Johannesburg - It’s been more than two years since Vanessa Goosen returned from Thailand. For 16 years, six months and 16 days the former Miss SA semi-finalist was incarcerated in Lard Yao women’s prison in Bangkok.
Goosen claimed to have been duped into carrying four engineering books, which were found to have compartments in the front and back hardcover and spine containing 1.7kg of heroin.
Aged 21 and pregnant, she was arrested and tried on drug trafficking charges. She was sentenced to death, but her sentence was commuted to life.
Through two appeals – one of which was rejected – and a process of amnesty from the king of Thailand, Goosen eventually served 16 and a half years.
On October 30, 2010, she was released, finally reaching Joburg on November 5.
Goosen is now 40. Before the launch of the book Drug Muled: Sixteen Years in a Thai Prison, we met at a coffee shop in Hyde Park Corner shopping centre.