A Mother’s Promise

by Lee Barnett

  ‘Oh, come on girl, you’ll be right,’ Judy said in her usual matter-of-fact way. ‘You need to see him before you go. At least think about it.’

  Then Bruce got back on the line and asked if I was okay.

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘I just don’t do so well with kindness, and you here in person would be weird.’

  We both laughed. What a strange relationship we had forged over these months. Besides Samantha, I thought Bruce knew more about me then I did myself. How would I ever be able to thank him?

  Samantha flew down to Brisbane from Townsville to see me and I couldn’t help but notice a new, almost uncomfortable distance growing between the two of us. We seemed to be losing the extraordinary mother–daughter vibe we had shared for all of her life. I didn’t like this new feeling. I smiled until her tear-stained face had left the visitors room before I let my tears flow freely. I felt it was imperative that my children continued to see me as a strong role model and thought and hoped this might help soften some of the pain they were feeling.

  Judy, Keri and Bruce did visit. It was tough but how could I refuse? It was a little strange at first, but then we focused on the evidence and what to expect in the States.

  And so I began thinking about goodbyes and how much I was going to miss my life in Australia, even including my life inside the prison. I knew I was going to miss many of the ladies and officers I had met there. I was going to miss my incredibly strong friendships in Australia, and to this day I remain dumbfounded at the love they have shown me and my family. And I already knew I was going to miss the country of Australia, which seemed to be like America used to be, where the people were kind and had a strong sense of fairness. And of course I was going to miss my two children desperately.

  I removed the many photos I’d stuck to my corkboard with toothpaste, and glued them into my diary. And I copied down the most important phone numbers – Russell, Cliff, Patty and Gordon – hoping that the diary would travel with me. I continued to add notes to the letter I planned to drop into the slot available for inmates to contact the Warden, a kind of letterbox located at the bus stop next to the phones. It was a list of suggestions or helpful hints that I felt could improve the place I had called home for more than ten months.

  At 4 a.m. on 26 September, a light flashed in my eyes. It seemed brighter than the normal head count, and it was certainly quieter. I jumped when I realised that the light was right next to me. ‘Barnett, wake up.’

  ‘Oh hi,’ I said to the supervisor. ‘I guess it’s time.’

  ‘Collect your personal things and quietly come with us.’

  I asked if I could brush my teeth, but that would be done up in reception. I dressed quietly, put on my thongs, grabbed my diary and left a letter to my unit mates on my desk. My blue letter for the Warden couldn’t be dropped in the slot because of extradition protocols. Damn.

  We headed out into the darkness. This was the first time I had been outside at night in ten and a half months. I took a minute to stop and look up at the Australian sky, full of vibrant stars. As we started walking again I heard a sob from the second officer, who I knew quite well. I asked her if she was okay. She said yes but she was worried about what was going to happen to me. No prisoner was allowed to touch an officer but just this once I decided to break the rules and put my arm around her. We kept walking while I reassured her that I would be fine.

  At reception my supervisor and officer organised a razor, shampoo and conditioner for my shower, and they went out of their way to make me a wonderful breakfast and two(!) cups of tea. I couldn’t help but think it felt a little like my final meal, as if I were on death row.

  After my shower I dressed a second time, this time in clothes Sammy had sent to reception months earlier. The waist of my black dress pants had to be rolled down to stay on my much thinner frame. And it felt very odd to put on my red shirt – seeing myself in bright colours after such a long time made me feel like a different person, and by that I don’t mean my old self but someone completely different. To finish it off I added a simple cardigan that Sharon had bought for me.

  Once that was done the three of us talked amongst ourselves. The officers promised to collect all of my items, including my legal papers; they were to be picked up later by my friend and co-worker Amanda, who would deliver them to Samantha.

  After an hour or two, the solid steel doors opened and closed and, much to my surprise, two men I recognised walked into reception. More than ten and a half months after our first meeting, Pedr and Mike walked over and gave me a hug. A huge grin spread across my face on seeing these two wonderful men, who both said how great I looked.

  Pedr explained that neither of them had wanted strangers to pick me up, that they wanted me to see familiar faces after all this time in prison. I thanked them and grinned again, and on seeing the bewildered expressions of the prison officers explained how Pedr had been my arresting AFP officer, and Mike the ‘good’ FBI agent at my arrest.

  The paperwork took a while and the five of us chatted easily and about everything – except what was really happening. When the first of the many doors opened for us to leave I asked my supervisor if I could give them both a hug and she happily said yes. I sobbed a few times, wiped away my tears and asked them to relay my thanks to all the officers. And with that we headed out.

  Honestly, it was as if the three of us were long-lost friends. When we got to the car Pedr introduced me to a female AFP officer, who slid into the back with me. The atmosphere was almost celebratory as I asked after the children. Mike told me he had seen Reece working at Mooloolaba surf club, and Pedr said how impressed he was at how well the children were handling things. We drove through another guard station where Pedr and Mike signed some papers and were handed their guns. Still jabbering like high-school friends, we started to drive off when there was a knock on the car window. Pedr stopped and rolled his window down. The officer then pointed at me, perched forward between the two front seats, and said, ‘Isn’t she a prisoner?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pedr.

  ‘Well then, shouldn’t she have handcuffs on?’

  We all started laughing at how this had been missed. The female AFP agent gently secured the cuffs and we went on our way.

  Now that I was in a car with windows I saw the layout of the prison from the outside for the first time, and identified all the buildings for the officers in the car, sounding like a proud tour guide describing her hometown. When we ventured up the hill behind my unit there were the kangaroos, nibbling on the dewy morning grass and raising their heads as we passed. It was then that I noticed a huge black SUV with black-out windows behind us. I mentioned it to Pedr and he chuckled. ‘Yes, that’s our support vehicle just in case.’

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ I said, laughing along with the others.

  ‘It’s just procedure,’ said Pedr.

  We pulled up right outside the front of Brisbane airport. The black SUV slipped in behind us and four armed men who really looked the part exited the car.

  We all got out and entered the terminal. During the long walk Pedr explained that there were three US marshals from South Carolina to take me back.

  ‘That sounds like overkill,’ I said.

  He agreed and said that he and Mike had offered to escort me but the FBI had refused; they had to follow protocol and that meant sending three US marshals for the job. Mike and Pedr had spent the last three days doing all the touristy things with the marshals, and Pedr said that although they would at first seem stern, they were actually really nice.

  ‘Just be yourself,’ he advised, ‘and after a few minutes with you they’ll soften up.’

  I smiled and thanked him for the warning.

  After following maze-like hallways for what seemed like ages, we were escorted into a very small room where there were officers everywhere. I felt a little trapped, although Pedr’s reassuring smile and presence helped a lot. As I sat at the tiny table in the tiny room, three more people dressed casually squeezed in.
Pedr introduced me and I smiled sweetly at Chief, Doug and Katie. None of them smiled back.

  By now we were like sardines squeezed into a can. Pedr presented Chief with a wooden plaque the shape of Australia and on its metal plate was inscribed Australian Federal Police and the names of the three marshals. This prompted a detailed retelling of places they had been and things they had seen over those few days and everyone seemed very jolly, excited even. Snapshots were handed around and there was lots of gentle teasing. Even I temporarily forgot myself when I finally said, ‘Well, I guess you all can thank me for organising this incredible holiday,’ which, thankfully, was received with warm laughter.

  A few more minutes passed before Chief said it was time for my strip search. When I stood, Pedr, Mike and the female AFP officer exchanged glances and said that I hadn’t been out of their sight since they picked me up and that a strip search shouldn’t be necessary. Chief said it needed to be done.

  I was okay with this; after all, how many strip searches had I had by this time? I went with Katie and the female AFP officer into a large bathroom. The AFP officer explained to Katie that strip searches in Australia were different from those in the US. I had no idea what she meant by that until Katie directed me. ‘Okay, remove all your clothing and shoes and place them on the sink.’ I did as I was told and once I was naked she asked me to shake out my shoes, lift up my arms, lift up my breasts, open my mouth and wag my tongue, show her the bottom of my feet, show her behind my ears, and bend over and shake my hair.

  Next I was told to turn around – you do feel vulnerable when told to turn around while stark naked – and then I was told to bend over and spread my bottom, and then to cough, and to cough again. My reckoning was that if nothing popped out during this exercise I was allowed to get dressed.

  It was such an unpleasant experience, though I knew this more intensive sort of strip search was about to become part of my new life.

  It was a real effort for me to hold my head up when we returned to that claustrophobic room filled with men. The truth was I felt both violated and ashamed. After an uncomfortable silence we headed out to the gates and whizzed past security. I kept praying no one would recognise me. We were early for the flight, and my new escorts began snapping more photos. At one point I even asked Mike if he wanted me to take a group photo, and held my cuffed hands together to do so.

  I found a moment alone with Mike and I asked him if he would look out for the kids and follow up on their permanent residency that Mary had said she would organise. Then I asked him why the FBI would travel all the way to South Africa to speak to my 87-year-old father-in-law. I wanted to know why they would hassle him after he had just lost his son to cancer, lost his wife and was himself left to die by burglars in a horrific break-in earlier that year. Mike said that no one from the States would have flown in but that a local agent would have made that visit. And then I just had to ask him one more thing: why they waited nearly two years after my indictment to arrest me just eight days after the kids’ dad died? I told him that I thought this was simply cruel. Mike looked sombre and agreed that it was an unfortunate case of bad timing.

  Pedr beckoned to us that it was time to go. Mike walked with us to the top of jetway and we said goodbye while the three marshals, Pedr and I walked down to the plane’s door. Pedr stopped me. ‘I need to take these off of you,’ he said, motioning to the handcuffs. While he did that Doug reached into a bag and I heard Pedr gasp then say, ‘That’s not necessary. It’s not necessary.’

  I was temporarily confused until I felt a heavy chain being wrapped around my frail waist.

  I looked up at Pedr who was shaking his head.

  ‘It’s protocol,’ Chief said, ‘and we have to follow the same protocol for all prisoners.’

  Nothing remotely like this had happened to me throughout my nearly eleven months in maximum prison and I was stunned. Doug continued to wrap the metal around my waist, attaching a short chain from my tummy that now connected to my new handcuffs. I just knew this was going to be an extra long flight.

  I looked up at Pedr who had become glassy-eyed. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said and smiled at him. ‘It will be okay.’ Pedr gave me a bit of a hug-pat on the back, pulling me close to him but I stumbled, suddenly aware how important arms were for balance.

  He reached into his wallet and pulled out two business cards handing one to Katie and one to me. ‘You guys let me know that she is okay,’ Pedr said to them. ‘And Alex? You call if you need me.’ Damn those tears that appear when people are kind to me. I squeaked out a sincere thank you for all of his help and we shuffled onto the plane. I made sure I didn’t look back.

  By design we were the first ones on board and we moved to the tail. I was told to scoot over to the window seat, and ‘scoot’ was exactly what I did without the use of my arms. Katie sat next to me, Doug was on the aisle seat and Chief sat directly across the aisle. I couldn’t help but wonder how – not for the first time – that if they had let me return on my own I would have saved the taxpayer $20,000 or more. Katie was a nice girl, not much older than Sammy, and she asked me if I needed anything. I asked for a pillow and blanket and quickly covered my chains with the latter, not wanting to scare the parents with children as they boarded.

  As the plane reached its cruising altitude I worked very hard to keep my composure, not wanting to cry, afraid it could later be used against me. Instead I thought back to my original flight to freedom twenty years earlier. And once again I stared down at a home I was leaving behind. This time, though, the pain stung as deep as it ever could because I wasn’t only leaving my home behind, I was leaving my life, Samantha and Reece.

  23

  US

  September 2014

  WE LANDED IN LA. AS WE STOOD UP TO LEAVE THE PLANE, DOUG reached over and wrapped a sweatshirt around my bound and chained hands. I smiled and mouthed him a thank you. After we disembarked, the three US marshals looked confused and upset. We were supposed to have been met by armed officers, escorted into a car on the tarmac and then on to the next connecting flight.

  Who did they think I was, Al Capone?

  Our flight to Atlanta wasn’t for a while so we sat as a group behind the airline agent’s desk at the gate. Doug’s phone rang. It was Pedr who was checking on his favourite prisoner. I smiled. A mother with two young children glanced at my handlers and my cuffs, and herded her children away. I smiled sadly, which caught the eye of Chief. I knew he had been itching to ask me something, and finally he did: ‘How are you going to explain away your mental illness and crime once you’re back in Charleston?’

  Since April 1994 I had known that my actions would be judged poorly by many, and I also knew that many thousands of people had been affected, either directly or indirectly, by nasty custody cases.

  I cocked my head to one side and asked Chief if he knew what medication I had taken throughout my time in Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre. He had, and said that it was a low dose of medicine to manage high blood pressure. Then I asked if he had checked up on my behaviour while I was incarcerated. He had done that, too, and acknowledged that ‘by all accounts it was excellent’.

  ‘So,’ I posited, ‘if I were seriously mentally disturbed, wouldn’t you think there would be a record of some anti-psychotic medication or some outlandish behaviour over that period?’

  A small smile appeared on his face.

  ‘You see,’ I continued, ‘I was either so mentally ill that I caused my husband to suffer from PTSD and so out of control that my baby was in danger of being murdered by me, or – let’s just consider the truth here – I’ve been a loving mother to my daughter for twenty-one years, worked hard and, despite getting a divorce when my husband had an affair, I was in a loving relationship with my children’s father.’ I looked at Chief. ‘It can’t be both ways. Which of course means someone was lying, and that someone wasn’t me.’

  That seemed to satisfy him.

  At Atlanta airport we were greeted at the plane’s d
oor and bundled into a waiting van located on the tarmac then whisked through the maze of aircraft, baggage carts and airline personel – which incidentally seemed to satisfy the three marshals – before arriving at another gate. The officer waiting for us there had a very strong Southern accent and wore a jacket with large white letters across the back: ICE. I asked Doug if that was the drug so prevalent in Australia? ‘No,’ he smiled. ‘It stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It started after 9/11.’

  It rained as we came in to land at Charleston.

  ‘Lee, can you see the new Arthur Ravenel Bridge?’ I couldn’t, because visibility was so poor, but Doug explained that it was eight lanes and connected Charleston to the town of Mount Pleasant. I remembered Ravenel was a congressman and then remembered how Aunt Clara had once said that he might help me. I was happy he had a bridge named after him. I realised how the size of my hometown must have grown to warrant such a big bridge.

  At the door to the plane, two other US marshals, a male and a female, met us. I just got to thank Chief, Doug and Katie before my arm was pulled and I was led down the wet metal stairs to a waiting van. The male US marshal opened the door and then attached me to ankle cuffs which were securely chained to the floor. Welcome home.

  My destination was the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center, a huge complex with around 1200 inmates. Reception was busy – it was late at night on a weekend so the area was full of drunks. My cuffs and chains were finally removed. I stretched and rubbed my tender ribs and thanked the female marshal. I needed to complete some forms and asked if I could keep my diary. They said no, but when I protested they said I could have a look at it to memorise my phone numbers.

  I was taken to a room to be strip searched, but this time it didn’t bother me too much – I kept reminding myself it meant that I was one step closer to my cell and sleep. But then I was taken to a large, incredibly noisy room, with around fifty people, men and women, where most were high or drunk. Banks of phones were situated in the middle of the room, with seats either side and little offices or cells ringed the room’s perimeter. I noticed one room was for mug shots and fingerprinting. Okay, I thought to myself, running through the procedure, once I’ve been fingerprinted I’ll get my prison garb and be escorted to my cell. I sat waiting for a phone so I could call Russell, remembering he had insisted I do so the minute I arrived, no matter what time of day or night. At last a phone was free, but I needed to ask for help on how to use it. Russell sounded groggy, of course I had woken him, but he said he would see me on Sunday.