ATTICA, N.Y. — From his garage in the small community of Hunt, New York, Mark Cunningham is thinking of his father. He has not seen his father since he died 50 years ago, a victim of the Attica Prison uprising.

Sgt. Edward Cunningham was a decorated World War II veteran. After the war, he took a job as a prison guard with the New York State Department of Corrections, eventually landing at the state’s maximum-security penitentiary in Attica.

Cunningham worked five days a week at the prison to provide for his wife and eight children.

At 14 years old, Mark was just starting his freshman year at Attica High School, when the prison alarms blared through town, sending children home from school and putting the town on lockdown.

“Then we went home and nobody knew nothing, who was hostages, who wasn’t a hostage,” Mark said. “Nobody knew nothing.”

Rioting prisoners seeking improved conditions seized control of the facility, taking hostages and occupying cell block D’s recreation area known as D Yard.

“You could see the smoke coming out of the prison because they were burning the chapel,” Cunningham said.

More than a day would pass before the family would learn that Ed Cunningham was among the 39 prison guards and employees being held hostage. In fact, the whole world would learn, as Cunningham and other hostages were shown on television news broadcasts.

In prisoner clothing, Edward Cunningham said to the cameras, “Now I work with these men, they haven't done nothing to me. I mean in the excitement, certain things went on around here. Okay, that's understandable. People get excited and things happen.”

Five decades later, the hostage’s son watched the news clips once again.

“I didn't think anything like what happened, would happen,” Mark said. “No, never thought anything like that at all.”

What would happen would be a prison take over that would go from bad to worse.

“We knew things were kind of going downhill because it was broadcast on TV,” said Cunningham.

Images were broadcast of the hostages appearing to have been be roughed up, including Cunningham.

“Now this is not a joke, this is not some kind of a little tea party we got here,” Ed said before the cameras again as the days wore on.

The prison guard hostage was asked to send a message to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who had refused to come to Attica at the inmates’ request.

“If he says no, I’m dead,” Ed said.

That prediction would come true five days after the siege began. The governor never came to Attica. Instead, he ordered armed troopers to storm the prison after hostage takers refused to surrender.

“When I got up on the 13th in the morning, you could hear the gunshots right from our house, I mean you can hear everything, the shooting,” Mark said.

In a hail of gunfire, through tear gas, within minutes, 10 hostages and 29 inmates were killed, 89 others seriously wounded. Among the dead was Edward Cunningham.

“My father was killed by one buckshot pellet,” Mark said. “One through here [he said pointing to his head], and came out the spinal cord. Just one pellet from a shotgun killed him.”

He says a state trooper pulled the trigger. But the Cunninghams and the other families would learn few additional details, not then, not even after 50 years.

When asked if there are still questions about what really happened at Attica in 1971, Cunningham answered, “Yes, definitely. Definitely, there are.”

Nobody was ever held accountable for Cunningham’s death. Dealt another blow, they were denied compensation and benefits from the state.

“My mother got like $109 every two weeks or every month,” Mark said. “I remember seeing her retirement check.  She didn't get nothing. When she finally passed away, we had to sell her car just to help put her in the ground.”

Despite it all, four of Ed Cunningham’s sons would follow in their father’s footsteps, taking jobs as corrections officers with the New York State Department of Corrections. Mark retired four years ago from the very same prison his father had lost his life in.

“I was kind of one of the people blessed with knowing what can happen in places,” Mark said.

Ed Cunningham was 52 years old when died.

His son keeps his badge and he keeps his father’s memory alive, with a little hope left that New York State will come clean.

“They never gave an apology,” he said. “The state of New York, screwed up big time on that riot.”

The New York State Department of Corrections declined requests for interviews from Spectrum News 1 for this series of stories and to recognize this half-century anniversary.