I knew it was a wild-goose chase even before I boarded the plane to Miami. I didn’t want to go because I knew that Lieutenant Martinez’s radio frequency intercepts were bringing us closer and closer to Pablo Escobar’s hiding place. We were certain that he was still in Medellín. We were also certain that he was increasingly desperate.
Escobar’s top associates were dropping like flies. A few days after Escobar’s family tried to flee to Germany in late November, Juan Camilo Zapata, a major trafficker and money launderer for the Medellín Cartel, was gunned down by members of the Search Bloc at his ranch on the outskirts of Medellín. On November 26, 1993, the day he died, I sent the following cable: “The Bogotá Country Office (BCO) received information from the Colombian National Police/Medellín Task Force regarding the death of Juan Camilo Zapata-Vasquez … This occurred earlier the same day in Medellín, Colombia, while trying to serve an outstanding warrant charging Zapata with murder.”
Zapata bred horses and was the owner of the Castillo Marroquín, a Moorish-style castle in the northern part of Bogotá, where he threw lavish parties and had a discothèque. During the first search for Escobar, we raided the castle, but he was long gone. In those early years of hunting Escobar, Zapata managed to fly under the radar and wasn’t very well known, even to Colombian law enforcement, although we tried really hard to convince them that he was a major player. Zapata, known by his underworld nickname, El Caballista, was also responsible for organizing kidnappings for the cartel. He also headed the drug gangs in Bogotá.
“According to the CNP, they were able to pinpoint Zapata’s location through the use of electronic tracking equipment,” the cable went on to say. “At approximately 5:30 p.m., the CNP/Medellín task force arrived at the Finca La Florida, located in the Antioquían community of Copacabana. When approached by the CNP, Zapata fired several rounds from a 9 mm pistol. The CNP returned fire, killing Zapata.”
With Zapata and others out of the picture, we all knew we were getting closer to the target himself.
December 1, 1993, was Escobar’s forty-fourth birthday, and he got careless; he celebrated by staying longer on the radio phone with his family. Later, we found out he even had a small celebration in hiding, complete with a birthday cake and a joint, accompanied by a lone bodyguard.
About a week before his birthday, you could feel the anticipation and excitement at the base. The atmosphere was positively electric. Escobar was speaking on the phone with greater frequency, and we knew that he was completely hard up for cash, as all his money launderers and sicarios were being rounded up by law enforcement or killed. We were also flooded with calls on the tip line, and tips poured in from Colombians with sightings of Escobar in Medellín. In addition, Steve and I were sending out about ten teletypes a day to our agents all over the world with tips on other members of the Medellín Cartel who had left Colombia. The leads, which led to dozens of arrests in the United States, were based on our intensive telephone intercepts, debriefings, and informants. We were also picking up a lot of leads from our colleagues in the States that we were passing on to the Search Bloc.
In Colombia, the calls between Escobar and Juan Pablo were getting longer and more frequent as de Greiff continued to put pressure on the drug lord to surrender to him. With his father on the run, the seventeen-year-old Juan Pablo had taken over the leadership of the organization. “Juan Pablo is the main person coordinating Escobar’s daily activities (i.e., security, mail, strategies),” we wrote in a classified DEA cable on September 21, 1993. “Juan Pablo has been overheard threatening people on behalf of Pablo … Juan Pablo Escobar’s lead in the Pablo Escobar organization is another indication that Pablo Escobar is at an all-time low as he is having to rely on his son … to manage his activities.”
In the last two weeks of his life, we intercepted Escobar pleading with his son to try to find him cash, as all his purveyors had either died or gone underground to escape Los Pepes and the police. It was those calls that ultimately led to his demise because they allowed Lieutenant Martinez to track him with greater precision. We all knew that the Search Bloc was getting closer, and there was a great sense of excitement as we went out on raids. In many cases, we knew that we had just narrowly missed him, and during one of the last raids on a ranch outside Medellín, Escobar had abandoned the house but had gone into the nearby forests to get better reception on his phone. When he realized that the ranch had been raided, he somehow managed to escape. But while we may have narrowly missed catching him in those last days, we were absolutely sure that Escobar was where he had always been—in his hometown of Medellín, hiding in plain sight.
But the order to go to Miami came directly from Ambassador Busby, who had been briefed by federal agents there that Escobar was on his way to Haiti and that our old source Navegante, who had assisted us with the hunt for Rodríguez Gacha, would give me the information, but he wanted to do so in person. Navegante was then living at an undisclosed location in South Florida. And he insisted upon giving me—and only me—the tip about Escobar.
I didn’t want to go. I argued with Toft; I argued with Busby. But in the end, I couldn’t really argue with the U.S. ambassador, and so a day after Escobar’s birthday—December 2, 1993—I made my way to El Dorado International Airport and got on the first flight to Miami.
When I arrived in Miami in the afternoon, I was met at the airport by one of the local DEA agents, who drove me to the prearranged meeting place—a cavernous warehouse next to the international airport.
Navegante was on the phone when I walked in. As soon as I saw him, I could tell something big was going down. He had a startled expression on his face, and his eyes were wide open as he watched me enter the warehouse with the other agent. As I got closer, he cradled the phone on his shoulder and looked right at me.
“Acaban de matar a Escobar,” he said.
They just killed Escobar.
December 2, 1993, was a Thursday. I was in Medellín at the Carlos Holguín base while Javier was being sent to Miami to follow up on a potential lead. We knew it would be a waste of time, but it wasn’t much different from the thousands of false starts and fruitless raids that had characterized the second manhunt for Pablo Escobar.
To tell you the truth, Colombia was getting to me, and I was counting the days before Christmas and our trip back to the States for a two-week vacation. This would be Monica’s first Christmas with the whole family, and absolutely everyone was excited to meet her. I also couldn’t wait to see my two sons, Josh and Zach.
I woke up early that morning, mostly because my room was located directly over the kitchen area. Even with the windows closed in our barracks, we could still hear the kitchen staff clanging pots and pans at the usual time—about 3:30 in the morning—as they prepared breakfast for the troops. I got up between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m., got dressed, and went to find out what was being planned by the CNP commanders that day.
Because of the activities of Los Pepes, it seemed that more reliable intelligence was coming in. More and more daily operations were being conducted. For days, the atmosphere at the base was simply on fire, as if we knew we were getting very close to capturing Escobar. We hadn’t seen this type of excitement for many months.
First, I checked in with the other gringos to see what they had going and to learn what new intelligence they were working on. Curiously, I found one of the CIA guys packing up their data collection equipment and carrying it onto a truck he rented. I can’t say I was that sorry to see them go.
Next, I checked in with the guys who were manning the tip line, and then with the data collection guys. After that, I knocked on Colonel Martinez’s office door, but it was too early and he had not yet arrived. He sometimes attended other meetings and was known to work in his bunk room in the mornings. I also called the DEA head office at the embassy to let them know I was still alive and kicking and to see if they had anything new.
A short time later, the DIJIN unit we worked closely with left the base to accompany Lieutenant Hugo Martinez and the units operating the direction finding equipment. The equipment used triangulation to locate where radio frequencies were coming from. At that time, mobile telephones worked on radio frequencies, and Lieutenant Martinez had spent months figuring out the frequency used by Escobar to talk with his family, who were then the only residents of the Tequendama Hotel in Bogotá.
We knew what frequency Escobar was talking on when he contacted his son to issue instructions and get updates. Every time Lieutenant Martinez got close with his RDFing equipment, the DIJIN guys would stage themselves in the general area of the signal.
After lunch, I was standing in the doorway of the room used by the Delta Force and Navy SEALs (the other gringos on the base), and I saw the CIA agent drive out of the base with the agency’s monitoring equipment, totally oblivious to the excitement around him. At the same time, I saw Colonel Martinez’s executive staff hurrying to the colonel’s office. I followed them to see what was happening. When I got to the door, Colonel Martinez motioned for me to come into his office with the others. He was talking and listening to a handheld portable police radio. The other Colombian police officers were obviously excited and were making arrangements to mount the entire Search Bloc for an operation. Obviously, it takes more than a few minutes to get six hundred police officers geared up and ready, to get the transport vehicles started and lined up, to brief the various levels of command as to what is taking place, and then mount up all the troops to go out.
I wasn’t sure who Colonel Martinez was talking to on the radio, but I had a good idea that it was the DIJIN advance group. They believed they’d located Escobar.
And then everything seemed to happen at once. Martinez’s executive staff began discussing different tactics and options, but it was obvious Colonel Martinez was in total control of the situation. He told his people in the field that we were getting everyone together and would be heading their way as quickly as possible. It sounded like he wanted the frontline troops to wait until help arrived, but he also told them to go ahead with their mission if they had no other choice.
Then the radio was quiet for several minutes, and I worried that this could be another false alarm. In the eighteen months since Escobar escaped from jail, we had lived through fifteen thousand raids and hundreds of sightings of Escobar. In every case, he eluded us.
Still, something was different. Everyone was talking quietly with the colonel, and there was a very distinct sense of excitement in the air. I stood stock-still, straining to listen to the police radio.
After what seemed like an eternity, a triumphant voice came over the static of the radio.
“Viva Colombia!”
Everyone in the room gave a loud cheer.
We all knew Escobar was dead.
I’m not sure I said anything to Navegante when I heard the news. I simply turned around and had the DEA agent drive me back to the airport, where I managed to catch a flight back to Bogotá. Steve also called me to tell me the great news, and by the time I boarded my flight, the whole world knew that Pablo Escobar was dead.
The flight back to Bogotá was full of press people on their way to cover the story. I recognized many of them from Telemundo and Univision, but I did not say anything to anyone.
A lot of different emotions were racing through my mind as I took my seat on the plane. I was thrilled about Escobar’s death and was eager to get back to Colombia as quickly as possible. But I was also angry. After six long years of tracking Escobar in Colombia, I had been called out of the country on a tip I instinctively knew to be false. I’m not sure how Haiti came into the picture. We had also received intelligence that Escobar was hiding in a church in Bogotá. But nothing fit the pattern. Escobar was a creature of Medellín. His strongest support as well as his greatest enemies were in his hometown, and he never strayed very far. He had poured millions into community development in the shantytowns and was still beloved by thousands of impoverished residents of the city. Medellín was his comfort zone. On top of that, we knew he was worried sick about his family’s safety. It was unlikely he would ever leave Medellín, let alone Colombia.
After I got back to Bogotá, I headed straight for the embassy. Toft came out of his office when he heard that I had arrived and congratulated me on Escobar’s death. We never spoke about Miami again. It was as if it had never happened.
After congratulating Colonel Martinez and the others, I ran to the room where the tip line was located to report these events to the DEA office in Bogotá. I called the front office at the embassy but couldn’t get through. After several attempts, I called the DEA administrative office. One of the administrative assistants finally answered. I asked her to get Toft on the phone as soon as possible. I told her it was urgent. It seemed to take several long minutes before I heard his gruff voice on the line.
“The Colombian police just killed Escobar,” he said before I even had the chance to say hello.
He had already been contacted by his friend, CNP head Vargas. So much for being the first to tell Toft about a major event like this. His own contacts had beat me to it.
I told him I was heading out to the site in the Los Olivos neighborhood near the Atanasio Girardot Sports Complex that Escobar had built during his heyday in the early 1980s when he was still acting like Robin Hood. I told him I would report back later.
“Make sure you get a good look at the body,” ordered Toft. “Make sure Escobar’s really dead.”
I ran to the barracks to get my gear and camera, but when I came back out to the quad area, the entire Search Bloc had already vanished. The only people left were the guards and civilian personnel. I started going through myriad options in my mind on how I was going to get myself to the site where the gun battle had just taken place. At that point, a lone Jeep returned to the compound. It was Colonel Martinez, his driver, and a bodyguard. He’d come back to retrieve his video camera, and at his invitation, I jumped into the jeep and rode to the scene.
It was a quiet, residential district of two- and three-story row houses. Across the way was a small drainage waterway that ran down the street with a few small footbridges across the water. The telephone conversation between Juan Pablo and Escobar that resulted in pinpointing Escobar’s location had first led Lieutenant Martinez to the wrong place. Then he realized that there was water nearby that had negatively affected his readings. It was only after he compensated for the water and recalibrated his equipment that he was able to pinpoint Escobar’s exact hiding place in Los Olivos.
When I arrived with the colonel’s entourage, people were already streaming over the footpaths and gathering outside the house to find out what all the gunfire was about. As more and more police officers arrived, more and more people came out to watch. The word spread quickly that Escobar had been killed.
I accompanied Colonel Martinez into the three-story residence and saw several of the plainclothes DIJIN officers we worked with. All were excited and quick to tell me that Escobar had been killed. There was a lot of handshaking and backslapping. I learned that when Lieutenant Martinez located Escobar using the direction finding equipment, the DIJIN quickly stationed officers in the front and the rear of the house. Concerned that Escobar might have an alternate escape route that no one knew about or that he might call in reinforcements to help him escape, the DIJIN officers decided to bust through the door and capture him right away. The officers blasted the front door of the house open and rushed inside. Lieutenant Martinez had already seen Escobar through a window on the second floor of the house, but the officers took no chances. They searched and cleared the first floor. They made their way to the second floor, where Escobar had been seen, and that’s when Escobar began shooting at the police, who returned fire. Escobar made his way to the third floor with the police in hot pursuit. A window on that floor was next to the terra-cotta roof of the adjacent house, and Escobar’s bodyguard jumped out onto the roof and started firing his gun to cover Escobar’s escape. The police ordered him to stop and drop his weapon. When he continued to fire, Colombian National Police officers shot him, and he fell off the roof. Alvaro de Jesús Agudelo, known as El Limón (the Lemon), fell ten feet, landing on a grassy area next to the house. He was dead even before he hit the ground.
Escobar clambered barefoot out the same window and onto the roof of the adjoining house to escape. He stayed close to the wall of another house that was to the right side of the window. This wall gave him some protection from the officers on the ground but not from the officers who were pursuing him. Escobar carried two handguns, and he fired at the officers behind him as he started to move across the roof. These officers and the officers on the ground returned fire, striking Escobar several times. Escobar fell, his body sprawled on the roof, his white belly spilling out of an ill-fitting navy polo shirt.
The pop-pop of bullets that ended the life of the world’s first narcoterrorist happened so quickly that no one could quite believe he was really dead.
But dead he was.
After years of disappointments in the search for the world’s most brutal drug trafficker, it was a very good day for the Colombian National Police. They were thrilled with their accomplishment, and I was very happy for them.
And even though Escobar and his lone bodyguard had engaged the police in a firefight, none of the officers had been injured. One of the DIJIN officers did have a close call. As he came around a corner on the second floor to go up the stairs in pursuit of Escobar, he tripped and fell flat. At that exact moment, Escobar fired a shot at him. If the officer hadn’t tripped and fallen, he would have been struck by Escobar’s bullet. That fall ended up saving his life.
Colonel Martinez and I, along with several other CNP officers, went to the third-floor window where Escobar and his bodyguard had jumped out onto the roof of the neighboring two-story house. I saw almost all the DIJIN officers standing on the roof, some still holding their long guns, along with a body lying on the roof tiles. I glanced at the remains of the world’s most wanted man: He looked almost nothing like the stocky, mustachioed, smirking villain in the wanted posters. Escobar had put on a huge amount of weight in hiding. He had a scruffy beard. His blood-splattered blue jeans looked new and were neatly rolled up at the ankles, obviously too long for him. The soles of his feet were cut and grimy from his desperate run through the house and the broken, uneven tiles on the roof.
When the officers saw me, they shouted to let me know they’d gotten Escobar. I waved back and then took several photos.
Next, I accompanied Colonel Martinez and his entourage back downstairs, and we walked around the block to the back street. When we reached the home where Escobar was lying on the roof, I saw a body sprawled on the grass—the remains of El Limón, the last sicario.
I took photos for later examination and evaluation. Next, we climbed a ladder to the roof where Escobar was located. I took numerous photos of Escobar’s body, as well as of his double shoulder holster rig and the two handguns he’d used to shoot at the police. I also took photos of the DIJIN officers standing near Escobar’s body. Many of the officers, including some uniformed officers, wanted their photo taken with Escobar, so I took those. The DIJIN officers wanted me to join them for a photo with Escobar, which I did. That photo of me on the roof, crouched behind Escobar’s body and clutching at one of his shirtsleeves, has become rather well-known, but it also created some challenges for me, especially in Washington and Bogotá in the immediate aftermath of Escobar’s death. The photo made it seem that an American had killed Escobar when all the work had actually been done by Colombian law enforcement.
But I wasn’t thinking about diplomatic expediency. Like everyone else around me, I was caught up in the euphoria of the moment. After so many years of terror, of hundreds of dead cops, the kidnappings and the bombs that killed innocent people, Pablo Escobar was dead. Let me underline that: He was dead. If I got caught up in that moment, well, okay, I admit it: I was overjoyed.
As I took photographs, I continued to examine the body. I saw a total of three wounds—one in the back of one leg, one in the buttocks, and one in the right ear. It was obvious that the wound that had killed him was the gunshot through his ear. As a young cop, I’d been trained in murder and suicide investigations, and I’d worked both before. As I looked at the area around the entry wound in Escobar’s ear, I didn’t see any signs of gunpowder burns, which are indicative of a suicide by firearm or of a gunshot being fired at very close range. This was clearly not a suicide. Determining the cause of death was important because years later, his son, Juan Pablo, for one, would try to manipulate the truth and claim that his father committed suicide on the roof. Somehow, this was supposed to make him seem brave.
But suicide was out of the question. The double shoulder holster rig was lying next to Escobar’s body along with two 9 mm handguns. The slide was locked back on one weapon, which indicated there were no bullets in that handgun. I’d already seen signs of a gun battle in the house, and there were obvious signs of another gun battle on the roof. After examining the scene and the evidence, I had no reason not to believe the Colombian police and their version of what had taken place. After all, Javier and I had entrusted our lives to these officers for the last year and a half, and not once did we suspect that we weren’t being told the truth.
While we were on the roof, I could see the crowds swelling on the sidewalk below. They were coming out to see if Escobar really was dead. I saw Escobar’s frantic mother and sister arrive. I watched as they argued with the police. Then the sister walked over to see the body of Escobar’s bodyguard and began yelling at the police that they had killed the wrong person. This was not her brother, she said. They managed to calm her down and then told her that the body of her brother was lying dead on the roof.
The Colombian military arrived and set up a perimeter to keep people away from the house while the investigation continued. The local media also began to arrive at the site, along with people from the medical examiner’s office. I spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Norberto Peláez, one of the military commanders, and we both agreed it was better that I not be seen by the media. I didn’t want to take any credit away from the Colombian National Police, nor did any of us want to create the appearance that the Americans had led and conducted this final operation. I climbed down off the roof and returned to the interior of the house where Escobar was killed. I took numerous photos of every room and the contents of the home. There was a yellow taxicab parked in the home’s garage area, which confirmed our suspicions that Escobar was freely moving around Medellín while speaking to his son on his mobile phone. In the last conversation they had, Juan Pablo was going through a list of questions that were part of an interview request from a Colombian media outlet.
By the early evening, I had shot four rolls of film, and I was ready to go back to the base. Peláez went with me and provided a few other officers for protection. They were very concerned about my safety and insisted upon taking me back, which I appreciated. We were all still ecstatic about the day’s events. I met with the other Americans at the base and relayed what I’d seen. I called Connie to let her know I was okay and then explained everything to Toft. I assured him I had no doubts whatsoever that Pablo Escobar was really dead.
Later that night, Escobar’s mother, Hermilda, and two sisters would identify the body at the city morgue—the same morgue where the bodies of more than four hundred policemen had passed over the last sixteen months—all of them murdered by Escobar’s henchmen during the second manhunt.
“Murderers!” shouted a grief-stricken Hermilda at the police who were guarding the morgue.
Toft congratulated all of us and advised that plans would be made to get me back to Bogotá.
As the police began to return to the base, security was dramatically increased. Everyone braced themselves for reprisals. We all felt there was a high probability of attacks against us at the base that night. The perimeter guards were increased, and everyone kept their weapons very close.
But that evening proved to be one of the quietest nights I’d ever spend in Medellín. Because of the efforts of the Colombian police and government fighting against Escobar, as well as the vicious attacks by Los Pepes, almost the entire Escobar organization had been killed or imprisoned, so the reality was that no one was left to launch an attack against us. Still, I can’t say I slept soundly. Everyone was hyped up by the day’s activities, and even though we all felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off our shoulders, we were still suspended in a haze of disbelief.
Did we really do this? Was it really all over? It all felt like a dream.
In Bogotá, Gaviria took to national television to break the happy news, and in Washington, President Clinton got on the phone to the Colombian president: “Hundreds of Colombians—brave police officers and innocent people—lost their lives as a result of Escobar’s terrorism. Your work honors the memory of all these victims.”
After everyone returned to the base, I was approached by Peláez, who informed me that no one else’s cameras had worked that day, and the photos I’d taken were the only ones showing the scene shortly after the firefight.
I had always liked Peláez. He was personable and very intelligent and spoke excellent English. He was also a graduate of the FBI’s national academy, an international training program for executive-level leaders, and very much admired by his junior officers. At just over six feet tall, he was slender with dark hair and eyes and in excellent physical condition. He was a member of Colonel Martinez’s executive staff and inner circle. While I lived at the base, Peláez often invited me to walk around the compound, and sometimes, we went into the surrounding neighborhood to grab a burger and a beer. We even went for ice cream together and talked about our families and where we grew up. I even told Peláez about Connie and me, and how happy we were to adopt Monica and how we were counting the days before we could show her off to our families back home. This may sound a little corny, but those walks to get ice cream really gave me a sense of normalcy and allowed me to forget for a few minutes the tension and state of high alert that characterized our daily lives at the base.
I trusted Peláez, so when he asked for my film, I agreed to hand it over without hesitation. I’d taken four rolls of 35 mm film, and Peláez handed it to a major who had the photos processed. The major agreed to return the negatives to me along with copies of the prints that I wanted. Later that evening, I learned that the film had been processed but the major was refusing to return my negatives or the prints. When I asked Peláez to intervene, I received the negatives and photos, but not all of them. The major had extracted several negatives, which I never saw again. Most of these were of the DIJIN officers standing on the roof with Escobar’s body—the ones I took from the third-floor window.
The following morning, I received a call from the embassy informing me that Javier would be arriving at the police base in Medellín later that day, and both of us would return to Bogotá that evening. I made arrangements for a police helicopter to meet Javier at the Medellín airport and transport him to the base. I packed my bags and started saying my goodbyes to the other Americans and our police friends. When Javier arrived, there was more celebrating because he had been part of the manhunt since 1988. My biggest regret was that he had not been around when Escobar was killed.
I would have preferred that he’d been there to share in the jubilation when this investigation ended. On the other hand, Javier never carried a camera while in Medellín, so we wouldn’t have captured the historic events that day if he’d been there instead of me.
Reporters from around the world descended on Medellín to cover the death of the world’s most wanted man and the tumultuous funeral the next day. Thousands of Escobar’s admirers from the shantytowns of Medellín crowded into the small chapel where his family had arranged to have a viewing with an open casket. The crowds fought to get close to his silver coffin and to touch his body as it was carried into the church in the pouring rain. Shouting “Viva Pablo!” the mourners seized the casket even before the religious ceremony could begin. The crowds got so out of control that Escobar’s family was forced to flee for their own safety before the burial at the hilltop Montesacro Cemetery.
But we weren’t sticking around for any of it. We just didn’t care; we were happy he was dead. When Javier arrived, we took another look through the house in Los Olivos, combing through Escobar’s wallet searching for numbers and names and any other things that could lead us to other Medellín Cartel members. But there was nothing.
Also, I learned from our bosses at the embassy of an incident the previous evening, the same day that Escobar was killed, that represented a potential threat against Connie and me. My immediate supervisor and his wife lived on the same street as Connie and me, but about twenty-seven blocks south of us. That evening, my supervisor’s wife was walking her dog on the sidewalk near their apartment. She noticed a car with four men inside driving slowly up and down the street as if looking for an address. Eventually, the car slowed and asked her if she knew where señor Murphy lived. All of our spouses were very aware of potentially dangerous situations and how to handle themselves. She told the men she didn’t know a señor Murphy, and she quickly made her way back to her apartment where an armed guard was posted. We never found out any further information on those men or why they were asking where I lived. But the DEA and the embassy took this as a serious threat and assigned a three-man security detail to our apartment building. The detail was stationed at the entrance gate of our three-building complex. After I returned home to Bogotá, I went to the embassy to work each day, but Connie stayed home taking care of Monica. We always found it ironic that these guards were stationed there to protect Connie and I, but they didn’t know what we looked like. Connie would take Monica on walks in her stroller. They walked right past this security detail and they had no idea who she was.
That afternoon, Javier and I were transported to the Medellín airport via a Colombian National Police helicopter gunship. At the Rionegro airport, we boarded a plane for the ride back to Bogotá. At El Dorado International Airport, we took a taxi back to the embassy where people were waiting for us at the DEA office, eager to see the pictures I had taken after Escobar’s death. I also knew that some of the people we worked closely with wanted to congratulate Javier and me. Both of us knew that it was their victory as well as ours.
There was heavy traffic as we arrived right at rush hour on a rainy Friday, and the taxi driver was pretty good about avoiding a lot of congestion. It felt strange sitting in the cab, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had done so. For all our rides to and from the airport, we had always driven in a DEA armored car with a military escort. Our plane was late arriving from Medellín, which explained why no one was there to meet us. Riding in a taxi in our blue jeans, polo shirts, and sneakers in Colombia felt oddly liberating, a true sign that maybe things were going back to normal in a country that had been a battlefield for so many years.
We arrived at the embassy at around dinnertime—American dinnertime. We checked in through the main entrance and rode the elevator to the third floor, using our swipe cards to access the DEA office space from the elevator lobby. As we walked down the hall, I found it strange that there were a lot of people milling about after work hours, speaking in loud voices about how proud they were as Javier and I walked out of the elevator. Friday nights at the embassy were usually deserted, as everyone was eager to get a head start on their weekends. When Javier and I finally walked into the office and saw the streamers and balloons, we suddenly knew what was going on.
“PEG IS DEAD—YES!” was written in bold capital letters on a streamer that hung in our office, and we walked in to spontaneous applause from everyone we worked with. One by one, they greeted us with hugs and handshakes. I was surprised to see Connie so late on a Friday without our baby daughter, but later I learned that she had organized the whole thing and secured Rosa, our trusted babysitter, for Monica so that we could celebrate our great victory over Escobar. When I finally made it to the back of the room where she was waiting, she gave me a long hug and showered me with kisses. I felt the mixture of both relief and euphoria in her embrace. Our gamble to leave Miami had finally paid off. It had been a great adventure, but a difficult one. And now that it was over, we would soon be going back home with our little girl.
Javier and I finally made it to our own desks, where we dropped our bags and prepared to join the party, but we could hardly move as more and more people followed us to ask questions, give us their congratulations, or just offer us a cold beer. Connie and some of the other people in the office had arranged for several cases of beer and lots of pizza to celebrate.
When I pulled out the photos I’d taken in Medellín the day before, everyone crowded around me, and for a few hours, Javier and I retold the story of how the CNP had found and killed Escobar. Everyone wanted copies of our photos because they realized that they were part of history—they had all been involved in helping to end the reign of Pablo Escobar, the world’s most wanted man. I think all of us in the DEA, as well as the other agencies we worked with, felt our own profound sense of relief after Escobar was killed.
After all, bringing Escobar to justice had been a team effort; it wasn’t just Javier and me and our pals in Colombian law enforcement. Other DEA personnel had contributed significantly to this manhunt but didn’t get the same recognition. Their work was very important, and it all contributed to the goal of putting so much pressure on Escobar that he finally made the fatal mistake of staying on his phone too long that day. The Escobar case had top priority at the embassy, which caused other investigations to slow down somewhat. Resources were directed to us and the Escobar operation. Now that Escobar was gone, it meant we could all get back to work addressing other threats against the Colombians and our own country.
The Colombian National Police deserve and earned the lion’s share of the credit for their hard work, commitment, and sacrifices. They were true allies and friends, and they went out of their way to protect Javier and me. And all U.S. personnel who contributed to this investigation also deserve recognition for their efforts—not just the people within the embassy in Bogotá but all over the world. We sent countless leads to DEA offices worldwide, as well as other U.S. law enforcement agencies, and every office followed up on these leads immediately and professionally. After all these years, the massive manhunt for Pablo Escobar is still recognized as one of the best examples of what can be accomplished when agencies and countries put aside their egos and differences to work together for the betterment of mankind.
Eventually, we ran out of beer and pizza, and we headed out to find a club. Connie had arranged for our friend to spend the night at our apartment so she could look after Monica. And out we went to continue our party! I don’t remember any of the restaurants, clubs, or bars we visited that night, even though it was one of the best nights of my life.
We all knew that at the very moment Escobar was shot dead—barefoot and frantic on that terra-cotta roof—every citizen in Colombia was safer. Weeks later, when we examined the murder rate in Medellín, we weren’t so surprised to see that it had dropped by almost 80 percent.
We celebrated all night and into the next morning.
As the sun rose over Bogotá, I held on tightly to Connie’s hand as we left the bar and headed out into the street. Everything felt lighter that morning, and even the smog that seemed to constantly envelop the city appeared to lift as Colombians woke to a brave new day.
As we approached our apartment, the sun was rising.
A newspaper vendor was already out selling the morning papers. I had seen some of the Colombian papers that had come out on the day Javier and I returned to Bogotá. We even posed with a copy of El Tiempo that declared, “AL FIN, CAYO!” (“At last, he fell!”) plastered across its front page.
But it was the headline in La Prensa that stayed with me on that glorious early morning: “IMMORTAL JOY!—COLOMBIA BETWEEN DELIRIUM AND RELIEF,” proclaimed the bold headline that dominated the entire front page.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.