Getaway

Summary

Devil in the Desert: Episode "Getaway" – A Detailed Summary

Release Date: July 15, 2025
Host: Matt Gutman, ABC News

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1. Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "Getaway," ABC News delves deeper into the harrowing saga surrounding the international manhunt for Hossein Nayeri. This installment focuses on the elaborate sting operation that ultimately led to Nyeri's capture, only to reveal unexpected twists that jeopardized the case.

2. Preparing the Sting Operation

The episode opens with Matt Gutman outlining the meticulous planning involved in capturing Hossein Nayeri. Central to this operation is Courtney Shigeria, Nyeri's wife, who transitioned from being a devoted spouse to a crucial informant assisting authorities.

Matt Gutman [03:08]: "The reason Courtney had no choice but to keep picking up the phone was her chance to prove to Newport Beach police detectives that she was on their side."

3. Building Trust and Recording Conversations

Courtney's role required her to maintain daily communications with Nyeri, which were secretly recorded. Utilizing a small handheld recorder, Courtney meticulously taped every conversation, ensuring no detail was missed.

Courtney Shigeria [02:33]: "Why do you say that? What are you talking about?"

Despite Nyeri's mood swings and suspicions, Courtney persevered, understanding the gravity of her cooperation.

4. The Plan to Lure Nyeri to Spain

After months of covert informant work, the detectives devised a plan to entice Nyeri to Spain under the guise of a family vacation. This move was strategic, aiming to exploit Nyeri's trust and compel him to leave Iran.

Courtney Shigeria [07:55]: "She was gonna bring him, you know, like $20,000 in cash and a new cell phone... We're going to get him to get on that plane."

5. International Extradition Efforts

The episode highlights the complexities of international law enforcement collaborations. While Iran is part of the Blue Notice system through Interpol, its reluctance to cooperate necessitated targeting countries like the Czech Republic, renowned for their swift extradition processes.

Matt Murphy [10:54]: "The best countries to extradite from are the former Soviet bloc. And one of them is the Czech Republic..."

6. Nyeri’s Capture in Prague

The meticulously orchestrated plan culminated successfully when Nyeri boarded his flight to Madrid. As anticipated, Czech border police intercepted him in Prague, ensuring his immediate arrest without suspicion.

Matt Gutman [14:54]: "Nyeri made his flight. And just as investigators had planned, Czech border police were there to meet him in Prague, right in the terminal."

7. Aftermath of Capture

With Nyeri in custody, a semblance of normalcy returned to Courtney's life. She returned to California, passed the bar exam, and began her promising legal career, finding solace in the belief that justice had been served.

Courtney Shigeria [17:08]: "It was like cathartic. I felt like for the first time I was safe."

8. Nyeri’s Year in Czech Jail and Divorce

During his year-long imprisonment in the austere Pankratz jail in Prague, Nyeri communicated sporadically with Courtney, culminating in her sending him divorce papers—a final severance of their ties.

Courtney Shigeria [19:23]: "He sent me a birthday card, which was really scary because it meant he knew where I was."

9. The Escape from Orange County Jail

Just as Nyeri was about to stand trial in California, the unthinkable occurred—he orchestrated a daring escape from Orange County Jail. Mimicking techniques from the film "Escape from Alcatraz," Nyeri utilized smuggled tools and exploited the jail's flawed infrastructure to flee.

Matt Gutman [32:26]: "He managed to somehow get a hacksaw blade, actually multiple hacksaw blades, smuggled into the jail. He's got to get through the grate, but do it in a way that he can put the grate back up so nobody can see it."

10. Investigators’ Race to Recapture Nyeri

Following the escape, investigators scrambled to recapture Nyeri and his accomplices. The episode underscores the vulnerabilities within the jail system—overcrowding, understaffing, and outdated facilities—that Nyeri exploited.

Matt Murphy [33:13]: "He managed to tunnel out of his jail cell by accessing the central plumbing system through a grate. It was as though Nyeri used that film as a manual."

11. Challenges and Conclusion

The escape not only reignited fears for public safety but also exposed lapses in the criminal justice system. As authorities raced against time, the episode sets the stage for the concluding segments, hinting at Nyeri's elusive movements and the impending pursuit that would define the next chapter in this chilling narrative.

Courtney Shigeria [39:07]: "Of all the people to escape, this wasn't a guy who stole a car. This is someone who's capable of the most atrocious, heinous acts, and people are in harm's way."

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Closing Remarks

"Getaway" masterfully captures the tension and complexity of an international manhunt, highlighting the personal sacrifices and strategic ingenuity involved in bringing a dangerous criminal to justice. Through poignant interviews and firsthand accounts, the episode offers a compelling glimpse into the relentless pursuit that continues to haunt the investigators.

Transcript

[Matt Gutman]

On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password.

[Courtney Shigeria]

In the family chat or trading those.

[Matt Gutman]

Late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us.

[Courtney Shigeria]

WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[Matt Gutman]

With Courtney Shigeria now actively helping them, investigators had developed a scheme to lure her husband, Hussein Nyeri, out of Iran.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Hello? Hi, babe.

[Matt Gutman]

The plan involved the daily phone calls that had resumed between Courtney and Nyeri.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Hello. Where have you been?

[Matt Gutman]

Every time they spoke without Nyeri knowing it, Courtney would tape every word of their conversations.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I feel great. Are you amazing? Are you drunk? No. You're listening to Bob Marley.

[Matt Gutman]

She had a small handheld recorder about 5 inches long, and she would put her phone on speaker and then hit record. All of it was for the Newport beach police detectives, because as soon as the call was over, Courtney would immediately upload the file and sent it to them.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I have a question. How are you? I am so good. Oh, you do?

[Matt Gutman]

Hundreds of hellos, goodbyes. I love you. The investigators heard them all and applied pressure on Courtney. Get Nairi where we want him.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Are you okay? Dream about me and let's talk about when we're. Let's talk about a plan to see each other. I miss you.

[Matt Gutman]

In the tapes, Nyeri's mood swings wildly.

[Courtney Shigeria]

It's pretty cruel, don't you think? I feel a little bit abandoned by you. If you didn't know that by now.

[Matt Gutman]

He was angry. He was despondent.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Baby, I'm sorry. Why are you crying?

[Matt Gutman]

He was suspicious.

[Courtney Shigeria]

David says what? Tell me. I love you. Tell me. You say that. You don't think I used to know me before? You're not. I'm not the same person that I used to know that you used to know. Why do you say that? What are you talking about?

[Matt Gutman]

No matter which Hussein was at the other end of the line for six months, Courtney had no choice but to pick up the phone.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I love you, Hussain. I don't know what else. Yeah, I thought you were gonna call me. How sense. Please just bypass that. Like I'm your mom or dad.

[Matt Gutman]

Over and over and over.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Get some rest. Love you. Bye. Love you too, honey. Call me later. Thank you. I'll call you. I want to go. I'll talk to you later, okay? I love you. Bye.

[Matt Gutman]

The reason Courtney had no choice but to keep picking up the phone. It was her chance to prove to Newport beach police detectives that she was on their side. She had to help them catch Nyeri or risk being charged alongside him. And she knew that the investigators didn't have a lot of faith in her to get the job done.

[Courtney Shigeria]

They think any, you know, second, I'm going to tip him off. They're like, she's going to be loyal to him. That's how she always is. You know, there's no hope for her.

[Matt Gutman]

She just had to keep going. And as the weeks wore into months, she used those calls to draw Nyeri further and further into the plan that detectives had conjured up. The trap was set. This is how it would work. Courtney would persuade Nyeri to meet her for a vacation. But what he didn't know was that law enforcement would use that trip to lure him out of hiding and arrest him. That's when Nyeri's great escape would come to an end. If investigators could pull it off. From ABC News, this is Devil in the Desert, Episode five, Getaway. When Courtney raised the idea of a vacation with Nyeri, it didn't come out of the blue. Between October of 2012, when he fled to Iran, and May of the following year, when she had her interview with Newport beach police, she had traveled to see him a couple of times. And I asked her about those trips back in 2019. When was the first time you actually went to visit him?

[Courtney Shigeria]

Somewhere in fall. And so, like, I want to say, December of 2012, I went to Turkey to see him. Only for a few days, but they basically just bring him stuff. I mean, everything was just about bringing him whatever it is that he wanted.

[Matt Gutman]

She'd also visited him in Dubai. She brought him medicine, electronics, clothes, and a lot of cash.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I took, like, over $50,000.

[Matt Gutman]

Oh, so not like a few hundred bucks each time. We're talking about money.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Yeah, money. Lots of money.

[Matt Gutman]

These trips all happened before her dad, her lawyer, and investigators sat her down, gave her a come to Jesus moment, told her, help the investigation or face the consequences. After that, Courtney quit Nyeri cold turkey. No calls, no messages, no more trips. But the arrangement with investigators meant that she had to reassume the role of being the faithful wife. And that meant daily phone calls. Only this time, they were recorded. And Newport beach police detectives were listening to every minute. They were looking for suspicious sounds or cuts in the tape.

[Courtney Shigeria]

They.

[Matt Gutman]

They didn't trust Courtney, not entirely. And they wanted to make sure that she wasn't playing double agent. Even Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy was listening in and he began to understand how the relationship had developed the way it had.

[Matt Murphy]

We've all been in romantic relationships. We all know, like, the dynamics of people. And, you know, it, it's a fascinating thing. And you can see almost like, you know, the conversations they'd had. You almost hear that 16 year old girl in some of the communications between them. And, you know, and you can also just, you can, you can just feel the power that this man felt like he had over Courtney. As their communication goes on. And this is, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and I'm still thinking she's going to tip him off.

[Matt Gutman]

Now. Courtney had to plan a new trip with Nyeri, all while pretending that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. First, she had to find a way of introducing the idea naturally. They'd always talked about taking a trip after she took the bar exam. When she did, in the summer of 2013, she reminded Nyere of their plan.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Stakey's dad, the bar is over. It's time for us to start making our plans. And, you know, we got to get, we got to get ourselves together here. Now the bar's over.

[Matt Gutman]

Next, she had to find a place to go to, anywhere to get him out of Iran. But there she had a stroke of luck. Nayri's sister wants to go to Spain. Courtney raised it carefully. This is coming from me, but your sister wants to go to Spain. Courtney offered that as an idea for a group trip.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I propose that we push the Spain trip back. I pushed the Spain trip back with your sister. You meet us in Spain, we spend time all together. You and I can stay later or, and she can go back after two weeks, or you and I can leave and go somewhere else after that. You know what I mean? Whatever. But I think there's massive value. Are you listening to me? I laid that on his sister that she wanted to go there. I was like, you've never been there, you know, okay, that all made sense to him. I mean, I know you're not feeling good, but Hussein, we got. I mean, don't I want to travel with you in Europe? Don't you want to travel with me in Europe? Like, I don't understand the problem here.

[Matt Gutman]

Nayeri agreed to meet Courtney and his sister in Spain in early November 2013. He started requesting the items he wanted the women to bring to him. Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown thought that this was promising. Investigators needed Nyeri to feel like this trip was no different than any of the others.

[Courtney Shigeria]

She was gonna bring him, you know, like $20,000 in cash and a new cell phone. And they were gonna party and enjoy Spain and travel around and, you know, enjoy the sights and be all together again. Cause she missed him so much. And they would FaceTime. And we got your money, babe. And your sister's gonna carry 10. Cause you can only travel with a certain amount of cash on you. And so all that was done in an att. Put his guard down and get him to get on that plane.

[Matt Gutman]

But Courtney's calls were just part of the plan. Matt Murphy was also trying to figure out which country would be willing to help them extradite Nyere if he landed on their soil.

[Matt Murphy]

There's an international thing called Blue notices, which is an international agreement regarding criminal extradition.

[Matt Gutman]

Blue notices are used by Interpol, a cooperative police group with members of all over the world. They help police in different countries trace suspects as they cross borders. Iran is part of the blue notice system. So the normal course of action would be for U.S. officials to contact officials there, ask them to find Nyeri, and keep tabs on him. Then, when they were ready, US Police would issue what's called a red notice. And those Iranian officials would swoop in to arrest Nyere on their behalf. Or at least that's how it should work.

[Matt Murphy]

So Iran technically is a party to this agreement, but everybody knows that they don't answer to American law enforcement. In fact, they sort of delight in sticking their thumb in the eye of, you know, police officers here.

[Matt Gutman]

That's why investigators needed Nyere to get out of Iran and into a country that would help the US With a quick extradition. As it turned out, when they started looking at countries near Spain, it wasn't a very long list.

[Matt Murphy]

The UK Is really bad about extraditing criminals back to the United States, and so is France.

[Matt Gutman]

France had a track record here, actually. In the 1970s, a man named Ira Einhorn murdered his girlfriend in Philadelphia. He skipped bail and headed to France. It took 20 years for France to send Ira Einhorn back to face justice. Investigators had to be careful not to make an Einhorn out of Nyere. Matt Murphy learned that Spain wasn't a slam dunk for extradition either. So he started talking to FBI attaches, people who do exactly this type of extradition work for a living. He needed to know where was a good place to send Nyere for the quickest, easiest extradition. And he learned something surprising.

[Matt Murphy]

Lo and behold, the best countries to extradite from are the former Soviet bloc. And one of them is the Czech Republic, which is actually Prague is a big hub for people flying into Europe from the middle east, and I didn't know that.

[Matt Gutman]

The investigators made contact with officials in the Czech Republic, and after months of back and forth, Czech police agreed to help. Now, here was the plan. Nayeri would fly from Iran with a planned stopover in the Czech capital, Prague. And as he stepped off the airplane looking for his onward connection to Madrid and, of course, his vacation with Courtney, armed Czech border police would arrest him. It was complicated, and it all hinged on everyone playing their part perfectly, including Courtney, who, after six months of informant work, flew to Spain in late October of 2013, completely oblivious to the plan taking place. Right under her nose was Nyere's sister, who had come along, too. And the women had a whole itinerary planned While they waited for Nyeri to meet them. They went to see flamenco dancers in Seville, Picasso paintings in Malaga. On the surface, it was the trip of a lifetime. Underneath, Courtney was frantic. Were you nervous?

[Courtney Shigeria]

Oh, I was just sick every day.

[Matt Gutman]

Courtney liked Nyere's sister, but now she was constantly lying to her, acting as though Nyeri would be joining them in a couple of days. Having his sister with her also posed a new problem. She couldn't record her daily phone calls with Nyeri. What would his sister think if she saw Courtney set her mini recorder every time her brother called? From the perspective of investigators back in California, these days were critical. Everything was riding on Nyeri getting on that plane from Iran, and now Courtney was on the dark side of the moon. No signals coming back. They just had to wait and rely on the thin bridge of trust they had built with her. Nayeri was supposed to leave Iran early in the morning of November 7, 2013. But in the hours leading up to the flight, Courtney started to get a bad feeling. He was uncharacteristically quiet.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I kept calling him, calling him. He's not answering. I'm like, oh, my God, he's not going on this plane. Everyone's going to think I tipped him off. You know, I'm thinking to myself, all of this work that I've done is going down the drain. Everyone's going to think that I tipped him off and I hadn't. I mean, my heart is pounding out of my chest, and, you know, everyone's like, have you heard from him? Have you heard from him? Is he on the plane? No answer, no answer. I'm thinking, oh, my God, this is like the worst possible scenario. Finally, he calls me, and I'll never forget, I was at an outdoor restaurant, and he's like, oh, I'm so sorry. I overslept. It's okay. I'm driving myself to the airport right now. I'll be there. I'll see you, you know, very soon. And I just. Okay, I can't wait to see. See you.

[Matt Gutman]

Nyeri made his flight. And just as investigators had planned, Czech border police were there to meet him in Prague, right in the terminal. They immediately arrested him. There's a picture of this moment. Nyeri's face and shoulders from the side, staring straight ahead. It was an image that Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy thought a lot about in the years after this moment.

[Matt Murphy]

He thinks that he's going to meet his beautiful young wife in Spain. And instead, what Hussein Nairi gets, it's a bunch of hard nosed, no nonsense Czech border police with one of those police dogs. Not the reception that he was looking for. And they arrested him. And there's a photo of him in line as he. As he learned that, oh, my God, I'm being arrested. And it is awesome. And it's like. And at that moment, this diabolical genius that put together this whole thing, despite his mistakes, this guy who'd hurt so many people, we knew we had outsmarted him.

[Matt Gutman]

Nyere was taken for processing by the Czech police. They told him there and then that the reason he was detained was because of his suspected involvement in a kidnapping in California the year before. An FBI agent came to see him and told him, honestly, I don't know what your rights are here. He read him his American rights and asked him, did you have anything to do with his kidnapping? Nyeri said, no. Did he know the police were looking for him? No. Again, Nyeri answered the FBI agent's questions and only offered one of his own. Could he tell Courtney that he has been detained? Little did he realize his wife already knew. What was that feeling like?

[Courtney Shigeria]

I mean, it was such a relief.

[Matt Gutman]

With Nyeri safely in custody and after a half a year of informant work, Courtney could finally relax.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I mean, it was like cathartic. I felt like for the first time I was safe. I felt like people believed me. I think it was Heather Brown asked like, oh, how's, you know, how's Courtney doing? And maybe said something like, oh, you know, we're proud of her. Something positive, you know, in that first positive thing I had heard for that six months, which I totally understand why, but I just felt such like a. Like, oh, my God, okay, everyone believes me. Like, they. They understand. I. It felt like a step in the right direction.

[Matt Gutman]

After Nyeri was arrested, there was a Period of calm. Courtney was back in California. She just passed the bar and was beginning a promising law career. Without Nyeri, her whole life was reopening around her. While Nyeri was taken to Pankratz, a Victorian era jail in Prague that looks like a fortress. Inside, the cells were cramped, the beds rusty old, and prisoners were locked in their rooms for up to 23 hours a day. Hot showers were permitted only twice a week, but were limited to five minutes at a time. And that was where Nyere waited for nearly a year while his extradition to the US Was processed. While he was in the Czech jail, Nayeri wrote to Courtney. He said he was worried sick because he hadn't heard from her. He told her he loved her more than anything. Eventually, he did get a message from her, but not the one he was expecting. Courtney sent a package. Inside were divorce papers. When his extradition was finally arranged, Nyeri was sent back to California to face trial. While he waited for his court date, they booked him into the Orange County Jail. He was back where he started, just 15 miles from the house where Michael and Mary were kidnapped. Even less from the house he had shared with Courtney as newlyweds. What did it feel like to have Hussein Ieri back just a few miles from where you're living?

[Courtney Shigeria]

Scary. But I mean, you know, it was scary. He sent me a birthday card, which was really scary because it meant he knew where. Yeah, he met. He knew where I was. And his lawyer at the time called where I was working and, you know, tried to get me to talk to him. And that felt really invasive and scary and like, oh, my God, they're reaching out. And I assumed that they didn't know at that time. They hadn't received all the information about the fact that I had worked with law enforcement. And I knew that was coming. And I thought, oh, my God, all of this attempt is now going to turn into massive hatred. As soon as that happens, Nyeri knowing.

[Matt Gutman]

About Courtney's involvement in his capture was inevitable. It's how cases like these work. The defense team is entitled to ask for evidence that the government has gathered against them, and the government has to hand it over. It's called the Brady Rule. The Brady materials would include Courtney's proffer and. And the taped phone calls. The day was going to come when Nyeri would know everything. Courtney had talked about it with one of the police officers, Detective Crawman, while they were planning the Prague sting operation.

[Courtney Shigeria]

And I said to him, I said, you know, if Hussein ever finds out or when he finds out, that I, that I've done all this and I've been recording him and this was all a setup for him to get arrested. You know, if he ever gets out, he's going to kill me. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind, like, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm done. If he ever finds out and he has the chance, he'll kill me. And, you know, Detective Coleman was like, well, he's, you know, he's not going to get out. You don't have to worry about that.

[Matt Gutman]

After the birthday card in the fall of 2014, Courtney didn't hear from Nyeri again. Date for the trial was set February 23, 2016. Heather Brown and Matt Murphy had been working long hours to get their case ready. Murphy had been involved in hundreds of cases at this point in his career, over a hundred trials. But Nyeri had gotten under his skin and he wanted to get everything just right. And by late January of 2016, it looked like things were finally falling into place. Until all of a sudden, they weren't.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I was laying there in bed at night and it was probably around midnight and I had fallen asleep with my cell phone on my chest and I felt, you know, my phone vibrate. And when I looked at my text, it was Ryan Peters. And when I read that text that said Hossein Nayeri and two others just escaped from Orange County Jail, I sprang out of bed and I was literally like, oh, my God, are you kidding me right now?

[Matt Gutman]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

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[Matt Gutman]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

Old Jonathan Chu and 43 year old.

[Matt Gutman]

Bok Young were all awaiting trial for violent copy crimes.

[Courtney Shigeria]

The Sheriff's department calls it a well planned escape.

[Matt Gutman]

Obviously if you have seen these people, we would ask that you call our.

[Matt Murphy]

Hotline or more importantly, if you see.

[Matt Gutman]

Them, call 91 1. The jail officers checked the beds and belongings of the missing men and they found something shocking. On Nyeri's bunk they discovered two pieces of paper, just ordinary printer paper. On one was a picture of Matt Murphy, on the other of Heather Brown. Prisoners do not have unrestricted access to the Internet or computers and certainly not color printers. These pictures, they required planning and people on the outside that were willing to help Nyeri. It was a message to the very people who were supposed to face him in court a few weeks later. Now a court date was the least of their worries. Heather and Matt were woken up in the middle of the night and taken down to the DA's office. They were told they'd be sending officers to watch their homes. That's when it really dawned on Heather. They were in danger.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Oh my God. Like he could come after me. That was a really frightening moment for me and my family. It was, it kind of just shook, you know, me a bit. You know, I was sitting there with a loaded gun worried, you know, he's going to pop out of the bushes or something and you know, hurt my children or me and take pleasure in it. And that was frightening.

[Matt Gutman]

As scared as Heather was for her family, there was one person she worried about more.

[Courtney Shigeria]

I was terrified for Courtney.

[Matt Gutman]

Heather knew that by now Nyeri's defense had access to the evidence files. Nyeri would know that the stopover in Prague and his year in Czech jail was part of a plan carried out by the woman he loved Heather. Asked, has anyone called Courtney yet?

[Courtney Shigeria]

Called her? No answer. I called her attorney. No answer. I left messages. I ended up calling the lapd and I asked if they could send a unit over to her house to, like, wake her up and tell her to get out of Dodge. Police knock on my door, Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. This is like 5:30 in the morning at my apartment. I didn't even look at my phone. I just got up and I, you know, went to the door and I opened the door. There's two officers there. They're like, can we talk to Courtney Shigerian? That's me. Do you know Hossein Nayeri? Of course. Well, did you know that he escaped from jail? And I became hysterical. I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe this. I'm losing my mind.

[Matt Gutman]

The officers told her, get dressed. You're coming with us. Courtney went down to the station where she sat in the police department kitchenette waiting to hear something, anything about where Nyeri was. There was a TV on the wall and we, when they turned it on, Nayeri's mugshot filled the screen.

[Courtney Shigeria]

This is like, all that's rolling back and forth is, is all of this, you know, on the news. My brother, you know, comes and my, my dad comes and we're, we're just. No one knows what to do.

[Matt Gutman]

And you're still sitting in the police station?

[Courtney Shigeria]

Yeah, we're sitting at the police station.

[Matt Gutman]

Because that's the only place that people think is safe enough for you.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Everyone's like, don't go. You can't go home.

[Matt Gutman]

So she didn't. She ended up checking into a hotel. He knew where she lived, where she worked. Everywhere was dangerous. While Courtney waited, investigators tried to understand how Nyeri had escaped again. There are some things that became very public in the days after the escape. One was the geography of the Orange County Jail. For a start, the jail is smack in the downtown area of Santa Ana, a city that has been swallowed by the sprawling edges of greater Los Angeles. It's a five story block of brutalist cubes arranged next to each other. No visible windows, just sharp corners of beige concrete. The second thing that people got to know about the jail were the issues of overcrowding it had been facing. In the months before the escape, state inmates had been transferred into county jails across California, and Orange county was no different. The jail was understaffed, overcrowded, and struggling to cope. Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said that the third thing that everyone learned about the jail was about its plumbing. System.

[Matt Murphy]

In every jail cell, there's a toilet and a sink, which means in every prison or jail, there's some system where. Where plumbers can get in behind the cells and work on pipes and valves and whatever else is required for plumbing. And Orange County Jail is no different. It was built in the 60s and it's old. And he's in this dormitory that I think used to be a gymnasium, and there's bunk beds in there, and his bed is right next to a frigging grate. And Hussein Nayiri pulled an escape from Alcatraz.

[Matt Gutman]

Escape from Alcatraz. It was a 1979 Clint Eastwood film where the main character manages to tunnel out of his jail cell by accessing the central plumbing system through a grate. It was as though Nyeri used that film as a manual. First, he smuggled in a hacksaw blade to cut through the grate behind his bed. The three escapees then squeezed into a maintenance shaft, which they used to climb up onto a big flat section of the roof. Then, using bed sheets knotted together, they rappelled down the building and into the outside world. Murphy says that this part of the plan, this is the real reason it works so well.

[Matt Murphy]

Nobody's thinking that we have to guard the roof against somebody escaping from one of these dorms. So, like getting out on the ground level, there's a million safeguards. But going up into the sky is not something that the facility was really designed to prevent.

[Matt Gutman]

The whole process took months. And once again, even though there were three escapees involved, investigators thought it had all the hallmarks of a Hussein Nayeri masterminded plan. It involved cunning, and though Matt Murphy hates to hand it to him, and intelligence to pull it off.

[Matt Murphy]

He managed to somehow get a hacksaw blade, actually multiple hacksaw blades, in, smuggled into the jail. We still don't know how. He's got to. He's got to figure out the routine of the sheriffs. He's got to figure out how often the count is. He's got to get through the grate, but do it in a way that he can put the grate back up so nobody can see it. He's got to make sure that nobody in the dormitory rats him out. Which means he's got to get. First of all, he's going to intimidate everybody else in this dorm because every single person in there had to know what he was doing. Okay. I mean, I hate to say it, I hate to compliment on it. What he did is brilliant.

[Matt Gutman]

The escape route and the methods Were obvious. But there was one question that remained unanswered.

[Matt Murphy]

I mean, Heather and I wanted to know, how in God's name did this guy get our photographs in the jail?

[Matt Gutman]

For that part of the plan, Nayeri had help. Investigators discovered that Nayeri had taken English as a second language classes, 240 hours of them during his time in the jail. For a person who'd been speaking English fluently for 20 years, it seemed unusual.

[Matt Murphy]

Nyeri had managed to manipulate an ESL teacher in the jail and basically got her to fall in love with them.

[Matt Gutman]

The ESL teacher was arrested and questioned about her role in the escape. She told police, I did help Nayeri. She said that she was the one who printed the pictures that he left on his bed. He also asked her for a screenshot of Google Maps showing the aerial view of the jail, which she gave him. But she didn't know it was for an escape. She said he told her was because he wanted to see how close his lawyer's office was. It was across the street from the jail, but really it allowed Nyeri to map his route over the roof. But she said she didn't give him any of the tools used for the escape. In fact, when n asked for a cell phone, she refused. Investigators had to decide how much they could believe the story she was telling.

[Matt Murphy]

Sheriffs are very interested in potentially prosecuting this woman who appears to have helped Nyeri escape. And what they're basing that on are a series of letters that were also found in Nyeri's stuff.

[Matt Gutman]

They were love letters, apparently written by the ESL teacher. They talked about her hopes for the future together. It seemed incriminating, like, why wouldn't you try to help your boyfriend escape from jail if you love him this much?

[Matt Murphy]

Something about the letter struck my eye, and the handwriting looked familiar to me. And it's like, wait a minute. Where have I seen this before?

[Matt Gutman]

Murphy dug through the case file for the kidnapping, and he found what he was looking for. Nyeri's journals, seized in one of the police searches. Murphy placed the letters that were signed by the ESL teacher next to the journals.

[Matt Murphy]

And I compare them, and immediately it is obvious these letters that were left for law enforcement to find were actually written by Hussein Nairi. They made it look like the ESL teacher helped him escape.

[Matt Gutman]

The ESL teacher was released with no charges. Investigators chalked her up not as an accomplice, but rather another victim of Nyeri's charm offensive.

[Matt Murphy]

So if there isn't a little vignette into the mind of this vindictive guy. As soon as, like, he manipulates her, he makes her think that he loves her. He gets her to do his bidding up to the point where she's like, wait a second, you want to self. And she refused to do it. And then he f's her over on his way out the door. That is Hussein Nayri.

[Matt Gutman]

That is Hussein Nayeri. Or rather, it was because even though the investigators knew how he escaped, he was still gone, and they had no idea how to get him back. And as the hours passed, the race was on to find Nyeri and the other escapees. And before they could do any more harm, or before Nyere managed to cross international borders again.

[Matt Murphy]

Orange county is located about two hours from the Mexican border.

[Matt Gutman]

Deputy district attorney Matt Murphy is from Southern California. He knows how long it takes to get from the jail to the border. About two hours, two and a half if you're driving slow.

[Matt Murphy]

Embassy not just a.

[Matt Gutman]

And he also knows that in Mexico, there is an Iranian embassy in his mind ready to accept Nyeri with open arms.

[Matt Murphy]

Okay, so there is no way in my mind that this guy is not on a plane back to Tehran eating peanuts and laughing.

[Matt Gutman]

But they didn't go south to Mexico. They went north.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Of all the people to escape, this wasn't a guy who stole a car. This is someone who's capable of the most atrocious, heinous acts, and people are in harm's way.

[Matt Gutman]

Nyeri filmed a good portion of the escape. We had this footage, and we thought, how do. How could we get this out there? That's next on the final episode of Devil in the Desert.

[Courtney Shigeria]

Foreign.

[Matt Gutman]

Devil in the Desert is a production of ABC Audio, ABC News Studios in 2020. Hosted by me, Matt Gutman. This series was produced by Madeline Wood, Amy Padula, and Kiara Powell. Our supervising producer is Susie Liu. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks thanks to Liz Alessi, Katie Dendas, Janice Johnston, Eamon McNiff, Jake Lefferman, Katie Muldowney, Chris Donovan, and Michelle Margulies. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Laura Mayer is our executive producer. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along. Which is why you should try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com zip. ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. Its powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job, you get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies companies might deliver a lot of hay, ZipRecruiter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the Haystack. See why 4 out of 5 employers.

[Matt Murphy]

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[Courtney Shigeria]

Liberty our WNBA champion. We can't get enough of the wnba. A fresh draft class has arrived. Dallas Wings select Paige Beckers. Teams stacked with new talent. Julia's a complete dog. The Valkyries take flight in the bay. We've got more stars and more heat than ever. WNBA on espn presented by Google. We can't get enough.