DANNEMORA, N.Y. — Two convicted murderers used power tools to cut through steel pipes at a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border and escape through a manhole, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday.
“It was an elaborate plot,” Cuomo said after joining law enforcement authorities to retrace the prisoners' escape route from the Clinton Correctional Facility in the town of Dannemora in the Adirondacks.
He said Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34, are “two dangerous individuals.”
Sweat, convicted of first-degree murder for killing a Broome County sheriff's deputy in 2002, is serving a sentence of life without parole. Matt is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the kidnapping and beating death of a man in 1997.
The men's adjoining cells were empty during a morning check, said Anthony Annucci, the acting state corrections commissioner.
“A search revealed that there was a hole cut out of the back of the cell through which these inmates escaped,” Annucci said. “They went onto a catwalk, which is about six stories high. We estimate they climbed down and had power tools and were able to get out to this facility through tunnels, cutting away at several spots.”
Authorities said there are many questions, including how the men acquired the tools. Annucci said prison authorities are checking to see if any power tools are missing from contractors at the prison.
Maj. Charles E. Guess of the state police said more than 200 officers from multiple agencies were searching for the inmates. The search included bloodhounds and aerial surveillance, he said.
Cuomo said the prison break was the first escape from the maximum-security portion of the prison since it was built in 1865.
