A Life Wasted

Leaving Early

This is one of those sections where I can't get into a great deal of detail. For one reason the authorities don't like me talking about their security and for the other I have no intentions of giving lessons in the art of escape. Anyone can Google this and read that it was widely reported that I had found and exploited a "design flaw" in the jail and that I had managed to defeat a high security door with a plastic pocket comb. It is true that I found a design flaw in the jail and I certainly exploited it, but I did not get through a high security prison door with a plastic comb. In my experienced opinion that would be impossible. The authorities know well how I got through that door, but since they have never said how, I won't write about it. As I said, it is not my intention to teach a course on escape.

A brief newspaper account of the event summarized it as follows: "Waagner escaped from the Dewitt County Jail in Clinton [IL] on Feb. 22, 2001, by using a plastic comb to pick a lock on an access door leading to the facility's plumbing system. That gave him access to the attic, where he climbed through a drain to the jail roof. ...he climbed through a 17-inch hole in the roof and fled."

On the afternoon of February 22, 2001, I managed to reach the top of the cells, a low crawl space, reporters have called the attic. Above this was the jail's flat roof. I managed to remove a heavy drain panel which gave me a seventeen-inch, round hole to get through. My arrest weight was 225 pounds, but in the seventeen months of my confinement I'd dropped down to 190 pounds. You'd think that a 6' 1", 190-pound guy wouldn't have any problem fitting through a round seventeen-inch hole, but this is not the case. It is common prison lore that if you can get your head through a hole your body will fit too. I believed this to be true until later that night.

Earlier in the day, when I had made the hole I decided to make my break that night after 10:00 pm lock down. This would give me fifteen minutes before they knew I was gone. That night I watched the weather on TV and learned that the low that night would be sixteen degrees. It was February 22nd in central Illinois, so that was no surprise, but it was not what I wanted to hear. I thought about waiting a few days for the cold spell to pass, but immediately discounted the idea. I wasn't being impatient, but I was concerned that the path I had made to the roof could be discovered before then. That wasn't likely, but after seventeen months of working to get to this point it was not a risk I was willing to take just because it was cold outside.

When it was time for lock down I was standing by my cell door and went in the second the door was unlocked. I went through the path I had made and up above the cell, removed the drain again and stuck my head out the hole. It had been seventeen months since I'd seen the night sky. Even though the sky was low angry looking clouds it was a beautiful sight. Thinking I could just push my body through the hole I tried to do just that and nearly became stuck. I removed my orange jump suit and my t-shirt to make my form thinner then tried again. It took five precious minutes of experimenting before I figured out the best way to squeeze through that seventeen-inch hole and even then I had to apply so much force that I cut my chest on the steel roof and broke two ribs.

When I finally stood on the roof I was so elated that I had to fight back the urge to shout with joy. That moment immediately passed as the severe cold hit my nearly naked body. To say that it was cold would do injustice to the language. It was freezing cold. You'd have to experience sixteen degrees on your bare skin to understand how it felt, but that is not something I would suggest you try. I had to lie down on the roof to reach in and grab the orange jump suit and t-shit I'd laid on a pipe. I almost couldn't reach it, but managed. Putting those on made me feel less exposed, but no less cold.

I ran across the roof to the back part of the building where I found a dark patch of ground below me. It was a two story building with a three-foot false face on the roof, so about twenty-seven feet to the ground. A ground which I knew would be frozen solid, so it would be like falling on concrete. I crawled over the roof's elevated side, hung from my fingers so I could get my feet as close to the ground as possible then pushed out a little to clear the wall and let go. My fear was that I would either twist or break my ankle, so when I hit the ground I rolled backwards. I rolled over once then came up running. It was perfectly done which didn't even surprise me because I was so deep into the zone. You hear people talk about "being in the zone" but it is a rare thing. That night I was in it. Of that there is little doubt.

A train track ran behind the jail and I could often hear a train passing about this time of night. My plan had been to hop on that passing train and ride it for about thirty minutes. But the train hadn't passed yet so I followed the path of least resistance and ran down the track to the west because that was the only direction that was dark. Because I was wearing a bright orange jump suite staying in the dark was the only choice I had.

*Sorry for making you all wait for an update. I've been talking to dad and trying to figure out my plan for the rest of this book; whether or not to post the whole book on Wattpad. We've decided to move forward with posting on here, and will continue regular postings in March. If you can't wait until then, I lowered the cost of the book on Amazon to .99 cents for the next week, starting February 14th. Otherwise, I will see you back here in March for the next update. As always, thank you so much for reading and voting. Dad and I are so grateful for your continued support! Because you have been so supportive, is why we have decided to continue with the postings. We are truly grateful <3

~ Rebecca