WEBVTT - 3: The Ambush 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:09.000 So look, there's another little road down here. Do you 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:13.600 think there's a bridge down there? In two thousand and one, 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.080 a year after they arrived in Costa Rica to live 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.560 in their four story round house in the middle of 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.400 the jungle, John and Anne Bender went to see doctor 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:24.560 Rosemary Bradley. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:26.239 Hi is Rosemary there? 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.080 Uh huh, I'm a kidding to get here all right. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.080 My producer Poppy and I are retracing their journey. 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.000 You have to cross the river over a bridge. 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.800 It was a spring afternoon in late April. John and 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.880 Ann set off in the car, heading for the outskirts 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:48.040 of pere Zeladon. They had no idea what was about 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.680 to unfold. That the old life John had left behind 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.600 in America was about to collide with his new life 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.880 in Costa Rica, and the utopia they'd carefully constructured around 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:05.840 them would be shattered. It would lead to Anne and John, 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.560 who shared a battle with mental illness, to fear for 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.760 their lives. Their acute need for privacy had already made 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.240 them unpopular in the valley. Now paranoia would take hold. 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:23.560 They would retreat further and further into the jungle and isolation, 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.560 and they would ramp up their security their lavish home 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:34.839 high on the hill would become a fortress. The Benders 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:48.720 its prisoners from Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts produced 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:53.360 by Blanchard House. This is Hell in Heaven. I'm Becky Milligan. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:23.359 Chapter three, The Ambush. We arrive at Rosemary's. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:25.960 Did you get all right? 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:31.000 Well, we're outside a big sort of green gate. Just 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.080 go across, you'll just come across. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.680 Rosemary appears a few minutes later, husband in toe Oh. 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.919 They take us through the gate and a little further 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.240 down a small road and at the bottom is a 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:51.120 fast flowing river with large boulders. The only way to 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.440 get to their house is across a narrow, rusty hanging bridge, 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:58.639 which bounces and creeks as we walk across. It's slatted 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.840 so that if you misstep, you'd go straight through into 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.760 the river below. This was where the Benders came that 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.400 afternoon back in two thousand and one, an afternoon that 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.520 would change them both safe on the other side and 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.320 up through their lush gardens, we come to their house. 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.040 It's surrounded by trees with views of the valley. Fantastic. 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.359 Yeah, that's called the India Door. 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:24.840 Mila. 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.560 Rosemary points to the dramatic mountain range the sleeping Indian. 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.840 She says, the peaks form a distinct profile of a 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.920 woman lying down as though asleep. 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:39.480 If you look at her, she's pregnant. See that's her nose, 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:47.640 that's her chin, that's her her breast, and then there's 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:48.840 her pregnant belly. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:50.840 She overlooks your house. 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:56.880 They have an airy, spacious outdoor area with a concrete floor, 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:02.680 corrugated roof and wire fencing. For Rosemary is seventy one 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:09.000 with alert, intelligent eyes. She's a scientist, a soil microbiologist 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.600 to be precise. Her partner Marco is Costa Rican. Rosemary 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:15.280 is originally from the UK. 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.840 I came to Costa Rica in nineteen eighty nine and 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:23.840 found this beautiful close to build a house. 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.400 Back in two thousand and one, she ran a business 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.440 selling her unique mixture of native seeds. 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.120 One was a grass and one was a leging. 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.200 The idea was that if you planted them, they would 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.760 grow to provide an eco friendly, nutritious diet for cattle. 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:46.280 To substitute the imported maize and soybeans. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.080 And also to nurture the soil and prevent erosion. Because 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.400 the legume in particular has long roots. It was at 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.400 the time a revolutionary idea and one the Benders were 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.400 interested in. It's growing in her garden. 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.479 And then goes down there, and then it digs down 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.880 into the soil. In fact, you can see where it goes. 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:10.839 There's one for example. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.800 Oh yes, I see, goes deep down and keeps the 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.400 soil in place. Back in two thousand and one, Rosemary 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.719 was busy. People would come from across the country to 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:26.159 buy her unique blend. Lots of people bought our seeds, 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:33.960 and one of them was John Bender. It was Rosemary's 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.479 produce which had brought the Benders on a rare trip 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:39.760 away from their home. Their dream house was being built 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:41.880 on top of a hill and close to the ocean. 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.080 The slow unraveling of that dream was a few years off. 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.400 For now, their concerns were very practical soil erosion. 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.520 You often see that, and that part of the coast 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:58.440 is that houses are being built on very steep slopes 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.680 and some of them are at just falling down the hillside. 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.560 I mean, it's crazy what. 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.000 People do where they build their houses. They must have 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:09.560 known about us through the grapevine. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:10.000 Right here. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:15.880 Everybody finds out about what's going on through just talk, 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.159 talk talk. Everybody talks a lot. 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.239 On that afternoon in April two thousand and one, around 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.720 three o'clock, the Benders arrived and parked on a quiet 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.279 country road on the outskirts of the town near Rosemary's house. 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:33.120 They crossed over the bridge to meet Rosemary in her laboratory. 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.800 Rosemary remembers the couple clearly, and she noticed was badly 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.880 affected by limes disease. Remember, Anne wasn't being treated by 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.440 a conventional doctor for her condition. John was trying to 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.839 fix her himself by using plants in the jungle. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:49.960 And she limped a lot. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.799 She used a walking stick because of the lime disease. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.479 But she had a very pretty face. She's kind of shy, timid, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:03.560 whereas he was so I would say, deep deep voice, Yeah, yeah, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:04.240 A nice guy. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.039 I mean you. He was good looking too. I was 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:09.880 fascinated by I've been fascinated. 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.200 Rosemary and Marco were excited to meet people who took 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.600 a real interest in their business and what they were 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.040 trying to do. For Rosemary, that was pretty rare. 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:21.640 We'd tried to make friends with them, you know, we 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.200 invited them around and stuff, but they didn't. 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.240 They didn't, they didn't want to. 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.840 They weren't offended. In fact, Rosemary sympathized. She hadn't found 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.840 it easy to run a business in Costa Rica, trying 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.240 to do something new, something different. Sometimes it was hard. 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.320 She'd had her own dreams of a flourishing global seed business. 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.600 It wasn't to be these days. She and Marco found 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:47.080 themselves very hard up. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.960 I think you can get quite paranoid here as a 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:55.320 foreigner and feel that everybody's against you, and just live 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.560 your own little private life. And I think that's what 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.560 they were doing. You create your own bubble. I mean, 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:01.640 we've done that here. 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.040 So the Benders and Rosemary had a lot to talk about. 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.200 They were very interested in these seeds of this forage 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.280 peanut and how they were produced and so on. 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.160 John and Ann bought some of Rosemary's seed, and while 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.480 Rosemary prepared their order, they went back over the bridge 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:19.160 to their car. 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:21.120 Presumably it was to get the money. 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:36.439 Then, Rosemary froze, tell me what you heard. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:38.040 All I heard was a shot. 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.880 At this point in our interview, Marco leaps to his 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.800 feet and starts gesticulating towards the bridge. He remembers very 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:48.439 clearly what happened. 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:53.599 Next handle Undia Komalas. 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.640 It was three in the afternoon. He says he'd been 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:01.000 working at home and he'd heard the phone ring. It 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.520 was the intercom from the external gate across the bridge. 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:12.640 It was Anne's voice shouting and screaming, help, help, help, vamos. 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.520 He says, see maemos, come come. 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.040 Let's go, and moves quickly to the bridge. We try 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.480 and keep up. He wants to show us what happened next. 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:27.760 In situ, he went running ahead because they were saying help, help, 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.520 they're kidnapping us. 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.600 He shows us how fast he went across that rickety 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.440 bridge after hearing the gunshot. It's not easy at speed. 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:41.640 The whole structure feels pretty dangerous. Rosemary was close behind him. 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.160 Marco takes us to the front drive, and, slightly breathless, 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.800 he describes the scene which confronted him. The moment he 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:54.679 came through the gate, a y is pick up Blanco. 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.920 He points to the road. There was a white pickup 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.480 truck blocking the drive. He turns and points to the 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.640 gate there. He says Anne was there standing by the 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:13.800 intercom Bosomundo. John was furious and now Rosemary picks up 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:14.400 the story. 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:15.480 John was a. 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:21.280 Huge guy, right, he'd he he. 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:21.440 Got really angry. 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.880 He raised his voice, and they don't like that. 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.480 They don't like that. If you're if you just if 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:27.959 you live in. 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:32.280 Costa Rica, you must never lose your temper. That is 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.319 a very important rule. 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.800 Rosemary and Marco's staff, who were in the roadside office, 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:42.000 were also terrified. They'd seen everything. A vehicle screeched to 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.000 a stop, blocking the drive, boxing in the Bender's car, 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.600 and armed men jumping out waving guns in the air. 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.880 What did they tell you that happened? That staff member 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.480 saw one of the armed men shoot at the ground 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.240 near John. The gun shot. Rosemary and Marco had heard 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.960 back at the house and said later she thought it 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.920 was a kidnapping. He fired the gun between John's legs 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.720 and held it up to John's head and was terrified. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.160 So that was what was scary about it. 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.360 They thought they were being attacked by robber and they 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:19.160 were going to be robbed. 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:20.160 That's what they thought. 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:22.400 And John and Anne were in a bad way. 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.280 They were trembling, they were terrified. 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.959 Once Rosemary and Marco had taken in the scene, they 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.760 suddenly recognized one of the armed men. It was someone 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.760 they knew. These weren't robbers at all, but law. 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.319 Enforcement, and then we found it was a friend about 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.599 us right who'd actually. 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:45.040 Fired the shots. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.320 Rosemary reassured John that they weren't being kidnapped. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.200 We were just trying to calm him down, if I 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.800 remember correctly, that it was okay, that it was just 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:57.880 a matter of documents. 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.760 They tried to find out precisely what the problem was, 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.760 what had the benders done wrong. The police wouldn't tell them, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.960 but they did want to see the couple's ID. John 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.600 and Ann were having problems understanding the police officers. Their 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.160 Spanish wasn't that good, so Rosemary said she would go 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.880 with John to the police station and helped translate, while 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.760 Marco would go with Anne back to their house to 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:30.600 pick up the passports. Rosemary and Marco were used to 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.040 hearing gunshots and shooting around the place. John and Ann 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.920 would have been two kidnappings, and vigilante groups are quite 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.440 common where Rosemary lives. In fact, there was a banner 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.760 stretched above the road when we arrived, a picture of 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.280 a rat, a symbol for a criminal crossed out, and 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.720 a message that vigilante groups are operating in the area. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:57.240 The sign read trapped rat lynched rat. The banner itself 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:01.360 had more than a dozen holes made by gunshots. Rosemary 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.800 told us there'd been a recent killing a few doors down. 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.880 Just a couple of weeks ago, driving a motorbike up here, 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.880 one of these delivery guys with a pizza. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:13.040 They attacked him. 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.560 And there's two guys who lived just across the road, 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.120 and the police don't do anything about it. 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.240 Marco and Ann went to get the couple's passports. They 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.200 arrived to meet John and Rosemary at the station, ready 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:28.480 to sit down with police. 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:30.400 They were there for hours. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.760 Rosemary and Marco didn't understand what it was all about. 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.800 They would find out later. They eventually left John and 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.959 Ann to it, but Marco did notice something which he 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:47.720 thought was odd about their documents. John and Ann's passports 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:53.000 were from Grenada. That's a notorious tax evasion hub. There's 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:57.120 no inheritance well for or capital gains tax. Apparently the 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.960 passports had aroused the police's interest. John's father, Paul, says 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.679 that he was worried about his son's decision to give 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:08.080 up US citizenship and move his fortune abroad. 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:10.920 I guess the one thing that bothered me about what 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:15.359 he was doing when he started thinking about moving offshore 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.640 and not living in the United States, and I said, 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.800 why are you doing that? And he said to avoid 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.080 taxes and stuff, and that I did not like. Did 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.200 you tell him, yeah, I told. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:28.640 Hi, didn't. 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:36.040 But he did that, and that was disturbing for Paul. 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.400 Using tax havens like this giving up your passport went 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.240 against the spirit of the law he had committed his 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.240 life to upholding as a legal scholar and expert. He 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.920 was also worried about his son not having the protection 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:55.280 that a US citizen is entitled to. But it wasn't 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.760 all about passports. There was another reason for the police 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.320 pulling John and Anne in, one which would fuel John's 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:07.720 suspicions and convince him that his enemies were after him. 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.680 A few days later, Rosemary called Anne to find out 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.080 if they were okay. They were fine. John and Ann 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.360 were kept at the police station until late and released 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:21.080 the same day, But that wasn't the end of the matter. 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:34.280 Far from it. The police operation had deeply upset John 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.600 and Anne. John couldn't shake the feeling that people were 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.560 after him, that he and Anne were vulnerable. As Valdo, 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:46.360 their head of staff, remembers him being completely traumatized. John 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:56.520 decided that they needed more protection. Jose Pizzaro, former chief 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.400 of Costa Rica's police force, a popular guy who better 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.880 known across Costa Rica as El Toro the Bull. He's 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.200 a solidly built man with a broad smile, and well 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:18.080 known for being a friendly guy. He tells me so 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.120 friendly and liked that if people saw him walking down 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.240 the street, they would call out El Toro. Josey agreed 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.640 to meet John at his house or Acayanne. He'd had 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:33.160 enough years in the police force to recognize trauma. He 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.960 knew instantly how threatened they felt. John told him that 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.440 it had changed his life. He was especially worried about 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:41.360 and safety. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:42.160 He says. 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.720 He thought their house was beautiful but isolated, so his 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.280 priority was to make it secure. John told him he 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:56.200 wanted him to set up an entire security system. Jose 0:16:56.320 --> 0:17:00.000 brought in more armed guards, secured the entire five thousand 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:05.800 and acre property, and became their personal bodyguard. A bond 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.920 of trust developed very quickly between us. He says they 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:15.480 were very special people. Jose tells us that John had 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.320 his own nickname for his new head of security, Colonel. 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.720 When Jose went to town with Anne. He tells us 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.680 that John would call out Earn, you suppose you take 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.760 good care of my wife, Colonel. It's the only reason 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.639 I'm relaxed, because she's with you. Jose told us that 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.040 John and Ann's extreme reaction to the arrest was not 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.639 only down to the way it was carried out. Of course, 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.239 if they believed they were being kidnapped, it would be 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:50.679 extremely frightening. John confided in Jose that he suspected that 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.720 the police operation was a cover for something more sinister. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:18:00.359 The questions about their passports were a ruse. John felt 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.840 there was something very strange going on, Jose tells us 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.520 Jose agreed there was something which suggested this was far 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:12.119 from a routine check on the couple's papers, and he 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.199 knew the police officers. These were police officers attached to 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.760 the Special Investigations Unit, in an unmarked car and in 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:26.360 plain clothes. The strength used was so unnecessary, Jose told us. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.320 John disclosed something else to Jose which he believed backed 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.080 up his hunt that people were after him and Anne. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.480 When they were at the police station, there was another man, 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.440 a lawyer who he didn't know, who served him papers 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.800 which means John was being notified of a lawsuit against him. John, 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.640 Jose told us, was being sued by a former associate 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.440 who claimed that he was owed millions of dollars by John. 0:18:56.280 --> 0:19:02.960 The stakes were extremely high. Were the police acting on 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.280 behalf of someone else, was someone after John? Was there 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.879 a threat of kidnap and abduction? Or were these the 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.199 rantings of a man in shock. Jose says that the 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:20.800 way the police went about the arrest was strange. This 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.000 was totally out of line. That wasn't the proper protocol, 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.119 Jose says. John sued the police in the end, and 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.440 they were all fired. Jose did look into whether there 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.760 had been a kidnapping plot to get him out of 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:39.200 the country, or maybe extortion or blackmail. I personally never 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.840 found any evidence of that, Jose says, but it wasn't 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.360 an extensive investigation. Jose was more focused on setting up 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.320 the security around John and Ann and their property. After all, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:58.560 Jose's job was to protect them. John's theory is that 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.359 people on the ground had been hired to kidnap him 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:06.000 or abduct him, might appear implausible, especially as Jose had 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.240 looked into it and found nothing. Perhaps it was a 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.639 symptom of living in extreme isolation with a wife whose 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.679 health was going downhill, and John was slowly and steadily 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:22.200 detaching from reality. But then we came across a witness 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:26.000 who suggested just the opposite, that John may have had 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:31.040 every reason to be paranoid, testimony which throws a completely 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:35.240 different light on what happened that afternoon at Rosemary's seed farm. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.240 We were given the man's number and told to ring him. 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.960 We had no other information. The man who we're calling, Michael, 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.840 was quite elusive at first, but I eventually got through. 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.119 He didn't want his voice used, so we're using an 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:55.000 actor for his side of the conversation. My audio is 0:20:55.040 --> 0:21:04.080 from the original call. Yes, Oh Hi, My name's Becky Milligan. 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.720 My colleagues and I work for a podcast company and 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.000 we're doing the story about John Bender. First up, I 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.439 asked Michael to explain what he does for a living. 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:16.520 So what would you call yourself? What would how would 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:17.560 you describe your job? 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.679 We're not related to military at all. Really interesting. 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.800 Basically, I don't like the term. 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.600 I don't like the term. What do you call it? 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:31.720 Mercy? 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:37.439 Correct? I don't like that term, but basically that's what 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:37.920 it Is. 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.000 I worked for different governments in the add least for 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.920 many years. I worked for the US, that worked for 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.560 the Israelis, I worked for Spain, and I. 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.320 Was basically a private contractor. 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.280 So wherever the army can't go in or won't go 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.200 in or whatever, they usually said nice so when they 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.959 had a potential intro been a person in particular. 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.000 For whatever reason, obviously. 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.400 It was all related to terrorism and all that, then 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:10.760 we would go in and expect that person and hand 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:12.840 them over to the party that was contracting us. 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:14.800 Are you involved in this sort of work still? 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:18.560 I retired in two thousand and eight, but I still 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:20.480 have some clients in Central America. 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.840 It sounds like a pretty dark and murky world. I 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:27.960 wondered what he was asked to do when it came 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:28.880 to John Bender. 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.800 I was contracted by a third party to kind of 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:36.240 intercept mister Bender and send him to the States. 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:38.000 So we'd worked on. 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:40.960 Intelligence to get mister Bender's whereabouts, and what we did 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.120 we mounted an intervention to kind of capture him. 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.960 The problem was that when he turned up, it seemed 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:50.760 he wasn't the only person interested in John Bender. Why 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:52.160 did you all get there at once? 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:53.199 I don't know. 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:56.600 I don't know if it was a flug or if 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.920 it was coincidence or what happened exactly, But that day 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:03.320 we actually bumped into local law enforce that kind of 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:05.720 equivalent of the FBI Costagla. 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.679 We heard Rosemary and Marco's version of events. This is 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.160 how Michael says it played out on the ground. 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:16.080 Everybody kind of got to the location where we had 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.840 decided to intercept mister Vender, and they didn't know who 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.159 we were either, so it was it was kind of 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:24.480 pretty intense for a few minutes. 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:26.040 I was going to get. 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:29.200 Paid when I got mister Vender, right, so if I 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:32.680 didn't get mister Bender, then I wasn't going to get paid. 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:35.040 I wasn't there to play a round. 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:40.280 Michael, realizing that his mission might now be scuffered, contacted 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:44.159 the contractor, who, by the way, he wouldn't name, and 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:45.800 there was a back and forth. 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:48.760 And at the end of the let's say twenty minutes 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.000 half an hour of the intervention, I was told to 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:53.840 pull back and not intervene. 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:56.440 The contractor said he'd get his money anyway. 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:00.520 This was not foreseene and therefore not my missigue or 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:03.479 my problem. But if they told me you got it 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:04.280 bring him to us. 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:05.520 Then I don't know. 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:09.280 I mean, we were ready for that, but up to up. 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:14.159 To the point. So anyway, very very very very very. 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:18.320 Intense, I asked Michael if he'd been told why his 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.160 employer had asked him to abduct John Bender. 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:26.000 The person that gave us the contract was apparently very 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:30.239 interested in getting mister Bender back to him somehow, so 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:34.080 I guess he was either involved with mister Bender or 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.600 mister Bender owning something, because it was quite obvious that 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:38.080 we were. 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:40.040 Going to intercept mister Bender. 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:43.399 And get him out of the country back to these people. 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:45.240 Sorry, I just want to get this straight to my head. 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:47.080 So were you on your rown? 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:51.200 No? No, I had three people with it. 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:54.359 Oh you had three people too. Do you remember it 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:59.320 quite well, very clearly. Do you know when you were 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:02.640 asked to do this? They did they give you a 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:05.600 reason why? Or I mean, did you know why they 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:08.000