John Killick tells all about infamous prison escape
Killick and his Russian lover gained international notoriety while at large for 45 days in 1999 after Dudko hijacked a helicopter at gunpoint and flew him out of prison.
In the interview, he reveals how they planned the escape during her visits to the prison.
"She was visiting me all the time and you can get three visits a week and she came out three times a week. I rang her as often as I could. And we decide "look um I’m going to get out," Killick said.
Due to the conditions of his parole, Killick, 72, will not be allowed to make contact with Dudko until he is 80 after which time he says he might ask her out for a coffee.
He determined the only way out of Sydney's Silverwater prison was up — and at the same time was assigned a helicopter pilot for a cellmate.
"This is where you can call it fate. A guy came along who was a helicopter pilot, he came into my actual pod, you just wouldn’t believe that."
Lucy Dudko hired a three-seater helicopter for a joyride over the Sydney Olympic stadium that was being built near the prison, and did a test-run on March 17.
On March 25, the day of the escape, she pulled out a pistol and told the pilot Tim Joyce to head for Silverwater Prison.
Joyce says the moment he realized something was wrong was when Lucy asked him to "take a closer look" at the prison.
"I looked over my shoulder… and as I looked back she had pulled a pistol out of her purse and she put it to the side of my head and said "this is a hijack"," Joyce told reporter Mike Willesee.
They intended to take the chopper to a getaway car, but that's where the plan began to unravel.
"There was supposed to be a car there, Lucy was supposed to have a car there, but she forgot the keys," Killick said.
Their getaway car was useless so once they landed the helicopter Killick hijacked another vehicle.
The pair stayed on the run for 45 days before being recognised at a remote caravan park. They were surrounded while they slept.
Dudko served seven years in prison for her role in the escape and Killick served 15 before being paroled in 2014. They exchanged over 4000 letters during Lucy's incarceration, but the relationship ended when she told Killick she had devoted the rest of her life to God.
