Joyce Mitchell’s husband: ‘Do I still love her? Yes. Am I mad? Yes’
Lyle Mitchell breaks silence on wife’s role in alleged prison escape plot
The husband of Joyce Mitchell, the New York prison worker accused of helping two convicted killers escape, says he knew nothing of his wife’s alleged role in the plot until he was able to speak with her after her arrest.
“An investigator comes out and says, ‘Mr. Mitchell, your wife is more involved than what she’s lettin’ on,’” Lyle Mitchell told NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview that aired on “Today” on Tuesday. “I asked her what was going on. She said, ‘I just — I did some things ... and I got over my head.’ I didn’t know what to say. I was just ... disbelief, shock.”
David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., on June 6, using tools Joyce Mitchell allegedly gave them to cut their way out of the maximum-security prison. An intense manhunt for the fugitives is in its third week.
Lyle Mitchell says his wife of 14 years told him that the prisoners offered to give her pills that would knock him out so she could flee with them.
“She said: ‘I love my husband, I am not hurtin’ him,’” Lyle Mitchell told Lauer. “She said, ‘Then I knew I was over my head.’ ... When it came down to her hurtin’ me, that’s when she said something was wrong. She said she was in too deep; she didn’t know how to get out of it.”
Joyce Mitchell, who worked alongside Sweat and Matt in the prison tailor shop, denied having a sexual relationship with either of them.
“She swore on her son’s life that definitely, ‘Never have I ever had sex’” with Matt or Sweat, Lyle Mitchell said.
He said his wife is fully cooperating with investigators.
“She’s told ’em every single thing that’s possible,” Lyle Mitchell said. “She said, ‘I’m tryin’ to make this right. I know what I did was wrong. I need to make this right.’”
But when asked if he is standing by his wife, Lyle Mitchell said he isn’t sure.
“As of right now, I don’t know what to think,” he said. “I do not know.”
He added: “Do I still love her? Yes. Am I mad? Yes. How could she do this? How could she do this to our kids?”
