Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe BOGOTA, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A former paramilitary leader was crowned a beauty queen at the close of an annual pageant at Colombia's Good Shepherd prison. Diana Layton, 21, who joined a right-wing paramilitary group at the age of 12 and acted as commander of a death squad, won the tiara and gift bag following the pageant at the Bogota prison, the Toronto (Canada) Globe and Mail reported Friday. Advertisement "I came from a place where you had to act like a man. I walked in rubber boots, wore camouflage, and carried a machine gun," Layton said. "To feel so feminine preparing for the competition is so nice. I feel beloved and admired." Virginia Camacho, secretary of the prison and coordinator of the pageant, said the event can give important self-worth to the prisoners. "The fact that they made a mistake in their lives doesn't mean they aren't allowed to be a human being or feel like a woman," Camacho said.
