Escaping a High Security Prison | Women Behind Bars with Trevor McDonald | Real Crime

what was the hardest thing to adjust to when you first came into this prison i've always naively i guess thought that women were the gentler sex that the weaker sex that's what society wants us to believe and the fact that women can stab a man to death 40 times i find that incomprehensible south of chicago in the state of indiana two prisons hold some of america's most dangerous female criminals the rockville correctional facility and indiana women's prison house over 1800 offenders many are serving long sentences for extremely violent crimes some will end their days how severely was the victim hurt the bullet came into close contact with his eye and he took him in the face yes for four weeks i was given access to a world and a culture the like of which i've never known so you were classed as a baby killer i was that i am that i'm a lot more than that as well but that's who i am america imprisons more women than anywhere else in the world this is indiana women's prison my escort sergeant macpherson is taking me to meet the most notorious inmate in the state a convicted double murder thank you you're welcome and sergeant we're heading now to to the administrative segregation unit this unit is where our disciplinary offenders are this is uh what you call like a punishment for them if we put them here to give them time to think about what they've done and to clear up their negative behavior offenders in this unit spend more than 20 hours a day locked in their cells they have no contact with the rest of the prison population sarah pender has been in this segregation unit for nearly five years this is punishment not for the double murder for which he was convicted but for an incident in 2008 which made headline news across the country why do you think they have given you this long sentence as it were in segregation unit because i embarrassed them how did you embarrass them um well i escaped from what was supposed to be a maximum security prison how did you do that uh an officer aided me um in what way i he this is a little embarrassing um uh he drove me out they have these transportation vans that come in to get fuel they have like their own little gas station and we planned it so that when he came in to get fuel then i came out and got in the van how did you manage to persuade an officer well i didn't actually take to take you out i didn't actually ask him um yeah i know it's uh i was having when i was planning my escape i plan on doing it by myself and but i needed money and i didn't want to ask my family because i would have to lie to them about what it was for so in order to make money i worked with this officer who would traffic in contraband and then my friends would sell it for money and then i would get the money to save up for my escape and so he was making a lot of money because i was paying him very well to do this and he found out that i was playing an escape and saw an opportunity to make more money and so he said what if i could just roll you out of here i said that would be worth my while and uh and as a side note i also had a sexual relationship with the officer and that came out when i when i escaped and that was very embarrassing to the department i think i'm beginning to understand why the authorities have taken such a strong line on your case you mentioned it was an embarrassment i think it's a huge embarrassment for them yes i and the only explanation that they've given my mother for why i'm in here is that i'm quote too smart for their facility this is the rockville correctional facility from which sarah pender escaped in 2008. she was on the run for more than four months and was labelled america's most wanted woman leading the way back to indiana two state troopers and an unmarked police car bringing convicted murderer and prison escapee sarah joe pender back to an indiana state prison pinder has been on the run from police since escaping from the rockville correctional facility last august she'll have no contact with the outside she no phone calls no visits and will minimize her contact with even with staff internally the state has been true to its word and this has been sarah pender's life ever since [Music] scott spitler the officer who helped her escape was jailed for seven years sergeant macpherson has known sarah pender from the day she arrived at indiana women's prison she must have struck up a very deep relationship having targeted that male officer he was having problems at home and she prayed on that she preyed on his emotions uh she made him feel that she was going to save him that she would be his everything that she would replace what he didn't have and he was so vulnerable he fell for it so he did whatever she asked he fell in love with her he fell in love with her yes but of course she wasn't in love with him she used him to get what she wanted and that was to get out of rockville and you would put that down to her ability to manipulate she is i've seen a lot i've been here for over 20 years sarah is one of the best manipulators i've seen [Music] out in the general population prisoners must conform to strictly regimented days three hours for recreation 15-minute sittings for meals apart from this routine inmates are allowed out of their cells although they are confined to their assigned units thank you this is unit 13. offenders have just returned from lunch hi hello i'm trevor mcdonald hi trevor i'm addie what are you doing here today i'm just talking she's doing a little crafting a little writing some cards you're sending cods mother's day cards it's coming up so we got to get them out yeah does your mother come to see you here um no my mother she lives out of state so she really doesn't come up here much she's she's never come to see you at all we just talk on the phone and how long have you been in this prison um since 2006 2006. yes a long time seven years yeah but it's a long time not only for you but for anybody how did that how would that come about um i got strong armed robbery charges so strong arm robbery yeah that's more for like physical um robbery like i didn't have a gun or anything i was fighting punching you know that kind of stuff what were you robbing oh people sorry it was three people where was this in the street yeah we were driving around we stopped when we seen people walking we hopped out the car bum rushed him kind of beat him up knocked him down tried to snatch the purses so you you robbed three people yeah how much did you take oh it was only 300 hours from that robbery so really wasn't nothing a stupid decision not worth anything especially all these years of my life when you say from that robbery you suggest that there were other instances [Laughter] [Music] yeah there was i just didn't get caught fortunately how old were you when you started on this may i call it a career oh um well since i was about 13 school um i went to school up until like 10th grade then i started fighting getting expelled and i just stopped going i'm actually really smart in school i always had straight a's but i just couldn't stay there always fighting getting expelled why couldn't you stay there why did you find the need to fight well i just have a really horrible anger problem so i always let that get the best of me even looking at you now i'm finding it difficult to believe that you are capable of having done that i'm very much capable of it because you're still very young yeah i'm 25. and your sentence was 16 years do eight if you behave well yeah if you control your anger right and um actually probably in the most recent year i can say i've been getting control of my anger and i have two kids so i know i have to have two kids yes how old are they they're seven and nine two little girls do you feel you have let them down by not being there for them yes i have and i deal with that every day and that's really like my biggest motivation to changing and being different and coming out of here and you know taking something from it not just oh i've been in prison you know i want to walk out of here and be something for them i just do not want them to follow the same circle like my mother was in prison you know this is the same what for attempted murder and aggravated robbery so that that was not perhaps a great start for you in your life was no it wasn't that's kind of what you know kicked everything off it's mama leaving [Music] addie hearts will be free in only a few months [Music] she'll spend much longer picking up the threads of her life i'm on my way to the rockville correctional facility [Music] this is the largest women's prison in the state of indiana i still need bowen fairchild andrea jones ding bria [Music] rockville is a clearing house for convicts from all over the state some will serve all their time here others are assessed and moved on to other prisons every month on average 200 new offenders arrive here this is their first port of call from now on their every action will be governed by prison rules ready look right up here one two three all right this paper here tells you we don't allow any sexual contact of any kind between you and staff and you or our offenders your stuff okay go over there and get a styrofoam cup put your name on it there's water in the orange thing from the way an intake looks when she comes in here can you tell what she might be in for no i don't ever try to guess some of them when you look at them and you look at the offender it's like you cannot believe that that's what she's here for you're frequently surprised by what they've done very much so yeah you would if you look at you know the paper and then look at her and you're going there's no way but yep do you see many of the same people coming and going yes they'll come in that door back there and say i'm home and i'm going really you know because for some of them this is because they have nowhere else to go okay i'm going to roll each finger and start with your right thumb have you been in this prison before yes i have um for a fort wayne fort wayne indiana i've been here for um possession of math so i've been here before but i only stayed like an intake i didn't leave intake so but this time i will yeah so this time you will be in the general prison population yeah what what sort of prospect is that for you um a little scary but um at the same time like i don't teach me little morals you know teach me not to come back do you have a drug dependency um i've been to rehab yeah i'm an addict straight up so yeah i do how long have you been an addict um since i was 17 and i'm 28 a couple years a long time do you have children i do i have four um four children i have four my oldest one is 13. i have a 13 year old 12 year old 9 year old and a 6 year old i'm trying to find a hopeful road out of this for you i know i know um what's that i don't know i have to have a game plan when i leave here i know that like going back to life like when i got in trouble this time i violated probation because i didn't have no transportation back and forth and i wasn't using and i haven't used for maybe three months at the most you know and that's pretty good for me because i was doing needles and all kinds of stuff but three months is a big step and i just want it a little bit further and a little bit further but it's just it's hard it's really really hard thank you very much for talking to me good luck thank you new inmates have a month of prison orientation they're easily recognized by their orange uniform [Music] for every new arrival some other prisoner is about to leave [Music] martha's search is quietly counting down the days thank you ma'am you're welcome i caught up with her on her mail delivery round martha how long have you been in almost 20 years the thought of getting out must be a exhilarating one yes but you must also be worried about getting back into the world after all this time yeah i am but um this time has given me time to discover um things i didn't have before like patience and um i know it's going to be hard it's going to be a little bit difficult but i just take one day at a time and i'm just anxious to see how the world has changed in that 20 years you'll have a lot to catch up on yes i have a lot to catch up on and i have two daughters grown that were ages almost 13 and 16 when i was incarcerated who are now 32 and 35 so i haven't seen them in a while have you seen any of them since you've been here i haven't seen my youngest daughter since 99 she couldn't do it no more and my oldest i stopped coming in 2005 because she didn't want to leave without me anymore and you missed quite a lot i just went from here to terre haute to the hospital not long ago and i was awestruck at the things i saw and i had had the officer tell me what it was because i didn't i didn't know what it was things things like what i seen this little gadget once and i didn't know what it was and someone said it was an ipod so i had to have them explain to me what an ipod was because i don't know and um a cell phone i'm used to your core phones at home so um but i was i'm like yeah i can't wait to get out and try these things i'm i'm the type of person that likes to learn things and i'm curious and i'm going to find out and then we'll get on google i found out all about google and all them i just can't wait i just can't wait to explore everything so you waiting to make your entry back into the real world yes and i've i've told my children that you might still see a little prison in me because i've been down so long you know there might be this what does that mean that might be this one time when i look at the clock and think it's count time or not sure if i should answer the telephone and money's going to be strange to my hands you know and so i said if i act a little different or if i wander off for an hour or two don't worry about mom i'm exploring have you thought what your first night of freedom would be like when you can sleep in a bed of your own i feel it might show me how how a little bit of heaven would feel that's how i think of it there's a little bit of heaven not in a dorm surrounded by other people oh my god heaven heaven for 20 years martha search has been told what to do and when [Music] all those decisions will soon be hers alone prison inmates on long sentences survive partly on dreams of freedom but in august 2008 one female offender sarah pender actually broke out of rockville the convicted double murderer had earlier told me that her escape plan relied on the help of officer scott spitler now since september we've been hot on the trail of a woman authorities have called a female charles manson now recently she was added to the u.s marshals 15 most wanted list making her the most wanted woman in america but how on earth did the authorities explain the fact that she escaped lieutenant brad gray was on duty on the day of the breakout lieutenant grey what were your impressions of sarah pender while she was here she was always trying to get get an advantage over someone or something it was always about anytime you talk to her if you ask her a question uh she would typically respond with what's in it for me and when people you know either say that or give you the impression that that's what they're trying to do then it should put you on notice that you know you have to be careful about how you're dealing with them [Music] she got out through a back door in this recreation building having changed into casual clothes she hid her prison uniform in the ceiling the door alarms failed to go off and a white van was waiting with pender crouching under the back seat spitler drover out of the west gate and out onto the open road what were your feelings about the fact that this was an officer with whom you would work very closely someone you knew someone you had served with and someone you respected as a as a colleague once we discovered that it was him that that had driven pinder out of the facility i was just absolutely sick just sick to my stomach physically sick mentally sick over the entire episode sarah pender proved to be as you had probably thought when she came in here that she was just as clever a manipulator as you had originally felt oh absolutely she's proven her has proven herself to be that time and time again and that is probably the uh the best uh proof of it right then and there if you can convince an officer someone who was trained not to do this somebody who is trained to maintain the order and the piece of a facility if you can convince that person to drive you out of a correctional facility you can convince anybody to do anything the authorities were bruised by sarah pender's escape she was put in solitary confinement and has now been here for almost five years than any other female prisoner in the state of the 1200 offenders at rockville correctional facility 85 of them are mothers [Music] i'm on my way to dormitory 2 where new arrivals to the prison are housed thank you paula mcintosh a mother of four was beginning the difficult process of adjustment paula what was your first night like here um uh like going in and seeing all the new girls was it a very talkative dorm did you get some sleep um they let me sleep they helped me they talked to me a little bit tell me if i needed any shampoo or anything they'd help me out but um yeah a lot of noise a lot of echoes you can wake up easy you know what was the biggest shock to you coming into intake when you like get like not really to intake just like when you drive up in that vehicle and you turn around and you see that like the last gate flows it's like your heart goes instant yeah it's really hard will you have a visit soon or no my family won't come up here like um my dad like he doesn't really come and see us because he just it's just really hard on him so i don't i'm pretty sure i won't get no business why won't your father come to see you i think it's too hard on him because there's me and then my brother's eight just turned 18 and he's locked up and it's just like a pattern you know and it's i think it's really hard on him so he can't even come see me it's hard on him but it's also very tough on you that he wouldn't come to see you yeah plus he's got my daughter he's got my nine-year-old right now so you know he's got a lot of responsibilities on him so i said to i don't know pray for him that's all i can do your daughter is nine at that age she's able to understand a great deal i wonder what your what your father said to her or says to her about your situation who knows i'm really melissa's been like i've been locked up before my daughter's melissa and she's like she's really strong and she knows everything i don't lie to her i told her she knows about my drug use she knows about my she knows everything and um i called her this time and told her i was going to prison and she's like just um keep your head up gosh that's uh pretty tear-jerking to be told by your nine-year-old daughter to keep your head up and but even for you to make a call to say that you're going to prison yes and you have no idea when you'll see her again no um her dad just got out of prison and he's not seen her not one time and um she's nine and i guess he's just like coming around my dad's letting him come and see her like visits so that's like a big step for her too when it says and then it's like i'm there and then i'm gone you know well i hope your time passes here very quickly and i hope that you get a chance to be reunited with your daughter and your family thank you thank you very much for talking to me thank you [Music] at indiana women's prison it's morning recreation it's a chance for inmates to make friends and cultivate relationships which can be a desperately important part of prison life [Music] [Music] the most troublesome offenders have few opportunities to do that they are confined to this segregation unit they have one hour out of their cells under escorted shackled even to go for a shower [Music] sarah pender's cell faces that of her friend armed bank robber desiree hancock put your arms back out here this one i heard you tighten it up after i put it on you all right step back step out but i noticed your opposite sarah panda yes i love her that's one of my very good friends very good friend she i would like to give her a lot of credit for partly the woman that i am today like when i get ready to show out or i'll get ready to snap because this place will take you there she'll be like desiree shut up or shut up go sit down and i'll go sit down i'll calm down in a place like this friend is not a word that you just throw around it's not something that you just say because women are very vindictive creatures and they're very fake and they're very just catty they will smile in your face and they'll just be like hey and i just hope nothing but the best for you and then you turn around and ate and blue slipped you like 35 times and trying to get you and your girlfriend separated how close do these relationships get you mentioned women and her girlfriend that's a it's a pretty pretty get pretty pretty deep they get pretty deep a lot of women don't come in here gay i'm i wasn't when i came to prison but i am now and um you are you have become mm-hmm yes yes yes yes i'm a lesbian uh-huh yes i am but you you you discovered that or you became that when you were here three years before i came to prison to a man uh it's just i don't know loneliness is what started it and then i don't know one thing led to another and it may seem fake on the outside but emotions and feelings are real and you have had such a deep relationship in this two two great loves i've had a dozen relationships but i had two great loves and i had in this prison mm-hmm and i will say that i damaged both of them i damaged both of them how did you do that how did you do a cheater being a cheater a liar just i'm it was like being a cheater like when you're in a relationship it's like being a kid in a candy store it's not just one word it's not one girl it's 740 girls so and out of 740 probably only 40 ain't gay the rest of them this is the gas place on earth the rest of them are all gay [Music] it's lunchtime on unit 13. [Music] inmates follow a well marked out route to the food hall i meet up again with addie hearts who is hoping very soon to leave this place for good am i allowed to grab one of these yeah okay i'll grab okay what's on what's on the menu today this is a chicken patty with gravy what is this a chicken patty okay gravy this is supposed to be cabbage and this is some kind of spanish rice i'm sure spanish rice yeah some of it's really not bad i'm bashing the food but sometimes it really isn't that bad like i'm gonna eat this though yeah this is a good trade today are you guys ready to stay grace yes okay dear lord we come to you and thank you for this meal we ask that you bless and let it be a nourishment to our bodies in your precious thing we pray and thank you amen amen the gravy's too watery so it made it really soggy the other thing is about this place which is very obvious is that this is an all-female environment which you had to get used to right and that's kind of funny because on the streets i never really hung around females but there's people here that i'm in i'm close with queenie's one of them this is crusher we're close not like sisters but you know just close people that you you bond with and have fun with yeah it's okay we all have a common bond no matter your crime we all have a common bomb like it's we could see someone like of chris are having a bad day or addie have a bad day and then she crying you know this is a no touch facility we're supposed to be hugging but we do i feel like women need to the comfort of hey it's gonna be all right and if you you can tell me all day but if you touch me and let me know it's going to be all right keep everything surfaced you know is everything on the surface or are there deeper relationships than that in here yes yeah plenty of them but i try not to get involved in all that i've been involved with deeper relationships in here and it just didn't really go well so i just try not to so you were you said yeah i just didn't go well no one at all like you feel like it's going well while it's going but once they're like out of sight they go home or something it never goes as planned like all the words they've said it doesn't add up now you're looking forward to being out in a few months but what what are the fears what are the worries about this world that you're going into after six seven eight years well what concerns you really just the fact of being put back in the same environment the same surroundings you know and making the other choice not the negative choice so what did i say i don't like it i was just looking at your cabbage i was wondering you're looking at the cabbage you can have my cabbage yes please please have my cabbage we're allowed this chair so you you had two cabbages today that's right you'll take the chicken patty i sure will i'm glad my presents here is serving some purpose so you left me you've left me bread and rice and i'm not eating my rice thank you very much ladies this is how it works around here will you will you miss addie would you miss yes i will to me she's a youngster so i think it's my job to put some meat on her brain mean put a little knowledge on her so she won't come back here because this is not where you want to be i keep her grounded like if she's mad i'm like okay addie let's talk do you think that she's going to stay out of trouble i think so i think she got it right she has babies so i think she's great go home it kind of keeps me really motivated that's the big point for you too is that you have your life back with your with your children yeah it's the biggest thing i just can't wait they deserve so much more you know like this has been my life and this is my parents life and this was their parents life and i'm just so ready to break that curse that cycle the prison officers i spoke to were optimistic that once she's released addie hearts stands a good chance of keeping out of trouble at the end of my first visit i asked to see the convicted double murderer sarah pender again hi sarah hi once described as america's most wanted woman her notoriety is a far cry from her formative years and life as a college student [Music] all that changed in the year 2000 pender was charged with the murder of a couple with whom she shared a house they were actually shot by her boyfriend richard hull but the prosecution believed that sarah pender was instrumental in planning the murder she bought the murder weapon [Music] and she helped to dispose of the bodies in this skip she has a charles manson-like ability to manipulate people to act as surrogates for and committing crimes the evidence was overwhelming that if she didn't pull the trigger she did everything else pender has always admitted helping to get rid of the bodies but she strenuously denies masterminding the killings but she failed to convince the jury pender was found guilty of double murder i kept hoping to get to the bottom of the sarah pender story okay the thing that i have always got from the conversations we've had before is that you are not typical of the people in this prison environment generally would you agree i would i would i i have a wider world view and i think that um i've been able to glean more wisdom than the typical person uh i'm generally more educated i have about i have five years of college why did you choose the path that ended you up here it was an emotional attachment to someone who when i found out that he dealt drugs that i accepted it because i didn't want to lose him so so at every stage you were aware of where that codependency was taking you yes i went into the relationship with my eyes open however i was very very naive and i never thought that it would bring harm to me or anyone that i loved and like most women i thought that i could change him and i asked him to stop selling drugs and to get a real job and he agreed and that was the path that i thought we were going on at the time are you aware that there were guns in the house or a gun in the house yeah i bought the gun it was my gun i uh he asked me to buy him a gun if someone asked me to buy a gun my first question would be hey why me why are you asking me to do it and what are you going to use it for did you ask those questions yeah and he told me that i was the only person who was who didn't have a criminal background because in well that in itself is awfully suspicious well you can't in america you can't buy a firearm legally if you have a felony and so i was the only person who was legally able to buy it but but i'm talking about the fact that you were being asked to buy a gun by a felon the thought of being left alone frightened me more than whatever consequences would come from purchasing a firearm um what kind of a gun was this it was a shotgun uh that you would use for hunting like i think birds i don't know i didn't pick it out but but in the end it was not used for hunting birds it was used for shooting two people with whom he was in a disagreement yeah well he actually had no disagreement with the woman he said that he shot her just because she was a witness the bare fact of the matter is that you purchased a gun which was used in the killing of two people did you think about the victims of the people who were killed in this in this crime i think about them all the time nothing more about their families the woman had three kids patricia she had three children and uh despite the fact that they were both felons drug dealers doesn't matter they're still people and they have families that love them just like i have a family that loves me and they can't ever get those people back what did you think when you heard the judge or the prosecutor pronounce the sentence on you because you you were given a very long two very long sentences yes i was uh given 110 years 110 years what were your emotions on hearing that dreadful sentence disbelief why did the jury in the end conclude that you were directly involved in the murder of two people i knew that i had i knew that i had committed a crime uh but i know i wasn't guilty of of murder and um and i was willing to take responsibility for my actions in that case it was was it in somebody's mind the mind of the prosecutors the prosecuting authorities that you had somehow encouraged or manipulated him into doing into into committing those murders yes yes that was their theory that i had that i had this is where the entire or the entire reputation of manipulation that i manipulated came from the prosecutor had um went forward on the theory that i had manipulated richard into murdering murdering the victims and his theory was that i wanted them out of my house you are being judged or you were seen you were perceived as a two-faced manipulator yeah yeah which is a really hard label to carry every time i meet somebody new if they are aware of my infamous reputation it's a new hurdle jump and uh that's a consequence of my actions [Music] next week i talked to a woman who took the life of her three-month-old son so you were classy as a baby killer i was that i am that i'm a lot more than that as well but that's who i am i meet newborn zadon what would you tell your son when he is old enough about where he was born and the circumstances in which he was born i would just tell him that mommy made a big mistake and hopefully he won't ever come to a place like this and i speak to a murderer who managed to stay on the run for 35 years i heard something coming in the back door and i thought oh no it's the cops [Music] you

Channel: Real Crime

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Keywords: real crime, crime documentary, true crime, prison documentary, full length documentaries, death row, tv shows - topic, documentary movies - topic, full documentary, prison stories, jail documentary, full episode, inside prison, insede women, inside womens prison, sir trevor mcdonald, sir trevor mcdonald documentary, sir trevor mcdonald interview, sir trevor mcdonald death row, sir trevor mcdonald inside death row

Id: y_aoIRl2wbM

Length: 45min 49sec (2749 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 03 2020