Pablo Escobar’s widow: “I was married to a psychopath” | the Chronicle

Maria Isabel Santos, the widow of Pablo Escobar She said in an interview she gave to the magazine Semana that for her to continue living after all the episodes of violence she has suffered is “a miracle” and argued that for over a decade it was “Hostage of Pablo Escobar himself”.

The widow had to spend many years working with a team of psychologists and neuroscientists specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder to understand this “had married a psychopath” and what had lived “Different violence”. “I lived in a chauvinist country culture. I myself did not know that I had suffered so much gender violence”, he assured.

“In fact, for over a decade, we have been hostages of the Colombian state, hostages of enemies of Pablo Escobar and hostages of Pablo Escobar himself”he explained in the interview.

“I have always idealized Pablo. He was a romantic and loving, handsome poet, with us all the time, good father. I had my children out of love and the dream of having a family “said the widow.

However, she confessed that psychiatric professionals and psychologists made her understand that “Psychopaths have no contact with their emotions and they are also very attractive to their families and to the people they want to keep by their side.”. And that’s what the drug lord did with his wife and kids.

“I’m not talking about Pablo because I want to, but because I went through a process of many years of tears and pain. My soul is in deep pain at having to acknowledge his behavior. And there I understood without realizing that fear was paralyzing me “.

On the other hand, Santos recalled that after seven years of marriage, after the murder of the former Colombian Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara, Escobar He went home and without explaining anything, told him that they had to leave because they were going to be killed.

“I was eight and a half months pregnant with Manuela, and we had to run through the jungle to get to Panama. It made me panic walking in the jungle under the hand of a doctor and my seven year old son, feeling that my daughter Manuela he was going to be born in the middle of this jungle And, as if that wasn’t enough, in the middle From this situation, the media recorded Pablo’s romance with Virginia Vallejo and it was even said that they were going to be married. Today, I realize that more gender violence than there is “Santos said in the interview.

Exiled in Argentina and imprisoned for 18 months

When the drug lord was assassinated, Escobar’s widow embarked on a trip to Mozambique, Africa, with a change of documents and identity that the Colombian government had legally granted her.

“Since we had no alternative, we thought this was going to be our destiny. I thought to myself: I have a responsibility to educate my children. If Pablo was wrong in the decisions he made, I can’t do the same and I have to move them forward“he told

However, his experience in this African country was not very good, as the living conditions were really extreme. In this sense, his son, who was 16 at the time, told him “Mom, either we leave here or I will kill myself”.

Therefore, the mother of two embarked on a trip to Buenos Aires where he stayed as a tourist for 3 months: “Things developed on their own. We arrived at 5 am on December 24 and have been living here for 26 years.”, he told Santos, who later explained that they had lived in the country for a year without being discovered until an accountant in the family began extorting money from them with the intention of betraying them. Therefore, she appeared before a judge and claimed to be the wife of Pablo Escobar.

“I spent 18 months in detention and Sébastien (his son) 45 days when he was only a student. Since he had been one of the best in his class, he had gotten a job as an instructor before graduating. This world fell apart when his identity was revealed “, he assured.

Despite the bad situations experienced by the widow in prison in Argentina, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel studied his case and realized that the only reason Santos was in prison was “to be the wife of Pablo Escobar” . “Thanks to their intervention, they finally released me on parole and 8 years later the court found me not guilty and asked for my forgiveness.”, he concludes.