CHARLESTON – Even before Friday’s arrest of a recently released Vermont murderer in central Maine, residents in this bucolic town on the border of Penobscot and Piscataquis counties were wondering how Kent Hanson ended up in their back yard.

Hanson, 62, was released last week from a state prison in Vermont after serving a 20-year maximum sentence for second-degree murder in the 1985 slaying of a female acquaintance.

He was a free man with no parole or probation conditions when he left Vermont and arrived for a stay with Fred and Christina Maddocks at the 2nd Chance Ranch in Charleston, about 30 miles north of Bangor.

Pete Fiske, a Vermont prison chaplain, had met Fred Maddocks, who also works with prisoners, at a recent conference in Camden. The two worked out a deal where Hanson would stay with Maddocks upon his release. Fiske did not return a call Friday.

Authorities believe Fiske drove Hanson to Maine on May 12. Less than a week later, Hanson stole a pickup truck at the ranch and disappeared, police said. He was arrested Friday about 20 miles to the southwest, in a home in Detroit, a Somerset County town of 800.

In Charleston, the 2nd Chance Ranch is on Route 15, just down the road from the Mountain View Youth Development Center.

To drivers passing by, the home looks like little more than a horse farm, but Fred Maddocks has been opening the place for about eight years to ex-convicts and others in need of a transitional place to stay.

Fred and Christina Maddocks have been inundated with phone calls since the public learned that Kent Hanson had been staying at the ranch and have refused to comment.

The couple again declined Friday to speak about their situation, saying they did not want to be the focus. They said they stand by their convictions and will continue taking in released prisoners and others who need help.

About 1,400 people live in Charleston. When news happens, it doesn’t take long for it to circulate, Town Clerk Leslie Maynard said Friday at the Charleston town office.

Yet Maynard, who said she has lived in the town for more than 30 years, did not know much about the nature of the 2nd Chance Ranch until recently.

“I always thought it was for horses,” she said of the Maddockses’ home. “I had no idea that [Maddocks] was taking in convicts.”

For a town whose largest employer is a correctional facility, some of its residents are less than pleased with the idea of inviting criminals from other states to stay. Dennis Dyer, police chief in nearby Dover-Foxcroft, went so far as to call Maine communities like Charleston a “dumping ground for convicts.”

R. Christopher Almy, district attorney for Penobscot and Piscataquis counties, lives in Charleston not far from the 2nd Chance Ranch. He said Friday afternoon that townspeople are not happy.

“[Fred Maddocks] means well, but in this instance it’s a pretty risky move,” Almy said. “It’s easy to inflame these situations.”

A young male Charleston resident who asked not to be identified said Friday morning that it was strange that the town wasn’t notified ahead of time, but “as long as he’s gone I don’t really care,” he said outside the Agway store on Route 11A.

In truth, Kent Hanson was under no obligation to notify state authorities upon his arrival in Maine. Vermont Department of Corrections officials notified their counterparts in Maine as a courtesy and eventually the information trickled down to Charleston residents.

“The calls that I received – and I received several – people just wanted to know the facts; they wanted to be made aware,” Charleston First Selectman Terri-Lynn Hall said Friday. “This is a small town; if someone has some information that they feel is pertinent to a neighbor, they’re going to share that information.”

Hall said Hanson has certainly brought the Maddockses into the spotlight.

“I have a feeling that there will be some controversy over this,” she said. “Residents will feel that they have the right to know, but there is no law that states that.”

Steven Barkan, a professor of sociology at the University of Maine said Friday that he is not familiar with transitional homes such as the 2nd Chance Ranch, but that services for criminals both in and out of prison tend to be at best inadequate.

“After you get out of prison, the services are usually pretty poor,” Barkan said. “We’re spending a lot more money on prison construction than we are on rehabilitation programs and post-prison services. Often [convicts] come out of prison worse than when they went in.”

The debate over whether town residents are better off knowing that Hanson was in Charleston or not likely will continue.

“I don’t think any one person has the right to judge anyone else,” Hall said. “If there is a possibility that another person could come into harm’s way, it would be a courtesy to let other people know.”