Speaker 1: Hello, Avenger listeners. It's Steve Fishman and I'm really glad
Speaker 1: you've tuned in. I hope you love this show as
Speaker 1: much as we do. A quick word on an upcoming
Speaker 1: bonus episode. We're doing a bonus with Miriam, the real Miriam.
Speaker 1: We'll be asking her questions, your questions, and getting answers.
Speaker 1: She'll update us on what's going on in her world
Speaker 1: and a lot has Please email your questions or thoughts
Speaker 1: or comments too. Info at Orbitmedia dot fm. Oh and
Speaker 1: Fisher Stevens can answer your questions too. He's our co
Speaker 1: founder and resident Oscar winner. He's an actor you saw
Speaker 1: him in Succession and director of actors like al Pacino
Speaker 1: and Justin Timberlake. For Avenger, he directed Alexis Bledel, who
Speaker 1: voices Miriam. If we're lucky, Alexis who was the star
Speaker 1: of Gilmore Girls and Handmaid's Tale and is the daughter
Speaker 1: of an Argentine. We'll chip in answers to so let
Speaker 1: us know your thoughts and questions, hopes and prayers. Info
Speaker 1: at Orbitmedia dot FM. Thanks. I want to introduce you
Speaker 1: to our newest true crime series, Avenger. It's something special
Speaker 1: and a little different. Yes, there's murder, many murders, but
Speaker 1: this crime is of a scale that almost defies imagination.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to spoil it, but I will tell
Speaker 1: you this. Bringing the culprits to justice is complicated because
Speaker 1: the government doesn't want anyone to know a crime has
Speaker 1: been committed. In this episode, we meet the young woman
Speaker 1: who will fight the government. We meet her in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Speaker 1: A quick word about subscriptions. If you love ads, listen on.
Speaker 1: If you're not so keen on ads, sign up for
Speaker 1: True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. That's our subscription channel.
Speaker 1: You'll get no AD and also you can binge the
Speaker 1: entire Avengers series. It's just too ninety nine a month.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Before we begin, please note that for this story we
Speaker 3: interviewed Medium and everyone else for dozens of hours in Spanish.
Speaker 3: We hired actors to voice their words in English.
Speaker 2: By then, it was much more than a feeling. I
Speaker 2: knew that I was being followed. I avoided going to
Speaker 2: my family's house because I knew they would be there
Speaker 2: waiting for me.
Speaker 3: It's late afternoon, nineteen seventy seven. Medium is in a
Speaker 3: neighborhood in Buenos Aires. She's nineteen It's been a year
Speaker 3: since Argentina's military seized power a coup to bring back
Speaker 3: peace and stability, says the military dictator, people like Medium,
Speaker 3: a young political dissident, are now targets.
Speaker 2: I was actually worried about my grandmother. It had been
Speaker 2: a while since i'd last seen her. She was ninety two,
Speaker 2: and she was frail. I just wanted to call, you know,
Speaker 2: check in. I get to the phone booth and I
Speaker 2: notice a man in line. His young, slim and he's
Speaker 2: wearing a jean jacket, and I see that when his
Speaker 2: turn comes up, he doesn't end up making a call.
Speaker 2: So now I'm on alert. I start heading toward the
Speaker 2: nearest bus stop, where at least there were more people around. First,
Speaker 2: he follows me to the bus stop. Then I see
Speaker 2: him inside the bus. I immediately jump off at a
Speaker 2: random stop, but he also manages to get out. So
Speaker 2: I turn my head and I see a dark red
Speaker 2: four foul and a long gun barrel hanging out from
Speaker 2: one of the windows. Now I'm running out of ideas.
Speaker 2: I run into a nearby store, and when I look back,
Speaker 2: I see that three men were following. I try to
Speaker 2: stay calm and make my way through the meat aisle,
Speaker 2: pretending I'm shopping. There's no back exit, so I take
Speaker 2: off again through the front door. I tried to catch
Speaker 2: a bus that was slowing down, and the Ford Falcon
Speaker 2: speeds up right toward me. The bus driver other people
Speaker 2: try to help, but the men pull out their guns
Speaker 2: and scare everybody away. The bus also takes off. They
Speaker 2: tackle me and they tell me their police. So I
Speaker 2: start screaming, I'm Miriam Lewie, please help me.
Speaker 3: From Orbit Media, I'm andres caaba scheedo. This is Avenger.
Speaker 3: The Story of Medium Lewin, Episode one the process. Fast
Speaker 3: forward three decades to twenty ten. It's four in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: the busiest time of day at Canal Drese, a national
Speaker 3: TV channel in Buenos Aires. Medium sits in her office chair,
Speaker 3: looking through a big glass window that the cars driving by.
Speaker 3: In Argentina, Medium is a well known investigative journalist and
Speaker 3: she's relentless going after perpetrators of sexual abuse. She's reported
Speaker 3: from Gaza, Russia, lots of places. Now she's in the
Speaker 3: middle of the biggest investigation of her career. Medium looks
Speaker 3: at her phone. It's a US number.
Speaker 2: Ola Ola Medium, Ola Bruno.
Speaker 3: She Olae, an Argentine reporter calling from Florida. Medium had
Speaker 3: recently hired him to help her follow up on a tip.
Speaker 3: She had sent him to meet the owner of a
Speaker 3: small plane that maybe had once been used by Argentina's
Speaker 3: dictatorship to kill hundreds of people. They were tossed out
Speaker 3: of planes alive into the sea. Somehow the plane ended
Speaker 3: up in Fort Lauderdale. Medium hoped that it still held
Speaker 3: clues evidence of the atrocities.
Speaker 2: We had no money to make the trip ourselves, so
Speaker 2: we hired a stringer, a freelance journalist and actually Bruno
Speaker 2: was a sports commentator, no career.
Speaker 3: See in on the phone. The report confirms it's the
Speaker 3: right plane.
Speaker 2: I mean, we never even dreamed of running into something
Speaker 2: so valuable. And then the owner of the plane shows
Speaker 2: him the flight logs that were left inside untouched. The
Speaker 2: hose logs date back to the late seventies and early
Speaker 2: eighties when the military junta was in power. It was
Speaker 2: all there dates, roots, origin, destination, and the most important
Speaker 2: part the names of the pilots.
Speaker 3: I spent a lot of my childhood in Argentina in
Speaker 3: the early nineties at my grandfather's repair shop behind our house.
Speaker 3: It was a middle class suburb of Buennoes Aires, and
Speaker 3: every morning I'll wake up to Rado Colonia, my grandfather's
Speaker 3: favorite station. Inside his repair shop, the floors and shelves
Speaker 3: were stacked with old radios, tools, and countless broken televisions.
Speaker 3: One day he decided I was old enough to hear
Speaker 3: about the death flights. He told me how only about
Speaker 3: a decade earlier, thousands of people had been kidnapped, loaded
Speaker 3: into airplanes and thrown into the ocean. I was barely
Speaker 3: nine at the time. We lived several blocks from the shore.
Speaker 3: I could picture the planes above the water, bodies free falling.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of questions, but my grandfather didn't
Speaker 3: have answers. This was in the nineties and many Argentines
Speaker 3: were still searching for answers about loved ones who had
Speaker 3: gone missing. Mothers, fathers were still mourning in fear and
Speaker 3: in silence. It seemed at times Argentina, the entire country
Speaker 3: was looking away, intent on bearing the ghosts of the past.
Speaker 3: For a long time, journalist, Medium Lewin wanted to bury
Speaker 3: them too. For good reason, she had been one of
Speaker 3: the disappeared. Better to forget years of captivity of torture.
Speaker 3: Then one day, an annoying, rude, incredibly persistent Italian phota
Speaker 3: journalist entered her life, asking lots of uncomfortable questions. Theirs
Speaker 3: would be an unlikely alliance, but together they set out
Speaker 3: to bring justice to the victims of the Bueilos de
Speaker 3: la Morte, the death flights. It would prove to be
Speaker 3: the investigation of a lifetime. The investigation would also become
Speaker 3: crucial in my search for answers. How did an entire
Speaker 3: country allow this to happen? Was there will there ever
Speaker 3: be justice? Where were the pilots who flew the death flights?
Speaker 3: In two thousand and seven, Giancarlo Siraulo is living in
Speaker 3: Buenos Aires. He's the annoying Italian photojournalist who gets in
Speaker 3: touch with Medium. He invites her to a cafe to
Speaker 3: take some photos.
Speaker 2: He says he's been assigned to take some portraits of me.
Speaker 2: I don't know something about a story about survivors of
Speaker 2: the dictatorship.
Speaker 4: I had no idea whether she tell me to just
Speaker 4: go to hell. The photos were just an excuse for
Speaker 4: us to me. I mean, why would I take portraits
Speaker 4: of a survivor inside a cafe? I knew I wasn't
Speaker 4: going to use those photos.
Speaker 3: In his thirties, Giancadlo is a bit of a nomad.
Speaker 3: He's been all over the world telling stories, taking photos,
Speaker 3: fulfilling his obsession to document the scars left by fascist governments. Recently,
Speaker 3: he traveled from Italy to Argentina on a mission. He's
Speaker 3: become obsessed with the death flights. He's heard about Medium
Speaker 3: and decided he needs her, a survivor and just as important,
Speaker 3: a journalist on the ground who might help him find
Speaker 3: some answers and jian Cadlo's request comes at a good time.
Speaker 2: I was in a bad place emotionally at the time.
Speaker 2: I was in my fifties. My two boys were in
Speaker 2: their mid twenties, so they were never home. The man
Speaker 2: I was with back then left me for a younger woman.
Speaker 2: I was alone, heartbroken. I needed some sort of distraction,
Speaker 2: something to occupy my time, even if it involved meeting
Speaker 2: a stranger to talk about trauma.
Speaker 3: She agrees to meet gian Cadlo at a cafe in
Speaker 3: the center of Buenos Aires. It's a gray, windy day
Speaker 3: in August, and Medium comes straight from her office wearing
Speaker 3: her signature fluorescent orange jacket. Her red, curly hair blowing
Speaker 3: in the wind. The cafe is on AVENI and withe Julia,
Speaker 3: a majestic avenue lined up with purple Jacaranda trees. It's
Speaker 3: not the first time that a foreign journalist contacts Medium
Speaker 3: for an interview, but Giancarlo is different.
Speaker 2: He says hi with a kiss on the cheek. He's
Speaker 2: clearly non American. He has this baby face that makes
Speaker 2: him look in his mid twenties, and long wavy hair,
Speaker 2: green eyes and an earring.
Speaker 4: And I'm shocked by her face. These beautiful in her
Speaker 4: eyes have this light to them, and a lot of
Speaker 4: the survivors that interview didn't have the light in their eyes.
Speaker 3: They start talking, gian Cadlo seems eager, too eager. He's
Speaker 3: leaning toward Medium over the table. Medium is not impressed.
Speaker 3: The whole setup seems off.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, how does this serious, prestigious Italian magazine send
Speaker 2: this guy to do a story about the dictatorship. He
Speaker 2: just doesn't seem very professional. And then he grabs his
Speaker 2: camera and starts taking pictures of me without even looking
Speaker 2: into the camera. I thought that was kind of weird,
Speaker 2: so I asked if he got the shots that he
Speaker 2: needed instead of answering, his smiles and asks me a question.
Speaker 4: Do you know where the planes use for the dead
Speaker 4: flights are?
Speaker 2: He was kind of telling me, how come you never
Speaker 2: thought of this? I was an experienced investigative reporter, so
Speaker 2: that felt like a lack of respect. You know, how
Speaker 2: dare he ask me that I'm a survivor of a
Speaker 2: concentration camp. Also, I'm like twelve years older than him.
Speaker 2: I have no idea where the planes could be and
Speaker 2: why why should I care? But then again, through those planes,
Speaker 2: we could get to the pilots and maybe identify them,
Speaker 2: and that would be amazing.
Speaker 3: Giangarrdlo's convinced that if they could find the planes, that
Speaker 3: could lead to the pilots of those death flights.
Speaker 4: I mean, these are the guys who were responsible for
Speaker 4: the genocidal machine that killed so many people. I'm trying
Speaker 4: to see how she would react, hoping it would make
Speaker 4: her want to help me with the investigation. That's their
Speaker 4: strategy at least.
Speaker 2: And then Giancarlo pulls this strange looking book from his backpack.
Speaker 2: He puts it on the table. It's written by a
Speaker 2: guy named Adolfo Silingo, a former Navy captain He was
Speaker 2: the first Navy officer to admit to being part of
Speaker 2: a death flight crew. I knew about Silingo. I mean
Speaker 2: I had heard about him, but I hadn't seen this
Speaker 2: book yet.
Speaker 3: It was an obscure book, only a few copies were
Speaker 3: ever printed. Giancardlo gives it to her and she puts
Speaker 3: it in her bag. Their meeting ends without a commitment,
Speaker 3: but it sparks something within her.
Speaker 2: Was there possibly something big to investigate, something that had
Speaker 2: been overlooked for a while. I avoided investigating the dictatorship,
Speaker 2: revisiting that trauma. I had friends who were put on
Speaker 2: those death flights. I didn't feel I could stick to
Speaker 2: journalistic boundaries, like my emotions might betray me at any
Speaker 2: moment and send me into a breakdown.
Speaker 3: Medium grew up in a nice, middle class neighborhood in
Speaker 3: Buenos Aires. She was an intellectual child. She loved books
Speaker 3: and poetry. Her dad was a big influence. He was
Speaker 3: a leftist. He gave her books about socialism, workers' movements.
Speaker 2: When my dad noticed me bringing flyers home, bringing the
Speaker 2: anarchist paper, he started feeding me more anarchist literature.
Speaker 3: Soon she was an activist.
Speaker 2: I was into political military and see. But I also
Speaker 2: loved the idea of working for a newspaper. I was
Speaker 2: a good writer, so I signed up for journalism school.
Speaker 2: The problem was my parents wanted me to have a
Speaker 2: real career, so I had to enroll in economics at
Speaker 2: the same time to appease them. We were young, but
Speaker 2: we felt like we'd live through a lot. Social change,
Speaker 2: access to education, better salaries. It all seemed at our fingertips.
Speaker 2: I mean, it didn't feel like a fantasy. It felt
Speaker 2: like we could actually change the world. I wanted to
Speaker 2: see a country where there was equality. We were young,
Speaker 2: and we felt invincible.
Speaker 3: When Medium's parents started to worry about her safety, they
Speaker 3: offered to fly her to Brazil or somewhere outside Argentina.
Speaker 2: Abandoning the cause wasn't even an option for us. We
Speaker 2: thought if we abandoned the militancy and activism, we would
Speaker 2: be betraying our friends who gave their lives for the movement.
Speaker 3: The economy was in shambles.
Speaker 5: For sixty days, six thousand metal workers struck unofficially against
Speaker 5: wage restraint in face of huge inflation.
Speaker 3: And political violence and tentions grew the government.
Speaker 5: Federal police moved in five hundred workers were sacked and
Speaker 5: one hundred and forty three flung in jail without trial.
Speaker 5: One man handing out leaflets was machine gunned from a
Speaker 5: police car. Another shot dead while painting a slogan on
Speaker 5: a wall.
Speaker 3: It was ruthless Lasa lasona continua personal left his group's
Speaker 3: retaliate target and government officials, police chiefs.
Speaker 5: Six point thirty one morning in this down at hill,
Speaker 5: Buenos Aires suburb, two cars pulled up, Five men got out.
Speaker 5: One knocked on the door. The policeman who answered received
Speaker 5: one bullet in the brain. The remaining men then drilled
Speaker 5: the front of the house with at least eighty bullets.
Speaker 5: Before leaving, they blasted holes in the roof with three grenades,
Speaker 5: injuring the man's widow and two children.
Speaker 3: Violence divided the country. The best known group targeting police
Speaker 3: and government forces was called the Montenados. Some supported them,
Speaker 3: including Medium, as the best hope against forces of repression,
Speaker 3: but others saw only chaos and violence. They craved stability. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Medium was in the midst of a political awakening. She
Speaker 3: got a job at a factory and helped organize union workers.
Speaker 3: Her parents started to worry about her, but medium was
Speaker 3: on a different path now. The entire nation was on edge.
Speaker 3: Inflation was skyrocketing, the violence was getting worse. The government
Speaker 3: seemed powerless.
Speaker 2: During the last months of nineteen seventy five, everyone already
Speaker 2: knew that a military coup was about to happen. It
Speaker 2: was March twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six. My mom barges
Speaker 2: into my room with a portable radio broadcasting about soldiers marching,
Speaker 2: and then she tells me that there was a coup.
Speaker 2: I remember being in bed and just getting into a
Speaker 2: fetal position and crying. I was crying because I felt
Speaker 2: afraid of the changes that were coming, more control less freedoms.
Speaker 2: And I remember what it felt like to step out
Speaker 2: of my house for the first time, just after the coup,
Speaker 2: watching the tanks rolling down this streets in the middle
Speaker 2: of the city. We had seen this before, the military
Speaker 2: that targets activists, sending them to jail, trying them in court.
Speaker 2: We actually thought, we hoped the military would help stop
Speaker 2: the violence. I never imagined the underground extra judicial process.
Speaker 2: Never imagined they would kidnap me, put a hood on me,
Speaker 2: torture me.
Speaker 3: Argentina's armed forces took control a coup led by General
Speaker 3: jrgue Rafael Videla. Up until then, he had played a
Speaker 3: neutral role when it came to politics, but he was
Speaker 3: the country's most powerful military leader. He promised peace a
Speaker 3: stable economy. Officially, his plan was called the national reorganization
Speaker 3: process or just the process. If the professor reorganization national
Speaker 3: the man.
Speaker 2: He would say things like the process would require time
Speaker 2: and effort. They had their own vision for the country,
Speaker 2: a right wing, neoliberal nation with conservative Christian.
Speaker 3: Values, values that General Videla says were threatened by subversives, students,
Speaker 3: union members, teachers, activists, people like medium, who he vowed
Speaker 3: to quote annihilate.
Speaker 2: That rhetoric about preserving Western Christian values, about creating paranoia
Speaker 2: that communism was taking over our country. To me, none
Speaker 2: of that was surprising. I remember a friend telling me
Speaker 2: he was leaving the country because he'd heard that the
Speaker 2: military was planning a blood bath, that they were going
Speaker 2: to kill us. All we thought it was an exaggeration.
Speaker 2: We didn't see Argentina as a banana republic, and we
Speaker 2: had never witnessed the type of blood bath. My friend
Speaker 2: was pretty thing. We thought he was a coward.
Speaker 3: General Videla is swearing in takes place inside the presidential Palace.
Speaker 3: The room is filled with men in green and blue
Speaker 3: military uniforms, Catholic bishops and families of Junta leaders watching
Speaker 3: from a balcony in grays and John al Salon Blanco.
Speaker 3: Everyone is standing. Suddenly, two giant doors open and General
Speaker 3: Videla appears. His tall, slim with a thick mustache. He
Speaker 3: has a stern look and he takes the oath Joe.
Speaker 2: Rumors about horrific torture started going around.
Speaker 3: The rumors are true. The Junta takes its crack down
Speaker 3: and left its groups to a new level.
Speaker 2: People having their arms ripped off their bodies, electric shocks, rape.
Speaker 2: The orders from our group leaders were clear, do not
Speaker 2: be captured alive.
Speaker 3: For medium, it means leaving her parents' house. She knows
Speaker 3: she's a person of interest. She fears she will bring
Speaker 3: danger to her family, so she goes into hiding.
Speaker 2: The thing is that immediately after the coup, the military
Speaker 2: started arresting friends people I knew, right, So we knew
Speaker 2: that the military were going to torture those friends, and
Speaker 2: they had information about where I lived. And the reality
Speaker 2: is not everyone can endure torture, So if they gave
Speaker 2: your information, the military would be at my door or
Speaker 2: the fear and terror was not only aimed at armed
Speaker 2: groups or known activists, It was aimed at society. They
Speaker 2: were going after school teachers, professors, union members, and then
Speaker 2: they were targeting their families too. It was too dangerous
Speaker 2: for me to keep sleeping at home. At one point,
Speaker 2: my dad didn't speak to me for at least six months.
Speaker 2: He was against my activism. He knew how committed I was,
Speaker 2: and he knew how dangerous it was. He was scared
Speaker 2: because people he knew were disappearing left and right, and
Speaker 2: he didn't want me to get killed.
Speaker 3: By then, MEDIUM had fallen in love with a fellow
Speaker 3: journalism student, juan Is Davis. They met in college. He
Speaker 3: was an activist like her.
Speaker 2: He was sweet, adorable. Never again did I feel the
Speaker 2: way I felt for Juan. His voice was so special.
Speaker 2: Just hearing him talk made me emotional. He loved his
Speaker 2: family and he loved me.
Speaker 3: After the coup, they drop out of journalism school and
Speaker 3: go underground.
Speaker 2: Juana and I got a place at first, but I
Speaker 2: would only sleep there a few days a week. I
Speaker 2: would lie to my parents. I'd tell them I was
Speaker 2: going to sleep at friends houses, but then more of
Speaker 2: our friends started to get kidnapped, so we had to leave.
Speaker 2: We were never in the life of a typical couple.
Speaker 2: We were on the move almost every week, living one
Speaker 2: day at a time. We never even thought about the future.
Speaker 3: Before they go underground together, they buy two cheap wedding
Speaker 3: bands and ask the leader of their activist group to
Speaker 3: marry them, and.
Speaker 2: At that very informal ceremony, the guy called us a
Speaker 2: revolutionary couple. He said that our commitment into each other,
Speaker 2: our vow was to fight to change Argentina, to make
Speaker 2: it a more just place. And we moved to the
Speaker 2: outskirts of Buenos Aires, and we got this tiny, tiny
Speaker 2: apartment with a tin roof. It was in the back
Speaker 2: of a family's house, and we started buying some furniture,
Speaker 2: a couple of chairs, a table, and some plates, a
Speaker 2: cover for our bed, and we put a Beetles poster
Speaker 2: in the bedroom.
Speaker 3: Medium and Juan don't get to live there for very long.
Speaker 3: Crackdowns become more frequent. They have to go back to
Speaker 3: hiding at friends' houses or at cheap motels. They're preparing
Speaker 3: for the worst.
Speaker 2: I looked out the window, and if we saw anyone
Speaker 2: that looked like an officer or a soldier, I would
Speaker 2: freak out and Juan calm me down. He always told
Speaker 2: me I was paranoid. Everything was so intense, the loss
Speaker 2: of our friends, attending nearly empty group meetings because most
Speaker 2: people disappeared. I mean, for us, one day felt like
Speaker 2: ten years. We made love a lot. We loved each other,
Speaker 2: but we were living on the edge. So every time
Speaker 2: we could touch each other, every time we could kiss
Speaker 2: each other, it was like it could be the last time.
Speaker 3: And there was one critical part of their group's training
Speaker 3: that they would always carry a cyanide pill and pledge
Speaker 3: to swallow it before they were captured.
Speaker 2: We had decided to take our own lives before having
Speaker 2: to endure torture, which could lead to us giving away
Speaker 2: information and that could lead to our friends getting captured. Also,
Speaker 2: it was an order coming from the leaders of our organization,
Speaker 2: don't get captured alive. To me, it was simple. You
Speaker 2: get captured and they own your body. They would pass
Speaker 2: you over from one force to another, or if they
Speaker 2: wanted to, they would just put a bullet in your
Speaker 2: head so they would dictate when and how you died.
Speaker 2: But with the Sinai pill, we were in control of
Speaker 2: our death. So it was kind of like a small
Speaker 2: victory over them, you know.
Speaker 3: Two nights before her kidnapping, Medium is walking through the
Speaker 3: streets of Buenos Aires, heading back to where she and
Speaker 3: Juan are staying. They're still in hiding.
Speaker 2: It was raining that night. I noticed a car with
Speaker 2: foggy windows. Inside I see the silhouettes of three or
Speaker 2: so men. I start zigzagging my way through the streets
Speaker 2: and corners to evade it, but sooner or later it
Speaker 2: would be there again.
Speaker 3: Two days later, on May seventeenth, nineteen seventy seven, Medium
Speaker 3: finds herself running for her life, being chased by three
Speaker 3: men in a ford falcon.
Speaker 2: And I keep screaming off the top of my lungs.
Speaker 2: I'm Miriam Lewin, Please help me.
Speaker 3: She yells out her phone number, begging anyone who can
Speaker 3: hear to call her family. Then the moment Medium in
Speaker 3: her fellow militants had prepared for.
Speaker 2: I reach into the pocket of my leather jacket. I
Speaker 2: take out the Cyanide pill and I put it in
Speaker 2: my mouth. I look up at the sky and in
Speaker 2: my head, I think, God, thank you for letting me
Speaker 2: die to help save my friends.
Speaker 3: Usually cyanide pills are made out of glass. Once you
Speaker 3: crush it with your teeth, the glass cuts your mouth.
Speaker 3: The poison enters the bloodstream quickly, but Medium cyanide capsule
Speaker 3: is homemade. It's plastic.
Speaker 2: I try to puncture the pill with my teeth as
Speaker 2: fast as I could, but the officers catch on and
Speaker 2: force me to spit it out. Never imagined they would
Speaker 2: catch me alive. I was young, healthy, but at that
Speaker 2: moment I didn't hesitate. I just wanted to die.
Speaker 3: In the next episode, Medium is taken alive to a
Speaker 3: clandestine center to be interrogated, the exact scenario that she
Speaker 3: and her fellow comrades had tried to avoid at all costs.
Speaker 2: He says, Miriam, look at me. I am the man
Speaker 2: responsible for your life and your death. As long as
Speaker 2: you collaborate, as long as you're good, nothing will happen
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 3: From Orbit Media, this is Avenger, the story of Medium Lewin.
Speaker 3: I'm your host and see your produce Ucer Andrescavacchedo. The
Speaker 3: series was produced by Eszeguiel, Rodrie Sandino and edited by
Speaker 3: Monica Campbell. Original score Nicolas Paschella. Mixing and mastering Christopher
Speaker 3: Hoff and Austin Smith. Assistant producers Andres Feschtenholz and Eleana Gillespi.
Speaker 3: FactCheck Alejandro Marinelli and leonardos Canone. Legal review Neil Rossini,
Speaker 3: Casting director Paula Gammon Wilson. The executive producers from Orbit
Speaker 3: Media are Steve Fishman Fisher, Stevens, Marcy Wiseman, and Katie Springer.
Speaker 3: The voice actors in Avenger include Alexis Blodel as Medium,
Speaker 3: Lewin Fulio de la Volta as Giancarlo Serraudo, Gonzalo Vargas
Speaker 3: as Enrique Pinedo, Edgardo Manono Castro as Bruno Vain, and
Speaker 3: Tom Schubert as Carlos Macosmiliana and Gustavo. This podcast was
Speaker 3: produced in association with Sonodo. The Sonodo executive producers or
Speaker 3: Camilla Victoriano, Joshua Weinstein and Jasmine Romero. The rest of
Speaker 3: the Sonoda production team includes Senior producer Carmen Gratedol, editor
Speaker 3: Rodrigo Crespo, producer Paloma Navarro, Nicoletti, Evelyn Uribe, Mariana Cornello,
Speaker 3: Sara Mota, Manuel Parra, Hanna Baram and Tasha Sandoval. Special
Speaker 3: thanks to Radio and CASA and Pomeranek Recording Studios in
Speaker 3: Buenos Aires, and to Medium Lewin and Giancarlo Serralo for
Speaker 3: letting us tell their story. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: A quick word about subscriptions. If you love ads, listen on.
Speaker 1: If you're not so keen on ads, sign up for
Speaker 1: True Crime club House on Apple Podcasts no ads and
Speaker 1: also bingeability. You can hear the entire Avenger series all
Speaker 1: at once. It's just two ninety nine a month.