When my doctor told me I had breast cancer, there was just one thing I wanted – my husband to scoop me up in his arms and tell me that it would be all right.
Roger is the sort of man who always seems to have a solution for everything. And I needed his unshakable confidence more than ever.
I wanted him to promise that we would get through this together as we always did. I wanted him to be the one to break the news to our three children, reassuring them he would get me the best possible treatment and there was nothing to worry about.
But I had to break the news to him over a crackly phone line. We had just 20 minutes, our daily allotted time, before the line went dead.
Because Roger was more than 9,000 miles away, serving a life sentence in an Australian prison.
My husband was one of the world’s most prolific cannabis smugglers, a key player in operations run by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s cartel and the infamous British king of cannabis, Howard Marks. Roger was so prolific that he organised more than 200 flights into the US, and at his most successful was earning £2.5 million a day.
My cancer diagnosis came in 2010. Roger had been jailed nine years earlier – and would serve another ten – and I’d already coped with so many challenges alone. But this one seemed almost insurmountable.
I could have been angry with Roger for landing me in this horrendous situation. I could have decided I was going to divorce him.
Marrie and Roger in 1975. Roger was one of the world’s most prolific cannabis smugglers, a key player in operations run by Pablo Escobar’s cartel and British king of cannabis Howard Marks
Even our children – Marya, then 44, Miriam, 37, and Rhett, 29 – said they wouldn’t have blamed me.
But when you love someone, you put up with the rough as well as the smooth… even when the rough is as extreme as it was with Roger.
He was finally released four years ago, after that 18-year spell in Australia, followed by a year in solitary in an American jail.
He’s spent more than 33 years in jail in four different continents. Now both 82, we have to make the most of the precious time we have left together.
I was a naïve 19-year-old when we met on holiday at a little lakeside cottage near my home in Ontario, Canada. Roger had a temporary job at a local farm and sauntered by wearing an eye-catching Panama. We got talking and couldn’t stop.
I gave him my address and we started corresponding. We wanted the same things from life – travel, adventure and fun.
We married 18 months later in February 1964 when we were 21. I joined Roger on his family’s farm in South Georgia. We were madly in love and did everything together, even driving our tractors side by side. But after our first child arrived in 1966, life began to get tougher.
We relied on selling eggs and when the price dropped, bills mounted and we faced losing our farm. That’s when Roger discovered his first illegal money-spinner: making ‘moonshine’ whisky. It was illegal to sell home-brew alcohol and Roger made a fortune because he didn’t pay tax.
He was finally released four years ago, after an 18-year spell in Australia followed by a year in solitary in an American jail.
I was devastated when I discovered he was breaking the law. As a Christian who prays and attends church regularly, I struggled terribly. (Yes, I have often felt like a terrible hypocrite since.) But Roger assured me that he wasn’t hurting anyone.
Looking back, this was the first step on the slippery slope. After getting investigated by the taxman – Roger’s first run-in with the law – he moved from moonshine to cannabis and then cocaine. All the while I managed to mentally remove myself from what was going on – the only way I could cope with the guilt.
The drug smuggling started by accident. Roger was a pilot, having learnt to fly on the family farm. By then we’d moved to California, where he got a regular job in the Fire Department. Thanks to the moonshine business, he had enough money to buy a plane and we used to fly to Mexico for holidays. One day a friend told him about the money that was to be made bringing cannabis over the border into the US.
Roger was intrigued. I was worried but he made it sound so benign – it was just moving a product from A to B with big rewards. Besides, we needed the money.
The first time he came home and emptied a sack of money over the bed, I couldn’t believe it. I remember putting my hands over my face and squealing like a little girl at Christmas. In that one trip he made $10,000 (£7,850), more than he was making in a year at the Fire Department. As wrong as it was, it’s hard to turn your back on that kind of money.
We paid off our debts, Roger bought a new car and gave money to his six siblings so they could buy their own homes and go to university.
But it wasn’t long before he got caught in Mexico – we don’t know how. He phoned me from a prison cell and I went into survival mode. I grabbed a bag of money from the loft and drove to the jail.
It was like walking into the jaws of hell. There were hundreds of men hanging out of their cells, shrieking and caterwauling at me. Wives like me clustered around the edges with their pathetic little food parcels.
The first time Roger was arrested, he was horribly tortured. They’d stripped him naked, then packed hot chili pepper up his bottom
Roger had been horribly tortured. They’d stripped him naked, then packed hot chili pepper up his bottom. They’d even strung a dead man up on a meat hook in his cell to frighten him. He served ten days before I handed over thousands in bribes to get him out.
That should have been the wake-up call we needed to turn our backs on crime. But it’s like having a baby. Once the pain is over, you forget it – particularly when you’re young.
I accepted he wasn’t going to stop and, as time went on, my misgivings just got buried deeper and deeper.
By the time Roger met Howard Marks in the 1980s, we were living a fantastic life in Majorca. Charming with a lovely big smile, Howard and his wife Judy were normal parents bringing up three little children. On the surface at least.
Howard earned the nickname Mr Nice because he boasted he never hurt a soul. Well, he certainly hurt us – by landing Roger in jail again.
Spanish and American police were determined to nail Howard, one of the world’s biggest dealers. It was said if you lived in London and smoked pot, you’d have been supplied by Howard.
Roger was Howard’s primary pilot for US West Coast shipments so they were determined to get him too. We’d just left seven-year-old Rhett’s school where he’d given a music recital and were walking down the street when armed police pounced. I’ve tried to protect the children from the horribleness but I will always feel guilty for moments like that.
The next day I went to see Howard, because he owed Roger a lot of money, and that’s when the police raided their house. Judy was still in bed and I was trying to change her baby’s nappy in the middle of a police raid. I didn’t stop shaking or crying for a week.
Roger managed to escape from the court house by jumping out of the window. It wasn’t the first or last time he got away. Other times he’s sneaked under fences.
Together we went on the run. It meant all of us living under the radar. For years we were in Europe. We had Brazilian passports and false names. We travelled the world as a family.
Our last house in Santa Barbara was a gorgeous mansion with numerous bedrooms, underground passages and a pool. We were in the middle of remodelling it when Roger was arrested for the final time.
It was July 2001 and Roger, who by then was working for Pablo Escobar, was caught on a remote beach near Perth, Australia, with almost a ton of cocaine. With that amount of drugs on him, I knew it was serious.
He was found guilty of importing $400 million (£314 million) worth of cocaine and sentenced to life in prison.
It was one of the biggest drug busts in Australian history.
I was banned from visiting Roger after I was caught bringing $1,000 above my allowance into Australia. Maybe they thought I was going to try to bribe the guards. In some ways it was a blessing. Seeing him briefly and then having to leave again, flying over Australia and watching it get smaller and smaller was like reopening the wound.
Those first few weeks after he was jailed felt like he’d died. I had panic attacks when I couldn’t breathe.
By then the girls had left home, but Rhett was only 19 and still living with me. I tried my best to reassure him that at least Daddy was safe and he’d be free one day, but Rhett was devastated.
It seemed like a life sentence for me too. We lost everything – rightly in the eyes of the law, of course. Our £16 million house was confiscated. I spent a year sofa surfing before finally finding a little two-bedroom flat for myself and Rhett. I was allowed a daily 20-minute phone call at 4.30pm my time. When you live with someone, you can’t imagine reducing your relationship to a phone call. But we probably spoke more intimately and intensely in that call than many normal couples do.
Gradually I rebuilt a life alone. I volunteered. I went on holiday. And I started going to church again – I’d felt too much of a hypocrite to go before. But I was crippled with guilt and shame that my husband was serving a life sentence.
Only my family and closest three girlfriends knew what had happened and where Roger was. When people asked after my husband, I would say: ‘It’s something I’d rather not talk about.’
It took me a long time, but gradually I started opening up. I’m sure some people judged me, but others were forgiving.
Roger had been behind bars for nine years when I was diagnosed with breast cancer aged 68.
With no hope of seeing him, all I could do was battle it alone with the help of my incredible daughters and friends.
I know many people must have wondered why I didn’t divorce Roger. Even my father – a devout Christian – suggested it. But the truth is I love him. I always have.
The kids kept in regular touch with Skype calls but he missed weddings, graduations and births. Despite their decidedly unconventional childhood, I’m proud to say they’ve never been in trouble with the law – or blamed their dad for his choices.
Marya’s a farmer, Miriam’s a doctor and Rhett is in real estate. We have three grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Finally in April 2020, after serving 18 years in Australia, followed by a year in solitary confinement in Los Angeles, Roger was released.
It was like Christmas Day. I got my apartment perfect for him. I polished his shoes and pressed his clothes, which were all still in the wardrobe.
When he walked through the door, we hugged and wept buckets. Since then the adjustment’s been huge. I’d spent 20 years leading my own life. Roger had to learn everything from how to operate a mobile (he’d never seen one before) to how to use the internet and an ATM machine.
In some ways being together after so long has been as much of a shock as being apart. If we didn’t love each other so much, it might have broken us. But we look on it as a chance to enjoy a whole new marriage.
We’ve got wounds but there’s so much love. And we have so many memories. How many other couples married for 60 years can say the same?
- As told to Tessa Cunningham
- Hunting Mr Nice: The Cannabis Kingpin is available to watch on BBC iPlayer
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