A man was “blown away” by word that his wife discussed having two inmates kill him as she helped them plot their successful escape from the maximum-security prison in northern New York, his lawyer said Thursday.
Both Joyce and Lyle Mitchell worked as instructors at the Clinton Correctional Facility where convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat were discovered missing June 6 and remain at large.
Joyce Mitchell is jailed on charges she gave the inmates hacksaws and other tools used to cut through their cell walls and a steam pipe to get beyond the prison walls. Authorities say Mitchell had planned to be the inmates’ getaway driver but backed out.
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Authorities have said Mitchell, who got close to the men while working with them in the prison tailor shop, discussed killing her husband.
“Joyce Mitchell tells us that was discussed between her and Matt and that upon their escape, they were going to return back to Joyce Mitchell’s home at which time Matt and Sweat were going to kill her husband,” said Andrew Wylie, Clinton County district attorney.
Lyle Mitchell’s lawyer, Peter Dumas, said Thursday his client was shocked by word of the plot and that Joyce Mitchell had told her husband that she couldn’t go through with it.
“Toward the end, Joyce had told Lyle – and we have no reason to doubt it – that she told Sweat and Matt that she wasn’t going to go through with it,” he said. “At that point, they threatened her by threatening Lyle, saying they were going to have someone on the outside do something to him or someone on the inside when he was back at work do something to him so I think it was a point of control.”
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Lyle Mitchell is co-operating with authorities and isn’t facing charges.
“He’s still in love with her, but I don’t know that he is going to be very supportive,” Dumas said.
Joyce Mitchell has pleaded not guilty.
As the search for the men stretched into a 13th day Thursday, corrections officials lifted a lockdown that had limited activities in the prison. They said inmates are eating again in the mess hall rather than in their cells and a number are going to work assignments. Recreation activities and use of the phones are also resuming. Visitors are expected to be allowed starting Friday.
Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole in the killing of a sheriff’s deputy. Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.
Wylie on Thursday also offered a new detail on the relationship between Matt and Joyce Mitchell, saying the inmate painted a picture of her children after Mitchell gave him boxing gloves.
“She provided him the speed boxing gloves for the picture of her children. So she gave it to her husband, Lyle, for their anniversary,” Wylie said.
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