The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks

by Paul Simpson

  The group hid in plain sight in the country area of La Baumede-Transit, in the Drôme department in south-eastern France, eighty or so miles from the prison. They rented a charming house in a small village, apparently based on its recommendation in the Routard travel guide, and as far as the locals were concerned, they were simply there for a holiday and to take part in various sports, as they trained for an upcoming biathlon. They went for drinks with the neighbours, but otherwise kept themselves to themselves, doing their own cleaning, and cooking steaks in the vineyard gardens of their home.

  They did travel from time to time back to some of their old haunts, and this was to be their undoing. Michel Valero was spotted by the Swiss police near a bar in Geneva, driving a car that had been used in an attempted robbery on 5 May by Payet, whose hood had slipped during the abortive theft. The surveillance was taken over by the Lyons police, and a group of forty officers was assembled. At 6 o’clock on the morning of Friday 9 May, they swooped on the house in Richerenches and arrested the four men smoothly, without any shots being fired. There they found a stash of weapons and money in different currencies.

  The French authorities learned their lesson, and didn’t allow Payet, or the others caught with him, to remain in any one prison for any length of time. Payet made a big fuss about this, publicly complaining about the many different prisons he had been incarcerated within – at one stage, he was transferred nine times within thirty months. In January 2005, he received a thirty-year sentence for his original murder; two years later, he confessed to his part in the 2003 operation and received a seven-year additional term, as well as six extra years for his escape in 2001. (This add-on has led some sources to believe that he was out of prison for six years; instead, the courts simply trebled the amount of time he was free to create the sentence.)

  Payet wasn’t going to stick it out. Bastille Day, Saturday 14 July 2007, saw his most recent escape, and once again, a hijacked helicopter was key to his plans. In the spring of that year, he sent a postcard to Alain Armato, a pimp in Marseilles, who he had known some years earlier in prison. Armato sympathized with Payet’s situation; as he later told a court, Payet needed binoculars to see the end of his sentence.

  Armato therefore put a team together. However, this wasn’t a finely tuned team, working seamlessly with one thought. He hired young convicts, promising them large sums of cash if they were successful; three of them dropped out at the last minute, with one of them later claiming that it felt as if they were in a comedy film, not a serious criminal operation. A safe place was hired by one of them with his own name; one of the cars they planned to use was borrowed from a friend . . .

  Despite all this, at least initially, it all played out as planned. Armato’s team of four burst into a helicopter company at Cannes airport, and ordered a pilot to fly a chopper north to the state prison at Grasse, where Payet was currently being held. (One of them also stole €170 from the till.) Twenty minutes later, they landed on the roof, and, leaving one man behind to guard the pilot, they threatened the guards with machine pistols and sawn-off shotguns before cutting their way through a number of doors to reach Payet’s cell. Hardly any guards were on duty to stop them from breaking the cell open, where Payet was in the middle of writing a letter to his wife. The hijackers hurried Payet through the prison corridors up to the roof and into the helicopter, which immediately took off and headed south-west.

  The vehicle was abandoned half an hour later at a heliport next to a hospital in the town of Brignoles, twenty-five miles north of Toulon. As ever, the pilot had not been harmed, and was left handcuffed to a fence in a local cemetery. The alarm had already been raised, and within an hour of the escape, 150 gendarmes were patrolling the area, with police helicopters searching from above.

  They found out who was responsible pretty quickly: the thugs involved were so amateur that they boasted about it around town. All the police had to do was keep an eye on Armato and his “lieutenant” Farid Ouassou, and they would lead them to Payet. Despite Payet’s best precautions – using payphones miles from where he was hiding – he, Armato and Ousassou were apprehended in the seaside town of Mataro, eighteen miles from Barcelona, two months later. On them were four guns, a false French passport and a set of skeleton keys.

  In April 2011 Payet was given an extra five years on his sentence (the prosecution had asked for him to receive twelve), while Armato got a nine-year term. Ouassou and Abd-el-Moutaleb Medjadi, Armato’s other lieutenant, were given seven and six-year sentences; the drivers got three years each. The fourth man in the helicopter died between the escape and the court case.

  This time the police were taking no chances with Payet: 200 specialist police and gendarmes surrounded the court. As far as they were concerned, Payet was grounded. Indefinitely.

  Sources:

  20 heures le journal, 4 March 2005

  USA Today, 21 September 2007: “Escaped killer from French prison caught”

  Daily Mail, 15 July 2007: “Killer ‘Kalashnikov Pat’ flees jail in audacious helicopter escape (again)” (NB numerous details in this are inaccurate)

  Good Morning America, 17 July 2007: “Helicopter used in French prison break”

  LibéMarseille, 8 April 2011: “Pascal Payet, as de l’évasion pas au bout de sa peine”

  Le Parisien, 8 April 2011: “Evasion de la prison de Grasse : Pascal Payet condamné à cinq ans”

  L’Investigateur, 10 May 2003: “Les évadés de la prison de Luynes arrêtés dans la Drôme”

  Le Nouvel Observateur, 19 October 2001: “Un des deux évadés de Luynes arrêté à Paris”

  AFP, 12 October 2001: “Deux détenus dangereux s’évadent par hélicoptère de la prison d’Aix”

  CNN, 13 October 2001: “French helicopter jailbreak”

  Liberation, 13 October 2001: “Un hélico emporte deux détenus de Luynes.”

  AP, 15 April 2003: “Jailbreak Revives French Prison Debate”

  AFP, 4 March 2005: “Six ans ferme pour Pascal Payet, évadé de Luynes par hélicoptère”

  New York Times, 15 April 2003: “French Prison System Gives Hope to Inmates”

  L’Express, 13 March 2011: “L’évasion de Pascal Payet, ‘une histoire d’amitié’, selon les accuses”

  France-Soir, 24 June 2008: “Procès sous haute surveillance pour Pascal Payet”

  Florida Getaway

  Steven Whitsett’s escape from the Martin Treatment Center for Sexually Violent Predators in June 2000 would not normally have attracted that much attention, but for two key factors. Firstly, Whitsett wasn’t an ordinary prisoner as such: under Florida’s controversial “Jimmy Ryce” law, he was a ‘‘resident’’ at the Center, with apparently no date set for his release. And perhaps more importantly, he was one of the first prisoners to try to escape from the jail using a helicopter.

  When Whitsett made his daring getaway, the Treatment Center had only been in operation for a matter of months. Prior to that the buildings acted as the Martin County jail, and it was also the home for a drug treatment programme. Operated jointly between the Department of Corrections and Liberty Behavioral Health Care, Inc., it looked like a prison, and, from the description of the security measures in place, its inmates were treated like prisoners, no matter that technically they were referred to as residents. The fifteen-feet-high fenced enclosure was protected with razor wire and barbed wire, and microphones and microwave devices could detect anything that moved between the central enclosure and the outer fence. Still, because the residents were civilians, rather than prisoners, the security level was less than at other institutions, including a smaller number of staff, who only carried pepper spray, rather than guns.

  At the time of his escape, the twenty-eight-year-old Whitsett hadn’t been committed to the treatment programme by the court. In 1994, he had received a six-month probation term for soliciting sex from a sixteen-year-old boy. The following year, he got too close to a fifteen-year-old patient at a treatment centre for sex offenders, and on
2 February 1995, was sentenced to eight years in prison and fifteen years’ probation for sexual battery on a child by a person in custodial authority and for lewd, lascivious or indecent assault on a child (i.e. taking Polaroid photos of him). By 1999, with remission for good conduct, Whitsett should have been on his way after serving his time.

  But by the time Whitsett became eligible for release, Florida had enacted the Involuntary Civil Commitment of Sexually Violent Predators Act, otherwise known as the “Jimmy Ryce” Act, named after a nine-year-old Miami boy, who had been kidnapped, raped and murdered by a sexual predator. Once he had served his sentence, Whitsett had to be assessed by the Department of Children and Families to see if he remained a threat to public safety; if the courts determined that he was, then he was sent for treatment, and his case reviewed annually until such time as he was considered safe.

  Whitsett was furious that he wasn’t able to leave. A hearing was scheduled for early June 2000, but Whitsett was warned by his attorney that another molestation case was making the headlines, so it would be advisable to delay his application for release. Whitsett couldn’t wait.

  To get out, though, he needed help, which came in the form of his long-term lover, Clifford Burkhart, who was five years younger. They had been in a relationship some years earlier, but Burkhart had later married. When Whitsett finished his prison sentence and was moved to Martin Treatment Center, Burkhart became a regular visitor, divorcing his wife, and starting to plan a future with Whitsett. In the months leading up to the escape, Burkhart would regularly tell his co-workers at the Rainforest Café how angry the treatment his friend was receiving made him. When the two men chatted at the centre, it was clear to them that the only freedom Whitsett was likely to see was a freedom that he made for himself. Burkhart therefore started taking lessons in piloting helicopters, maxing out his credit cards to pay for the tuition.

  The two men laid their plans carefully for six months. Burkhart would land the helicopter inside the compound and collect Whitsett. They would fly over the fences and land by a van hidden there by Burkhart, then head to a motel room in nearby Okeechobee, where there was a change of clothing and hair dye (as well, according to Time magazine, as a stack of “porn featuring the type of boys Whitsett favoured”). From there, they were going to head for the train station and a new life in New York City. Whitsett was so confident that the plan was going to succeed that he mailed his CD player and his headphones to his home address, and went round giving away his possessions to other residents.

  Burkhart had been learning how to fly for eight weeks, and had racked up around thirty hours of flight time, but only one solo flight – virtually nothing at all. On 5 June, he loaded two guns, and rented a two-seater 1993 “Robinson 22” helicopter from Fort Lauderdale. As his liberator was flying towards the centre, Whitsett was calmly having a haircut, telling Liberty staff that he wanted to look good for a job he was applying for within the prison.

  At 1 p.m., the guards and the treatment staff noted that a helicopter was approaching the centre, and to their amazement, it hovered in the area between the interior and the exterior fences. Whitsett dashed over the inner fence, from which the razor wire and barbed wire had recently been removed, and started to board. (The original plan had been to land in the basketball court but with nothing stopping Whitsett from climbing the fence, the other area was easier for Burkhart to target.)

  And that’s where things started to go seriously wrong. Burkhart was simply too inexperienced to be able to cope with the sudden addition of a man’s weight onto the skids of the helicopter and didn’t compensate in time. The chopper lurched sideways, breaking the landing skid, and bringing the rotor to hit the ground. Although Whitsett clambered on board, the helicopter was too badly damaged to fly very much further, and although it was able to achieve sufficient altitude to clear the fences, it crashed a hundred yards south of the perimeter fence, near a canal. By the time that the guards reached the crash site, Whitsett and Burkhart had run for the orange groves that surrounded the prison.

  Although initially amazed by the audacity of the attempt (and believing that they were being hoaxed), police and the guards quickly instituted a manhunt for the two fugitives, alarmed by the discovery of two empty holsters within the wreckage. “We do consider them armed and dangerous, and, frankly, desperate,” Jennell Atlas, the spokeswoman for the Martin County Sheriff’s office, told reporters, adding that the escape was “out of a Hollywood script. He landed in broad daylight and [Whitsett] ran out like in a movie, but unlike in a movie, they crashed.” Atlas didn’t expect them to be free for long: “They’re not prepared to stay out here like we are,” she pointed out. “They likely don’t have food or water and come nightfall, the bugs will carry them off.” Dog units were brought in to search for the men.

  Whitsett and Burkhart initially just tried to find cover; they knew their firearms would see off any creatures that tried to attack them, at least during the day. At sunset, the men realized they would have to stay out in the woods – there were simply too many officers searching for them to risk moving forward. The next morning, the dogs were loosed once more into the groves, and were able to track where the men had been from the smell of their excreta.

  Desperate to evade capture, the two fugitives entered an alligator-infested canal, hoping to remove any scent trail that the dogs could follow. However, this laid them open to being spotted from the air, and twenty-six hours after they fled the crash scene, Whitsett and Burkhart were arrested, a mere nine miles from the unit.

  Burkhart received a four-year sentence for his part in the breakout; Whitsett was sentenced to twenty years, but after a plea bargain and other court proceedings, is set for release in 2017. It is ironic to note that it was eventually found that he wasn’t a threat under the terms of the Jimmy Ryce Act. If he hadn’t decided to make a break for it, Whitsett would have been a free man for nearly a decade.

  Sources:

  Time magazine: “The Boy Who Loved Me” 11 June, 2000

  I Escaped: Real Prison Breaks: Cineflix Productions, 2011: Whitsett interview

  Palm Beach Post, 8 April, 2010: “Child molester in helicopter escape could get out of prison in Martin”

  Sun Journal, 6 June 2000: “Inmate escapes by helicopter”

  Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability: “Escape from Martin Treatment Center for Sexually Violent Predators”. Report No. 99–58 June 2000

  Knoch-out Blow

  There’s absolutely no question. If Demonte Johnson had known with whom he was tangling on that cold day in February 2001, he might have thought twice about tackling the intruder that he found in his home when he unexpectedly returned. But he can hardly have expected escapee Lee John Knoch to have chosen his particular house in which to hide.

  Knoch was one of the nastier inmates held at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario, eastern Oregon, midway between Portland and Salt Lake City, which opened its doors to prisoners in August 1991, part of the state’s increasingly tough stance on law-breaking which has seen seven new correctional facilities built in the past two decades. Although there was a lot of local opposition to the creation of the prison – to the extent that there was an unsuccessful attempt to oust the local officials who gave the go-ahead – it is now a valued part of the community, providing jobs and supporting the local infrastructure.

  Perhaps part of that good feeling stems from the relatively low number of escapes from its doors. And perhaps that’s because it’s well set up: there are two sixteen-feet-high perimeter fences, as well as rows of razor wires and multiple guard towers which look out over the acres of empty land surrounding the prison.

  Lee John Knoch didn’t care about the local community. In February 2001, he simply wanted his freedom, something that the state of Oregon was determined to deny him. Knoch had been found guilty in 1998 of aggravated murder, assault, kidnapping, theft by extortion and harassment. At the time of the offence in 1996, Knoch was out on
bail on charges of kidnap and torture: he had allegedly snatched Robert Lee Holliday, a thirty-four-year-old mentally challenged Oregon resident, and over a two-week period, he had broken eleven of his ribs and poured carburettor fluid into his eyes, leaving him with heat and chemical burns as well as internal bleeding. Knoch was indicted in January 1996 of these charges, but freed on bail. He didn’t report as ordered, was caught speeding or driving recklessly on four occasions, and was stopped in the area of town where Holliday lived, contrary to a direct instruction from the judge granting bail.

  Finally, on 28 March 1997, shortly before his trial was due to begin, Knoch kidnapped Holliday again. This time he and his accomplice Amanda Walker clubbed Holliday, slit his wrists and throat, and then buried him alive on Trask Mountain, one of the highest peaks in northern Oregon. Knoch was sentenced to prison without possibility of parole. (As a result of Knoch’s actions while out on bail, the voters of Oregon passed Measure 40, later amended to Measure 71, which required that judges hold people accused of serious violent crimes without bail if the judge found by clear and convincing evidence that the accused was a danger to the victim or to the public.)

  In 2001, Knoch was cellmates with twenty-three-year-old Aaron O’Hara, who was serving a six-year term for sodomy, sex abuse and rape. Both were set on escape, but they were aware that no one had managed to get out of Snake River in the decade it had been operational. Somehow, though, they were able to get hold of a pair of wire-cutters: although it has never been officially confirmed, prison officials believe that they may have been inadvertently left by construction workers (although given that a lot of the work on the prison was carried out by prisoners themselves, chances are that it may have been a deliberate act to enable one of their fellow inmates to get out at a later date).