Life gets harder for escapee alone

MALONE, N.Y. — With his escape partner killed, the surviving convicted murderer who pulled off an elaborate breakout from a maximum-security prison three weeks ago could have a tougher time eluding the army of searchers scouring miles of thick woods in far northern New York, police said Saturday.

Richard Matt — who once vowed never to be taken alive — was fatally shot during an encounter with border patrol agents Friday about 30 miles west of the prison he escaped from with David Sweat on June 6. Sweat remained on the lam Saturday and about 1,200 searchers focused intensely on 22 square miles encompassing thick forests and heavy brush around where Matt was killed.

Police hoped the solo escapee would finally succumb to the stress of little sleep, scant food and biting bugs.

“Anyone in the woods and on the run from the law so to speak is not getting a full eight hours sleep, they’re not eating well and they have to keep moving,” Franklin County Sheriff Kevin Mulverhill said. “He’s fatigued, tired, and he’s going to make a mistake.”

Sweat also could have an even tougher time now without someone to take turns resting with and watch his back, said Clinton County Sheriff David Favro.

“Now it’s a one-man show and it makes it more difficult for him,” Favro said. “And I’m sure fatigue is setting in for him as well, knowing the guy he was with has already been shot.”

Matt, 49, was serving 25 years to life at Clinton Correctional Facility for the killing and dismemberment of his former boss. Sweat, 35, was serving a sentence of life without parole in the killing of a sheriff’s deputy in Broome County in 2002.