Investigators seek accomplices in prison break
DANNEMORA, N.Y. — As investigators seek accomplices who may have helped two convicted murderers escape a maximumsecurity prison, many other questions remain about the elaborate breakout.
How could nobody hear prisoners slicing through a steel wall, breaking through brick and cutting their way in and out of a steam pipe — or why did those who heard stay silent? How did the inmates hide the hole, the dirt and dust from work that likely took days to accomplish? Did they have access to blueprints or other inside information to chart their path through the bowels of the prison?
And as a manhunt for the prisoners stretches into a fourth day, there is a deepening unknown: “What the rest of the plan was,” said Rick Mathews, the director of the University at Albany’s National Center for Security and Preparedness.
“Where were they going to go, and how were they going to do it?”
As investigators ques- tioned prison workers and outside contractors to try to find out who may have supplied power tools used in the escape, law officers questioned drivers and searched trunks at checkpoints near the Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York. Authorities said the escaped prisoners, David Sweat and Richard Matt, could be anywhere.
Sweat, 34, and Matt, 48, ultimately emerged through a manhole to make their escape, discovered early Saturday, authorities said. They had stuffed their beds with clothes to fool guards making their rounds and left behind a taunting sticky note that read: “Have a nice day.”
The prisoners surely had help, and the noise must have been heard, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, though officials have given no details on how the men managed to avoid detection.