March 17, 2026 • 51 mins
Single mom Nadine Vaujour was something of a romantic. Which helps explain why it pained her heart so to be separated from her lover. It also helps explain why, one day, she decided it was time to spring her lover from the French prison where he was locked up. And to make her daring jailbreak plan work, she learned to fly a helicopter. Ah, the things we do for love!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
And there she is here. I am Elizabeth Dutton. Look
at me, star, stage, screen, radio and podcast, America's Sweetheart.
So I got a question for you, America's sweetheart. Yes,
do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Saren Burnett?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I do. I doubt it.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
It's ridiculously cool. Oh it's not a mashup.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh, sweet mother of Mercy, Yes.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Mother of pearl.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
That's what I said to myself when I saw this,
and I thought, Ay, I love this so much. B
I don't have to do a mashup. I mean, I
guess I never really have to.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The cells of my body are singing in praise of
your choice.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
So.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
This is an email that we got from Rachel Hackenberg. Rude, dude,
Rachel Hackey what Rachel? And she wrote, dear ridiculous Crime team.
My brain derailed down a sidebar when Elizabeth described George
Parker as quote pouring a cocktail of hope for unsuspecting
marks in today's episode Welcome to America, suckers. What might
(01:01):
the ingredients of a cocktail of hope be? I give
you my recipe for the Brooklyn Bridge. Enjoy Rachel. And
it has this cool drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge and
it's all formatted nicely, so it says the Brooklyn Bridge
A cocktail of Hope one muddle Ambition two. Add two
(01:25):
dashes American dream Bitters three, mix in three parts sparkling
Delusion and one part Vodka of Vanity four. I love
this so much. Add a splash of apple cid or
vinegar for gut health. Yes, five for cocktail, froth whip,
raw desire with bacon grease, six garnish with naivete, seven
(01:50):
serve with a handlebar mustaches.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So good.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And I sent it to my brother. I was like,
you guys should have this as a drink special and
then he blocked me.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
But aside from that, like what the fifth time?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, I just got to change my phone number again.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Trick.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Anyway, the cocktail of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
That is both ridiculous and damn.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So clever, so smart, and I love it. Thank you, Rachel.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, I'm just like over here all a flutter the
top that I cannot That was incredible, But I do
have something for you to sit back down. Okay, it's ridiculous,
I promise you that to borrow from former President George W. Bush.
There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas,
probably in Tennessee. But you know what, Elizabeth, I don't
know for certain because I just made this up. It says,
(02:38):
if at first you don't succeed crime crime again.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh, I thought you were going to go with the
whole foolm me once.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
No, I couldn't do it all the way. I just
like the beginning. Yeah, so there you go. This is
(03:09):
Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis
and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous. Yes, Oh, Elizabeth Saren Today I
have a fun and very French crime story for you.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It involves lovers, criminals, prison escapes. But first, before we
get into it, I have an amuse boush, a little
something to whet your appetite ye and get you in
the mood for more. Do you remember the story I
told you about my man Redon Fayid and his daring
helicopter escape from prison.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yes, I totally remember that.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
First I was there, Yeah, you were there, and just
I'm just Kida when you told the story, tickle your
memory cells anyway, because the gist is basically this. In
July of twenty eighteen, red'l Fayid was locked up in
a French prison when he and his crew they put
on this jail breake plan and they used a handheld
metal grinder and smoke bombs and they cut their way
through prison doors until finally they managed to escape to
(04:10):
like an inner courtyard of the prison. That's where a
helicopter was waiting for them as their fellow prisoners all
cheered them on. Right. Can you imagine that scene? The
jailbak crew escapes by a helicopter and they seek freedom
in the skies. Best part is they get away with it?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah right, God bless.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Turns out that escape was one of many, and I
mean many French helicopter based prison escapes.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Is it like they're Jerry Lewis, like they love these things?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Apparently this is like number two after Jerry Lewis's helicopter
prison escape. Get like, oh we so cool, so cool,
so okay. Earlier years earlier, there was another French inmate
named Pascal Paller okay, and he managed to escape prison
not once, not twice, but three times using a all.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Three times with a helicopter.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
He is the record for the most helicopter basis the
prison escapes. Okay, so in two thousand and one, Paye
he escaped from a French prison by a helicopter. Two
years later, in two thousand and three, he was still
living on the lamb, and again he decided to lead
a daring escape from prison via helicopter.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Oh wait, so he's on the lamby, it's caught.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes, no, no, no, no, he's on the lamb, does
not get caught, and he's like, I've got some friends
locked up inside.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I was like, what was he escaping from the lamp? Okay?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
He goes back to the exact same prison that where
he had left as a fugitive, and he leads the
chopper Babe fend yes, and he's like he helps his
fellow prisoners escape. They're like from his crew, there are
three men who'd been arrested with him back in nineteen
ninety nine, which got him set up the first time.
And you know what, who says there's no honor among thieves,
there is amongst French thieves. Oh, because he went back
(05:51):
and freed his men a man behind. No, I mean,
you get out once at a prison escape with a helicopter,
like I can do it again, Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean, but that's that's a rule of the dice, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Fortunately, three weeks later, Pascal Paier and his three recently
escaped comrades in crime. They were all recaptured. So he
gets tried, convicted, sentenced to return to prison. Okay, and
that's where you guessed it if you're paying attention. He
escaped again via helicopter. The year was two thousand and seven.
Paye coordinated a new and brazen helicopter escape. It started
with a hijacking where his accomplices were supposed to skyjack
(06:26):
a chopper, then force the pilot to fly to the
prison where Pascal Payer was locked up, and then they'd
free him. Keep in mind, by yay, he'd already escaped
once and then he helped coordinated. But I mean he
was in the prison grounds and left, so technically.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Since he was he was there, he went into the
second one.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He got his guys out risk at all. So at
this point, because he has had done these two daring
prison escapes, he's considered a detournent particular mont, which in
English means a high surveillance prisoner. Okay, right, so he's
kept in solitary confine exactly. It's like it's this crazy prison.
(07:05):
So but this doesn't stop Pascal Paye. Elizabeth, do you
know what day of the year they chose for their
third prison escape?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Please tell me? Best steel day?
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Yes, right, the most fitting and some bold date to
break someone out of a French prison. That's so beautiful
and it's also it's really a brilliant move because it's
the day when nearly everyone in France had the day off,
and they're all busy celebrating this big national holiday. You know,
a lot of people are like out there just drunk
and revelry, and then people are filling the streets, so
it's like it's kind of chaos.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Right. So on this fateful Beastille day four of his
comrades in crime, they tug on masks, They hijack a
helicopter and it's pilot, and just like they'd all planned,
then they ordered the pilot to fly them to the
prison where Paye was being held. They safely land the
helicopter on the prison roof. It's evening time, just like
you know. At the almost the end of the shift,
(07:56):
three of the four masks men they hop out of
the chopper. One man stays behind, keep a gun trained
on their skyjacked pilot make sure he doesn't like up
and fly away. Now they use some heavy machinery the
prison heightst crew breaks into the prison. They break into
the prison. Once inside, they break through a bunch of
security doors until they reach the solitary confinement section of
the prison because that's where he's being held. Once there,
(08:18):
they quickly locate their man, Pascal by Ay, they free
him from solitary confinement. Then the men all rush back
to the prison roof where there is the waiting helicopter.
According to Maurice Barrette, who was a security official at
the prison, the operation took only five minutes. The layout
of the site did not allow the guards in the
tower to shoot at the helicopter or the men, so
(08:38):
once they were all loaded up, the hijacked helicopter pilot
flies the men roughly about thirty eight kilometers or twenty
three miles for Americans, to the town of Toulon, where
they are on the coast of the Mediterranean. Okay, Elizabeth,
because I know you worry. Yeah, hijacked helicopter pilot was
not harmed during the prison escape. They let him out,
They're like, you're good. She was scared totally. He had
a gun on them and the outside.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
To crash physically hard.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And he was also in a helicopter. I mean, is
dangerous on their own.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
True, he's going to carry that that emotional baggage.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh, I mean, that's trauma.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It is now.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Despite their genius approach and the serious commitment to Pasco
bay A, his prison highst crewed, it didn't take them
long to get tracked down. Just a few months later,
on September twenty first, the men were all caught and
captured together in a Maturo, Spain, which is a suburb
of Barcelona, so basically outside Barcelona. And that was the
last of his prison escapes. Yeah. Well all of those
(09:37):
were certainly creative, daring prison escapes. They were all copycat escapes.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Okay, those are all took place.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
In the in the two thousand Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Before Ridon is the last of this group, before him
doing two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You'd think that, like the eighteen second one, they'd be like,
we were need to come up with some sort of deterrent.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, you would think, no, they do have helicopter netting.
That's what Mordon Fayid had to deal with. Y they
come up with helicopter nettings, like we've got to stop this. No,
So all these daring, brave helicopter escapes, they were all
copycats because each one there was a I guess escaping
from prison by helicopter became this very French thing. But
the first ever French prison escaped via helicopter took place
(10:24):
way back in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I was I gonna say seventeen ninety.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
No, no helicopters. I mean, technically, Leonardo da Vinci did
in bet helicopter, but it was never really put to anyway.
So there was these two inmates. They were being held
into Florie Maraghese prison in the suburb of Paris, is
about twenty five miles outside of Paris. The story goes
the two in mates were outside for some fresh air.
They were on a soccer field and that that was
(10:48):
on prison grounds, and they were in this middle of
a game. They're playing soccer right when all of a sudden,
this helicopter lands on the far edge of the field
in the prison right, the men knew it was coming,
so they also knew at this point it's go time.
So they just to go running over to the helicopter.
They're able to climb aboard flee into the skies well
before the prison guards because this is the first time
(11:09):
they've ever seen this. What is going on? And then
this first helicopter prison escape in French history is successful.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
That's so insane, Like what I just think about what
was going through the other innates lies the guards It
was like, oh no, how do we explain that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
It was nineteen eighty one, So you do have this
history of skyjacking in the seventies, so people are like, oh,
that's a nice move.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
When they took off, they I liked to think that.
I have to tell you, like, one of the one
of the times I've laughed the hardest is I was
driving and you were in my car and I kind
of pushed it and went through a yellow light that
was really stale, and you killed and like it was
crying laughing, and I thought I was gonna get into
an accent and stop laughing.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Well, you know, because before the French Republic, they had
a yellow flag so you see that.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Although it's kind of like it, it's I thought it was.
You couldn't beat my brother's thing of hitting a stale
yellow and going bumping at that. He always does, and
I thought that was hilarious. But now whenever I on
the off chance I push a stale yellow.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I had a friend he used to always instead of
saying hang a left or hang a right, you say
hang a hang a Rick, hang a Louis. So he
used the two characters from Casa Blanca as like left
and right. I always love that.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Were you that friend?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
No, this is not me, Okay. So back to the
first ever helicopter prison escape in France nineteen eighty one. Successful,
but the freedom unfortunately Elizabeth short lived. The two inmates
and the rescuer who showed up with the helicopter had
hired the pilot right or hired the helicopter rather. They
were all arrested within a few months. Yeah, but as
it turns out, that first ever French prison escape via
(12:56):
helicopter was directly connected to the second ever helicopter escape
from a French prison, which does not involve any of
the people I've mentioned yet. Really, yes, because there was
this prisoner who was being held at that same prison
in Florie Merrighie. And when she heard about this daring
and successful helicopter escape, it stayed with her and you
could say it inspired her. It gave her ideas told.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
The story in the evening.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Oh yeah, you know the legends.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
You know, sitting over somebody some burning sterno.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Telling stories with the ripe blue cheese, drink.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Some plumb toilet wine. So, Elizabeth, I'd like you to
meet Nadine the Jure. She's our anti heroine of the day.
Nadine was a criminal and also a bit of a
romantic because when she wanted to break her husband out
of a French prison, she recalled that soccer Field prison
escape via helicopter and she decided, oh no, that's will work.
(13:54):
And so she's the first person to do a copycat crime,
sort of like an homage, if you will. Who was
her locked up husband? Great questions?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Oh god, so I am I am on it today
on point you were like one step ahead of you completely.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Maybe two. Now. Her husband's name is Michelle Vajore. He
gave his name.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
To her Michelle, and he was a career criminal, like
he was in and out of prison ever since his
first lock up when he was seventeen, He's mostly like
a small crimes guy, stick ups, and then he graduated
like robbing like vans, and and uh like banks and
stores and so forth.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Just vans, like people in parking lot.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well like yeah, like delivery vans, and then later on
ice cream trucks and stoners and park surprise, give me
the bag. So this pair they married back in nineteen
seventy nine while both of them were locked up for
their crimes, I know, finding love love during lock up.
So before his wife broke him out, Michelle already had
(14:54):
multiple prison escapes to his credit. Oh yeah, he is scared.
I think he had like seven in his whole lifetime
of So that same year, nineteen seventy nine, when he
gets married to Nadine, Michelle had managed to escape police custody.
While he was brought into court. He smuggled in a
fake gun into court. The fake gun was a bar
of soap that he had carved and sculpted to look
(15:15):
like a handgun.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
How big was this bar?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Is this a little like sho like a thirty eight
Maybe I don't know, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Just like the world's largest bar of soap he carved
like one of those dirty hairy guns.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Super long.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
But then it was so long it's snapped.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
It broke like some quick repair. Now it snubnose. So
at this point also I forgot to mention to finish
the look, he blackened the soap with shoe polish.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Like swirly Irish spring exactly or was it? Was it
some of that nice lavender like south of France.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That would be nice. So it smells nice like your
gun smells fantastic.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So with this opportune moment occurs when he's in court,
he hips out his fake bar of soap gun and
he demands nobody moved, nobody gets hot. That's just by version.
So he holds the judge hostage and he uses him
to escape the courtroom right now. When his wife Nadine
Vajour was still locked up inside, Michelle enjoyed life on
the lamp. So she's inside, he's outside because he escaped
(16:18):
from court. Yeah, he manages to stay free for two
whole years. During that time, he continues his criminal career.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Well what else is he going to do?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Oh? Yeah, it's all though he knows Nelson doesn't want
to get caught on a factory floor. That's like actual
quote from him. Oh really, Yeah, he was kind of
an anarchist when he was young, but he also was
against work. So between the two things, he's like, I'm
political and exactly. So in nineteen eighty one, he gets
caught during an attempted bank robbery in Paris and he
sent back to prison. Of course, meanwhile, his wife Nadine
(16:49):
had become a mother while still in prison.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Oh how does that happen?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Well, the couple welcome their daughter, Betty, because remember they
got married in prison, so I think they were allowed
conjugal visits as my guess. Okay, so anyway, this changed
her thinking about if.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
The hell goes on in a French prison.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
European prisons are different than what we expect, that's all
I learned. Very yeah, but this is like they also anyway,
I won't get into it, but a lot of they're
being kept in like maximum security prisons. They just don't
sound like it to me.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
No, not if you're getting married and then having babies,
baby and then like he takes it because I thought
maybe like he escaped and then came back for a
conjugal visit. No, I don't think it was.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
No, I think it was in seventy nine when they
got married. I think they were allowed to have the
conjugal visit for the marriage ceremony and then boom, miracle baby.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I just okay.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So anyway, at this point, once the couple welcomes their daughter, Betty,
this changes her thinking. Nadine's thinking about her family's future,
and her thinking does not include prison.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Oh this is what makes a change.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, because by this point Nadine had also been in
and out of prison three times. She had charges for swindling,
receiving stolen goods, attempted robbery. Her final stint in prison
came about due to an attempted robbery in nineteen eighty three.
So she and her crew were in a town of
tours and they attempted a bank robbery, but the security
guards weren't having it. They get into a gunfight. Things
turned bad. Nadine was unharmed and she was prompaly arrested, tried,
(18:06):
but the charges weren't proved and she gets released from custody.
So this is nineteen eighty three, so she's on the
she's still the baby, single mom in it, but still
doing bank robberies, you.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Know, and he's still out there, tom Cat.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
No, he's still he's locked up in eighty three.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Oh that's right, because he did two years.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
So like, okay, god it So at this.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Point Nadine is like, I really need to get my
man back, right.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I don't know if she just wasn't into being a
single mother all by herself, or perhaps she just wanted
to break out her.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Partner she needed an owner, her co parent.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, or maybe she's just like a hopeless romantic was
willing to risk it off to Freehoman. I don't know,
but either way, in nineteen eighty six, she decides it's
time to make her move to break her husband Michelle
out of prison. But before we get into that, Elizabeth,
it was like a little break, Okay, enjoy some ads
and after these messages, we will take through these guys.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Viva all.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yes we are.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So are you ready to take this bird up into
the clouds a frenchman?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
You good?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Good? So the story goes. After her bungled bank robbery,
Nadine Bajur manages to escape justice to the charges don't
stick for her. Once again, as I said, this is
due to lack of proof, right, so she's released from holding.
This is nineteen eighty three and that was the same
time that Nadine and Michelle began to plan a prison
escape and they don't rush into it, so her husband
and lover he's locked up. The single mother Nadine is
(19:41):
putting her plan into action. So in order to shield
herself from her criminal past, she uses her maiden name
of Rego Rigo as a cover and she comes up
with a fake name of I am a Lena Rego.
So Lena enrolls in a flight school for helicopter lessons.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Oh she went there planning, not oh wow, And.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It didn't take her long to learn to fly. She
was a quick study, smart girl Nadine or Lena, and
she officially earns her pilot's license. But being a good
pilot wasn't good enough because based on their proposed escape plan,
she needed to be an excellent pilot. Sure, And so
for months she rents a helicopter she practices. She'd take
a chopper out for flights twice a month in order
(20:22):
to make sure that there was no paper trail that
pointed back to her. She always paid the three hundred
and fourteen dollars an hour rental fee in cash as
Lena Rigo, right, nobody's the wiser. Yeah, And once she
rents the helicopter, then she and she's skyborn and alone.
Nadine would practice the moves that she would need for
the proposed prison escape. She practiced holding the helicopter in
a steady hover. She mastered how to read the winds
(20:44):
so well that she could hold the helicopter steady in
a strong crosswind. Right, and this would be key because
you don't know what's gonna be going on the roof.
You can't have it like well, all of a sudden
you dip in that Basically, you need to keep the
nose of the helicopter almost motionless during this escape so
her husband isn't sliced into pieces by the hellicopter.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's a good point.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
And lastly, Nadine she practiced landing a helicopter in a
very tight space, like basically in a canopy of trees,
but on top of a prison roof.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Okay, so she.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Would like then be able to hold it in a
low hover regardless of the crosswinds. And then she also
mastered taking off and flying very low to avoid radar,
so she's like flying just over the rooftops of Paris.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yes, So over a six month stretch, Nadine becomes this
outstanding helicopter pilot. Yeah, talking like TC for Magnum p
I helicopter.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
That's all I'm envisioning is that helicopter and her like
with a boombox playing the theme to Magnum while she
does this for inspiration.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
You and me, both sisters.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So, now in France, I don't know if you know this,
but any person with a helicopter's pilot license can rent
a helicopter. And here's the kicker. They don't have to
file a flight itinerary. So like in America, when you
take off, you got to tell them where you're going,
and then that airport expects you and they're on the
radio talking to you. But you can just take a
rental chopper wherever you want. France apparently, Yeah, they don't
(22:01):
have to tell anyone where you're going, which just seems
kind of wild to me.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Anyway, Nadine, she feels ready to put their escape plan
into action. You know, it's time for the real deal,
save Michelle from prison. So on the Faithful Day Nadine.
She goes out to her flight school it's called the
School Saint Cyr Aerodrome, and she walks inside of a
helicopter rental agency. It's a place called air Compliment and
where she shows her helicopter license. She rents a chopper.
(22:26):
They're like, we don't need to know where you're going,
so good luck bring it back.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Can't she just say, like, I'm not going to a
specific place, I'm just going to tootle around.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
That's the idea. Yeah, yeah, they don't even have to
like tell them, like which direction you're planning on tootling
at first.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I think you can do that with a helicopter here.
I think you can just go up toodling's I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I have no idea. I had a friend who got
a helicopter's pilot's license, but he was in the process
of getting it, so then he'd have to like do
a solo and fly to an airport, so he had
to put it in itinerary because you don't want him to
just get.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Lost, right, But I think that's if you're in the process.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah, so I don't know what happens.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Here's what I'm thinking because my power nerd status is
still in effect.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Totally, never doubted.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
I have an app on my phone flight radar.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
And anytime like there's some weird plane like going over
or like a helicopter for a long time, I look
and see what it is. But a lot of those
are there, and a lot of them don't have a destination.
It'll tell even small planes, it'll say, you know where
it's where it took off, but they don't have like
a destination put in their others do.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Even small planes? Interesting?
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, So I mean you're allowed to tootle apparently.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So at this point, she's going to tootle on over
to Prison de la San Right, Okay, it's like on
the left bank outside of Paris. So her husband, Michelle,
he checks the calendar. He sees the date is May
twenty sixth, nineteen eighty six. It's a Monday, and he
knows today is the day for him to get free. Exciting,
so he informs his friend to Pierre Hernandez. Then it
was their liberation day because he invited him to flee
(23:55):
prison with him. He's like, Pierre, you want to go.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
He's like he's like, well, you know, when you're in
school and you have like some opportunity to bring one friend.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So. Yeah, Pierre's like, we let's do this right. So
at this point, the prison de la It has no
soccer field for an easy landing, no interior courtyard that
would allow a touchdown. The only place in Nadine can
meet them with a helicopter is up on the prison roof.
But there's nowhere to land, so you're gonna have to hover,
and then they have to get up to the helicopter.
(24:25):
Sketch right, So they go, and the men are gap
to also rendezvous with Nadine up there. Like, how are
two inmates going to sneak out of the prison get
up onto the roof.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
That's a very good question.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
The answer was painted fruit.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
It's always the answer.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
It's like I always say, I went in doubt, add
color and some fresh fruit. So now, remember how Pascal
Payer used a bar of soap and blackened it with
shoe polished like he was in a French John Dillinger
and he took that a judge hostage. Well, Michele Vajoure,
he borrows a page from that playbook. But in his case,
instead of relying on just a carved soap pistol, which
he did have. Michelle also had a nectarine. Technically, he
(25:03):
had two nectarines. Okay. He painted the nectarines green so
that they resembled French style hand grenades.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Stop. Yes, I thought he was going to have a banana.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Gun practically, okay.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So when it's time for them to make their escape,
Michelle and his buddy Pierre, they brandished their shoe polish
soap pistol and their two green painted nectarines, and they
used them to threaten the prison guards, right and surprisingly
it works perfectly. The prison guards when they see them,
they're particularly afraid of the nectarine grenades. Really, they're terrified
that they'll be killed in an explosion of what they
(25:37):
believe to be legit hand grenades. They can't see how
far away from the distance they are. They're told it's
a hand grenade. It looks like a hand Grenadably it
blows up. They would die from a handad.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
They're like me. They don't wear their glasses exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Let's oh, this is kind of dark in the prison.
I don't know. So the two inmates flashing their shoe
polish soap pistol and their fake nectarine grenades. They're able
to bluff their way out of the prison and then
to get scrambling up onto the roof. Meanwhile, at around
ten thirty am that same morning, on her way to
save her man, a single mom Nadine Vajur and her
rental helicopter flying low over central Paris over the radio.
(26:12):
But the whole time she's being hailed with a series
of warnings as she's flying too low, it's illegal, you
need to pull up. She ignores all the urgent radio calls.
She's like, I'm not going to be in this chopper
very long. She needs to focus because she's approaching the prison,
which is located, as I said, there on the left bank.
So Nadine, she has also, by the way, a comrade
in crime with her in the chopper, a man who
is armed with a machine gun, because obviously if you
(26:33):
if anything goes sideways, they need to have like a
fireworks right, all right, And a little bit I know
you were wondering, so I'll just tell you. The helicopter
was an Alouette two, which is.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Like the cheese.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah. Apparently it's a very trustworthy air machine. Imagine like
one of those helicopters from the beginning of mash just
making a huie no no, like the woman, the medical slide,
the you know, the beginning of Masher, they dropped down.
It's like a bubble front.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
All I can hear is the Mashed theme song.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
You're welcome, Suicideless. There you go.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
So and I'm just like it's making more fresh and
now it's like I feel like it's the.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Late Yeah, time for you to go to So imagine
like the glass bubble and then they have like the skids.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, so they could put like a stretcher.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Okay, so that's the idea. You got the skids on
the set, you know, and then and you've got the
glass bubble enough for two to people to be seated inside,
not a big helicopter, right.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
So yeah, it's not like like a succession helicopter.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
There's room for eight exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You know, you're not fitting the whole family in this one, Okay.
So anyway, as well trained and as practiced as she is,
Nadine is able to pilot the rental chopper over the
prison locate the roof of her husband's block of cells.
She hovers in place for a few minutes waiting for
him to pop up. Meanwhile, Hubby Michelle emerges from the
prison alongside his friend Pierre, dressed in a tracksuit. He
shows up and he like waves to his total style points.
(27:56):
Now she must have been imagine that moment. She must
be so relieved and stoked to see as the plan
is working. Now at this point, her comrade and crime,
the one with the machine gun. He kicks a rope
out of the chopper. He climbs down the approximately thirty
feet of rope and he joins the two inmates on
the roof, where he then holds the rope steady as
Michelle climbs back up and then grabs onto the helicopter skids.
(28:18):
Now they're prison guards below like in the courtyard, and
they could see all this daring escape underway, but they
had no clear shot of the inmates Michelle and Pierre
because their view is blocked by like chimneys and antennas
and you get the idea, right, So the prison guards
they hesitate to shoot. So the comrade and crime with
the machine gun, he also keeps his gun quiet, no
shots are fired. Meanwhile, urgent seconds are ticking by. Yeah,
(28:40):
Michelle's friend Pierre, he chickens out for reasons only he knows.
He hesitates to grab the rope and climb up. I
guess in the moment things got real for arm and
he's like, no, go on with that's me.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
He probably only had like a week left on his ticket.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Please, So the comrade and Crime with the machine gun.
He uses the rope to climb back after the helicopter
and while Pierre stays behind and like bonjou, well good luck,
so Pierre said, he surrenders to the prison guards. I guess,
ball Sean, see, you get the idea. It's more fun
(29:14):
to be wrong. So anyway, once her man was a
board and her comrade and Crime was also safely like
on the skids, Nadine lifts them up out of the
stationary hover and if she's held the chopper steady, and
I'm talking, this is like no drift to the nose
of the chopper, no swing of the tail. There's just
there's rotors that are whipping the air and like it's
so so much. It was shaking the prison with the vibrations.
(29:35):
The rotor wash was yeah, yeah right, So she had
to be, like I said, well practiced. Nadine pilots the
three of them to freedom. Good on you, Nadine.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
So the rental chopper flees the scene. Nadine banks the
helicopter to the west. They keep the altitude all low.
She flies them just over the rooftops of the fourteenth
Air and dismal of Paris within minutes of their prison escape.
Nadine safely sets the chopper down where on a s
soccer field. Right, nice, look like I said, it was
an homage totally, So I mean, you're like, if you're
(30:06):
gonna be inspired, you gotta have a little win. It's
very French to be exactly style points. So the soccer
field happened to be part of a university housing complex,
so there were students out there. It's a Monday morning,
the ones who don't have class are enjoying a warm,
sunny day in May. The students are sunbathing because it's
like nineteen eighty six, and so they watched this chopper
land on the soccer pitch, which must have been wild. Now,
(30:28):
even even though like prison escapes at this point are
starting to become a tradition, this is only the second one,
so they don't expect this, right.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
So they're just like slathered in bandasolet of course for that.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Maybe a little copper tone for those who've been to
like the West Indies. So Nadine shuts off the choppers engine.
The university students then watches these three comrades in crime, Michelle,
Nadine and the machine gun guy all run out of
the rental helicopter and flee the scene. Yeah, turns out
they have a car parked nearby waiting for them. I
read reports that it was a Pugio, which feels like
the perfect secondary escape vehicle for a prison escape in Paris.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Oh yeah, like that's how.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You do it, right. They're all out in the pougeot.
So the stylish Pugeau, it pulls away from the scene,
merges into the Monday morning traffic, disappears into the streets
of this Parisian suburb just south of the City of Lights. Right,
eyewitnesses call into the police to report this strange sight
of a helicopter landing on a soccer pitch and three
suspicious characters, one with a machine gun, fleeing the scene.
(31:25):
The police respond quickly. They really are on it, however,
once they respond and when they are there at the
soccer field, The French police suspected the helicopter it may
be boobytrapped, so they won't approach it. They wait an
entire hour until the bomb sniffing dogs can arrive check
the scenes. Once the dogs clear the danger, the police
(31:45):
then move in. They search their mental chopper. They find
absolutely no clues that would aid their manhunt. Right, So
in the meantime, Na dene Vjur and her husband Michelle,
and their machine gun toting partner in crime, they escape
into Paris together they enjoy that same beautiful spring day
and the sensation of liberation, right Dave LaFrance. So now, meanwhile,
(32:05):
to sidestep any criticism about their daring prison escape by
a helicopter, the second ever in French history, the French
police now have to inform the local press that Nadine
and Michelle Vajoure quote had a long time to plan
for this, so it's going to be difficult to find them.
They have two or three years on us, so we
don't expect to catch up with them in three or
four hours.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
That's I like that reasonable totally, Like, hey, look, they
put a lot of big ups to them, everybody. Can
we just acknowledge their hard work.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Exactly do we look like Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan No,
we are not solving this crime within ninety minutes. So,
however it does last longer than the three or four
hours because for the next few months the three all
live on the lamb. Wow, fugitives from justice. Well, the
French police then have to keep admitting that they have
zero idea where they might be. They can be anywhere,
(32:56):
they could be Spain, could be Italy, who knows, it
could be Poland. So in fact, the police so clueless
that Nadine and Michelle they mastermind a second escape plan.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
What is it with you?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
They connived to grab their five year old daughter and
take her with them.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Oh, I thought it was gonna be like another buddy
of mine.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
They have to go grab their daughter because like who
meanwhile was being surveiled because the French police are like,
they're gonna probably come for their daughter, and they do
not notice when Betty gets grabbed under round the clock
police surveillance. So that's what you call a gutsy move.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So once they free their daughter and the whole family
is now toy all together again, what's their next move?
What do Nadine Michelle and darling daughter Betty do next
do they move to Morocco and adopt new names? And
they had they maybe hop over the Atlantic and find
a new home in Montreal or perhaps Detroit, or say
the Napa Wine country. Oh well, let's take another little
break to these messages. We will see if and how
(33:49):
the French police can ever catch up to Nadine and Michel.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Hmmm, and we're.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Back, Elizabeth, Yes we are. So have you noticed that
the interns are a little gassy today?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
I have noticed that.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I was like, hey, guys, you want to maybe like
step out in the hallway.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I think they changed the recipes in the cafeteria.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
The snacks, the treats they've been eating. Yes, they got
the gassy ones.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
So buddy, anyway, where were we?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Oh that's right. Single mother Nadine or go ahead, learns
the fly helicopter practice until she's good enough to hold
a chopper motionless. She passes away to her husband. They
escape prison with a fake gun made out of a
bar soap and the two nectarines painted to look like eggs,
and then she and Michelle they fly to safety. Then
they go grab their five year old daughter, Betty, who's
(34:53):
under police surveillance. Let me just they're knocking down.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
On the roof and the guards were watching. He like
put the fake grenade to his mouth like he's going
to pull the pin, and insteady like bit into.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
It, took a bite and threw it and they all went.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
And then he laughed and then threw it down at it. Oh,
he's better than the paint on the side.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
That's how I like to imagine, That's how I'm picturing it.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Let's go with.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Him, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So Unfortunately for this newly reunited family, their good luck
is about to run out. For three months. Though Nadine
and Michelle they stay low and out of the side
of the law. They enjoy their life together with young Betty.
They don't use any phones, they don't go out in
public unless you know, not anymore than they need to.
They avoid restaurants, bakeriesies, and they instead they heat up
(35:47):
canned food, which is like I think, a crime in France.
They stay away from their criminal.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Associations unless it's like tinned fish.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, exactly, but like my diet is totally illegal in France,
Like what is this prepared food? Then that can.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Microwave.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah. Well, so they also stayed away from other criminal associates,
which is a really smart move because those are the
folks that might be tempted to grab a quick payday,
but then flip on them, diame them out to the
cops and get that hefty reward money because the cops
are embarrassed by this. Right, these are fugitives from the law,
so they're willing to like pay rewards. Right. Anyway, the
newly reunited family, they also have to like play house
(36:26):
on the run, so they're like you know, terrorists where
they cannot stay in the same place, or drug dealers
like you know, big cartel leaders where they don't sleep
in the same place night after night. Right, so they're
staying in like furnished rental apartments. They're staying in out
of the way farm houses. They're changing their housing like
every few days, never stay anywhere too long. Doing everything right.
(36:47):
Except they did one thing wrong, Elizabeth. They stayed in Paris. Wait, yes,
they just could not leave the city of Lets. Well,
so we take that back. They did two things wrong
because they also went back into businesses career criminals.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Oh yeah, you know, they are just providing a really
wonderful life for their Yes, yeah, I mean I'm so
glad they're doing this, that it's all worth it for
this life that they've given her.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So well, yeah, I guess they needed the money. You know,
they don't have anything, and they got to keep getting
apartments so they have to pay cash. So one day, Michelle,
I assume it was Michelle's idea, since it is his MO,
decides to push his luck by robbing a bank. But
rather than me tell you about it, Elizabeth.
Speaker 7 (37:27):
Heyes, close your eyes, but as a clue, I want
you to picture it.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It's a charming Friday afternoon in Paris. The sounds of
children playing mixes with the sounds of workmen finishing up
for the day. It gives the day a lively atmosphere.
Life in Paris is just doing its thing, and you, Elizabeth,
are there to enjoy it all. You came to the
City of Lights for a vacation. You brought your camera,
a few cute outfits, and a willingness to say wait
(37:58):
to whatever Paris may offer you. At the moment, you're
seated on a park bench enjoying the day, You're nibbling
on a piccolo sandwich of fresh ham and cheese. As
you listen to a street musician playing a song on
his accordion, is that my Van Rose? You wonder is
this real life? And then you notice something odd A
pair of policemen seated in their car. One of them
(38:19):
is on his handheld radio, calling in whatever it is
he's watching. You turn to look in the same direction
as him, and you spot a bank. It's a Credit
Lionne's branch. You wonder what's drawing the policeman's attention to
this bank? And then you spy another set of police officers,
a man and a woman, also seated in a police
car parked alongside the same road, but they're on the
(38:41):
other side of the bank, and they're also studying that
same bank with the same attention as the first police.
Something must be going down, you think to yourself. As
you take a sip of lemonade you purchased along with
your piccolo sandwich before you have a moment to finish.
Swallowing the lemonade, you see what must be what the
police are watching. Three men in very cheap wigs exit
(39:05):
the bank. They're moving fast like they just rob the place,
which is exactly what they have done. You're riveted. Now
this is a real life French bank robbery. How exciting.
The police attending to the scene hop out of their
police cars. Other cops disguised as street vendors and tourists
also leap into action. The Parisian police are all business.
(39:26):
They draw their weapons and order the three men and
the bad wigs to freeze. Again, you wonder is this
real life? Because you are right in the middle of
the action, just across the street from the bank, seated
alone on the bench. You can practically see the color
of the three men's eyes, that's how close you are.
And then you see the three men in the bad
cheap wigs are also carrying guns, which they raise into view.
(39:50):
Suddenly you wish you weren't seated so close to the action.
But before you can set down your piccolo sandwich next
to your lemonade, someone fires a shot. You suspect it's
a cop because if the bank robbers are quick to respond,
they fire their guns. Now you are in the middle
of a legitimate gunfight. Isn't this what you left America
to avoid random gun violence? Then anyway, it gets personal.
(40:12):
A stray bullet hits the park bench. You're seated on
another one knocks over your lemonade. You and your sandwich
hit the dirt. The cops and the robbers keep firing
at each other and they keep missing. Once again, you
wonder is this real life? When you lift your head
to look up and towards the bank robbers, hoping you
can see an opportunity to escape this gunfight. Instead, you
(40:33):
see one of the bank robbers get shot. It's bad.
He gets shot in the head and he goes down.
In fact, it's so bad it scares the other two
bank robbers and they throw down their weapons. And with
the danger now passed, you get up off the dirt
and you brush off the leaves and the grime. Your sandwich,
which was so good, is now covered also in dirt
(40:54):
and muck. Your lemonade is leaked out over the cobblestones,
but you are safe and unharmed. The cops rush to
check on the man they shot you. Hear them call
him by the name Michelle, and he is not dead,
but he appears to be in a coma. Yet again,
you wonder is this real life? It very much is,
but you've survived, and you can always buy another bag
(41:15):
at Ham Sandwich Okay, so that was not exactly the
ideal scene for your idyllic, spontaneous picnic in Paris, But
for the police of Paris, it was quite a feather
in their cap, a triumphant moment, so to speak. They
had caught the notorious fugitive and helicopter escape artist Michelle Vajoure.
And so after Michelle's poorly planned and executed bank robbery
(41:37):
fails and he gets shot in the head, he's taken
back to prison in a coma. Oh god, rough business.
And what about old Nadine? Yeah, and now she's a
single mom again. What are she and Betty gonna do?
Don't worry because it didn't take long for the French
police to locate Maybe just a matter of hours, you're kidding, yes,
which raises a rather obvious question. How deep was his coma?
(41:59):
Like he snitch on her in order to lighten his sentence?
Did one of the other bank robbers who like to
say they see him down, They're like, well, we can.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Tell you make a bargain, And that's.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
What I'm thinking. They traded her to get light for themselves.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Anyway, not long after Michelle is caught and captured Nadine's
located hiding out intuloose. Now, Unlike her husband, the once
again single mother didn't get into a gunfight. When she
was confronted by the police, she gave herself up to
the cops without a struggle. She was arrested, tried for
the helicopter prison escape. She's convicted, and she's sentenced to
two years in prison. Okay, not bad, kind of light.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Meanwhile, Michelle is also tried for his prison escape and
the subsequent bank robbery in the gunfight with the police.
He's found guilty, sentenced to seventeen years in prison on
top of his prior sentence, which had been suspended when
he freed himself from a prison, saying he has to
also complete that. At first, the married couple's romantic bond
remained strong, unbreakable. At one point, Nadine boasted to the press,
(42:58):
I would do it all over again.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
He came out of the coma.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, he comes, he comes completely out of the comma.
He's fine. He was just initially like, you know, shot
in the head, so yeah, yeah, so he was, he
wasn't you know. He did suffer disabilities after the insu
and it did reframe his sense of self. So it
was quite a coma.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
But once Nadine's release from prison, something changes for her
because she didn't mastermind a second prison escape from Michelle. Instead,
she focused on being a mother to Betty. She gets
a straight Yeah, she gets a straight job. She starts
paying her bills like every other taxpayer. She stays out
of prison. However, Nadine did join the Ridiculous Crime Book Club.
(43:37):
She penned a novel about her time as a helicopter
pilot and career criminal. She called her book l Fiere
del er or in English, the Girl of the Air. Okay,
I guess it was a good book because someone option
didn't turn it into a movie. Reviews of the movie
suggest the filmmaker was no Michael Mann. Instead of like
a gripping crime filler, her novel resulted in the sort
of French film that features like string sections, like soundtracking,
(44:01):
beautiful shots, and there's lots of sadness and longing and
romantic on we So, what was her husband, Michelle doing
while she's out there making sad French films? Well, he
has his collective twenty seven years behind bars to do.
He does it all. Oh, Eventually, he finds a new
female accomplice though, to help him with another daring.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Prison escape out of here.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
His new partner in crime was a woman named Jamila.
She was a law student turned amateur criminal mastermind. No,
but she was no Dadine because their prison escape ended
in bitter failure, and so Michelle was forced to complete
his full prison sentence, which he does in twenty seven
years later. A sentence done, He's released. The year is
two thousand and three. Wow, at the age of sixty nine.
(44:44):
Now Michelle comes out of prison. He has also joined
the Ridiculous Crime Prison book club You're Kidding Me. Rather
than a romantic novel like Nadine, he wrote a romantic autobiography.
He gave it the title Love Saved Me from Sinking.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Oh boy.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
You see.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
During his time I'm in prison, Michelle had taken up yoga.
He embraced spirituality as a form of therapy, and it's
barely a worked for him. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Yeah, but then he tried to escape again.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Well, yeah, a little after that, I guess. In his book,
he includes all these lessons in spirituality and then adopting
a yoga practice, alongside tales of his crimes in as
many years behind bars right his life. At this point,
his autobiography or really his life gets turned into a movie.
It was called My Greatest Escape. That's the English title.
It was a documentary. It was not a big hit
(45:29):
in France. One reviewer gave it one star out of
ten out of ten yes out of ten. The reviewer
wrote that quote, most of the film involved the very
loquacious of Azure talking without much prompting. The filmmakers mix
the locations up by having him visit friends and convict acquaintances,
but we don't hear much of interest from these people.
(45:52):
Love that same reviewer later adds that quote, there's an
annoying superiority about the man who shakes his head at
the compleat acency of his friends, And a few minutes
later the film speaks of an aborted attempt to kill
one of his ex colleagues who had refused to be
involved in an escape attempt, as if he thinks he
has the godlike right to give and take lives.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
So wow, I mean, that's the thing. You could You know,
this book sounds like, oh, look, I'm happy for you, buddy,
but you're not going to tell give me any sort
of advice on absolutely any.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I don't think so. So around the same time that
Michelle was released from prison in two thousand and three
is when Pascal Paie got his second helicopter escape of
his own, remember two thousand and seven, which re enlivens
the daring practice with a sense of criminal coup, right,
And so the documentary about Michelle gets made in two
thousand and nine after Pascal Paie's third attempt, So they're
(46:46):
kind of working with each other through like a theme
of helicopter escapes. And then a decade later, in twenty eighteen,
Michelle and Nadine's helicopter antics are followed and imitated by
my man Ridon Fay. That's right, chopper based prisoness cap
which now brings us full circle. So there you go.
What's ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Oh my goodness. You know you hate helicopters. You refuse
to get in once.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
It's not natural to fly in helicopters. And if you
ever seen anything other than like there's like a seed
pod that kind of flies like that, that's what inspired
Leonardo da Vinci. If you made something like that, I
might get into it because as it falls it's going
to have a controlled fall. But a helicopter is beating
the air down, and if it has any problems with
the engine, it stops beating the air down. You can
kind of like auto rotate the rotors, but no, I
(47:35):
want to I want someone with wings.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
So I love that you're fascinated with helicopter escapes even
though you hate helicopter.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
It's one and you know take away.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I'm not gonna say like, oh, I'm so fearless, but
I'm rather fear I'm rather fearless about doing dumb stuff. Right,
I've done like a lot of like and I'm not
afraid of heights, but a helicopter to me is like
past the point of dumb. It's like it's like a
dare with death.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Like when you came this time, I.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Would not get in the helicopter. Also, I have terrible
fear of heights.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Well, also, I mean, how many helicopter crashed it. There's
been so many. You're just like, whoa, Yeah, it's just Also,
I wouldn't get in.
Speaker 8 (48:10):
A small playing with a musician a famous rule.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
What's your ridiculous take away, Zarah?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Oh wow, thank you for asking, Elizabeth. Well, I guess
like you kind of set up top. The French love
a prison escape via a helicopter, like they like Jerry Lewis.
It's just silly and fun, but like, why is that really?
What's the essence? My guess is that they love it
because it's both unexpected and impractical, yet it also has
a certain panache, like a certain artistry to it.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
So that's my take is like I think I have
a little insight into the French soul via the helicopter
prison escape Jazzy. Yeah right, It's like it's like why
they like Charlie Parker. It's like, oh, the daring and
it's it's on the edge right right, all right, So
you in the move for a talk back to wash
this one down.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Of course, I am, oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I like, get.
Speaker 5 (49:10):
Share ridiculous crime I committed. Don't worry, It's totally legal,
totally cool. When I was three, I was really obsessed
with Batman. So I was in a Walmart and my
father and I were walking past the sections I've had
a Batman sweatshirt on it, and I asked my father, Hey, dad,
can I have the Batman sweatshirt? And he said no,
(49:30):
and so I ripped my shirt off and I ran
around and I yelled at him because I did not
get my Batman's shirt. Love the show.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
That's the way you handle those situations. You're like, I
don't I don't get that shirt. But if I had
no shirt, ran the garments hulking out.
Speaker 8 (49:47):
I love it totally legal. Well, thank you for that one,
for a smile at both of our faces. As always,
you can find us online for more Ridiculous Crime on
Instagram and and over Ridiculous Crime pod over on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Go check it out. They have little animated versions of
the show and you can listen on that if you
prefer to get your podcasts from YouTube. We also have
our website Ridiculous Crime dot com, where we have merch
and some gifts for you, and you can take a
survey if you like and tell us about yourself. We'd
like to hear about it, and obviously we'd love to
talk back, so please go to the iHeart app, download it,
leave a talk back and maybe you hear your voice here.
(50:25):
We'd love to hear it. And also emails if you
like at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Go Peopleapy,
pop up send all right, well, thank you for listening.
As always, we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnette, produced and
(50:47):
edited by the owner and proprietor of Montshew Dave's Helicopter,
Flat School and Stormdog Company, Dave Houston, and starring Annalie's
Rucker as Judith. Research is by our favorite cheap and
bad wig sellers, Us Brown and Jabari Davis. Our theme
song is by the soundtrack of French Lovers Everywhere Sarage
and the Smoking Gainesburg Children Chorus Thomas Lee and Travis Dunnon.
(51:11):
The host wardrobe provided by Body five hundred. Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are
our lubrication reps for pennz Oil, No Make It, Quaker Steak,
Ben Bolin and No Brown.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
Crime Say It One More Time, Geek We Cry.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts.
My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
And there she is here. I am Elizabeth Dutton. Look
at me, star, stage, screen, radio and podcast, America's Sweetheart.
So I got a question for you, America's sweetheart. Yes,
do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Saren Burnett?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I do. I doubt it.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
It's ridiculously cool. Oh it's not a mashup.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh, sweet mother of Mercy, Yes.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Mother of pearl.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
That's what I said to myself when I saw this,
and I thought, Ay, I love this so much. B
I don't have to do a mashup. I mean, I
guess I never really have to.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The cells of my body are singing in praise of
your choice.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
So.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
This is an email that we got from Rachel Hackenberg. Rude, dude,
Rachel Hackey what Rachel? And she wrote, dear ridiculous Crime team.
My brain derailed down a sidebar when Elizabeth described George
Parker as quote pouring a cocktail of hope for unsuspecting
marks in today's episode Welcome to America, suckers. What might
(01:01):
the ingredients of a cocktail of hope be? I give
you my recipe for the Brooklyn Bridge. Enjoy Rachel. And
it has this cool drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge and
it's all formatted nicely, so it says the Brooklyn Bridge
A cocktail of Hope one muddle Ambition two. Add two
(01:25):
dashes American dream Bitters three, mix in three parts sparkling
Delusion and one part Vodka of Vanity four. I love
this so much. Add a splash of apple cid or
vinegar for gut health. Yes, five for cocktail, froth whip,
raw desire with bacon grease, six garnish with naivete, seven
(01:50):
serve with a handlebar mustaches.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So good.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And I sent it to my brother. I was like,
you guys should have this as a drink special and
then he blocked me.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
But aside from that, like what the fifth time?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, I just got to change my phone number again.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Trick.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Anyway, the cocktail of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
That is both ridiculous and damn.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So clever, so smart, and I love it. Thank you, Rachel.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, I'm just like over here all a flutter the
top that I cannot That was incredible, But I do
have something for you to sit back down. Okay, it's ridiculous,
I promise you that to borrow from former President George W. Bush.
There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas,
probably in Tennessee. But you know what, Elizabeth, I don't
know for certain because I just made this up. It says,
(02:38):
if at first you don't succeed crime crime again.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh, I thought you were going to go with the
whole foolm me once.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
No, I couldn't do it all the way. I just
like the beginning. Yeah, so there you go. This is
(03:09):
Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis
and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous. Yes, Oh, Elizabeth Saren Today I
have a fun and very French crime story for you.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It involves lovers, criminals, prison escapes. But first, before we
get into it, I have an amuse boush, a little
something to whet your appetite ye and get you in
the mood for more. Do you remember the story I
told you about my man Redon Fayid and his daring
helicopter escape from prison.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yes, I totally remember that.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
First I was there, Yeah, you were there, and just
I'm just Kida when you told the story, tickle your
memory cells anyway, because the gist is basically this. In
July of twenty eighteen, red'l Fayid was locked up in
a French prison when he and his crew they put
on this jail breake plan and they used a handheld
metal grinder and smoke bombs and they cut their way
through prison doors until finally they managed to escape to
(04:10):
like an inner courtyard of the prison. That's where a
helicopter was waiting for them as their fellow prisoners all
cheered them on. Right. Can you imagine that scene? The
jailbak crew escapes by a helicopter and they seek freedom
in the skies. Best part is they get away with it?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah right, God bless.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Turns out that escape was one of many, and I
mean many French helicopter based prison escapes.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Is it like they're Jerry Lewis, like they love these things?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Apparently this is like number two after Jerry Lewis's helicopter
prison escape. Get like, oh we so cool, so cool,
so okay. Earlier years earlier, there was another French inmate
named Pascal Paller okay, and he managed to escape prison
not once, not twice, but three times using a all.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Three times with a helicopter.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
He is the record for the most helicopter basis the
prison escapes. Okay, so in two thousand and one, Paye
he escaped from a French prison by a helicopter. Two
years later, in two thousand and three, he was still
living on the lamb, and again he decided to lead
a daring escape from prison via helicopter.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Oh wait, so he's on the lamby, it's caught.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes, no, no, no, no, he's on the lamb, does
not get caught, and he's like, I've got some friends
locked up inside.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I was like, what was he escaping from the lamp? Okay?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
He goes back to the exact same prison that where
he had left as a fugitive, and he leads the
chopper Babe fend yes, and he's like he helps his
fellow prisoners escape. They're like from his crew, there are
three men who'd been arrested with him back in nineteen
ninety nine, which got him set up the first time.
And you know what, who says there's no honor among thieves,
there is amongst French thieves. Oh, because he went back
(05:51):
and freed his men a man behind. No, I mean,
you get out once at a prison escape with a helicopter,
like I can do it again, Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean, but that's that's a rule of the dice, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Fortunately, three weeks later, Pascal Paier and his three recently
escaped comrades in crime. They were all recaptured. So he
gets tried, convicted, sentenced to return to prison. Okay, and
that's where you guessed it if you're paying attention. He
escaped again via helicopter. The year was two thousand and seven.
Paye coordinated a new and brazen helicopter escape. It started
with a hijacking where his accomplices were supposed to skyjack
(06:26):
a chopper, then force the pilot to fly to the
prison where Pascal Payer was locked up, and then they'd
free him. Keep in mind, by yay, he'd already escaped
once and then he helped coordinated. But I mean he
was in the prison grounds and left, so technically.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Since he was he was there, he went into the
second one.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He got his guys out risk at all. So at
this point, because he has had done these two daring
prison escapes, he's considered a detournent particular mont, which in
English means a high surveillance prisoner. Okay, right, so he's
kept in solitary confine exactly. It's like it's this crazy prison.
(07:05):
So but this doesn't stop Pascal Paye. Elizabeth, do you
know what day of the year they chose for their
third prison escape?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Please tell me? Best steel day?
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Yes, right, the most fitting and some bold date to
break someone out of a French prison. That's so beautiful
and it's also it's really a brilliant move because it's
the day when nearly everyone in France had the day off,
and they're all busy celebrating this big national holiday. You know,
a lot of people are like out there just drunk
and revelry, and then people are filling the streets, so
it's like it's kind of chaos.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Right. So on this fateful Beastille day four of his
comrades in crime, they tug on masks, They hijack a
helicopter and it's pilot, and just like they'd all planned,
then they ordered the pilot to fly them to the
prison where Paye was being held. They safely land the
helicopter on the prison roof. It's evening time, just like
you know. At the almost the end of the shift,
(07:56):
three of the four masks men they hop out of
the chopper. One man stays behind, keep a gun trained
on their skyjacked pilot make sure he doesn't like up
and fly away. Now they use some heavy machinery the
prison heightst crew breaks into the prison. They break into
the prison. Once inside, they break through a bunch of
security doors until they reach the solitary confinement section of
the prison because that's where he's being held. Once there,
(08:18):
they quickly locate their man, Pascal by Ay, they free
him from solitary confinement. Then the men all rush back
to the prison roof where there is the waiting helicopter.
According to Maurice Barrette, who was a security official at
the prison, the operation took only five minutes. The layout
of the site did not allow the guards in the
tower to shoot at the helicopter or the men, so
(08:38):
once they were all loaded up, the hijacked helicopter pilot
flies the men roughly about thirty eight kilometers or twenty
three miles for Americans, to the town of Toulon, where
they are on the coast of the Mediterranean. Okay, Elizabeth,
because I know you worry. Yeah, hijacked helicopter pilot was
not harmed during the prison escape. They let him out,
They're like, you're good. She was scared totally. He had
a gun on them and the outside.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
To crash physically hard.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And he was also in a helicopter. I mean, is
dangerous on their own.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
True, he's going to carry that that emotional baggage.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh, I mean, that's trauma.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It is now.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Despite their genius approach and the serious commitment to Pasco
bay A, his prison highst crewed, it didn't take them
long to get tracked down. Just a few months later,
on September twenty first, the men were all caught and
captured together in a Maturo, Spain, which is a suburb
of Barcelona, so basically outside Barcelona. And that was the
last of his prison escapes. Yeah. Well all of those
(09:37):
were certainly creative, daring prison escapes. They were all copycat escapes.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Okay, those are all took place.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
In the in the two thousand Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Before Ridon is the last of this group, before him
doing two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You'd think that, like the eighteen second one, they'd be like,
we were need to come up with some sort of deterrent.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, you would think, no, they do have helicopter netting.
That's what Mordon Fayid had to deal with. Y they
come up with helicopter nettings, like we've got to stop this. No,
So all these daring, brave helicopter escapes, they were all
copycats because each one there was a I guess escaping
from prison by helicopter became this very French thing. But
the first ever French prison escaped via helicopter took place
(10:24):
way back in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I was I gonna say seventeen ninety.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
No, no helicopters. I mean, technically, Leonardo da Vinci did
in bet helicopter, but it was never really put to anyway.
So there was these two inmates. They were being held
into Florie Maraghese prison in the suburb of Paris, is
about twenty five miles outside of Paris. The story goes
the two in mates were outside for some fresh air.
They were on a soccer field and that that was
(10:48):
on prison grounds, and they were in this middle of
a game. They're playing soccer right when all of a sudden,
this helicopter lands on the far edge of the field
in the prison right, the men knew it was coming,
so they also knew at this point it's go time.
So they just to go running over to the helicopter.
They're able to climb aboard flee into the skies well
before the prison guards because this is the first time
(11:09):
they've ever seen this. What is going on? And then
this first helicopter prison escape in French history is successful.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
That's so insane, Like what I just think about what
was going through the other innates lies the guards It
was like, oh no, how do we explain that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
It was nineteen eighty one, So you do have this
history of skyjacking in the seventies, so people are like, oh,
that's a nice move.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
When they took off, they I liked to think that.
I have to tell you, like, one of the one
of the times I've laughed the hardest is I was
driving and you were in my car and I kind
of pushed it and went through a yellow light that
was really stale, and you killed and like it was
crying laughing, and I thought I was gonna get into
an accent and stop laughing.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Well, you know, because before the French Republic, they had
a yellow flag so you see that.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Although it's kind of like it, it's I thought it was.
You couldn't beat my brother's thing of hitting a stale
yellow and going bumping at that. He always does, and
I thought that was hilarious. But now whenever I on
the off chance I push a stale yellow.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I had a friend he used to always instead of
saying hang a left or hang a right, you say
hang a hang a Rick, hang a Louis. So he
used the two characters from Casa Blanca as like left
and right. I always love that.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Were you that friend?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
No, this is not me, Okay. So back to the
first ever helicopter prison escape in France nineteen eighty one. Successful,
but the freedom unfortunately Elizabeth short lived. The two inmates
and the rescuer who showed up with the helicopter had
hired the pilot right or hired the helicopter rather. They
were all arrested within a few months. Yeah, but as
it turns out, that first ever French prison escape via
(12:56):
helicopter was directly connected to the second ever helicopter escape
from a French prison, which does not involve any of
the people I've mentioned yet. Really, yes, because there was
this prisoner who was being held at that same prison
in Florie Merrighie. And when she heard about this daring
and successful helicopter escape, it stayed with her and you
could say it inspired her. It gave her ideas told.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
The story in the evening.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Oh yeah, you know the legends.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
You know, sitting over somebody some burning sterno.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Telling stories with the ripe blue cheese, drink.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Some plumb toilet wine. So, Elizabeth, I'd like you to
meet Nadine the Jure. She's our anti heroine of the day.
Nadine was a criminal and also a bit of a
romantic because when she wanted to break her husband out
of a French prison, she recalled that soccer Field prison
escape via helicopter and she decided, oh no, that's will work.
(13:54):
And so she's the first person to do a copycat crime,
sort of like an homage, if you will. Who was
her locked up husband? Great questions?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Oh god, so I am I am on it today
on point you were like one step ahead of you completely.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Maybe two. Now. Her husband's name is Michelle Vajore. He
gave his name.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
To her Michelle, and he was a career criminal, like
he was in and out of prison ever since his
first lock up when he was seventeen, He's mostly like
a small crimes guy, stick ups, and then he graduated
like robbing like vans, and and uh like banks and
stores and so forth.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Just vans, like people in parking lot.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well like yeah, like delivery vans, and then later on
ice cream trucks and stoners and park surprise, give me
the bag. So this pair they married back in nineteen
seventy nine while both of them were locked up for
their crimes, I know, finding love love during lock up.
So before his wife broke him out, Michelle already had
(14:54):
multiple prison escapes to his credit. Oh yeah, he is scared.
I think he had like seven in his whole lifetime
of So that same year, nineteen seventy nine, when he
gets married to Nadine, Michelle had managed to escape police custody.
While he was brought into court. He smuggled in a
fake gun into court. The fake gun was a bar
of soap that he had carved and sculpted to look
(15:15):
like a handgun.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
How big was this bar?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Is this a little like sho like a thirty eight
Maybe I don't know, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Just like the world's largest bar of soap he carved
like one of those dirty hairy guns.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Super long.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
But then it was so long it's snapped.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
It broke like some quick repair. Now it snubnose. So
at this point also I forgot to mention to finish
the look, he blackened the soap with shoe polish.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Like swirly Irish spring exactly or was it? Was it
some of that nice lavender like south of France.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That would be nice. So it smells nice like your
gun smells fantastic.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So with this opportune moment occurs when he's in court,
he hips out his fake bar of soap gun and
he demands nobody moved, nobody gets hot. That's just by version.
So he holds the judge hostage and he uses him
to escape the courtroom right now. When his wife Nadine
Vajour was still locked up inside, Michelle enjoyed life on
the lamp. So she's inside, he's outside because he escaped
(16:18):
from court. Yeah, he manages to stay free for two
whole years. During that time, he continues his criminal career.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Well what else is he going to do?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Oh? Yeah, it's all though he knows Nelson doesn't want
to get caught on a factory floor. That's like actual
quote from him. Oh really, Yeah, he was kind of
an anarchist when he was young, but he also was
against work. So between the two things, he's like, I'm
political and exactly. So in nineteen eighty one, he gets
caught during an attempted bank robbery in Paris and he
sent back to prison. Of course, meanwhile, his wife Nadine
(16:49):
had become a mother while still in prison.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Oh how does that happen?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Well, the couple welcome their daughter, Betty, because remember they
got married in prison, so I think they were allowed
conjugal visits as my guess. Okay, so anyway, this changed
her thinking about if.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
The hell goes on in a French prison.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
European prisons are different than what we expect, that's all
I learned. Very yeah, but this is like they also anyway,
I won't get into it, but a lot of they're
being kept in like maximum security prisons. They just don't
sound like it to me.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
No, not if you're getting married and then having babies,
baby and then like he takes it because I thought
maybe like he escaped and then came back for a
conjugal visit. No, I don't think it was.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
No, I think it was in seventy nine when they
got married. I think they were allowed to have the
conjugal visit for the marriage ceremony and then boom, miracle baby.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I just okay.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So anyway, at this point, once the couple welcomes their daughter, Betty,
this changes her thinking. Nadine's thinking about her family's future,
and her thinking does not include prison.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Oh this is what makes a change.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, because by this point Nadine had also been in
and out of prison three times. She had charges for swindling,
receiving stolen goods, attempted robbery. Her final stint in prison
came about due to an attempted robbery in nineteen eighty three.
So she and her crew were in a town of
tours and they attempted a bank robbery, but the security
guards weren't having it. They get into a gunfight. Things
turned bad. Nadine was unharmed and she was prompaly arrested, tried,
(18:06):
but the charges weren't proved and she gets released from custody.
So this is nineteen eighty three, so she's on the
she's still the baby, single mom in it, but still
doing bank robberies, you.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Know, and he's still out there, tom Cat.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
No, he's still he's locked up in eighty three.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Oh that's right, because he did two years.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
So like, okay, god it So at this.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Point Nadine is like, I really need to get my
man back, right.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I don't know if she just wasn't into being a
single mother all by herself, or perhaps she just wanted
to break out her.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Partner she needed an owner, her co parent.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, or maybe she's just like a hopeless romantic was
willing to risk it off to Freehoman. I don't know,
but either way, in nineteen eighty six, she decides it's
time to make her move to break her husband Michelle
out of prison. But before we get into that, Elizabeth,
it was like a little break, Okay, enjoy some ads
and after these messages, we will take through these guys.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Viva all.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yes we are.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So are you ready to take this bird up into
the clouds a frenchman?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
You good?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Good? So the story goes. After her bungled bank robbery,
Nadine Bajur manages to escape justice to the charges don't
stick for her. Once again, as I said, this is
due to lack of proof, right, so she's released from holding.
This is nineteen eighty three and that was the same
time that Nadine and Michelle began to plan a prison
escape and they don't rush into it, so her husband
and lover he's locked up. The single mother Nadine is
(19:41):
putting her plan into action. So in order to shield
herself from her criminal past, she uses her maiden name
of Rego Rigo as a cover and she comes up
with a fake name of I am a Lena Rego.
So Lena enrolls in a flight school for helicopter lessons.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Oh she went there planning, not oh wow, And.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It didn't take her long to learn to fly. She
was a quick study, smart girl Nadine or Lena, and
she officially earns her pilot's license. But being a good
pilot wasn't good enough because based on their proposed escape plan,
she needed to be an excellent pilot. Sure, And so
for months she rents a helicopter she practices. She'd take
a chopper out for flights twice a month in order
(20:22):
to make sure that there was no paper trail that
pointed back to her. She always paid the three hundred
and fourteen dollars an hour rental fee in cash as
Lena Rigo, right, nobody's the wiser. Yeah, And once she
rents the helicopter, then she and she's skyborn and alone.
Nadine would practice the moves that she would need for
the proposed prison escape. She practiced holding the helicopter in
a steady hover. She mastered how to read the winds
(20:44):
so well that she could hold the helicopter steady in
a strong crosswind. Right, and this would be key because
you don't know what's gonna be going on the roof.
You can't have it like well, all of a sudden
you dip in that Basically, you need to keep the
nose of the helicopter almost motionless during this escape so
her husband isn't sliced into pieces by the hellicopter.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's a good point.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
And lastly, Nadine she practiced landing a helicopter in a
very tight space, like basically in a canopy of trees,
but on top of a prison roof.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Okay, so she.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Would like then be able to hold it in a
low hover regardless of the crosswinds. And then she also
mastered taking off and flying very low to avoid radar,
so she's like flying just over the rooftops of Paris.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yes, So over a six month stretch, Nadine becomes this
outstanding helicopter pilot. Yeah, talking like TC for Magnum p
I helicopter.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
That's all I'm envisioning is that helicopter and her like
with a boombox playing the theme to Magnum while she
does this for inspiration.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
You and me, both sisters.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So, now in France, I don't know if you know this,
but any person with a helicopter's pilot license can rent
a helicopter. And here's the kicker. They don't have to
file a flight itinerary. So like in America, when you
take off, you got to tell them where you're going,
and then that airport expects you and they're on the
radio talking to you. But you can just take a
rental chopper wherever you want. France apparently, Yeah, they don't
(22:01):
have to tell anyone where you're going, which just seems
kind of wild to me.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Anyway, Nadine, she feels ready to put their escape plan
into action. You know, it's time for the real deal,
save Michelle from prison. So on the Faithful Day Nadine.
She goes out to her flight school it's called the
School Saint Cyr Aerodrome, and she walks inside of a
helicopter rental agency. It's a place called air Compliment and
where she shows her helicopter license. She rents a chopper.
(22:26):
They're like, we don't need to know where you're going,
so good luck bring it back.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Can't she just say, like, I'm not going to a
specific place, I'm just going to tootle around.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
That's the idea. Yeah, yeah, they don't even have to
like tell them, like which direction you're planning on tootling
at first.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I think you can do that with a helicopter here.
I think you can just go up toodling's I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I have no idea. I had a friend who got
a helicopter's pilot's license, but he was in the process
of getting it, so then he'd have to like do
a solo and fly to an airport, so he had
to put it in itinerary because you don't want him to
just get.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Lost, right, But I think that's if you're in the process.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah, so I don't know what happens.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Here's what I'm thinking because my power nerd status is
still in effect.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Totally, never doubted.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
I have an app on my phone flight radar.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
And anytime like there's some weird plane like going over
or like a helicopter for a long time, I look
and see what it is. But a lot of those
are there, and a lot of them don't have a destination.
It'll tell even small planes, it'll say, you know where
it's where it took off, but they don't have like
a destination put in their others do.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Even small planes? Interesting?
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, So I mean you're allowed to tootle apparently.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So at this point, she's going to tootle on over
to Prison de la San Right, Okay, it's like on
the left bank outside of Paris. So her husband, Michelle,
he checks the calendar. He sees the date is May
twenty sixth, nineteen eighty six. It's a Monday, and he
knows today is the day for him to get free. Exciting,
so he informs his friend to Pierre Hernandez. Then it
was their liberation day because he invited him to flee
(23:55):
prison with him. He's like, Pierre, you want to go.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
He's like he's like, well, you know, when you're in
school and you have like some opportunity to bring one friend.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So. Yeah, Pierre's like, we let's do this right. So
at this point, the prison de la It has no
soccer field for an easy landing, no interior courtyard that
would allow a touchdown. The only place in Nadine can
meet them with a helicopter is up on the prison roof.
But there's nowhere to land, so you're gonna have to hover,
and then they have to get up to the helicopter.
(24:25):
Sketch right, So they go, and the men are gap
to also rendezvous with Nadine up there. Like, how are
two inmates going to sneak out of the prison get
up onto the roof.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
That's a very good question.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
The answer was painted fruit.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
It's always the answer.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
It's like I always say, I went in doubt, add
color and some fresh fruit. So now, remember how Pascal
Payer used a bar of soap and blackened it with
shoe polished like he was in a French John Dillinger
and he took that a judge hostage. Well, Michele Vajoure,
he borrows a page from that playbook. But in his case,
instead of relying on just a carved soap pistol, which
he did have. Michelle also had a nectarine. Technically, he
(25:03):
had two nectarines. Okay. He painted the nectarines green so
that they resembled French style hand grenades.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Stop. Yes, I thought he was going to have a banana.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Gun practically, okay.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So when it's time for them to make their escape,
Michelle and his buddy Pierre, they brandished their shoe polish
soap pistol and their two green painted nectarines, and they
used them to threaten the prison guards, right and surprisingly
it works perfectly. The prison guards when they see them,
they're particularly afraid of the nectarine grenades. Really, they're terrified
that they'll be killed in an explosion of what they
(25:37):
believe to be legit hand grenades. They can't see how
far away from the distance they are. They're told it's
a hand grenade. It looks like a hand Grenadably it
blows up. They would die from a handad.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
They're like me. They don't wear their glasses exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Let's oh, this is kind of dark in the prison.
I don't know. So the two inmates flashing their shoe
polish soap pistol and their fake nectarine grenades. They're able
to bluff their way out of the prison and then
to get scrambling up onto the roof. Meanwhile, at around
ten thirty am that same morning, on her way to
save her man, a single mom Nadine Vajur and her
rental helicopter flying low over central Paris over the radio.
(26:12):
But the whole time she's being hailed with a series
of warnings as she's flying too low, it's illegal, you
need to pull up. She ignores all the urgent radio calls.
She's like, I'm not going to be in this chopper
very long. She needs to focus because she's approaching the prison,
which is located, as I said, there on the left bank.
So Nadine, she has also, by the way, a comrade
in crime with her in the chopper, a man who
is armed with a machine gun, because obviously if you
(26:33):
if anything goes sideways, they need to have like a
fireworks right, all right, And a little bit I know
you were wondering, so I'll just tell you. The helicopter
was an Alouette two, which is.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Like the cheese.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah. Apparently it's a very trustworthy air machine. Imagine like
one of those helicopters from the beginning of mash just
making a huie no no, like the woman, the medical slide,
the you know, the beginning of Masher, they dropped down.
It's like a bubble front.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
All I can hear is the Mashed theme song.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
You're welcome, Suicideless. There you go.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
So and I'm just like it's making more fresh and
now it's like I feel like it's the.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Late Yeah, time for you to go to So imagine
like the glass bubble and then they have like the skids.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, so they could put like a stretcher.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Okay, so that's the idea. You got the skids on
the set, you know, and then and you've got the
glass bubble enough for two to people to be seated inside,
not a big helicopter, right.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
So yeah, it's not like like a succession helicopter.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
There's room for eight exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You know, you're not fitting the whole family in this one, Okay.
So anyway, as well trained and as practiced as she is,
Nadine is able to pilot the rental chopper over the
prison locate the roof of her husband's block of cells.
She hovers in place for a few minutes waiting for
him to pop up. Meanwhile, Hubby Michelle emerges from the
prison alongside his friend Pierre, dressed in a tracksuit. He
shows up and he like waves to his total style points.
(27:56):
Now she must have been imagine that moment. She must
be so relieved and stoked to see as the plan
is working. Now at this point, her comrade and crime,
the one with the machine gun. He kicks a rope
out of the chopper. He climbs down the approximately thirty
feet of rope and he joins the two inmates on
the roof, where he then holds the rope steady as
Michelle climbs back up and then grabs onto the helicopter skids.
(28:18):
Now they're prison guards below like in the courtyard, and
they could see all this daring escape underway, but they
had no clear shot of the inmates Michelle and Pierre
because their view is blocked by like chimneys and antennas
and you get the idea, right, So the prison guards
they hesitate to shoot. So the comrade and crime with
the machine gun, he also keeps his gun quiet, no
shots are fired. Meanwhile, urgent seconds are ticking by. Yeah,
(28:40):
Michelle's friend Pierre, he chickens out for reasons only he knows.
He hesitates to grab the rope and climb up. I
guess in the moment things got real for arm and
he's like, no, go on with that's me.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
He probably only had like a week left on his ticket.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Please, So the comrade and Crime with the machine gun.
He uses the rope to climb back after the helicopter
and while Pierre stays behind and like bonjou, well good luck,
so Pierre said, he surrenders to the prison guards. I guess,
ball Sean, see, you get the idea. It's more fun
(29:14):
to be wrong. So anyway, once her man was a
board and her comrade and Crime was also safely like
on the skids, Nadine lifts them up out of the
stationary hover and if she's held the chopper steady, and
I'm talking, this is like no drift to the nose
of the chopper, no swing of the tail. There's just
there's rotors that are whipping the air and like it's
so so much. It was shaking the prison with the vibrations.
(29:35):
The rotor wash was yeah, yeah right, So she had
to be, like I said, well practiced. Nadine pilots the
three of them to freedom. Good on you, Nadine.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
So the rental chopper flees the scene. Nadine banks the
helicopter to the west. They keep the altitude all low.
She flies them just over the rooftops of the fourteenth
Air and dismal of Paris within minutes of their prison escape.
Nadine safely sets the chopper down where on a s
soccer field. Right, nice, look like I said, it was
an homage totally, So I mean, you're like, if you're
(30:06):
gonna be inspired, you gotta have a little win. It's
very French to be exactly style points. So the soccer
field happened to be part of a university housing complex,
so there were students out there. It's a Monday morning,
the ones who don't have class are enjoying a warm,
sunny day in May. The students are sunbathing because it's
like nineteen eighty six, and so they watched this chopper
land on the soccer pitch, which must have been wild. Now,
(30:28):
even even though like prison escapes at this point are
starting to become a tradition, this is only the second one,
so they don't expect this, right.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
So they're just like slathered in bandasolet of course for that.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Maybe a little copper tone for those who've been to
like the West Indies. So Nadine shuts off the choppers engine.
The university students then watches these three comrades in crime, Michelle,
Nadine and the machine gun guy all run out of
the rental helicopter and flee the scene. Yeah, turns out
they have a car parked nearby waiting for them. I
read reports that it was a Pugio, which feels like
the perfect secondary escape vehicle for a prison escape in Paris.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Oh yeah, like that's how.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You do it, right. They're all out in the pougeot.
So the stylish Pugeau, it pulls away from the scene,
merges into the Monday morning traffic, disappears into the streets
of this Parisian suburb just south of the City of Lights. Right,
eyewitnesses call into the police to report this strange sight
of a helicopter landing on a soccer pitch and three
suspicious characters, one with a machine gun, fleeing the scene.
(31:25):
The police respond quickly. They really are on it, however,
once they respond and when they are there at the
soccer field, The French police suspected the helicopter it may
be boobytrapped, so they won't approach it. They wait an
entire hour until the bomb sniffing dogs can arrive check
the scenes. Once the dogs clear the danger, the police
(31:45):
then move in. They search their mental chopper. They find
absolutely no clues that would aid their manhunt. Right, So
in the meantime, Na dene Vjur and her husband Michelle,
and their machine gun toting partner in crime, they escape
into Paris together they enjoy that same beautiful spring day
and the sensation of liberation, right Dave LaFrance. So now, meanwhile,
(32:05):
to sidestep any criticism about their daring prison escape by
a helicopter, the second ever in French history, the French
police now have to inform the local press that Nadine
and Michelle Vajoure quote had a long time to plan
for this, so it's going to be difficult to find them.
They have two or three years on us, so we
don't expect to catch up with them in three or
four hours.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
That's I like that reasonable totally, Like, hey, look, they
put a lot of big ups to them, everybody. Can
we just acknowledge their hard work.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Exactly do we look like Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan No,
we are not solving this crime within ninety minutes. So,
however it does last longer than the three or four
hours because for the next few months the three all
live on the lamb. Wow, fugitives from justice. Well, the
French police then have to keep admitting that they have
zero idea where they might be. They can be anywhere,
(32:56):
they could be Spain, could be Italy, who knows, it
could be Poland. So in fact, the police so clueless
that Nadine and Michelle they mastermind a second escape plan.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
What is it with you?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
They connived to grab their five year old daughter and
take her with them.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Oh, I thought it was gonna be like another buddy
of mine.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
They have to go grab their daughter because like who
meanwhile was being surveiled because the French police are like,
they're gonna probably come for their daughter, and they do
not notice when Betty gets grabbed under round the clock
police surveillance. So that's what you call a gutsy move.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So once they free their daughter and the whole family
is now toy all together again, what's their next move?
What do Nadine Michelle and darling daughter Betty do next
do they move to Morocco and adopt new names? And
they had they maybe hop over the Atlantic and find
a new home in Montreal or perhaps Detroit, or say
the Napa Wine country. Oh well, let's take another little
break to these messages. We will see if and how
(33:49):
the French police can ever catch up to Nadine and Michel.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Hmmm, and we're.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Back, Elizabeth, Yes we are. So have you noticed that
the interns are a little gassy today?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
I have noticed that.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I was like, hey, guys, you want to maybe like
step out in the hallway.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I think they changed the recipes in the cafeteria.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
The snacks, the treats they've been eating. Yes, they got
the gassy ones.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
So buddy, anyway, where were we?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Oh that's right. Single mother Nadine or go ahead, learns
the fly helicopter practice until she's good enough to hold
a chopper motionless. She passes away to her husband. They
escape prison with a fake gun made out of a
bar soap and the two nectarines painted to look like eggs,
and then she and Michelle they fly to safety. Then
they go grab their five year old daughter, Betty, who's
(34:53):
under police surveillance. Let me just they're knocking down.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
On the roof and the guards were watching. He like
put the fake grenade to his mouth like he's going
to pull the pin, and insteady like bit into.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
It, took a bite and threw it and they all went.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
And then he laughed and then threw it down at it. Oh,
he's better than the paint on the side.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
That's how I like to imagine, That's how I'm picturing it.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Let's go with.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Him, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So Unfortunately for this newly reunited family, their good luck
is about to run out. For three months. Though Nadine
and Michelle they stay low and out of the side
of the law. They enjoy their life together with young Betty.
They don't use any phones, they don't go out in
public unless you know, not anymore than they need to.
They avoid restaurants, bakeriesies, and they instead they heat up
(35:47):
canned food, which is like I think, a crime in France.
They stay away from their criminal.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Associations unless it's like tinned fish.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, exactly, but like my diet is totally illegal in France,
Like what is this prepared food? Then that can.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Microwave.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah. Well, so they also stayed away from other criminal associates,
which is a really smart move because those are the
folks that might be tempted to grab a quick payday,
but then flip on them, diame them out to the
cops and get that hefty reward money because the cops
are embarrassed by this. Right, these are fugitives from the law,
so they're willing to like pay rewards. Right. Anyway, the
newly reunited family, they also have to like play house
(36:26):
on the run, so they're like you know, terrorists where
they cannot stay in the same place, or drug dealers
like you know, big cartel leaders where they don't sleep
in the same place night after night. Right, so they're
staying in like furnished rental apartments. They're staying in out
of the way farm houses. They're changing their housing like
every few days, never stay anywhere too long. Doing everything right.
(36:47):
Except they did one thing wrong, Elizabeth. They stayed in Paris. Wait, yes,
they just could not leave the city of Lets. Well,
so we take that back. They did two things wrong
because they also went back into businesses career criminals.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Oh yeah, you know, they are just providing a really
wonderful life for their Yes, yeah, I mean I'm so
glad they're doing this, that it's all worth it for
this life that they've given her.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So well, yeah, I guess they needed the money. You know,
they don't have anything, and they got to keep getting
apartments so they have to pay cash. So one day, Michelle,
I assume it was Michelle's idea, since it is his MO,
decides to push his luck by robbing a bank. But
rather than me tell you about it, Elizabeth.
Speaker 7 (37:27):
Heyes, close your eyes, but as a clue, I want
you to picture it.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It's a charming Friday afternoon in Paris. The sounds of
children playing mixes with the sounds of workmen finishing up
for the day. It gives the day a lively atmosphere.
Life in Paris is just doing its thing, and you, Elizabeth,
are there to enjoy it all. You came to the
City of Lights for a vacation. You brought your camera,
a few cute outfits, and a willingness to say wait
(37:58):
to whatever Paris may offer you. At the moment, you're
seated on a park bench enjoying the day, You're nibbling
on a piccolo sandwich of fresh ham and cheese. As
you listen to a street musician playing a song on
his accordion, is that my Van Rose? You wonder is
this real life? And then you notice something odd A
pair of policemen seated in their car. One of them
(38:19):
is on his handheld radio, calling in whatever it is
he's watching. You turn to look in the same direction
as him, and you spot a bank. It's a Credit
Lionne's branch. You wonder what's drawing the policeman's attention to
this bank? And then you spy another set of police officers,
a man and a woman, also seated in a police
car parked alongside the same road, but they're on the
(38:41):
other side of the bank, and they're also studying that
same bank with the same attention as the first police.
Something must be going down, you think to yourself. As
you take a sip of lemonade you purchased along with
your piccolo sandwich before you have a moment to finish.
Swallowing the lemonade, you see what must be what the
police are watching. Three men in very cheap wigs exit
(39:05):
the bank. They're moving fast like they just rob the place,
which is exactly what they have done. You're riveted. Now
this is a real life French bank robbery. How exciting.
The police attending to the scene hop out of their
police cars. Other cops disguised as street vendors and tourists
also leap into action. The Parisian police are all business.
(39:26):
They draw their weapons and order the three men and
the bad wigs to freeze. Again, you wonder is this
real life? Because you are right in the middle of
the action, just across the street from the bank, seated
alone on the bench. You can practically see the color
of the three men's eyes, that's how close you are.
And then you see the three men in the bad
cheap wigs are also carrying guns, which they raise into view.
(39:50):
Suddenly you wish you weren't seated so close to the action.
But before you can set down your piccolo sandwich next
to your lemonade, someone fires a shot. You suspect it's
a cop because if the bank robbers are quick to respond,
they fire their guns. Now you are in the middle
of a legitimate gunfight. Isn't this what you left America
to avoid random gun violence? Then anyway, it gets personal.
(40:12):
A stray bullet hits the park bench. You're seated on
another one knocks over your lemonade. You and your sandwich
hit the dirt. The cops and the robbers keep firing
at each other and they keep missing. Once again, you
wonder is this real life? When you lift your head
to look up and towards the bank robbers, hoping you
can see an opportunity to escape this gunfight. Instead, you
(40:33):
see one of the bank robbers get shot. It's bad.
He gets shot in the head and he goes down.
In fact, it's so bad it scares the other two
bank robbers and they throw down their weapons. And with
the danger now passed, you get up off the dirt
and you brush off the leaves and the grime. Your sandwich,
which was so good, is now covered also in dirt
(40:54):
and muck. Your lemonade is leaked out over the cobblestones,
but you are safe and unharmed. The cops rush to
check on the man they shot you. Hear them call
him by the name Michelle, and he is not dead,
but he appears to be in a coma. Yet again,
you wonder is this real life? It very much is,
but you've survived, and you can always buy another bag
(41:15):
at Ham Sandwich Okay, so that was not exactly the
ideal scene for your idyllic, spontaneous picnic in Paris, But
for the police of Paris, it was quite a feather
in their cap, a triumphant moment, so to speak. They
had caught the notorious fugitive and helicopter escape artist Michelle Vajoure.
And so after Michelle's poorly planned and executed bank robbery
(41:37):
fails and he gets shot in the head, he's taken
back to prison in a coma. Oh god, rough business.
And what about old Nadine? Yeah, and now she's a
single mom again. What are she and Betty gonna do?
Don't worry because it didn't take long for the French
police to locate Maybe just a matter of hours, you're kidding, yes,
which raises a rather obvious question. How deep was his coma?
(41:59):
Like he snitch on her in order to lighten his sentence?
Did one of the other bank robbers who like to
say they see him down, They're like, well, we can.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Tell you make a bargain, And that's.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
What I'm thinking. They traded her to get light for themselves.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Anyway, not long after Michelle is caught and captured Nadine's
located hiding out intuloose. Now, Unlike her husband, the once
again single mother didn't get into a gunfight. When she
was confronted by the police, she gave herself up to
the cops without a struggle. She was arrested, tried for
the helicopter prison escape. She's convicted, and she's sentenced to
two years in prison. Okay, not bad, kind of light.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Meanwhile, Michelle is also tried for his prison escape and
the subsequent bank robbery in the gunfight with the police.
He's found guilty, sentenced to seventeen years in prison on
top of his prior sentence, which had been suspended when
he freed himself from a prison, saying he has to
also complete that. At first, the married couple's romantic bond
remained strong, unbreakable. At one point, Nadine boasted to the press,
(42:58):
I would do it all over again.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
He came out of the coma.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, he comes, he comes completely out of the comma.
He's fine. He was just initially like, you know, shot
in the head, so yeah, yeah, so he was, he
wasn't you know. He did suffer disabilities after the insu
and it did reframe his sense of self. So it
was quite a coma.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
But once Nadine's release from prison, something changes for her
because she didn't mastermind a second prison escape from Michelle. Instead,
she focused on being a mother to Betty. She gets
a straight Yeah, she gets a straight job. She starts
paying her bills like every other taxpayer. She stays out
of prison. However, Nadine did join the Ridiculous Crime Book Club.
(43:37):
She penned a novel about her time as a helicopter
pilot and career criminal. She called her book l Fiere
del er or in English, the Girl of the Air. Okay,
I guess it was a good book because someone option
didn't turn it into a movie. Reviews of the movie
suggest the filmmaker was no Michael Mann. Instead of like
a gripping crime filler, her novel resulted in the sort
of French film that features like string sections, like soundtracking,
(44:01):
beautiful shots, and there's lots of sadness and longing and
romantic on we So, what was her husband, Michelle doing
while she's out there making sad French films? Well, he
has his collective twenty seven years behind bars to do.
He does it all. Oh, Eventually, he finds a new
female accomplice though, to help him with another daring.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Prison escape out of here.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
His new partner in crime was a woman named Jamila.
She was a law student turned amateur criminal mastermind. No,
but she was no Dadine because their prison escape ended
in bitter failure, and so Michelle was forced to complete
his full prison sentence, which he does in twenty seven
years later. A sentence done, He's released. The year is
two thousand and three. Wow, at the age of sixty nine.
(44:44):
Now Michelle comes out of prison. He has also joined
the Ridiculous Crime Prison book club You're Kidding Me. Rather
than a romantic novel like Nadine, he wrote a romantic autobiography.
He gave it the title Love Saved Me from Sinking.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Oh boy.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
You see.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
During his time I'm in prison, Michelle had taken up yoga.
He embraced spirituality as a form of therapy, and it's
barely a worked for him. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Yeah, but then he tried to escape again.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Well, yeah, a little after that, I guess. In his book,
he includes all these lessons in spirituality and then adopting
a yoga practice, alongside tales of his crimes in as
many years behind bars right his life. At this point,
his autobiography or really his life gets turned into a movie.
It was called My Greatest Escape. That's the English title.
It was a documentary. It was not a big hit
(45:29):
in France. One reviewer gave it one star out of
ten out of ten yes out of ten. The reviewer
wrote that quote, most of the film involved the very
loquacious of Azure talking without much prompting. The filmmakers mix
the locations up by having him visit friends and convict acquaintances,
but we don't hear much of interest from these people.
(45:52):
Love that same reviewer later adds that quote, there's an
annoying superiority about the man who shakes his head at
the compleat acency of his friends, And a few minutes
later the film speaks of an aborted attempt to kill
one of his ex colleagues who had refused to be
involved in an escape attempt, as if he thinks he
has the godlike right to give and take lives.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
So wow, I mean, that's the thing. You could You know,
this book sounds like, oh, look, I'm happy for you, buddy,
but you're not going to tell give me any sort
of advice on absolutely any.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I don't think so. So around the same time that
Michelle was released from prison in two thousand and three
is when Pascal Paie got his second helicopter escape of
his own, remember two thousand and seven, which re enlivens
the daring practice with a sense of criminal coup, right,
And so the documentary about Michelle gets made in two
thousand and nine after Pascal Paie's third attempt, So they're
(46:46):
kind of working with each other through like a theme
of helicopter escapes. And then a decade later, in twenty eighteen,
Michelle and Nadine's helicopter antics are followed and imitated by
my man Ridon Fay. That's right, chopper based prisoness cap
which now brings us full circle. So there you go.
What's ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Oh my goodness. You know you hate helicopters. You refuse
to get in once.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
It's not natural to fly in helicopters. And if you
ever seen anything other than like there's like a seed
pod that kind of flies like that, that's what inspired
Leonardo da Vinci. If you made something like that, I
might get into it because as it falls it's going
to have a controlled fall. But a helicopter is beating
the air down, and if it has any problems with
the engine, it stops beating the air down. You can
kind of like auto rotate the rotors, but no, I
(47:35):
want to I want someone with wings.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
So I love that you're fascinated with helicopter escapes even
though you hate helicopter.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
It's one and you know take away.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I'm not gonna say like, oh, I'm so fearless, but
I'm rather fear I'm rather fearless about doing dumb stuff. Right,
I've done like a lot of like and I'm not
afraid of heights, but a helicopter to me is like
past the point of dumb. It's like it's like a
dare with death.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Like when you came this time, I.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Would not get in the helicopter. Also, I have terrible
fear of heights.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Well, also, I mean, how many helicopter crashed it. There's
been so many. You're just like, whoa, Yeah, it's just Also,
I wouldn't get in.
Speaker 8 (48:10):
A small playing with a musician a famous rule.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
What's your ridiculous take away, Zarah?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Oh wow, thank you for asking, Elizabeth. Well, I guess
like you kind of set up top. The French love
a prison escape via a helicopter, like they like Jerry Lewis.
It's just silly and fun, but like, why is that really?
What's the essence? My guess is that they love it
because it's both unexpected and impractical, yet it also has
a certain panache, like a certain artistry to it.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
So that's my take is like I think I have
a little insight into the French soul via the helicopter
prison escape Jazzy. Yeah right, It's like it's like why
they like Charlie Parker. It's like, oh, the daring and
it's it's on the edge right right, all right, So
you in the move for a talk back to wash
this one down.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Of course, I am, oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I like, get.
Speaker 5 (49:10):
Share ridiculous crime I committed. Don't worry, It's totally legal,
totally cool. When I was three, I was really obsessed
with Batman. So I was in a Walmart and my
father and I were walking past the sections I've had
a Batman sweatshirt on it, and I asked my father, Hey, dad,
can I have the Batman sweatshirt? And he said no,
(49:30):
and so I ripped my shirt off and I ran
around and I yelled at him because I did not
get my Batman's shirt. Love the show.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
That's the way you handle those situations. You're like, I
don't I don't get that shirt. But if I had
no shirt, ran the garments hulking out.
Speaker 8 (49:47):
I love it totally legal. Well, thank you for that one,
for a smile at both of our faces. As always,
you can find us online for more Ridiculous Crime on
Instagram and and over Ridiculous Crime pod over on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Go check it out. They have little animated versions of
the show and you can listen on that if you
prefer to get your podcasts from YouTube. We also have
our website Ridiculous Crime dot com, where we have merch
and some gifts for you, and you can take a
survey if you like and tell us about yourself. We'd
like to hear about it, and obviously we'd love to
talk back, so please go to the iHeart app, download it,
leave a talk back and maybe you hear your voice here.
(50:25):
We'd love to hear it. And also emails if you
like at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Go Peopleapy,
pop up send all right, well, thank you for listening.
As always, we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnette, produced and
(50:47):
edited by the owner and proprietor of Montshew Dave's Helicopter,
Flat School and Stormdog Company, Dave Houston, and starring Annalie's
Rucker as Judith. Research is by our favorite cheap and
bad wig sellers, Us Brown and Jabari Davis. Our theme
song is by the soundtrack of French Lovers Everywhere Sarage
and the Smoking Gainesburg Children Chorus Thomas Lee and Travis Dunnon.
(51:11):
The host wardrobe provided by Body five hundred. Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are
our lubrication reps for pennz Oil, No Make It, Quaker Steak,
Ben Bolin and No Brown.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
Crime Say It One More Time, Geek We Cry.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts.
My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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