WATCH: A prison worker accused of helping two convicts escape their maximum security facility appeared in court this morning. Don Champion has the latest from the courthouse in Plattsburgh, New York.
DANNEMORA, N.Y. -Two escaped murderers remained at large as a woman charged with helping the killers flee from a maximum-security prison by providing them hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools made a second appearance in a New York court.
More than 800 law enforcement officers on Monday kept up a methodical search for Richard Matt and David Sweat, who escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility near the Canadian border on June 6.
Prosecutors say Joyce Mitchell, a prison tailoring shop instructor who had befriended the inmates, had agreed to be the getaway driver but backed out because she still loved her husband and felt guilty for participating.
Mitchell, 51, made her second court appearance in Plattsburgh on Monday wearing a striped prison jumpsuit and a bulletproof vest. She waived a preliminary hearing, and the case headed to a county court.
“Basically, when it was ‘go’ time and it was the actual day of the event, I do think she got cold feet and realized, ‘What am I doing?”‘ Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said Sunday. “Reality struck.”
Wylie said there was no evidence the men had a Plan B once Mitchell backed out, and no vehicles have been reported stolen in the area. That has led searchers to believe the men are still near the prison in Dannemora.
Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff’s deputy. Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.
READ MORE: Escaped prisoners could be ‘in Mexico by now,’ N.Y. governor says
Wylie said there was no evidence the men had a “Plan B” once Mitchell backed out, and no vehicles have been reported stolen in the area.
That has led searchers to believe the men are still near the maximum-security prison in Dannemora. At the same time, Gov. Andrew Cuomo cautioned that for all anyone knows the convicts could be in Mexico, where one of the inmates had fled after killing his boss in the late 1990s.
Mitchell, 51, was charged Friday with supplying hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and a screwdriver. Her lawyer entered a not guilty plea on her behalf. She has been suspended without pay from her $57,000-a-year job overseeing inmates who sew clothes and learn to repair sewing machines at the prison.
Wylie said Sunday that the killers apparently cut their way out using tools stored by prison contractors, taking care to return them to their toolboxes after each night’s work.
READ MORE: Prison break casts spotlight on staff-inmate relationships
Authorities say the convicts used power tools to cut through the back of their adjacent cells, broke through a brick wall, then cut into a steam pipe and slithered through it, finally emerging outside the prison walls through a manhole. Wylie says they apparently used tools stored by prison contractors, taking care to return them to their toolboxes after each night’s work.
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Workers on Sunday welded shut a manhole at the base of a wall on the side of the prison where the two men escaped. They also sealed two other manholes on the street near the prison, including the one from which the convicts climbed out.
More than 800 law enforcement officers went door-to-door over the weekend and combed the rural area signs of the escapees. Residents were on edge, with some saying they were keeping guns handy.
Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff’s deputy. Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.
Cuomo has told New York’s inspector general to investigate. It is separate from the criminal investigation, but any criminal activity uncovered will be referred to prosecutors.
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