Billy Hayes, a 23 year-old nearly invisible young man, found adventure through smuggling small amounts of hashish from Istanbul to America—until the police caught him. His life was changed forever and what he went through in captivity makes up the first installment in the National Geographic Television’s series Locked Up Abroad: The Real Midnight Express. Hayes’s story, raw, brutal, and powerful, was screened for an audience at the Paley Center for Media, on June 28, 2010. This documentary is both a cautionary tale and a coming of age story, as Hayes survives his ordeal in the Sagmalcilar prison, becoming a man in the process.
The program begins with an almost brazen Hayes rehashing the three times he successfully smuggled two kilos of hashish from Istanbul to America. Istanbul’s beauty is captivating, yet there is another side to the city that the casual visitor never sees. On Hayes’s fourth trip to Istanbul, he is caught boarding a plane to JFK, hashish strapped to his stomach. During this scene, the music ratchets up the suspense as the audience hopes Hayes will elude capture. Through reenactment, these scenes convey the emotions Hayes no doubt felt as heavily armed Turkish police surrounded him.
Once in prison, Hayes faces his new reality. He is denied small comforts, such as a blanket in his cold cell. More horrifying—and the fear of any mother who has ever permitted her adult children to travel to far off lands—is the knowledge that this young man will spend years in a foreign jail with little hope of early release. Bad soon turns worse when Hayes’s sentence is extended from four years two months to 30 years. (Scene above is from another in the Nat Geo series about being in prison in the Philippines).
Hayes’s own re-telling of the night he escaped is thrilling, resembling something out of an action film. Here we meet Hayes the man, whose bravery and quest to live his life outside a Turkish prison illustrates what a prisoner will risk to recapture his freedom.
From the beginning to the end of this extraordinary tale, Hayes conveys the sorrow he felt throughout his ordeal for his family, what his recklessness brought to their lives. While he escaped an Istanbul prison, he will never break free from his guilt.
This first installment in Locked Up Abroad: The Real Midnight Express recommends the Nat Geo series. (Lia, above, was caught smuggling heroin). Hayes’s story, as well as what follows, will serve as a reminder to be thankful for our freedoms.
Locke Up Abroad: The Rea Midnight Express
The National Geographic Channel
10 p.m. Wednesday
