When Stassens approached us at "The 8 of Cups" with a rather vague proposal about recording for him, we agreed that we would be interested if the right project came along. Little did we realize that the "right project" would not come as an accident, but only after hours of thought, negotiation, and plain hard work. After several meetings, discussing some of the song lyrics Ron had written and the musical styles we were interested in recording, he came up with an idea that seemed plausible.

The national news had recently run a story of a young University of Oregon student, who had been arrested by Turkish border authorities, charged with smuggling drugs, and subsiquently sentenced to death, the penalty in Turkey for such an offense. After a little investigation, we found Joann McDaniels, originally from Coos Bay, Oregon, was initially sentenced to death, but her sentence, and those of her two companions, Bob Hubbard; an army brat who had grown up all over the U.S. and Europe, and Kathy Zenz; a fellow student from Wisconsin, had been commuted to life.

Coincidentally, Ron's English teacher at Sunset High School, near Portland, happened to have been JoAnn's older sister, which led him to contact Joann's family in Salem. They had moved to Oregon's state capitol for closer access to the Oregon State Legislature and Senator Hatfield's office. Ron was informed by the family that she was being held in a women's annex built adjacent to a major prison facility in Ankarra, Turkey. All her needs, besides the basic necessities of life, had to be provided by family and friends ... the Turkish prison system offered nothing but incarceration. Airmen from the American Air Force base near Ankarra brought a few things obtained from the PX, and there was the occasional care box sent from home, but by and large Joann and Kathy were left to fend for themselves.

Bob Hubbard, who claimed full responsibility for the entire operation at the trial and was suffering from extreme depression was being held next door at the men's facility. Bob had attempted to convince the Turkish authorities at the time of their arrest that the scheme of hosting a middle eastern tour made up of European college students to cover the hashish smuggling operation was all his idea, claiming that the girls, Joann and Kathy, who were driving the two other vans of students had absolutely no knowledge that the headliners had been filled with Syrian hashish. The plan was for himself and the girls to drive the vans back to their point of departure, Germany, where Bob would pull the hashish out of the vans and sell it. He insisted that all the girls knew was they were being paid well to drive tourists around the middle east to purchase artifacts and souvenirs. The Turks didn't buy a word of it.

Bob was unaware that he had been set up by the hashish dealer. He was sold the hashish, by the same guy who claimed the reward offered by the Turkish government when the party reached the border. Poor Bob was duped coming and going, and whether the girls were accomplices or not became a moot point. Blackhawk County never made any mention of Joann's part in the scheme, nor did we attempt to claim her innocence. However, we vigorously protested the harshness of her sentence, and did all that we could to keep her plight in the public eye.

After first hiring American lawyers, unfamiliar with the Turkish justice system, the trio attempted to appeal the first court's life sentence ruling. They were not aware that an appeal in Turkey could go either for or against the defendents, and that the second court could impose an even harsher penalty if it so desired ... it did.