DIAMONDS & GUNS
The untold story of Charles Taylor’s time in the Bay State, the crimes he committed, and the prison he escaped from before ransacking Liberia and Sierra Leone.
50 YEARS OF HOMELESS ADVOCACY IN CAMBRIDGE
An interview with First Church Shelter Director Jim Stewart
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
The Charles Taylor Rogues’ Gallery ←Click here to go back to Part IV: Firestone & Brimstone Taylor made fortunes colluding with ex-CIA Agent Roger D’Onofrio Ruggiero. According to the ‘Economic Crimes and the Conflict, Exploitation and Abuse’ section of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia report, the blood diamond merchant smuggled weapons into Liberia in exchange […]
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
Liberia: A Brief History, From Founding To Independence ←Click here to go back to Introduction The United States and Liberia share a history unlike any other nations, and two New England states in particular were instrumental in the founding of Africa’s first republic and America’s first colony. The two West African nations that Charles Taylor obliterated were […]
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
Bill Russell’s Rubber Plantation ←Click here to go back to Part IV: Firestone & Brimstone In 1959, a titan of the Boston Garden’s parquet floor and the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement traveled to Liberia on a State Department-sponsored tour of Africa. While visiting a school, a student asked the Boston Celtics legend why he […]
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
EPILOGUE ‘The Only One We Never Got Back’ ←Click here to go back to Part VI: Diamonds & Guns After the battles, the presidency, the trials, and the gavel, Charles Taylor’s escape from Massachusetts is still a mystery marred in mismanaged documents and misinformation. The dirty waters were further muddied during the trial when the Boston […]
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
PART VI The Hague & The Plague ←Click here to go back to Part V: Diamonds & Guns Back in lockup, Thomas DeVoll said the guards in Plymouth brought him newspaper clippings about the wars in West Africa. “They would say, ‘Look—Charley’ and give me a Time magazine or a Boston Herald,” he told the New […]
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
PART V Diamonds & Guns ←Click here to go back to Part IV: Firestone & Brimstone In the wake of another full-scale NPFL massacre in the streets of Monrovia in 1996, the scattered Liberian factions signed the Abuja Agreements ceasefire treaty. The ravaged republic then prepared itself for an election the following year. “Starting on 6 […]
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
PART IV Firestone & Brimstone ←Click here to go back to Part III: Beyond the Breakout A former Plymouth corrections supervisor recalled shooting the shit with the stranded ex-finance minister on a regular basis. “He was outgoing, charismatic, very sharp, the executive type, you know, not like a Rambo.” Instead of embodying an all-American action hero, […]
AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD’S BAY STATE JAILBREAK
PART III Beyond the Breakout ←Click here to go back to Part II: Purgatory in Plymouth Charles Taylor’s internment in international limbo was a quarry-sized quandary for the commonwealth. He’d been taken into custody by federal authorities, but was not charged with breaking any American laws. Instead, he faced an international indictment filed by the Liberian […]