|
|
|
 Editorials | Issues | April 2008 
Brenda Martin Reflects on Life Behind Bars
 Charles Rusnell - Edmonton Journal
go to original
| | 'This place has aged me 20 years' | | |
Guadalajara, Mexico — Brenda Martin stands in the burning midday sun behind a wire fence inside the Puente Grande Women’s Prison — waiting, just as she has for more than two years.
She is painfully thin, her face is haggard and drawn, her large limpid brown eyes are dull and lifeless.
After nearly an hour of pleading and arguing with prison authorities, I am frisked and allowed into the open prison courtyard. Already waiting with Martin is Deb Tieleman, her childhood friend from Waterloo, Ont.
Martin hugs me briefly. Our story is that I am her brother-in-law from Canada and Tieleman is her sister. She leads us to a small table under a white canvas gazebo.
“This place has aged me 20 years,” she said, perhaps sensing my shock at her appearance. “I have been here for two years, two months and two days exactly.”
Martin worked as a chef in Puerto Vallarta for Edmonton con man Alyn Waage, who operated what is believed to be one of the largest Internet-based frauds in history.
She has maintained she knew nothing of his operation but she was arrested five years after Waage, who is now serving 10 years in a U.S. prison, and charged with knowingly accepting illicit funds.
Tieleman tells Martin that this will be one of her final days in the prison. Innocent or guilty, she will be leaving the prison on Tuesday. Canada has made a deal with Mexico to immediately extradite her if she is found guilty.
But rather than joy at the news of her looming freedom, Martin explodes in rage and leaps to her feet.
“I am not guilty. I have done nothing wrong,” she shouts, stabbing the table with her forefinger. She stares off in the distance as she rants for several minutes. Tieleman attempts to calm her.
Just as quickly as she flared up, Martin suddenly sits and becomes catatonic, refusing to respond to Tieleman.
Martin’s life in prison has clearly shaken her. She reaches out to hold our hands, apologizes and pleads us not to be angry with her.
The courtyard is a pleasant oasis of green grass, and large shade trees. The prison allows mothers to keep their children with them until age three. Several are sliding down a concrete ramp on flattened one-litre plastic bottles.
Across the courtyard, behind another fence is the dormitory where Martin spends her nights. She shares a three by four-metre cell with 10 other women and three-month old baby.
Martin tells us she is fortunate because she has one of the three beds in the room. The others sleep on mattresses on the floor, including in the bathroom.
Earlier, we had gone on a tour of the prison grounds. We met one of Martin’s cellmates. She smiles, displaying a set of silver-rimmed teeth, and asks how Martin’s case is going.
After we part, Martin explains that the woman is a convicted kidnapper. She and her husband kidnapped 14 people, including women and children. If necessary, they cut off their fingers to extort ransom from their wealthy families. They decapitated one man whose family refused to pay. The woman is serving 14 years; her husband, 41 years.
“At least they get conjugal visits,” Martin joked.
Martin tells us about another inmate, who is infamous in Mexico. Known in the media as the Beauty Queen Killer, the former beauty queen killed 16 women by injecting them with motor oil rather than collagen.
We pass a group of women. They are muscular with short-cropped hair and their arms, legs and necks are covered with jailhouse tattoos. They menace Martin and hiss under their breath at her. She ignores them.
“They are gang members and that one,” she said pointing to one of the women, “beat me up. She punched me in the face. They gave her one day in solitary confinement. One day! That is nothing to her.”
It is emotionally draining to spend time with Martin, who is suffering and has worsened her own mental state by constantly dwelling on the injustice of her case. At last, the calls comes. Visiting hours are over.
We walk back to the courtyard gate. Tieleman hugs Martin for several months. When it is my turn, she begins to sob and keens like a small, lost child.
“I want to go home,” she cries. “I want my mom.” |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us