Convicted murderers use power tools to escape NY maximum security prison

Published 10:32 am Sunday, June 7, 2015

DANNEMORA, N.Y. – A massive manhunt was underway Saturday night in northern New York for two convicted murderers who used power tools to cut through steels cell walls and into a sewer tunnel at a maximum-security prison and escape through an outside manhole.

They fled overnight Friday and weren’t discovered missing until 5:30 a.m. Saturday when they failed to respond to guards making morning rounds. Bundled clothes had been placed under the covers of their beds to make it appear they were asleep.

“It was an elaborate plot,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who inspected the prison in northern New York near the Canadian border. “The precision of the operation was truly extraordinary and unusual.”

The escapers were identified as David Sweat, 34, serving a life term without parole for the 2002 murder of a sheriff’s deputy; and Richard Matt, 48, serving 25 years to life for the kidnapping and beating death of a Buffalo area businessman in 1997. Both are white and feature numerous tattoos on their bodies.

Cuomo said both are considered “dangerous people. . . nothing to trifle with.”

Residents of the region were told to lock their homes and apartments and call 911 or contact New York State Police immediately if they spotted the convicts or noticed a missing vehicle.

More than 200 local, state, federal and Canadian police combed the area for the escapers, aided by helicopters and blood hounds. Authorities said the convicts may have had as much as an eight-hour start before they were noticed missing from the Clinton Correctional Facility, an 1844 prison that houses 3,000 inmates.

Cuomo told a news conference the escapers were in adjoining cells, used power tools to make small openings in the back sides, and crawled out onto a six-story high catwalk above the prison’s plumbing system. He said they then cut into a sewer tunnel leading to the outside and escaped through a manhole.

The governor said he had no idea how the convicts obtained the power tools. He did note, however, that contractors doing work inside the prison use steel-cutting power saws and other tools.

“We’re not drawing a connection, but that is a track and one of the facts that’s being worked through,” said Cuomo, who cancelled a trip to the Belmont Stakes horse race in Elmont, N.Y., to rush to the prison.

The governor said a thorough investigation of the prison’s security measures is underway to “make sure this was the first and the last time anyone escapes. At this point, there’s more questions that we have answers.”

Authorities described escaper Sweat as 5-foot-11, 165 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes. He has tattoos on his left bicep and right finger. Matt is 6-feet tall, 210 pounds, with black hair and hazel eyes. He has a heart tattoo on his chest and left shoulder, a Marine Corps insignia on his right shoulder and a “Mexico Forever” tattoo on his back.

Sweat was convicted of killing a sheriff’s deputy in Chenango, Broome County, on July 4, 2002. Matt’s conviction stems from the December 1997 robbery, kidnapping, murder and dismemberment of North Tonawanda businessman William Rickerson.

Details for this story were provided by the Plattsburgh, N.Y., Press-Republican