. This is shit. And then a Robert
Speaker 1: comes into the restaurant where he's at and he's like
Speaker 1: this gun sees his ship and you know, he saves
Speaker 1: the day. I wonder whe didn't let us do that,
Speaker 1: Maybe because we didn't know how to fucking end the sketch,
Speaker 1: or we sounded like pirates when we did, because they
Speaker 1: were like, you are all dying pirates in this Well,
Speaker 1: what's going on? All right? So then Lena moved to Paris,
Speaker 1: where she joined a flight club at an airport and
Speaker 1: started flying some light utility helicopters. Okay, So Lena begins
Speaker 1: renting a helicopter every two weeks, and she gets to
Speaker 1: know the owner of the helicopter rental company, Claude. He
Speaker 1: described her as a pretty little woman, the sportsman type,
Speaker 1: which is probably French for not Kirby. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the fuck that meant, Claude sportsman. So Claude said
Speaker 1: that Lena took a liking to one helicopter, in particular,
Speaker 1: she would come to his business twice a month and
Speaker 1: rented for like three hundred dollars an hour. Claude didn't
Speaker 1: know it at the time, but Lina was practicing one
Speaker 1: very special skill, you guys, okay, hovering with the helicopter
Speaker 1: just above the ground. On May twenty seven, nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: Lena arrived with a friend, a man carrying a heavy
Speaker 1: duffel bag. Somehow, this didn't raise any red flags for Claude.
Speaker 1: You know, was he oblivious, a little bit of an
Speaker 1: idiot perhaps, or maybe just very friendly? I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't care what you do. Anyhow, he rented her
Speaker 1: the helicopter as per usual. Now, obviously Claude didn't know
Speaker 1: what was in the bag, but today we do know
Speaker 1: it was carrying Don Tonton a submachine gun. What And
Speaker 1: it turns out Lena had been hiding her real identity.
Speaker 1: Her real name was actually Nadine, and the day she'd
Speaker 1: been training for was finally here. And when she took off,
Speaker 1: she flew low. Soon the air traffic control lost contact
Speaker 1: with her. The French air police try to get radio
Speaker 1: response from a helicopter as it buzzed the rooftops, but
Speaker 1: Nadine wasn't answering no, no. She was flying nineteen miles
Speaker 1: from the airport to Lesson prison in Paris because she
Speaker 1: was gonna bust her husband out of jail.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Now I see how it all tied
Speaker 2: together with the theme of this podcast.
Speaker 1: There you go, Yeah, okay, a sportsman, woman, dead pirates, Yeah,
Speaker 1: big bags, machine gun, flying low you know classic. Can
Speaker 1: we take a moment and talk about the commitment it
Speaker 1: took to do this, Like.
Speaker 2: She must have really loved her husband. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: that's what I'm getting from this.
Speaker 1: Okay, who the hell is her husband? Let's figure this out.
Speaker 1: So his name was Michelle Vajoule. Right. He was a
Speaker 1: gangster who had declared as a teenager that he was
Speaker 1: going to wage war against society. You know, the revolution
Speaker 1: remains strong in this one.
Speaker 2: You know, it's very common thing and teenagers, I mean,
Speaker 2: especially in France. I imagine it's like, yeah, Bennett.
Speaker 1: Down, they are incredibly good at striking in France. That
Speaker 1: is not even a joke. Yeah, oh my god, there's good.
Speaker 1: We could take a page out of their book for this.
Speaker 2: If this was in France, I'd be striking right now
Speaker 2: for better wages for podcast co hosts.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right. No, it was at getting paid. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna copymeal and credit tops. Oh my god, should strike too,
Speaker 1: let's both strike all right? So who was Michelle? Was your?
Speaker 1: To start with? He was an altar boy, no, like literally,
Speaker 1: when he was a kid, his parents send him to
Speaker 1: live in a boarding school run by a local priest. Now,
Speaker 1: along with all the other church stuff, right, like guilt
Speaker 1: guilt inducing chores or whatever. The priest taught Michelle how
Speaker 1: to climb and shoot and run cross country. Bro, Like,
Speaker 1: is this like a super alpha priest.
Speaker 2: Like like this couple is like it's going to take
Speaker 2: over the world.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's a sportsman type with who flies helicopters,
Speaker 2: and he's like an all around athlete who shoots game.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But also my priest like always sounded like that
Speaker 1: French dying dude that you just did, you know, Like Okay,
Speaker 1: they couldn't even like, you know, walk properly. I didn't
Speaker 1: know they were like priests that like did like rock climbing.
Speaker 2: You know, if Jesus is at the top of that hill,
Speaker 2: they're going to climb that rock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right on this mountain. I shaw build my church.
Speaker 1: One person in the audience is gonna be oh he
Speaker 1: studied Gothic.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you're going to get that one hardcore Catholic
Speaker 2: podcast listener.
Speaker 1: Congratulations, thanks very much. But for Michelle, alter boy didn't
Speaker 1: translate to being like a rule follower. Right when he
Speaker 1: was nineteen, he started stealing cars whenever he wanted to
Speaker 1: take his girlfriend dancing. This fucking guy, Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: making us all look bad. Good for you, good for you.
Speaker 1: So usually they would leave the car in the same
Speaker 1: place that they found it, but after a while they
Speaker 1: started getting sloppy and just parked it right in front
Speaker 1: of his apartment. So the next morning, Mihaw and his
Speaker 1: girlfriend were walking up by the sound of the police
Speaker 1: banging on the front door.
Speaker 2: Poor planning. Everyone knows you don't park a stolen car
Speaker 2: in the air house.
Speaker 1: So what do you like? You've been stealing cars? Jay,
Speaker 1: there's a knock at your door, somebody says, police, What
Speaker 1: do you think? What do you do? What's the first
Speaker 1: thing that you do? Say? Like, I'm an idiot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I deserved to be taken off to prison
Speaker 2: right now, because.
Speaker 1: That would be your way. That would be get and by.
Speaker 2: The way, and by the way, on pants, Let me
Speaker 2: put on my pants right now before you take me
Speaker 2: to prison.
Speaker 1: Jay's way would be like, and by the way, I
Speaker 1: would like to confess to other crimes of myself and
Speaker 1: other people. Yeah, cracking, cracking immediately. So I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what Michelle did. Right. He dove out of the bedroom
Speaker 1: window to make his escape and left his girlfriend to
Speaker 1: face the police alone. Fucked up, like leaving your girlfriend
Speaker 1: holding the battle totally French. Yeah right, I don't even
Speaker 1: know that's friends. This guy's just like an early adopter
Speaker 1: of the fuck boy nature. He's like, not my problem.
Speaker 1: So how do you even justify it to her later?
Speaker 1: You know, like hey, like I'm sorry. Like the thing is,
Speaker 1: there is a loud sound outside. I want to I
Speaker 1: was testing rock climbing.
Speaker 2: Was actually going to go out it's a window and
Speaker 2: get the stolen car and drive it to another location.
Speaker 1: So he's a German Frenchman. Now, oh god, damn it.
Speaker 2: I knew I should practice my accents. You didn't tell
Speaker 2: me this was a French story.
Speaker 1: I think we need to do Yeah, I think we
Speaker 1: need to use our own accents from now on. Day
Speaker 1: that the European nations are up in arms.
Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to offend anyone by doing
Speaker 2: bad accents.
Speaker 1: No, no, it's just so listen. So she confessed, right,
Speaker 1: Michelle was caught, convicted, and he was put away for
Speaker 1: two and a half years. Now, Michelle thought his punishment
Speaker 1: was too harsh, and this is when he decided to
Speaker 1: start his war against society. When he got out, Michelle
Speaker 1: was arrested again for the crime of driving without a license,
Speaker 1: and he ends up being convicted of ten robberies over
Speaker 1: the years. To be honest, I do think it's kind
Speaker 1: of I mean, I'm not advocating grand theft auto here,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like he was just a dumb kid, right,
Speaker 1: like most of the time he put the car away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he's still really young now, right, he was
Speaker 1: nineteen the first time you got oh, oh god, okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's just no yeah you could.
Speaker 2: You're just crazy when you're nineteen, right, I don't know
Speaker 2: about you, but oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a nut job at nineteen, and it
Speaker 1: hasn't gotten any better, no, no. But also like it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like people that go in the system, it
Speaker 1: like rehabilitates them in any country, you know. So I
Speaker 1: guess that's when he got a really revolutionary with his crimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but prison, you know, they couldn't hold him. They just
Speaker 1: could not hold Michelle. Right. He made his first escape
Speaker 1: when he joined the work crew of prisoners unloading trucks
Speaker 1: of supplies. Right when he saw the chance, he bolted
Speaker 1: through the cap between the truck and the gate, and
Speaker 1: he made his way into the woods, where he dodged
Speaker 1: the officers surging for him. Twice, he escaped by scaling
Speaker 1: prison walls in nineteen seventy three in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, Michelle and another prisoner pushed to
Speaker 1: a weak area of the fence and climbed the wall,
Speaker 1: where they realized there was a blind spot for the guards.
Speaker 1: They went on a robbery spree until they got caught again.
Speaker 1: What it was it with these people that can't just
Speaker 1: enjoy their prison break, you know, They're.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, it just shows you that I'm coming
Speaker 2: from a different place. But I I always think, like,
Speaker 2: you get out of prison, just be cool for a
Speaker 2: little bit, right, move to La put on in La
Speaker 2: put on some shorts, fops maybe you know, yeah, like
Speaker 2: just relax I But it's just like, no, no, I
Speaker 2: feel like he's Michelle is really trying to prove a point, right.
Speaker 1: He's waging a war against society, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he was just like, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to get out of this cage that you put me
Speaker 2: in and just do some more damage to this thing
Speaker 2: that I hate, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right right right. So in nineteen seventy four, Michelle
Speaker 1: shared a cell with a safebreaker name Jill gill zil.
Speaker 1: Can the overlords of pronunciation please come in and tell
Speaker 1: me how to pronounce his name. It is pronounced she
Speaker 1: is pronounced gez g g so. In nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: Michelle shared a cell with a safe breaker named Jill,
Speaker 1: who became his best friend.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The pair used one of Jill's lock picking tricks to escape.
Speaker 1: They collected the red wax from baby bell cheeses to
Speaker 1: make an imprint of the key. Okay, Jay, your turn again.
Speaker 1: You got some wax? How are you going to get
Speaker 1: that print? I also, I'm sorry again French people, but
Speaker 1: that is the most French way of making I.
Speaker 2: Mean the fact that they have baby bell cheeses like
Speaker 2: in prisons, mean, you know what our prisoners would do
Speaker 2: in this country do for one baby bell cheese.
Speaker 1: And that was not the canon beer week, you know,
Speaker 1: that was that way was. It's not. It's not as
Speaker 1: easy to get an improve. It reminds me of like
Speaker 1: I was listening.
Speaker 2: I was reading about World War One recently, and one
Speaker 2: of the reasons the French troops were doing so badly
Speaker 2: is that they all drank. A leader of wine every
Speaker 2: day like that was there. It was part of their ration.
Speaker 1: A lot as opposed to the Germans and World War Two,
Speaker 1: which were all hyped up on.
Speaker 2: Ye. Well yeah, it was actually like both of those
Speaker 2: world wars were like a study of olcohol versus speed.
Speaker 1: Versus drug use. Yeah yeah, like speed, speed will always
Speaker 1: win in a war. By the way, Yeah, we does
Speaker 1: not do well in the war. It's everybody, what if
Speaker 1: what the fuck are we doing? Guys, let's just show Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man just fell out and you know, you just get
Speaker 2: sloppy drunk on a bunch of red wine, and it's
Speaker 2: like if they put us in prison, we'll just be
Speaker 2: eating cute little cheeses.
Speaker 1: Great. So Michelle took the direct approach, so he and
Speaker 1: Jill memorized which one was the right key by watching
Speaker 1: their cell get unlocked every day, and once when they
Speaker 1: were being put back into the cell, Michelle bumped the
Speaker 1: guard and pressed his wax against the key. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: using a fiel and part of a hacksaw, Michelle and
Speaker 1: Ghee were able to take a piece of iron, a
Speaker 1: small piece of it, and duplicate the shape of the
Speaker 1: key following the imprint of the wax and.
Speaker 2: Unlock his fure. I'm beginning to thank this guy's a genius.
Speaker 2: I mean, could you bump into someone and make make
Speaker 2: a whack impression of their key?
Speaker 1: I don't. I can't confirm it legally. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you if I have done that before or not. No,
Speaker 1: but it is impressive. You know. It's one of those
Speaker 1: you know, classic tales of like wow, if you had
Speaker 1: just applied that genius to something else, like yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: but he was. He was put on earth basically to
Speaker 1: break out of prison. That's right, some people their job.
Speaker 2: He evolved, like one hundred thousand years of human evolution
Speaker 2: led to this guy.
Speaker 1: Just I can break out it anything, any single thing.
Speaker 1: So in prison, after being arrested for another robbery, Michelle
Speaker 1: held what one French newspaper called an intimate ritual of rebirth.
Speaker 1: So he striped, naked, shaved, and used yoga to enter
Speaker 1: a trance that would kill the mad dog in him.
Speaker 1: And after that he gave up tobacco, radio, and even
Speaker 1: his mattress. Right, so this guy was preparing for burning man.
Speaker 1: He did not even know it.
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for what comes next because I know it's
Speaker 2: it's not going to be about yoga.
Speaker 1: Well. The fourth escape came in nineteen seventy nine during
Speaker 1: a hearing for his crimes. Michelle had been in prison
Speaker 1: for four years, and he had worked out a plan
Speaker 1: right at the courthouse. During his hearing, Michelle took the
Speaker 1: judge hostage at gunpoint. Jay, if we were going to
Speaker 1: smuggle a gun into a hearing, where would you hide it? Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't want to know, fuck it? No, nope, nope,
Speaker 1: Well you ask so I know what. I just know.
Speaker 1: I like this question was here and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I know where he would hide it. In the in
Speaker 1: the pocket of my shorts. Yeah, in his beautiful thigh
Speaker 1: pocket that he always carries with him when it gets chilli.
Speaker 1: You have one of those, like, you know those pants
Speaker 1: that become shorts. What do they call them?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sports?
Speaker 2: No, uh no, that's something else. Convertible shorts, convertible shorts shirt.
Speaker 2: We'll go with that and the convertible short people.
Speaker 1: If you want to promote your shit on the show,
Speaker 1: you know, me and Jay and the Catholic guy will
Speaker 1: definitely buy yourself, will definitely zip those up. Michelle had
Speaker 1: actually sewn a pocket inside his underwear and took the
Speaker 1: gun out when he went to the bathroom before the
Speaker 1: hearing started. Now, the thing is, the gun wasn't real.
Speaker 1: It was a dummy carved out of soap and turned
Speaker 1: black with shoe polish.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is like take the money and
Speaker 2: run a Woody all In movie where you know, it's
Speaker 2: just like this is such a cliche, And I love
Speaker 2: that he can work in different mediums too. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: can branch out from wax into soap.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, from cheese, from cheese to show
Speaker 1: to wax. This man does it all. It's all just
Speaker 1: a means of escape. It's exactly now. Once he was out,
Speaker 1: Michelle reconnected with his old prison friend Ghee, the safe Breaker,
Speaker 1: and he also met Gee's sister, Nadine. Huh I see
Speaker 1: where this is going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nadine had also
Speaker 1: been locked up on three separate times for things like
Speaker 1: hiding stolen goods, so Michelle and Nadine were basically a
Speaker 1: match for each other. They fell in love, and Michelle
Speaker 1: started life with Nadine and her daughter. But that didn't
Speaker 1: keep him out of trouble. No, no, yeah, nothing keeps
Speaker 1: him down. You see. In this time behind bars, Michelle
Speaker 1: had met a bunch of guys involved in organized crime.
Speaker 1: They reached him now that he was out again, and
Speaker 1: he got hired to help with a bunch of armed robberies.
Speaker 1: So in March nineteen eighty one, Michelle gets arrested again,
Speaker 1: and this time Nadine was even grabbed as an accomplice. Okay,
Speaker 1: this part is nuts. Her second daughter, Okay, the one
Speaker 1: with Michelle, was even born that year while Nadine was
Speaker 1: in jail. They had kids. They had kids, and the
Speaker 1: daughter escaped at prison at six months old. Very impressive.
Speaker 1: So with you, oh okay, can you imagine, well if
Speaker 1: you considered a womb of prison. Yes, well, she escaped
Speaker 1: at zero years old in nineteen eighty two, with both
Speaker 1: of them behind bars. Somehow, Michelle Nadine arranged for a
Speaker 1: prison wedding. They met at a prison registry to sign
Speaker 1: the papers, and in the intimacy of the moment, Michelle
Speaker 1: told her about his next plans for escape. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: they didn't was released the same day, but Michelle's sentence
Speaker 1: was for eighteen years. If they were going to be together,
Speaker 1: they would need to work together to break Michelle out
Speaker 1: of the most notorious prison in Paris. Lessons. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Well it's actually a prison. It's well known
Speaker 1: for housing celebrities and VIPs. At least, I mean at
Speaker 1: least if you're a fan of like well, if you're
Speaker 1: a fan of French criminals, that is, if you were
Speaker 1: like oj, you'd be put in Leyson. Yeah, exactly, you
Speaker 1: would be in the song. Now do any of these
Speaker 1: names sound familiar to Jean Ganay, Carlos the Jackal, Bernard Tappi,
Speaker 1: Jerome Cavier and Jacques Missline. I'm fucking up all these names.
Speaker 1: But how about a first couple I recognize? How about
Speaker 1: Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama. Oh yeah, he
Speaker 1: ended up there in twenty ten. Oh man. Apparently his
Speaker 1: excuse is he wanted the cheese.
Speaker 2: About one thing you can say about Manuel Noriega. He
Speaker 2: loved his cheese.
Speaker 1: He loved his cheese. Say what you will about him
Speaker 1: and narco trafficking. That's right, yeah, say what you will
Speaker 1: about the man. The man had a taste for the
Speaker 1: fine things. Laissan has actually been used to film numerous
Speaker 1: French gangster movies and there wash there are French pop
Speaker 1: songs about the prison. I'm not sure you know I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if this was filmed there, but Umprofet was
Speaker 1: an amazing French film about the rise of an inmate.
Speaker 1: Laissan is still open today and it's one of just
Speaker 1: three prisons in Paris. Now. It has a high security wing,
Speaker 1: but the security is known for being like fairly lax.
Speaker 1: You know, gentlemen, I need to I need to break
Speaker 1: in here and say the name of the prison is
Speaker 1: son of It, Son of a gun. So we've been
Speaker 1: told by our overlords in the sky, our producers there,
Speaker 1: it's actually La Sente.
Speaker 2: So confused, I was confused that you were talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, of course, that's exactly what the jackal was. Yes,
Speaker 1: I got it all wrong, Yes, thank you, over lord
Speaker 1: in my sky. So in two thousand, La Sante's chief
Speaker 1: medical officer published a book revealing what life was like inside.
Speaker 1: She described inmates piled on top of one another, suicidal,
Speaker 1: prisoners were left in chains, and prisoners with their chic
Speaker 1: skin infections that have been eliminated in general society but
Speaker 1: kept alive inside the prison. Are chaic skin infections I'm
Speaker 1: thinking like leprosy and okay, yeah, probably that is archaic, biblical. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like Yeah, so they have the bubonic plague. It's
Speaker 1: kind of weird. Yeah, they have that like weird, like
Speaker 1: weird skinning condition where an angel of death comes to
Speaker 1: your house if you didn't put the lamps blood in
Speaker 1: front of it. Yeah. Those again we got We got
Speaker 1: our Catholic people back. Oh, we got them back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: are not or not. She also said that it was
Speaker 1: infested with rats and cockroaches, which I guess is to
Speaker 1: be expected. Now, while Michelle was serving time, he was
Speaker 1: not taking it easy. You know. He was coordinated with
Speaker 1: Nadine and other friends on the outside, and over time
Speaker 1: they came up with a plan. Michelle said that after
Speaker 1: studying the layouts to various prisons, he declared that the
Speaker 1: easiest way out of La Sante was to escape by air. Now,
Speaker 1: the layout made it safe to bring in a helicopter
Speaker 1: and hover in place where smokestacks blocked the view from
Speaker 1: the watchtowers, meaning that a helicopter couldn't be shot down
Speaker 1: by the guards. Now on the outside, Nadine wasn't just
Speaker 1: sitting around waiting for his eighteen year sentence to end, No, sir,
Speaker 1: She was in on the plan. Michelle had already escaped
Speaker 1: four times from prison, so they had to say why
Speaker 1: not five and five times five times as the prison tribe.
Speaker 1: And this is where we will take a little break
Speaker 1: to apologize to everybody that heard the pronunciation of laissant.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting to the big moment. May sixth, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, the day of the escape, Escape, Escape, Escape.
Speaker 1: I hope that Ben adds like echo after I say
Speaker 1: the escape, or something godly like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if whoever's listening has heard the echo, then I
Speaker 2: have done.
Speaker 1: My job, thanks buddy. So that morning, Michelle said he
Speaker 1: woke up early at six am. He had four hours
Speaker 1: before the scheduled ren dezvous with Nadine. That's rendezvous for
Speaker 1: all you non French speaking people. After breakfast, the prisoners
Speaker 1: will let out for a morning walk in the prison yard.
Speaker 1: As he got outside, Michelle looked up at the window
Speaker 1: of the prison building above him, and he saw the
Speaker 1: signal signal signals wow again some echo, which was actually
Speaker 1: pretty corny if you ask me. The signal was simply
Speaker 1: a white piece of cardboards stuck in the stairwell window.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, all this elaborate escape and they're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, just put some cud with U. We've
Speaker 1: run out of budget for couliffex. But it meant that
Speaker 1: the helicopter was on its way. So in the yard,
Speaker 1: Michelle spread out a towel on the ground and started
Speaker 1: his yoga routine. Eventually, huh, he heard the helicopter approaching.
Speaker 1: You guys, It's like the guy you like is like
Speaker 1: looking at you at the party and you're like, my god,
Speaker 1: does he approachingesy coming this way? That's what he felt like,
Speaker 1: just in a much more heightened version. At first, it
Speaker 1: was a low rumble, and as it fucking burst into
Speaker 1: the sky over the prison yard, it became a roar
Speaker 1: that froze all the other prisoners in place. Yeah, they're like,
Speaker 1: now the door did? The helicopter opened and a duffle
Speaker 1: back flew out, crashing down into the prison yard. And
Speaker 1: that's when Michelle sprang into action. He rushed into the bag,
Speaker 1: ripped it open, dug out a pistol and pointed to
Speaker 1: the prisoners and the guards in the yard, yelling nobody moved,
Speaker 1: or whatever the French version of that is. And the
Speaker 1: prisoners that were already not moving, they're like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean I'm doing yoga? Steal there's one fusual like,
Speaker 1: does this mean the thing is over? Okay? So Michelle
Speaker 1: also pulled out a fishing rod and two meters of rope. Okay, So, Jay,
Speaker 1: you're in a prison yard with a pistol, a fishing
Speaker 1: pole and some rope. How are you gonna escape? Jay,
Speaker 1: I'll start fishing in the moat. Yeah, I'll catch a fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tie a rope around the fish's neck and
Speaker 2: use it to like water ski across the moat.
Speaker 1: Beautiful, Yes, jumping the shark. He jumped the shark. Now
Speaker 1: Michelle ran to the side of the prison building and
Speaker 1: forcing everybody to clear path. He used a fishing rod
Speaker 1: to loop the rope through the window bars two meters up.
Speaker 1: Then he used a rope to climb up. He scrambled
Speaker 1: from window ledge to window ledge, using the fishing pole
Speaker 1: to lift the rope and loop it through the next
Speaker 1: set of iron bars. Can you fucking believe? Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Now a prison guard was stationed on the roof, but
Speaker 1: Michelle knew that the man in the helicopter was holding
Speaker 1: him a gunpoint. It was when he reached the roof
Speaker 1: that Michelle says that all the noise up with him
Speaker 1: he heard the alarms blaring, the helicopter roaring, and the
Speaker 1: prisoners below cheering him on, like obviously, it must be
Speaker 1: such an emotive moment. Huh. So he jumped onto the
Speaker 1: landing skits of the helicopter and flew away while the
Speaker 1: prisoners clapped and celebrated his escape. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just grabbed onto the skids his kids. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh well, that's where all the yoga came in. I mean,
Speaker 2: he had like muscle tone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He was also really and people say that his
Speaker 1: chi was really connected as well.
Speaker 2: You know that he could just merge completely with the helicopter,
Speaker 2: the energy of the helicopter.
Speaker 1: There was a sense of oneness repeated by the person. Well,
Speaker 1: at least that's Michelle's version of the story. You know,
Speaker 1: he published that in a book in twenty eighteen, laying
Speaker 1: it all out, but Michelle leaves out some key details
Speaker 1: that were reported in the news at the time. Now,
Speaker 1: first of all, Michelle didn't make the climb alone. Okay,
Speaker 1: he had an accomplice, another prisoner named Pierre, who followed
Speaker 1: him up to the roof and held off the prison
Speaker 1: guards with a bundle of grenades.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, here, here, this out using a bundle of grenades.
Speaker 1: I'm about to tell you. I'm about to tell you. So,
Speaker 1: as the news report tells it, a man with a
Speaker 1: machine gun jumped out of the helicopter and slid down
Speaker 1: a cable to the building's roof. He tied the core
Speaker 1: around Michelle, who was lifted into the helicopter. Now the cord, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the cord was dropped again to the gunman, who grabbed it,
Speaker 1: and he was also raised into the air. Then the
Speaker 1: helicopter turned and flew off, leaving Pierre behind. Pierre. No,
Speaker 1: no good for Pierre. Can you imagine you did all this?
Speaker 1: I guess we have it. We are free. And they're like, wait,
Speaker 1: wait are we? Did you all get together? Your bastard. So,
Speaker 1: Pierre was a waiting trial for armed robbery, and he
Speaker 1: told the police that he decided not to join the
Speaker 1: escape at the last minute. Shut the fuck up, Prierre,
Speaker 1: you got left, Okay, it's one of these I didn't
Speaker 1: he didn't, dumb me. I dumped him. Poor Pierre, Poor Pierre.
Speaker 1: But the thing that Pierre could reveal to the prison
Speaker 1: guards was that the grenades he was using were not real.
Speaker 1: They were neck turenes yeah, yeah, so they were nectarenes.
Speaker 1: Bro Pierre had hidden them and covered them in paint
Speaker 1: to look like explosives. I love to think that one
Speaker 1: of the guards knew they were in grenades, but it's
Speaker 1: absolutely grossed out by fruit. Like you know, if the
Speaker 1: dude took one look and he's like, absolutely fucking up.
Speaker 2: Okay, hey those are green nectarinestrhea, Like I don't.
Speaker 1: My mouth is just salivating thinking about the sellarness. And now,
Speaker 1: as for the rest of the guards, I can't blame
Speaker 1: him if I'm not wanting to get up close and
Speaker 1: personal with some fucking grenades to see if they were
Speaker 1: going to explode, you know, prison or yells grenade to me, Well,
Speaker 1: there's a helicopter in the sky. I wanna believe him.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised he didn't use cheese because I think, I
Speaker 2: like those round cheeses would look a little more grenades, because.
Speaker 1: No prison guard will ever mistake cheese for grenades. Bro Okay,
Speaker 1: that's true, that's right. Nectarines is yeah, you're right. It's
Speaker 1: easier to confuse. So Nadine flew Michelle to a soft
Speaker 1: field at a nearby university. When they landed, there was
Speaker 1: a car waiting to whisk them away. No names of
Speaker 1: their accomplices in the helicopter or get away car ever
Speaker 1: came to light. So at least they were, you know,
Speaker 1: honor among thieves in there.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean I'm still thinking about poor Pierre,
Speaker 2: like standing on that rooftop.
Speaker 1: Anybody, you guys are you guys are coming back though? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys are. You're just going to get more few. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys come coming back though? Like should I just yeah?
Speaker 1: Should I just wait wait here? Okay, I'll wait here.
Speaker 1: I'll mean I got the nectarines? Ye, anybody hungry in
Speaker 1: the meantime. So, Michelle was a contract burglar and the
Speaker 1: escape was arranged by his friends in organized crime. He
Speaker 1: never admitted who helped them, but it was obviously a
Speaker 1: network with accomplices both inside and outside the prison. When
Speaker 1: the police chased down the helicopter at the soccer field,
Speaker 1: they surrounded it for more than an hour before moving
Speaker 1: in to check it out. I mean, they were terrified
Speaker 1: that it was movie trapped and waited to see if
Speaker 1: it would explode, like holy shit, No wonder the nectarine
Speaker 1: plan worked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, these French police are pretty cautious, I'll.
Speaker 1: Give him back to them. Yeah. So eventually they send
Speaker 1: bomb sniffing dogs into inspected before they searched it but
Speaker 1: found nothing. Now, some accounts say the Michelle and Nadan
Speaker 1: escape to South America for a few months, but eventually
Speaker 1: returned after running out of money.
Speaker 2: I love that they staged this incredibly elaborate and expensive
Speaker 2: escape with all the details in place and then all that,
Speaker 2: you know, like wires dangling from helicopters.
Speaker 1: But they go to South America and run out of
Speaker 1: money and I don't know how to spend. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: talked economics. They didn't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can escape, but we cannot budget South America.
Speaker 1: They didn't come on, dude, seventeen months of I or
Speaker 1: whatever it was, helicopter lessons, you didn't. You didn't do
Speaker 1: one like accounting lesson. So if it's true that they left,
Speaker 1: they were all also able to slip back across the
Speaker 1: border into France and hide out in a small French town.
Speaker 1: By that same fall, in nineteen eighty six, their two
Speaker 1: daughters were twelve and five. They try to set up
Speaker 1: a life as a family in this little small town.
Speaker 1: French newspapers say that they were really happy together. Michelle
Speaker 1: says that he was mad in Nadine. She wanted to
Speaker 1: give up a life of crime and love a peaceful
Speaker 1: situation as a family. But who do you think you
Speaker 1: are with your sportsman woman like figure.
Speaker 2: It's all about rebellion, man, come on man, the war
Speaker 2: against society.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she even considered turning herself in, and she told
Speaker 1: them so. Now, what everyone agrees on is that Michelle
Speaker 1: and Nadine were out of money. So just a few
Speaker 1: months after the jail break, Michelle decided to try another robbery,
Speaker 1: like fucking idiot, But he was pretty desperate and didn't
Speaker 1: exactly have a plan or anything. So on the day
Speaker 1: he got to the bank and saw that there were
Speaker 1: three armed guards stationed at the front door, but instead
Speaker 1: of backing out, Michelle tried to jump them and win
Speaker 1: a fight three to one. Oh no, Michelle, man, and
Speaker 1: all this yog is getting to your brain, dude, You
Speaker 1: can't just like flow it in there. He says he
Speaker 1: was able to disarm two of them before the third
Speaker 1: one started shooting and the other cops arrived in the firefight.
Speaker 1: One newspaper says that Michelle shot three officers before they
Speaker 1: shot Michelle in the head with a magnum. WHOA, check
Speaker 1: this out. The bullet launched in Michelle's brain. Somehow it
Speaker 1: didn't kill him, Okay. One of the most extremely gross
Speaker 1: parts here. Right. Michelle says that before he blacked out,
Speaker 1: he saw bits of his brain floating away from his
Speaker 1: head in a stream of his own blood. Pretty intense.
Speaker 1: But why are you charging at arm guards, Michelle? Fucking hell? Oh? Man,
Speaker 1: the guy has a death wish. Yeah. I want to
Speaker 1: think it's karma for Pierre. Justice for Pierre. Justice. This
Speaker 1: is what it's all about. Man, That's right, poor Pierre. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: it's still standing on that rooftop. Guys, anytime any anybody,
Speaker 1: they're coming back. So Michelle fell into a comb The
Speaker 1: police grabbed them and took him to the hospital. Now
Speaker 1: they were able to identify him as the helicopter prison
Speaker 1: escapee just by his tattoos. I mean, it didn't help
Speaker 1: that one of the tattoos said folk the Belize escaped
Speaker 1: in the helicopter. Get me. Eventually, eventually Michelle came back
Speaker 1: to consciousness, but his left side was paralyzed. He was
Speaker 1: charged with numerous crimes, and this time, when he was
Speaker 1: moved to prison. He was locked in solitary confinement. You
Speaker 1: can't blame him. Yeah, yeah, they're like, fucking the guy.
Speaker 1: We're done now.
Speaker 2: The day he gets one round cheese, but that's it.
Speaker 1: Okay, give him the camembert Okay, he get him stewing
Speaker 1: there with it. The day after Michelle was arrested, the
Speaker 1: police swept in and arrested Nadine too. They have been
Speaker 1: conspirators before, so naturally she was suspected as part of
Speaker 1: the plan for their most recent robbery. Apparently, Michelle tried
Speaker 1: to escape again by helicopter in nineteen ninety three, but
Speaker 1: the prison. Yes, but the prison had been alerted and
Speaker 1: his plan was thwarted. People need to stop renting his
Speaker 1: friends some helicopters, man.
Speaker 2: Like they're there's one thing I hate helicopter escapes. I mean,
Speaker 2: come on, there's a lot of other motorized vehicles. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they just make a cooler right, like yeah, Trey harder,
Speaker 2: Michelle something something.
Speaker 1: How about a team of pole vaulters, Yeah, get over
Speaker 1: those yeah, or those Alaskan pulling dogs. What do you
Speaker 1: call it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mean like in the Iditarod, the like yeah, husky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a bunch of Huskies.
Speaker 2: Well, you'd have to get some snowmaking equipment in the
Speaker 2: prison somehow for the Huskies to have something.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's that's Pierre's job. This time.
Speaker 2: He convinced them that this time for sure, all the
Speaker 2: snows and dig a tunnel for the Huskies to get out,
Speaker 2: and then they would leave him, leave.
Speaker 1: His ass again. Here's the aftermath. Okay, Michelle was finally
Speaker 1: released from prison in September two thousand and three. He
Speaker 1: still had sixteen years left on his sentence, but changes
Speaker 1: in French law allowed a judge to overrule the earlier decision.
Speaker 1: This this surprised me about a lot of European law
Speaker 1: bro that they were like, this man murders seventeen people,
Speaker 1: we gave him ten years, ten years to think about,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It just feels like like
Speaker 1: sentences in Europe sometimes are so communtied.
Speaker 2: I just get the feeling they're a lot more lenient
Speaker 2: about a lot of things, you know, Like, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, they probably had it coming. I don't know
Speaker 1: his life. You know, Pierre deserved it. Nobody liked Pierre, Yeah, nobody.
Speaker 1: Fucking Pierre is still working at the fucking prison now.
Speaker 1: He's like, fuck you guys. Now, when he was free,
Speaker 1: Michelle had spent twenty seven years total in jail, seventeen
Speaker 1: of those years in solitary confinement. WHOA, yeah, that'll do
Speaker 1: some Maybe maybe that's where all this yoga and sense
Speaker 1: stuff came in handy. Yeah, he had lived only forty
Speaker 1: months of his adult life as a free man. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Now on the French legal system, Michelle said,
Speaker 1: justice and all that stuff didn't exists for me. That
Speaker 1: justice business was a complete con. Some people command the
Speaker 1: poor folks below them, and I was one of the
Speaker 1: poor folks, those who had no power, nothing. I was
Speaker 1: the son of nothing. What an impassioned speech. He strikes
Speaker 1: on some interesting points, but like, you know, I love
Speaker 1: the idea of Michelle hairbillowing in the wind, coming out
Speaker 1: of solitary confinement and being like I have.
Speaker 2: A declaration to make you know, Oh, I mean he
Speaker 2: sounds very philosophical about it, you know, like for a
Speaker 2: guy who would just bum brush armed guards, Yeah you really,
Speaker 2: and just like Rob mercilessly and plan these elaborate escapes.
Speaker 1: So Michelle's escaped inspire many copycats between nineteen eighty six
Speaker 1: and twenty fifteen eight, additional helicopter scapes occurred in French prisons. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, they should just outlaw helicopters at some point.
Speaker 1: It's the French prison's fault to this guard's helicopter escapes.
Speaker 1: French prisons have started to put mesh nets and closely
Speaker 1: spaced cables over our outdoor spaces. What about large glass
Speaker 1: treenes or domes? You know, what about the Catholic priests
Speaker 1: shaming you as you're flying in.
Speaker 2: Just post Catholic priests on the roofs of all things,
Speaker 2: shaming people.
Speaker 1: That would fuck is? Do you know that would stop me?
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh my god, I'm out. That would
Speaker 1: stop you in a second. Yeah, I mean I'm out.
Speaker 2: I'm out a Catholic priest or you're kryptonide.
Speaker 1: They really are now on the Nadine side. She published
Speaker 1: a book about her life and especially about the prison escape.
Speaker 1: In fact, she beat Michelle by a few decades. Her memoir,
Speaker 1: called air Girl, was published in nineteen eighty nine. She
Speaker 1: actually got a film deal out of it. A movie
Speaker 1: of the same title in French is La fille le
Speaker 1: laires and so much nicer in French and It was
Speaker 1: released in nineteen ninety two. Now, Michelle Villere's biography was
Speaker 1: published in twenty eighteen with the title Love Saved Me
Speaker 1: from Sinking. He claims that today he is a change man.
Speaker 1: He's still alive and his war against society is over.
Speaker 1: He even says here that his yoga technique restored his
Speaker 1: brain function and healed his left hand, his arm, and
Speaker 1: leg with a reversal of consciousness. I believe it. Listen, man, okay,
Speaker 1: I subscribe to Goop. You know I'm with it. I
Speaker 1: live in la I believe in these things happening now. Actually,
Speaker 1: the love that Saint Michelle was apparently not Nadine's ooh
Speaker 1: son of God yep. A law student named Jamilla started
Speaker 1: visiting him in prison, and one French newspaper says that
Speaker 1: they held a secret wedding in nineteen ninety nine. He
Speaker 1: even tried to have her He tried to have her
Speaker 1: repeat the helicopter escape, but Jamila was arrested. Hearing me out,
Speaker 1: she fucking said yes, but she was arrested before they
Speaker 1: could pull it off and was sentenced to seven years
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 2: Talk about repeating the same mistakes with every relationship.
Speaker 1: That's right, Well, so, like, how good is this man
Speaker 1: in bed?
Speaker 2: I mean, he's obviously got a sort of an animal magnetism. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because like now Nadine's on the rooftop with pir right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he just he just left them both. And now
Speaker 1: Nadine and Pierre actually yeah, have a full trade cheese company.
Speaker 2: That they Hollywood version of this arturo like you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: Pierre and Nadine definitely end up together.
Speaker 1: They end up together.
Speaker 2: They have an Etsy shop making keys out of wax.
Speaker 1: So when Michelle and Jamila were finally released, Michelle went
Speaker 1: to live with his new wife Jamila. No imagine, Nadine, bro, like,
Speaker 1: what else did you have to do for this motherfucker?
Speaker 1: And then he publishes a book name like Love Save Me,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't yours. I know, that's so wrong. I mean,
Speaker 1: she took helicopter lesson. She took helicopter lessons. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of helicopter lessons. She learned how to hover
Speaker 1: like four feet off the ground, sucking really hard. I
Speaker 1: don't know, personally, anybody loved him, that's right. Somebody throw
Speaker 1: a tangerinea this fucking guy. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of angry at this, dude. I mean, we're
Speaker 2: on society, okay, but to Pierre.
Speaker 1: And and to brag about it, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: so listen. That's our story. But to recap, we learned
Speaker 1: that Michelle was excellent at escaping, but really bad at
Speaker 1: keeping personal relationships.
Speaker 2: Which definitely definitely but it's very French too.
Speaker 1: Hey a, I cannot speak to that, Jay. Can you
Speaker 1: stop fucking with our French audience? No, I love our
Speaker 1: French audience, my friend. What a fucking pleasure to talk
Speaker 1: to you as always.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love these escapes. Thanks man, I
Speaker 2: would talk to you about anything in the heart.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? Yeah? Brother. We recently worked on a
Speaker 1: film together called The Gift Right, The Gift right the Present? Okay,
Speaker 1: the gift is a better, The gift is a better.
Speaker 1: This is also a pitch session for titles for your movies, Jay.
Speaker 2: No, you see, the gift only works one way. The
Speaker 2: present is also the present. It's like a gift as
Speaker 2: well as the present moment.
Speaker 1: A little play on words there. Do you have anything
Speaker 1: else do you like to plug? Brother? Anything?
Speaker 2: I might want my new line of pants that have
Speaker 2: like the little zippered flaps. On the bottom, so perfect
Speaker 2: fake when you're in shorts, yes, hiding for fake guns
Speaker 2: and cheese.
Speaker 1: Are you ever in shorts? But fuel you have to
Speaker 1: run to a meeting. Try Jay's new catfish pants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll get you hired and then you never have to
Speaker 1: wear pants ever again.
Speaker 2: I have like a novel out on Audible now called
Speaker 2: The Present as well.
Speaker 1: It's it's not a coincidence, a different story.
Speaker 2: But you use you want to get a thematic and
Speaker 2: actually it should be called a Gift. And then I
Speaker 2: have another novel coming out on Audible called Mayfly Man.
Speaker 1: Oh wonderful brother. Much love to you, Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: my pleasure, Turo. We'll see you next time. Greatest Escapes
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation Entertainment in
Speaker 1: association with Gilded Audio or Executive producers for Me are
Speaker 1: to or Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka for Film
Speaker 1: Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
Speaker 1: and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced and
Speaker 1: edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
Speaker 1: our Research Overlord and Music Overlord, our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
Speaker 1: technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Speaker 1: Olivia Canny and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
Speaker 1: a rating or review. My mom will call you each
Speaker 1: personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next
Speaker 1: week