New York manhunt for prison escapee heats up after accomplice killed
By Pete DeMola
MALONE, N.Y. (Reuters) - Hundreds of law enforcement officers hunting for a convicted murderer who escaped from a New York state maximum security prison scoured an area of near the Canadian border on Saturday, a day after a fellow escapee was killed.
David Sweat, a 35-year-old imprisoned for killing a sheriff's deputy, remained at large three weeks after taking flight from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. His accomplice on Friday was shot to death by police near Malone, New York.
About 1,200 federal, state and local law enforcement officers on Saturday were searching a 22 square-mile (57 square-km) area along state route 30 between the towns of Malone and Duane in northern New York state, New York State Police said in a statement.
Franklin County Sheriff Kevin Mulverhill told reporters on Saturday that Sweat was probably not in good condition after surviving three weeks on the run without consistent access to food, rest and shelter, USA Today reported.
"He's going to be tired and he's going to make a mistake," Mulverhill said, according to the paper.
After Richard Matt was fatally shot by U.S. Border Patrol officers, a tight security perimeter was set up in the area, where Sweat was believed to be holed up.
New York State Police declined to provide additional information on why they thought Sweat was in the area.
Malone is 27 miles (43 km) northwest of the Clinton prison, where the convicts were discovered missing on June 6.
Police tracked Matt to the Malone area, just south of the Canadian border, when two burglaries were reported this week at backwoods cabins. DNA evidence on items found at the sites indicated Matt's presence.
On Friday, after he apparently fired a shot at a passing camping trailer, officers spotted and confronted Matt outside a cabin, New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico told reporters.
Border Patrol agents warned Matt to drop the shotgun he was holding, and shot and killed him when he failed to comply, police said.
In making their escape, Matt and Sweat cut through the walls of their adjoining cells and sneaked along the catwalk on the other side to a steam pipe, slithered through the pipe and popped out of a manhole outside the prison walls.
Two prison workers have been charged with aiding them. Gene Palmer, 57, a corrections officer for 27 years, was suspended without pay from his job, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said.
He is accused of bringing hacksaw blades and a screwdriver bit to the inmates, hidden in frozen hamburger meat supplied by Joyce Mitchell, 51, a training supervisor in the prison tailor shop.
Mitchell, who was also charged in connection with the escape, told investigators that the inmates expected her to pick them up outside the prison walls and drive a getaway car.
When she instead checked into a local hospital complaining of panic attacks, the escapees were apparently forced to take off on foot through the rugged, mountainous terrain in the northwest corner of the state.
Matt was convicted in the 1997 torture, murder and dismemberment of his boss in Tonawanda, New York.
Sweat was convicted in the shooting death of a Broome County sheriff's deputy on July 4, 2002.
(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York, Alex Dobuzinskis and Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by Digby Lidstone and Steve Orlofsky)
