WATCH ABOVE: David Sweat’s partner-in-crime Richard Matt was gunned down on Friday. Police have sealed off area where they think Sweat may be. Aarti Pole reports.
MALONE, N.Y. – Richard Matt, one of the two fugitives who escaped a New York prison, has been shot and killed by law enforcement officials.
Authorities tracked down Matt after a person towing a camper reported that there was a bullet hole through the back of it, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state police said at a news conference. While searching the property, officers heard coughs and tactical
teams came upon Matt in the woods.
David Sweat is still missing, and authorities are hunting for him.
Law enforcement officials had said earlier Friday that the two convicted killers who escaped three weeks ago were likely heading for the Canadian border.
WATCH: Governor Andrew Cuomo held a press conference to discuss the latest developments in the search for escaped convict David Sweat.
The search area then moved to the town of Malone about 60 kilometres northwest of the prison from which the two inmates escaped. It was in that area where Matt was shot.
Sweatt and Matt broke out of the prison in Dannemora on June 6 after, authorities say, they cut through the steel wall at the back of their cells, crawled in, and broke through a brick wall, before emerging out of a manhole outside of the prison.
Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence in the killing of a sheriff’s deputy, while Matt, 49, was serving 25 years in the kidnapping, torture, and dismemberment of his former boss.
Law enforcement officials announced Friday morning that a U.S. prison guard admitted to giving the two inmates tools, paint, frozen hamburger and access to a catwalk electrical box but also claimed he didn’t know the killers were planning on escaping.
– With files from The Canadian Press
Comments