April 28, 2025 • 53 mins
Pablo Escobar was one of the most dangerous men in the world, and he had a bounty on Steve Murphy’s head. For 18 months, Murphy and his partner Javier Peña hunted Escobar across Colombia, often missing the drug lord by minutes. Murphy joins Gary Jubelin to share how they finally captured the king of cocaine, and why he took the famous photo.
Listen to Steve Murphy's podcast, Game of Crimes, here.
Read Steve Murphy and Javier Peña's book, Manhunters: How we took down Pablo Escobar, here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see aside of life the average person is never
exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Join me now as I take you into this world.
(00:46):
In the second part of my chat with former DA
agent Steve Murphy, we talk about how Pablo Escobar was
tracked down and killed in a violent shoetout. We talk
about the impact the investigation had on Steve and his
partner Javier, and the Columbian police who put their lives
on the line to restore peace to their country. We
also talk about his experience in the investigation being portrayed
(01:09):
in the hugely popular TV series Narcos. It's a fascinating chat. Steve,
welcome back to part two. If I catch killers. Thank you,
Let's continue this wild story. And yeah, no wonder they
made a TV series out of this investigation, and we're
going to talk about Narcos TV series and it's a
(01:32):
great series, I've got to say on Netflix. But before
we do, there's a bit of work to do before
you start swamping round as the person that's portrayed on
the TV series we've talked about Pablo Escobar, is there
one thing that defines him, like how ruthless he was?
You talk in part one that he didn't have a
conscience and that he could just kill without a second thought.
(01:57):
Is there one thing that demonstrates to the listeners what
was the evilness or something that typified the evilness of
the man.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
He was in his prison, this custom built prison, the cathedral,
and they're actually he's on the phone with his wife
talking and we're, you know, we're intercepting the phone calls,
and he's talking about how much he loves her and
how much he misses her and how are the kids
and all that, and in the background you can hear
a guy screaming he's being tortured, you know, and eventually
(02:25):
his wife said, what is that noise? And he's like,
hold on a minute. He covers up the you know,
I assume he cover up the receiver, and you can
hear him say cover his mouth, shut him up, and
then he gets real quiet, so you know, they killed
the guy. And then he's just right back on a yeah. Well,
you know, I'll come and see you guys soon, and
you know, you guys have to come to visit me,
and just you know, like nothing happened.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Just that set no conscience whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The indiscriminate car bombs that were just he set a
car bomb off on fifteenth Street in Bogata one time,
in the northern part of the city. And right where
that bomb went off as a mall and it was
the whole the size of a city block, and the
whole front of the mall was glass. So when that
bomb went off, you know what happened to the glass.
(03:12):
It happened to be a time when moms were there
with their school aged children getting school supplies. So Homy
and I we were spawn down there. We get a
phone call about it, We take off and go down there,
you can't get very close. You can see the black
smoke from where the bomb went off, but you can't
get very close because traffic just bogs down. So we
park and we get out, and we were walking in
and as you get closer, you start hearing the sounds
(03:33):
associated with tragedy, you know, the screams and the crying
and the begging and all that kind of stuff. And
then you get closer and you actually start seeing body
parts laying around. And then you get up to the
scene and you see the firemen and the police officers
carrying the lifeless bodies of little children who just simply
were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's
probably the most horrific thing I saw while we were
(03:54):
down there. Just it's there's there's no way you can
justify something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
That's the results of these actions. What were the circumstances
with the luxury self designed prison that he was resulting in?
What were the circumstances of him escaping from the How
did that come about?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We got this from an individual who eventually became an
informative ours and eventually became of the biggest drug dealer
in Columbia, And who is in prison here in the
United States now. So he was the bodyguard for one
of Pablo's childhood friends, a guy named Kiko Mankada. Qiko
and Pablo grew up together. He was one of the
(04:37):
primary lieutenants. And there was another guy named Fernando Galliano. Well,
when Pablo went into prison, he imposed attacks or war
tax on all the other drug draftickers, and he said,
you know, look, I've fronted myself out for the good
of all of you. I've embarrassed myself. I'm in prison now,
you know, country club prison. He said, So what's going
(04:59):
to happ happen is every load that you send up,
I get half of it, or you pay me four
hundred thousand dollars cash. Okay. So then they were doing
it well. After a while they got tired of doing it. Well.
One day hits the carrios going out and they find
a cave that there's this money US dollars that have
been shrink wrapped and hidden in a cave, and the
(05:19):
shrink wrap has come loose, and so air and moisture
has been getting in there, and all this money is
rotting away. And we've heard this anywhere from ten million
to twenty three million dollars. So they bring it in.
They show Pabula like, look, this is Kiko and Fernando's money,
and they're holding out on you. You know, here you
are fronting yourself out and you're not making all the
(05:40):
billions that you were before because you've taken a stance
against the government. You're trying to do good for everybody else.
And they get him all fired up. So he has
somebody make phone calls and they call the Galliano's and
they call him Moncadas and said, hey, come on up
to the prison. We're going to have a barbecue. No
business discussed. We're just gonna have good time. Bring some
hookers in and we'll have some mariachis. Come men or whatever.
(06:01):
No need to bring security details. Everything's good. So they
show up. Well Kiko, according to our source, Kiko comes
walking in and he sees the money there on the floor,
and he looks at Pablo and sees a look on
his face and he starts saying, Pablo, that's not what
you think it is. We're not holding out on you.
That's money that's been buried for a long time. Quite honestly,
we had forgotten about it. And if you think about it.
(06:23):
For moisture and water to get in there, to start
writing away paper. That doesn't happen in a few days,
I mean that takes months and months and months of time.
So the Cicarios are egging Pablo on he he cheated you, Pablo,
kill him. You need to kill these two, and so
eventually they go back and forth, and Pablo gets so
incensed that he grabs a stick and he kills his
childhood best friend, Kiko Moncada, beats him to death. Then
(06:47):
the Ccarios they jump on Fernando Galliano. They do the
same to him. Then they started cutting parts of their
bodies off and sending them to their families and saying,
you owe me this, You owe me that you know,
and if you want, everyone want to see him again,
and this is what you got to do. You know,
the families didn't know they were already dead. Well, eventually
word got out to us about it through this informant,
(07:10):
and we went to our bosses and the ambassador, and
eventually it went to the President of Columbia, and the
message was do something about this. This is ridiculous. This
is embarrassing to your country. It's embarrassing to your administration,
you've got to do something. So they come up with
an idea that they're going to tell Pablo, Okay, we're
(07:31):
going to temporarily move you to a different prison so
we can reinforce your prison to make it more secure
for you. And it's all a ruse. Well, they send
the deputy Justice minister up there. This kid, Mendoza is
like twenty five years old. He goes up with a
Columbian colonel, military colonel to take like twenty troops up there.
Get to the gate outside. Now, remember who's paying the
(07:52):
guards on inside the gate, So they're not.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Loyal to the guts, they loyalty.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, So the deputy Justice miner looks over the colonel says, colonel,
go get him. Or el said, resident, tell me, he
didn't tell me to go in there. He told you
to go, and I'm not going in there. You go
get him. So this young guy twenty five years old
goes in there. Well, of course the Sagario is immediately
taking hostage and they're slapping him around and they're trying
(08:16):
to get Pablo Pablo kill him. This is the message
from the president, they don't respect you and all that stuff. Well,
Pablo tells the Justice minister, get the president on the phone. Well,
he's calling. Before the president would take Pablo's calls, believe
it or not, but this time nobody's answering the phone.
So Pablo kind of sees the writing on the ball.
They realize that they don't have enough troops up there
(08:39):
to assault the prison, so now they send an elite
group of military folks called the Copas, and they go
in and they assault the prison, big firefight. Not a
single good guy was wounded that day, believe it or not.
And the deputy Justice Minister, they were able to get
him out unscathed, which is just a miracle. Some of
(09:00):
the guards were killed, Pablo's guards. A lot of cacarios
were able to escape, not all of them. Some of
them chose to stay in the prison. So recently, Jama
had done some work for one of the Spanish speaking
stations down to Columbia about the Escobar story, and in exchange,
they had access to these photographs. So the press had
(09:23):
shown up at the prison because you know, the words
out that something's going on up there at the cathedral,
and this one photographer he got up there, he saw everybody,
you know, all the other presses there, worldwide press, and
so he goes around and he somehow knows how to
get around to the backside of the prison and he's
walking in and here comes Pablo and some of his
henchmen and the guy the story is the cameraman. He
(09:44):
laid his cameras down and put his hands up. He says, Pablo, Pablo,
please don't kill me. You know, I went to this
front gate. My producers told me to go get pictures.
It's crowded up there. I thought I'd just come around
and see what's happening. Prob washed to get your camera,
take your camera and take pictures of me. I'm a
dead man walking, so that camera and held onto those pictures.
He died recently and his family gave him to this.
(10:06):
I think he was a Univision Univision and so because
of the work Hobbier had done with them, they gave
us license to use these pictures. So we now have
three photographs that this camera took of Pablo, and I
think it's four of his henchmen making their escape, and
you can see some of them have guns, you know,
pistols tucked in their waistband. It's not like they're running,
(10:27):
you know, scared, they're just they're just getting away. Well,
you know, I'm always I've always wondered if you know
there wasn't some green passed hands along the way, because
how do you escape from the prison surrounded? How do
you escape?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And if you've got an elite team coming in and
taking the Zakarias out, how they go to why? But well,
it's yeah, if it didn't happen, you have to invent it.
It's crazy. He he gets out that. So the tuns
you your world upside down for the next eighteen months
(11:03):
because you and Javier are asked to be stationed down
in Medeleine, and you worked with a lot of different sections,
and I know you pay a lot of tribute to
the Colombian National Police absolutely, and the courage of those
guys and the search block. This is a quote from
your book when he was on the run, just to
give you a sense of what happened after he escaped.
(11:24):
Between the twenty second of July nineteen ninety two, when
Escobar escaped and mid March nineteen ninety three, one hundred
and thirty six police officers had been killed in the
line of duty by Escobar's hitmen. So that's one hundred
and thirty six police I'm talking about. The death tolls
throughout the country had also increased. Columbia had seen it
steadly this year, with nearly twenty nine thousand homicides reported
(11:48):
in nineteen ninety two, compared to twenty five thy one
hundred and ten for the previous year. In Medelline and Bogata,
one hundred and twelve Savilians had died from random car
bomb attacks and four hundred twenty seven had been injured.
It's just on the sky that's hired to comprehend, and
that that's in that passage of time when he was
(12:08):
on the run, when you guys were part of the team,
uh tas we're tracking him down.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It was it's it's I mean, I'm sure it's the
same in Australia. If an Australian police officer is killed
in the line of duty. Here in the United States,
we stop everything. Everybody stops to contribute to the case
to get that guy. When here you're talking about over
one hundred and thirty police officers and what about a
six or seven month period were murdered. Pablo put a
bounty on him of one hundred dollars each. I mean,
(12:36):
that was a police officer's life was one hundred bucks.
It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And that was that was just anyone could collect that bounty.
Just take take out a call there was.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Javier was with We worked with a very elite unit
of Plumbing National Police officers and they got to call
one night that one of the sacarios was at this
nightclub and they didn't have enough body. So Hovier went
along with them and h this kid's fifteen years old.
He's out on the dance floor with his girlfriend. They
go out and grab He's got a gun in his waistband.
They wrestle him, he fights, They get him down the floor,
(13:07):
get him cuffed up, and take him out. Well, this
kid talks, you know, he doesn't know he's not supposed
to talk. He said, he had already killed I think
it was something like ten police officers. And how you're asking,
he said, how do you do this? He said, Well,
you just you know, these uniform guys they're walking the
streets and they stop and talk to each other or
stop to talk to people in the street, and you
just walk up behind him and shoot him in the
(13:28):
back of the head. He said, the most I've killed
him one day was three and then you go to
an address and you tell him, and you know, they
give you one hundred dollars for each cop that you've killed.
And HWY said, what do you do with the money?
He said, well, most of it I give to my
mom because she had you know, she was one of
those people living on the edge of a trash dump.
And he said, I keep enough money for myself. I
(13:48):
don't have a nice pair of tennis shoes, nice pair
of jeans, and I need beer money. But everything else,
she gets everything else. And I thought, just no remorse whatsoever.
But or a woman that's brave enough to put a
uniform on and your life is worth one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, I know you guys had a lot of respect
for the courage that they had. What about yourself and Javier,
like I read somewhere or that you had a bounty
on you for three hundred thousand with the greatest respect,
you would sort of stand out in Columbia and people
(14:26):
would know who you are. So how how did you
feel with what was going on?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, you know, I mean, we're cops. You don't show fear,
but you know, when you first find out about it,
it's like, that's all I'm worthing more than three hundred
thousand dollars. But the truth is, it's very disconcerting to
start with. It's like, holy cow, this guy's got a
bounty on me. And you're right. I mean, my family,
(14:53):
my grandmother immigrated from England. My dad's family immigrated from Ireland.
I'm about as white as you get. I don't blend
into it Hispanic country. You know. I'm six to two,
I have light colored eyes. I used to have brown
colored hair. I just kind of stick out.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But the gring Gay and that they would have known
that you guys would like the intel and you couldn't
trust everyone that was involved in the investigation, so they
would have very much known who you guys were.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Absolutely, I mean, we were going out on so back
of a second, the embassy told us, the ambassadors, I
don't want you guys going out in the field. You
stay at the police base. Well that's we can't do
our job if we do stay beneck in the back.
And you know, we had we had the US Navy
Seal Team six was there with us. We had the
(15:41):
US Armies Delta FORCET. They were there with us. Of course,
the CIA's in there. They're coming and going as they want.
The military guys or under the same orders as us. Well,
they're military, so they follow orders. We kind of looked
at them as strong suggestions instead of orders. And so
I mean, just just to match, You're still on the
job there and in uh Australia, and I come to
(16:02):
your country, and I tell you, Gary, I heard there's
Pablo Escobars down there at the pub. Man, go see
if he's down there. I'm gonna get a couple of
coffee and come back and tell me what you find.
What are you gonna tell me? I know what you're
gonna tell me that.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, one, I understand, but I like the way it's
just a suggestion that wasn't an order. But I'm sorry,
I'm misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
But uh well, But but what that led to is
we were going out on operations every day with with
this unit that we worked with Dehean was the name
of the unit. And we're going out on the Huey
gunships doing raids on ranches, and we're going out and
doing patrols in the mountains with the Columbia National Police
and we're doing surveillance in the city, and we're paying
informants and we're meeting snitches. We had a one eight
(16:43):
hundred tip line set up offering a five million dollar
reward for information on Pablo. It was it was exciting.
I mean, it's very exciting. There were times, especially if
we were in the city, they would they had an
armored personnel carrier, and so if we were doing stuff
in the city, especially for going over into the barrios
where Pablo's you know, he's the hero, they would put
(17:04):
me inside the armored car just to protect me a
little bit more. But you know, and you had a
machine gunner on top. And but then when you know,
when it's trying to clean up my language, when the
ship hits the fan, you know, you don't run away.
You got to stand there and fight.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, it's a big difference from where you started your
law enforcement a lot. There was a d A agent
that was abducted by a cartel in Mexico, and you
think that played a part that the consequences do you
want to just explain to the listeners what the circumstances
of that was. It was a horrific situation, but the
response is probably, you know, protected people down the track.
(17:43):
Do you want to explain that those circumstances.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Gladly Well, that was the case of Kiki or Enrique.
Kiki came Marina was our agent's name. This is in
nineteen eighty five. He had been stationed. Kiki was a
former US marine. He'd been a cop in Glexico, California,
before Dea joined EA, did time down on the border,
got a volunteer to go to Guandalajara in Mexico. He
was actually born in Mexico, so he spoke perfect Spanish.
(18:09):
He's down there. He just kicking button, taking names. You know.
The problem back then was was these massive marijuana grows,
the ones up in the mountains. The quality wasn't as good,
but the Mexican traffickers learned about sinsimilia, which is something
that American marijuana growers just developed, and it basically they
took the seeds out of the plants and it made
(18:31):
it a much more potent strain of marijuana. So, through
payoffs and so forth, they bought this desert land and
they had to drill these massive wells to get water
because marijuana grows require a lot of water. So Kiki
gets information through an informant, and at one point the
government of Mexico would let the United States do flyovers
(18:54):
looking for marijuana fields or poppy fields because of Mexican heroin. Well,
a new president comes in and he bans all that.
So now Kiki's relying on informants, and apparently he had
the knack for dealing with informants. He has one that's
a pilot. He gets information where there's this massive marijuana grow.
I think that one was two hundred acres. They do
(19:15):
a couple of flyovers which were illegal, and confirmed it
was there, got the Mexican police to go raid the place,
and I forget how much it was capable of producing,
but two hundred acres of marijuana plants just massive. Well,
then as time goes on, he finds out about this
other grow. This time it was twenty five hundred acres,
(19:36):
two five hundred acres, just massive, and they rated that.
I think they said that that field alone was capable
of four billion dollars of weed per grow, and I
think you could grow it at least twice a year
down there. So that led to him, you know, he
was ready to rotate out of Guadala horor back to
the United States. But these three drug traffickers Raphael carl Countero,
(20:01):
Miguel On Hell Felix Gayardo, and the third guy's name
was Fan Saic I can't remember his full name. Those
are the three guys that started the Guadara Guadalajara cartel
in Mexico. So they orchestrated a kidnapp had Kiki came
out of the consulate in Guadalajarra to go meet his
wife for lunch. They surrounding kidnapp him, taking him to
(20:22):
a house. He's torture for over thirty hours. He's actually
killed three different times. They've got a doctor there that
when the first two times when he died, they would
inject adrenaline into his heart to restart his heart so
they could kill him again. It's just horrific what they
did to Kiki. And they also did the same thing
to the pilot I think his name was Zavala. Then
(20:48):
you know, of course Dea realizes that Keiki's missing because
he didn't show up for wife, his lunch with his wife,
and then he done show Homan that night, and so
this massive man hunt is underway. The United States starts
supplying pressure to the Mexican government. Finally they create they
just designate somebody to be a scapegoat and they kill
them and throw them out and said, okay, there's the
guy killed Kiki and the pilot. Well, the United States
(21:11):
knew that wasn't true. So our president back at the time,
and I'm not sure we have presidents that have these
kind of honas now, but the president back then shut
down the border between the United States and Mexico. It
took less than one day for the Mexican government come
back and say, okay, okay, we're back in. I think
it took thirty days before they finally found Kiki's body.
(21:31):
Him and the pilot were wrapped up in plastic. Seeing
that what the response of the United States was, and
it might be the same now because we have a
new president. But past administrations would certainly not have gone
to those links because the d agent was killed. So
if you think about it, the drug traffickers are in
(21:52):
business to make money. If you shut down the border,
they can't get the product into the United States, where
you know, we're the leading consumer country of ill legal
narcotics in the world. That's a reputation we truly enjoy having.
It's outrageous. But they knew that if I mean we
had wire taps, one wire tap, we're Pablo's talking makes
reference to the two gringos, and then a short time
(22:13):
later he actually mentions the name's Penyon Murphy. That was
worse than finding out there's a three hundred thousand dollars
bounds in just guys knew your name.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
But then it becomes personal.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, but you know, so if I think Pablo knew
that if he really took us out, they could have
killed us numerous times. I mean that we're out on operations,
anything could happen. But then you know they're not going
to make the money that that's what they're in business for.
So that's why we say Kiki's legacy.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, and that's passed on them. I suppose it gives
a sense that there's going to be a reaction that
people don't want to coming if something happens to people
like yourself. I'm glad that so the response was done
because that's the topic response it's needed, right, So what
were the strategies got him out of prison? He's creating
(23:06):
chios and chaos is a nice way of putting the
horrific situation with people being killed, left, frought and center.
What were the strategies to bring him down? And the
people that you're working with to to yeah, find you.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well with the IRO ambassador brought in the Seal Team
Sex and the Delta Force guys, the operators, these the
Delton Seals guys. They brought in assets that we didn't
have access to, so they were able to glean intelligence
that we were getting real time intelligence that hey, Pablo's here,
Pablo's there. And this is in the first few weeks.
(23:40):
I remember we went to a huge church and just
searched that in the middle of the night when we
finally we were able to get out, get some troops
to go and and just you know, we searched for
a couple of hours, couldn't find a thing. And you know,
the the lower ranking Columbian officers or they're getting tired
and they were just want to go back to the
barracks and sleep and and I'm not wanting to leave.
(24:03):
And Taivea is the same way. We got to keep going,
got to keep going, got to keep going, and eventually,
you know, the commander of the unit comes over and
he's like, look, but we're going, we're going. We can't
find it. He's not here, and it's it just over
and over. There was times when we hit one cabin
and the coffee was still warm in the mug, there
was a cigarette and the ashtray still burning, you know.
(24:26):
And Pop Poplo was known he liked. He had it
this fetish for fancy bathrooms, you know, gold plated fixtures
and things like that, you go in these little shannies
and and but it had a really nice bathroom. You
knew that was Poblo's, you know, one of his places, okay,
And he'd always have he'd have a lady in there cooking,
and they'd have a young girl in there as the
(24:46):
cleaning lady. But more like you know, his personal enjoyment
type things.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Okay, So what was the what was the thing that fondly,
uh like kated him?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
It was, Well, so Colonel Ugo Martinez is our boss.
He's the guy in charge of the blokie de busca
the search box what it translates to. And his son
is a lieutenant, Lieutenant Ugo Martinez. Well, the lieutenant taught
himself how to use radio directional finding equipment. The government
(25:17):
of France donated a bunch of vans that had radio
directional finding equipment mounted in them, and the algorithm that
they used back then was triangulation, which is pretty simple
to figure out. You know, Medine's built in a bowl.
So you put three vans up on high spots. They
shoot the signal out where the three signals intersect. That's
where Pablo's phone is coming from. Because it wasn't three G,
(25:38):
four G, five G phones like we enjoy today. They
were basically radio telephones. If he wanted to he knew
we were listening. If he wanted to thwart our efforts
to listen to him, all he had to do is
change frequency. But the challenge to him was he had
to get the new frequency to the people he wanted
to talk to. So it wasn't quite as easy to
spend that dial. So they get they get the triangulation.
(26:01):
They triangulate on the signal. The margin of error back
that time could be two three city blocks large. So
to refine that, to refine that area down, you send
somebody in with holding an antenna out the car window,
driving down the street. And that was Lieutenant Martinez. He's
he's got a meter in one hand, he's got driver
driving him and he's driving down the street. He gets us.
(26:23):
He thinks he's found this warehouse, and so they bring
the Deheen guys in, they launch an operation. It's an
empty warehouse. So, I mean, you know the grief he
caught from all the other cops because like, oh, you idiot,
you know, I mean, you know how we are.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You make a mistake, you pay for it, and you ridicule.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yes do So he what he did is he found
there was a body of water next to the this warehouse,
and water will affect the way that radio waves passed
through the air. So he recalibrated his equipment to uh
include that water area, and he gets another hit. So
he's driving down the street holding this antenta out the window.
(27:03):
He says, we've got a reenactment video where he's actually interviewed,
and he looks up and he says he sees Pablo
Escobar on the phone talking looking at him. Well, we're
listening to the phone call on the wire tap. There's
never any we listened to this a lot of times.
There's never any indication that Pablo saw Lieutenant Martinez or
this man driving down the street holding an antenna out
(27:25):
the window, which was, you know, something you don't see
every day. And the only explanation we've ever come up
with is like when you ask me a question, I'm
reliving a lot of things in my mind, and I'm
seeing you on the screen, but I'm more in my
mind reliving things I don't I mean, you could pick
your nose, I probably wouldn't even pick up.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
On it because I didn't by that allegation stuff I
was not and I didn't see it.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I didn't see it. So and that's the only thing
we can every only explanation we ever came up with. Well,
now you've got one hundred percent confirmation there's Pablo in
this row house. So I'm back at the base and
I'm actually in the room with all the gringoes talking
because you know, it's just kind of nice to talk
to your countryman every once in a while and just
you're talking sports or whatever, girlfriends or whatever. And I
(28:13):
see it. We're in this quad area, and I see
the executive staff for the colonel as majors and his
lieutenant colonel's running across the squad and that's you know,
that's clue something's going on. So I told the gringoes.
I said, hey, man, something's happening. I'll be right back.
And so I go to the Colonel Martinez's office. And
we had in a good enough relationship, a mutual respect
that he sees me at the door and he said,
come on. He come on in, and he's on the
(28:34):
phone with the lieutenant and he's giving him instructure. He's like, okay,
he says, we've got Pablo located without you know, with
one hundred percent margin of air or no margin of
air whatsoever. Colonel saying, okay, we're loading up the troops. Well,
loading up six hundred people takes a while. You know,
you can't knock it out in five or ten minutes,
he said. But whatever you do, don't let him get away.
Surround it and keep him there. Don't let him get away. Well,
(28:56):
these the heen guys, they interpreted to that to meus
go get him. The American operators had taught them how
to use debt cord to blow doors open. So they
this is a three story rowhouse. They line the front door,
blow the door off, the engines, they go in. The
first floor is a combination garage, kitchen, laundry room or
(29:19):
cleaning room. Maybe made's quarters back there. Then you go
to the second floor and there's a living room, there's
a couple bedrooms, and the third floors all bedrooms and bathrooms.
So as they get up to the second floor, they
clear the first floor. They go to the second floor,
there's Pablo running up to the third floor. They exchange
shots with each other. One police officer actually tripped on
(29:40):
the steps, which saved his life because Pablo shot at
him right at that time and it went right over
top of his head. Poblo at one time had as
many as five hundred cicario as protecting him. On December second,
nineteen ninety three, he was down to one guy. His
nickname was lemon On I can't remember his real name.
Lemon gets to the third floor window. The rowhouse behind
(30:03):
him was a two story, so he could jump out
that window onto the roof of this two story and
then they were going to make their escape out the
back way well. The cops had sent a couple guys
around the back. They ordered Lemona to drop his we
weapons and surrender. He starts shooting at him from the
roof and they tune him up and he falls off
dead onto the ground. Now Pablo gets up to that
third window, or that third floor, and that window he
(30:26):
knows good guys are coming up steps. Now he's heard
this shooting outside, so he knows there's good guys out there,
and he knows he's in a crossfire. He goes in
and jumps out the roof. The building next to this
two story was another three stories, so there's a wall
here and Pablo is trying to inch along that wall
to see where the guys are on the ground. These
guys are coming up to the front window. He's like,
(30:46):
screw it. He takes off a run across the roof,
shooting at them, shooting at them. They catch him in
a crossfire. He's hit three times, once in the back
of the leg, once in the butt cheek, which both
of those are knocked down shots, but neither one was
a kill shot. And then the kill shot was a
two twenty three round through the ear. There's a lot
of speculation about that round through the ear. His son,
(31:11):
Wan Pablo, would have you believe that his dad committed suicide.
I've took the pictures. We don't post those on the
meat on the internet. But you can see them all
on the internet because people take pricktures during our presentations
and they post them. When I was a city cop,
I've worked murders and I've worked suicides. I'm also a
former fire arms instructor for DEEA. You know that when
(31:34):
you shoot a bullet and it comes out the end
of the barrel, there's little bits of gunpowder that follow
the bullet out and they'll travel a certain distance before
they lose their velocity and follow the ground. Even if
you could hold a gun at arm's length. And remember
it's the two twenty three, So now he's going to
have to turn a rifle around and shoot himself into ear.
There would be powder burns all over the side of
his head. You can go online and look those pictures.
(31:55):
I promise you there's not a single powder burn on there.
So he was killed by the Columbia National Police. It's
not suicide, you know, the kid. I don't know why.
You know, maybe if my if Pablo Escobar had been
my dad, I think I'd like to change the legacy
of his memory too. But that's not true. It's it's
a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
If you'll you have sayen that in a gunshop residue
there when it happened. You've you've come out shortly after,
and some of some of the five days that you
talk about, the five days that have been at in
the public, they were five days that you actually talk.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Right, you know. You see on a Narco series it
shows that I was on the roof when Pablo was killed.
That's not true. I wrote out after the fact with
Colonel Martinez and his jeep.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And when when you got there, you had to go there,
I identify him and just corroborate the fact that it
is him. How did you feel.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
When one of the majors on the de Henion after
they killed Pablo, he comes back in radio's back Viva Columbia.
Pablo is dead. I took off running over to the
wire room to call the embassy to you know, because
you've got to let your bosses know what happened. And
so I couldn't get through to the d A office
to the front office. So I ended up calling our
admin office. When the secretary's answered and she's like, oh, hey, Steve,
(33:05):
how you doing. I'm like, go get mister Taff was
our boss. I said, go get mister Toff. Oh okay, is
everything okay? I'm like, go get mister Toff now, quit
wasting time, you know. And so it took two three
minutes before he came on the phone, which just seemed
like an eternity because I know that they're mounting up
the troops and getting ready to go out there. When
mister Toff comes on the phone, the first thing he
(33:26):
says is they just kill Pablo. I'm like, well, no shit,
that's why I'm calling you. And so I told him
what had happened, and he said, listen, get out there,
confirm this is Pablo. You know, we've been down this
road before where we get our hopes up. Go make
sure this is Pablo. So I run back to the
barracks to get my gear, you know, a gun and everything,
(33:46):
and come running back out and everybody is gone. The
only people there are the guards on the gates. I
don't have a car, I don't know where they are.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
You know, I'm old, dressed up, and no way they
got exactly right.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So I'm just standing there just trying to go through
my mind. Right, how am I going to do this?
Maybe I could call a taxi or you know, And
finally here comes Colonel Martinez with his protection detail, driving
back in and he sees me standing out in the
middle of quality. He say, Steve, what are you doing?
They actually called me Steak Stick cause they couldn't They
couldn't say Steve, so it came out of Stick. It
was my nickname. He says, Stick, what are you doing?
(34:22):
And I said, I need a ride. Colonel He's like,
get the jeep, you know. So I ride out with him.
We get out there, We go in the door that
the Deheen guys had made entry. We searched the first floor,
take pictures, go to the second floor, take pictures. Get
to the third floor and that's the window. So I
get to that wind and I look out and there's
all our Deheen buddies out there over the body. And
(34:43):
I yelled to them and they're all yelling back, holding
their rifles up. You know, we got him. We got him.
It's Bablo. He's dead. Well now thousands of people are
starting to come out because they just heard this big,
massive gun battle. We've got our six hundred people out there.
Then the Columbian military shows up with a couple hundreds.
I mean, it's just it's great security, but Eventually I
(35:03):
got around back with the colonel and we climbed up
on the roof and that's when I took the pictures
of Pablo, and the whole purpose of that was for
identification purposes. When that was over, we're standing on the
roof and this group of people show up and they're
making a commotion and I looked at one of the
(35:23):
lieutenant Colonels was up there. Colonel Colias was with me
and I said, Colonel, who's that down there? And he said, well,
that's Pablo's mom and that's Pablo's sister. Like oh really,
so let's just watch them for a minute. So we
watch them and they're arguing with the police and the military,
and finally his sister she's really loud and obnoxious. She's like,
I want to see you say that's Pablo on the ground.
I want to see him. I want to see that
(35:44):
that's my brother. So she goes over to where Limonum,
the bodyguard, is laying and she just goes off on
the police. She's like, oh, you idiots, that's not Pablo.
Whiskey bar, you killed the wrong person. You don't even
know what you're doing. And she just lets them have it.
Finally she calms down and one of the cops looks
at her and look on the roof. Bitch, that's what
Pablo was, was up on the roof. So I stick
(36:06):
around watched them. Once the mother and the sister saw
Pablo's body brought off the roof, and I saw their reaction,
there was no question in my mind whatsoever that was
Pablo Escobar. Now the police were worried about my safety
because you know, we weren't allowed to wear anything that
looked like police and military, so we typically wore, you know,
(36:28):
polo shirts and jeans, tennis shoes, whatever reason. That day
I had a red polo shirt on, which really I
don't stick out enough, so I wrote, wore a red shirt,
you know, go figure.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Good choice.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So now the press is starting to show up, and
I don't want to be on camera because we don't
want this to look like it was orchestrated by the
United States. We want the Columbia National Police to have
the credit for everything, and rightfully so. So the colonels,
like Lieutenant Colonel, he said, okay, Steve, we're going to
get you back, and so he gave me a protection
detail and they escort me back to the base that night.
(37:02):
I mean we went into total lockdown. You were you know,
I know you see this on TV, but you literally
have your gun under your pillow because you're expecting this
retaliatory tax, you know, retaliation from the narcos. Quiet at night,
I ever spent money.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And this was that night.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Next day they made Hoavier go to Miami to talk
to an informant, which is a bogus trip. We knew
the informant didn't have the information, but the ambassador order
how to go. So he flew back into that pub
was killed on a Thursday. He flew back to Bogaton
on Thursday night. Friday, he flew up to Median sent
a gunship out to bring him into the base. You know,
(37:39):
high five, congratulations and all that. We were there for
a couple hours, and he and I Friday night flew
back to Bogota and we weren't supposed to ride taxis
down there because of the danger factor. Well, the embassy
didn't send anybody out to pick us up, so we
jumped to the taxi went back to the embassy. My
wife was working in the see at that time, and
(38:01):
it's probably six thirty seven o'clock at night, and you know,
she had lots of pizzas and lots of cases of beer,
and we celebrated that night. We got home Saturday morning,
probably about ten thirty eleven o'clock. It was an all nighter.
It was one hell of a party. Well it was,
(38:21):
and that was a long story of your short question.
It felt like the weight of the world had been
lifted off our shoulders. I mean, it's my wife and
I had adopted our first daughter down there in October
before Pablo was killed, and then I had to go
back to Media Inc. And Monica at that time, she
was at eight months old and we got her and
I'm you know, I'm not even getting to spend any
time with my new daughter. So it was it was
(38:44):
it's hard to describe. It's just, you know, Wow, he's
finally dead. He's really finally dead.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
And do what was the ongoing reaction from that? Did
it make a difference.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
That's a good question, and a lot of people ask
us that, especially when we go to the UK. Here's
what we did. We and you you already mentioned the statistics.
In ninety two and ninety three, medi in Columbia was
the murder capital of the entire world, one of the
most dangerous cities in the world. So we looked at
the murder rate in Meding prior to Pablo's death, and
then we waited a couple of months and checked the
(39:18):
murder rate, and you can go. I challenge every audience
to go check it and see if I'm telling the truth,
because what I found and what you'll find, is that
the murder rate in Median, Columbia had dropped by almost
eighty percent simply because Pablo Escobar was dead. Now did
we do we make a difference on cocaine trafficking? We did,
(39:39):
probably lasted maybe two weeks at most. The sad thing
is here in the United States right now you can
go on almost any street corner by cocaine, certain areas
of town you go to. So people say, well, the
war on drugs is lost, that it has just been
away at coloss a waste of time and human life. Well,
what would it be like if law enforced wasn't out
(40:00):
there fighting the scourge? You know, would you be safe
to do anything? Because there's going to be drug addicts everywhere.
They're going to be robbing here, They're going to be
still and you're going to kill, you gonna be jacking
your car. It made a difference. It's just it didn't
end the war on drugs. That's not going to happen
until the demand goes away.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
How do you approach it? That's a subject for another
another time. I think highlighting what you were doing. Your
job was to locate and capture Pablo Escobar, and by
doing so you made a difference and a job of
that magnitude. That's like an investigation on steroids. Were you
(40:41):
on a low after it? Like did you you feel
like you lack purpose? Or did you use it to
just go Okay, I've done the hard yards. Now I
can have a bit of a bit of a rest
or take some time to find myself again.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Well, I was there until June. So he was killed
Decemberary three and asked for back to the United States.
Since in June of ninety four and Javier came out.
I think in September. I ended up in North Carolina.
Never seen praight cocaine in my life. I've spent four
years in Miami, three years in Bogata, and I ended
up Greensboro. And right, cocaine is the that's the drug
(41:17):
evil drug of that area at the time, so you
addressed whatever the drug problem is in the area that
you're assigned. But when I got to Greensboro and I
didn't even know where it was, I had to look
it up on the map. When I got to Greensboro,
I felt like that's when the job got to be
(41:38):
a lot of fun. That there had I had no
pressure whatsoever to prove myself to anybody. I felt like
I survived Miami in the nineteen eighties, I survived the
Pablo Escobar man hunt. That's when a job got to
be fun. I mean, we had five agents trying to
cover twenty plus counties, so we always worked at our
(41:59):
state and local park nurse, which quite honestly, I prefer
working with anyway, because they're a lot more fun to
hang out with, and you know, they don't complain when
it's quitting time. And I mean they're dedicated, and most
most d agents are, but not all. So I guess
that was the thing for me. It was it was
I had come I had become a workaholic, I think.
(42:22):
I mean we were Gosh, if you were in the embassy,
we lived off off the coffee and doughnuts, every day.
It was that sugar and caffeine kept you going. I'd
stop by the nurses station and get my blood pressure
checked and it was never high. You know, I say
it was I felt like, you know, the good man
upstairs was taking care of me healthwise. The Columbia National Police,
especially the dehing guys. When the bullets started flying, we
(42:45):
knew they wouldn't run off and leave us. I mean
they'd stand there and fight to protect us. But they
knew we wouldn't run off and leave them either. So
it was just it was one of the I would
I never want to do any of that again, especially
at this old man age, but I wouldn't trade it
for the world. It's what we're doing in retirement is
I never dreamt we'd be doing anything like this. It's
(43:06):
I mean, being on a podcast with you and you're
in Australia. I mean I get to travel the world
just our Kenthon. You're traveling around the world telling the
true story about bablu Escobar. We talk about leadership, decision making, teamwork.
It's I'm having a blast in retirement. I have to see.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Well, yeah, like full credit to you, but I think
it starts and you didn't start off that investigation thinking, Okay,
I'm in twenty years thirty years time, I'm going to
be doing a tour around the world. I'm going to
speak on someone's podcast overseas. And that's I can see
and I know, yeah, you're a cop, you know other cops.
(43:43):
I can see the joy that you took from the
work that you're doing. It has the highs, it has
the horror, but there's also something that, yeah, it was
the right fit for you, obviously doing policing your life
after policing, hope, noting a round the world, and yeah,
your Netflix series Knockofs tell us how it came about.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
You know, a friend of mine had introduced me to
Hollywood producers and Hobby and are stilling the job, and
I would call him. He was in Texas, I was
in Virginia, and you kind of get your hopes up that, oh,
maybe somebody is interested in this story because it was
so long ago, and both of those producers wanted to
take our story and make political statements out of it.
I say, I'm about as a political as you're going
(44:28):
to get. So you get your hopes up, but then
nothing happens and you get disappointed. So when I got
the call about this guy named Eric Newman and Hollywood
wanted to talk to us, I refused to call him
to start with. And the guy that called me was
an old Breen buddy, and I told him, I said, okay,
he cussed me out to what he did, and I's like, okay,
I'll call him. I'll call him. So I called Eric
and he kind of gave me his little spill on
(44:50):
the phone and I said, you know, thank you, but
I think we'll pass. And he got real quiet on
the phone. I said to Eric, are you still there?
And he's like, I can't believe you just said no.
And we've since learned that people will pretty much sell
their soul to be on TV in Hollywood. I mean,
there's some strange people out there. And so he said, listen,
I'm coming to Washington next month. Would you can I
take you to dinner. I have a couple of writers.
(45:11):
Let's just talk about this and see if we can
change your mind. And againy, you will understand this. I'm
thinking that's going to be a free dinner and a
really nice restaurant. Yes, I will meet you. That it
was as a French restaurant, so we you know, after
we talked to them, I just kind of developed a
connection with them. They were very open and honest and
(45:31):
transparent about everything. And so we're getting ready to leave
the restaurant. He says, so what are you going to do?
And I said, well, let me talk to Hoare and
let's maybe we'll pursue this and see where it goes.
So my initial conversation with Eric was in February of thirteen.
In March is when we had dinner. In May, we
signed contracts with Netflix, and at the end of June,
I retired from DEEA. I retired from law enforcement after
(45:53):
thirty eight years. And in July we were sitting in
Hollywood starting to write the first season of Narco's with
all the writers. So it went just like that.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Perfect, perfect Tommy for you. The obvious question you want
to ask is who's going to play you? At what
point in time did you ask who's going to play It?
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Wasn't too far into it. There was between Eric and
one of his other producers is a guy named Chris Francato,
who this and I have stayed friends and I've worked
on a couple of other projects with him. And I
think what they would do is they would there are
organizations in Hollywood that, you know, their talent Agency, so
they represent certain actors and actresses, and so they would
(46:34):
bring us these booklets and said here's somebody you know
the book that might be this thick and they'd say,
here's some of the people were thinking about playing your part.
And he started going through. Then you see John Travolta,
and you see Armie Hammer, and you see Jake Jillen Hall,
and I'm like, holy cow, I'm not a big TV watcher,
but even I knew who these people were. And I
think it was just to playcad us, to keep us
(46:55):
from asking questions, because that's not who they hired at all.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Right, just keep these idiots happy.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Exactly, That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
It's an experience and that it's been. I believe it's
one of the top Netflix series that they put out,
the original series. And the question that often gets us too,
when your life or the investigations played out in the
TV world, was it true and in terms of things
that happened, what's your take on Knickos.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
The timeline, the chronological timeline is pretty accurate, but we
did it only in our own analysis of the first
two seasons, because that's the twenty episodes about Pablo Escobar,
and we figured that about a third of what you
see in there is true. The second third, well, those
events happened, but they haven't been portrayed correctly. They've been
dramatized greatly, or they've taken other incidents and combined them
(47:48):
and things like that. But then that last there is
just straight out and make believe Hollywood. You know, I
was never kidnapped. We weren't pushing people out of helicopter
doors at three thousand feet. Javier wasn't passing class find
information to lost peppies. But like I take you know
one on stage, what I joke around about it. What
is true is that Javier really is a man slut.
(48:12):
And it's funny because when his wife's when his wife's
in the audience, I always go before the show and say, Beverly,
you know what I'm going to say, Are you okay
with us? It's like, yeah, go ahead, don't know what
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Well that that's good, but that's certainly the way he
was portrayed, but he seems to enjoy it. It must
be great. You two still been in contact. When you've
been through an experience like you went through. I take
it you've remained lifelong friends. And you must be having
a ball doing what you're doing because you do some
live shows as well. You've been able to overdo Australia
(48:44):
and UK and across America. You enjoying yourself?
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, brother, I'm having a blast. It's we've been on
every content that except Africa and Antarctica, and I'm not
going to Antarctica. But we were supposed to go to
Africa the first year of COVID, and of course that
killed that. That our four years before COVID, we averaged
seventy five shows a year. So I saw hobbyer born
and I saw my wife, but my marriage was stronger
(49:09):
than ever.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't on You've got to get a
wife from him. You probably probably probably seek of him.
And what's the you're also doing the podcast Game of Crimes.
What's what's the backstory to that?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
It's very similar to what you're doing. It's I started
out with a friend of mine. We came up to
this idea. He was used to be a Kansas State
trooper and a detective out there and during COVID, we
got bored and decided we start a podcast. And I
don't even know what a podcast was, but he did,
so we're He had to leave the show last April
because he still had a day job and they increased
(49:45):
his responsibilities, but they also doubled his paycheck and that
pays a whole lot more than a podcast. Okay, but
coming up on the end of the fourth year here
in June, going to start the fifth year. Every show
has a guest. It's mostly current or law enforcement. Occasionally
a first responder or military. I bring in the military veterans,
(50:07):
and even every once in a while I'll bring in
a former bad guy and then let the listeners get
the perspective from his viewpoint. And most of them, they
they have to have a tone for for their crimes.
You know, most of them have done their time in
prison and they've changed their lives. And I have one
guy that was the just a couple of months ago,
that was the president of the Hell's Angels in Los
(50:27):
Angeles for thirty five years, and he really wouldn't come
off of it. He did his prison time. But you know,
I asked him, I said, anything you'd changed in your life,
and he's like, Nope, not a thing. So you know,
he's the only one that really hasn't come across the
you know, to be a good guy.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Now, it's interesting, interesting, Steve, you're touring, touring the world.
You've got the TV series pubcast, Wilse. I write a book,
Man Hunters and the Bringing Them Pablo Escoba, which I
read cover the cover, and it's a great read and
gives a really good insight into what you've what you've done.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Just to give you a little inside secret, we had
a go straighter. No no, well, I tried to and
it looked like a third reader had written.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Well when I left the Cops and trying to like
I was doing journalism and writing articles and the book
it looked like a fact sheet until someone pulled me
aside and slapped me and said, it looks stupid. Had
a bit of color to this. We just don't want
a fact shet. Okay, all right, I had a bit
if I went back to the cops. Now, I'd love
(51:37):
to write a fact sheet because would be very creative.
It it'd be a cold, dark night when I came
across the seas. Oh yeah, yeah, anyway, look, thank you
very much for your time, and we literally have just
scratch scratched the surface of your stories. But from a
law enforcement officers point of view, I think what you did,
(52:01):
I can see the sacrifices you made, and we haven't
really delved into all the sacrifices you made in your
personal sacrifices hunting down the world's most wanted man and
all the other things that you've done in your career.
But also someone like you, I think inspires law enforcement officers,
Like you're this dumb, dumb kid from the country that
(52:24):
ended up living the life that you live because of
the job that you did.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Yeah, I've been blessed in my life. I've been blessed
in my career. You know, you mentioned the families of
our families that sacrifice so much. I refer to them
as the unsung heroes, so I always give them a
shout out, and just to finish up about the esc
of our story, the real heroes. It's not half of
your opinion, Steve Murphy. It's not the United States. It's
(52:51):
Columbia National Police because they took their country back. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Yeah, no, it always comes across when I hear you
talk about giving the tribute to to the sacrifices they
made as well. But look it's been an honor and
the privilege and I've really enjoyed, enjoyed the chaps.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Take care of again.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
You look like you're enjoying life.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Life is good. I'm sitting at the beach right now,
so there you got good stuff. Thanks for having me on.
Thank you.
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see aside of life the average person is never
exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Join me now as I take you into this world.
(00:46):
In the second part of my chat with former DA
agent Steve Murphy, we talk about how Pablo Escobar was
tracked down and killed in a violent shoetout. We talk
about the impact the investigation had on Steve and his
partner Javier, and the Columbian police who put their lives
on the line to restore peace to their country. We
also talk about his experience in the investigation being portrayed
(01:09):
in the hugely popular TV series Narcos. It's a fascinating chat. Steve,
welcome back to part two. If I catch killers. Thank you,
Let's continue this wild story. And yeah, no wonder they
made a TV series out of this investigation, and we're
going to talk about Narcos TV series and it's a
(01:32):
great series, I've got to say on Netflix. But before
we do, there's a bit of work to do before
you start swamping round as the person that's portrayed on
the TV series we've talked about Pablo Escobar, is there
one thing that defines him, like how ruthless he was?
You talk in part one that he didn't have a
conscience and that he could just kill without a second thought.
(01:57):
Is there one thing that demonstrates to the listeners what
was the evilness or something that typified the evilness of
the man.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
He was in his prison, this custom built prison, the cathedral,
and they're actually he's on the phone with his wife
talking and we're, you know, we're intercepting the phone calls,
and he's talking about how much he loves her and
how much he misses her and how are the kids
and all that, and in the background you can hear
a guy screaming he's being tortured, you know, and eventually
(02:25):
his wife said, what is that noise? And he's like,
hold on a minute. He covers up the you know,
I assume he cover up the receiver, and you can
hear him say cover his mouth, shut him up, and
then he gets real quiet, so you know, they killed
the guy. And then he's just right back on a yeah. Well,
you know, I'll come and see you guys soon, and
you know, you guys have to come to visit me,
and just you know, like nothing happened.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Just that set no conscience whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The indiscriminate car bombs that were just he set a
car bomb off on fifteenth Street in Bogata one time,
in the northern part of the city. And right where
that bomb went off as a mall and it was
the whole the size of a city block, and the
whole front of the mall was glass. So when that
bomb went off, you know what happened to the glass.
(03:12):
It happened to be a time when moms were there
with their school aged children getting school supplies. So Homy
and I we were spawn down there. We get a
phone call about it, We take off and go down there,
you can't get very close. You can see the black
smoke from where the bomb went off, but you can't
get very close because traffic just bogs down. So we
park and we get out, and we were walking in
and as you get closer, you start hearing the sounds
(03:33):
associated with tragedy, you know, the screams and the crying
and the begging and all that kind of stuff. And
then you get closer and you actually start seeing body
parts laying around. And then you get up to the
scene and you see the firemen and the police officers
carrying the lifeless bodies of little children who just simply
were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's
probably the most horrific thing I saw while we were
(03:54):
down there. Just it's there's there's no way you can
justify something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
That's the results of these actions. What were the circumstances
with the luxury self designed prison that he was resulting in?
What were the circumstances of him escaping from the How
did that come about?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We got this from an individual who eventually became an
informative ours and eventually became of the biggest drug dealer
in Columbia, And who is in prison here in the
United States now. So he was the bodyguard for one
of Pablo's childhood friends, a guy named Kiko Mankada. Qiko
and Pablo grew up together. He was one of the
(04:37):
primary lieutenants. And there was another guy named Fernando Galliano. Well,
when Pablo went into prison, he imposed attacks or war
tax on all the other drug draftickers, and he said,
you know, look, I've fronted myself out for the good
of all of you. I've embarrassed myself. I'm in prison now,
you know, country club prison. He said, So what's going
(04:59):
to happ happen is every load that you send up,
I get half of it, or you pay me four
hundred thousand dollars cash. Okay. So then they were doing
it well. After a while they got tired of doing it. Well.
One day hits the carrios going out and they find
a cave that there's this money US dollars that have
been shrink wrapped and hidden in a cave, and the
(05:19):
shrink wrap has come loose, and so air and moisture
has been getting in there, and all this money is
rotting away. And we've heard this anywhere from ten million
to twenty three million dollars. So they bring it in.
They show Pabula like, look, this is Kiko and Fernando's money,
and they're holding out on you. You know, here you
are fronting yourself out and you're not making all the
(05:40):
billions that you were before because you've taken a stance
against the government. You're trying to do good for everybody else.
And they get him all fired up. So he has
somebody make phone calls and they call the Galliano's and
they call him Moncadas and said, hey, come on up
to the prison. We're going to have a barbecue. No
business discussed. We're just gonna have good time. Bring some
hookers in and we'll have some mariachis. Come men or whatever.
(06:01):
No need to bring security details. Everything's good. So they
show up. Well Kiko, according to our source, Kiko comes
walking in and he sees the money there on the floor,
and he looks at Pablo and sees a look on
his face and he starts saying, Pablo, that's not what
you think it is. We're not holding out on you.
That's money that's been buried for a long time. Quite honestly,
we had forgotten about it. And if you think about it.
(06:23):
For moisture and water to get in there, to start
writing away paper. That doesn't happen in a few days,
I mean that takes months and months and months of time.
So the Cicarios are egging Pablo on he he cheated you, Pablo,
kill him. You need to kill these two, and so
eventually they go back and forth, and Pablo gets so
incensed that he grabs a stick and he kills his
childhood best friend, Kiko Moncada, beats him to death. Then
(06:47):
the Ccarios they jump on Fernando Galliano. They do the
same to him. Then they started cutting parts of their
bodies off and sending them to their families and saying,
you owe me this, You owe me that you know,
and if you want, everyone want to see him again,
and this is what you got to do. You know,
the families didn't know they were already dead. Well, eventually
word got out to us about it through this informant,
(07:10):
and we went to our bosses and the ambassador, and
eventually it went to the President of Columbia, and the
message was do something about this. This is ridiculous. This
is embarrassing to your country. It's embarrassing to your administration,
you've got to do something. So they come up with
an idea that they're going to tell Pablo, Okay, we're
(07:31):
going to temporarily move you to a different prison so
we can reinforce your prison to make it more secure
for you. And it's all a ruse. Well, they send
the deputy Justice minister up there. This kid, Mendoza is
like twenty five years old. He goes up with a
Columbian colonel, military colonel to take like twenty troops up there.
Get to the gate outside. Now, remember who's paying the
(07:52):
guards on inside the gate, So they're not.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Loyal to the guts, they loyalty.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, So the deputy Justice miner looks over the colonel says, colonel,
go get him. Or el said, resident, tell me, he
didn't tell me to go in there. He told you
to go, and I'm not going in there. You go
get him. So this young guy twenty five years old
goes in there. Well, of course the Sagario is immediately
taking hostage and they're slapping him around and they're trying
(08:16):
to get Pablo Pablo kill him. This is the message
from the president, they don't respect you and all that stuff. Well,
Pablo tells the Justice minister, get the president on the phone. Well,
he's calling. Before the president would take Pablo's calls, believe
it or not, but this time nobody's answering the phone.
So Pablo kind of sees the writing on the ball.
They realize that they don't have enough troops up there
(08:39):
to assault the prison, so now they send an elite
group of military folks called the Copas, and they go
in and they assault the prison, big firefight. Not a
single good guy was wounded that day, believe it or not.
And the deputy Justice Minister, they were able to get
him out unscathed, which is just a miracle. Some of
(09:00):
the guards were killed, Pablo's guards. A lot of cacarios
were able to escape, not all of them. Some of
them chose to stay in the prison. So recently, Jama
had done some work for one of the Spanish speaking
stations down to Columbia about the Escobar story, and in exchange,
they had access to these photographs. So the press had
(09:23):
shown up at the prison because you know, the words
out that something's going on up there at the cathedral,
and this one photographer he got up there, he saw everybody,
you know, all the other presses there, worldwide press, and
so he goes around and he somehow knows how to
get around to the backside of the prison and he's
walking in and here comes Pablo and some of his
henchmen and the guy the story is the cameraman. He
(09:44):
laid his cameras down and put his hands up. He says, Pablo, Pablo,
please don't kill me. You know, I went to this
front gate. My producers told me to go get pictures.
It's crowded up there. I thought I'd just come around
and see what's happening. Prob washed to get your camera,
take your camera and take pictures of me. I'm a
dead man walking, so that camera and held onto those pictures.
He died recently and his family gave him to this.
(10:06):
I think he was a Univision Univision and so because
of the work Hobbier had done with them, they gave
us license to use these pictures. So we now have
three photographs that this camera took of Pablo, and I
think it's four of his henchmen making their escape, and
you can see some of them have guns, you know,
pistols tucked in their waistband. It's not like they're running,
(10:27):
you know, scared, they're just they're just getting away. Well,
you know, I'm always I've always wondered if you know
there wasn't some green passed hands along the way, because
how do you escape from the prison surrounded? How do
you escape?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And if you've got an elite team coming in and
taking the Zakarias out, how they go to why? But well,
it's yeah, if it didn't happen, you have to invent it.
It's crazy. He he gets out that. So the tuns
you your world upside down for the next eighteen months
(11:03):
because you and Javier are asked to be stationed down
in Medeleine, and you worked with a lot of different sections,
and I know you pay a lot of tribute to
the Colombian National Police absolutely, and the courage of those
guys and the search block. This is a quote from
your book when he was on the run, just to
give you a sense of what happened after he escaped.
(11:24):
Between the twenty second of July nineteen ninety two, when
Escobar escaped and mid March nineteen ninety three, one hundred
and thirty six police officers had been killed in the
line of duty by Escobar's hitmen. So that's one hundred
and thirty six police I'm talking about. The death tolls
throughout the country had also increased. Columbia had seen it
steadly this year, with nearly twenty nine thousand homicides reported
(11:48):
in nineteen ninety two, compared to twenty five thy one
hundred and ten for the previous year. In Medelline and Bogata,
one hundred and twelve Savilians had died from random car
bomb attacks and four hundred twenty seven had been injured.
It's just on the sky that's hired to comprehend, and
that that's in that passage of time when he was
(12:08):
on the run, when you guys were part of the team,
uh tas we're tracking him down.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It was it's it's I mean, I'm sure it's the
same in Australia. If an Australian police officer is killed
in the line of duty. Here in the United States,
we stop everything. Everybody stops to contribute to the case
to get that guy. When here you're talking about over
one hundred and thirty police officers and what about a
six or seven month period were murdered. Pablo put a
bounty on him of one hundred dollars each. I mean,
(12:36):
that was a police officer's life was one hundred bucks.
It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And that was that was just anyone could collect that bounty.
Just take take out a call there was.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Javier was with We worked with a very elite unit
of Plumbing National Police officers and they got to call
one night that one of the sacarios was at this
nightclub and they didn't have enough body. So Hovier went
along with them and h this kid's fifteen years old.
He's out on the dance floor with his girlfriend. They
go out and grab He's got a gun in his waistband.
They wrestle him, he fights, They get him down the floor,
(13:07):
get him cuffed up, and take him out. Well, this
kid talks, you know, he doesn't know he's not supposed
to talk. He said, he had already killed I think
it was something like ten police officers. And how you're asking,
he said, how do you do this? He said, Well,
you just you know, these uniform guys they're walking the
streets and they stop and talk to each other or
stop to talk to people in the street, and you
just walk up behind him and shoot him in the
(13:28):
back of the head. He said, the most I've killed
him one day was three and then you go to
an address and you tell him, and you know, they
give you one hundred dollars for each cop that you've killed.
And HWY said, what do you do with the money?
He said, well, most of it I give to my
mom because she had you know, she was one of
those people living on the edge of a trash dump.
And he said, I keep enough money for myself. I
(13:48):
don't have a nice pair of tennis shoes, nice pair
of jeans, and I need beer money. But everything else,
she gets everything else. And I thought, just no remorse whatsoever.
But or a woman that's brave enough to put a
uniform on and your life is worth one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, I know you guys had a lot of respect
for the courage that they had. What about yourself and Javier,
like I read somewhere or that you had a bounty
on you for three hundred thousand with the greatest respect,
you would sort of stand out in Columbia and people
(14:26):
would know who you are. So how how did you
feel with what was going on?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, you know, I mean, we're cops. You don't show fear,
but you know, when you first find out about it,
it's like, that's all I'm worthing more than three hundred
thousand dollars. But the truth is, it's very disconcerting to
start with. It's like, holy cow, this guy's got a
bounty on me. And you're right. I mean, my family,
(14:53):
my grandmother immigrated from England. My dad's family immigrated from Ireland.
I'm about as white as you get. I don't blend
into it Hispanic country. You know. I'm six to two,
I have light colored eyes. I used to have brown
colored hair. I just kind of stick out.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But the gring Gay and that they would have known
that you guys would like the intel and you couldn't
trust everyone that was involved in the investigation, so they
would have very much known who you guys were.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Absolutely, I mean, we were going out on so back
of a second, the embassy told us, the ambassadors, I
don't want you guys going out in the field. You
stay at the police base. Well that's we can't do
our job if we do stay beneck in the back.
And you know, we had we had the US Navy
Seal Team six was there with us. We had the
(15:41):
US Armies Delta FORCET. They were there with us. Of course,
the CIA's in there. They're coming and going as they want.
The military guys or under the same orders as us. Well,
they're military, so they follow orders. We kind of looked
at them as strong suggestions instead of orders. And so
I mean, just just to match, You're still on the
job there and in uh Australia, and I come to
(16:02):
your country, and I tell you, Gary, I heard there's
Pablo Escobars down there at the pub. Man, go see
if he's down there. I'm gonna get a couple of
coffee and come back and tell me what you find.
What are you gonna tell me? I know what you're
gonna tell me that.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, one, I understand, but I like the way it's
just a suggestion that wasn't an order. But I'm sorry,
I'm misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
But uh well, But but what that led to is
we were going out on operations every day with with
this unit that we worked with Dehean was the name
of the unit. And we're going out on the Huey
gunships doing raids on ranches, and we're going out and
doing patrols in the mountains with the Columbia National Police
and we're doing surveillance in the city, and we're paying
informants and we're meeting snitches. We had a one eight
(16:43):
hundred tip line set up offering a five million dollar
reward for information on Pablo. It was it was exciting.
I mean, it's very exciting. There were times, especially if
we were in the city, they would they had an
armored personnel carrier, and so if we were doing stuff
in the city, especially for going over into the barrios
where Pablo's you know, he's the hero, they would put
(17:04):
me inside the armored car just to protect me a
little bit more. But you know, and you had a
machine gunner on top. And but then when you know,
when it's trying to clean up my language, when the
ship hits the fan, you know, you don't run away.
You got to stand there and fight.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, it's a big difference from where you started your
law enforcement a lot. There was a d A agent
that was abducted by a cartel in Mexico, and you
think that played a part that the consequences do you
want to just explain to the listeners what the circumstances
of that was. It was a horrific situation, but the
response is probably, you know, protected people down the track.
(17:43):
Do you want to explain that those circumstances.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Gladly Well, that was the case of Kiki or Enrique.
Kiki came Marina was our agent's name. This is in
nineteen eighty five. He had been stationed. Kiki was a
former US marine. He'd been a cop in Glexico, California,
before Dea joined EA, did time down on the border,
got a volunteer to go to Guandalajara in Mexico. He
was actually born in Mexico, so he spoke perfect Spanish.
(18:09):
He's down there. He just kicking button, taking names. You know.
The problem back then was was these massive marijuana grows,
the ones up in the mountains. The quality wasn't as good,
but the Mexican traffickers learned about sinsimilia, which is something
that American marijuana growers just developed, and it basically they
took the seeds out of the plants and it made
(18:31):
it a much more potent strain of marijuana. So, through
payoffs and so forth, they bought this desert land and
they had to drill these massive wells to get water
because marijuana grows require a lot of water. So Kiki
gets information through an informant, and at one point the
government of Mexico would let the United States do flyovers
(18:54):
looking for marijuana fields or poppy fields because of Mexican heroin. Well,
a new president comes in and he bans all that.
So now Kiki's relying on informants, and apparently he had
the knack for dealing with informants. He has one that's
a pilot. He gets information where there's this massive marijuana grow.
I think that one was two hundred acres. They do
(19:15):
a couple of flyovers which were illegal, and confirmed it
was there, got the Mexican police to go raid the place,
and I forget how much it was capable of producing,
but two hundred acres of marijuana plants just massive. Well,
then as time goes on, he finds out about this
other grow. This time it was twenty five hundred acres,
(19:36):
two five hundred acres, just massive, and they rated that.
I think they said that that field alone was capable
of four billion dollars of weed per grow, and I
think you could grow it at least twice a year
down there. So that led to him, you know, he
was ready to rotate out of Guadala horor back to
the United States. But these three drug traffickers Raphael carl Countero,
(20:01):
Miguel On Hell Felix Gayardo, and the third guy's name
was Fan Saic I can't remember his full name. Those
are the three guys that started the Guadara Guadalajara cartel
in Mexico. So they orchestrated a kidnapp had Kiki came
out of the consulate in Guadalajarra to go meet his
wife for lunch. They surrounding kidnapp him, taking him to
(20:22):
a house. He's torture for over thirty hours. He's actually
killed three different times. They've got a doctor there that
when the first two times when he died, they would
inject adrenaline into his heart to restart his heart so
they could kill him again. It's just horrific what they
did to Kiki. And they also did the same thing
to the pilot I think his name was Zavala. Then
(20:48):
you know, of course Dea realizes that Keiki's missing because
he didn't show up for wife, his lunch with his wife,
and then he done show Homan that night, and so
this massive man hunt is underway. The United States starts
supplying pressure to the Mexican government. Finally they create they
just designate somebody to be a scapegoat and they kill
them and throw them out and said, okay, there's the
guy killed Kiki and the pilot. Well, the United States
(21:11):
knew that wasn't true. So our president back at the time,
and I'm not sure we have presidents that have these
kind of honas now, but the president back then shut
down the border between the United States and Mexico. It
took less than one day for the Mexican government come
back and say, okay, okay, we're back in. I think
it took thirty days before they finally found Kiki's body.
(21:31):
Him and the pilot were wrapped up in plastic. Seeing
that what the response of the United States was, and
it might be the same now because we have a
new president. But past administrations would certainly not have gone
to those links because the d agent was killed. So
if you think about it, the drug traffickers are in
(21:52):
business to make money. If you shut down the border,
they can't get the product into the United States, where
you know, we're the leading consumer country of ill legal
narcotics in the world. That's a reputation we truly enjoy having.
It's outrageous. But they knew that if I mean we
had wire taps, one wire tap, we're Pablo's talking makes
reference to the two gringos, and then a short time
(22:13):
later he actually mentions the name's Penyon Murphy. That was
worse than finding out there's a three hundred thousand dollars
bounds in just guys knew your name.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
But then it becomes personal.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, but you know, so if I think Pablo knew
that if he really took us out, they could have
killed us numerous times. I mean that we're out on operations,
anything could happen. But then you know they're not going
to make the money that that's what they're in business for.
So that's why we say Kiki's legacy.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, and that's passed on them. I suppose it gives
a sense that there's going to be a reaction that
people don't want to coming if something happens to people
like yourself. I'm glad that so the response was done
because that's the topic response it's needed, right, So what
were the strategies got him out of prison? He's creating
(23:06):
chios and chaos is a nice way of putting the
horrific situation with people being killed, left, frought and center.
What were the strategies to bring him down? And the
people that you're working with to to yeah, find you.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well with the IRO ambassador brought in the Seal Team
Sex and the Delta Force guys, the operators, these the
Delton Seals guys. They brought in assets that we didn't
have access to, so they were able to glean intelligence
that we were getting real time intelligence that hey, Pablo's here,
Pablo's there. And this is in the first few weeks.
(23:40):
I remember we went to a huge church and just
searched that in the middle of the night when we
finally we were able to get out, get some troops
to go and and just you know, we searched for
a couple of hours, couldn't find a thing. And you know,
the the lower ranking Columbian officers or they're getting tired
and they were just want to go back to the
barracks and sleep and and I'm not wanting to leave.
(24:03):
And Taivea is the same way. We got to keep going,
got to keep going, got to keep going, and eventually,
you know, the commander of the unit comes over and
he's like, look, but we're going, we're going. We can't
find it. He's not here, and it's it just over
and over. There was times when we hit one cabin
and the coffee was still warm in the mug, there
was a cigarette and the ashtray still burning, you know.
(24:26):
And Pop Poplo was known he liked. He had it
this fetish for fancy bathrooms, you know, gold plated fixtures
and things like that, you go in these little shannies
and and but it had a really nice bathroom. You
knew that was Poblo's, you know, one of his places, okay,
And he'd always have he'd have a lady in there cooking,
and they'd have a young girl in there as the
(24:46):
cleaning lady. But more like you know, his personal enjoyment
type things.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Okay, So what was the what was the thing that fondly,
uh like kated him?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
It was, Well, so Colonel Ugo Martinez is our boss.
He's the guy in charge of the blokie de busca
the search box what it translates to. And his son
is a lieutenant, Lieutenant Ugo Martinez. Well, the lieutenant taught
himself how to use radio directional finding equipment. The government
(25:17):
of France donated a bunch of vans that had radio
directional finding equipment mounted in them, and the algorithm that
they used back then was triangulation, which is pretty simple
to figure out. You know, Medine's built in a bowl.
So you put three vans up on high spots. They
shoot the signal out where the three signals intersect. That's
where Pablo's phone is coming from. Because it wasn't three G,
(25:38):
four G, five G phones like we enjoy today. They
were basically radio telephones. If he wanted to he knew
we were listening. If he wanted to thwart our efforts
to listen to him, all he had to do is
change frequency. But the challenge to him was he had
to get the new frequency to the people he wanted
to talk to. So it wasn't quite as easy to
spend that dial. So they get they get the triangulation.
(26:01):
They triangulate on the signal. The margin of error back
that time could be two three city blocks large. So
to refine that, to refine that area down, you send
somebody in with holding an antenna out the car window,
driving down the street. And that was Lieutenant Martinez. He's
he's got a meter in one hand, he's got driver
driving him and he's driving down the street. He gets us.
(26:23):
He thinks he's found this warehouse, and so they bring
the Deheen guys in, they launch an operation. It's an
empty warehouse. So, I mean, you know the grief he
caught from all the other cops because like, oh, you idiot,
you know, I mean, you know how we are.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You make a mistake, you pay for it, and you ridicule.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yes do So he what he did is he found
there was a body of water next to the this warehouse,
and water will affect the way that radio waves passed
through the air. So he recalibrated his equipment to uh
include that water area, and he gets another hit. So
he's driving down the street holding this antenta out the window.
(27:03):
He says, we've got a reenactment video where he's actually interviewed,
and he looks up and he says he sees Pablo
Escobar on the phone talking looking at him. Well, we're
listening to the phone call on the wire tap. There's
never any we listened to this a lot of times.
There's never any indication that Pablo saw Lieutenant Martinez or
this man driving down the street holding an antenna out
(27:25):
the window, which was, you know, something you don't see
every day. And the only explanation we've ever come up
with is like when you ask me a question, I'm
reliving a lot of things in my mind, and I'm
seeing you on the screen, but I'm more in my
mind reliving things I don't I mean, you could pick
your nose, I probably wouldn't even pick up.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
On it because I didn't by that allegation stuff I
was not and I didn't see it.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I didn't see it. So and that's the only thing
we can every only explanation we ever came up with. Well,
now you've got one hundred percent confirmation there's Pablo in
this row house. So I'm back at the base and
I'm actually in the room with all the gringoes talking
because you know, it's just kind of nice to talk
to your countryman every once in a while and just
you're talking sports or whatever, girlfriends or whatever. And I
(28:13):
see it. We're in this quad area, and I see
the executive staff for the colonel as majors and his
lieutenant colonel's running across the squad and that's you know,
that's clue something's going on. So I told the gringoes.
I said, hey, man, something's happening. I'll be right back.
And so I go to the Colonel Martinez's office. And
we had in a good enough relationship, a mutual respect
that he sees me at the door and he said,
come on. He come on in, and he's on the
(28:34):
phone with the lieutenant and he's giving him instructure. He's like, okay,
he says, we've got Pablo located without you know, with
one hundred percent margin of air or no margin of
air whatsoever. Colonel saying, okay, we're loading up the troops. Well,
loading up six hundred people takes a while. You know,
you can't knock it out in five or ten minutes,
he said. But whatever you do, don't let him get away.
Surround it and keep him there. Don't let him get away. Well,
(28:56):
these the heen guys, they interpreted to that to meus
go get him. The American operators had taught them how
to use debt cord to blow doors open. So they
this is a three story rowhouse. They line the front door,
blow the door off, the engines, they go in. The
first floor is a combination garage, kitchen, laundry room or
(29:19):
cleaning room. Maybe made's quarters back there. Then you go
to the second floor and there's a living room, there's
a couple bedrooms, and the third floors all bedrooms and bathrooms.
So as they get up to the second floor, they
clear the first floor. They go to the second floor,
there's Pablo running up to the third floor. They exchange
shots with each other. One police officer actually tripped on
(29:40):
the steps, which saved his life because Pablo shot at
him right at that time and it went right over
top of his head. Poblo at one time had as
many as five hundred cicario as protecting him. On December second,
nineteen ninety three, he was down to one guy. His
nickname was lemon On I can't remember his real name.
Lemon gets to the third floor window. The rowhouse behind
(30:03):
him was a two story, so he could jump out
that window onto the roof of this two story and
then they were going to make their escape out the
back way well. The cops had sent a couple guys
around the back. They ordered Lemona to drop his we
weapons and surrender. He starts shooting at him from the
roof and they tune him up and he falls off
dead onto the ground. Now Pablo gets up to that
third window, or that third floor, and that window he
(30:26):
knows good guys are coming up steps. Now he's heard
this shooting outside, so he knows there's good guys out there,
and he knows he's in a crossfire. He goes in
and jumps out the roof. The building next to this
two story was another three stories, so there's a wall
here and Pablo is trying to inch along that wall
to see where the guys are on the ground. These
guys are coming up to the front window. He's like,
(30:46):
screw it. He takes off a run across the roof,
shooting at them, shooting at them. They catch him in
a crossfire. He's hit three times, once in the back
of the leg, once in the butt cheek, which both
of those are knocked down shots, but neither one was
a kill shot. And then the kill shot was a
two twenty three round through the ear. There's a lot
of speculation about that round through the ear. His son,
(31:11):
Wan Pablo, would have you believe that his dad committed suicide.
I've took the pictures. We don't post those on the
meat on the internet. But you can see them all
on the internet because people take pricktures during our presentations
and they post them. When I was a city cop,
I've worked murders and I've worked suicides. I'm also a
former fire arms instructor for DEEA. You know that when
(31:34):
you shoot a bullet and it comes out the end
of the barrel, there's little bits of gunpowder that follow
the bullet out and they'll travel a certain distance before
they lose their velocity and follow the ground. Even if
you could hold a gun at arm's length. And remember
it's the two twenty three, So now he's going to
have to turn a rifle around and shoot himself into ear.
There would be powder burns all over the side of
his head. You can go online and look those pictures.
(31:55):
I promise you there's not a single powder burn on there.
So he was killed by the Columbia National Police. It's
not suicide, you know, the kid. I don't know why.
You know, maybe if my if Pablo Escobar had been
my dad, I think I'd like to change the legacy
of his memory too. But that's not true. It's it's
a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
If you'll you have sayen that in a gunshop residue
there when it happened. You've you've come out shortly after,
and some of some of the five days that you
talk about, the five days that have been at in
the public, they were five days that you actually talk.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Right, you know. You see on a Narco series it
shows that I was on the roof when Pablo was killed.
That's not true. I wrote out after the fact with
Colonel Martinez and his jeep.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And when when you got there, you had to go there,
I identify him and just corroborate the fact that it
is him. How did you feel.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
When one of the majors on the de Henion after
they killed Pablo, he comes back in radio's back Viva Columbia.
Pablo is dead. I took off running over to the
wire room to call the embassy to you know, because
you've got to let your bosses know what happened. And
so I couldn't get through to the d A office
to the front office. So I ended up calling our
admin office. When the secretary's answered and she's like, oh, hey, Steve,
(33:05):
how you doing. I'm like, go get mister Taff was
our boss. I said, go get mister Toff. Oh okay, is
everything okay? I'm like, go get mister Toff now, quit
wasting time, you know. And so it took two three
minutes before he came on the phone, which just seemed
like an eternity because I know that they're mounting up
the troops and getting ready to go out there. When
mister Toff comes on the phone, the first thing he
(33:26):
says is they just kill Pablo. I'm like, well, no shit,
that's why I'm calling you. And so I told him
what had happened, and he said, listen, get out there,
confirm this is Pablo. You know, we've been down this
road before where we get our hopes up. Go make
sure this is Pablo. So I run back to the
barracks to get my gear, you know, a gun and everything,
(33:46):
and come running back out and everybody is gone. The
only people there are the guards on the gates. I
don't have a car, I don't know where they are.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
You know, I'm old, dressed up, and no way they
got exactly right.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So I'm just standing there just trying to go through
my mind. Right, how am I going to do this?
Maybe I could call a taxi or you know, And
finally here comes Colonel Martinez with his protection detail, driving
back in and he sees me standing out in the
middle of quality. He say, Steve, what are you doing?
They actually called me Steak Stick cause they couldn't They
couldn't say Steve, so it came out of Stick. It
was my nickname. He says, Stick, what are you doing?
(34:22):
And I said, I need a ride. Colonel He's like,
get the jeep, you know. So I ride out with him.
We get out there, We go in the door that
the Deheen guys had made entry. We searched the first floor,
take pictures, go to the second floor, take pictures. Get
to the third floor and that's the window. So I
get to that wind and I look out and there's
all our Deheen buddies out there over the body. And
(34:43):
I yelled to them and they're all yelling back, holding
their rifles up. You know, we got him. We got him.
It's Bablo. He's dead. Well now thousands of people are
starting to come out because they just heard this big,
massive gun battle. We've got our six hundred people out there.
Then the Columbian military shows up with a couple hundreds.
I mean, it's just it's great security, but Eventually I
(35:03):
got around back with the colonel and we climbed up
on the roof and that's when I took the pictures
of Pablo, and the whole purpose of that was for
identification purposes. When that was over, we're standing on the
roof and this group of people show up and they're
making a commotion and I looked at one of the
(35:23):
lieutenant Colonels was up there. Colonel Colias was with me
and I said, Colonel, who's that down there? And he said, well,
that's Pablo's mom and that's Pablo's sister. Like oh really,
so let's just watch them for a minute. So we
watch them and they're arguing with the police and the military,
and finally his sister she's really loud and obnoxious. She's like,
I want to see you say that's Pablo on the ground.
I want to see him. I want to see that
(35:44):
that's my brother. So she goes over to where Limonum,
the bodyguard, is laying and she just goes off on
the police. She's like, oh, you idiots, that's not Pablo.
Whiskey bar, you killed the wrong person. You don't even
know what you're doing. And she just lets them have it.
Finally she calms down and one of the cops looks
at her and look on the roof. Bitch, that's what
Pablo was, was up on the roof. So I stick
(36:06):
around watched them. Once the mother and the sister saw
Pablo's body brought off the roof, and I saw their reaction,
there was no question in my mind whatsoever that was
Pablo Escobar. Now the police were worried about my safety
because you know, we weren't allowed to wear anything that
looked like police and military, so we typically wore, you know,
(36:28):
polo shirts and jeans, tennis shoes, whatever reason. That day
I had a red polo shirt on, which really I
don't stick out enough, so I wrote, wore a red shirt,
you know, go figure.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Good choice.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So now the press is starting to show up, and
I don't want to be on camera because we don't
want this to look like it was orchestrated by the
United States. We want the Columbia National Police to have
the credit for everything, and rightfully so. So the colonels,
like Lieutenant Colonel, he said, okay, Steve, we're going to
get you back, and so he gave me a protection
detail and they escort me back to the base that night.
(37:02):
I mean we went into total lockdown. You were you know,
I know you see this on TV, but you literally
have your gun under your pillow because you're expecting this
retaliatory tax, you know, retaliation from the narcos. Quiet at night,
I ever spent money.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And this was that night.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Next day they made Hoavier go to Miami to talk
to an informant, which is a bogus trip. We knew
the informant didn't have the information, but the ambassador order
how to go. So he flew back into that pub
was killed on a Thursday. He flew back to Bogaton
on Thursday night. Friday, he flew up to Median sent
a gunship out to bring him into the base. You know,
(37:39):
high five, congratulations and all that. We were there for
a couple hours, and he and I Friday night flew
back to Bogota and we weren't supposed to ride taxis
down there because of the danger factor. Well, the embassy
didn't send anybody out to pick us up, so we
jumped to the taxi went back to the embassy. My
wife was working in the see at that time, and
(38:01):
it's probably six thirty seven o'clock at night, and you know,
she had lots of pizzas and lots of cases of beer,
and we celebrated that night. We got home Saturday morning,
probably about ten thirty eleven o'clock. It was an all nighter.
It was one hell of a party. Well it was,
(38:21):
and that was a long story of your short question.
It felt like the weight of the world had been
lifted off our shoulders. I mean, it's my wife and
I had adopted our first daughter down there in October
before Pablo was killed, and then I had to go
back to Media Inc. And Monica at that time, she
was at eight months old and we got her and
I'm you know, I'm not even getting to spend any
time with my new daughter. So it was it was
(38:44):
it's hard to describe. It's just, you know, Wow, he's
finally dead. He's really finally dead.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
And do what was the ongoing reaction from that? Did
it make a difference.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
That's a good question, and a lot of people ask
us that, especially when we go to the UK. Here's
what we did. We and you you already mentioned the statistics.
In ninety two and ninety three, medi in Columbia was
the murder capital of the entire world, one of the
most dangerous cities in the world. So we looked at
the murder rate in Meding prior to Pablo's death, and
then we waited a couple of months and checked the
(39:18):
murder rate, and you can go. I challenge every audience
to go check it and see if I'm telling the truth,
because what I found and what you'll find, is that
the murder rate in Median, Columbia had dropped by almost
eighty percent simply because Pablo Escobar was dead. Now did
we do we make a difference on cocaine trafficking? We did,
(39:39):
probably lasted maybe two weeks at most. The sad thing
is here in the United States right now you can
go on almost any street corner by cocaine, certain areas
of town you go to. So people say, well, the
war on drugs is lost, that it has just been
away at coloss a waste of time and human life. Well,
what would it be like if law enforced wasn't out
(40:00):
there fighting the scourge? You know, would you be safe
to do anything? Because there's going to be drug addicts everywhere.
They're going to be robbing here, They're going to be
still and you're going to kill, you gonna be jacking
your car. It made a difference. It's just it didn't
end the war on drugs. That's not going to happen
until the demand goes away.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
How do you approach it? That's a subject for another
another time. I think highlighting what you were doing. Your
job was to locate and capture Pablo Escobar, and by
doing so you made a difference and a job of
that magnitude. That's like an investigation on steroids. Were you
(40:41):
on a low after it? Like did you you feel
like you lack purpose? Or did you use it to
just go Okay, I've done the hard yards. Now I
can have a bit of a bit of a rest
or take some time to find myself again.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Well, I was there until June. So he was killed
Decemberary three and asked for back to the United States.
Since in June of ninety four and Javier came out.
I think in September. I ended up in North Carolina.
Never seen praight cocaine in my life. I've spent four
years in Miami, three years in Bogata, and I ended
up Greensboro. And right, cocaine is the that's the drug
(41:17):
evil drug of that area at the time, so you
addressed whatever the drug problem is in the area that
you're assigned. But when I got to Greensboro and I
didn't even know where it was, I had to look
it up on the map. When I got to Greensboro,
I felt like that's when the job got to be
(41:38):
a lot of fun. That there had I had no
pressure whatsoever to prove myself to anybody. I felt like
I survived Miami in the nineteen eighties, I survived the
Pablo Escobar man hunt. That's when a job got to
be fun. I mean, we had five agents trying to
cover twenty plus counties, so we always worked at our
(41:59):
state and local park nurse, which quite honestly, I prefer
working with anyway, because they're a lot more fun to
hang out with, and you know, they don't complain when
it's quitting time. And I mean they're dedicated, and most
most d agents are, but not all. So I guess
that was the thing for me. It was it was
I had come I had become a workaholic, I think.
(42:22):
I mean we were Gosh, if you were in the embassy,
we lived off off the coffee and doughnuts, every day.
It was that sugar and caffeine kept you going. I'd
stop by the nurses station and get my blood pressure
checked and it was never high. You know, I say
it was I felt like, you know, the good man
upstairs was taking care of me healthwise. The Columbia National Police,
especially the dehing guys. When the bullets started flying, we
(42:45):
knew they wouldn't run off and leave us. I mean
they'd stand there and fight to protect us. But they
knew we wouldn't run off and leave them either. So
it was just it was one of the I would
I never want to do any of that again, especially
at this old man age, but I wouldn't trade it
for the world. It's what we're doing in retirement is
I never dreamt we'd be doing anything like this. It's
(43:06):
I mean, being on a podcast with you and you're
in Australia. I mean I get to travel the world
just our Kenthon. You're traveling around the world telling the
true story about bablu Escobar. We talk about leadership, decision making, teamwork.
It's I'm having a blast in retirement. I have to see.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Well, yeah, like full credit to you, but I think
it starts and you didn't start off that investigation thinking, Okay,
I'm in twenty years thirty years time, I'm going to
be doing a tour around the world. I'm going to
speak on someone's podcast overseas. And that's I can see
and I know, yeah, you're a cop, you know other cops.
(43:43):
I can see the joy that you took from the
work that you're doing. It has the highs, it has
the horror, but there's also something that, yeah, it was
the right fit for you, obviously doing policing your life
after policing, hope, noting a round the world, and yeah,
your Netflix series Knockofs tell us how it came about.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
You know, a friend of mine had introduced me to
Hollywood producers and Hobby and are stilling the job, and
I would call him. He was in Texas, I was
in Virginia, and you kind of get your hopes up that, oh,
maybe somebody is interested in this story because it was
so long ago, and both of those producers wanted to
take our story and make political statements out of it.
I say, I'm about as a political as you're going
(44:28):
to get. So you get your hopes up, but then
nothing happens and you get disappointed. So when I got
the call about this guy named Eric Newman and Hollywood
wanted to talk to us, I refused to call him
to start with. And the guy that called me was
an old Breen buddy, and I told him, I said, okay,
he cussed me out to what he did, and I's like, okay,
I'll call him. I'll call him. So I called Eric
and he kind of gave me his little spill on
(44:50):
the phone and I said, you know, thank you, but
I think we'll pass. And he got real quiet on
the phone. I said to Eric, are you still there?
And he's like, I can't believe you just said no.
And we've since learned that people will pretty much sell
their soul to be on TV in Hollywood. I mean,
there's some strange people out there. And so he said, listen,
I'm coming to Washington next month. Would you can I
take you to dinner. I have a couple of writers.
(45:11):
Let's just talk about this and see if we can
change your mind. And againy, you will understand this. I'm
thinking that's going to be a free dinner and a
really nice restaurant. Yes, I will meet you. That it
was as a French restaurant, so we you know, after
we talked to them, I just kind of developed a
connection with them. They were very open and honest and
(45:31):
transparent about everything. And so we're getting ready to leave
the restaurant. He says, so what are you going to do?
And I said, well, let me talk to Hoare and
let's maybe we'll pursue this and see where it goes.
So my initial conversation with Eric was in February of thirteen.
In March is when we had dinner. In May, we
signed contracts with Netflix, and at the end of June,
I retired from DEEA. I retired from law enforcement after
(45:53):
thirty eight years. And in July we were sitting in
Hollywood starting to write the first season of Narco's with
all the writers. So it went just like that.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Perfect, perfect Tommy for you. The obvious question you want
to ask is who's going to play you? At what
point in time did you ask who's going to play It?
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Wasn't too far into it. There was between Eric and
one of his other producers is a guy named Chris Francato,
who this and I have stayed friends and I've worked
on a couple of other projects with him. And I
think what they would do is they would there are
organizations in Hollywood that, you know, their talent Agency, so
they represent certain actors and actresses, and so they would
(46:34):
bring us these booklets and said here's somebody you know
the book that might be this thick and they'd say,
here's some of the people were thinking about playing your part.
And he started going through. Then you see John Travolta,
and you see Armie Hammer, and you see Jake Jillen Hall,
and I'm like, holy cow, I'm not a big TV watcher,
but even I knew who these people were. And I
think it was just to playcad us, to keep us
(46:55):
from asking questions, because that's not who they hired at all.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Right, just keep these idiots happy.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Exactly, That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
It's an experience and that it's been. I believe it's
one of the top Netflix series that they put out,
the original series. And the question that often gets us too,
when your life or the investigations played out in the
TV world, was it true and in terms of things
that happened, what's your take on Knickos.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
The timeline, the chronological timeline is pretty accurate, but we
did it only in our own analysis of the first
two seasons, because that's the twenty episodes about Pablo Escobar,
and we figured that about a third of what you
see in there is true. The second third, well, those
events happened, but they haven't been portrayed correctly. They've been
dramatized greatly, or they've taken other incidents and combined them
(47:48):
and things like that. But then that last there is
just straight out and make believe Hollywood. You know, I
was never kidnapped. We weren't pushing people out of helicopter
doors at three thousand feet. Javier wasn't passing class find
information to lost peppies. But like I take you know
one on stage, what I joke around about it. What
is true is that Javier really is a man slut.
(48:12):
And it's funny because when his wife's when his wife's
in the audience, I always go before the show and say, Beverly,
you know what I'm going to say, Are you okay
with us? It's like, yeah, go ahead, don't know what
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Well that that's good, but that's certainly the way he
was portrayed, but he seems to enjoy it. It must
be great. You two still been in contact. When you've
been through an experience like you went through. I take
it you've remained lifelong friends. And you must be having
a ball doing what you're doing because you do some
live shows as well. You've been able to overdo Australia
(48:44):
and UK and across America. You enjoying yourself?
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, brother, I'm having a blast. It's we've been on
every content that except Africa and Antarctica, and I'm not
going to Antarctica. But we were supposed to go to
Africa the first year of COVID, and of course that
killed that. That our four years before COVID, we averaged
seventy five shows a year. So I saw hobbyer born
and I saw my wife, but my marriage was stronger
(49:09):
than ever.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't on You've got to get a
wife from him. You probably probably probably seek of him.
And what's the you're also doing the podcast Game of Crimes.
What's what's the backstory to that?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
It's very similar to what you're doing. It's I started
out with a friend of mine. We came up to
this idea. He was used to be a Kansas State
trooper and a detective out there and during COVID, we
got bored and decided we start a podcast. And I
don't even know what a podcast was, but he did,
so we're He had to leave the show last April
because he still had a day job and they increased
(49:45):
his responsibilities, but they also doubled his paycheck and that
pays a whole lot more than a podcast. Okay, but
coming up on the end of the fourth year here
in June, going to start the fifth year. Every show
has a guest. It's mostly current or law enforcement. Occasionally
a first responder or military. I bring in the military veterans,
(50:07):
and even every once in a while I'll bring in
a former bad guy and then let the listeners get
the perspective from his viewpoint. And most of them, they
they have to have a tone for for their crimes.
You know, most of them have done their time in
prison and they've changed their lives. And I have one
guy that was the just a couple of months ago,
that was the president of the Hell's Angels in Los
(50:27):
Angeles for thirty five years, and he really wouldn't come
off of it. He did his prison time. But you know,
I asked him, I said, anything you'd changed in your life,
and he's like, Nope, not a thing. So you know,
he's the only one that really hasn't come across the
you know, to be a good guy.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Now, it's interesting, interesting, Steve, you're touring, touring the world.
You've got the TV series pubcast, Wilse. I write a book,
Man Hunters and the Bringing Them Pablo Escoba, which I
read cover the cover, and it's a great read and
gives a really good insight into what you've what you've done.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Just to give you a little inside secret, we had
a go straighter. No no, well, I tried to and
it looked like a third reader had written.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Well when I left the Cops and trying to like
I was doing journalism and writing articles and the book
it looked like a fact sheet until someone pulled me
aside and slapped me and said, it looks stupid. Had
a bit of color to this. We just don't want
a fact shet. Okay, all right, I had a bit
if I went back to the cops. Now, I'd love
(51:37):
to write a fact sheet because would be very creative.
It it'd be a cold, dark night when I came
across the seas. Oh yeah, yeah, anyway, look, thank you
very much for your time, and we literally have just
scratch scratched the surface of your stories. But from a
law enforcement officers point of view, I think what you did,
(52:01):
I can see the sacrifices you made, and we haven't
really delved into all the sacrifices you made in your
personal sacrifices hunting down the world's most wanted man and
all the other things that you've done in your career.
But also someone like you, I think inspires law enforcement officers,
Like you're this dumb, dumb kid from the country that
(52:24):
ended up living the life that you live because of
the job that you did.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Yeah, I've been blessed in my life. I've been blessed
in my career. You know, you mentioned the families of
our families that sacrifice so much. I refer to them
as the unsung heroes, so I always give them a
shout out, and just to finish up about the esc
of our story, the real heroes. It's not half of
your opinion, Steve Murphy. It's not the United States. It's
(52:51):
Columbia National Police because they took their country back. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Yeah, no, it always comes across when I hear you
talk about giving the tribute to to the sacrifices they
made as well. But look it's been an honor and
the privilege and I've really enjoyed, enjoyed the chaps.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Take care of again.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
You look like you're enjoying life.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Life is good. I'm sitting at the beach right now,
so there you got good stuff. Thanks for having me on.
Thank you.
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