Shaun Attwood - Pablo Escobars Story 1: The Rise

Pablo Escobars Story 1

The Rise

Shaun Attwood

First published in Great Britain by Gadfly Press (Shaun Attwood) in 2018

Copyright Shaun Attwood 2018

The right of Shaun Attwood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author, except in cases of brief quotations embodied in reviews or articles. It may not be edited, amended, lent, resold, hired out, distributed or otherwise circulated without the publishers written permission

Permission can be obtained from attwood.shaun@hotmail.co.uk

This book is a work of non-fiction based on research by the author

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Typeset and cover design by Jane Dixon-Smith

For Stephen Abbott the Ben Nevis power walker

Acknowledgements

A big thank you to Mark Swift (Editor at Reedsy),
Jane Dixon-Smith (cover design and typesetting)

Spelling Differences: UK v USA

This book was written in British English, hence USA readers may notice some spelling differences with American English: e.g. color = colour, meter = metre and = jewelry = jewellery

Shauns Books

English Shaun Trilogy
Party Time
Hard Time
Prison Time

War on Drugs Series

Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos

American Made: Who Killed Barry Seal? Pablo Escobar or George HW Bush

The Cali Cartel: Beyond Narcos

We Are Being Lied To: The War on Drugs (Expected 2019)

The War Against Weed (Expected 2019)

Un-Making a Murderer: The Framing of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey

The Mafia Philosopher: Two Tonys

Life Lessons

Pablo Escobars Story (Expected 2019)

T-Bone (Expected 2022)

Social-Media Links

Email:
YouTube: Shaun Attwood

Blog: Jons Jail Journal
Website: shaunattwood.com
Instagram: @shaunattwood

Twitter: @shaunattwood
LinkedIn: Shaun Attwood
Goodreads: Shaun Attwood
Facebook: Shaun Attwood, Jons Jail Journal, T-Bone Appreciation Society

Shaun welcomes feedback on any of his books.
Thank you for the Amazon and Goodreads reviews!

CONTENTS

Intro

Many authors have tried to dissect Pablos character, with each only providing a few pieces of the puzzle. The first Escobar book I wrote was part of a series exposing the War on Drugs. Since its publication, Ive received requests to write his biography in more detail and without the War on Drugs politics. This new series of books containing approximately 1,000 pages is my response.

After doing a talk about Pablo in London, I was approached by a Colombian. She said that there was far more information available about him in the Spanish-speaking world. On a mission, I ended up getting hundreds of thousands of words translated, which transformed my understanding of his story. Previously, I had viewed him through the filters of the English-speaking world and many of those authors had an agenda such as portraying certain people or government agencies in particular ways.

This book also includes everything I have learned about El Patrn while researching information for my books on the Cali Cartel and Barry Seal. Since the explosion of interest in Pablo, far more up-to-date information has become available thanks to those closest to him who later became authors, including his ex-lover and TV celebrity, Virginia Vallejo (Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar); his son, Juan Pablo (Pablo Escobar: My Father); and his former hit man, Popeye (The True Life of Pablo Escobar and Surviving Pablo Escobar) who was released and now has a popular YouTube channel. Two of the men chiefly responsible for his demise, Don Berna (Killing the Boss) and Carlos Castao (My Confession), have also published books about their roles, which contradict the official story of the police killing Pablo. In Secret (En Secreto) by the journalist Germn Castro Caycedo and The Words of Pablo (La Parbola de Pablo) by Alonso Salazar also contain lots of information.

These combined accounts helped to revise my earlier versions of the big stories such as the absence of Los Pepes at Pablos death, and the role of the state in the murder of the presidential candidate Galn, which had largely been overlooked. In 2017, Pablos nemesis, General Maza, was sentenced to thirty years for conspiring to murder Galn, which had been squarely blamed on Pablo by most authors. This book also contains stories untold in the English-speaking world, such as the death of Pablos brother, Fernando. It is my hope that I have provided the most detailed and up-to-date account.

Chapter 1

Escaping The Violence

Pablo Escobar was a mamas boy who cherished his family and sang in the shower, yet he bombed a passenger plane and approved methods of torture such as genital electrocution and the forced inhalation of petrol fumes, which made peoples eyeballs pop out. For millions worldwide, these contrasts and his rags to riches story have provided endless fascination. To understand how his character was shaped, lets start with his childhood.

Family, poverty, violence and religion all influenced young Pablo. His parents met in El Tablazo, a tiny village in the province of Antioquia, in the cold plateau of the municipality of Rionegro. Roughly an hours drive south-east of Medelln, El Tablazo is surrounded by fields growing berries, tomatoes and colourful flowers a landscape that Pablos father loved and never wanted to leave. Abel Escobar lived with his parents on a farm in northern El Tablazo, about four miles from where Hermilda taught kids at primary school. Nicknamed Abelito, he was an industrious silent man of the fields.

Self-taught in education, Hermilda had been assigned to the school by the Secretary of Education of Antioquia. Committed to the community, she made an immediate impression on the locals, who noticed her fierce spirit and leadership qualities traits that Pablo would inherit. They marvelled at her ability to make clothes for her children and her chalk drawings of famous paintings such as Da Vincis The Last Supper. Enchanted by the elegant and energetic woman with blonde hair and blue eyes who carried herself in a sophisticated way, mild-mannered Abel proposed. After Hermilda accepted, they were married on March 4, 1946. She quit teaching and relocated to Abels farm.

The next year, Roberto was born, followed by Pablo named after Pablo Emilio, his grandfather at noon on December 1, 1949. Hermilda liked the name Pablo, equivalent to Paul, because of the story of Paul the Apostle, who had persecuted disciples in Jerusalem before converting to Christianity. The siblings would eventually expand to seven, but Pablo remained Hermildas favourite. She spoiled him and laughed endlessly at his antics. Whenever he detected that she was ignoring him, he threw tantrums until he was back in her arms. When he was 4, she chastised him for such behaviour, stating that he was a big man on the verge of growing a moustache whom she was embarrassed to carry around. She added that if he didnt start to walk on his own legs, they would shrink and he would be unable to get around for the rest of his life.

When it came to raising children, the parents personalities clashed. Hermilda overrode Abels conservative and austere approach by encouraging them to become confident about money and success. She could never have imagined how far her son would take her entrepreneurial spirit. At a white church on a path to El Tablazo, she entrusted Pablo to the Virgin of Ftima, a.k.a. the Blessed Virgin Mary. She prayed that the virgin would make him intelligent and charitable. She believed that a persons highest quality was generosity. Abel tasked the children with farm work. At 3 AM, when it was foggy and cold, Roberto fetched the cows from the pastures and assisted in milking them. He also collected firewood. Although Pablo was quiet and reserved in his early teens, characteristics inherited from his father, he shed those traits after puberty to exude his mothers confidence.