It took him eight months, but in the spring of 2022 Canyon Hohenstein finally decided to look up the crimes committed by some of the 17 Montana State Prison convicts he’d helped lead on a fire crew the previous August, developing a surprising kinship with the inmates.

What he learned staggered him.

A few were in Deer Lodge for rape. One was convicted of triple homicide. Many were locked up for what he described as “some bad sh*t”. And then he arrived at the criminal who most piqued his interest, a man with a life sentence.

For those two weeks on that Swan Valley fire crew, Hohenstein had developed a special affinity for “an older gentlemen” who had the respect of the entire crew. He was, Hohenstein said, “kind, caring and hard-working.” He often asked, with sincerity, about his squad bo

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