Governor on Escaped Prisoners: “They Couldn't Have Done This On Their Own”

Investigators are looking to see if civilian employees or private contractors helped two murderers get power tools to escape from a maximum-security prison in upstate New York over the weekend, Gov. Cuomo said Monday.

Speaking on NBC's "Today," Cuomo said that 34-year-old David Sweat and 48-year-old Richard Matt likely were aided "from inside" to get out of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, but said he'd be "shocked" if a corrections officer was involved in the movie-style escape.

"They couldn't have escaped on their own," he said.

The investigation comes as the search for the two convicted killers enters a third day. Hundreds of law enforcement officers, bloodhounds and aerial search crews spent the night Sunday searching for the men, who bust out by using power tools to slice through large steel pipes, then shimmied their way out of the prison near the Canadian border.

The state is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of the prisoners. Cuomo called the escape, which has drawn comparisons to "The Shawshank Redemption", "unbelievable."

"It really could have been a movie script," he said. "And if you saw this as a movie script, it would have been unbelievable."

Cuomo said that the two men could be "anywhere," but police are still searching areas near the prison. The men could have also crossed into Canada, another state or may have headed to Mexico, where Matt has ties. Authorities have received more than 300 leads about the prisoners' whereabouts, and customs agents have set up inspection lanes for travelers heading into Canada.

"They are truly dangerous, desperate men," Cuomo said. "They are killers, they are murderers so we want to get them back as quickly as possible."

Sweat is serving a life sentence without parole after he was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Broome County sheriff's deputy Kevin Tarsia during a burglary on Independence Day of 2002. Sweat and an accomplice shot Tarsia 15 times.

Matt, meanwhile, is serving 25 years to life for kidnapping, killing and dismembering his old boss in 1997. After kidnapping the man, Matt beat his old boss -- a food broker named William Rickerson -- with a knife sharpener and tossed him in the trunk of a car. After having an accomplice drive around for a while, he said "I've had enough of this," got out of the car, and snapped Rickerson's head by twisting his head. 

Matt later fled to Mexico and was apprehended after allegedly stabbing an American to death during a robbery there. He has already escaped from prison once, in 1986, and was considered so dangerous that police snipers were stationed atop the courthouse for his murder trial.

The pair were missing from their cells during a morning check on Saturday, officials said, and had stuffed their beds with clothes in an apparent attempt to fool guards.

Officials said the inmates cut through the steel wall at the back of their cell, crawled down a catwalk, broke through a brick wall, cut their way into and out of a steam pipe, and then sliced through the chain and lock on a manhole cover outside the prison.

On a cut steam pipe, the prisoners left a taunting note containing a crude Asian caricature and the words "Have a nice day."

To escape, the inmates had to cut into the steam pipe then shimmy "some distance," Cuomo said, before cutting themselves out again. Their path brought to mind "The Shawshank Redemption," the 1994 adaptation of a Stephen King story about an inmate's carefully planned prison escape.

It was the first escape from the maximum-security portion of the prison, which was built in 1845.

Dubbed "Little Siberia" by locals, the prison houses nearly 3,000 inmates, guarded by about 1,400 correction officers. Surrounded by farmland and forests, the prison is only about a 45-minute drive by car to Montreal.

Sweat is 5-foot-11 with brown hair and green eyes, weighing 165 pounds, police said. He has tattoos on his left bicep and his right fingers.

Matt is 6 feet tall with black hair and hazel eyes, according to police. He weighs 210 pounds and has tattoos including "Mexico Forever" on his back, a heart on his chest and left shoulder and a Marine Corps insignia on his right shoulder.

The governor is urging anyone who may have seen these men not to approach them, and instead to call 911 or 518-563-3761.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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