Hollys Hell P2

Summary

What I Survived – “Holly’s Hell Part 2” (June 2, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this dramatic and unflinching episode of What I Survived, host Jack Laurence continues the harrowing journey of Holly Dean Johns, an Australian woman who survived nearly eight years in one of the world’s most feared women’s prisons—La Diao Women’s Prison, part of Thailand’s infamous “Bangkok Hilton.” Through gripping first-hand testimony, Holly guides listeners from her arrest through her unimaginable ordeal inside the Thai prison system, her struggle to survive and maintain hope, her eventual transfer back to Australia, and her unexpected new purpose helping others entangled in cycles of addiction and incarceration.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Arrest: Trapped in a Foreign Justice System

• Setting the Scene: The episode opens with vivid narration about Thailand’s beauty—and its dark underbelly. The narrative promptly shifts to Holly’s arrest following her husband’s capture for drug trafficking in Australia.

• The Night of Arrest ([07:19])

  • Holly describes the chaos of being ambushed by plainclothes police as she’s getting into her friend Bob’s car. Both are taken into custody, Holly after a tense struggle in which guns are drawn.
  • Not knowing the Thai police’s methods, Holly is shocked to learn the extent of their surveillance—her neighbor had been undercover for months.
  • Quote:
    “They pulled their guns and they said, we will shoot you. So, you know, running was off the table.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [09:03]

• Search and Seizure ([10:31])

  • Holly narrowly avoids a death penalty charge: police miss a large stash of heroin hidden in her speaker, instead arresting her for an amount under the threshold for capital punishment.

2. Thai Justice: The Nightmare Revealed

• Reality of Thai Prisons ([13:22])

  • Holly exposes the horrific conditions Bob had once described—only now she believes them:
    “Imagine your worst fucking nightmare. Times that by a hundred. And that's what it's like. It's fucking hell. It's hell on earth.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [13:47]

• Language Barriers and Legal Limbo ([14:27])

  • Holly details the helplessness of facing a foreign legal system:
    “There was no one speaking English. Nobody... After every court appearance, they wanted us to sign papers. And I'm like, no. ...I'm not signing it. I don't know what the I'm signing.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [14:50]
  • The only Thai words she learns: "telephone" and "embassy."

• Consular Support: Limited but Meaningful ([19:49])

  • The Australian embassy intervenes to ensure welfare, provides minimal funds and necessities, but cannot influence legal proceedings.
  • “The consulate can certainly not get you out of prison...They can help your family understand what's happening...But they cannot save you.”
    — Narrator [17:47]
  • Holly is grateful for embassy support despite the loan she must repay upon release.

3. The Prison Experience: Survival, Dehumanization, and Adaptation

• Arrival and Degradation ([23:59])

  • On entry, Holly is subjected to a degrading internal search—by another prisoner, not a medical professional.
  • Quote:
    “She was a fucking prisoner.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [25:06]

• Overcrowded Living Conditions ([25:30])

  • 120 women in one cell, sleeping side by side:
    “If someone wanted to turn to the other side, the whole fucking line had to turn.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [27:22]
  • One toilet for 120 women, no privacy —an existence akin to “being treated like an animal.”

• Mental Survival and Addiction ([28:42])

  • Holly initially self-medicates with heroin and pills smuggled or sold within the prison to numb emotional pain.
    “I just wanted to be as numb as I could. I didn't want to deal with the emotions…But after about 10 months...I had this clarity...I'm never ever touching drugs ever again in my life.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [28:42-29:45]
  • The psychological toll: witnessing long-term prisoners lose the “light in their eyes.”

4. Sentence, Hope, and the Long Road to Freedom

• Sentencing and the Hope of Transfer ([31:06])

  • Holly receives a 31-year sentence, yet considers it positive due to Thailand-Australia transfer treaty:
    “This is a good thing, Amy...In six months, I can apply to come back home and finish my jail, you know?”
    — Holly Dean Johns [31:28]
  • Transfer approval is complex and slow; Americans get priority, Australians often wait years.

• Entrepreneurship Behind Bars ([34:13])

  • To survive financially, Holly forms a business alliance with Thai inmates, selling food, toiletries, and underwear within the prison economy.
  • In contrast to the men’s prison—renowned for corruption and access—you “could not buy comfort” in the women’s prison.

• Defending Herself, Fitting In ([36:42])

  • Holly dispels the myth that all Westerners are “rich.” She establishes early through confrontation she will not be a victim, gaining crucial respect to ensure survival.

5. Homecoming: Psychological Fallout and Reintegration

• Preparation for Release ([38:12])

  • After 7.5 years in Thailand, Holly’s mental health is “fucked,” feeling she is “twisting a rubber band” ([38:25]). She acknowledges she nearly lost herself if her transfer had not come through.

• Bittersweet Exit ([39:26])

  • The joy of leaving is mixed with guilt for leaving her “family” behind:
    “I was just overjoyed…But then…I didn't want to throw my happiness in their faces...It was bittersweet, it really was.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [39:26]

• Life Back in Australia ([40:27])

  • Serving her remaining sentence in a “girls boarding school” by comparison, she’s initially “amazed” by basics like hot running water and privacy.
  • Reintegration seems easy—until two years later, she experiences severe PTSD and depression. With medication and extensive counseling, she gradually regains stability.

6. Redemption: Turning Pain into Purpose

• Full Circle: Working in Justice ([45:24])

  • Holly now works for the Department of Justice, helping inmates battle addiction:
    “I now work for Department of Justice. So full circle. It's actually quite surreal sometimes...”
    — Holly Dean Johns [45:24]
  • Her credibility derives from lived experience:
    “It's not someone with a fancy degree...it's someone who's lived the experience...when they know who I am...they're like, what the...I would never have picked you that you've lived that.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [46:21-46:30]

• Regrets and Acceptance ([46:57])

  • Her one regret is trying heroin:
    “If I'd never taken that first snort, I never would have had the life I had, never in a million years. So, yeah, I do regret that. But then...I wouldn’t be here doing what I love doing if I hadn’t had that experience.”
    — Holly Dean Johns [46:57]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Prison Reality:
  “You're literally treated like an animal. You're not human anymore.”
  — Holly Dean Johns [13:47]

• Facing Sentence:
  “This is a good thing, Amy, you know? ...In my mind, I’m thinking I’ll be in Australia in 12 months. But unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”
  — Holly Dean Johns [31:28]

• Lightbulb Moment:
  “I had this clarity...I just said to myself, I’m never ever touching drugs ever again in my life. And from that moment on, I never did.”
  — Holly Dean Johns [29:20-29:45]

• Bittersweet Freedom:
  “I knew what I was leaving behind. I knew that they're living in hell and I'm going home...It was bittersweet, it really was.”
  — Holly Dean Johns [39:26]

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Important Timestamps

• [07:19]: Holly describes her arrest by plainclothes police.
• [10:42]: Holly hides valuables and recounts the near-miss with the speaker stash.
• [13:22]: Reality and dehumanization of Thai prison.
• [14:50]: Language barriers and court confusion.
• [19:49]: Embassy support and its limitations.
• [23:59]: Arrival at La Diao—degrading search by a prisoner.
• [27:22]: Overcrowded cell—sleeping arrangements.
• [28:42]: Addiction, mental health, and turning point.
• [31:06]: Sentencing, hope for transfer back home.
• [34:13]: Building an internal prison “business.”
• [38:25]: Struggles with mental health before transfer.
• [39:26]: Bittersweet emotions on leaving Thai prison.
• [42:39]: Return to Australia and impact of severe PTSD.
• [45:24]: Working in the justice system as an advocate.
• [46:57]: Reflections on regret and meaning.

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Tone & Speaker Attribution

• Holly Dean Johns is candid, raw, and uses frank language to communicate the horror and hopelessness she endured, countered later by clarity, self-forgiveness, and purpose.
• Jack Laurence (Narrator/Host) provides contextual narration, clarification, and empathetic inquiry, maintaining a compassionate yet journalistic tone.

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This episode is an eye-opening and profoundly personal account of survival, resilience, and redemption in circumstances most will never experience. Holly Dean Johns’ journey ultimately transforms unimaginable trauma into hope and service for others—underlining the podcast’s mission: to illuminate not only what people survive, but how they rebuild and rise.

Transcript

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[Holly Dean Johns]

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[Holly Dean Johns]

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[Narrator/Interviewer]

Every year, tens of millions of people board a plane to Thailand. They go for the beaches. The kind of beaches that look like they were designed by someone who's never seen anything ugly in their life. White sand, water so clear you can see the bottom from 30 meters out, the sun dropping into the horizon in colors that seem too vivid to be real. They go for the food eaten at plastic tables on the side of the road at midnight for less than the price of a cup of coffee Back home. They go for the temples, ancient gold and humbling. For the nightlife, the rooftop bars and full moon parties, and for the feeling of being somewhere that never quite seems to sleep. Thailand is one of the most visited countries on Earth, and it is not hard to understand why. It's a place of staggering beauty, extraordinary culture and a warmth in its people, its food and its light, and it stays with you long after you come home. But Thailand, much like many other places, has another side, one that most of those tens of millions of tourists will luckily never see. One that sits behind walls, barbed wire and iron bars in the suffocating heat of a country that shows no mercy to those who break its laws. Thailand's prison system holds more than three times the number of prisoners it was designed to accommodate. Of those prisoners, more than 77% are incarcerated for drug offenses. The country built a system to punish the drug trade and then filled it beyond breaking Point with the people the system caught in the Chatoit district of Bangkok sits Khlong Prem Prison, a vast compound housing up to 20,000 inmates across multiple separate facilities, a men's section, a drug offenders unit, a hospital, and within the same walls, the facility that concerns us with this story. La Diao Women's Prison the women's central prison of the Khlong Prem complex and one of the most feared women's correctional facilities in the world. It's sometimes called the Bangkok Hilton. The irony of the name is not lost on anyone who's been inside it. It's a place where you can find. With more than 200 other women in a single cell, sleeping in tight rows on concrete floors. There is constant overcrowding, disease, lack of clean food and water, and immense heat. The food budget across the Thai prison system amounts to the equivalent of less than two Australian dollars per prisoner per day. Holly Dean Johns was about to check into the Bangkok Hilton, an unwilling guest of a place she has described as your worst nightmare.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Moon in the sky I'm looking at the moon in the sky this shouldn't come as a surprise but I can't sleep War in my mind I'm trying to fight a war in my mind I don't know who's the winner tonight but it ain't me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Chapter four. Your worst nightmare. Timesd by 100. So Holly had just got word that her husband had been arrested in Australia after being caught trafficking a kilo of heroin into the country. So Holly was making plans to head home to be closer to him for support. But soon it would be her that is in need of support. Support from the Australian government.

[Holly Dean Johns]

I rang the other guy, that friend of ours who was also living there on the run, and I said, can you come and pick me up? We lived at different places. Can you come and pick me up and take me to the post office so I could post a calendar? Yeah, yeah, sure. So he's picked me up, we've driven to the post office. I said to him, wait in the car. It'll be like five minutes. So I've gone in, I've picked up my mail, which was a letter from my dad, and I just threw that in the glove box, and I thought, I'll read it later. Later never came. So I said to Bob, I said, are you hungry? He said, yeah, yeah. I said, all right, we'll go and get something to eat. So the area where we went there was. It was so busy, there was nowhere to park. So I said, look, I'll get out and get the food. You just keep circling the block and pick me up on the way back, okay? So I'm standing on the side of the road. He's pulled up. I've got into the car. As I've gone to close my door, all. All these men have run at the car. Now, we didn't know they were police. They didn't look like cops. We thought we were getting robbed because very often you hear of foreigners getting robbed. So I'm playing tug of war with my door with this guy, like Back and forth. And I'm saying to Bob, go, go, floor it. But there was nowhere to go. We boxed in. So he got pulled out, I got pulled out. We'll put in separate cars. And cop said to me, have you been to a post office tonight? And I said, no. So they drove me straight back there. The guy ID me. They bought Bob in as well. And Bob's like, we're fucked. And I said, no, I'm fucked. I said, you're not. You didn't even come in. You waited in the car park. And he said, no, that's not how they do it here. He said, I'm fucked too. He'd done time in Thailand about 10 years before, so he already had an idea of what was going to be happening to us. They took him in one car, they took me in another. As we were walking to the car, I made out I was going to run to see what they'd do. They pulled their guns and they said, we will shoot you. So, you know, running was off the table. Then they were saying to me, what's your address? And I said, I don't have an address. And they said, what do you mean? And I said, well, I stay with different people. I might stay at this friend's house for a while, then I'll go and stay somewhere else. But they kept asking me, where do you live? And I kept saying the same thing. So after about half an hour of this back and forth conversation, I realised they're driving me back to my apartment. They knew all along where I lived. Then I've got out the car. There were about 10 cops there. One of them said, do you recognize this guy? Said, nah. I said, why? And he said, oh, he's been living next door to you for three months. And then it clicked.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Oh, no.

[Holly Dean Johns]

I got, yeah, I got into, into the lift one day and as you do, if you get into a lift, you're like, you smile, you're like, hi, how you going? And I'd smiled at him and said hello. And he went like that. Quickly looked away from me and I thought, what a weirdo. That should have been an alarm bell. But it wasn't. I thought, fuck, weird bloke, you know.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Police flood Holly's apartment, tearing it apart, looking for more drugs, which they find. But luckily for Holly, they wouldn't find it all.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Luckily for me, I had jeans on and I was able to get my hand into my bedside drawer without anyone seeing. And I had a bag of jewelry and neck, a lot of gold. So I shoved that down the front of my jeans. And money. I put money into my back pocket. There was no woman there, so I knew they couldn't search me. So they're searching. One cop's found another calendar. I'm like, another cop starts searching where he just has. And I said, oh, you might just search there. But he kept searching and he found another. That morning, before I'd gone out, I'd had a shot. So I had about an ounce of heroin in one of my speakers. And when I was doing the backup that morning, one of them was loose, wouldn't tighten properly. And I thought, oh, fuck, I'll fix that tonight when I get home. So now I'm freaking out, thinking, as soon as I pick up that speaker, announce, it's going to fall out onto the ground and I'm fucked. But it never did. They picked it up, it didn't fall off. And, yeah, from there, they loaded everything I owned onto their pickup trucks and never to be seen again.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So to understand just how lucky Holly was, and, yes, she had just been incredibly lucky, we need to cast our minds back to our previous episode where we spoke about Thailand and the brutal penalties facing those caught with large quantities of heroin. In Thailand, if you're caught with more than 20 grams of a Category 1 substance, in this case heroin, there is a very real probability that you are going to pay with that, with your life. Thailand does not mess around. The death penalty is no threat. It's a sentence, and one that will be carried out. Holly would eventually be arrested with 15 grams. Had they found the ounce hidden inside that speaker, she would have been arrested with nearly 1540 grams in total, more than double the amount that triggers the death penalty. That speaker had quite literally saved her life, so she may not be looking at the death penalty, but she was made well aware that where she was going was its own living hell.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Because Bob had been in a Thai jail about 10 years prior, he'd told me many stories about what it was like. And when he's telling me some of these stories, I'm thinking in my head, fuck off. You know, you're fucking full of shit. Because it was just so dramatic and horrible, I thought, it can't be that bad. Yeah. But it was. It was. It was horrendous. It was. Look, if I hadn't have lived it, I would never have believed that somewhere like that actually existed and people actually live that way and are treated that way. Oh, man, it was. Yeah, it was something else. It was. You know, people asked me, you know, what it was like, and it's like, imagine your worst fucking nightmare. Times that by a hundred. And that's what it's like. It's fucking hell. It's hell on earth. And that's probably not even saying enough. You're literally treated like an animal. You're not human anymore. You're like a fucking animal and you're treated like an animal.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

We've spoken before about one of the biggest issues facing people arrested in foreign countries, and that is the language barrier. Because if you don't speak the language well, you simply just have no idea what is happening.

[Holly Dean Johns]

When we were taken to court, there was no one speaking English. Nobody. And then, like, some of the cops spoke a tiny bit of broken English, which was really hard to understand. But after every court appearance, they wanted us to sign papers. And I'm like, no. And they're getting pissed off because I'm not signing anything. And I said, I'm not signing it. I don't know what the I'm signing. So that was an issue. The first cell I went in, this was before the prison because we were kept at the cop shop for a month. There was two Russians and one Indonesian lady. One of the Russians didn't speak English until years later. So really I had two people I could talk to for two weeks because after two weeks they were then sent to the main prison. When the embassy came to visit us, they told me two words in Thai. They said, these are the two words you'll need to ask for the most here. They told me how to say telephone and embassy. And he said, that's what you will need here because you will be wanting to phone us, talk to us. That would be only two words I knew. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts.

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[Holly Dean Johns]

you can't run a business.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

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[Holly Dean Johns]

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Chapter 5 Leaving. So when foreign citizens find themselves in trouble overseas, like real trouble, the kind that involves handcuffs and foreign police stations and a legal system conducted entirely in a language you don't speak, there is one call you are entitled to make, and that is to your country's foreign consulate. Under international law, anyone arrested or detained overseas has the right to contact their government. In many cases, a consulate officer will make contact as soon as possible, visit or call to check on your welfare, liaise with local authorities and prison services, and establish a communication channel between the detained person and their family back home. But of course, there are limits. Important ones. The consulate can certainly not get you out of prison. It cannot secure your release, arrange bail or provide legal advice. It cannot intervene in court proceedings or override the laws of the country in which you're being arrested. You are subject to local laws full stop. In practice, what this means is that the consular office becomes something between a lifeline and a witness. They can make sure you're being treated in accordance with local law. They can help your family understand what's happening. They can make sure you haven't simply disappeared into a foreign justice system with no one watching. But they cannot save you. Holly found herself sitting in a Thai jail, thousands of miles from home, facing the possibility of decades behind bars. And she says the Australian consulate showed up not to save her. They couldn't do that. But they showed up. They made sure she knew she had not been forgotten. In a situation designed to make a person feel utterly alone and utterly powerless. That mattered more than she could have anticipated.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Yeah, the interactions that I had with the Australian embassy for the most part, was really good. When you're in prison over there, they have people who Work for them. It's their job to go in and visit us every month. Now, that's to make sure we're all right. Bring up any concerns we might have. They could bring in food for us, they could bring in underwear. They could bring in stuff like that. So what ended up happening with us? We could apply for a loan through the embassy. So that meant after it's been approved, depending on what the rate is at the time. So every three months, they would bring out about $400 and deposit that into our accounts. That was for three months. Now, I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I was very much grateful for this, but $400 over three months, that's nothing because you have to pay for everything. Nothing's free there. So, yeah, after I got out the night I was at the airport to fly home, the big boss from the embassy came and he said, this is what we've given you over seven and a half years. It was about 10,500. So he said, you need to pay this back before we can ever issue you a passport. I did pay it back because I wanted to travel again. I wanted, you know, I didn't want to be stuck. So, yeah, like, all of us were very grateful for that because it did help.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So, as mentioned, there are many things the embassy can do and more that they can't. And one thing Holly found out quickly that they can't do is help you find a lawyer.

[Holly Dean Johns]

And we're like, well, why not? They said, we just can't. We're not allowed to. So we had to navigate that ourselves. And that was by talking to women in jail. Just sort of word of mouth of who was okay to use. Like, for me, it didn't really matter for me because I was. I was going to eventually plead guilty. It is what it is. I was. I was caught. There was evidence on me. There's no point in trying to fight it. So that was my plan the whole time. But it wasn't Bob's plan. He was going to fight it. And because he wouldn't plead guilty, we didn't get sentenced for three and a half years.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So. But you. So you couldn't get. You couldn't just say, I'm pleading guilty. Give me what I'm getting and let me get on with it?

[Holly Dean Johns]

No. So when they searched my apartment, they found two calendars, right, 30 grams of heroin. When they searched his apartment, they found, I think it was 110 grams, two bottles of methadone, which is synthetic heroin in liquid form. And a gun. So even though they found those things at his house, they had charged us together with each other's stuff, which I was really angry about, because it's like, why are you charging me with his? I don't live there. But that's how they do it there.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So while the proceedings are continuing and they're preparing for court, the pair were being kept in a local jail, a place that Holly was desperate to get out of. As someone who's no stranger to the judicial system, even if it's in a foreign country, she knows that being in a prison gives you far more freedom than a small jail at a police station.

[Holly Dean Johns]

And I kept asking the police, I said, everyone else is gone after two weeks, why are we still here? And he said, look, don't be in too much of a rush to go to jail, he said, because when you get there, you'll wish you were back here. But I just wanted to get out of there, because when you're at the cop shop, you're just in a concrete box. The lights are on 24 hours a day. It was near the airport, so there's planes going on all night. You can't sleep. You're only taken out of that cell if you're going to be interviewed by cops. So I didn't want to stay there. I wanted to go to jail because I knew there'd be more freedom there.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Holly would eventually be moved to the women's prison. And she says, literally, from the moment she walked through those doors, she realized just how bad things were going to be.

[Holly Dean Johns]

This was probably my real big wow moment. So we just got there. There was a lot of us. There's probably like a hundred of us. I don't speak Thai. No one speaks English. So I'm just following the fucking line of people and doing what. What they're doing. We were all in a line, and we all had to go into a room to be internally searched. This was no surprise to me, because they do that in jails here. So I. I expected it. So I knew how many women had just gone into this room before me. Like, a lot of women had been through there. So when I've walked in, there's a chick standing there with gloves on. And I looked in the bin because I know how many gloves there should be in that bin if she's been changing her gloves. There was hardly any in there. So I'm motioning to her, take your gloves off, put new ones on. And she got it. So she did that. And I was internally searched. Now I found out later this wasn't a nurse or a doctor, it was a fucking prisoner.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

A prisoner? I thought you were gonna finish that by saying prison officer. You just said prisoner.

[Holly Dean Johns]

No, it was a prisoner.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Oh my Lord.

[Holly Dean Johns]

So that was my first big. What the is going on here? And then from there it just got fucking worse. Yeah, it was horrible. So the first cell that I was taken to, there was about 120 women in there. So I'm standing outside this cell waiting for it to be opened and I'm looking inside and I can't see any foreigners. They're all tired. And I'm like, what the fuck, what am I going to do? So they've pushed me in, they've locked the door, and I said, does anyone speak English? One chick put up a hand and I was like, oh, thank fuck for that. I've got someone I can talk to. So I sat down and started talking to her. And she was what they call the mother of the room. So that means that she's in charge of giving out the money coupons, she's in charge of who sleeps where, anything that happens in there. She's the boss. So she sort of filled me in on, you know, what's going to happen and I said, well, where am I going to sleep at this stage? Everyone's sitting down cross legged watching the tv. So she said, oh, I'll find you somewhere to sleep in a minute. And I said, what do you mean like where? You can't even see the floor. And she's like, don't worry, we'll find you somewhere. So the TV gets turned off at about, gets on at about 6, got turned off about 8. So that's the time everyone lays down. So everyone's laying down, there's five rows of people. She's gone and counted all the lines and she said, this has the less people in it, you'll go here. And she's pointing and I'm like, where? And she said, there. And I said, what do you fucking mean there's, there's nowhere, there's no space. So she's got everyone to move. And she said, that's where your space is. So everyone had to sleep on their side. If someone wanted to turn to the other side, the whole fucking line had to turn. So imagine five lines of women. There's no space. Everyone's legs and feet are intertwined. So if you want to get up and walk to the toilet, which is right at the back of the cell, you literally have to move people's fucking feet. And legs and sort of like tippy toe your way through. There was just no room, you know, one toilet for 120 women. I didn't even use that toilet for about a month because I was so embarrassed. I'm like, how the can I go and have shit or a piss in front of 120 people? Because everyone can see what's going on. There's no privacy. And then after a month I was like, I just go to the toilet downstairs before lockup. But after a month I was like, this is my life now. And at that stage, I didn't know how long I was going to be there, but I knew it would be 20 plus years. And I'm like, I've just got to leave the old me behind. This is it. This is life now. So, yeah, I just sort of had to become a different version of myself.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Foreign.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Chapter six Bittersweet I mean, and that's a, that is the crushing reality, isn't it? Because it's not like this is a five minute thing and I'm just gonna have to put up this for a couple of weeks. I mean, you know, you're staring down the, the barrel of a long, long time and, and this is your everyday. I mean, how are you coping mentally?

[Holly Dean Johns]

I mean, I was all right, but I wasn't. Like, the first thing I wanted to know was, where can I buy heroin here? I just wanted to be as numb as I could. I didn't want to deal with the emotions that were going on within me. You know, I just wanted to be numb to everything for as long as possible. So I was buying pills off people, I was buying heroin. Yeah, I was just living that way. But after about 10 months of using, it was really weird. You know how you hear of people having a light bulb moment? Yeah, I literally did. It was so. It was so weird. I've got up this morning, walked outside and I've sat down on the ground and it was filthy. And I just sat there just looking at my surroundings. I was watching all the women go about their daily whatever they're doing. And it was, it was in that moment that I had this clarity. And I was like, holly, what the fuck are you doing? Look where the fuck you are. Look what you've done to your whole life. You're fucked. You're going to probably die here. And it was in that moment of this clarity and realization. And I just said to myself, I'm never ever touching drugs ever again in my life. And from that moment on, I never did a lot of not just Thai women, but also other foreigners, people who had been there for, like, 10 years plus. Not all of them, but in some of them, you'd look in their eyes, and they just weren't there anymore. There was no light in their eyes. It was just blank. It was really sad to see they were gone. And that was always a real worry of mine, that maybe one day I would look like they did and there'd just be nothing there anymore. I'd just be a shell.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Eventually, Holly would get her day in court where she was going to receive her sentence, a sentence of over 30 years. Now, you might think hearing that would be a devastating blow, but in fact, Holly says you'd be wrong.

[Holly Dean Johns]

It was a great moment. So we found out, like, pretty much straight away after our arrest that Thailand and Australia have a transfer treaty. So that means if you go to court and get a sentence of life, you have to serve eight years before you can apply to transfer back home. But if you get a number, you can make this application after four years. So when I was sentenced, my brother and sister were there. I had no idea they were flying over for it. As soon as they heard how long, my sister just started crying. She was just inconsolable. And I said, amy, this is a good thing. And she said, how the is it a good thing? You're going to be here for 31 years. And I said, no, I won't. I said, in six months, I can apply to come back home and finish my jail, you know? And she said, oh, okay. I said, this is good, Amy, you know? So in my mind, I'm thinking, I'll be in Australia in 12 months. But unfortunately, that didn't happen.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

For Holly to be considered for a transfer back home, she would first have to agree to the Australian government's terms. That meant just how long she would be serving in an Australian prison. It was an agreement she was willing to sign. She says, no matter how many years they put on that piece of paper,

[Holly Dean Johns]

before you even get home, you're given, like, a contract to read. And it's more or less saying, okay, if you agree to these terms, we will take you back to Australia. If you don't agree to these terms, then you fucking stay there. So the federal government were only asking me to serve three years when I got back home. But the lady in charge of that decision, she said no. She said, if she wants to come back, she can do five. So of course I signed it. I would have signed it even if they said, you're doing 20 years. Just to be out of Thailand, I would have done anything. That was the agreement that I made in order to come home. I will say this, and I've said it many, many times, the Americans, they love their people, man. Their embassies had their people out of Thailand back into an American jail within six months of making their application. It was unbelievable. So, you know, us foreigners are watching Americans going like this, and we're thinking, we'll be the same. But unfortunately for me, it wasn't like that. You know, I was knocked back. I was denied. This is after waiting for three years of getting no information back and just being told, no, there's no decision. After a while, I just stopped asking because it was killing me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So with the constant knockbacks and not knowing just how long she would be left in Thailand, she needed to learn how to survive long term. The government's financial assistance was very welcome, but it simply wasn't enough to survive. And so Holly quickly got to work and created her own source of income within the prison.

[Holly Dean Johns]

What I did was I quickly found out who was who, who does what, Because a lot of the women in there, they don't have money, they don't have visits, they don't have family sending them money. So because everything is for sale, there's a lot of things going on in the jail. People are selling toiletries to make money. People are selling bras, people are selling food. So I quickly aligned myself with two Thai women. You know, they were like my sisters. You know, we lived together the whole time in there, sort of like a family. And we had a lot of that business. We were selling food, we were selling toiletries, we were selling underwear. Like, we just had a big chunk of that marketing there. So that was our way of making money to be able to buy food, to be able to buy medicine, to be able to buy clothing. It's about business in there.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Over the last few years, I've spoken to a number of foreigners who have served time in places overseas. Men who have been incarcerated in places like Panama, India, Bulgaria, and, of course, Thailand. And almost all have said the same thing. Money talks. And in a lot of places can get you access to almost anything you want. Better food, drugs, phones, prostitution, even guns. That's right, guns. And in more simpler terms, a more comfortable sell. But Holly says life in the female prison just wasn't like that.

[Holly Dean Johns]

No, you could in the men's prison. The men's prison was very, very corrupt. You could do anything. Everything was for money. But in the women's prison, it wasn't corrupt, as weird as that sounds. And yeah, there was just no corruption in there to that, you know, to that extent. I mean, if I could have bought a big spot, fuck yeah, I'd be buying it, you know. Yeah, I make sure I sleep in a king sized bed these days.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I bet being a Westerner in a foreign prison means you stand out not just because of the way you look, but also because of perception. And for many that perception is wealth. If you're a Westerner, you have money. This perception may not be right, but it can make you a target. Holly says that early on in her sentence she made it very clear she wasn't going to be a target.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Most Thai people do have that perception that we're a foreigner and we're rich and we'd be like, it's not like that, you know, but that was their thinking, you know. Yeah, there was violence in there. I was never a target because I made it very clear from the first day that I was there that I would never be a target. So the first morning I was taking some water out of the big water trough and there was a trustee standing at one end and she had a long metal rod. So as I'm putting my bowl in to get some water, she's raised her rod and I can see she's going to bring it down across my wrist. So I've yelled and I've got the mother of the room, the boss. I said, come here, you translate exactly what I'm telling her. And I said, you tell her if she ever goes to hit me again, I'll grab that rod off her and wrap it around her head. And I said, tell her exactly the way I've told you. And she did. So I did that to make sure that everybody knew. Don't try and fuck with me. So, but I've always done that wherever I've gone, you've got to let it be known straight away, otherwise you'll be a target. As you know, you know, jail, it's a hostile environment, tempers run high. That's just inevitable it's gonna happen. And that's just a part of it. And you know, that's a part of it.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Hollywood served seven and a half years in that Thai prison and just six months before she would be sent home. She says mentally she was in a very bad place.

[Holly Dean Johns]

My mental health in the six months leading up to when I went, my mental health was fucked. Yeah, my mental health was bad. The best way I can describe it is twisting a rubber band. That's how my mind felt. I felt like I was being twisted more and more every day. I was really feeling low and I've never felt that way before. I actually felt and I knew in my heart that if I don't get out of here in the next few months, I'm gone. I'm not going to be me. Something could go. I knew that. I felt it. So thank fuck I did get home when I did, otherwise I wouldn't be who I am now. There would have been a huge shift in who I was.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Eventually she would get the call that she was leaving and heading back to Australia to serve out the rest of her agreed sentence. News that was extremely welcome, of course, but also a double edged sword.

[Holly Dean Johns]

The best day, you know, the, the best thing, you know, I could hear, I was just overjoyed, you know, elated. But then on the flip side of that, I've been living with all these women seven and a half years, like we're all good mates, we're like family. So I didn't want to throw my happiness in their faces. I was really conscious of that. Even though I knew, like I knew they were happy for me, but I also knew something would have been hurt in them that it's not them. So yeah, I just played it really low key, didn't really talk about it. Yeah, because I felt for them, you know, I knew what I was leaving behind. I knew that they're living in hell and I'm going home, you know. It was bittersweet, it really was.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And coming home was that the deal was that you were coming home to do five more years in Australia?

[Holly Dean Johns]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Where did you serve that time?

[Holly Dean Johns]

Called Bandy Up Women's prison here in Western Australia. That's where I'd done jail when I was 20.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Right.

[Holly Dean Johns]

So I knew what it was going to be like.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Holiday camp compared.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Oh, like a girls boarding school, Jack. You know, it really was, it was like, fuck, this is great. It was a very strange experience coming back. The first thing that was like wow was you have to shower and they put knit stuff all over you. So when I turned the shower on, warm water came out and I like jumped and I'm like, fuck, I haven't felt hot water on my skin for seven and a half years. That was weird. Eating hot food, that was weird. Everything was weird. They put me in what's called a crisis care unit. When I'd got into reception they said, oh, we're putting you into a crisis care unit. I said, well, for, oh, you know, to get you used to a western diet again. And it was all bullshit. They thought I was fucked in the head. I thought I was going to knock myself or something. And I said, look, I know why you're putting me in there. You think I'm vulnerable. I said, mate, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm good.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I couldn't be happier.

[Holly Dean Johns]

I couldn't be happier. I said, I want to be put back into general population. And they're like, nah, you stay here for a couple of weeks. So I was like, oh, whatever. In this type of situation, there's a camera in the cell so you can be monitored all the time. Sleeping was really strange for me because I'd slept on a floor for seven and a half years and now there's a high bed. So I'd lie down and the room would start spinning. A lot of the time I couldn't sleep with a pillow because it just felt weird. The first morning, they unlocked the cell door and I've gone to make a coffee and I'm not wearing any shoes. And one of the screws said, you got to wear shoes. And I was like, oh, okay. Because in Thailand you can't wear shoes inside. It was just little things like that, like getting used to again.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Holly served out her sentence and would be released after serving a total of of 12 and a half years between Thailand and Australia. She said she initially thought that she would struggle, returning to normal life, struggling to get back into the real world. But in fact, initially that wasn't the case.

[Holly Dean Johns]

But it was so weird. I actually walked out of jail and just walked straight back into life. It was like I hadn't even been away, which was amazing. Everything was going really good in my life until about two years later when I woke up one morning and I was crying my eyes out. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want to go out. This went on for like a couple of weeks. And I was actually thinking I was losing my mind. Like, I'm going fucking crazy. So I went to my doctor and I told him what's going on. And he said, holly, look what you've been through. Look how you've had to live. He said, you've got post traumatic stress, like severe. And he said, you're depressed. And until he said that, I hadn't even thought that. But when he said those words, I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. So I got on medication. I did a lot of counseling, like, a lot of counseling. And doing those two things has got me through it. I did Think I was okay after being on the medication for a couple of years, and I went and saw my doctor and said, look, I'm all good now. You know, I want to get off the medication. How do I do it? Carefully? And he said, oh, look, I don't suggest you do stop. And I said, well, I'm going to. How do I do it Safely? So I got off it. I'm thinking I'm all good. And then one day my husband says, you need to get back on your medication. I said, why? He said, you're a fucking bitch. I was like, really? And he's like, yeah. He said, mate, you need to go back on it. And I was like, really? So I went and caught up with my. My best friend, and I said, oh, look, this is what Stephen's just said. Have you noticed, like, anything? She said, yeah, you need to go back on it. I couldn't see it myself, but they could. And, like, no one had said anything. So I went back to the doctor, and he. He's watched me walk in, and he's just smiled. I said, what are you smiling for? He said, I knew you'd be back. I said, well, I didn't. I really did not think I would be back. And he said, no, I'm glad you're back. He said, you need to be on it. And I still am, and I always will be. And, hey, that's fine. So, yeah, I did have issues when I got out, but, you know, luckily for me, I embrace counselling. It's a really great thing, and I really heavily advocate for that.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

After almost 20 years of her life being spent behind bars, you would think the last place she would ever want to be is anywhere near a prison. But in fact, prison is the very place she's found her calling and true purpose, helping those just like she once was, lost, struggling with addiction with no clear hope of change.

[Holly Dean Johns]

It's actually strange because I've spent so much time of my life in jail, imprisoned by Department of Justice, right. I now work for Department of Justice. So full circle, Full circle. It's actually quite surreal sometimes when I sit down and think about life, you know, I'm like, I would never, ever have thought, you know, 10 years ago that I would be here doing what I do.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But who better to do that? Because you. You know it intimately, you know the other side, and that in itself, it garners more respect, I think, because people. When you talk, people listen because it's like, well, she knows what's talking about. It's not someone in A suit, you know, it's not someone with a fancy degree on the wall saying, listen to me, I know what I'm talking about. It's. It's someone who's lived the experience. Not just in this country, in other countries, been there, has lived a life that many will. Could never even contemplate. So, you know, it's. It's. It's.

[Holly Dean Johns]

And that's what they say to me, you know, like, when they know who I am and that they're like, what the. I would never have picked you, that you've lived that. And I said, well, why would you?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Holly Dean Johns]

And they're like, yeah, I just wouldn't have picked it up. And they all say the same as what you just said, Jack. Like, you understand. You get it. Like, I can really be honest with you because you fucking get it. You've lived it. And I'm like, yeah, so it does make a lot of difference with, you know, prisoners I work with and that. And that's why I love doing the job I do. I just love it.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Do you have regrets?

[Holly Dean Johns]

The one. Yeah, I do have regrets. I never thought I did, but I guess the one. The one regret that I do have is ever trying heroin. If I. If I'd never taken that first snort, I never would have had the life I had, never in a million years. So, yeah, I do regret that. But then on the other side of that, Jack, I have had a life and a lot of hard times, but I wouldn't be here doing what I love doing if I hadn't have had that experience. So that's how I look at it. You know, I'd either be still going in and out of prison, I'd still be a heroin addict, or I'd be dead. They're the only three options. And I had OD'd many times. I'm obviously meant to still be here. And that's how I look at it. I have been put through that to be here right now doing what I do.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Holly has written a book all about her time in Thailand called Holly's Seven Years in a Thai Prison, the link to which is in the show notes of this episode. Holly Dean John spent almost 20 years of her life incarcerated. Ultimately, as she says, she knew what she was doing, could see her locked up, and she accepted her fate. But what if you're incarcerated for 27 years of your life for a crime you did not commit?

[Holly Dean Johns]

Hello? This is a call from Junior, an incarcerated individual at Airway Heights Correction Center. This call is not private. It will be recorded and may be monitored.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Coming up, I'm going to introduce you to a man I Met all almost four years ago, a man who was at the time, 42 years of age and incarcerated in the United States and had been since he was just 15.

[Evaristo Salas Jr.]

I was so confident that the truth would be so easily be seen. I was like. And I always tell my dad, look, I really didn't do this, so there's no possible way. And that kind of thought process gave me a sense of comfort, and I was like, there's no way. It just won't happen. Not in America. But we learned very quickly that that's not the case.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Evaristo Salas Jr. Was tried and convicted for murder when he was just a child, a murder he always maintained he was innocent of. And when he and I met for the very first time, he was still trying to prove his innocence. Almost 27 years later, we're still fighting

[Evaristo Salas Jr.]

in the courts, the court of appeals. We're filing our last briefing here on the 22nd, and then the decision will come whether to grab me a new trial. You know, throughout the conviction, all that kind of stuff, we pretty much gave him everything we could, and it's up to the court of appeals to decide.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Evaristo would talk me through his experience of not only being arrested for a crime he didn't commit and being found guilty, but also just what it was like being a child sent to a men's prison where he would have to join a gang just to survive.

[Evaristo Salas Jr.]

And some of the officers that were there, you know, I got to know them pretty good. There was one female that was really, really nice to me. I was actually getting transported out, and they were cuffing me up in there. And she was right there because she worked in the booth and she was crying. You know, I think she felt really sad because, like I said, I was heading to an adult prison. I looked like I was 10 years old. She knew that I was about to head into an environment that was really hostile and pretty bad things were probably going to happen to me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So as I listened to this man's incredible story for the very first time, shocked by what I was hearing. Little did I know at the time the journey that I was about to embark on with this man who was a complete stranger who would eventually become a friend. Hey, Debbie, it's Jack. How are you?

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Hi.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

What's. What's. What's happening?

[Holly Dean Johns]

So he's exonerated.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

No way. Next time on what I survived.

[Holly Dean Johns]

This shouldn't come as a surprise, but I Can't sleep. War in my mind I'm trying to fight a war in my mind I don't know who's the winner tonight, but it ain't.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend if you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side hustle full time. Listen up. This is Nikayla Matthews Akome, host of side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week, you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side.

[Holly Dean Johns]

If you can't run a side hustle, you can't run a business.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

They share real tips. And so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn, and I saw Target supplier diversity was having office hours. Real advice.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

And the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check out side Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Okay, Caller one wins courtside seats to tonight's game.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

What?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I won floor seats.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

You did?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I've been calling for 13 months. Wait, Chris.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Yes. I finally did it.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

What are you gonna wear?

[Holly Dean Johns]

Men's Warehouse.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

They've got today's looks for any occasion, and I need to look like a celebrity.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Don't want to stick out.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Exactly.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

They've got Chill Flex by Kenneth Cole,

[Holly Dean Johns]

Joseph Abood, and a tailor at every store for the perfect fit.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Congrats.

[Chris Gillebeau]

Congrats.

[Evaristo Salas Jr.]

You can stop calling now.

[Holly Dean Johns]

Not a chance.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Hit any. Look for every occasion at Men's Wearhouse. Love the way you look.

[Chris Gillebeau]

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