On the afternoon of March 14, Gardner was crying at his cell door, saying he wanted to hurt himself. “Please handcuff me,” Gardner told the deputy who was notified by a nurse about his suicide threat. “What’s wrong?” the deputy asked. “I don’t like this medicine. I don’t like how it makes me feel.” When Gardner asked to be handcuffed, the deputy opened the food flap in the cell door, told Gardner to turn around and place his hands into the flap so the deputy could cuff him safely. Then he and a second deputy escorted Gardner to a third-floor safety cell, asking him on the way how he was planning to injure himself. “I know how to hurt myself,” Gardner said. Once he was placed in a padded cell, Gardner, still crying, complied with orders to remove his clothing and put on a “safety cell garment,” specifically designed to prevent inmates from hanging themselves. Gardner’s admission about the location of Amber’s remains stayed a tightly kept secret for six weeks, while the prosecution team scrambled to find evidence independent of his “free trip”
