A MASSIVE MANHUNT is still ongoing for two convicted killers who escaped from a maximum security prison in New York.
The two men, Richard Matt (48) and David Sweat (34), used power tools to help in their escape on Saturday morning. They emerged from a manhole after cutting through steel pipes and the back of their cells.
Reports of two men walking along a road brought hundreds of law enforcement officers to a small town called Willsboro in the Adirondack foothills.
Associated Press reports that the hunt focused yesterday on Willsboro, close to Lake Champlain, after residents reported seeing a couple of men walking on a road late Monday during a driving rainstorm.
Suspected accomplice
Meanwhile, suspicion is growing that the two men had help with their elaborate escape.
CNN reports that a female employee at the prison was questioned as a possible accomplice.
It also says that investigators suspect the woman, named in the press as Joyce Mitchell, was supposed to pick up the two killers after they emerged from the prison, but she changed her mind.
But her son Tobey spoke to NBC, saying that his mum would never help the inmates escape.
“She definitely wouldn’t have an affair against my father,” he added.
Mitchell’s husband also works at the correctional facility.
New York State Police said 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.
Sweat and Matt had stuffed sweatshirts in their beds with clothes to fool guards on their rounds.
They also left behind a note that taunted: “Have a nice day.”
Investigators have been questioning prison workers and outside contractors to try to find out who may have supplied the power tools.
A $100,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the men’s capture.
Sweat was convicted in the 2002 killing of a sheriff’s deputy and was doing life without parole.
Matt was serving 25 years to life for kidnapping and dismembering his boss in 1997.
- With additional reporting from Associated Press
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