Many women at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Oklahoma, say they are innocent and have interesting stories to tell. Dibby Smith was one of these. The state said she murdered her husband, but she said she only found his body, and that she said she’d prove herself innocent. She didn’t belong here, she said. On Friday evening, 22 April 1988, she told the warden that if she couldn’t be found in the morning this would prove she was innocent. She was going to show them. In the morning she couldn’t be found. The warden said that if she’d escaped then he would put her away again for escaping. But the dogs couldn’t track her down either inside nor outside the prison. Three days went by and Dibby wasn’t found, but on the next Monday evening she reappeared. She called out from her locked cell— to all appearances the same as before she’d disappeared— “See? I told you so!”
Tales