Inside sinister DEATH of man who moved to private island 'paradise' with his Playboy bunny lover and her kids - before her sordid affair saw him embroiled in twisted KIDNAP plot that claimed his life... while she moved on with local snake breeder

Sandy beaches, crystal clear waters, bright sunshine, and a private oasis from which to enjoy it all... to many, this sounds like the ultimate dream. But for one family, this picture-perfect backdrop would become the setting for a nightmare descent into 'hell' that has all the makings of a twisted horror movie script. 

That horror began in January 2001, when former Playboy bunny Jayne Gaskin and her family fled the grey skies of Hampshire in search of a new adventure on a remote island off the coast of Nicaragua, fulfilling a dream for mother Jayne, who saw her private paradise as the ultimate escape. 

But just seven months later, as three masked, AK-47-wielding kidnappers marched her partner and three terrified children off their private island and into the pitch black of the rainforest, she must have wondered: 'When did it all go wrong?' 

It all started a year prior at the turn of a new millennium. Jayne, a former Playboy Bunny-turned-bored housewife made a resolution to get out of rainy England. 

She dreamed of an exotic oasis: cloudless blue skies, white sand, palm-fringed private beaches, and the sea a deep shade of turquoise.

Searching online, she came across a website called Tropical-Islands.com that enticed potential buyers to snap up a private piece of paradise.

It was everything she'd dreamed of.  

So, Jayne - who had split from her husband, Phil Gaskin - and her older partner, also named Phil, sold their house and uprooted their three children (with a reality TV crew in tow) to journey to Lime Cay, a 9.5 acre island, off the coast of Nicaragua, which they purchased for £170,000 (roughly $400,000 in today's money).

In 2001, Jayne Gaskin and her partner Phil decided to leave their home in England for life on a secluded island in Nicaragua. Their story was played out for cameras, in a shocking British documentary titled, 'No Going Back' 

Jayne Gaskin was a former Playboy Bunny and mother of three children when she hatched her dream to leave rainy England in favor of a tropical paradise. 'There is no going back, not for me, I don't care if we're penniless and it all goes wrong,' Jayne told cameras

The Gaskins purchased 'Lime Cay' off Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast in January 2001 for £170,000 (roughly $400,000 in today's money) from a suspicious website selling private islands for cut-rate prices. Little did they know, the island was at the center of a centuries-old land dispute that would end in murder, kidnap and corruption

The shocking story of British family who trades their village home for a tropical paradise is told in a new true crime podcast by Wondery 

But a series of sinister events — corruption, kidnapping, a dispute over land rights, Jayne's affair with a Sandinista guerrilla, and a tragic death — quickly turned the Gaskins' paradise into a living hell.

Their jaw-dropping story unfolded before cameras and captivated British audiences with the 2002 documentary titled, No Going Back.

Now over 20 years later, their story is retold on 'The Price of Paradise,' a new Wondery podcast featuring exclusive interviews with the people who got a front row seat to the action. 

'Naïve westerners to come and buy islands and think they can live there, it's insane really, the whole thing,' said Billy, a TV producer and cameraman who followed the Gaskins for seven months on their ill-fated journey.

With her bright clothes, and loud personality, Jayne a former Playboy Bunny and croupier, never fit into her quaint and conservative Hampshire village. 

'Jayne looks like Jessica Rabbit meets weird Barbie,' recalled Channel 4 producer, James Christie Miller of their first meeting. 

'Like as if Bratz Dolls did a limited edition range, she's tiny and curvy like a little doll.' 

Nicaragua was Jayne's dream. 'She was the driving force,' said Billy on the podcast. 'I certainly got the impression that Phil absolutely adored Jayne and would do anything for her.'

With their whole life packed up into just ten suitcases, the Gaskins boarded a plane to Nicaragua in January 2001. 

'There is no going back, not for me, I don't care if we're penniless and it all goes wrong,' Jayne tells cameras. 

While at the airport, Phil had foreboding feeling, 'I suppose I should be feeling really excited, but I just feel apprehensive and worried that I'm doing the right thing by taking these children all the way out to this island.'

Landing in Nicaragua, Jayne immediately drew attention from locals by wearing a cleavage bearing crop top. Seemingly unfazed by the focus, she tells cameras, 'Clearly they're not used to Elizabeth Taylor arriving.'

Before heading to the island, the Gaskins planned a quick shopping trip on the mainland for supplies.

'It seemed like they were just going to buy some coffee and milk down at the supermarket,' said Billy, 'but here we are in a gun shop buying a whole load of guns to defend themselves.'

In the doc, Jayne can be seen cocking a massive firearm while wearing a cleavage-bearing skintight, gold lamé camisole. She is unfussed when one of her sons playfully points an enormous gun at his eight-year-old sister.

Lime Cay sits at the center of a cocaine highway between Miami and Columbia. Phil and Jayne had heard that drug runners have been using it as a stop-off point. 

Billy recalled how this added to the 'heightened tension,' and created 'an undercurrent of nervousness.

The second stop was to purchase a $10,000 panga boat (a special type of vessel popular among local fisherman), which Jayne insisted on being painted hot pink, her favorite color. 

After a torturous three hour boat ride around dense rainforests and tangled mangroves, the Gaskins finally arrived at their destination. 

'What struck me first was just how small it was,' said Billy. 'You could see right through it to the other side, a lot like a cartoon island.' 

It was 'barely habitable,' Billy recalled. Indeed, it was a far cry from the family's four bedroom home in Hampshire. 

Despite its spartan conditions, Lime Cay was paradise for Jayne, who renamed the island, 'Jaynique' — part Mustique, part unique, and part Jayne. 

With only one structure on the island, the Gaskin children were forced to sleep in hammocks. 

They shared a tiny 15-foot shack that stood on stilts with no running water or main power, as the TV crew pitched tents on the beach. 

Phil got to work right away on his vision of turning Jaynique into a dive center, even though neither he nor his wife even knew how to swim. 

Long hours were dedicated to clearing, cleaning, and constructing. 

When they were not working, the children raced hermit crabs, Phil fretted over their shrinking budget, and Jayne strolled along the beach without a top, with the camera crew present. 

'It's all very pretty,' Phil said. '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.' 

Jayne renamed Lime Cay 'Jaynique' (an amalgamation of Mustique, unique and Jayne). Once living on the island the family quickly clashed with locals, who claimed it was a sacred space that was only to be passed down through generations

Jayne planned on homeschooling her three children Damien 13, James 11 and Cherry nine. Long days were spent clearing, cleaning, and building. During their off hours, the kids raced hermit crabs as Jayne walked on the beach topless in front of cameras

Lime Cay is a 9.5 acre island and three hour boat ride from civilization

Despite its obvious challenges, the family seemed to be making life on Jaynique work... though it didn't last long. 

Little did they know, that their newfound paradise was about to be the center of a violent property dispute.

A major turning point happened when Phil hired a local handyman named Teodoro, to help with the construction of his dive center. 

Teodoro was an ex-guerilla fighter that trained in Cuba, and regaled the family of how he used 'to hunt tigers and drink their blood.'

'His eyes were dead,' Billy recalled. 'I remember thinking he could probably snap me like a twig.'

Jayne and Teodoro began having an affair, but when she discovered that he was also sleeping with the cook, Jayne banished him from the island.

'I don't know how much English you understand,' Jayne confronts Teodoro in front of cameras. 'But you mess around with me, next thing, you mess with the cook. I don't want someone like that on my island.'

'You don't like me anymore that's fine, but you don't work here and sleep with the cook in front of me.'

As Teodoro's boat left the island, Billy couldn't help but feel a sense of relief. 

'I thought, "That's the last we'll see of Teodoro." But how wrong could I be,' he told Wondery. 

The drama extended beyond Jayne's romantic affairs; it also involved tension arising from the Gaskins' presence in the Pearl Cays. Community leaders began to question the legality of their ownership of Jaynique. 

Historically, the Cays had served as a sanctuary for the indigenous community, who utilized them for shelter during storms, extended fishing expeditions, coconut gathering, and accessing fresh water from the wells. 

Environmentalists were also outraged when they discovered that the Gaskins were chopping down mangroves and destroying the nests of endangered Hawksbill Turtles.

A judge eventually ruled in the Gaskins' favor, much to the outrage of the local community. 

Tension boiled over one afternoon when Jayne was relaxing outside in a hammock. She suddenly spotted a flotilla of boats on the horizon headed toward her, carrying 75 angry passengers wielding machetes, who quickly began an invasion of her private beach. 

Phil accused the protesters of being 'racist' against whites, while Jayne promised nothing short of armed resistance. 'I'm not just going to walk away,' she said to the camera. 

'I want the island. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. That's what it would be. All-out war.'

While Jayne remained undaunted, Phil and the three children began to pine for their old life in England.

The only existing structure on the island was a tiny 15-foot shack, with no running water or main power. The Gaskin children slept on hammocks  as the TV crew pitched tents on the beach

Jayne began having an affair with Teodoro (seen), an ex-Sandinista guerilla fighter and a local handyman they hired to help with the construction. When Jayne fired him after discovering that he was also sleeping with the cook, Teodoro vowed to exact revenge, and stormed the island months later, holding the family hostage at gunpoint

Life on the island began to take its toll: the two hour boat rides, the lack of food medicine. 

The isolation, which once felt like freedom, began to feel like captivity. 

Things came to a violent head on the evening of September 23.

As the family prepared for bed, suddenly their electric generator died and the lights went out. Their front door flew open, and Gene, the boat driver, appeared with masked men holding a gun held to his head. 

The attackers made Phil and 13-year-old Damien lay face-down on the floor as Jayne and the terrified younger children looked on. 

They demanded $1 million and marched the family onto their pink panga boat, filling the tank with gas and loading extra cans of fuel on board. 

Although he was wearing a mask, the Gaskins recognized the gang's leader's voice as Teodoro Tinoco - their former handyman that Jayne sacked a few months prior.

With no idea where they were headed, Phil bean working on an escape plan, whispering to Jayne, 'Get ready. Something's going to happen.'

When the engine began to sputter, Phil took his chance, grabbing the extra gas cans, and pouring the petrol all over the armed kidnappers. 

'Then I lit a match and he went up in flames,' he said in No Going Back. 'I think another one caught fire as well. My arm and trousers were alight and I dropped into the water.'

Gathering up the children, Phil and Jayne swam off and then waded into a nearby mangrove swamp, where they hid overnight.

'There are alligators, panthers, and huge mosquitoes called stingers, with poison darts that go right through your clothes, in there,' said Jayne. They laid there still, the entire night until dawn broke. 

A passing fisherman took them down the coast, and from there they were taken to hospital. 

Jayne had left her ex-husband, also named Phil, back in the UK, however he paid a visit to the island to see his children (pictured)  

After the death of her partner Phil, Jayne moved on with a snake breeder named Steve Hill, however she and her children (seen with their father) are believed to have since returned to the UK, per a 2014 interview

After Phil's death, Jayne eventually sold Lime Cay to another English woman named Alex Appleby for an undisclosed amount. But she remained attached to her island paradise, so attached that she had the Pearl Cays tattooed on herself

Local police later arrested Teodora and several members of his gang - but they were freed two weeks ago when a judge ruled it as an 'employment dispute.'

Nothing was the same after the kidnapping, it was Phil's last straw.

He told Billy: 'The only way I can escape this island is in my dreams.' 

'Everyone seemed stunned about what happened,' Billy told the podcast. 'It seemed straight out of some horror film, but Jayne had no intention of leaving.

Soon after the incident, Phil's health began to rapidly decline. He developed a bad case of asthma from smoke inhalation during the boat incident. 

Billy, who had been home in the UK when the kidnapping happened, admits he was left stunned when he returned to the island to see just how quickly things had fallen apart. 

'I hadn't heard from Jayne for about three to four weeks, which is odd,' he said. 'I knew something may have gone wrong.' 

By the time Billy got back to Nicaragua, he said Phil was 'in a really bad state.' 

'He was almost unrecognizable,' Billy told the podcast. 'He looked like a skeleton, ashen, white, unshaven. He wasn't making any sense, mentally he was frazzled.'

Despite his terrible health, Jayne hired armed guards and refused to leave, only heading for the mainland when Phil needed medical attention. 

Eventually however, Jayne relented, and just four weeks after the family decided to leave the island, Phil died from a massive asthma attack. 

To the shock of British audiences, the documentary ends with a caption informing them of Phil's death in December 2001 (just weeks before the program aired).

While the first episode was unsettling, the subsequent one, which aired four months later, was truly grotesque. 

'He was like a goldfish gasping for air,' Jayne explained to the crew. 

By then, she had already moved on with a long-haired, snake-breeder named Steve Hill. 

Phil's decomposing body was shown in an open casket, with Jayne (wearing a pink satin bustier) forcing Pokemon cards and trinkets in his pockets before burying him on the snake farm owned by her new lover.

According to a 2014 interview with Buzzfeed, Jayne had moved back to London. But she remained attached to her island paradise, so much so that she even had the Pearl Cays tattooed on herself. 

Jayne eventually sold Lime Cay to another English woman named Alex Appleby for an undisclosed amount. 

Tsokos' website Tropical-Islands.com went offline in 2009 and he seems to have all but disappeared.

Despite having run an online business for nearly a decade, there's scarcely a trace of him online or off.