Maze Knowles, (born Maisie Knowles) was raised in a working class family in Vassalboro, Maine. Growing up he always loved animals and playing with his older brothers, and would often come home with his clothes covered in mud. He liked to help his mother with growing food in the garden and enjoyed watching his father do repair work on construction vehicles. His friends knew him as someone who would always be there to help them through any difficult time. During is transition he tried out going by the name Charlie, and later tried Charles, but eventually settled on the nickname everyone has already used on him from when he was very small, Maze.
While Maze was being held at Long Creek detention center he was able to access the therapist that was there, but that was as much a Long Creek did. He was on and off suicide watch. Maze's mother, Michelle Knowles, repeatedly asked for them to help her son, but she was told that they were professionals and would keep Maze safe. Here is some text from an article in the Portland Press Herald.
“They couldn’t attend to his mental health because he was a detainee and not an inmate. And that’s important. He was languishing,” Knowles said. “I demanded that he get clinical assistance. They were just going to begin some. That’s when they called up to congratulate themselves on how great [Maze] was doing for the past 12 hours. I said, ‘yeah, you gotta look out.'”
The next day, Charles had hanged himself.
...
She learned with experience that periods of relative calm and apparent progress with doctors would suddenly give way like a trap door that opened into free fall.
“I told them (at Long Creek), ‘Please be careful, you can’t trust this child,’ ” Knowles said. “As soon as you trust him, the other shoe drops.”
https://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/15/transgender-teen-who-died-at-long-creek-denied-mental-health-treatment-mother-says/
While Maze was being held at Long Creek, Michelle Knowles got regular phone calls from Maze, and the therapist that worked with Maze. One night she was told that Maze had been very open and honest with the therapist. She was told that Maze had shared that he had figured out something about the room checks. Inmates on suicide watch are told that room checks happen at random, but Maze shared with the therapist that he had figured out that the checks actually happen every 9 minutes, which meant he has 8 minutes to end his life. The therapist took this to mean that Maze was being open and honest, and so the therapist rewarded Maze by giving him back his bed sheet privileges. In that nights phone call, the therapist told Mazes mom all that had taken place. Michelle Knowles told him over the phone that he should not trust Maze like this and that this was the calm behavior she recognized as coming before a bout of self-harm. The therapist told Michelle Knowles that he was the professional, and she was not, so she should trust his judgement. As, the article above states, Maze subsequently died by suicide by using his bed sheets. Maze's body was found when the room check came around and CPR was preformed by a close by EMT. His body was rushed to the nearest hospital and his body was kept on life support for several days, but the damage was done and there was no recovery.
Some time later Long Creek held a remembrance ceremony for him. They started without his mother while she was crying in the bathroom. She did eventually gather the strength to face it and came out while a pastor was giving a speech. At the end the inmates from the boys half of Long Creek all lined themselves up in front of Michelle so they could each individually pay their respects to Mazes mother. In the process one of them secretly slipped Michelle a note telling her that Long Creek guards would laugh at suicidal inmates. Inmates from the girls half of the facility also lined themselves up all orderly to pay their respects to Michelle. Everyone who met Maze had positive things to say about him to Michelle.
Long Creek has still never handed over his smartphone or suicide note, they only mentioned that there even was a suicide note to the media, but not to his family. As of October 23rd, 2019, no one has been charged with any crimes or violations of the law in the case of the death of Maze Knowles. During this October 29th, I will take extra time to remember him, the life he lost, and the justice he never got.
