captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> the mexican marines had been planning for months to capture el chapo when an intelligence brief led them to the world's most dangerous drug lord's final party. >> for an incredibly savvy, clever almost a criminal genius that el chapo guzman was, he ultimately was done in by very simple tastes. >> what do you mean? >> tacos, tequila and chicas. >> ray hinton stepped out of prison after nearly 30 years on death row, a free man. what was that moment like? >> as though i was walking on clouds.

>> but hinton's story raises serious questions about how we handle unjust convictions. >> 30 years ago, a judge proudly stood up and said, "i sentence you to die." 30 years later, no one had the decency to say, "we sorry for what took place." ♪ ♪ >> something unusual happened on the way to the grammy awards last year... an album was nominated from malawi. the artists weren't polished pop stars, but prisoners and guards, in a place called zomba. a maximum security prison, so decrepit and overcrowded, it's been called "the waiting room of hell." ♪ ♪ how could such beautiful music come from such misery? ♪ ♪

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she knows what i'm talkin' about >> bill whitaker: good evening. i'm bill whitaker. welcome to "60 minutes presents." tonight: "behind bars." we'll trace the prison escape route of the world's most notorious narcotics king; meet three people who never should have been imprisoned in the first place; and hear liberating harmonies from decidedly unliberated musicians. first up: the notorious narco

known as el chapo, who has achieved one of his greatest aspirations-- he is the most famous drug lord of all time. and now, el chapo, whose real name is joaquin guzman, is perhaps the most famous drug lord behind bars. since mexico spirited him to new york last month, chapo has spent 23 hours of every day in isolation. he's awaiting trial in a brooklyn federal court on dozens of charges that could keep him in prison for the rest of his life. we first told you about guzman in 2014 when he was captured after 13 years on the run. we told you then that el chapo, spanish for "shorty," was on forbes list of billionaires and had earned an outsized reputation for his worldwide smuggling empire, his ruthless brutality and most of all, for his daring getaways-- like the one we told you about in 2015,

when he vanished from a maximum security mexican prison through one of his trademark escape tunnels. after el chapo's stunning prison break, many thought he'd never get caught again. but he was. how? you're about to see. where, in the pantheon of drug traffickers, drug lords, does el chapo fall? >> peter vincent: el chapo resides at the very top of that hierarchy. >> whitaker: peter vincent was a senior official and legal adviser of both the justice department and homeland security during the international manhunt for guzman. he says after the daring escape in july 2015, el chapo became almost delusional. so, what precipitated his downfall? >> vincent: he became drunk on his own wine. he started to believe the hype that he was special, that he was almost a demigod, that he was something truly magical.

>> whitaker: mm. >> vincent: and he became so incredibly arrogant that he thought he was untouchable. >> whitaker: jim dinkins agrees. as chief of homeland security investigations, he was part of the u.s.-mexico task force that nabbed el chapo in 2014. >> jim dinkins: he knew how he was captured last time, and so he had the upper hand, right? he had all the cards in his hand to-- to go off into the sunset and to learn from his mistake. but he just couldn't help himself, and he remained in the public eye. >> whitaker: after his first escape from prison in 2001, guzman virtually disappeared from sight for 13 years. but not this time. >> dinkins: here he gets out of prison, and he's on the road, being spotted at this place having, you know, drinks; and this place, you know, with his family members. >> whitaker: he invited sean penn and the actress kate del

castillo to come in to see him. >> dinkins: yeah. >> whitaker: did mexican law enforcement know that these two actors were going in to see el chapo? >> dinkins: oh, absolutely. they knew that sh-- where sean was going to go, when he was going to land. they knew right away. >> whitaker: how did they know? because they were listening in on the cartel's communications and watching. mexican and u.s. law enforcement reformed the task force that caught el chapo the last time. they were tracking not just guzman, but everyone in his inner circle, including his cook, and everyone his lieutenants contacted, including sean penn. did he become sloppy? >> dinkins: definitely. there was more sightings of him in the last six months than there was in the last ten years of, before he was captured in 2014. >> whitaker: after he escaped the last time, you told us that you were not confident that he would ever be captured again. >> dinkins: yeah. >> whitaker: that el chapo had become a smarter criminal. >> dinkins: yeah. >> whitaker: did you

overestimate his intelligence? >> dinkins: i truly did. here he had over a year in prison. i presumed he was using that same amount of time to think about how he was going to remain a fugitive for the rest of his life. >> whitaker: mexican officials told us that only 20 days after his escape, the marines had picked up on guzman's trail. >> vincent: they created an even smaller team of mexican marines, a search bloc. and they focused on the prize at hand, and that was capturing el chapo guzman alive, if they absolutely could. >> whitaker: their first opportunity came in october 2015, just days after sean penn's visit. the marines told us they waited because they didn't want the american actor caught in the crossfire. a team of marines approached one of el chapo's mountaintop ranches by jungle road, while another group of commandos flew in by helicopter. so, what went wrong on that october mission? >> vincent: as i understand it, despite all of el chapo guzman's bravado of being a macho, very

powerful man, he was running with a child in his arms. >> whitaker: a human shield? a baby as a shield? >> vincent: that's the only way that one can rationally see it. >> whitaker: so once again, el chapo got away. in december 2015, intelligence led the marines to this house, in the sleepy coastal town of los mochis in northern sinaloa. wiretap intercepts talked about a visit planned by "grandma and aunt"-- code names for el chapo and his lieutenant, known as "cholo ivan." the marines watched the house for a month as painters and construction crews came and went. then on the morning of thursday, january 7, 2016 "grandma" finally showed up. an assault force quickly moved into position nearby. that evening, someone in the house called out for a large order of tacos, and this armored truck left to go pick up the food.

chapo was having a party. >> vincent: for an incredibly savvy, clever, almost a criminal genius that el chapo guzman was, he ultimately was done in by very simple tastes. >> whitaker: what do you mean? >> vincent: tacos, tequila, and chicas. >> whitaker: at 4:40 am, in the pre-dawn hours of friday, january 8, 2016 the marines began battering down the gate of chapo's safe house. we've concealed the identities of the commando leaders for their safety. >> bravo( translated ): so when we first knocked on the door of the house, the shooting started. >> whitaker: a fierce gun battle erupted. the first marine through the door was shot in the arm. i watched the videotape. it's very intense. >> alpha( translated ): chapo's people inside the house were

firing high-caliber rounds-- grenades. so it was like a warzone. >> whitaker: the marines moved methodically through the house. chapo's henchmen retreated up the stairs. just inside the door, one gunman lay dead. down the hall, four more taken prisoner; and the commandos quickly check a walk-in closet covered with full-length mirrors. upstairs, the marines find two women, one of them the cook, cowering on the bathroom floor. outside the house, more commandos fought it out with gunmen who fled across the roof tops. when it was over, there were five cartel members dead and six in custody, but once again, chapo, with cholo ivan, had vanished. a couple of days later, the marines took us to the safe house in los mochis in an armed convoy.

here, just inside the gate, a pool of blood where the marine was shot. sangre. blood. and inside the door, more bloodstains; the walls pockmarked with bullet holes and the scars of exploding shrapnel. and remember that walk-in closet? the mirrors masked a hidden door. behind the secret door, the entrance to one of el chapo's trademark tunnels. it's connected to a network of storm drains and sewers. it was 45 minutes before they found el chapo's escape route. that morning the marines gave chase. >> alpha( translated ): we intensified the search inside the tunnels, opening manhole covers, and inserting people into the sewers. >> whitaker: then it started raining hard. >> bravo( translated ): after 20 minutes of rain, we thought that chapo might drown in the sewers, because of the high level of the water. >> whitaker: so he popped up out

of the manhole right in the middle of a busy street. >> bravo( translated ): that was his only option. >> whitaker: so this is where he came out. he popped out of this manhole cover, which is about a half mile from the house, straight down that road there. look carefully at this security camera footage from the gas station across the street. at 8:55 am, four hours after the first shots were exchanged, right there, you can see chapo and cholo ivan climbing out of the sewer. and then in this cellphone video, you can see them carjack a white vw jetta and speed away. the fugitives got only three blocks before the jetta broke down, so they jacked a second car, a red ford focus. but only a couple of miles out of town, that car broke down. within minutes, the federal emergency center got two reports of hijacked vehicles. on the highway out of town, the marines found the ford, already

on the bed of a tow truck, but no sign of chapo and his lieutenant. they had been picked up by the federal police and taken to a nearby motel. what were they doing in the backseat of the police car? >> alpha( translated ): they weren't talking. they were relaxed. but they looked confused. >> whitaker: no one knows why the federal police took chapo to the motel instead of to jail, but peter vincent has a theory. >> vincent: el chapo undoubtedly said, one, you let me go now and i will make you wealthier beyond your wild imaginations. if you should choose to decline my most generous offer, i am not only going to kill you, but i am going to rape and kill your wife and your daughters and i'm going to torture your sons. that-- >> whitaker: he has behaved like that in the past? >> vincent: he has behaved like that virtually his entire criminal career. >> whitaker: bribes and threats.

>> vincent: bribes and threats, bribes and bullets. and luckily the mexican marines showed up, realized what was going on and took control of the situation. >> whitaker: chapo was flown to mexico city for booking. he was paraded before reporters and returned to altiplano, the same prison from which he'd escaped in july 2015. >> vincent: this time, he is rotated from cell to cell to cell to cell. guards are circulated every 15 minutes, through whatever cell he happens to be occupying on that particular day. >> whitaker: soon after chapo's arrest, the u.s.-mexico task force captured another two dozen sinaloa cartel members. >> vincent: it sends an incredibly powerful message to current kingpins, to future narco-traffickers, that you may run, you may hide, but ultimately, this multinational

force will track you down from the highest mountains or the deepest, darkest jungles, or through the stinking sewers of towns and cities anywhere in the world, and bring you to justice. money watch update sponsored by lincoln financial, you're in charge. >> quijano: good evening. in a speech to congress tuesday night, the president may provide more details on his major overhaul of the tax system. shares of snaps are expected to go public on thursday. and blackberry just unveiled its new smartphone out in april. i'm elaine quijano, cbs news.

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>> whitaker: about ten times a month now, an innocent person is freed from an american prison. they're exonerated, sometimes after decades, because of new evidence, new confessions or the forensic science of d.n.a. there is joy the day that justice arrives, but we wondered, what happens the day after? you're about to meet three people who have returned to life from unjust convictions. as scott pelley first reported last year, one of them, ray hinton, was on death row. and he remembers, too vividly, the alabama electric chair and the scent that permeated the

cell block when a man was met by 2,000 volts. >> pelley: hinton waited his turn for nearly 30 years, until april 2015. that's when ray hinton stepped out of the shadow of execution, taking the first steps he chose for himself since 1985. what was that moment like? >> ray hinton: as though i was walking on clouds. i wanted to get away, in case they changed they mind, you know. >> pelley: you still didn't believe it. >> hinton: i was not going to allow myself to really believe that i was free, until i was actually free. >> pelley: free to visit his mother, who went to her grave believing her son would be executed. the cemetery was hinton's first destination. and he was startled by a world that had moved on without him.

>> hinton: we headed toward the graveyard and a voice come on and said, "at two-point-so-many miles, turn right." and i said, "what the hell? who is that?" and he said, his g.p.s. tracker. i knew i didn't see no white lady get in that car. i wanted to know, how did she get in that car, and what is she doing in this car? man, come on. >> pelley: any voice tended to be a surprise; on death row, hinton spent most of every day, alone. after 30 years inside, mostly by yourself, did you worry about coming back out into the world? >> hinton: you get out and you just out. if you don't have a place to live or-- money or whatever, you ask yourself, "what am i gonna do?" but then, my best friend stuck by me for 30 years. and he had already told me-- "whenever you get out-- you come live with me and my wife."

>> pelley: what did you have to learn after you got out? >> hinton: i'm still learning. i'm still learning that i can take a bath every day. i'm still learning that i don't have to get up at 3:00 in the morning and eat breakfast. i'm still learning that-- life is not always what we think it is. >> pelley: ray hinton's life was never what he thought it would be, after 1985, when he was misidentified by a witness who picked him out of a mug shot book. his picture was in there after a theft conviction. when police found a gun in his mother's house, a lieutenant told him that he'd been arrested in three shootings, including the murders of two restaurant managers. >> hinton: i said, "you got the wrong guy." and he said, "i don't care whether you did it or don't." he said, "but you gonna be convicted for it. and you know why?" i said, "no."

he said, "you got a white man. they gonna say you shot him. gonna have a white d.a. we gonna have a white judge. you gonna have a white jury, more than likely." and he said, "all of that spell conviction, conviction, conviction." i said, "well, does it matter that i didn't do it?" he said, "not to me." >> pelley: the lieutenant denied saying that. but hinton was convicted at age 30. he was 57 when the u.s. supreme court ruled nine to zero that his defense had been ineffective. a new ballistics test found that the gun was not the murder weapon. >> hinton: 30 years ago, a judge proudly stood up and said, "i sentence you to die." 30 years later no one had the decency to say, "mr. hinton, we sorry for, uh, we sorry for what took place." no one have said it.

>> pelley: what did the state of alabama give you to help you get back up on your feet? >> hinton: they dropped all charges and that was it. >> pelley: no money? >> hinton: no. >> pelley: no suit of clothes? >> hinton: nothing. no. >> pelley: and that is where many states are failing the growing number of exonerated prisoners. it turns out in alabama, if ray hinton had committed murder and was released on parole, the state would have offered job training, housing assistance and a bus ticket home. but most states offer no immediate assistance to the innocent, who's convictions can be embarrassing because of misconduct or incompetence by police or prosecutors. >> bryan stevenson: you can't traumatize someone, try to kill someone, condemn someone, lock someone down for 30 years, and

not feel some responsibility for what you've done. >> pelley: attorney bryan stevenson worked on ray hinton's case for 16 years. stevenson started the equal justice initiative, one of a growing number of legal organizations overturning false convictions. >> stevenson: they need support. they need economic support, they need housing support, they need medical support, they need mental health care. they need to know that their victimization, their abuse has been taken seriously. >> ken ireland: it was just absolutely unimaginable and i couldn't even explain the horror of it. >> pelley: ken ireland lost 21 years. he was misidentified by witnesses who collected a $20,000 reward. convicted in a 1986 rape and murder, d.n.a. proved his innocence. >> good morning. >> good morning, sir. >> pelley: because of the rare perspective of an innocent man who's done hard time, the governor put ireland on connecticut's parole board.

>> ireland: at some point in your life, sir, you have to step up. >> pelley: so this is your new cell? >> ireland: well, yeah. ( laughs ) for eight hours a day. >> pelley: it took five years to get this job. at first, he lived with his sister, and he found work as a counselor for troubled kids. >> ireland: i got a little small apartment in town. there was the nights where i just barricaded myself in a big walk-in closet and slept in there. just thinking, you know, you know, someone's going to come kick down my door and drag me back. >> pelley: you slept in a closet? >> ireland: yeah, yeah, a few times i have. >> pelley: are you over that now, six years later? >> ireland: yeah, i don't have them issues now. it gets easier and easier every day. >> pelley: one thing that made it easier was connecticut's new law that compensates the wrongly convicted. a year ago, ireland was the first to get a check. >> pelley: what did the state give you? >> ireland: $6 million. >> pelley: $6 million? >> ireland: right, and-- >> pelley: wow. >> ireland: that's more than most states are giving. >> pelley: well it comes to something like $300,000 a year for every year you spent in

prison. and you say it's not worth it? >> ireland: oh, absolutely not. absolutely not. they could give me $5 million for every year, and it still wouldn't be worth it. >> pelley: ken ireland was fortunate, if you can call it that. many states don't offer compensation at all. one was julie baumer's home, michigan. other than the time, what have you lost? >> julie baumer: everything. everything. my life is nothing as it was. >> pelley: in 2003, baumer was a mortgage broker, raising her sister's baby. he became ill, so she took him to an emergency room. doctors there suspected the boy had been shaken until his brain was damaged. baumer was convicted of child abuse. she was in her fifth year in prison when new evidence showed that the boy had suffered a natural stroke. she was retried, acquitted and the judge apologized. after she was released, for a time, she was homeless.

how did you start over? >> baumer: it was very, very, very rough. you start from the bottom reclaiming your identity. i didn't have an i.d. and then, after i jumped over that hurdle, then you start applying for jobs. and then you have to go through, "okay, well, now there's a five gap-- year gap on your reésumee. why is this?" and then you tell your potential employer the truth. in my case, i never got phone calls back. >> pelley: there was no support for you of any kind. >> baumer: no. ( phone rings ) >> our lady of redemption. >> pelley: julie baumer now works for a detroit-area parish. >> thank you, god bless. hopefully, my testimony as an exoneree... >> pelley: in her spare time, she's lobbied michigan's legislature for a compensation law. >> baumer: no amount of money can ever bring back everything that i've lost. >> pelley: no one can fail to see the injustice in these cases. but when it comes to compensation, there are people watching this interview who are saying, "you know, it was just bad luck, and we don't

necessarily owe them for the life that they lost." >> stevenson: this isn't luck, this was a system. this was actually our justice system. it was our tax dollars who paid for the police officers who arrested mr. hinton; our tax dollars that paid for the judge and the prosecutor that prosecuted him; that paid for the experts who got it wrong; that paid to keep him on death row for 30 years for a crime he didn't commit. this has nothing to do with luck. this has everything to do with the way we treat those who are vulnerable in our criminal justice system. >> pelley: ray hinton is considering applying for compensation, but alabama has paid only one exoneree after 41 claims. in the meantime, attorney bryan stevenson has been hinton's guide to advances like a.t.m.s and smartphones, and to frustrations that never change, like getting a license at the d.m.v.

>> hinton: whether i ever catch up with the world, i don't know, but i'm gonna try. >> pelley: hinton is working part-time now, speaking about justice and faith. >> hinton: i just never, never believed that god would allow me to die for something that i didn't do. i didn't know how he was going to work it out but i believed that he would work it out. i can't get over the fact that, just because i was born black, and someone that had the authority happened to be white, felt the need to send me to a cage and try to take my life for something that they knew that i didn't do. >> pelley: of course, they did take ray hinton's life. a false conviction isn't about lost time-- it's the loss of an

education, a marriage, the chance to start a family, settle into a job and build a pension. the only thing alabama didn't take was the breath from his body. are you angry? >> hinton: no. >> pelley: how could you not be? three decades of your life, most all of your life. >> hinton: they took 30 years of my life, as you said. what joy i have, i cannot afford to give that to 'em. and so being angry is... would be giving them, letting them win. >> pelley: you'd still be in prison. >> hinton: oh, absolutely. i am a person that love to laugh. i love to see other people smile. and how can i smile, when i'm full of hate? and so, the 30 years that they got from me, i count today... i count every day as a joy. >> whitaker: since our story

first aired, julie baumer's lobbying efforts have paid off. she was on hand recently when the governor of michigan signed a law allowing her and others wrongly convicted to get compensation for their time in prison. as for ken ireland, he left his job at the connecticut board of pardons and paroles, bought an r.v. and is traveling across the united states, making up for lost time. >> this cbs sports update is brought to you by the lincoln motor company. i'm greg gumbel in new york with scores from college basketball today. louisville shot 57% in its blowout win over syracuse. on seen year dance in east lansing, michigan state won its tenth straight home game over wisconsin. ucf pulled off the upset over cincinnati. key land martin scored a game-high 25 as put her won its fourth in a row. for more sports news and scores, go to cbssports.com.

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authorities are callinghunt for "the jackal". she's wanted in connection with the sudden disappearance ... ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> whitaker: something unusual

happened on the way to last year's grammy awards... an album was nominated from malawi, a small country in southern africa not exactly famous for its music. as anderson cooper first reported this past fall, the artists weren't polished pop stars, but prisoners and guards, men and women in a place called zomba-- a maximum security prison so decrepit and overcrowded, we heard it referred to as "the waiting room of hell." how could such beautiful music come from such misery? we went to malawi to find out. ♪ ♪ >> cooper: this is the music that brought us to malawi, one of the least- developed nations on the planet. ♪ ♪ it's a place of staggering beauty. there's vast mountains, lush forests, and a long, idyllic lake.

drive through the countryside, however, and you quickly see poverty is widespread. for the country's 17 million people, life is full of hardships. zomba is malawi's only maximum security prison, and the music you're hearing comes from behind these walls. ♪ ♪ this prison was built to hold around 400 inmates. today, there are 2,400 here. ♪ ♪ what's so startling when you walk into the prison yard on a sunday morning, is that everywhere you turn, there is music. ♪ ♪ a cacophony of choirs. ♪ ♪

many here are hardened criminals-- robbers, rapists, murderers. others are casualties of a legal system that can be chaotic and arbitrary, where court files are routinely lost, and most suspects have no legal representation. ♪ ♪ in a small room off the yard, there's a prison band practicing every day on donated instruments. ♪ ♪ those men in green are guards. they play side by side with inmates. ♪ ♪ ian brennan, an american producer who travels the world recording new music in unlikely places, heard about zomba, and three years ago, flew to malawi to check it out. you're taking a gamble. because-- you go to places, you don't necessarily know what's

there, right-- ? >> ian brennan: no, no, no. we-- we have no idea. it's a leap of faith every single time. >> cooper: his was not the only leap of faith. officer thomas binamo took one too. he helped found the prison band eight years ago, and wasn't sure what to think, the day ian brennan showed up. >> thomas binamo ( translated ): i was quite surprised-- -- because i couldn't understand how this guy knew about us. and why would he be interested in our prison? >> cooper: it's not every day a white american knocks on the prison door and says he wants to come in? >> binamo ( translated ): yeah, it's true. ( laughs ) it's not every day. >> brennan: what took you so long? >> cooper: brennan saw promise in this prison, and the possibility of an album. so he set up his microphones and asked anyone interested to write and sing songs about their lives, men and women, inmates and guards. ♪ ♪

it was something most had never done before. ♪ ♪ what were you hoping to find? >> brennan: well-- you know, the thing we look for everywhere, which is, you know, music that resonates with us. this is what moves me. and hopefully it'll move someone else. >> cooper: and when you hear it, you know it. >> brennan: yeah. you feel it, usually. >> cooper: even if you don't understand the words right away? >> brennan: it's better when you don't understand the words. because when you don't understand the words, you have to listen to what somebody means, not what they're saying. and if they mean it. ♪ ♪ >> cooper: officer binamo was reluctant to write and sing about his life, but when he did, ian brennan knew his music would be on the album. ♪ ♪ just listen to what he came up with one morning when we were there-- a softly-sung ballad about the sudden death of his wife. ♪ ♪ "you left without saying goodbye," he sings.

"you left behind the children, too, they no longer cry." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> brennan: ( laughs ) he writes songs and plays as beautifully as someone can. he's reached that level of transcendence where it can't be better-- than it is. it just is. it's something that just hits you. ♪ ♪ >> cooper: to fully appreciate the music here, you have to see the misery. but when we arrived at zomba, authorities didn't want us to show what life is like for the prisoners. so, much of what we filmed, we had to record secretly, without the guards knowing. inmates in zomba are fed just one meal a day, a small bowl of gruel made out of cornflower. the menu, we're told, rarely changes. on good days, they get a few

beans; on bad days, inmates say, there's no food at all. chikondi salanje sang on the album nominated for a grammy. he's doing time for burglary. do you eat meat, chicken, beef? ( laughs ) you're laughing. that's not good. when was the last time you had meat? >> chikondi salanje: 2014. 25 december. >> cooper: two and a half years ago? on christmas day? >> salanje: yeah. >> cooper: it's not just the lack of food. zomba is so overcrowded, prisoners say they only have enough room in their cells to sleep wedged against one another lying on their sides. stefano nyirenda also sang on the album. so you're sleeping on your side? >> stefano nyirenda ( translated ): when you want to turn, you have to do it together. >> cooper: right next to each other? how do you sleep?

>> nyirenda ( translated ): we just sleep. we have no choice. >> cooper: stefano is in for robbery, and he is h.i.v.- positive, as are around a quarter of zomba's inmates. they occasionally get visits from an italian nun, sister anna tommasi, who runs a small charity providing some food and legal aid to prisoners. if you were writing-- a postcard to somebody, who had never been to this prison, how would you describe it here? >> sister anna tommasi: oh. i think it's impossible for somebody outside to get-- there are no words which could explain, because-- >> cooper: what life is like here? >> sister tommasi: yes. i think, before you came, three days ago, if i had written anything, would-- do you think you could have had a clue? >> cooper: no. >> sister tommasi: sometimes, i call it, it's the waiting room of hell. >> cooper: ( laughs ) that's what this prison is like? sometimes? >> sister tommasi: yeah. >> cooper: if it is the waiting room of hell, salvation for chikondi salanje comes from music. >> salanje ( translated ): when i'm singing, i feel like i'm in

another world. i don't feel like i'm in prison at all. it's only when i stop that i realize "oh, i'm still in prison." when i'm singing, i forget about everything else. >> cooper: when the music stops, that's when you realize you're in prison? >> salanje ( translated ): when we're singing, the walls are no longer there. but when we stop, the walls return, and then we're back to counting the bricks again. ♪ ♪ >> cooper: chikondi wouldn't have to count the bricks much longer. after five years here, he was about to get released. and when we were there, recorded a new song for ian brennan. it's about leaving prison... and his fears of life as a free man. >> cooper: "don't call me a criminal," he sings. "when i get home, they'll reject me. ♪ ♪ when something goes missing, they'll accuse me of stealing.

it hurts badly when you call me a criminal." ♪ ♪ in the men's section of this prison, there are rooms where prisoners take classes taught by inmates and guards. there are also two small libraries where they pour over faded books, and a rundown computer room. but in the women's section, there is no library, no computers. ♪ ♪ there is little else, but music. ♪ ♪ until ian brennan came along, the women didn't have their own instruments, and they couldn't understand why he was interested in listening to their singing at all. >> brennan: they really-- were-- believed that they were not singers or songwriters. i mean, they were pretty adamant about this. and-- and just at the moment-- i-- i was getting pretty close

to feeling like, "well, you know, we-- we tried--" one person stepped forward and said, "i've got a song." ♪ ♪ and then, the minute she did that, they literally lined up. ♪ ♪ >> cooper: rhoda mtemang'ombe was one of those women who stepped forward. the song she wrote for the zomba prison album is called "i am alone." ♪ ♪ what does that mean? >> rhoda mtemang'ombe ( translated ): i have no parents. i have no husband, and i'm here in prison. so i realize there's no one who can help me. so i ask god to help me. he's the only one who can guide me across this huge river. >> cooper: rhoda is serving a life sentence here in zomba. she's in for murder. do you feel like you're glorifying criminals? >> brennan: no. no, no, no. it's humanizing them--

>> cooper: humanizing-- >> brennan: --not glorifying them, at all, right? they've committed crimes. many of them have learned from their experiences. this is about humanizing individuals-- and that's for the benefit, not of them; that's for the benefit of the listener. >> cooper: the album ian brennan recorded at zomba did not end up winning the grammy this past year... and it hasn't turned a profit, either. brennan has paid the musicians, and they have a contract to receive more money if there are future earnings. when he showed up at zomba with his wife marilena in may to present the prisoners with some gifts and their grammy nomination certificate, it was cause enough for celebration... ♪ ♪ though some of the singers, like stephano nyrenda, still had questions about what a grammy award really was. >> nyrenda ( translated ): can i ask a little question? >> cooper: yeah, of course. >> nyrenda ( translated ): this trophy, does it have any money inside of it, or is it just a small prize?

>> cooper: it's just a token, there's no money inside the-- inside the award. >> nyrenda: ( laughs ) ♪ ♪ >> cooper: being nominated for a grammy has not changed life for the inmates inside zomba... ♪ ♪ ...or for guards like thomas binamo, living just outside the prison walls. but they are still writing music, and in september, released a whole new album. ♪ ♪ it's called "i will not stop singing." ♪ ♪ inside this prison, it's the only promise they have the power to keep. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> "60 minutes" has traveled to a lot of far off places to tell a lot of incredible stories. but on this trip to the colombian country side we ran smack into a medical detective story, that may end up affecting someone you know and love. after years of research on a unique population of patients, a multimillion dollar nih-backed study has begun to see if the dreaded alzheimer's disease may be preventable. >> if it makes a difference for them, i think there's a reasonable chance it could make a difference for all the rest of people who get alzheimer's disease.