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Charles A. Gardner

Biography

Charles A. Gardner

Charles A. Gardner is a municipal court judge and retired Corrections regional training lieutenant in Malone, New York, the far-upstate town where he was born and raised. His 25-year career in New York State Department of Corrections included working as a corrections officer, sergeant and lieutenant. He had experience working in medium and maximum-security facilities, including stints at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora and the maximum-security prisons of Sing-Sing, Bedford Hills, Great Meadow and Upstate. Gardner served on the Department of Corrections’ emergency response team (CERT), which played a critical role in the search for the 2015 prison escapees. He lives in the North Country.

Charles A. Gardner

Books by Charles A. Gardner

Dannemora: Two Escaped Killers, Three Weeks of Terror, and the Largest Manhunt Ever in New York State
by Charles A. Gardner - Nonfiction, True Crime

In June 2015, two convicted murderers broke out of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, in New York’s North Country --- launching the most extensive manhunt in state history and dominating the news cycle. Double murderer Richard Matt and cop-killer David Sweat slipped out of their cells, followed a network of tunnels and pipes under the 30-foot prison wall, and climbed out of a manhole to freedom. For three weeks, residents of local communities were prisoners in their own homes as law enforcement swept the wilderness near the Canadian border. DANNEMORA is a gripping account of the bold breakout and the search that ended with one man dead, one man back in custody --- and lingering questions about those who set the deadly drama in motion.