The US prison system sees a lot of people men, women, lawyers, teachers, people raised in luxury, people raised in poverty, people from all walks of life can take a wrong turn somewhere and end up incarcerated. But the one person you'd be very hard pressed to find in a prison is a genius. Someone who is not only smarter than all of the prison guards and fellow inmates, but also a very overwhelming majority of the rest of the outside population. So just people like you and me. So what happens when a genius does go to prison? Well, that's exactly what we're covering in this week's story. So without further ado, settle down, make yourself comfortable. Grab yourself a snack. Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Chang, and this is Hidden Stories. On August 18th, 1960, appointed mark. The Feast was born into the world. Mark grew up in the city of Tallahassee, Florida, and from a very young age, he was already showing signs of being nothing like any of the other kids. As a kid, he didn't really understand the world and didn't have too many interactions with other people his age. He hated, hated going to school and was always alone, both at school and also after school, to the point where other kids would often describe him as weird and crazy even. Growing up, he spent a lot of time with his dad, who he was extremely close to and who was probably the person he was happiest with anyways. Now his dad was an extremely interesting man. He had served in World War Two with the SS, an intelligence agency that would eventually become the CIA today. As such, he was extremely skilled at the avoidance, tactics, survival and defense techniques involved in guerrilla warfare, all skills that he relayed to his young son. And although they both shared an equally strong passion for such intelligence training, what they really, truly bonded over was through each other's mechanical skills. You see, although Mark couldn't quite understand people, he was able to build or fix just about anything. At just six years old, he was already disassembling and reassembling watches and engines, even as a little kid and Bob could spend hours and hours and hours working on these elaborate science experiments that he would come up with in what he called his Frankenstein slap a little office in the back of his house where he actually blew himself up several times. Mark had always been known as a child genius and a civil, and his dad, who was also very, very interested in engineering and mechanics, had always been the one to sort of push him towards achieving higher goals and continuing to refine and improve his skills in these areas. In some ways, his dad was his only real tie to the real world, his only real friend. So when Mark's dad suddenly passed away in 1979, Mark was completely devastated and began to really struggle with mental illness and turns out the loss of his father, along with the breakdown of his psychological well-being, would end up being a recipe for disaster. Now, in the will that his dad had left behind, he had left Mark all of his tools market always known that all of his tools would one day be his and maybe a part of him really wanted to just get some of them and stay with them so that they could bring him some shred of comfort that his father used to bring him. But whatever the reason was, one night, shortly after his dad's death, Mark decided to go over to his stepmother's house to go and retrieve these tools, but only be 19 years old. At the time, he probably didn't know and even I don't know this, and I'm assuming a lot of you don't know this, that he had to wait for the will to actually be probated in order for it to actually count, or else if he went and just took the items before this had happened, it would technically be considered stealing. Now, a normal kind of family member would probably understand that this was a very minor technicality and would allow Mark to take the tools anyways. Just, you know, in advance. But Mark's stepmother for some reason just completely hated him. She was always screaming and yelling at him, and she never told him that she loved him or hugged him as such. When Mark came to get her husband's tools from now her house, she not only refused to let him in, but straight up called the police on him. And when the police showed up and Mark saw the flashing lights and heard the sirens, he just started panicking. He was completely confused. And his deteriorating mental state, why these cops were suddenly after him. And Mark, as I said earlier, not knowing how to effectively deal with people ran he ran from the cops. And that would turn out to be a huge mistake. When Mark was inevitably arrested, he was charged with theft and for pulling a gun on cops, which both he and the people who knew him were extremely adamant just did not happen. They all said Mark wasn't like that. He wouldn't hurt a fly. But for reasons that are still unknown to this day, that's what the cops said. And he ended up being sentenced to four years in prison for literally taking the tools that his own father had left for him. In June 1980, he was brought to the Appalachian Correctional Institution in Florida to be getting a sentence. But you take someone like Mark, a genius, someone who hates being with people who doesn't understand social cues, who hates being told what to do. And you place him in a prison of all places. He's not going to be there for long as a kid. And Mark had been sent to a disciplinary boy's school to control his temper, but he had eventually just escaped and ran away. That was just his personality to escape from places no matter what, where he felt like he didn't belong, to not listen to orders from people in positions of power no matter what, from people. He felt certain to serve that power. And the moment he arrived at that prison, he was already analyzing everything, all the exits, all the potential tools he could use to get out planning his escape. Just one month after arriving the prison during a Tuesday Bible study, eight inmates, including Mark Brokamp and ran towards the outside fence. Although all the other inmates ended up getting stuck climbing this sharp razor wire, more equipment top. His father to beat razor wire was able to quickly climate and jump over onto the other side. He was the only one out of his group who was able to successfully escape, and the very first thing he did was run over to a friend's house, take their pickup truck and hotwire it, which according to him, he could do with his eyes closed even, and then just speed off in the opposite direction of the prison as far away from there as he could. He drove on for a long while before eventually booking a room at a local motel. But Mark just wasn't the type of person who could survive a long time. Being on the run from authorities and the police eventually located him and rearrested him at that motel in court for his attempted escape. He was charged with burglary, grand theft and possession of a firearm. But when Mark pled guilty to all six of these new charges over the advice of his attorney, the court decided that they had to evaluate his mental competency before continuing the trial. Turns out during his short one month in prison, Mark had closed relentlessly with both other prisoners and the courts. He was always talking back to them and as such, he had been ferociously beaten numerous times by both the guards and other inmates, and one time he was sexually assaulted so violently by 14 other inmates that he needed surgery to fix his body up. All these traumatic experiences had completely destroyed what little shred of mental health and work had left, and there had been reports that more could be found, slamming his head against the wall repeatedly during his time in prison and other different attempts at taking his own life. A psychological brief screening requested by the court revealed that Mark showed signs of depression due to his father's death, as well as anxiety and suicidal thoughts because of his traumatic experiences as a prisoner. As such. Instead of being sent to just another prison, he was sent to the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, Florida, which has a secured facility, a sort of psych ward where prisoners who go off the deep end go completely crazy, go for treatment. Now, although this wasn't a prison, mark still felt completely out of place. Everyone was telling him he was insane. The court was telling him he was insane. Other psychologists were telling him he was insane, but he didn't feel insane. And at this new hospital, he was seeing all these shrink doctors in their white lab coats, force feeding medications down him and the other inmates throats that would numb his senses and his thinking. And he was seeing all these other inmates who were clearly crazy, not at all the symptoms that he was going through again. He immediately realized that he wanted out. The minute he got there, he was planning his escape. Now, despite the fact that Mark immediately noticed that this new hospital had much better security than the last prison he was at, such as iron bars and doors and an actual security system. He still felt that he be who he was would certainly be able to get out. Shortly after arriving to this hospital, more came up with quite possibly the most unique and clever prison break plan I've ever seen. He had noticed that in the pharmacy of this hospital and one of the closets was an entire bottle of LSD, the psychedelic drug that makes people trip bolts. Now, actually getting into the pharmacy was no biggie for him. He could pick just about any lock there was. But once he had gotten inside, he stole the bottle of LSD, pocketed it, walked out, walked over to the staff stance nearby, picked a lock on that, and then walked inside and dumped the entire bottle, probably around 75 to 100 tabs of LSD worth into the pot of coffee that was brewing inside there. You see, Morgan noticed that at 4:00 sharp there was a shift changed where all these new workers would come and replace the old workers so they could get some rest as such. His plan was to time him pouring all of this LSD into the coffee pot rate when the shift change was just about to happen. So that when all these new workers came in and were just extremely tired and all immediately went towards the coffee pot to get their first cup of coffee to start off the day like they always did, they would drink this coffee that was contaminated with the LSD, which would cause practically all of the hospital employees to start hallucinating madly, giving him the opportunity to quickly and easily skip. At first this plan was going perfectly. All these new workers that just came in, they drink their coffee without even noticing that it was spiked and just went along doing their tasks. And when a couple of minutes had passed and the drug actually started to kick in, it was clear that all these workers were completely losing it. They had no idea where they even were. But the one thing Mark had failed to anticipate was just how strongly these workers would hallucinate. You see? Well, Mike was quietly trying to make his way out of the prison, find his way out of the prison. During this time, the head aide of the hospital would apparently drink drinking. A particularly large amount of coffee fell himself in the washing room downstairs, and when he noticed the dryer just spinning round and round and round like it does, he freaked out. He had this entire panic attack and he started beating up the dryer. He was so unhinged at that point that he straight up ripped the door of the dryer off its hinges. He was screaming his head off and other staff members in other areas of the hospital hearing this immediately came over to see what was going on and were a bit suspicious that something was up. And when a red headed psychologist who had also apparently drinking a very large amount of coffee, started walking, strutting down the hospital aisle towards all these crazy patients in an extremely sexually suggestive way. The hospital staff immediately realized something was up and they shut down the entire ward, completely ruining Mark's plan and forcing him to return back to his room. Although Mark was not actually cut for starting the whole thing. His plan ultimately failed. He had failed to escape. But for Mark, escape was all he really wanted. And Mark was not someone to give up easily. Shortly after the whole LSD incident, Mark was approached by a hospital aide and asked whether he wanted to join the new arts and crafts program at the hospital. Well, Mark agreed and came to the building where he saw all these mature rules and tools laid out for him and all the other inmates. He thought they were crazy. He thought they had to literally want him to escape. They were feeding him everything he needed to do. So right to him. As I mentioned earlier, Mark had this amazing talent for building things from scratch. So doing one of the activities that he was involved in, Mark's straight to build a gun, a zip gun, a double barreled zip gun using just a few seats, a copper and wood. He then hid the zip gun in his pants before going back to his cell and literally ripping out one of his back teeth before going over to the nurse and telling her, I have this incident. I had an incident, and then he was sent over to the dentist's office where there was less security. Now, the dentist there could immediately tell that this was self-mutilation, that Mark had done this to himself, but he just patched them up. Maybe he sees his stuff pretty often. He patched Mark up and then sent him on his way. But before Mark left, he asked whether he could go use the bathroom really quick. And when Mark went to the bathroom where no one was with him, he took out his zip gun, walked out of the bathroom, and then threatened the one guard who was with them, telling him, If you don't let me leave right now, I will shoot and blow your brains out. This one guard was obviously not paid enough to be a hero, so he let Mark go, allowing him to run all the way out of the hospital towards the swamps where he had been during his previous escape and was familiar with. Later he would steal another car. But again, just not being able to survive in the outside world by himself. He was soon arrested and recaptured. This time, Mark was transferred from the hospital to a place called Bay County Jail in Panama City, Florida, there where the officers had apparently heard about his knack for attempting to escape. He was immediately placed in a complete straitjacket and leg irons to make sure that he could never get out. But of course, more equipped and trained by his dad to deal with all of that at age five or something. Literally managed to escape in just 5 minutes. Over the next few days, he was placed in three different cells, but just tore up each and every one of those cells using nothing but a toothbrush. And then finally, they decided to place him in a cell with literally nothing inside except him and his clothes. And they felt this had to be the thing that could finally control him. There was no way he could actually get out. But Mark just smashed the light out 2 minutes to reach into the wall and rip out a pipe which he used as a sort of crowbar to literally pry open his cell door. Now, around that time, Mark was set to go to trial, but the court still had to determine whether he was mentally competent enough to do so. So a man named Dr. Robert Berlin was appointed by the court to determine Mark's competency for trial. Now, this was extremely unlucky for Mark because at the time Dr. Berlin was working at a hospital called Florida State Hospital. The exact hospital would mark had just previously escaped from with the whole LSD scandal and his whole zip code commotion. Now, both of these incidents had made both Dr. Berlin and his colleagues look very, very bad and unprofessional. As such, he really didn't like Mark at all, and I'm not entirely sure whether this specific factor played a role in his decision, but he would go on to not only say that Mark was seen enough to go to trial, but also that he was just completely an outright faking all of his symptoms of mental illness, that he was not mentally ill at all, despite the fact that out of the six psychiatrists who were consulted outside of the trial, four of them found Mark completely incompetent to stand trial. But regardless of that, Mark was given a trial date with both his escapes from the Appalachian Correctional Institution and the Florida State Hospital would be determined. However, Mark by Mark refused to just sit there and wait for this trial date to come. Turns out that man could literally make a gun out of anything, although his new cell was still completely empty following his last few incidents. Mark managed to get his hands on an empty roll of toothpaste from one of the other inmates. Somehow using that, he managed to make it improved in proved version of his last zip gun, and using that, he managed to escape from his cell again by threatening the guards with it. But while he was in the process of escaping when one of the other inmates yelled at him to see what his makeshift gun could do, Mark fired it at a wall and oh, yeah, it fired. But as you'll soon see, that single choice would turn out to be a massive mistake. When Mark was cut, try to escape from that prison, the guards brutally beat him again. But this time they were furious here. Humiliated them again and again and again. They had had enough. They decided to strip him completely naked and lock him up in solitary, in total darkness, 24 hours a day. He was totally and completely alone, always. He wasn't allowed in emergencies or sheets. He wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. He wasn't allowed any toiletries like toilet paper, sober toothpaste, and he wasn't even allowed any water in itself. So he couldn't even floss his toilet or wash his hands or shower. He had to eat without any utensils, a complete and pitch black darkness. And the guards would frequently torture him either by mixing him or spraying him with extremely high pressure water from a firefighter hose. After 11 entire days of living in this hell when the day of his trial finally came. Mark was convicted of attempted murder for firing at the guards using his zip gun. Although Mark had never intended to hurt anyone and even the other inmates had seen that he had fired his gun. Nowhere near the guards. It was their word against the guards. And of course, the guards won in the end. Mark, who is now being called the Houdini of Florida, took a plea deal without even knowing what a plea deal was. This deal landed him with life in prison for his actions. In January 1982, Mark began his life sentence at Florida State Prison. Now, Florida State Prison, according to former warden Ron McAndrew, was the worst of the worst. It's the prison that houses death row inmates and the death chamber. And it was known as the hellhole on this earth for its insanely brutal conditions and rules. Even mentioning the words Florida State Prison to any inmate in the state of Florida was enough to guarantee their instant cooperation because no one wanted to be sent there at Florida State Prison, even things like books and magazines were considered contraband and weren't allowed. Prisoners were allowed to go outside to the yard and even see the sun. Only one hour per week. And if anyone even stepped a toe out of line, this privilege would immediately be taken away without any guarantee that it would ever be given back. Making it so that prisoners could often go years two, three, four, five, six, seven, or even eight years without ever seeing the sun. But even with that as a deterrence, Mark still wasn't just one to sit silent and fall into line. He refused to give the power tripping guards the satisfaction of having control over him, and he would often talk back to them and call out their many abuses, no matter how many times he was beaten up or sent into solitary. He just couldn't control his mouth or his desire to escape. Whereas a normal mind, someone would eventually get used to this and realize, Oh, maybe I should stop talking, or maybe I should stop trying to escape and I won't have to suffer all these pain, all this pain and all this suffering. Mark's mind either because of his mental illness or his psychosis, just didn't work like that. He wasn't learning in his time at Florida State Prison. Mark would accumulate a total of 209 disciplinary reports, probably more than any other prisoner in the prison system ever. But most of them were minor infractions, like talking back to the courts, and none of them were ever violent or involved. Someone ever getting hurt. The disciplinary reports mostly included Mark Just talking back to the guards, such as the time he told them, I'm James Bond seven or they were for making homemade toys or weapons to defend himself from the other inmates or guards such as homemade keys, hacksaw blades, knives and ice picks. In case you're wondering how he made actual keys that would fit into his cell door and his handcuffs from having nothing to do all day. All he would do whenever a guard walked by was just study the keys that were dangling on the guards belt. As time after time he did this, he began to notice the small and extremely excruciating details and intricacies involved in every single key. And he was able to memorize those formations and actually cut out a piece of his aluminum tray in the shape of that key and use that to open the locks. But although he tried escaping numerous times from Florida State Prison, he was never successful. As a result of his actions, he spent more than ten years in solitary confinement without ever seeing the sun. And although he requested numerous times to be allowed outside due to his health just simply failing due to a lack of sunlight, all of these requests were immediately declined Mark only to be transferred from Florida State Prison to several other prisons at one of these prisons, Leon County Jail Morgue still looking for opportunities to escape after all this time. Got a diamond saw played from another inmate and after 16 entire hours of sawing, managed to cut through the window bars of his cell even though he was multiple floors in the air and broke both of his feet after jumping out of the window on impact, he was able to not only scale the razor wire fence, but then run to entire miles before hotwired in the car and driving off. And it was only after a long and extremely high speed police chase that Moore crushed his vehicle into someone's living room and was caught once again. By that point, his parole did for his life sentence had been pushed all the way back from 2002 to 2085 as it stood, and Mark was never getting out of prison, and he had accepted that. But in a shocking turn of events, Dr. Robert Berland, the person who had originally stated that Mark was completely fit for trial and was competent and had been completely lying about all of his mental health issues, actually came out and admitted that he had just been wrong. He had realized that he had been wrong all those years back when he said all those things about Mark, he realized in hindsight that Mark not only had been suffering from mental health issues or psychosis, but these issues were completely debilitating and had rendered him completely incompetent to serve trial before he had gotten his life sentence. But despite Dr. Berlin trying his very best to convey to the parole board the facts about Mark's mental health situation and that he needed medication and help. Not only did the parole board refuse to change Mark's parole date, they didn't help him get the medical attention he needed either, despite evidence suggesting that he didn't need it. It was only after a documentary on Mark's case, titled The Life in Mind of Mark Defreeze came out that the parole board finally agreed to push up Mark's parole date from 2085 to 2015. This was incredible news. And Mark, having been in prison for nearly 40 years by that time, finally had hope that he would one day be free again. But unfortunately, the court would later realize that Mark had additional unfinished sentences for cocaine and marijuana, which Mark had inevitably become addicted to in prison, as well as sentences for contraband possession, which was also because of prison search. His parole was pushed back to February 2019, and although he was actually finally freed on the condition that he must spend 12 months in a mental health and drug abuse treatment facility, after just a few days there, Mark was still extremely addicted to and dependent on drugs, tested positive for methamphetamine, and was showing signs of bipolar mania. And of course, instead of giving him the treatment and help he needed to address and alleviate his mental health issues, the director of the facility simply shipped him right back to Florida State Prison. The hell hole on earth. From the accounts I fell on mine, Mark is still there, likely in solitary confinement to this day. As of just 2014. And he had already spent more than 30 years in jail, 27 of which were in solitary confinement. I'm 20 years old. I'm assuming a lot of you guys are also less than 30. And the idea that more a completely nonviolent offender who is suffering from mental illness and addiction and possibly autism could be allowed to spend more time in jail than we've even been alive is just horrifying. In Mark's own words, if I was a rapist or a murderer or something, they will let me out. I'm the idiot who made them look like idiots and with a smart ass, this guy clearly was. I mean, he even made a video the size of a cigaret lighter in prison back during a time when radios were all much bigger. And he did that all using spare parts. Who knows what this guy could have done for society if he hadn't been just completely screwed over by the criminal justice system and all of this being triggered even in the first place by him taking tools that were very clearly his to begin with is just some kind of sick joke. The case of Mark to freeze this one that completely breaks my heart and pisses me off. But it seems like as of today, he'll continue to stay in jail for the rest of his life. With that being said, I hope you found this week story interesting if you're new here. Hi. My name is Andy Chang. I tell bizarre, almost unreal, true stories once a week. I personally guarantee you that every single story I cover from here on out will be just as interesting as today's. So stick with me. I'll see you guys soon.