The shooting death of one escaped killer brought new energy to a weeks-long hunt for a second escaped murderer as helicopters, search dogs and hundreds of law enforcement officers converged on a wooded area 48km from the prison.
“Of course our preference would always be to capture them alive,” New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico told a news conference late on Friday as he announced the killing hours earlier of Richard Matt, one of two escaped killers from an upstate maximum-security prison.
He credited a tip from the public, one of over 2,300 received so far, for crucial information leading to the deadly confrontation in Malone.
D’Amico said Matt was shot by a border patrol agent when he failed to comply with commands in the woods near a cabin where a shot had been fired earlier in the day at a camping trailer. A 20-gauge shotgun was found on him, although he did not fire it at officers, he added.
“They verbally challenged him, told him to put up his hands. And at that time, he was shot when he didn’t comply,” D’Amico said.
A second convicted murderer, David Sweat, has not been spotted since he escaped, although evidence was found a week ago indicating he was with Matt in a cabin that was burglarized about 5km from any paved roadway, the superintendent said.
An intense search of the area led to a discovery on Friday morning of a camp where somebody apparently had laid down, leaving behind candy wrappers and other items, D’Amico said.
The breakthrough on Friday came shortly before 2pm, when a person towing a camper heard a loud sound and thought a tire had blown. Finding the tires intact, the driver went another 13km before looking at the trailer and finding a bullet hole.
Authorities converged on the location where the sound was heard and discovered the smell of gunfire inside a cabin, where a weapon had been fired. D’Amico said there was also evidence someone recently had fled out the back door.
“As we were doing the ground search in the area, there was movement detected by officers on the ground, what they believed to be coughs. So they knew that they were dealing with humans as opposed to wildlife,” he said.
After Matt was killed, a 20-gauge shotgun that was believed to be missing from the cabin he broke into last weekend was recovered from his body, D’Amico said.
“Based on that, we continued to search. We have a lot of people in the area. We have canines and we have a decent perimeter set up and we’re searching for Sweat at this time,” he said.
D’Amico said he had no information that Sweat was not with or near Matt, so a heavy search of the area would go on.
The pair escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility together early on June 6. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called them “dangerous, dangerous men.”
Police blocked off roads as officers hunted for Sweat in an area around Titusville Mountain State Forest in Malone, which spans 57km2.
Mitch Johnson said one of his best friends checked on his hunting cabin in Malone on Friday afternoon and called police after noticing the scent of grape-flavored gin as soon as he stepped into his cabin and spotting the bottle that had gone untouched for years resting on a kitchen table.
Johnson said his friend, correction officer Bob Willett, told him he summoned police about an hour before Matt was fatally shot and then heard a flurry of gunshots.
Matt and Sweat used power tools to saw through a steel cell wall and several steel steam pipes, bashed a hole through a 60cm thick brick wall, squirmed through pipes and emerged from a manhole outside the prison.
Sweat, 35, was serving a sentence of life without parole for the killing of a sheriff’s deputy in Broome County in 2002. Matt, 49, was serving 25 years to life for the killing and dismembering of his former boss. They were added to the US Marshals Service’s 15 most wanted fugitives list two weeks after getting away.
A pair of prison workers has been charged in connection with the inmates’ escape.
Prosecutors said Joyce Mitchell, a prison tailoring shop instructor who got close to the men while working with them, had agreed to be their getaway driver, but backed out because she felt guilty for participating. Authorities also said Mitchell had discussed killing her husband, Lyle Mitchell, as part of the plot.
On Wednesday, authorities charged Clinton correction officer Gene Palmer with promoting prison contraband, tampering with physical evidence and official misconduct. Officials said he gave the two prisoners frozen hamburger meat Joyce Mitchell had used to hide the tools she smuggled to Sweat and Matt.
Palmer’s attorney said he had no knowledge that the meat contained hacksaw blades, a bit and a screwdriver.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including