2 convicted murderers escape maximum security prison in New York
Two convicted murderers escaped from a maximum security prison in upstate New York by cutting through a steel wall and following a series of tunnels until they emerged from a manhole outside the prison walls, New York authorities said Saturday afternoon.
Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34, were discovered missing at the 5:30 a.m. Saturday bed check at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York State Police said on the agency’s Facebook page.
An intense manhunt is under way with more than 200 law enforcement officers looking for the men — the first to escape from the maximum security portion of the prison, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference.
“These are dangerous people,” he said. “They are nothing to be trifled with.”
Cuomo said the prisoners had side-by-side cells and obtained power tools that they used to cut through the steel wall in their cells. The men followed a catwalk, a series of pipes and tunnels until they came out of the manhole, he said.
“It was elaborate, it was sophisticated,” he said. “It involved drilling through steel walls, steel pipes.”
Authorities don’t know where the prisoners got the power tools. Clinton Correctional Facility was built in 1865 and undergoes regular maintenance, so contractors and workmen are often inside the facility, Cuomo said. The prison is located in the northwest corner of the state.
Sweat was serving life without patrol after being convicted first-degree murder in the death of a Broome County Sheriff’s Deputy on July 4, 2002, state police said.
Matt is serving 25 years to life. He was convicted on three counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery after he kidnapped a man and beat him to death in December 1997, the state police said.
CNN affiliate WPTZ reported that state police have set up roadblocks in the Dannemora area and that armed troopers are searching vehicles. Troopers and corrections officers are searching the woods in the area, too.
