This is great as Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories of all time. Now, in this episode, we're headed to Paris, you guys, for a bonker's jail break by a French gangster who declared on society. I'm Marto Castro and I'm here with a wizard of the comedy world, my dear friend, and a man absolutely obsessed with short short pants, Jay Martel. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Today I'm joined by Jane Martel. Yes. I gotta tell the audience that Jay catfished me in the sense that when we we we sat for an interview for the head writer position of Alternatino, and Jay showed up into like a button down and like these nice pants, and then yes, and then I never saw him wear pants ever. Again, Jay always showed up.
Okay, this is a this is a cultural language thing. Okay, I wore pants to the office. They were just short pants, but in your mind they were so short and Guatemala, I guess they don't call short pants pants.
Listen, listen, we do not show another man or thoughts. And as we'm in business and you really and I was just throwing them out there in your face every day for free. I always say that Jay, like always looks like he just smits his flight, you know what I mean. Like he's in the Atlanta airport. He fucking had to go get that neck pillow and his fucking left him. He's just looking around, looking.
Like always a little like rumbled a little just enough?
All right, you ready for a little escaping, Yes, definitely. So today instead of a cell block, we're gonna start on a launch pad. Ooh, and the year is nineteen eighty five, which is the year I was born. Great year for babies, Am I right?
Jay?
It was so fantastic? Okay? And we're in Ansei in the Alps of southern France. Now, a woman, Lena Ruigon has started taking helicopter lessons from a guy named Ghi, a flight instructor at a local airport. Now, he didn't think anything of it, except that he noticed that she showed great commitment to learning. So in fact, she booked a hotel by the airport for a whole month, and she spent two or three hours every day practicing in
the air with her instructor. As her teacher, monsieur GhIE felt like he was getting to know her pretty well. For him. That apparently means remembering that she was blonde. I love giving it, like, yes, I know everything about her. She is a blonde, so is it. Yeah. So that September she took her flying exam and she passed with flying colors. Wow. Nice, And she got a fifty eight out of sixty required points, which I guess is enough. I don't. This is such a French way of scoring,
isn't it. The rest of the world is like, hey, it's one hundred, and friends is like, I feel sixty is fine, sixty is maxim.
You would be ahead of yeah, if you had any moles in sixty.
This man is apparently close to death. This frenchman him dying and right flying. It's a French pirate in this situation. Remember Jay that there was a sketch that we never quite made work about a Frenchman who was unimpressed by everything and called everything shit. Oh oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was good. This is shit. And then a Robert comes into the restaurant where he's at and he's like this gun sees his ship and you know, he saves
the day. I wonder whe didn't let us do that, Maybe because we didn't know how to fucking end the sketch, or we sounded like pirates when we did, because they were like, you are all dying pirates in this Well, what's going on? All right? So then Lena moved to Paris, where she joined a flight club at an airport and started flying some light utility helicopters. Okay, So Lena begins renting a helicopter every two weeks, and she gets to
know the owner of the helicopter rental company, Claude. He described her as a pretty little woman, the sportsman type, which is probably French for not Kirby. I don't know what the fuck that meant, Claude sportsman. So Claude said that Lena took a liking to one helicopter, in particular, she would come to his business twice a month and
rented for like three hundred dollars an hour. Claude didn't know it at the time, but Lina was practicing one very special skill, you guys, okay, hovering with the helicopter just above the ground. On May twenty seven, nineteen eighty six, Lena arrived with a friend, a man carrying a heavy duffel bag. Somehow, this didn't raise any red flags for Claude. You know, was he oblivious, a little bit of an idiot perhaps, or maybe just very friendly? I don't know,
I don't care what you do. Anyhow, he rented her the helicopter as per usual. Now, obviously Claude didn't know what was in the bag, but today we do know it was carrying Don Tonton a submachine gun. What And it turns out Lena had been hiding her real identity. Her real name was actually Nadine, and the day she'd been training for was finally here. And when she took off, she flew low. Soon the air traffic control lost contact
with her. The French air police try to get radio response from a helicopter as it buzzed the rooftops, but Nadine wasn't answering no, no. She was flying nineteen miles from the airport to Lesson prison in Paris because she was gonna bust her husband out of jail.
Oh my god, Now I see how it all tied together with the theme of this podcast.
There you go, Yeah, okay, a sportsman, woman, dead pirates, Yeah, big bags, machine gun, flying low you know classic. Can we take a moment and talk about the commitment it took to do this, Like.
She must have really loved her husband. I mean, that's that's what I'm getting from this.
Okay, who the hell is her husband? Let's figure this out. So his name was Michelle Vajoule. Right. He was a gangster who had declared as a teenager that he was going to wage war against society. You know, the revolution remains strong in this one.
You know, it's very common thing and teenagers, I mean, especially in France. I imagine it's like, yeah, Bennett.
Down, they are incredibly good at striking in France. That is not even a joke. Yeah, oh my god, there's good. We could take a page out of their book for this.
If this was in France, I'd be striking right now for better wages for podcast co hosts.
Yeah that's right. No, it was at getting paid. I'm gonna copymeal and credit tops. Oh my god, should strike too, let's both strike all right? So who was Michelle? Was your? To start with? He was an altar boy, no, like literally, when he was a kid, his parents send him to live in a boarding school run by a local priest. Now, along with all the other church stuff, right, like guilt guilt inducing chores or whatever. The priest taught Michelle how
to climb and shoot and run cross country. Bro, Like, is this like a super alpha priest.
Like like this couple is like it's going to take over the world.
I think.
I mean, she's a sportsman type with who flies helicopters, and he's like an all around athlete who shoots game.
Yeah. But also my priest like always sounded like that French dying dude that you just did, you know, Like Okay, they couldn't even like, you know, walk properly. I didn't know they were like priests that like did like rock climbing.
You know, if Jesus is at the top of that hill, they're going to climb that rock.
Yeah, that's right on this mountain. I shaw build my church. One person in the audience is gonna be oh he studied Gothic.
Yes, yeah, you're going to get that one hardcore Catholic podcast listener.
Congratulations, thanks very much. But for Michelle, alter boy didn't translate to being like a rule follower. Right when he was nineteen, he started stealing cars whenever he wanted to take his girlfriend dancing. This fucking guy, Okay, all right, making us all look bad. Good for you, good for you. So usually they would leave the car in the same place that they found it, but after a while they started getting sloppy and just parked it right in front
of his apartment. So the next morning, Mihaw and his girlfriend were walking up by the sound of the police banging on the front door.
Poor planning. Everyone knows you don't park a stolen car in the air house.
So what do you like? You've been stealing cars? Jay, there's a knock at your door, somebody says, police, What do you think? What do you do? What's the first thing that you do? Say? Like, I'm an idiot.
Yeah, and I deserved to be taken off to prison right now, because.
That would be your way. That would be get and by.
The way, and by the way, on pants, Let me put on my pants right now before you take me to prison.
Jay's way would be like, and by the way, I would like to confess to other crimes of myself and other people. Yeah, cracking, cracking immediately. So I'll tell you what Michelle did. Right. He dove out of the bedroom window to make his escape and left his girlfriend to face the police alone. Fucked up, like leaving your girlfriend holding the battle totally French. Yeah right, I don't even know that's friends. This guy's just like an early adopter
of the fuck boy nature. He's like, not my problem. So how do you even justify it to her later? You know, like hey, like I'm sorry. Like the thing is, there is a loud sound outside. I want to I was testing rock climbing.
Was actually going to go out it's a window and get the stolen car and drive it to another location.
So he's a German Frenchman. Now, oh god, damn it.
I knew I should practice my accents. You didn't tell me this was a French story.
I think we need to do Yeah, I think we need to use our own accents from now on. Day that the European nations are up in arms.
I don't think we're going to offend anyone by doing bad accents.
No, no, it's just so listen. So she confessed, right, Michelle was caught, convicted, and he was put away for two and a half years. Now, Michelle thought his punishment was too harsh, and this is when he decided to start his war against society. When he got out, Michelle was arrested again for the crime of driving without a license, and he ends up being convicted of ten robberies over
the years. To be honest, I do think it's kind of I mean, I'm not advocating grand theft auto here, but it seemed like he was just a dumb kid, right, like most of the time he put the car away. Yeah, I mean he's still really young now, right, he was nineteen the first time you got oh, oh god, okay, so yeah, there's just no yeah you could.
You're just crazy when you're nineteen, right, I don't know about you, but oh.
Yeah, it was a nut job at nineteen, and it hasn't gotten any better, no, no. But also like it doesn't feel like people that go in the system, it like rehabilitates them in any country, you know. So I guess that's when he got a really revolutionary with his crimes. Yeah, but prison, you know, they couldn't hold him. They just could not hold Michelle. Right. He made his first escape when he joined the work crew of prisoners unloading trucks
of supplies. Right when he saw the chance, he bolted through the cap between the truck and the gate, and he made his way into the woods, where he dodged the officers surging for him. Twice, he escaped by scaling prison walls in nineteen seventy three in nineteen seventy four. In nineteen seventy three, Michelle and another prisoner pushed to a weak area of the fence and climbed the wall, where they realized there was a blind spot for the guards.
They went on a robbery spree until they got caught again. What it was it with these people that can't just enjoy their prison break, you know, They're.
Like, you know, it just shows you that I'm coming from a different place. But I I always think, like, you get out of prison, just be cool for a little bit, right, move to La put on in La put on some shorts, fops maybe you know, yeah, like just relax I But it's just like, no, no, I feel like he's Michelle is really trying to prove a point, right.
He's waging a war against society, man.
Yeah, I mean he was just like, I'm just going to get out of this cage that you put me in and just do some more damage to this thing that I hate, you.
Know, right right right. So in nineteen seventy four, Michelle shared a cell with a safebreaker name Jill gill zil. Can the overlords of pronunciation please come in and tell me how to pronounce his name. It is pronounced she is pronounced gez g g so. In nineteen seventy four, Michelle shared a cell with a safe breaker named Jill, who became his best friend.
Now.
The pair used one of Jill's lock picking tricks to escape. They collected the red wax from baby bell cheeses to make an imprint of the key. Okay, Jay, your turn again. You got some wax? How are you going to get that print? I also, I'm sorry again French people, but that is the most French way of making I.
Mean the fact that they have baby bell cheeses like in prisons, mean, you know what our prisoners would do in this country do for one baby bell cheese.
And that was not the canon beer week, you know, that was that way was. It's not. It's not as easy to get an improve. It reminds me of like I was listening.
I was reading about World War One recently, and one of the reasons the French troops were doing so badly is that they all drank. A leader of wine every day like that was there. It was part of their ration.
A lot as opposed to the Germans and World War Two, which were all hyped up on.
Ye. Well yeah, it was actually like both of those world wars were like a study of olcohol versus speed.
Versus drug use. Yeah yeah, like speed, speed will always win in a war. By the way, Yeah, we does not do well in the war. It's everybody, what if what the fuck are we doing? Guys, let's just show Yeah.
Man just fell out and you know, you just get sloppy drunk on a bunch of red wine, and it's like if they put us in prison, we'll just be eating cute little cheeses.
Great. So Michelle took the direct approach, so he and Jill memorized which one was the right key by watching their cell get unlocked every day, and once when they were being put back into the cell, Michelle bumped the guard and pressed his wax against the key. Yeah. So, using a fiel and part of a hacksaw, Michelle and Ghee were able to take a piece of iron, a small piece of it, and duplicate the shape of the key following the imprint of the wax and.
Unlock his fure. I'm beginning to thank this guy's a genius. I mean, could you bump into someone and make make a whack impression of their key?
I don't. I can't confirm it legally. I can't tell you if I have done that before or not. No, but it is impressive. You know. It's one of those you know, classic tales of like wow, if you had just applied that genius to something else, like yeah, exactly, but he was. He was put on earth basically to break out of prison. That's right, some people their job.
He evolved, like one hundred thousand years of human evolution led to this guy.
Just I can break out it anything, any single thing. So in prison, after being arrested for another robbery, Michelle held what one French newspaper called an intimate ritual of rebirth. So he striped, naked, shaved, and used yoga to enter a trance that would kill the mad dog in him. And after that he gave up tobacco, radio, and even his mattress. Right, so this guy was preparing for burning man. He did not even know it.
I'm waiting for what comes next because I know it's it's not going to be about yoga.
Well. The fourth escape came in nineteen seventy nine during a hearing for his crimes. Michelle had been in prison for four years, and he had worked out a plan right at the courthouse. During his hearing, Michelle took the judge hostage at gunpoint. Jay, if we were going to smuggle a gun into a hearing, where would you hide it? Actually, I don't want to know, fuck it? No, nope, nope, Well you ask so I know what. I just know. I like this question was here and I'm like, no,
I know where he would hide it. In the in the pocket of my shorts. Yeah, in his beautiful thigh pocket that he always carries with him when it gets chilli. You have one of those, like, you know those pants that become shorts. What do they call them?
Oh?
Sports?
No, uh no, that's something else. Convertible shorts, convertible shorts shirt. We'll go with that and the convertible short people.
If you want to promote your shit on the show, you know, me and Jay and the Catholic guy will definitely buy yourself, will definitely zip those up. Michelle had actually sewn a pocket inside his underwear and took the gun out when he went to the bathroom before the hearing started. Now, the thing is, the gun wasn't real. It was a dummy carved out of soap and turned black with shoe polish.
Oh my god, this is like take the money and run a Woody all In movie where you know, it's just like this is such a cliche, And I love that he can work in different mediums too. Yeah, he can branch out from wax into soap.
I mean, you know, from cheese, from cheese to show to wax. This man does it all. It's all just a means of escape. It's exactly now. Once he was out, Michelle reconnected with his old prison friend Ghee, the safe Breaker, and he also met Gee's sister, Nadine. Huh I see where this is going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nadine had also been locked up on three separate times for things like hiding stolen goods, so Michelle and Nadine were basically a match for each other. They fell in love, and Michelle
started life with Nadine and her daughter. But that didn't keep him out of trouble. No, no, yeah, nothing keeps him down. You see. In this time behind bars, Michelle had met a bunch of guys involved in organized crime. They reached him now that he was out again, and he got hired to help with a bunch of armed robberies. So in March nineteen eighty one, Michelle gets arrested again, and this time Nadine was even grabbed as an accomplice. Okay,
this part is nuts. Her second daughter, Okay, the one with Michelle, was even born that year while Nadine was in jail. They had kids. They had kids, and the daughter escaped at prison at six months old. Very impressive. So with you, oh okay, can you imagine, well if you considered a womb of prison. Yes, well, she escaped at zero years old in nineteen eighty two, with both of them behind bars. Somehow, Michelle Nadine arranged for a
prison wedding. They met at a prison registry to sign the papers, and in the intimacy of the moment, Michelle told her about his next plans for escape. Oh my god, they didn't was released the same day, but Michelle's sentence was for eighteen years. If they were going to be together, they would need to work together to break Michelle out of the most notorious prison in Paris. Lessons. Oh yeah, that's right. Well it's actually a prison. It's well known
for housing celebrities and VIPs. At least, I mean at least if you're a fan of like well, if you're a fan of French criminals, that is, if you were like oj, you'd be put in Leyson. Yeah, exactly, you would be in the song. Now do any of these names sound familiar to Jean Ganay, Carlos the Jackal, Bernard Tappi, Jerome Cavier and Jacques Missline. I'm fucking up all these names. But how about a first couple I recognize? How about Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama. Oh yeah, he
ended up there in twenty ten. Oh man. Apparently his excuse is he wanted the cheese.
About one thing you can say about Manuel Noriega. He loved his cheese.
He loved his cheese. Say what you will about him and narco trafficking. That's right, yeah, say what you will about the man. The man had a taste for the fine things. Laissan has actually been used to film numerous French gangster movies and there wash there are French pop songs about the prison. I'm not sure you know I'm not sure if this was filmed there, but Umprofet was an amazing French film about the rise of an inmate. Laissan is still open today and it's one of just
three prisons in Paris. Now. It has a high security wing, but the security is known for being like fairly lax. You know, gentlemen, I need to I need to break in here and say the name of the prison is son of It, Son of a gun. So we've been told by our overlords in the sky, our producers there, it's actually La Sente.
So confused, I was confused that you were talking about.
Yeah, that's right, of course, that's exactly what the jackal was. Yes, I got it all wrong, Yes, thank you, over lord in my sky. So in two thousand, La Sante's chief medical officer published a book revealing what life was like inside. She described inmates piled on top of one another, suicidal, prisoners were left in chains, and prisoners with their chic skin infections that have been eliminated in general society but kept alive inside the prison. Are chaic skin infections I'm
thinking like leprosy and okay, yeah, probably that is archaic, biblical. Yeah, it's like Yeah, so they have the bubonic plague. It's kind of weird. Yeah, they have that like weird, like weird skinning condition where an angel of death comes to your house if you didn't put the lamps blood in front of it. Yeah. Those again we got We got our Catholic people back. Oh, we got them back. Yeah, are not or not. She also said that it was infested with rats and cockroaches, which I guess is to
be expected. Now, while Michelle was serving time, he was not taking it easy. You know. He was coordinated with Nadine and other friends on the outside, and over time they came up with a plan. Michelle said that after studying the layouts to various prisons, he declared that the
easiest way out of La Sante was to escape by air. Now, the layout made it safe to bring in a helicopter and hover in place where smokestacks blocked the view from the watchtowers, meaning that a helicopter couldn't be shot down by the guards. Now on the outside, Nadine wasn't just sitting around waiting for his eighteen year sentence to end, No, sir,
She was in on the plan. Michelle had already escaped four times from prison, so they had to say why not five and five times five times as the prison tribe. And this is where we will take a little break to apologize to everybody that heard the pronunciation of laissant. Now we're getting to the big moment. May sixth, nineteen eighty six, the day of the escape, Escape, Escape, Escape. I hope that Ben adds like echo after I say the escape, or something godly like that.
Yeah, if whoever's listening has heard the echo, then I have done.
My job, thanks buddy. So that morning, Michelle said he woke up early at six am. He had four hours before the scheduled ren dezvous with Nadine. That's rendezvous for all you non French speaking people. After breakfast, the prisoners will let out for a morning walk in the prison yard. As he got outside, Michelle looked up at the window of the prison building above him, and he saw the signal signal signals wow again some echo, which was actually
pretty corny if you ask me. The signal was simply a white piece of cardboards stuck in the stairwell window. I mean, really, all this elaborate escape and they're like, I don't know, just put some cud with U. We've run out of budget for couliffex. But it meant that the helicopter was on its way. So in the yard, Michelle spread out a towel on the ground and started his yoga routine. Eventually, huh, he heard the helicopter approaching.
You guys, It's like the guy you like is like looking at you at the party and you're like, my god, does he approachingesy coming this way? That's what he felt like, just in a much more heightened version. At first, it was a low rumble, and as it fucking burst into the sky over the prison yard, it became a roar that froze all the other prisoners in place. Yeah, they're like, now the door did? The helicopter opened and a duffle back flew out, crashing down into the prison yard. And
that's when Michelle sprang into action. He rushed into the bag, ripped it open, dug out a pistol and pointed to the prisoners and the guards in the yard, yelling nobody moved, or whatever the French version of that is. And the prisoners that were already not moving, they're like, what do you mean I'm doing yoga? Steal there's one fusual like, does this mean the thing is over? Okay? So Michelle
also pulled out a fishing rod and two meters of rope. Okay, So, Jay, you're in a prison yard with a pistol, a fishing pole and some rope. How are you gonna escape? Jay, I'll start fishing in the moat. Yeah, I'll catch a fish.
Yeah, I'll tie a rope around the fish's neck and use it to like water ski across the moat.
Beautiful, Yes, jumping the shark. He jumped the shark. Now Michelle ran to the side of the prison building and forcing everybody to clear path. He used a fishing rod to loop the rope through the window bars two meters up. Then he used a rope to climb up. He scrambled from window ledge to window ledge, using the fishing pole to lift the rope and loop it through the next set of iron bars. Can you fucking believe? Oh my god?
Now a prison guard was stationed on the roof, but Michelle knew that the man in the helicopter was holding him a gunpoint. It was when he reached the roof that Michelle says that all the noise up with him he heard the alarms blaring, the helicopter roaring, and the prisoners below cheering him on, like obviously, it must be such an emotive moment. Huh. So he jumped onto the landing skits of the helicopter and flew away while the prisoners clapped and celebrated his escape. Oh my god.
Yeah, he just grabbed onto the skids his kids. Yeah. Yeah, oh well, that's where all the yoga came in. I mean, he had like muscle tone.
Yeah. He was also really and people say that his chi was really connected as well.
You know that he could just merge completely with the helicopter, the energy of the helicopter.
There was a sense of oneness repeated by the person. Well, at least that's Michelle's version of the story. You know, he published that in a book in twenty eighteen, laying it all out, but Michelle leaves out some key details that were reported in the news at the time. Now, first of all, Michelle didn't make the climb alone. Okay, he had an accomplice, another prisoner named Pierre, who followed him up to the roof and held off the prison guards with a bundle of grenades.
Now, yeah, here, here, this out using a bundle of grenades.
I'm about to tell you. I'm about to tell you. So, as the news report tells it, a man with a machine gun jumped out of the helicopter and slid down a cable to the building's roof. He tied the core around Michelle, who was lifted into the helicopter. Now the cord, Yeah, the cord was dropped again to the gunman, who grabbed it, and he was also raised into the air. Then the helicopter turned and flew off, leaving Pierre behind. Pierre. No, no good for Pierre. Can you imagine you did all this?
I guess we have it. We are free. And they're like, wait, wait are we? Did you all get together? Your bastard. So, Pierre was a waiting trial for armed robbery, and he told the police that he decided not to join the escape at the last minute. Shut the fuck up, Prierre, you got left, Okay, it's one of these I didn't he didn't, dumb me. I dumped him. Poor Pierre, Poor Pierre. But the thing that Pierre could reveal to the prison guards was that the grenades he was using were not real.
They were neck turenes yeah, yeah, so they were nectarenes. Bro Pierre had hidden them and covered them in paint to look like explosives. I love to think that one of the guards knew they were in grenades, but it's absolutely grossed out by fruit. Like you know, if the dude took one look and he's like, absolutely fucking up.
Okay, hey those are green nectarinestrhea, Like I don't.
My mouth is just salivating thinking about the sellarness. And now, as for the rest of the guards, I can't blame him if I'm not wanting to get up close and personal with some fucking grenades to see if they were going to explode, you know, prison or yells grenade to me, Well, there's a helicopter in the sky. I wanna believe him.
I'm surprised he didn't use cheese because I think, I like those round cheeses would look a little more grenades, because.
No prison guard will ever mistake cheese for grenades. Bro Okay, that's true, that's right. Nectarines is yeah, you're right. It's easier to confuse. So Nadine flew Michelle to a soft field at a nearby university. When they landed, there was a car waiting to whisk them away. No names of their accomplices in the helicopter or get away car ever came to light. So at least they were, you know, honor among thieves in there.
Well yeah, I mean I'm still thinking about poor Pierre, like standing on that rooftop.
Anybody, you guys are you guys are coming back though? Right? Yeah, you guys are. You're just going to get more few. Yeah, you guys come coming back though? Like should I just yeah? Should I just wait wait here? Okay, I'll wait here. I'll mean I got the nectarines? Ye, anybody hungry in the meantime. So, Michelle was a contract burglar and the escape was arranged by his friends in organized crime. He never admitted who helped them, but it was obviously a
network with accomplices both inside and outside the prison. When the police chased down the helicopter at the soccer field, they surrounded it for more than an hour before moving in to check it out. I mean, they were terrified that it was movie trapped and waited to see if it would explode, like holy shit, No wonder the nectarine plan worked.
Yeah, I mean, these French police are pretty cautious, I'll.
Give him back to them. Yeah. So eventually they send bomb sniffing dogs into inspected before they searched it but found nothing. Now, some accounts say the Michelle and Nadan escape to South America for a few months, but eventually returned after running out of money.
I love that they staged this incredibly elaborate and expensive escape with all the details in place and then all that, you know, like wires dangling from helicopters.
But they go to South America and run out of money and I don't know how to spend. Yeah, we talked economics. They didn't know.
Yeah, we can escape, but we cannot budget South America.
They didn't come on, dude, seventeen months of I or whatever it was, helicopter lessons, you didn't. You didn't do one like accounting lesson. So if it's true that they left, they were all also able to slip back across the border into France and hide out in a small French town. By that same fall, in nineteen eighty six, their two daughters were twelve and five. They try to set up a life as a family in this little small town. French newspapers say that they were really happy together. Michelle
says that he was mad in Nadine. She wanted to give up a life of crime and love a peaceful situation as a family. But who do you think you are with your sportsman woman like figure.
It's all about rebellion, man, come on man, the war against society.
Yeah, she even considered turning herself in, and she told them so. Now, what everyone agrees on is that Michelle and Nadine were out of money. So just a few months after the jail break, Michelle decided to try another robbery, like fucking idiot, But he was pretty desperate and didn't exactly have a plan or anything. So on the day he got to the bank and saw that there were three armed guards stationed at the front door, but instead of backing out, Michelle tried to jump them and win
a fight three to one. Oh no, Michelle, man, and all this yog is getting to your brain, dude, You can't just like flow it in there. He says he was able to disarm two of them before the third one started shooting and the other cops arrived in the firefight. One newspaper says that Michelle shot three officers before they shot Michelle in the head with a magnum. WHOA, check this out. The bullet launched in Michelle's brain. Somehow it didn't kill him, Okay. One of the most extremely gross
parts here. Right. Michelle says that before he blacked out, he saw bits of his brain floating away from his head in a stream of his own blood. Pretty intense. But why are you charging at arm guards, Michelle? Fucking hell? Oh? Man, the guy has a death wish. Yeah. I want to think it's karma for Pierre. Justice for Pierre. Justice. This is what it's all about. Man, That's right, poor Pierre. Meanwhile, it's still standing on that rooftop. Guys, anytime any anybody,
they're coming back. So Michelle fell into a comb The police grabbed them and took him to the hospital. Now they were able to identify him as the helicopter prison escapee just by his tattoos. I mean, it didn't help that one of the tattoos said folk the Belize escaped in the helicopter. Get me. Eventually, eventually Michelle came back to consciousness, but his left side was paralyzed. He was charged with numerous crimes, and this time, when he was
moved to prison. He was locked in solitary confinement. You can't blame him. Yeah, yeah, they're like, fucking the guy. We're done now.
The day he gets one round cheese, but that's it.
Okay, give him the camembert Okay, he get him stewing there with it. The day after Michelle was arrested, the police swept in and arrested Nadine too. They have been conspirators before, so naturally she was suspected as part of the plan for their most recent robbery. Apparently, Michelle tried to escape again by helicopter in nineteen ninety three, but the prison. Yes, but the prison had been alerted and his plan was thwarted. People need to stop renting his friends some helicopters, man.
Like they're there's one thing I hate helicopter escapes. I mean, come on, there's a lot of other motorized vehicles. Yeah, they just make a cooler right, like yeah, Trey harder, Michelle something something.
How about a team of pole vaulters, Yeah, get over those yeah, or those Alaskan pulling dogs. What do you call it?
Yeah, you mean like in the Iditarod, the like yeah, husky.
Yeah, just a bunch of Huskies.
Well, you'd have to get some snowmaking equipment in the prison somehow for the Huskies to have something.
Well, that's that's that's Pierre's job. This time.
He convinced them that this time for sure, all the snows and dig a tunnel for the Huskies to get out, and then they would leave him, leave.
His ass again. Here's the aftermath. Okay, Michelle was finally released from prison in September two thousand and three. He still had sixteen years left on his sentence, but changes in French law allowed a judge to overrule the earlier decision. This this surprised me about a lot of European law bro that they were like, this man murders seventeen people, we gave him ten years, ten years to think about,
you know what I mean. It just feels like like sentences in Europe sometimes are so communtied.
I just get the feeling they're a lot more lenient about a lot of things, you know, Like, I.
Don't know, they probably had it coming. I don't know his life. You know, Pierre deserved it. Nobody liked Pierre, Yeah, nobody. Fucking Pierre is still working at the fucking prison now. He's like, fuck you guys. Now, when he was free, Michelle had spent twenty seven years total in jail, seventeen of those years in solitary confinement. WHOA, yeah, that'll do some Maybe maybe that's where all this yoga and sense stuff came in handy. Yeah, he had lived only forty
months of his adult life as a free man. Oh my god. Now on the French legal system, Michelle said, justice and all that stuff didn't exists for me. That justice business was a complete con. Some people command the poor folks below them, and I was one of the poor folks, those who had no power, nothing. I was
the son of nothing. What an impassioned speech. He strikes on some interesting points, but like, you know, I love the idea of Michelle hairbillowing in the wind, coming out of solitary confinement and being like I have.
A declaration to make you know, Oh, I mean he sounds very philosophical about it, you know, like for a guy who would just bum brush armed guards, Yeah you really, and just like Rob mercilessly and plan these elaborate escapes.
So Michelle's escaped inspire many copycats between nineteen eighty six and twenty fifteen eight, additional helicopter scapes occurred in French prisons. Okay, you know what, they should just outlaw helicopters at some point. It's the French prison's fault to this guard's helicopter escapes. French prisons have started to put mesh nets and closely spaced cables over our outdoor spaces. What about large glass
treenes or domes? You know, what about the Catholic priests shaming you as you're flying in.
Just post Catholic priests on the roofs of all things, shaming people.
That would fuck is? Do you know that would stop me? I'd be like, oh my god, I'm out. That would stop you in a second. Yeah, I mean I'm out.
I'm out a Catholic priest or you're kryptonide.
They really are now on the Nadine side. She published a book about her life and especially about the prison escape. In fact, she beat Michelle by a few decades. Her memoir, called air Girl, was published in nineteen eighty nine. She actually got a film deal out of it. A movie of the same title in French is La fille le laires and so much nicer in French and It was released in nineteen ninety two. Now, Michelle Villere's biography was published in twenty eighteen with the title Love Saved Me
from Sinking. He claims that today he is a change man. He's still alive and his war against society is over. He even says here that his yoga technique restored his brain function and healed his left hand, his arm, and leg with a reversal of consciousness. I believe it. Listen, man, okay, I subscribe to Goop. You know I'm with it. I live in la I believe in these things happening now. Actually, the love that Saint Michelle was apparently not Nadine's ooh
son of God yep. A law student named Jamilla started visiting him in prison, and one French newspaper says that they held a secret wedding in nineteen ninety nine. He even tried to have her He tried to have her repeat the helicopter escape, but Jamila was arrested. Hearing me out, she fucking said yes, but she was arrested before they could pull it off and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Talk about repeating the same mistakes with every relationship.
That's right, Well, so, like, how good is this man in bed?
I mean, he's obviously got a sort of an animal magnetism. Yeah, because like now Nadine's on the rooftop with pir right.
Yeah, he just he just left them both. And now Nadine and Pierre actually yeah, have a full trade cheese company.
That they Hollywood version of this arturo like you know, yeah, Pierre and Nadine definitely end up together.
They end up together.
They have an Etsy shop making keys out of wax.
So when Michelle and Jamila were finally released, Michelle went to live with his new wife Jamila. No imagine, Nadine, bro, like, what else did you have to do for this motherfucker? And then he publishes a book name like Love Save Me, but it wasn't yours. I know, that's so wrong. I mean, she took helicopter lesson. She took helicopter lessons. I mean a lot of helicopter lessons. She learned how to hover like four feet off the ground, sucking really hard. I
don't know, personally, anybody loved him, that's right. Somebody throw a tangerinea this fucking guy. I don't know, I don't know.
I'm kind of angry at this, dude. I mean, we're on society, okay, but to Pierre.
And and to brag about it, I know, I know, so listen. That's our story. But to recap, we learned that Michelle was excellent at escaping, but really bad at keeping personal relationships.
Which definitely definitely but it's very French too.
Hey a, I cannot speak to that, Jay. Can you stop fucking with our French audience? No, I love our French audience, my friend. What a fucking pleasure to talk to you as always.
Oh my god, I love these escapes. Thanks man, I would talk to you about anything in the heart.
Are you kidding? Yeah? Brother. We recently worked on a film together called The Gift Right, The Gift right the Present? Okay, the gift is a better, The gift is a better. This is also a pitch session for titles for your movies, Jay.
No, you see, the gift only works one way. The present is also the present. It's like a gift as well as the present moment.
A little play on words there. Do you have anything else do you like to plug? Brother? Anything?
I might want my new line of pants that have like the little zippered flaps. On the bottom, so perfect fake when you're in shorts, yes, hiding for fake guns and cheese.
Are you ever in shorts? But fuel you have to run to a meeting. Try Jay's new catfish pants. Yeah, I'll get you hired and then you never have to wear pants ever again.
I have like a novel out on Audible now called The Present as well.
It's it's not a coincidence, a different story.
But you use you want to get a thematic and actually it should be called a Gift. And then I have another novel coming out on Audible called Mayfly Man.
Oh wonderful brother. Much love to you, Thank you so much, my pleasure, Turo. We'll see you next time. Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio or Executive producers for Me are to or Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka for Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively, our Research Overlord and Music Overlord, our associate producer is Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next week