Surviving 33 Years in Prison: Roger Reaves' Shocking Tale | Roger Reaves DSH #1169

Summary

Digital Social Hour: Surviving 33 Years in Prison – Roger Reeves' Shocking Tale | Episode #1169

Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Roger Reeves
Release Date: February 8, 2025

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1. Introduction to Roger Reeves

In this gripping episode of Digital Social Hour, host Sean Kelly welcomes Roger Reeves, a man whose tumultuous life journey led him to spend 33 years in prison. Roger's story is a raw and unfiltered exploration of ambition, survival, and the harsh consequences of a life entwined with international drug trafficking.

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2. Early Life and Struggles in Georgia

Roger begins by recounting his upbringing on a 100-acre farm in Georgia, where his family struggled financially due to his father's alcoholism and mounting debts. From a young age, Roger took on responsibilities to support his family, working in a grocery store from the age of 14.

Roger Reeves [02:19]: "I was $78,000 in debt. I thought, we're going to lose a farm for sure."

This dire financial situation pushed Roger towards seeking better opportunities, ultimately leading him to Canada in hopes of higher earnings.

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3. First Foray into Risky Ventures

At 18, Roger hitchhiked to Canada to work on a tobacco farm, where he encountered a harrowing experience at a carnival that would mark the beginning of his descent into criminal activities.

Roger Reeves [05:44]: "I grabbed the top of that cage and I kicked that bear with all my might... He went back up there and I run into him as hard as I could... That bear went insane."

This event not only showcased Roger's resilience but also his turning point towards a life on the run, setting the stage for his future endeavors.

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4. Transition to Moonshine and Incident Leading to Arrest

Back in Georgia, facing mounting debts from his farm, Roger turned to making moonshine whiskey as a means to save his family. His growing success in the moonshine business, however, attracted unwanted attention, leading to a violent encounter that eventually resulted in his arrest.

Roger Reeves [12:46]: "I learned after the first time, right before you have to breathe, act like that, go into a frenzy."

Roger's experience with law enforcement during this period highlighted the thin line he walked between success and downfall.

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5. Expansion into International Drug Smuggling

Despite his initial arrest and brief stint on parole, Roger's ambition propelled him into the international drug trade. He established himself as a significant player in marijuana smuggling, operating out of various countries including Mexico and Colombia. His operations were marked by daring flights, strategic landings, and intense confrontations with law enforcement agencies.

Roger Reeves [17:10]: "That's how I started. That's marijuana business."

Roger's narrative provides an insider's view of the complexities and dangers inherent in the world of international drug trafficking.

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6. Notable Alliances and Rivalries

A central figure in Roger's story is Barry Seal, a fellow smuggler whose actions significantly impacted Roger's trajectory. Their partnership was both profitable and perilous, culminating in Barry's assassination—a turning point that underscored the volatile nature of their enterprise.

Roger Reeves [75:41]: "Barry was assassinated. Shot in the parking lot."

The episode delves into the intricate web of alliances, betrayals, and the constant threat of violence that defined Roger's life during this period.

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7. Capture, Trial, and Sentencing

Roger's relentless activities eventually caught up with him, leading to his arrest upon returning to the United States. Charged with a "continuing criminal enterprise," he faced severe penalties, including potential life imprisonment. Despite his efforts to mitigate his situation through legal avenues, the court rendered a harsh sentence.

Roger Reeves [70:53]: "He said, but I'm going to send a message to society. So he put me on 25 years special parole, five years probation, five years in prison."

Roger's courtroom experiences reflect the stern stance of the legal system against entrenched drug trafficking networks.

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8. Life Behind Bars

Spending decades in various prisons, Roger shares harrowing accounts of abuse, torture, and the psychological toll of incarceration. Despite the grim circumstances, his resilience and reflections offer profound insights into human endurance and the complexities of rehabilitation.

Roger Reeves [33:59]: "That's the first of five prisons."

His vivid descriptions paint a stark picture of prison life, emphasizing the challenges he faced both physically and mentally.

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9. Personal Reflections and Legacy

Throughout the episode, Roger emphasizes the profound impact his experiences had on his life and family. A particularly moving moment is when his daughter, Miriam, shares a heartfelt poem, underscoring the personal cost of his life choices.

Miriam Reeves [82:04]:
"Happy birthday to you... Your love has surpassed all my wrongs... I love you, Daddy, with all of your wrongs and your rights."

This poetic interlude serves as a poignant reminder of the human connections entwined with Roger's tumultuous journey.

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10. Conclusion: A Complex Legacy

Roger Reeves' story is one of complexity—marked by ambition, survival, and the relentless pursuit of a better life, albeit through illicit means. His candid recounting provides listeners with a multifaceted understanding of the factors that drive individuals into the depths of criminal enterprises and the profound consequences that follow.

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Notable Quotes:

• Roger Reeves [02:19]: "I thought, we're going to lose a farm for sure."
• Roger Reeves [05:44]: "That bear went insane."
• Roger Reeves [17:10]: "That's how I started. That's marijuana business."
• Roger Reeves [75:41]: "Barry was assassinated. Shot in the parking lot."
• Roger Reeves [82:04]: Miriam's poem highlighting familial love and sacrifice.

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Additional Resources:

• Roger Reeves' Book: The Big White Lie, the CIA and the Crack Cocaine Epidemic
  Link to book (Please replace with actual link when available.)

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Closing Thoughts:

Roger Reeves' harrowing tale serves as a stark commentary on the allure and peril of the drug trade, the relentless pursuit by law enforcement, and the profound personal costs borne by individuals and their families. This episode of Digital Social Hour is a must-listen for those seeking an unvarnished look into a life lived on the edge.

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If you found Roger's story compelling, be sure to subscribe to Digital Social Hour for more in-depth conversations with some of the world's most controversial and thought-provoking figures.

Transcript

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[Roger Reeves]

And put handcuffs on me and they put me in jail. They put me to the jail, let me stop by and I remember Goyan shirt and I got some clothes on. They took me to the jailhouse and they just put me in with a prisoner there, a big nasty prisoner. And he took a blackjack and robbed me of my 300.

[Sean]

All right, guys, we got Roger Reeves here today. Come a long way from the South. Let's go.

[Roger Reeves]

Thank you, Sean.

[Sean]

Absolutely. You grew up in the south, right?

[Roger Reeves]

In Georgia, Yeah.

[Sean]

How long were you there?

[Roger Reeves]

26 years.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

I'm 27, so that's my whole life. What made you want to move out?

[Roger Reeves]

Well, the bloodhounds was after me. The sheriff arrested me.

[Sean]

You got ran out of there and.

[Roger Reeves]

The ever, ever three months, the. What do you call it? The circuit judge came through and they have the 24 men for them to decide where they got enough to make a bill from you. I was around here in the soda fountain shaking everybody's hand. Remember me? I'm William Reeves's son, you know. And the lawyer grabbed me, said, get out of here, boy. You get more trouble trouble interfering with the grandeur and you ever will without whiskey.

[Sean]

So that's when your life on the ran began. 26.

[Roger Reeves]

Well, not I. We went on the run because they didn't indict me. But that's the I. I might have to back up here and just tell the whole story. Yeah, let's Do a little bit. All right. I. I was raised on a three mule farm in Georgia. We had. Tobacco was about the only thing made any money. The other stuff we worked hard. Peanuts and cotton and some corn. And one was 100 acre farm. And my daddy was a bad alcoholic and so we, we live poor than we should have. And I worked in the grocery store from the time I was 14 years old until about 18. And my daddy was 54 years old and I was 17. He died just one day, had an aneurysm and seven little brothers and sisters. Had a baby sister six weeks old in the house with my mother. She was beautiful. 41 years old and he owed more money on the farm than it was worth. So we went to work. I mean my mother, we. We went to work and we grew tobacco mainly. What should we paid it out in watermelons and. But when I got 18, I, I went up to Canada. I hitchhiked up there to crop tobacco, picking tobacco. Transit farm worker was 1100 miles and they paid $20 a day in room and board up there. And in Georgia he only made $3 or $4 a day, whatever you could get. And I went up there and oh, big tobacco farm, beautiful big Belgium drill, draft horses. And I'd pick my foot up. One footage down behind me and their nostrils was on me all day long. And I was, I was tough from working on farm in Georgia and he didn't bother me. So after we went into the crop a couple of weeks, boys came over from another farm, said, you want to go to the carnival tonight? Sure, I want to go to a carnival. So We've got a 1949 Ford and away we went to Tiltsenburg, Ontario, Canada. I don't know how far it was. 50 miles. And we got there and it was a huge fair carnival, big tents. It was. The first thing was the hoochie coochie show. I'd never seen anything like that. Went in for our 50 cents and going down the road a little bit and there was a huge man on the platform and he's got a little bear in a cage over there in a circus wagon and he's saying brand new five, $100 bill that anybody got guts enough to wrestle my bear and get in that cage and get all four feet off the ground. What's your name, young man, honey? Roger Reeves. How much you weigh, Roger? I weigh 145 pound. 145 pound man against 600 pound beast. And he threw me in that cage with that little bear, that little bear wasn't little at all. When he started getting up. He got up all over that circus wagon and he had big pads on his feet, on his hands and legs and he had a muzzle on I wasn't too much worried about. So I ran into that bear, swam on and all the things was loose. It made a lot of noise for the crowd. That bear took one swipe at me and laid me out about 6ft tall level and I hit the ground. Wow. In the crowd here, who sick him? Roger. I'm not on my feet again before I'm laid out the other way.

[Sean]

Jeez.

[Roger Reeves]

So I thought something's gotta change. So I grabbed the top of that cage and I kicked that bear with all my might with my shoes on right head. He went back up there and I run into him as hard as I could. And I mean I had, I knocked him off his feet for sure.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

That bear went insane.

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[Roger Reeves]

He threw me 20ft into the other corner of that art. I never had the breath knocked out of me so hard. He dove on me I think weighed 600 pounds.

[Sean]

Holy crap.

[Roger Reeves]

And he just tore my clothes off with him, with him like Paul's. And the owner of the place came in, put a kit chain on him, snapped him on and ran it back. And the bear run over him. The chain got caught and part of the tent came down. He stick them anyway I couldn't work for a couple of days so I went down to anyhow, the lake there in Canada, Lake Erie, Turkey Point. And I walked down on a long wooden pier and some guys tried to show me in. I kind of throwed him in a little bit. And on that day there was three pretty girls sitting on towels. And as I walked by, I just kind of tipped my hat. Wow, she's a heart stopper. And when I came back, she said, is that a university ring? I said, no, this is a high school ring. She said, we don't get high school rings in Canada. May I see it? I said, you're from the Netherlands, aren't you? She said, sit down here and tell me how you know about Dutch accents. I knew one person in the world that that accent and anyhow, that's my wife. Now that was 64 years ago.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So I throw that in. So a couple of years later we got married and I was. I got a job on the railroad driving trains. Firemen on diesel electric on the Atlantic coastline railroad. And I better back up a little bit. Yes, I want to tell. I forgot about when we came. We went to my daddy's funeral. And when we came out of the church, the church was packed with white people. And out under all the trees they were just a multitude of black people. The men with the hat over there saying goodbye to Mr. William. He was loved really. Really. My daddy was a nice man. Anyway, when we. When we going home down the sandy road from the highway, there were two records. One had our pickup truck, the other one held our tractor behind it, and they was towing it away. Fosky Auto Parts Douglas, Georgia. What? That guy was three times big as I am in his overalls. Like Mr. Reeves owed us some money on this, so we got it.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

So that's. That's how bad it was. Anyhow, I just wanted to put that out. So we were just devastated. No tractor, no way to go, no money. So now it's when I went up to Canada and worked and come back. And a couple of years later, I went up in. Got Mari and we got married and. And came on back to the farm. And I borrowed money against the farm. My mother signed for me and we put in 36,000 lay in chickens. And the price of feed kept going up and the price of eggs kept going down, till every time we'd pick up a dozen eggs, we lost a nickel. So I was $78,000 in debt.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

I thought, we're going to lose a farm for sure. So I started making moonshine whiskey. And I got bigger and bigger until I was making a thousand gallons a week.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

And selling at $3 a gallon. It took a dollar to make it. So I was making $2,000 a week. I was paying things off. And then somebody turned me in. And I went by and going to the still, I had the truck loaded with sugar and condensers and barrels, and I saw a car in a place it wasn't supposed to be. And I went down that little side road and two of them got after me. And I went over logs and through the swamp and through the woods. Finally I jumped out and ran and eight doors open and those men shot the empty their pistols at me. I got nicked across the neck right there. Wasn't bad, but. And then I had to. I went into Horse Creek, the big Horse Creek. And it was so cold till I broke ice getting in it.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

And I must have swim down that creek two miles getting away from him. And I go away from them, the bulldogs. And I knew there's going to be there soon. And I walked to my mother's house. And then I went to see a lawyer and he said, if they didn't catch you, you all right. But they didn't indict me. So, um, I was arrested for it. That was the first thing. And I think with that, that I saw how easy it was to break the law. And if nobody knows, you in pretty good shape. So I think that was the beginning of my criminal career right there. If I hadn't done that, I would have never got into the Drug business.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

So that didn't stop you from making moonshine.

[Roger Reeves]

I quit making moonshine. So I went on that. I. There was nothing for me in Georgia. I lost my job with a railroad. They fired me because I made the moonshine. And so I went out to California and I worked for a couple years in construction. And then I got a job on the Redondo Beach Fire Department. And I thought I had won the lottery. I really did. And so I drove. I spent most of the four years that I was on the fire department driving the back of a hook and ladder truck. And on my days off, we only worked 10 days a month, and we worked 24 hours a day. So we got 20 days off. I would go back to Missouri and buy antiques. There was a lot of them there. On. On the west side of the Mississippi river is. The settlers would come. The people go into California and Oregon. They would come with their furniture and their dishes and stoves. But when they cross the river from getting off the train, they got across the river, they couldn't get it in those wagons. Those wagons were Studebakers. There's nobody much knows that. And there's later prairie schooners, but that's what came across. And they couldn't get half their furniture in it. So millions of large pieces was left on the river there. And I'd get semi trucks and bring it back every month and have an auction. I was making pretty good money and owned the fire department. And so I bought an airplane. Then I bought a bedroom and another one. And I just. My hobby was to fly. So I'd fly down to Mexico and Mulahi particularly, and Mari would come with me and the babies with us, and she would lay in a hammock and read a book. I'd go fishing. And she potty trained the babies there and says, guy said, why don't you bring some marijuana back with you? I said, I don't know anything about that, mister. What. What's the deal? I said, it's the hottest thing since pancakes, man. There is nothing, nothing better than that. I said, what did it pay? Said, I'll introduce you to some. Someone. So he introduced me to a really nice guy. Really. He was paralyzed. I didn't realize he couldn't walk. Beautiful voice. And he said, you got an airplane, you bring some pot back. I said, I don't know. What would you pay? He said, let me bring somebody. So he called, somebody came over, I'll give you $10,000.

[Sean]

Wow, for one trip?

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. I said, throw some of that shit in there, that was about two years pay take home from the fire department at the time. So I went down in. It was nothing to it. They put the bales of marijuana in there, and I flew it up and unloaded and give it to them. They gave me a shopping bag full of money. I took it home, dumped it on the bed. Mari put her hand over a mouth, what? And the babies grabbed $100 bills and crawling around, and we just laughed and went out to dinner. And I thought, this can't be real. That's two years pay. You could buy any house there in Torrance or redondo beach for $30,000 at that time.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So I went to see a criminal defense attorney. Question. And I put a hundred dollar bill on his desk. And I said, Mr. Lawyer, one question. What would happen if I got caught bringing pot from Mexico in my airplane? He said, what's your criminal history? I don't have one. He said, oh, ticket. Speeding tickets. I said, mister, I've never had a parking ticket in my life. He said, what? He said, you'll get probation and you work on the fire department. I said, yes, sir. He says, you'll get probation at the very, very worst. If you got the worst judge in town, you get one year and you spend four months raking leaves at some base, some camp. So I went and asked somebody else, and it's about the same thing. There was nothing to it. So I went and bought me a bigger airplane. I took that money and bought me a Cessna 207. That thing was big to me. And now I can bring 1100 pounds and I'm making $40,000. And so I was gonna make 300,000 to go to the farm. I made 300,000 so quick that it wouldn't. Wasn't even funny. And Mari says, roger, you don't remember the mosquitoes and the ticks and the rattlesnakes and cottonmouth moccasins in the hard work. I'm not going back. So she put her heels in the ground. We didn't. We didn't go back. So I just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

And that's how it started.

[Roger Reeves]

That was how it started. That's marijuana business.

[Sean]

And you ended up becoming the biggest drug smuggler of all time, right? International.

[Roger Reeves]

That's what they claimed it.

[Sean]

That's what they say online.

[Roger Reeves]

That's what the DEA said.

[Sean]

Yeah. When did it start getting serious? You'd say, like, it started getting kind of risky and your life was on the line.

[Roger Reeves]

Well, it was it came all of a sudden. I was. I was at 207. I. I'll do a load every day. And Mari would go to the store and buy Toys R Us. She'd buy little toys and put boxes of apples and candies and everything she could think of for the children of that poor, poor village of called Peachy Lingi. And every day I land, more and more children were showing up. So I was Mr. Santa Claus Gun. I didn't zone on number 13. I thought, oh, I had a little thing going off inside, like, don't do it.

[Sean]

Gut feeling.

[Roger Reeves]

Now I listened to it at that time I knew, but I didn't listen. Now I will run. So I landed and stopped about halfway down to run. I think the Runway was 8 or 900ft long. It was just enough to take off empty with fuel. And I must have stopped about halfway down. And the men came out and we fueled the airplane up. And then I walked to the village through the starving donkeys and the washed out roads. And at the night there. And the next, next morning before daylight, I walked down the river and brushed my teeth. River's about knee deep. And I got in the airplane and a young man named Pedro get in with me. And he was maybe £100. And he would fly with me. And we'd go maybe 30 or 40 miles away to some highway. And when I come, a truck would come out and block the traffic. Had the guys with the guns on it. Then way down there, a mile or two down, another truck would come across and block the highway. Freeway, big road. And I'd land between them and the truck would come up with a marijuana. They put, put eleven hundred pounds in there. I had plenty of time. I'd shake hands with everybody in the big sombreros. And I get in a plane, take off over it. And I remember sometime they were just a row of traffic on the other side. And there was a highway patrolman sitting there with his blue dome. But it wasn't turning.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

So that they were in on it.

[Roger Reeves]

No, they were scared. You get that many men with guns, hey gonna bother you with their little pistol.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

So number 13, I got in and I fired the engine up. I heard pow. I thought the tire blew out. Tires hanging and Pedro's punching me. Police see a. Police see a. Police see a. Well, it dawned on me. So I just shoved a throttle to the firewall. Didn't have a chance to go to the other end and turn around. I might have had 500ft in front of me. And when I got right to the end of it. I was about 40 knots, I reckon. And it would probably somewhat fly with full flap. So I stood it, stood it up. And when I did, I was looking at airspeed indicator and it just disappeared. A bullet hit it and just knocked it back into the dash.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

And the. All the windows was mowed out. And one bullet went up by my head and went into the gas tank and just ruptured left of me. And the water, fuel just pouring over on me. I had to lean way over to get out of it.

[Sean]

Jeez.

[Roger Reeves]

And I was hit several times. And I found out now that I thought that they had shot the elevator cables into. But I found out now we're just hanging on a stall and it feels that way. So I don't know if I did the right thing. And I just thought that thing was going to burst into flames any second. That a spark flew in there. All that gasoline was all over me. So I pulled the power and I crashed into the river. And the first hit, the wings came off. The second hit, the nose came underneath and just left me sitting up on top of that thing. And I must have been knocked out. Pedro was saying, come on, Roger. Come on, Roger. And I jumped out and coming down the Runway, can't call it a Runway, but the airstrip was two of those federalis and they were coming, they were still shooting. Wow. And two of the bullets hit the plane right by. Well, I carried a 9 millimeter high powered Browning. And I have a. My fingers a little short, the trigger finger. So I have to use that pistol. Some of them big pistols, I have to shoot with the other finger. But I can shoot that Browning soon. I had it in a holster on top of a radio taped up there. Now that with the thing turned upside down, that thing is laying right there. I pull it out and I fire a few down. I'm not trying to kill anybody. Certainly don't want to kill a policeman.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

So they run into rocks and I say, remind me of the. When the rabbit get the gun, the farmer, he run. They ran into rocks and Pedro and I took off and up the mountain and I wanted to go down through the river. Oh, no, no, they'll come that way. So we went on up through the cactus and I looked in. Pedro's foot was almost shot off.

[Sean]

Jeez.

[Roger Reeves]

The bullet that hit him in the right hand side of the ankle and just tore it out. It wasn't even bleeding. It was in shock. And so we came and came to an old donkey, long haired Big donkey. And she must have been 30 years old. She was from the village and named Charlotte. Pedro. Charlotte. Charlotte. And we jumped on that donkey and got away.

[Sean]

No way.

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. So that's a whole chapter in my book about how we got away and getting out of that place and being shot up like that.

[Sean]

That's insane. And that wasn't enough to stop you, huh?

[Roger Reeves]

No. I wouldn't buy a bigger. Bigger airplane now.

[Sean]

Wow. Because I feel like that incident would scare a lot of people, you know, and they would stop.

[Roger Reeves]

It scared me because I didn't realize it, but I'd run over a rock in the road with my pickup and it would hit underneath the pickup and the hair would just stand up on the back of my bullets hitting that airplane, I reckon.

[Sean]

Damn. That is crazy. So how did they get close to you guys? I thought they were being blocked off.

[Roger Reeves]

The guy just lying.

[Sean]

Oh, really?

[Roger Reeves]

Hair, lip, piece of. You know, that's what he was, a little starving, carving donkeys. And he's kind of head man there. He ain't paying anybody off.

[Sean]

Damn. So he just kept the money.

[Roger Reeves]

Exactly.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

That's crazy. So what happened from there?

[Roger Reeves]

Let me see. I got a. I got a bigger airplane. I bought. I bought a plane from the Beach Boys, a twin beach. That thing was so nice, it was criminal. Take the inside of it out. Big skin, all the seats with maps on it from different woods, like a jigsaw puzzle. All I think was pretty. And I bought that. And boy, that was big. Going up from a Cessna to a beach 18 was. Was something big for me. Flew to Atlanta and picked my wife up, Marty. And we had a. Rolled out the carpet down the international Runway. So it was. So I. I flew with that plane that I flew so many loads until I brought the price down from $100 to $60 a pound in California.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Roger Reeves]

That year. And they was catching a lot of pilots. It was catching almost everything coming across the border. Cole. Operation Star Trek. And so I figured out a way to beat it. I would come out of Southern Mexico or wherever I was coming and go to the middle of Baja California. And there was a ranch there, a goat ranch, where they made cheese. And it was 20 miles to the nearest road and there was a strip there, and I landed there and asked a guy named One if I could unload my marijuana there while I went to town for fuel. Sure. So I gave him $500 and I'd go to town. We put it under the musquite trees, the doves. It was such a beautiful Place unbelievably beautiful. And I'd go to Mulahi and they'd wash my plane, fill it up with fuel. I'd have lunch, maybe rent a room and have a nap. I'd fly back out there in the afternoon and load back up and I would take off and go west. And there was an island of Guadalupe, 200 miles off the coast of Baja. And I would go there and then I would head northwest until I was 300 miles off the coast of San Diego and I put it down pretty low. Then I went north until I got behind the Santa Barbara islands and they're 4,000ft tall. And then I'd come in low behind him and there was an airstrip there and I'd pull up and go on out into the desert and unload.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

I did that over 100 times.

[Sean]

Holy crap. And they never caught on.

[Roger Reeves]

Ever caught on to what I was coming in.

[Sean]

Dang.

[Roger Reeves]

I didn't tell that until recently. So that was my marijuana. But to tell one about, on the way down, I said I better stop. I was going south and said I better stop at the goat ranch and see if everything's okay before I go get a load. I'd usually go down to Cabo San Lucas, and that was before the road was even made and it was dirt streets. So I stopped and Juan came up on his fast walking mule. Hey, little one, coming style. How is everything? Not so good, senor. I said, what's the matter? So when you left last time, the federal. The soldiers came, oh, 50 of them. And they camped under all these trees here, waiting on you to come back. And they ate my goats.

[Sean]

What?

[Roger Reeves]

I said, he said, look. And he took me out of plot. And it's a pile of bones that big. I saved the bones to show you. I said, how many? Said they just shot the nannies. The one closest to the pot say, my goats. And so I said, how many? Day. And he said, I believe he said 50. That they ate and it was pile. I said, how much for each one of them? And I forget what it was, $30 or $50 a piece. And I had money in my pocket. I gave it to him and he was happy again.

[Sean]

Holy crap, that's ruthless. So they did catch on a little bit.

[Roger Reeves]

Well, then I couldn't use that place anymore. Well, I did. I put a piece of tin on top of the goat house and if it was up, I was all right. If it was down, I knew not to land. But I said, is any place here to. To grow marijuana he had 25,000 hectares, 60, 70,000 acres. So not here, senor. Too many people. But I know a place. So I spent the night there in the airplane and the next morning we went down to fast walking mules and we went in. It had rained in the country and the whole place was covered in flowers. It was just heavenly. And we came by a mesa. He said, I killed two big mountain lions there last week. What? Yes. I said, how'd you do it? He said, well, I roll rocks off of that mesa and when they go down through the bush, the deer run out. So I kill. That's how I kill deer. But this time two mountain lions ran out and I. I killed him. And I said, what do you do with them? He said, we ate them. As you ate the lunch? Gee, senior, we very good. So we stopped for lunch and he had a stack of tortillas. One of them had a big fly in it. He just pinched the fly out and he had this dried meat and very nice. And he made. Took some dry cactus and made a little invisible fire, but it was a fire. And he heated those tortillas up and put that little. Little sauce in there and put that meat in there. Ground up like sausage. After about 10 of those. That's mighty good. What kind of meat is that? He said, leon, Leon. So I had line for lunch there.

[Sean]

Wow, that's cool. I wonder how that tasted. I've never had.

[Roger Reeves]

It just tastes like sausage. They put hot spices in it and things.

[Sean]

Damn. Some mountain lion. Those things are big, right?

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. So that was. That was what I did with those people. Yes.

[Sean]

And when was the first time you got arrested? Was it shortly after that?

[Roger Reeves]

I Trying to think just exactly how that happened. Oh, yes. On the. Some back before that, after I got. It took me about three months to get over the gunshots in my. And I had to keep my foot above my head.

[Sean]

That thing thumped your toe got shot off, right?

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. So it. When I went to Hawaii, we had a lovely time with children pouring pina coladas on me and Mari there. So I. I went back to Mexico and I had another fellow out from out there and he was going to come down and pick up the load that I paid for. So he got arrested in Hermosillo. Somehow he messed up and in his pocket was my phony name in the hotel I was staying. So a nice gentleman coming. I was in the pool. He's that. Are you Roger Reeves? I said, yes. And he just shook my hand and put handcuffs on me and they put me in jail. They put me to the jail, let me stop by. And I remember Goyan Shirts was popular. And I got some clothes on and I took me to the jailhouse. And they just put me in with a prisoner there, a big, nasty prisoner. And he took a blackjack and robbed me of my $300 in my wallet, my wallet and everything I had. They put me in a little cell. And I guess it was 20ft long by 12ft wide. And sometimes it must have been 20 prisoners coming there. I stayed there three days. I didn't have anything to eat and I had a Pepsi bottle. And I'd get the boy to go and get a spigot and he'd get some warm water and bring it to me. There's some rough looking fellows came through and a handsome man. And they was being transferred from one prison to the other. Going to Tres Marias out there in the ocean. And he sat down and a little woman came, very nice, beautiful. It was his mother. And she brought a basket of food and brought it in. Give it to him. And I was sitting beside him on that concrete floor. And that stuff smells so good. It was little chickens wrapped in tortillas. And he offered me some and I said, please. And so I ate two or three of them and it was just delicious. And I said, thank you, senor. Thank you. It might have been the best sermon I ever had. Don't thank me. Thank God. That was nice. And so they put me back into the. After that, they put me in the torture chamber. Jeez. And they really did a number on me. They beat me until it wasn't anything on me. It was a red, black or blue.

[Sean]

Oh, my gosh.

[Roger Reeves]

And then they put my head under like a seltzer water. And, you know, three of them hold you down. If you took a swiff of that. That carbonated water or whatever it was, I guarantee you six of them couldn't hold you down. It would just make your head explode.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So I learned after the first time, right before you have to breathe, act like that, go into a frenzy. So they electrocuted me with Calipras. And they had a paper. If you signed the paper, it's all over. Well, I knew if I signed the paper, I was in prison for at least six years. You don't sign it. Somebody can get to somebody and pay out. So I'd already learned that. I knew that. So they. After I don't know how long I was back there for a month, I guess. And they took me out, stripped me naked and wrapped me Over a barrel or something. And they had these winches and put my arms far apart like this. And they come in, they buttered up my bum. Oh, what they fixing to do now anyway, they terrible fella, he come in, he just crammed me full. Big, big thumb. Crammed me full of hot chili pepper. Geez, right up my rectum till it's full up. I mean, it was excruciating, painful. That's probably the nastiest pain I've ever had. And after that I lay it on the floor recovering. And they brought a dead man in. A slim black man. And he was, he did. And he was wrapped in newspaper like, just like a mummy. From top of his head all the way down, all of them, you couldn't see anything. And they had a meat hook in him and he hung it on a boat on the side. Of course, it had that boat there for ages. And. You next. Son of a. You next. Well, I didn't bother me too bad. A dead man is awful. But. And then, then he started thawing out and it looked like he was crying. He had his head was like this and the tears running down his face. It was a formaldehyde running out of him. And then his orifice is opened up and it's puddling down on the floor. What an awful smell. And I went smelling that formaldehyde. I had hallucinations. I saw pink flying pigs with wings all in that cell. And I put my face under the door, there's about a half inch, and I put it under that filthy blood stained door, sucking air. And of course I went unconscious. And I woke up in the hospital with a doctor with a respirator on me saying, breathe man, breathe man. I almost died from that.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So I was sick and I had a terrible headache for like two weeks. Anyhow, my wife came down and paid, paid the bribe. And one morning, 4:00, they threw something on me and come, come, come quick. We went out the back door to prison. Like I'd escaped, but it was, it was a payoff.

[Sean]

Holy crap. And that was the first of five prisons.

[Roger Reeves]

That's the first of five prisons.

[Sean]

Four more after that one. That one sounds like it might be the worst though, right? That sounds intense. Or was Germany worse?

[Roger Reeves]

That's the worst thing ever happened to me in my life.

[Sean]

Yeah, by far.

[Roger Reeves]

Ain't nothing else. Even laugh at the rest of it.

[Sean]

Damn. Yeah, that sounds insane.

[Roger Reeves]

It was. They were nasty. And I found out that there was seven DEA agents there really to tell them to stop Roger Reeves, whatever You do stop him. So he's got an wow.

[Sean]

Has pull in other countries.

[Roger Reeves]

They were there they was joint with them and and that was they came and these federalities were not local. They were from Mexico City that come to arrest me.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So it was a put up job.

[Sean]

By the Americans but they couldn't find any evidence on you?

[Roger Reeves]

They had none. So they're going to get me stopped in Mexico.

[Sean]

They were trying to get you to. To rat out people.

[Roger Reeves]

Maybe they can put. No, they won't put me in prison to stop me. Yeah. I was bringing a load every week and they knew it but they didn't know I was getting it in.

[William Reeves]

Yeah. Wow.

[Sean]

That's insane. So where'd you go after that? Did that scare you from Mexico?

[Roger Reeves]

No, I had one more counter. I was in the hotel room and they arrested me and they took me out to a. With the same DEA they took me out to a pastor prison where I'd been went on and pastor railroad track and they turned down the railroad track bumpy road and they stopped right in about an acre where they dumped the. The Karen from the highway. They pick up the dead cows and burrows with a winch and they're bringing over this place to rot. And I guess every year they take a bulldozer and they push up the bones the cow hides and there's a jungle right behind that. So they stopped right in the middle of that three car loads. I was in the middle of LTD Ford's new and I stepped out to forward and they said Donde su avion? Where are your airplanes? I said I don't speak Spanish sir. He slapped me upside the head with a big knock me plumb off my feet. I said my Spanish improved a little bit. So he. They tied my hand behind me with a belt, my own belt. Pulled shirt over me and all did they work me over and he had a cattle prod and they burnt me with that thing. And that guy was big and he was red face and that went on for about three hours cheese. And he looked like he was tired of it as I was. My nose was bloody and I just. The shirt was bloody and my knees is all the meat was going off the inside of where the Admi squatted down like that. And so the. The batteries got bad on the cattle prod so they called the boss and when there was five of them around me and whenever four of them went up there where the car was to talk with that boss I had got my hand loose and I got a rock good size about Like a baseball and had it. My hand. And. And he'd been having that thing under my face and telling me to sign. And I went senior. I signed. I signed. And he came over like, what? And when he did, I came over with that rock and I hit him in the head. Took off. I mean, I.

[Sean]

Sounds like a movie scene.

[Roger Reeves]

It was at the time. And I guess 50ft away or 100ft away was that pile of dirt and the cowhides and the bones. And I ran over that, and the bullets started flying at me. There was. It was all dry and red, and the bullets were flying. And right when I jumped over it, I. A machine gun, little Pistol, like, probably Mac 10, opened up. It just slid into the foliage above me, and my nose caught right on a vine, and it throwed me backwards. Wow. And I'm behind three or four feet of dirt. And I went home like I'd been shot. Anyhow, I scrambled through the forest and got away. Wow. So I got to. Oh, yeah.

[Sean]

That is insane.

[Roger Reeves]

Quite a bit to that story. I wrote a whole chapter about that. I mean, I was just right next to one. I heard his radio crack. And I had to crawl across a little pasture with a horse playing with me. And I get across, and there's like a thousand acres of mango trees. And I get up in the second row because I figured that there's a helicopter coming. And I watched 17 soldiers get out of a big soldier and go into those woods where I was. And I sat up there all day long on that little. And if I move, the tree shakes.

[Sean]

Oh, my God.

[Roger Reeves]

I could hardly. When the helicopter flew away, I got down out of that tree after a while, and I had to walk a mile or two across. It was just. You could see forever under there. And I come to an old chicken house, and there was some. I guess a water hadn't run. They telling. I washed the blood off of me and. And caught the back of a school bus. It was a. A lot of dirt on the back of it. And I grabbed it and I got away on the back of that school bus.

[Sean]

That's insane. You've escaped that.

[Roger Reeves]

So then that's when I found out that the Americans were there to stop me. So I. I quit Mexico. I said it was too dangerous now. And I didn't know how bad I'd hurt that. That federale. And I knew if I ever got caught again, they pay me back with spades.

[William Reeves]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

They had to kill me.

[Sean]

Yeah. You think he survived, that Federale?

[Roger Reeves]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Roger Reeves]

Didn't that didn't, I'd have been next. Drive back to Mexico for sure.

[Sean]

You ever find out who it was?

[Roger Reeves]

No. Really? Never even try to.

[Sean]

Yeah. It's funny seeing the mob guys like talk to FBI agents now on podcasts, you know, the guys that hunted them down.

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. So I wonder. Same thing, different. Different side.

[Sean]

Yeah. So which agency was after you? Was it the dea? Wow, that's crazy. So you went to a different country after that?

[Roger Reeves]

I started in. In Colombia.

[Sean]

You flew there? You took a ship?

[Roger Reeves]

No, I'm flying. Flying out of there, flying a. A DC3 holding pot out of there. And it was during the World series baseball game in 1981 and I was down there and I was on a. Had to go too far in. The guy lied to me about how far it was and. And I had to put it down on a strip and I'm having lunch at the place till I'm waiting to the right time. It was in the Gorilla, the guerrilla territory close to Brazil. And I was having some lunch there, laying in a hammock and wham. I mean, and I looked up in the ass in a.2 military jets going straight up. Just turned, they came back down that Runway and just tore it up with machine guns.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Roger Reeves]

And I run, got my airplane and a couple other guys got in there with me. And the guy took off with my $80,000 in the truck. And I should got on that truck with my money. I got an airplane. I didn't think they'd shoot me. So I took off and the two planes was right beside me and they was trying to get me to go to Vincenzia as a military base not too far away. And I said, oh, they were just right there like you and I, looking at nice looking young men and. And I just hold up the old peace sign. One of them had to leave and the other one got underneath me. And the 20 millimeter cannon was just shooting up, it looked like. And the tracers looked like they were curving up from my. They were close. So I pushed it over so that I couldn't. He couldn't get under me anymore. And he thought I was trying to run into him. And then he come in, he tore the wing up and put bullets in the tail. And I had a lot of barrels of fuel. Aviation. I said, if one of those tracers goes in that, I'm. I'm a fireball.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So anyway, I. I got into a. I went into a thunderstorm try to get away. And I went up like 20,000ft and I come out There he is right there. She had me on his radar.

[Sean]

Sky was persistent.

[Roger Reeves]

So I went back in and I pulled it up into a spiral stall. And I went down and I got away from him and I got under the clouds and I thought I done so far down you. I go get the marijuana now. I was bulletproof. And the other two guys begging me to go out. Let's go to. Let's go to. Back to San Jose, Costa Rica. But I went and I saw a long, long stretch by the River Guavieri. And it looked like it was 10 miles long with just grass on it. And I said that looked like a spot to stop and rest until I can go back to see the gorillas. And I've kept with that big airplane. That thing weighs 30 tons. And one strip after the other. I just put those big tires, they big down is a big semi tires. And it looked like a really good Runway. And I had a guy, Al, he was a co pilot.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

And so I'm going to stop this time, Al. So when I stopped, almost come to a stop. And I said, take your feet off of the brakes. He said, not on the brakes. And I knew what had happened. That thing had fallen through. It's a hard crust and underneath it was mud. And the plane started and I just gave it full power, but it was too late. And it stood up and just stood up on its Ted stood up. It's 100ft long, hundred feet wingspan. That plane stood right up on its head. And the two big engines kept it from caving in on me.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

The whole front caved in right to us all the instrument panel and everything. Just that close to getting killed. And when it stopped it. The escape hatch is in the tops. It's the boat, you know, I'm doing. I stepped out on the. On the grass and got my satchel. Al got out with me and the other guys had to get out from the thing I just gave me down hoses to get out. Anyway, we had quite a time with our suitcases. And I tell the story in full in the book. But anyway, I went on down the road. They went on down the road and I went down the trail. I said, I'm not going down the road after all this. And they went straight to prison. They spent a long time in Bogota. And I went on down. I was 11 days in the jungle.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

And I got rides and dugout canoes with the indigenous people. And I bought a bulk of brown sugar, I think the caramel type stuff. And I'd put that In a bag, from a cleaner bag, shake it. And that's what I lived off of. And so the indigenous people there would get. Would give me some food too.

[Sean]

And this is in Colombia?

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah, down there, close to. Yeah. Venezuela, Brazil. That area right in that corner. And so after 11 days. And here's a little spiritual. I was in a dugout commute and I was trying to communicate with Mari, and I said, I'm all right, Mari. I'm all right. Because they thought maybe I would dead. I knew they would think that I was crashing an airplane like that. And she said she was taking a shower and she heard me say it clearly.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So I don't know, but she got and said she wasn't worried anymore. So after. After 11 days, came to a place I kept asking in Dundas. Have your owns. And where's airplanes In Loma Linda. Where is it? La Ho's. Long way. So I went several hundred miles and I came to Loma Linda, and it was like Hawaii. World War II ship lap boards. Beautiful. Just like what in the world. Big airstrip there and several airplanes. Nice lady there said, how did you get here? Well, I'm just touring the Amazon. We don't have tourists. And I said, what is this place? And you don't know? This is Loma Linda headquarters for Missionary Aviation Fellowship for the Amazon. And I had originally learned to fly, to be a Missionary Aviation Fellowship pilot. To fly the missionaries in and out and to seek people. That was my idea when I was younger. And so they flew me out. They flew me right to that military base. And a military policeman took my satchel out of the. Of the. Miss out of the plane. And same military base of jets had tried to get me to go to.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So I said, all right. So they interrupted the World Series baseball game. Said, American DC3 has just been shot down by the Colombian air force. But he's up. He's up in the way, ladies and gentlemen. I took off again the first time. And then they said so. But anyway, they said, this is the first plane shot down. Reagan on Reagan. New war on drugs. So it did interrupt the World Series baseball game in 1981.

[Sean]

Wow. So they had to delay the game.

[Roger Reeves]

Pardon?

[Sean]

They had to delay the game or what happened?

[Roger Reeves]

No, they just. When they speak in at halftime or something, they tell what's going on.

[Sean]

Oh, gosh. That's crazy.

[Roger Reeves]

I didn't hear. Several people heard it.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah.

[Sean]

So that was your plane?

[Roger Reeves]

They were talking about me.

[Sean]

Holy crap.

[Roger Reeves]

Nobody else.

[William Reeves]

Dang.

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah.

[Sean]

What a story.

[Roger Reeves]

The first Plane shot down on. On the war on drugs.

[Sean]

Yeah. So those two guys went to prison. Did you talk to them after?

[Roger Reeves]

No, I never did talk to him. I sent one of them. They. The one guy was all right, but I begged him to come with me. I said, you work for me. Yeah, come on, man. This. Because that guy, seven feet tall and got big muscles don't mean he knows what he's talking about. He already got us in this trouble himself, right? I'm tired. I'm going with Dan. Seemed like people, big muscles seem to talk, you know, get. So I said, you go with him, but you on your own.

[Sean]

Were you worried about them snitching on you, riding on you?

[Roger Reeves]

Nothing about that. Because in Mexico, in Colombia, those places, if they don't catch a year, in pretty good shape.

[Sean]

Oh, really?

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. United States and is one of the few places that just dog it after you. From. From here to Vietnam to Russia. They go after you everywhere. Like, they just. It's. It's a game with them. They want to put people in prison. That's there. I put the cuffs on him. I'm so proud of myself. I. I shot him and I killed him. Oh, they. And even in prison, they put the high five on him. Get out of here. There's 50 of you and those two little guys.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

Cowardly.

[Sean]

Yeah. They take a lot of pride in arresting people in the U.S. right?

[Roger Reeves]

Oh, yeah. And then how many years you can get? Like, they asked for life sentence for me. Get. You're insane.

[Sean]

They wanted life for you.

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. I asked you a life. Wow. The guy got 35 years for possession of marijuana white.

[Sean]

Now it's legal.

[Roger Reeves]

Exactly. And I think all those guys jumping ahead of it a little bit. Way ahead of it. But I was. I thought, all right, I need a landing strip halfway between Columbia or wherever I was hauling out of. And Louisiana. So I went with my family to Honduras. San Pedro Sula. It's about halfway. And we went into a lake, a zoo. How beautiful. And we were looking at farms and ranches, and we got muddy, and we got in the river and had two little girls and. And we came back to the. To the hotel, and we put our clothes in the laundry. And. And so when went for me, what Ready. Said, come back in the morning. I said, well, our tickets to New Orleans are. Is. Is. Is ready. We got to go in the morning. So I told Mario, I said, I'll go to the. I go to the laundry, and you go take the children. Get on that plane. It's easier for One stand standby, and then two. So I went to the. The laundry and got our clothes, there's a big bag of them. And got on the. Got the taxi and old man, I tried to get him go faster and I gave him a hundred dollar bill, go faster. He just blew the horn faster and that whole car ate it. Go any faster at all. So I got there and the plane was brand new, 727 taxiing out. And I ran out around the building and I waved to him and the young pilot wave back at me. And then I saw Mari's face in the cockpit. At that time, you could go up and she's telling them. And so he stopped. I saw the news, we'll go down. And he extended the ladder and I'm running for the ladder. Then he takes off again, just like you a hitchhiker was. And he's playing with me. Then he stops and puts it out. And I get on the airplane and the whole crowd cheers. And I go back about halfway and my little girl Miriam's about 9 or 10, 9 years old, and she's sitting there and she moves over to the middle seat and there's a gentleman there, right Here he is, Mr. Barry Seal. And I sit on the outside and the plane takes off and the wheels come up with a thud. And then in a few minutes it's another little click, click. And Miriam said, what was that, dad? And I said, he just turned on his autopilot. The guy leans across. You fly these things? I got a few hours, mister. He said, I do too. I. My name Barry Seal. And he talked and he said he just got out of prison that morning. He had blue eyes. He looks like a. He looked like a CIA age something. He didn't look like a fellow just got out of prison. And I thought he was just trying to get me to talk.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

So he chatted away all the way to New Orleans. And I didn't believe a word he said. So when we got off though, there was a bunch of people. There was his mother and his wife and little children crying and egging on him, kissing him. He'd been in prison for a year down Honduras. And I see sucker telling the truth. I have. Mario said, give him his phone number, address. So I went over, I said, barry, come out, see me. I might have some work for you. That's how I met Barry Seal. So after some kind of bad experiences down in Columbia, I'd get a load of pot and I'd come up and it wouldn't be anything like What I bought. But so I quit.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

And so I had the fellow, he says, I know the money's in cocaine. Let me introduce you to someone. So he. We flew to Medellin and went to the top of one of those high rises, and there was a lavish apartment, a condominium there with glass all around. And the guy was drunk. He could speak several languages, brilliant. But he would drunk. And he stayed drunk for months when he did. And while we were talking income, a woman, high cheekbones, rabbits, furs all over, rabbit, fur, boots. And. And she sashaying around, and she kisses everybody three or four times on the cheek. That Sonya Datila from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. And she was his Bolivian collection. And I'm there with that lawyer. And we just sit. Now. Now we're just. She don't pay us any attention. So Fernando asked her where she's going. She's going to Miami to buy an airplane. This lawyer's smarter than I am. And he says, roger has an airplane for sale. And he winked at me. And she. She asked, what kind of airplanes do you have? I said, I have a Queen Air. Queen Air, huh? She liked the idea of a Queen Air. She thought she was queen. Ah, yes. And she says, how much do you want for it? And the lawyers going like this. So I told her price. She said, okay, you bring it. If I like it, I bite. I said, well, now, tell you this pretty long beach from California to Panama here. I said, I'll have a man to bring it down, but it costs 5,000 off a few on trip. Oh, give the man $5,000, Miguel. He gave me $5,000 and brought the plane down. And so she liked it. And I flew around with her entourage. And the show of Iran had just died out there on that island. We went out there, and then she said, okay, you want the money? Go to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Take me. So her crew got all in there, and we went to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. And you might want to cut this story out. We landed in. The police was all bowing down to her. And they put us in a police, that limousine. And we go out through the town, and the sirens going in, the flags on the front of it. Oh, she is queen. And we come to her house under the water tower there. Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Big water tower. It's like it's made of marble, look like a mausoleum or something. It has wire fence all around it to protect it. And all the help is outside the gate, and they wringing their hands and crying. He said, what's the matter with you fools? What are you doing? She said, your line is eating the baby. What? And she runs in, and I walk in behind her, and she has a mountain lion and he's eating a baby, a little baby, looked like about a year old. On the floor. It was a terrible scene. Sometimes I tell it and it's. It's too gross to tell, but that line ate that baby, had blood all over his face. And she grabbed little Tommy, put him in another room, and goes out there. Get away from here, you stupid people. Never want to see your ugly faces again. Leaving a line, leaving a baby on the floor. The line in the house. And that's what. That's my.

[Sean]

Was that her baby?

[Roger Reeves]

No, it was one of the. One of the maids babies.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So later on, if you want to read about her, she's in the book. The Big White Lie and the CIA and the Crack Cocaine Epidemic. She. She told on me. She told on a lot of people. Prison. So, yeah, she was. She was bad. She was a black widow of Bolivia. Sonya D. Attila.

[Sean]

Sonia.

[Roger Reeves]

Yes.

[Sean]

The DA got to her.

[Roger Reeves]

Pardon?

[Sean]

DEA got to her. What happened?

[Roger Reeves]

Oh, they got to her and they turned her and she just went. She just flipped. She didn't care.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

Because she wasn't even a US citizen, right?

[Roger Reeves]

No, but they. They was all. They all over. They'll extradite you out of there. I don't know how they got her, but that book, the Big White Lie, the CIA and the Crack Cocaine Epidemic, it's a good book. And they put a whole chapter, me and her in that chapter, so.

[Sean]

She brought down a lot of people.

[Roger Reeves]

I don't know, but I'm. I did what. She did what she wanted to. She's living here in the United States and Witness protection. Wow.

[Sean]

So you never wanted to go that route?

[Roger Reeves]

Oh, absolutely not.

[Sean]

You know, which is respectful, either snitchy or not. Yeah. A lot of people you worked with, though, like some guys here.

[Roger Reeves]

Everyone. Every one of them.

[Sean]

Every one of them.

[Roger Reeves]

Every single one of them. Wow. I was. I was doing some work. And I'll just tell you about this. I told my friend Jerry when I first started. Jerry, that guy's an asshole. He said, roger, remember this? In this business, if you don't work with assholes, you're going to be lonely. I love that about the truth.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

Not all of them, but it was plenty of them. They just low life. That'll tell on you in a minute.

[Sean]

Yeah. So you had to live pretty cautiously who you kept around you. Right?

[Roger Reeves]

I didn't. I didn't. I Didn't smoke stuff. I didn't do it. I didn't fool with those people. So I had nobody around me. I come home when my family went to church and went. Bought groceries and went down the road and whatever I had to do, you know, plowed my garden and I lived a normal life.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

So Apple had. Was going to make a series of my life, and they were going to make me sort of like a forest Gump, going out doing all these things, getting blown up and coming home to loving family. And anyhow, that didn't fly. So you're starting over again.

[Sean]

Yeah. I don't think that's the right angle for your story.

[Roger Reeves]

No.

[Sean]

I mean, you obviously were smart enough to survive it all. That's not a Forrest Gump portrayal to me.

[Roger Reeves]

They were saying where he's going out, you know, getting Vietnam and getting shot and all these things, and he's coming back home with a sweetheart, you know, whatever. Yeah. But anyhow, that's. That's how they wrote it. The pilot, it didn't. It didn't work. Yeah.

[Sean]

So after. After Bolivia, you ended up in Germany at some point, right?

[Roger Reeves]

No, I have a. Some different between now. I. This guy, Fernando Corrello, the one that. Where Sonia came in, his wife, he said, go see her, Martha. She was a nice lady, too smart. And she said, he'll. He'll. He was sober up one day, and he's got unlimited amounts of cocaine he wants to bring the United states. He pays $5,000 a kilo, and just wait. He will sober up. He may stay drunk for three months, but he was. He was a brilliant man, really and truly. Just unbelievable when he was. We could talk to you. So she called me and said, come down. Fernando's having a birthday party, and we're having it over on the coast. And we're flying over with Avianca Airlines is flying over. The crew, everybody over. So I flew over, I got there, and I flew down commercially and went to, I guess, Medellin, I guess it was. And we flew over. Might have been Cali. We flew over in. In the little shorts and one right after the other. We landed that Runway. It must have been two miles long. And that's where they loaded marijuana on this on the ocean. He owned miles and miles of that beach south of Panama. And so I landed there and I looked and there's airplanes. Up on the side was Nest. Under the next, under the wings, it was like, that's when if they wanted to buy a new airplane, they take the numbers off of that old one and just buy a new one in the States and paint it on there. And they just. So those old airplanes, there was millions of dollars worth of junk there. D8 tractors just track off nothing. They didn't have anybody to fix anything. So I landed there and on the way over, I met Mario and Matilda Sanchez, Beautiful couple. And she was trying to sell them launches to go out to the load the boats with, I believe. But she spoke perfect English, beautiful English. So I walked down. There was an old log house there and on the fat flask, fast flowing river. And I pulled my shoes off and was walking, walking on the beach. And a woman, a young woman started walking with me and was chatting along and saw red clay in the beach. And Matilda and Mario come the other way and says, Roger, Mario tells me that you're walking with the girlfriend of the most vicious killer in Colombia. He suggests you get away from her. Thank you, Matilda. So I excuse myself from the young lady. She was telling me, I don't know. I've never rode in an airplane before. I don't know this man and just invited me and. And I said, I know why he invited you. You might not, but she looked like a poor girl from the barrios. And. And so that night I'm with a bunch of men in the. In the bunkhouse. The important people got a houses on stilts by the beach. Anyhow, that woman comes flying in the room, slams into me, and that guy comes in and Jaime, or Donnie said, Kill 16 judges. He got caught with a ton of cocaine.

[William Reeves]

Whoa.

[Roger Reeves]

So he was bad. But anyhow, his friends calling him up. So that weekend was a. A big, big meeting. And I believe that's when the Medellin cartel was formed. They had judges and actors and people putting on skits and police from every city in Colombia. And they. They decided to make a. An insurance policy. If the cocaine is worth $10,000 a kilo in Colombia, and it's worth 40, 50 in New York if it is. If you give it to us, if it gets busted between you give it to us and we giving it to your man, we will replace it in Colombia. So I understand they got 100 tons put on them. Five guys, yo choice, Escobar. I don't. I don't know who all they were, but they had plenty of cocaine. So the important people left and we was waiting for the airlines to come pick us up the next day. And I got me a plate of food and went around behind the old log house and was laying in a hammock Reading the book, the mmk, the Far Pavilions. Pow bow right by my head. Blood spattered on me and spattered on book.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

I rolled out of that hammock and I just kept rolling. And when I looked up, there was a black man and he was tearing the pistol out of a white man's head. And his young black man looked like he's about 20 years old and a 60 year old Colombian. And he put that pistol right behind the other guys the his head and click, click, click, click, click. There were no more bullets. And I saw that the, the white man had shot and shot a dog right in the head. He had a big black spot around his eye, just like in the Little Rascals. And that dog was turning, flipping blood. And he had shot the black man in the leg, in the femoral artery and he was bleeding profusely. So he started hobbling off. And I lied, I'm not a doctor. But I said, I'm a doctor, I do have a lot of first aid training. I said, I can save you. He put that pistol right at me and I didn't want to go click, click, click. So he went on down the road and died.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So, oh, that, that native people under those trees back there, they was on there was grieving and carrying on and they come and said, you know, that the white people had come in here and was causing a lot of trouble and this and that and other and kill that boy. And there was going to be lots of trouble before daylight. Well, it got dark and the generator went out. They poured sand and water in the tank and I was, I was concerned.

[Sean]

I would be too.

[Roger Reeves]

20 or 30 of us white people lay off there and just actresses and, you know, unimportant people. We just guessed. So I stayed right close to Matilda. She had a little.32 pistol and we put diesel in cans and put a little gasoline on the rags and had little tiny smudgy plots all night long. And the next morning the soldiers came and of course there's just a heck of a story. But anyway, that's how I, I met the people in the cocaine business. So Mario took me to Envigado and we went up a little road we had the toll gate, or the gate we call it. And went by the guns and then went up a little road and cobblestone for half a mile wound around beautiful bromeliads in the trees above the road and come to an old house. And it was old, I mean 2 or 300 years old. And men all out, 30 or 40 of them in the front yard with their fedoras and his hitching rails and stone. They was waiting to see El Heffy. And I was ushered right in. Really pretty woman come in. Watch be careful for the hole in the floor. There was a hole that big in the floor, but it's all polished and the floor was uneven. That thing had been. It was. It was nice. So they ushered us right in to see Jorge Ochoa. And he's sitting behind a desk almost this big, and he's got. He shakes hand, he speaks a little English. And he got 12 telephones on his desk and each one of them is a different color. And I watch with these telephones. He said, well, each one of these from a different city. If that rings is New York, that ring in Chicago, I know which one it is.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So anyway, we had a chat and he says, ask what, what kind of airplanes you had. I told my DC3, a Beach 18 Turbojet, Aero Commander, and what kind of experience you have. And I told him a couple hundred loads coming across the border. So he said they had all the work I could do in $5,000 a kilo. That's how much you put in there, 300, 500 kilos. I thought, well, that's two and a half million dollars a day. She I think I want to work with you. So he said, let me call my compadre. So he sent the pretty woman somewhere and she came back with a man introduced himself, Pablo Escobar. And just man my size, 5, 8, whatever, and look about benign as you could and khaki pants.

[Sean]

And did you know who he was at the time?

[Roger Reeves]

No.

[Sean]

You never heard of him?

[Roger Reeves]

Never heard of him. Never heard any of them. They were not any famous at that time. And so he told me the same thing. He didn't speak in English, but I spoke book in Spanish. And so we have all the work you can do, senor. So I went, went home and got my airplane and I started flying. And I mean, it was jam up. So they kept making me go further and further in the jungle down towards Brazil. And I went to see him, I said, now listen, I just can't make it. It won't make it that far. And they said, well, next time I landed, Pablo Escobar landed in a new helicopter right beside me at a banana plantation down there. And he introduced me to a guy named Benjamin. And Benjamin got in the plane, he said, go where he tells you to. So we loaded up with cocaine and Benjamin got in there and we took off and went and landed a military base in Nicaragua. I met the general there and they cooked lunch and steaks and with the egg on top of it. And he said, land here anytime you want to. But radio silence. We'll fill you playing up with gas. You can spend the night, stay long as you want to go north when you want. So I mean, that was like unbelievable. So I. That was before the Oliver north and the Ran Contra.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

But so I got above. I think I had about six or seven loads and I got above the clouds one night and couldn't get down. I got above the fog and so I was. I was in dire states and I thought I was going to die. I said, what am I going to do? I can't. I can't get down.

[Sean]

It was too foggy.

[Roger Reeves]

It was just fog, just a layer of fog from I guess your car go to Orlando or somewhere. I didn't have enough fuel to go where it wasn't. So it was late at night and moon was shining bright and I just had to go out. And all the airports closed. So I came down the glide slope at Louisiana Louis Armstrong International Airport there in New Orleans and bounced down the Runway. I couldn't see anything. And I'm not that good a pilot. Most people aren't. So I got stopped halfway down and I walked as a mile to the end mile the other way and I'm off in the gravel on one side between the lights. And I stayed there all night long. It was still 00 everywhere. So the next morning, I guess he got 7, 8 o'clock sun came out. You could see right up through it, but you couldn't see two lights down the Runway. And I couldn't stand it any longer. I thought some little security truck or something's going to come down this Runway and find me. I'll be a life in prison.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Roger Reeves]

So when it just is a little bit of cleared, I took off and I didn't have to go with 30, 40 miles. Place called St. Timothy Aviation over at across Lake Pontchartrains. And the guy Harvey that I was paying the land and nice fella, I talked to him on a walkie talkie and he said it's still fogged in here. Roger. But it's breaking up and I can see up. I can see you as I can see you too. He said, but when you get down in it's going to be to be snot. So I. I didn't have much fuel left. I just pulled the power and headed for that Runway and I got landed And I said, I am through. I'm never going to do it again. It's just my life's not worth it. So Leto was in Miami, and when I took the load to him, I told him that was it. I was quitting. And of course, he was making their living off of me. And. Oh, please, Roger, please, no. And said, you have anybody, Anybody fly? Well, heck, I got the thing down. So I said, I maybe have somebody. So I went and asked Barry Seal if he had fly. Heck, yeah. So I put Barry to work, and he started flying, and they had so much. I bought him three or four of those Panther conversions. And so I asked my old friend Jerry Wills if he wanted to fly. Yeah. So I had two airlines running.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

He's bringing two loads a week up. So like $5 million a week.

[Sean]

Jeez.

[Roger Reeves]

And so it was just. It was unbelievable amount of money coming up. And I could. I said, when you want me to come back? We're waiting on you, senor.

[Sean]

That is nuts. Did you have a. An end game? Did you have a number in mind that made you want to quit?

[Roger Reeves]

Not really. But it all comes to a screeching in before you expect it to.

[Sean]

Right.

[Roger Reeves]

I took a load of money to Grand Cayman Island. I chartered a jet. I forgot what kind it is, but it was a pretty good size little jet. I don't know how many millions, doll. Think I had $15 million in it. And flew down to Grand Cayman island. And. And the pilot says, oh, we want to stay for a few days. So I flew back commercially. And when I landed in Miami, I was arrested. I was charged with continuing criminal enterprise, which carries life in prison for possession of marijuana. And so I gave up my property, my home money, millions. And I got down to possession of 400 pounds of marijuana and tax evasion. I got 35 years.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Roger Reeves]

And then no judge was nice. Terry Hatter, and I think he had took me home with him. He could have. I see you raised on the hog, on the farm, fed the hogs. I guess you want to come out to California and live high on the hog, but I don't know if you. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I see all these nice things you've done for people. And I had 65 letters. He said, I read every one of them.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So he said, but I'm going to. I'm going to send a message to society. So he put me on 25 years special parole, five years probation, five years in prison. Damn. So that. That was the end of that era. So that was the beginning of my 33 years in prison.

[Sean]

Oh, that was the start of it, yeah. Holy crap. So you did five years in prison?

[Roger Reeves]

I did about two and a half then, and then was out on parole. And then I'd heard Barry had turned.

[Sean]

While you were in prison or.

[Roger Reeves]

Well, yeah, towards the end of it. I don't know how I heard somebody. It was like, wasn't just right. So I was home and Mari had rented a house and it was nice and I was watching, I was eating breakfast in there was Ronald Reagan news face on the news. And there was a seat 126, Barry's bellied in on the military strip there in Nicaragua. And Ronald Reagan blue eyes said, we have absolute positive proof that the communist Sandinista government is in the cocaine running business. And there it was. So the phone rang and Barry says, roger, I'm coming out tonight. Meet me at such and such a little French restaurant there in town. So I met him at 9 o'clock and I went in and he was sitting back at the back and the room was 20 people or more, all of them 25, 35 year old agents, of course.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

Women with the leather skirts and men with a port jacket. And Barry was leaning back. I said, barry, you wired? He said, no, I'm not wired. I said, well, I'm not going to say anything. Just tell me what's happening. So he went to tell me how that he had been protected by the Clintons, CIA, everybody in the unloading, and. And I was giving him $50,000 every time I landed for his protection. So he said they all abandoned me. So I was facing three life sentence. So I told everybody, I told on all of them and they said, I've told on your part of it too, and you can come to Miami and testify with me. You can keep, you know, new passport, keep your money, live anywhere in the world you want to live. I said, all of them. But he just put his fingers over his eyes, I mean, put his hands up and the tears run between his fingers. He said, I'm so sorry, Roger, I'm so sorry. I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do three life sentences. And I said, barely going to kill you, friend. No, no, no. I said, well, bring your head honcho over. And the guy was Jake Jacobson, the guy that they had gone down and got one and a half tons. And I put it in that C126 and bellied it in and the Runway there in Nicaragua. And then they called Pablo Escobar and said, we need another airplane. And Barry had a camera inside clicking and one under the wing clicking, wow. He said you could hear them clicking. And Pablo Escobar comes and you can see and you can read about this. And he's got pictures of it in the book Kings of Cocaine. It's got a chapter about me in there. And so you see Pablo Escobar and some of those generals toting the cocaine from one plane to the other. And they fly, okay, get on into Florida. And then Leto, my friend, gets it. And they drive down the road in the motorhome and they have a dump truck with his de agent Ram into it and Lito's arrest. And that's the end of the game. So buried. And he's working for him. So I've got to go testify with Barry or spend the rest of my life in the penitentiary. That agent says, you can go down tomorrow in first class or I'll take you down tonight in chains. If I take you in chains, the only place you ever going to see your family again, I promise you, is in a federal penitentiary visiting room as long as you live. I said, I believe I go first class tomorrow. So I went down and I went to see a famous lawyer, one anyhow, that had some. And I was telling him what the situation was. And he said, well, I'll represent you for $600,000. But I don't talk to snitches. I said, no, I'm not a snitch. I said, I got to do something. I'm looking for professional help. What can I do? He said, being a snitch is like being pregnant. You either are or you're not. I said, well, I'm not. So he said, well, ain't nothing I can do for you. He said, if you go in that, in that room and test for to testify before the grand jury and you don't tell them one thing, they can use everything you said against you to convict you. Then you got to tell them everything. So I took Murray and the children, we fled to Brazil. And he's down there a few months and Barry was assassinated.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

Shot in the parking lot. The DEA begged the judge not put him in into a place like that. Said he will be killed. And the judge said he should have thought of that before he did this. So the judge gave him a death sentence. Gave him six months. Had to go in every night at 6:00 to a halfway house. And the guy that I flew up on the first load was the guy that killed him. No, he Just got out after 40 years. Just got out here a few months ago. I don't know, 40 years, maybe. We got 86. So he must have been 38 years.

[Sean]

Holy crap. And he just got out?

[Roger Reeves]

Just got out.

[Sean]

He put the head out for him.

[Roger Reeves]

Pardon?

[Sean]

He put a head on. On Barry from prison?

[Roger Reeves]

No, he killed him. Oh, no, no. He. The Ochoa brother, I believe, put the head on and he sent that guy up to kill him.

[William Reeves]

Oh, wow.

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah, that guy sitting on the back seat of. It's kind of interesting, he said, on the back seat of the first load I did for him. Dang. And he had a little Mac 10. Ugly man. Skinny little man. I mean, sure enough, ugly. And we took off, and it was a banana plantation. A lot of that stuff was down the plane fields. And it was clay, it raining, so we took off. The mud from the clay filled up my wheel wells of that little airplane, and I couldn't. I couldn't get the wheels up. Well, now they'd be going 300 miles an hour. I'm going about 200. I can't make Louisiana or Arkansas with that. That drag. So I tell the guy, we got to stop, and. No, no, Louisiana. Louisiana. I could have been going to Argentina. He wouldn't have known the difference. But I told him, no, we got to. We got to stop in Belize. And I got a place there that I'm safe to stop. I used to refuel for marijuana there. No, no. And he put the gun right up to my head. I said, go ahead and shoot, fool. You're going to die, too. Either way, you're going to die. So anyhow, I landed with that gun to my head, and Mr. Carter was there, and he welcomed me good and sent a boy out to watch the airplane and price it up. And we ate on the Ferranda. And that old guy Renaldo was happy as a lark. We had chicken potatoes, and we flew on in. And that's when Barry unloaded me that load. And that's how he met Barry. So he knew he was looking for.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Roger Reeves]

So that was the death of Barry Seal.

[Sean]

And did all the cases get dismissed because he died?

[Roger Reeves]

Yes, but when they caught me, I had several. I'll jump ahead. When they caught me here in the United States, they made me do 11 years for parole violation. It's the longest in the world. History. I've never heard of anybody. No, Nothing. United States, 132 months. Jeez. And back up there. I'd getting ahead of myself there, but. So anyway, I stayed in maximum security prison for that. 11 years right there in Lompocular.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

So you ended up in Brazil, right?

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah, we went on down there. I took my family and fled. So I was living in Brazil and lived on the beach in an island called Guadalja. And I like it. When I got there, I was kind of looking over my shoulder, but I didn't have good paperwork and the helicopters and all kind was there. Anyhow, they were looking for Mingal. The. They had found his body, the angel of death. He had been just two or three houses from where I. So anyway, I got a scare. So after a year, my. My little girl, she. She learned to speak Portuguese and 10, 11 years old, she played under the lifeguard place right in front of the house and with all the children and she had a little moped on the. And we had a good time there in Brazil and went all over. So my wife, I was. I was thinking about growing soybeans. So we got Brazilian passports. We got everything perfect, our fingerprints in the system where we got married and inherited land. All of that was paid for. So we was. We were Brazilians. Only thing, I didn't speak Portuguese. So I says, all right, let's go see what South Africa like. Murray did not like to live in the rest of our life in Brazil, but she's from Holland, so the boar, the. The Dutch settler. South Africa. And the language is still there. It's a little different. But so we decided, okay, let's go to Cape Town, South Africa and see if we can find a home. So, oh, we got off the plane first class. My. My wife and Miriam and our little son, like 6 years old and Mary must have been 11. And when we got off the airplane, we just slipped a dude off, thinking nothing about it. And we come up to immigration and there's a big, big Mexican looking guy with the gold buttons and mustache, Bondia. God, my knees went out from under me. I am wanted all over the world. I don't speak Portuguese and I got a Portuguese passport. It's like, really? I thought, what am I going to do? This, this is not going to work. And my daughter came quickly around and she said, sir, my father is deaf. And she said in Portuguese. Oh, gee. Good, good, good, good. A welcome family.

[Sean]

Wow, that is brilliant.

[Roger Reeves]

So that was our sojourn. And so we lived a while in. In South Africa. We just loved it down there.

[Sean]

I heard it's beautiful.

[Roger Reeves]

It is. Cape Town is the. A hidden jewel. It cost 25% there, what it does now, and it is superb.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

Yeah, I want to get out there. I've never been, but I've heard great things. Yes, you know, it's.

[Roger Reeves]

It's lovely.

[Sean]

So you spent a lot of time in Africa?

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah, I like Africa. It's got something of the pioneer spirit that I have. You know, it's just certainly I travel all over. I have no trouble.

[Sean]

Yeah, man. We'll do a part two. But anything you want to close off with here, I know you got the book.

[Roger Reeves]

Yeah. Let me. I think that I'd like to read my daughter. When I. I got. After our Europe, I got arrested in the United States. I think I told you all. I spent 33 years in prison. And this little girl that saved my butt there in. In Cape Town, she wrote me a. She wrote me a poem. Here it is, Daddy's poem. See if you can see their picture. There they are right there. I don't think.

[Sean]

Yeah, we throw it up on the screen.

[Roger Reeves]

Daddy's poem. She wrote this when she was 17 years old. After I got arrested and was back here. I do 11 years, parole violation. A year ago I became a poet when I wrote your birthday prose. And here I am today, ready to give it another go. First, I would like to wish you a very happy birthday to be and to thank you very much, for without you, I would not be me. Secondly, I want to say that your suspense has been immense. It has been true, honest and loving and free of all pretense. Thirdly, it goes without saying your love has surpassed all my wrongs. And you always made me smile with one of your old country songs.

[William Reeves]

Wow.

[Sean]

Did she write this to you while you were in prison?

[Roger Reeves]

Pardon?

[Sean]

While you were in prison. She wrote this to you?

[Roger Reeves]

She wrote to it. She was just a little girl, 17 years old, in high school. Hmm. Yeah. I remember on Cuervo, Daddy, with you holding me in your arms as you sang Jim Reeve songs and talked about the farm. I can see you walking through the door from one of your travels far and wide and the thought of you coming home. Daddy kept a twinkle in our eyes. I can smell you as I did when I used to climb into your bed and you would talk to me again about one of the adventures that you led. I can see me and Mario sleep in one of your airplanes extraordinaire. I remember wondering to myself why there wasn't an available chair. I remember having to meet you and worrying that you wouldn't be there, but you would pop from behind some counter and give us all a happy scare. You gave us presents in Key Biscayne and hotel, pleasures galore and three dozen roses we came through the airport door when I saw your face in Amsterdam at the luggage carousel. Looked like a boy with a secret that you were just dying to tell. You taught me mathematics in the sands of faraway places. You taught me to sail. We sometimes left without any traces. We climbed glaciers in Argentina and saw the blue of their beautiful caves and went to some majestic beauty of such a jagged crystalline maze. I learned how to change gears on the dirt roads of Brazil. We ate hot dogs in Paraguay, a memory we stolen over till we talked about lines, elephants and bears on a hussy end of your way. But decided it was better to Europe we did fly. Oh, the Old World in all its luxury. What a good time it was from South America to the Krasnopolski. I think we fell in love. European Jaunt well is to be considered a book all in itself. But it's a story about beauty and knowledge, suspense and worldly wealth. We went from Holland to Sweden and we went from France to Spain. And I promise you that I have no regrets. I would definitely do it all again. I would see the world with you anytime, sir. There's no doubt in my mind. Because being by your side, Daddy, always ensures a wild good time. So our past took a turn and we're back in the US of A. But life here isn't so bad and I'm plumb content to stay. I'm happy to be near you, though I'm not as close as before. But because of your love and encouragement, I mean April to open new doors. I'm grateful to be in school. I'm generally happy where I am. And I even like when you call and tell me to study for the next exam. What a life you've given me, Daddy. It's a tremendous and a magical gift. We already have so many stories to tell. There are far too many to list. But I want to thank you again this day with a very big Happy birthday to you. And to tell you just a few more things that I know in my heart to be true. That I love you, Daddy, with all of your wrongs and your rights. That you're the head of our family and you've kept us all bound tight. That you have an honest love in your heart for God and all mankind. And you truly do believe in yourself when you say it will all be fine. I know you'll be there to catch me if ever I waver a slip. And I know I'd want you as captain on any sinking ship. I also know a new chapter is written. It's almost time to move on. It's time to sail another sea and to witness a brand new dawn. It'd be good to see you at the helm again as you point out our destination and to laugh and dance as a boat glides through. Be good to see you on the go, as I know you like to be, and to know you can open any door without requiring a key. But while we revel in our days together, we will know better than to hurry, because if you told me many times, life is an incredible journey.

[Sean]

Wow, Miriam, that was beautiful.

[Roger Reeves]

Thank you.

[Sean]

Yeah, poetry is a lost art these days.

[Roger Reeves]

Yes, it's beautiful.

[Sean]

We'll link the book in the description below.

[Roger Reeves]

All right, good.

[Sean]

Yeah. Thanks for coming on, man.

[Roger Reeves]

Stay tuned.

[Sean]

Part two, guys. That was fun.

[Roger Reeves]

All right, thank you very much.

[Sean]

Awesome.

[Roger Reeves]

Foreign.

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