A British family's dream of paradise turned into a living nightmare when they took over a secluded island near Nicaragua, only to become entangled in a conflict with local drug kingpins.
Mum and ex-Playboy Bunny, Jayne Gaskin, got started a steamy affair with a workman they'd hired to transform the idyllic spot into a homely retreat and tourist hotspot. Her lover and then captor ultimately met a fiery fate at the hands of her stressed-out partner and dad-of-three who passed away from the toll it took.
Their story began when Jayne became disillusioned with her tranquil life in a village in Hampshire, the UK, and opted for adventure on the "cocaine highway"—a well-known narco-trafficking lane leading to Miami.
Jayne, her three kids, and her partner, Phil, left behind their normalcy for the exotic 9.5-acre Lime Clay Island off the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. However, as Phil touched down, he was overcome by dread, and said: "I suppose I should be feeling really excited but I just feel apprehensive and worried that I'm doing the right thing taking these children out all the way over to this island."
Sadly, Phil's instincts were on point—a tragedy soon unfolded with the family abducted at gunpoint and Phil ultimately succumbing to a stress-induced asthma attack weeks later, reports the Mirror US.
The architect of their downfall had shown up under their own shed of hospitality.
Phil and Jayne, who were followed by documentary filmmaker Billy Paulett, took on Teodoro as their all-rounder—security guard, maintenance man, and builder—as detailed in "The Price of Paradise," a Wondery and Forest Sounds podcast. While Phil and the kids missed life back in the UK, Jayne stood firm, determined to make their new island home work despite the stresses, eerily quiet nights, and swarms of biting sand flies.
Phil said: "It's all very pretty. But it's still not my idea of paradise. It's growing on me. But there's no going back because Jayne's not leaving this island."
Aiming to turn their island into a tourist haven, Phil got to work on assembling six huts designed to host up to four people each - that's where Teodoro stepped in.
Billy observed Phil's dedication to Jayne, stating "I certainly got the impression that Phil absolutely adored Jane and would do anything for her - I'm not saying he was dragged there but if Jane's dream had been to move to a cottage in Scotland I think he would have followed her."
But Billy confessed his fear of Teodoro, saying he appeared strong enough to "snap him like a twig."
He added: "The thing I noticed about him were the eyes -and I'd interviewed a lot of gangsters in the past but its always the eyes that get you and they were a light brown hazel-y colour but they were sort of dead.
"He smiled and he laughed but it was quite an unnerving smile and laugh - he would chuckle but end up staring at you. He's built like a heavyweight boxer - he's big and lean. You instantly knew he was ex-military just because of the way he carried himself."
When Phil and Teodoro attempted to make do with their one-room cabin, it was no easy feat. Phil had set aside around £50,000 before leaving England to cover construction costs, staff wages, materials, fuel, and food for the resort, but was soon blindsided by spiralling expenses.
Phil said: "It's a lot more expensive living here than I thought it was going to be. I've got about 90 weeks to make this work at present rates of expenditure."
Yet after Teodoro showed a poor work ethic, he was sacked—only to return begging for his job within days.
Tensions flared when Jayne, who by this time was having an affair with Teodoro, discovered he had also slept with the family's cook. During a confrontation on the show, Jayne told Teodoro: "I don't know how much English you understand. You mess around with me, next thing you mess with the cook. I don't want someone like that on my island. You no like me anymore."
To which Teodoro fired back: "You have husband and these children, you know."
Before leaving the island, Teodoro left a chilling message: "This is my country. One day she gone and I stay in my country. You will see."
In a Channel 4 documentary, Phil recounted the terror of being invaded at home by five masked men: "Lots of commotion outside the hut and the next thing I know somebody said, Mr. Philip, you better do what you're told. There was a gun pointing at me telling me get down on the floor."
They were kidnapped and forced onto a motorboat. The situation worsened when Phil realised one of the kidnappers was Teodoro, his wife's ex-lover and the family's former handyman.
Phil said: "First of all, I recognised his voice, and the children also recognised his voice."
In a daring move to escape, he set their boat ablaze, despite his hand catching fire. His wife Jane and the kids jumped into a swamp filled with alligators.
Phil added: "All I could hear was bang, bang. I didn't look back I was running for my life at that point. The men came after us, there were two men and they had got me down in a corner, they found me. I could see a gun. They were waving the gun at me and he was pulling the trigger but there were no bullets left."
The couple fled and Jayne said: "We went right back into the bush, through some swamp. We waded through right up to our knees, then we hide in the swamp behind a tree."
She added: "We stayed completely silent all night because I knew Teodora enjoyed hunting in the bush. He used to talk about hunting tigers at night. I knew he enjoyed killing. He would often recount how he had previously killed people and relished in drinking men's blood. These were the tales he spun."
They managed to escape when Phil flagged down a passing fishing vessel, which took them to safety, where they told local police about their terrifying ordeal, leading to a week-long search for the kidnappers. Despite the trauma, Jayne was insistent on returning to the island.
Phil added: "This is my prison, the sea forms my bars, and I'm perpetually haunted, yet the only escape from this island is in my dreams."
The stress took a toll on Phil's health, causing a respiratory infection and triggering severe asthma attacks. The family decided to leave the island so Phil could be near medical facilities, but he tragically died four weeks later.
Jayne and her children are believed to have sold the island and returned to London.
