From FoxNews.com

Manhunt continues in upstate New York for escaped murderers

A female prison work supervisor gave two inmates the power tools to escape from a maximum-security prison Friday in upstate New York and had planned to provide a getaway car but got cold feet, high level sources close to the case told Fox News.

Joyce Mitchell assisted convicted murderers David Sweat and Richard Matt in their brazen escape Friday night from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y. — giving the pair tools to break through steel walls and crawl through a steam pipe, according to authorities.

Law enforcement sources also claim 51-year-old Mitchell planned to provide a getaway car for the convicts but suffered a panic attack and checked herself into a hospital instead.

Sweat, 34, and Matt, 48, remained on the run Wednesday, nearly five days since they escaped the high-security prison some 20 miles from the Canadian border.

A law enforcement sweep of a small upstate New York town Tuesday turned up no sign of the two, though authorities said leads continued to be generated and there would be an increased police presence in the area.

The search for Sweat and Matt had focused on Willsboro, a town of approximately 2,000 people in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains close to Lake Champlain, after residents reported seeing a couple of men walking on a road late Monday during a driving rainstorm.

On Tuesday, searchers walked shoulder-to-shoulder, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying sidearms as they went through hilly woods, fields and swamps, checking every home, garage, shed and outbuilding, then yelling, “Clear!” when there were no signs of the inmates.

By early evening, it appeared the sweep had come up empty, and there was no confirmation from police that the escaped convicts had been there. New York State Police issued a statement Tuesday saying that more than 400 corrections and other law enforcement officers were in the area and planned to go door to door, checking homes and seasonal camps.

The New York State Police announced that investigators will be searching homes in Dannemora on Wednesday.

“These searches are not the result of a new lead, law enforcement are retracing steps made early in the investigation,” the state police said. “Residents will notice an increased police presence in the area.”

“He’s been shot like nine times. It’s like they can’t kill him.”

– Nicholas Harris, son of murder fugitive Richard Matt

Sweat and Matt cut through a steel wall of the Clinton Correctional Facility, broke through bricks and crawled through a steam pipe before emerging through a manhole outside the prison grounds.

They were discovered missing early Saturday after stuffing their beds with clothes to fool guards on their rounds and leaving behind a taunting note: “Have a nice day.” According to media reports, the men’s green prison uniforms were found in a pipe they used to climb out of the manhole.

A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told the Buffalo News that Matt and Sweat had access to the inner catwalks and passages of the maximum security prison about a month before their escape.

Officials believe the men used power tools to cut their way into a steam pipe, then shimmied through it to freedom. (New York State Police)

There was speculation the inmates had arranged for someone to pick them up outside the prison and were long gone from the area, even Canada or as far as Mexico. The escape from the 3,000-inmate state prison immediately raised suspicions the men had help on the inside. Mitchell was being interviewed by investigators and “being cooperative,” according to multiple reports. According to her Facebook page, Mitchell is an industrial training supervisor at the prison, where her husband also works.

“They haven’t charged her because they want to keep her talking,” a source told the New York Post. “She hasn’t asked for a lawyer.”

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Alice Hyde Medical Center, a hospital in Malone, N.Y., told Fox News that Mitchell had been treated for an undisclosed ailment at the hospital in the days since the escape and had been released. Megan Avery would not say if Mitchell was admitted to the hospital or just treated in the emergency room. She also would not comment on how long she was treated.

In addition to Mitchell, investigators have been questioning prison workers and outside contractors. Contractors have been doing extensive renovations at the 170-year-old prison, a hulking, fortress-like structure that looms over Dannemora’s main street.

A $100,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the men’s capture.

Sweat was convicted in the 2002 killing of a Broome County sheriff’s deputy and was doing life without parole. Matt was serving 25 years to life for the murder of his boss, businessman William L. Rickerson, in 1997.

Matt had twice tried to escape from prison, once successfully. Matt’s 23-year-old son told the Buffalo News his father escaped in 1986 from New York’s Erie County Correctional Facility, where he was serving a year for assault. He scaled a wall and gate topped with razor wire that slashed his forearms and eluded authorities for five days before he was captured at a family apartment in Tonawanda, N.Y., near Buffalo, his son, Nicholas Harris, told the newspaper.

Matt later served three years in the 1990s for attempted burglary and was released in 1997. That same year, Matt fled to Mexico to avoid arrest for the torture, murder and dismemberment of his 76-year-old boss in Tonawanda. After killing another man outside a bar in Mexico, he was thrown into a Mexican prison where he tried to escape, climbing to the roof of the prison before he was shot by guards, according to Harris.

“This guy has bullet holes on his body. He’s been shot like nine times. It’s like they can’t kill him,” Harris told the Buffalo News.

Matt spent several years in the Mexican prison in the beating death of an American man outside a bar. In 2007, he was extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for the murder of his boss, whose torso was found in the Niagara River. Matt was considered so dangerous that police snipers were assigned to the roof of the courthouse in case he tried to flee during his trial in Niagara County and Matt was required to wear an electric stun belt. He was sentenced to 25 years to life with no chance of parole before 2032 for the murder.

Sweat was sentenced to life in prison after he and another man killed Kevin Tarsia, a Broome County, New York Sheriff’s Deputy, firing 15 rounds into him after Sweat broke into a Pennsylvania house and stole rifles and handguns.

Despite their dangerous pasts, Matt and Sweat were placed in the prison’s “Honor Block,” which allowed them to do factory work inside the prison, earning up to 65 cents an hour for sewing and stitching clothing. Mitchell, their alleged accomplice, reportedly worked as a seamstress at the facility.

An annotated aerial image of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y. shows where the prisoners escaped and provides details of the prison. Included are mugshots of the escapees and description of their crimes; 4c x 7 inches; 195.7 mm x 177 mm;

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

For more on this story go to: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/06/10/search-for-escaped-killers-in-new-york-town-comes-up-empty/

Related story
Escaped convicts on the loose

By Caroline Bankoff and Jaime Fuller from new York Magazine

Richard Matt and David Sweat, the two convicted murderers who managed to drill their way out of an upstate New York prison early Saturday morning, have still not been caught despite the hundreds of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers (plus “several” aircraft) currently looking for them. Governor Cuomo acknowledged on Sunday that the men “could be anywhere in the state.”

Cuomo amended that statement on Monday, saying the escapees could be “anywhere in the country.” Since the Clinton Correction Facility is so close to Canada, international borders have been told to be on the lookout too. There are many forests nearby, too, since the correctional facility is in the Adirondack Mountains.

“A significant amount of time has elapsed,” Cuomo said. “The truth is we have a number of leads but nothing that would lead us more specifically to where they are now or what direction they may be headed.” For those not sufficiently freaked out by the situation, the governor added: “These are dangerous men capable of committing grave crimes again.”

However, Lenny DePaul, the former commander of the U.S. Marshals Service Regional Fugitive Task Force for New York and New Jersey seems confident that Matt and Sweat will be found. “They all think they’ve got it figured out, that they’ve done the right thing and they’ll never be found again,” he told the New York Times. “But they’re going to screw up. Someone’s going to screw up.”

The New York Post reported on Monday that a female prison worker at Dannemora — not a guard — was questioned and removed from her post. The Post went on to note that Matt, according to a source, “has a way with the ladies.”

Authorities think that more than one person may have helped the prisoners escape, and that the whole operation may have taken a long time to plan.

This is not the first time Matt, who is serving time for torturing, killing, and dismembering his ex-boss, has broken out of prison. In 1986, he escaped Erie County Correctional Facility for four days. He also absconded from a group home when he was 13.

Matt and Sweat escaped on Saturday, when a family day was planned at the correctional facility. Major construction was happening on the premises, too, and investigators think that tools left by contractors may have been used to make the cuts made by the inmates. Besides the dummies that helped Matt and Sweat’s absence escape detection for so long, the pair also left a racist sticky note that read, “Have a nice day.’’

“A little bit of a comedian in them,” Cuomo told the Today show on Monday, “but I plan on giving them back that note.”

Cuomo also announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of either Matt or Sweat (or $100,000 for both of the men). Once again, here’s what they look like:

Law enforcement officials who have had experience with the two escaped convicts in the past have been warned of their disappearance. David Bentley, a retired detective from the town where Matt used to live, told the New York Times, “If he were to come to my house, I’m prepared to defend myself, and I think it would be a bad day for him.”

IMAGE: Part of the escape route

For more on this story go to: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/100000-offered-for-information-on-escaped-cons.html?om_rid=AACMTw&om_mid=_BVderlB9CfumUc