Ep. 4 - I Will Never Get Tired

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This episode contains scenes that may be disturbing to some of our listeners. At the end of the previous episode, Consuelo Amaya, Captain Corral's sister in law, recalled how many in Colombia and around the world remember Paulo's Kobar, but few keep the memory alive of the anonymous heroes who helped to end his reign of terror. This turbling time in the mid nineties, after Pablo's Kovar fell and Captain Coral was killed, left a trail of pain in the

Some bets an.

Such a happy kid, and you know, because he was so happy, he's restless. He danced, he sang, he acted. In school, he was always asked to participate in the place where they was singing and acting. He was a very active child who liked to help.

Captain Corral's death was so unexpected and traumatic that it left everyone in shock. The days following the murder were difficult, even logistically. A family friend lent Los Medica Rido card to right fromage to Bogota, almost five hours away. They spent the night there in Bota, and in the morning of April twenty three, nineteen ninety four, the family took a flight to Barankiya, the city on the coast where

Yes, he stood next to his father's coffin and he walked in silence. He didn't cry, he didn't say a word nothing.

He appeared tough, but on the inside he was a child who felt tired, confused and said he knew.

Jagon alas Ijegola policia.

And then my son arrived at the funeral home and then the police arrived. Four policemen lined up, two at the foot of the coffin, two at the top, with my son standing next to it with a very dry look, in other words, with a hardness, without a gesture of pain, of sadness. He had no expression on his face. Then I called to him and I said, Pappy, come here, are you tired. I was amazed because this kid, I remember very well, said to me from now on, I'm

Let's imagine the scene at the funeral. There's an eight year old Beto surrounded by uniformed police officers carrying his father's coffin, whom he had just seen a few weeks before. When they lowered the coffin into the grave, they also lowered the promise of finally living together as a family. And from that moment in Brankiya, Beto has memories that are almost impossible to forget.

Yer, we arrived in Barrankuiya and everything was disorderly. Everything was horrible. Everyone was screaming, everyone.

Was Beto has a photo he shared with me. In it, he's small in the background with a stoic gaze. He's surrounded by police officers. With more people gathered around. Betto is helping to carry the large and heavy coffin wrapped in a huge Columbian flag. The funeral changed everything for him. In his mind, Beto thought of his father as a detail oriented, dancing, smiling and loving man. The image of the corpse in the coffin forever altered that image in Beto and Jennifer's mind.

It's a fortunament. Unfortunately, I was able to see my father dead in the coffin, and it's inevitable not to remember him without seeing him dead in the casket.

And it seems super terrible to me that a child sees that. I mean, I don't understand why they took us to see that, like, look, there's your dad dead and full of cotton.

The entire Koral family was devastating.

Lona, and.

It was also tough to see my grandmother suffer because I think for a mother, it must be tough to bury a child. To see my grandmother like that, she still cries for him.

But I've never heard that type of yelling in my life. The screams of my grandmother were difficult. To describe.

And it's because Beto and Jennifer's grandmother, who was on a trip in New York, traveled back home after being told only a half truth that her son Umberto had not survived the surgery he was scheduled to have.

In a moment there they told her that my father was killed and how he was killed.

It was a funeral with a lot of people in a cemetery in the outskirts of Bankilla, outdoors under the sun. The casket that seemed shocking and a sentatious to Beto, seemed to go and in hand with the event. Jennifer described it as having a certain tone of grandeur.

A sup.

It's super moving. I mean, the tributes, everything they do is something. I mean, it's super nice because it's like a movie. You see those military wakes in the movies and you say, wow, how elegant all the military, but really it's something super.

Ugly, and at their young age, Jennifer and Betto had a hard time understanding what was happening.

Eludo Lord, the protonis moment to know for.

The pain at that moment is not so strong metaphorically because they keep telling you that he's in heaven and that he will always be with you. So as a child, we always take everything very literally. So I imagine that my dad was going to come see me every.

Day, and Beta waited for the day his dad would come back to see him, but that moment would never come, although the memory of his dad helped him as he told his mother that day to never give up, to never get tired. This is Transportista who murdered Captain Correl episode four, I Can't get tired. After his father died and the family gathered at the funeral, Beto Corral made a promise to himself to step in as the man of the family.

He was young. He was only eight years old. His mother describes that commitment she saw in her young son.

Here again was.

Made Daijo yotra at two.

Since then, I've seen another attitude in Bettle. It was a strange attitude and a kid a silence like here, I am the one who take care of the family.

Beto was very compassionate and understanding with his mother, who lived through very challenging times. Beto and his sister shared a common goal to ease their mother's pain.

Casa.

One day, I came home and I said, well, I'm going to fix some something to eat. So I went over to start cooking, and when I opened the fridge, I expected to see sausages. I had bought sausages for about fifteen days to cook for them, and I also had gotten some ham and some cheese.

Lumetti realized that all the food she had purchased for her children for the next few days was no longer in the refrigerator.

Kip us all, it's a commune to chicail Haramon, And.

I said, what happened? Did you eat all the sausages and ham? And you know the kids, they just looked back at me with fear. Then they took out coins and bills from their little box. And my daughter said, it wasn't my fault that I told me we should make hot dogs and sandwiches and sell them in the neighborhood. These kids, they sold our foot they sold our food. But they did it to make a profit, and they made a profit. And they even replaced the sausages and

When Captain Carl was murdered, the government of Columbia forgot about them, and the family had to restart to different measures to survive.

Camels seemed not.

We were left with nothing, without receiving any money, rent, food, school, all that. I started taking care of everything, and it wasn't too much for me because I've always worked.

Before his death, the family depended largely on Captain Cordral's salary to get by loose. Mati had always worked selling merchandise and clothes, but it was hard to take care of for her two young children, completely.

A cargarnin having then, so I started.

Taking kids to school, selling lunches and groceries at home. I wanted to say, wow, I can take care of my kids. I can provide them what they need instead of going to my parents' house. So I had to make a lot of effort to maintain the same standard of living.

All this while the Coral family continued to deal with such a painful loss, but Beto didn't give up. He suffered seeing his mother working so hard and finding herself in such a difficult situations.

The name of mine Crusio Ntonia.

The community.

There were years when my mom didn't even have enough to feed us, and she would come home crying. She would say, we have nothing, I have nothing. To feed you, I learned to eat something called warus. Warus is the food that poor people eat in Colombia when they only have rice and water, no oil or salt, so they mix the rice with water, cook it and the rice turns into a watery mass and we ate that for many nights because we have no money.

These brutal shortcomings could have been less severe if the state has supported louse Matti with a pension. However, in life, Captain Corral omitted something that could have solved many problems for them. LUs Medi, Ga Rio and Numerto Corral never got married, and as we mentioned in the previous episode, Captain Corral was no saint. LuSE Medi found out something at the funeral that broke her heart.

Leaziroyu, but my dad had another boy from another woman and another daughter from another woman, who I must say, are wonderful. They're my siblings. I have nothing against them.

Better remembers that his mother, in addition to feeling pain, felt anger equipies exclusive.

The blame is solely on my dad for exposing us like this. But my mom was not married to my dad, and the law in Colombia at that time was absurd and did not allow the presumption of union that the facto marital union can exist.

That is, if a couple has been together for at least two years, then the state can allow it to be considered a marriage. Therefore, she was left with nothing, but all the four children of Captain Corral have the right to receive a small amount. Economics were not the only hardship the family suffered.

And in ya yavivia komo tromundo and in ya yametko concie lokio.

My daughter appeared. She'd already been to see psychologists, speech therapists or language therapy because she was completely blocked in the classroom. She wouldn't talk. She was very scattered, and once the psychologists asked Jennifer, tell me what do you want, and she answered, I want to go see my dad and then I'll come back.

While for many girls and boys, elementary school is a fun and joyful period, for Jennifer it was the opposite.

In the momento.

Upi k yoya ga.

At that moment when they found out at my school that I had become an orphan, I was the object of teasing and bullying. Like I remember so much that your dad went to hell for killing Escobar, like your dad will pull your legs at night, and they made fun of me.

She had to enjoy the bullying from her classmates, and the mother of the family had to use what little money she had to pay for private school to wish.

Joe is doing.

I studied in private schools because I was not accepted in Napoli school. They did not accept me. They did not give me a spot.

Since Beto was the son of a police officer of that rank, a captain posthumously promoted to major, they assumed he would have the right to study in a public police school.

But he was the nightest spot or.

So lamentestleau because they were orphans only until eighth grade. My mom managed to get a.

Spot LUSMDI had multiple jobs at the same time. She fought daily to give her children the education they deserved. Her life was not easy, and on top of that, because she was a woman and a widow, there were men who took advantage of her. She managed to get a spot for him at the police school when Betta started the eighth grade, the last year of middle school in Columbia when he was fourteen.

However, Aman.

Erector, this hypoca materk.

Not the way she got it. I remember to this day the principal at that time, she begged and pursued him to give us a spot for her two children. At that moment, he asked her out, and every time my mom went to his office she had to endure the harassment from that man in order to get us a spot. My mom even suffers sexual harassment from police officers at that time, and it was very, very painful to see my mom have to humiliate herself that way.

It's another case of sexual harassment in a country and a region where this type of violence is so common that it is seen as an epidemic that threatens women, but it was not, and this is not acceptable or tolerable. Those years put the whole family to the test, but Beto swore he wouldn't give up. Despite the difficulties. Both Jennifer and Beto graduated from school, and as Beto grew up, he began to develop an increasingly strong interest in following his father's footsteps police here.

I always wanted to be a police officer. I wanted to be like my dad.

Every time he tried, he made a mistake that set of alarms within the institution in country.

In every interview, I told the details of my father's murder.

Beto had grown up witnessing injustices and he wanted to remedy them however he could. But every time he sat down for an interview at the police academy, his words made them uncomfortable.

Adam Laurei lasanrevist tels mean this, and you're meeting Tolos Anti Santus Catinian of Amelia.

So clearly during the interviews they would say, well, this gentleman look at all the family's background and with seemed talking too much about his dad. So I passed all the exams, but when it came to the final stage, the psychologist gave me a negative assessment and they rejected me because they noticed in me a quite contentious personality.

That ended Beto's dream as a teenager to honor his father's memory by following in his footsteps, and he was rejected from the same institution where his father stood out and was decorated. But Beto had a vocation that he was not going to give up. In two thousand and eight, he was accepted to study law at the Cooperative University of Columbia in Ivagi, a private university. To pay tuition, like he'd done his whole life, Beto worked, He prepared

On Yo kaistoria ila ras polacology, I reach into the camp because bndia.

When I told my story and the reasons why I was studying law, people were a little surprised by it. They were a little shocked by how he was killed.

And as he progressed in life and acquired greater knowledge in the field of law, he dealt more and more into the facts and circumstances surrounding his father's murder. He also became very active on social media and started using it to dig into the past. It was during this period that one day his mother received a strange phone call. She picked up the receiver and heard a.

Voice and said tell your son. They didn't ask for anything, but it said tell your son to stop digging or end up like his father.

Louse Matti was terrified.

Immediately, she contacted Beto and she found out something that Beto had been hiding from her, that he, on his own, had been investigating the events that led to his father's murder.

The kid starts telling me everything, and I'm amazed.

He had been doing it for years without telling his family. LUs Metti learned that Beto began his own investigation when he was an early teen.

So I said to him, please tell me everything. I need to know everything. Then he says to me, I sent two letters to the president at the time, the president was al Royuribe, and he sent him two letters.

He was just a kid.

I don't know, thirteen, fourteen years old, maybe fifteen, but he was a kid, and he said, I remember, he says to me. In the year that I sent the letter to the President of the Republic, Mom, I wasn't asking for food or housing. I wasn't asking for help with my homework or school. I was asking for my father's death not to go unpunished.

Better revealed the details of his investigation and his contact with President Alberto U rive only after his mom received that call, and they weren't just threatening him through his mom.

Recie woman ass asked de mortenell dos Mila Kinz.

I received that threats in twenty fifteen. Throughout the entire year, because I was insistent on my social media talking about the subject, I would write many generals and policemen looking for them.

Beto conducted his investigation on his own, with his own means. He didn't have access to an official file that would reveal any truth or omission to him. He sought high ranking police officers, constantly pressuring them to share with him and the world what they knew or hid about his father's murder. However, these threats sometimes confused.

Lejama this is police yes okay, went on that I sometimes took the calls from these police officers as like.

Friendly, until one day it all made sense.

A call from a police general alerted me. At first, it was funny because hello, hi General, how are you good? Good beto? All good, bit Beto. Look stop that let it go, brother. They're going to kill you out there, and you're going to leave your mom alone. It's in the past well man, thank you very much. Well take care of yourself. God bless you, God bless you General. I hung up after two minutes. This man who just told me that if I continued, they will kill me. I took it as a dead threat.

Beto felt restless and scared, like at his father's funeral. He prefers not to reveal the identity of the police officer who gave him that chilling message over the phone, but it was clear and it disturbed Beto to the point where he began to plan escape roots and strategies in secret.

Mami, and one day I told Mom, I think I'm gonna have to leave because they're going to kill me. And yes, I'm afraid I might do something to you.

Because of his background and academic training, better knew his country and the extreme violence that was possible. Time passed, Beto had two children, He started a new chapter. He began to study law. It was then that he received a threat targeting one of his sons, and.

We read Socialist the photos I had my social networks with photos of him. I was sent photos of him threatening to kill him.

They had sent him a message by email threatening his son. Beto knew he had to leave the country and fast.

I had to buy an urgent ticket on December twenty second, because they were going to tell me they were going to kill me before the end.

Of the year.

This terrifying message meant that he could no longer stay in Colombia. He had seen it happen too many times, and each time was worse than the last. This time they were not only messing with him or his mom, but his son. Beto couldn't come up with another option, so he shared his plans to his mom.

JOm me, really.

No.

I had a meltdown. I completely rejected that. I said to him, no, you're not leaving. He said, hug me, give me a hug and say goodbye. Don't let me leave without hugging my family. I didn't say goodbye. I saw how determined he was, but I thought to myself, if I don't say goodbye, he won't leave. I don't want to say goodbye. I don't want to see him go. So I went home and the phone started ringing at seven in the morning. I saw messages on WhatsApp saying, Mom,

Lose Matti had to experience yet another loss. She didn't want to be separated from her beloved son. It was as if Lose Matti was once against having a family member ripped away from her, and once again it was because he was seeking justice in her country. Beto decided to leave before those threats were fulfilled, and he ended up like a ghost like Captain Corral, with a broken heart for being unable to say goodbye to his mom with one last hug, especially as such a special day.

We'll be back after a break.

Amidst death threats against his mother, his son, and himself, Better arrived in the United States on a tourist visa. He came alone, without his family and without knowing how to speak English. Beto had never left Colombia before. He decided to try his luck in the United States because he was told he could get help there, he decided to settle where almost all Colombians do when they arrive paramamial.

I'm going to Miami, where that cultural shock doesn't affect us much. And I arrived in Miami and started my asylum process, and I really didn't know how to do it.

Asylum is a resource for obtaining legal residence in another country if applicants believe they are being persecuted in their country of origin based on race, religion, membership in a social group, or a defined political opinion. Although this might seem suitable considering better circumstances, he entered the country on a tourist visa and applied for asylum after the fact. When done this way, asylum seekers face a high risk of getting processed or deported due to what is called

Independent paralle But then I would told that it was better to do it through an independent process with a paralegal or a lawyer who said that. So I did it that way.

Apart from fleeing to save his own life, better thought, perhaps naively, that the United States would also help him bring justice to his father's case.

Today, I believe that the United States was going to help me to protect my mother's life. I believe that the United States, because my father gave his life in the war and worked with the DEA, was going to help me.

Because let's not forget Captain Corral, as part of the Search Blog, collaborated with the DEA and FBI to end the reign of Powloskar. Captain Corral had also received training in the US. Better thought this would make it easier for him to obtain asylum. But more than seven years have passed, Beto has not been able to obtain asylum in the United States. It has been more than seven years without him hanging his mother, and he has been

How much Albuss at Washington, I traveled many times to Washington, took action before the Inter American Commission and Human Rights.

This commission is part of the Organization of American States based in Washington, DC. Betho filed complaints and began exhausting his resources to pursue his father's case and protect himself. But again he was not making progress. The Commission denied

Survive find okay as it als Columbianos and his anal extriory limiting as well.

I came to do what all Colombians do when they are abroad and put in the airport. I have been of vala parking attendant. I picked up garbage. I was a waiter. I did more. I worked in construction. I did one of the toughest jobs in the United States in a bakery, cooking bread is terrible because you go from extreme heat to extreme cold over time.

When Beto took the dough out of the freezer and went to the oven area, he told me that this cast his eye veins to burst, and he also burned the skin.

On his arms. So he decided to cover the scar with a tattoo.

Really a panel pricipio. It was terrible. The bread burned at first. Well, but there's a saying that goes A baker who doesn't burn the bread is not a good baker.

And yes, better baked bread. Parked cars in a valid parking lot or drove for uver. But even in exile, while waiting for news on his status as an asylum seeker in the United States and knocking on the United Nations door or the Inter American Commission on Human Rights, he did not give up his quest for justice.

For his father's case. From Afar.

He thought to obtain more details that would completely change the course of his investigation, even if it meant facing the highest levels of power in his.

Countryfu La primer Optineties experient.

And it was the first time after almost twenty six years, that I managed to obtain that file. But it was like that it was by force.

Judical file that had been hidden for decades, which would completely change the course of his investigation and it would also change the direction of his life. That's on the next episode of Transportista who Murdered Captain Coral.

On my folio called the photo Recorrindo toiles off with my case number, letters and father's photo. Visit in all the judicial offices, so they would listen to me, give me the file, move it or draw attention, look do something to discover my father's killer. Everyone ignored me. I think the Prosecutor's office didn't give it to me, and I think they would help the file for many years so that I wouldn't do anything. In the years when I could have done something.

The close ones were dying. And then four months later they killed a lieutenant. It wasn't a captain, but they killed him in the same conditions that they killed Don Vertico.

Transportista Who Murdered Captain Corral is a production of Exile Content Studio and Detective in partnership with Iheartzmichael Toura podcast Network, and is hosted by me Alberto Sespees.

Production by Diego.

Liberis Jimenez and Albero Sesperes, with the help of Sabine Jensen, Andrea Sevajos, a Isabel Octavio and Veronic Carnandez. Written by Alvao Sesperes, edited by Carmel Ratterol, fact checking by the sire Jeppes.

Thanks to the voice actors who contributed in this episode. Beto coral Is, Razio Mancilla, Jennifer corral Is, Andrea Sevaios, LUs Meri, Ga, rido Is, Rose Reed, Teresa sifuentees Is, Carmel Gratro.

Executive producers are Carmel Ratterol, Rose Reed, Iszac Lee and diegen Ricosur. Sound designed by Pachiones and Gonzalo Messi. Original music by Sebastin Leon. Danil Batista oversees audio at Exile Content Studio. Our executive producers at iHeart are Disallbances and Arlene Sentana researched by Manuelarios and Emma Friedland. Production supervision by Julia Gonzalez, created by the evendricuosor. For more podcasts, go to the iHeartRadio

App or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.