American Skyjacker · Imperative Entertainment and Pegalo Pictures

Zihuatanejo | Chapter 10

September 8, 2020·49 min·4 clips

McNally confesses he planned to rob banks by taking hostages and emptying vaults after getting out.

Martin McNally was paroled from federal prison on January 27, 2010, after serving 38 years for air piracy — the hijacking of a commercial aircraft in 1972. He left with roughly ten thousand dollars in his account and was sent to a halfway house in St. Louis, Missouri, the city where he was originally sentenced. On his release day, his first encounter with modernity included a stop in Las Vegas and an inability to operate a flip phone on the bus. Mac was overwhelmed by both freedom and by all he had missed: candy price inflation, smartphones, and the sheer volume of choices in ordinary shopping. Within the first month at the halfway house, Mac privately planned to rob bank vaults using hostage tactics, intending to flee St. Louis within 30 days. Instead, he encountered Heidi Moore, the director of a St. Louis organisation working with ex-convicts. With her help, Mac moved into his own apartment after 90 days. He sold magazines back to prison inmates until his parole officer warned him off, distributed free watches to newly released men after group meetings, and fell repeatedly for internet scams. Over four years, Mac built what the host describes as an anonymous, law-abiding life. Host Danny Wisentowski began interviewing Mac in June 2014, meeting him in his sparse apartment with two identical cats and a threadbare couch. In 2016, Mac's parole officer made an unannounced visit to inform Mac he was being taken off parole. In 2019, Mac led the production crew to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery to visit the grave of Barbara Oswald, a woman who died in a prison hostage standoff that Mac was peripherally part of — an event Mac said he had sincerely regretted and for which he had been making quiet visits for years. By 2019, Mac was 75, going blind from cataracts, and his landlord sold his building. His youngest sister Claire offered him a rental property in Detroit. Mac moved back to his hometown for the first time in nearly fifty years, had cataract surgery that fully restored his vision, and showed the crew his new house in Wyandotte. He held one remaining ambition: to board a commercial aircraft again. The crew accompanied Mac to Detroit Metro Airport where, after passing through security — jokingly asking TSA about job opportunities — Mac boarded an American Airlines flight without incident, nearly fifty years after hijacking two planes.

As heard by us

A spare, methodical coda on a hijacker who never really left the story.

Zihuatanejo | Chapter 10 follows Martin McNally as he walks out of prison in 2010 after 38 years inside, with about $10,000 or $11,000 in his account and a relief he can only barely hide.

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Why you'd press play

You want a parole story that stays with the aftermath instead of rushing past it.

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