Uncle John’s True Crime (23 page)

THE ANNOYED:
A 45-year-old German man

SITUATION:
In the apartment next door, the man heard the tell-tale signs of redecorating: furniture being moved across the floor and pictures being nailed to the walls.

FREAK-OUT:
After an hour or so, the man went to the apartment and found two teenage boys fixing up the place. He threatened them at gunpoint: “Stop this racket or you’ll be sorry.” It worked...kind of. He didn’t hear any more noise because the police came and took him to jail.

THE ANNOYED:
Ashley Carpenter, a bicyclist from Dorset, England

SITUATION:
Carpenter always tried to share the road with cars, but often felt that motorists ignored him.

FREAK-OUT:
When a car splashed him with water in December 2003, the 37-year-old Carpenter snapped and started a vigilante campaign to rid the road of rude drivers. His method: slashing tires. In all, Carpenter slashed more than 2,000 tires on 548 cars, causing more than £250,000 ($447,000) worth of damage. He was nabbed by police after being caught in the act by surveillance cameras.

THE ANNOYED:
A 30-year-old Norwegian man

SITUATION:
His girlfriend liked to drink alcohol. He didn’t. So he spent night after night after night as her designated driver.

FREAK-OUT:
Apparently not knowing how to say no, he decided his only way out was to lose his driver’s license. So on the way home one night, he passed a police car at 85 mph in a 50 mph zone. It worked: He was banned from driving for a year. (He also got a two-week vacation from his girlfriend—in jail.)

*
*
*

• After a neighbor’s dog pooped on his lawn, Walter Travis, 68, shot the neighbor several times (but not the dog).

• Danny Ginn stole a garbage truck at gunpoint because the truck’s driver kept using his driveway to turn around.

• Kevin French, 45, shot his neighbor in the head with an air rifle because he “mowed his lawn too often.” (The neighbor recovered.)

California’s license plates have been manufactured at Folsom prison since the 1930s
.

In our
Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader
, we presented the “BRI Survival Guide”—tips for how to make it through a natural disaster. Here are a few people-related disasters that you’ll hopefully never experience, but if you do, you can protect yourself
.

S
TREET ATTACK

• When walking at night, stay in well-lit areas and travel with friends whenever possible.

• If you feel that someone is following you with ill intentions, speed up and listen carefully for the footsteps of your pursuer. If he speeds up too, start running and shouting as loudly as you can, drawing as much attention to yourself as possible.

• If you’re accosted, try to determine the attacker’s intent. If it’s a simple robbery, calmly give them what they want—especially if they have a weapon. None of your possessions are worth your life. Without making too much eye contact, try to note as many details as you can about their appearance, voice, and mannerisms.

• If the attacker intends to cause you bodily harm and doesn’t have a gun, then try one of these weapons:

•
Pepper spray
. A good idea if you live in a potentially dangerous area.

•
Your keys
. Bunch them in your hand with the ends sticking out between your fingers. A successful strike to the neck, eye, or groin could end the attack right away.

•
Your foot
. Go for the groin—it will give you a longer reach than your assailant, especially because you’ll be leaning back when kicking.

•
Other weapons:
comb (drag it underneath the nose); umbrella (for puncturing); makeup (blow powder in the assailant’s face to blind him); also nail files, pens, or anything with a point.

Most robberies occur on the street
.

Using any of these makeshift weapons will, if successful, give you only one chance to escape. So once you’ve made your move, get yourself away as fast as possible—and as
loudly
as possible. The best thing to yell is, “Call the police! I’m being attacked!” And yell it over and over.

UNRULY CROWDS

At any sporting events, concerts, or other public gathering there’s always the possibility that a mob mentality will break out and people will get trampled. Keeping calm can save your life in this situation.

• Know where the nearest exit is. Try to make a habit of looking for possible escape routes whenever you enter a new place. (This isn’t paranoia, it’s common sense.) At the first sign of trouble, start heading for the exit.

• If you find yourself trapped in a mob, the most important thing is to stay on your feet and move with the crowd. Stopping for even a second may cause you to lose your footing and get trampled.

• Staying on your feet is of utmost importance. So if you are stopped, take a deep breath and tense up your shoulders, biceps, and chest. Bunch your arms up against your stomach to make yourself as solid as possible.

• If you have a small child, carry him or her in front of you. If at all possible, don’t let the child walk.

• Keep quiet for two reasons: 1) You’ll call less attention to yourself, which could save you from pepper spray, flying fists, or bullets; and 2) It can be hard to see through a mob, so keeping quiet may allow you to hear escape instructions from police or venue officials.

BEING TIED UP

Although this rarely occurs outside the movies, it does happen. If it happens to you, here’s a neat magician’s trick (Houdini used it) that may help you escape:

• While your captor is tying you up, make yourself as large as possible by inhaling and pushing your chest out. Flex any muscles that are being tied up, but do it as subtly as possible so as not to raise suspicion. When your captor leaves, relax. You’ll get at least a half an inch of slack in the ropes, which should be more than enough for you to wiggle your way to freedom.

Only seven women have ever made the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list
.

Howdy, pardner. Time to lock the outhouse door and settle in to these rootin-tootin’ lines from classic Hollywood Westerns...unless yer yella
.

Young Eddie:
“He don’t look so tough to me.”

Cowboy:
“If he ain’t so tough, there’s been an awful lot of sudden natural deaths in his vicinity.”

—
The Gunfighter
(1950)

“I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner. And that’s what I try to do. Sometimes I lean to one side of it, sometimes I lean to the other.”

—
Paul Newman,
Hud
(1963)

“Sonny, I can see we ain’t going to have you ’round long enough to get tired of your company.”

—
Richard Widmark,
The Law and Jake Wade
(1958)

Cowboy:
“For a long time I was ashamed of the way I lived.”

Dance hall girl:
“You mean to say you reformed?”

Cowboy:
“No, I got over being ashamed.”

—
Goin’ to Town
(1935)

J. W. Grant:
“You bastard!”

Hired gun Henry “Rico” Fardan:
“Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, you’re a self-made man.”

—
The Professionals
(1966)

Fletch McCloud
: “Ever hear what William Shakespeare said? ‘All’s well that ends well.’”

Cowboy Bob Seton
: “Shakespeare, huh? He must have come from Texas. We’ve been saying that for years.”

—
The Dark Command
(1940)

Trampas:
“When I want to know anything from you, I’ll tell you, you long-legged son of a—”

“The Virginian”:
“If you want to call me that, smile.”

—
The Virginian
(1929)

Sheriff Bullock:
“How is he, Doc?”

Doc:
“Well, he suffered lacerations, contusions, and a concussion. His jugular vein was severed in three places. I counted four broken ribs and a compound fracture of the skull. To put it briefly, he’s real dead.”

—
Rancho Notorious
(1952)

“I like my coffee strong enough to float a pistol.”

—
Ernest Borgnine,
Jubal
(1955)

“I don’t want trouble with anybody—unless I start it.”

—
“Wild Bill” Elliott,
The Showdown
(1950)

The bandit Black Bart wrote poems and left them in empty strongboxes to confuse lawmen
.

This story from
Uncle John’s Tales to Inspire
is neither about cop nor crook—but a wannabe nun who wanted to make a difference
.

S
OUTH OF THE BORDER

In 1965 a Southern California housewife named Mary Brenner got a phone call from her local priest, Father Henry Vetter. Father Henry knew that Brenner did a lot of charity work in the Los Angeles area, so he invited her to join him on a trip to Tijuana, a Mexican city just south of San Diego. A few days later, they filled a station wagon with donated medicine and other supplies, and headed south. After dropping off the medical supplies at various city hospitals, they made a stop at Tijuana’s notorious La Mesa prison.

AN EYEFUL

There’s a lot of poverty in Tijuana, and Brenner, who grew up in Beverly Hills, was shocked at every stop they made. But it was the prisoners at La Mesa who moved her the most. Built in the 1950s to house 600, the prison now held more than 7,000 men and women in appalling conditions. It had a reputation as one of the most dangerous jails in Mexico.

Even though Brenner was holding down two jobs and raising seven children, she resolved to return to La Mesa as often as she could. And over the next several years she managed to make the three-hour drive fairly regularly, bringing with her carloads—and sometimes even truck-loads—of donated medical supplies, toiletries, used clothing, furniture, and fast food that restaurants saved for her instead of tossing out at the end of the day. Yet after having accomplished so much, each time she left the prison she felt there was still more to do.

A CHANGE OF HABIT

When her second marriage ended in divorce in 1972, Brenner started thinking about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. A devout Catholic, she thought about becoming a nun. But when she approached an order called the Maryknolls, they told her she was too old—only women aged 35 or younger were allowed to join. (Her two divorces didn’t help her case, either.)

After talking it over with priests and nuns who knew of her work, she decided to take private vows and become a sort of “freelance” nun—one who didn’t belong to any established religious order. She sewed her own habit and took the name Mother Antonia, in honor of Father Anthony Brouwers, a priest she admired. From then on the prisoners, the prison guards, and all their families would be her life’s work.

In 2000 the CIA built a robotic catfish called Charlie. His mission remains classified
.

GETTING STARTED

When the warden of La Mesa told Mary Brenner years earlier to come back anytime and stay as long as she liked, he probably never imagined that one day she’d show up at the front gate dressed as a nun, asking for permission to live in the prison. But he lived up to his offer and granted “Mother Antonia’s” request; in March 1977 she took up residence in the women’s block and began living at La Mesa full time.

Believing that every person has an innate capacity for good, Mother Antonia refused to judge the prisoners—she only wanted to help them. And her approach to serving the prison community was simple: If an inmate or guard needed anything, she’d do her best to get it for them. She focused on the most basic needs at first—collecting and distributing food, blankets, toiletries, and medicine to the inmates, as well as caring for the sick and tending to the spiritual needs of both the inmates and the guards. But over time “Madre Antonia,” as the prisoners called her, became more ambitious:

• She recognized that bad or missing teeth were more than just a cosmetic problem, they were also a major barrier to parolees finding decent jobs and putting their criminal pasts behind them. So Mother Antonia recruited dentists to come to the prison and cap teeth and fit bridges and dentures for inmates and guards. The dentists donated their time; Mother Antonia paid for materials and other expenses out of charitable contributions she raised. It typically cost more than $200 to treat each case, yet so far Mother Antonia has managed to obtain treatment for 4,000 people.

• She also arranged for plastic surgeons to visit La Mesa to remove prison tattoos, repair cleft palates (the cause of some speech impediments), and perform other surgeries that improved the appearance of inmates and made it easier for them to reenter life outside the prison walls.

• Inmates were routinely being beaten during Mother Antonia’s early trips to La Mesa, something she attributed to the guards’ limited education,
poor job training, and low pay. By befriending the guards and their families, she has been able to improve the treatment of inmates not just at La Mesa, but also at local police stations and jails. Mother Antonia is credited with ending three prison riots over the years.

• Many petty criminals were serving months or even years of hard time simply because they couldn’t afford to pay fines—some as low as $25. Mother Antonia has used donated money to get thousands of nonviolent offenders out on bail or released from prison altogether.

Greek statesman Pericles instituted the practice of paying jurors a nominal fee around 451 B.C
.

LIFE SENTENCE

Now in her 80s, Mother Antonia has spent more than three decades living in a cell at La Mesa prison. Advancing age has taken its toll: She suffers from heart trouble and sleeps with an oxygen tank next to her bed, but she insists on living at the prison. As word about her triumphs has spread over the years, she has attracted other women to the cause. The Catholic Church officially recognized her work about a year after she started, and in 2003 she formed a new religious order called the Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour, which accepts women aged 45 to 65. In 2005 she was the subject of a best-selling book titled
The Prison Angel
. In 2010 filmmaker Jody Hammond released a documentary about her narrated by Susan Sarandon called
La Mama: An American Nun’s Life in a Mexican Prison
.