Escaped con tells Radio Krem: “I feared for my life”
For the last few weeks life has been nothing if not exciting for convicted burglar John Bartley. On July fourth he was severely wounded in the head when three attackers entered his jail cell at Hattieville Prison. His roommate, Glenford Gillett, was killed in the assault and Bartley’s status as the only witness to the crime did not make him a popular prisoner. The story took another turn on Monday night when Bartley used the opportunity of a nationwide power failure to bust out of his new home in the minimum-security bootcamp area of the prison. In a strange footnote to the escape, the fugitive later called prison authorities to try and negotiate the terms of his return. The offer was declined and authorities vowed to intensify their efforts to bring him to justice. But the story does not end there. Today a man who identified himself as John Bartley made another phone call–not to the prison, but to Krem Radio. Claiming that he was calling from Chiapas in Mexico, but sounding like he was next door, Bartley told listeners that he escaped to protest his treatment at Hattieville. He said that he wanted to turn his life around and had attempted to enroll in correspondence courses in computer technology. However, he claimed that he was rebuffed by prison officials and singled out Prison Governor Bernard Adolphus as being particularly unsympathetic.
John Bartley, Escaped prisoner speaking on Krem Radio
“I didn’t escape from prison just to escape from prison sake. I did it because I want better for myself; I didn’t want anybody to kill me. I don’t want to catch in no kind of catastrophe with no other inmate. I get chopped in my head, I took twenty-two stitches in my head, eleven inside and eleven outside. I was supposed to go back to the hospital and Mr. Adolphus didn’t send me. I don’t know why. I asked to get my things from my cell and I didn’t get my things from my cell. I was in bootcamp with nothing. I didn’t even have a plate to eat out of. Then people coming in front of my cell pointing in my face and tell me I’m dead, I’m next, and they even killed a cat that I had to show me that you know, I’m next. I try, I make reports and make reports and nobody, helped me. Nobody helped me.”
In his phone call Bartley claimed that he has already secured employment in the United States as a computer technician. Authorities in Belize believe that his next job will be rearing pigs at the Hattieville Prison farm.
