Two Prisoners Die at Bent County Correctional Facility

The dust on the road to La Junta settles differently when you’re heading east toward the Arkansas Valley, a fine, dry powder that coats the windshield and mutes the world beyond. About 85 miles east of Pueblo, the Bent County Correctional Facility sits in that flat, open expanse, a medium-security anchor owned by CoreCivic that feels less like a distant administrative node and more like a heavy, private lung breathing in the heat. It’s quiet there, usually, but over the weekend, the silence broke. Two men died inside those walls, and while the state has lifted the temporary ban on visitation, the details of what killed Charles Gates and Michael Fisher remain locked behind a wall of bureaucratic silence.

On Monday, Bent County Coroner Jason Nichols stepped out to identify the two men, confirming their deaths but withholding the specific causes or manners of death until an autopsy scheduled for Wednesday and toxicology results — which can take up to ten weeks — are complete. Gates, 27, was a younger man serving time across five separate cases, including burglary, assault, and fraud, with his longest sentence being nine years for auto theft in 2023. Fisher, 59, carried the weight of a life sentence, having been convicted of first-degree murder in Adams County in 1998. They weren’t just numbers in a ledger; they were men with histories, now dead in a facility that is supposed to hold them.

A third prisoner was reportedly injured and taken to a hospital Saturday, though as of Monday, their condition remained unknown, a ghost in the machine of the emergency response. The incident prompted a statewide suspension of prison visitation, a precautionary decision intended to support department operations and maintain safety, but that restriction was lifted by the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) on Monday morning. Visits are still restricted at Bent County itself, where the prison remains on lockdown, a solitary confinement of the entire institution.

Brian Todd, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, which owns and runs the facility, directed all questions to the state corrections department, while Alonda Gonzalez, a CDOC spokesperson, did not respond to a list of questions on Monday morning. It’s a classic game of telephone, where the people who know the most say the least.

Bent County Sheriff Jake Six received a call from the prison at about 11:22 p.m. Saturday. “They were just informing us of a miscount,” Six said, noting that whenever that happens, they secure the perimeter and check the fences. He was on the scene for about two hours, ensuring every inmate was accounted for, before directing the rest of the questions regarding the deaths to the CDOC. The incident did not pose any known threat to surrounding communities, officials said, but the miscount suggests a momentary unraveling of control, a glitch in the system that led to two final breaths.

If you look closely at the records, you see the disparity in their sentences, Gates with his nine years, Fisher with life without parole; yet they shared the same fate in the same facility. The CDOC Office of the Inspector General is leading the investigation, but for now, the community waits. The dust still settles on the road to La Junta, and the fences around Bent County remain checked, secure, and silent.