2 escaped murderers still on loose; New York officials offer $100,000 reward

Baffled New York state officials announced a $100,000 reward for the capture of two murderers who used power tools to pull off an astonishing escape from a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border.

That’s $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of each fugitive: Richard Matt, 48, who kidnapped a man, beat him to death and dismembered him in 1997, and David Sweat, 34, who killed a sheriff’s deputy in 2002.

Their escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, about 20 miles south of the Canadian border, was discovered Saturday. As of Sunday, hundreds of investigators and search officials had been mobilized to piece together how they got the tools to escape, where they might be and where they are going.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the pair could be “literally anywhere across the state” or in Canada and urged residents to be on the lookout.

“These are dangerous individuals, these are killers, they are murderers, there has never been a question about the crime they committed, and they are now on the loose,” Cuomo said in a conference call midday Sunday.

Matt and Sweat are believed to be the first inmates to successfully escape from the maximum security portion of the facility since the prison was built in the mid-1800s, according to Cuomo.

The pair broke out with a brazenness fit for Hollywood, placing dummies in their beds so guards would think they were sleeping while they used their tools to carve a path-literally, at points-through the belly of the prison.

Cuomo said the men cut through a steel plate behind their cell, crawled through to a high catwalk, shimmied down to a tunnel below, broke through the wall of a brick well, cut into a 24-inch steam pipe, crawled in, wriggled for a while until they cut their way back out, and then removed a secured manhole cover outside the prison.

“It was a sophisticated plan,” Cuomo said, adding the feat likely took at least several days.

Although the investigation is still in its early stages, all tools in the prison appear to be accounted for, leading officials to wonder if perhaps a contractor had lost or left behind some equipment, said Anthony J. Annucci, acting commissioner for the state’s prison system.

“It’s speculation at this point,” Annucci said on the conference call, adding that he had asked the state’s prison officials to take extra precautions after the escape.

Cuomo added that officials also were investigating to see if any of the contractors doing various projects at the prison may have had connections to either prisoner and aided them.

“This is the first escape, and we want to make sure it’s the last escape,” Cuomo said of the Clinton facility.

On one of the sections of pipe that had been cut open, investigators found a note with a crude caricature on it and the message, “Have a nice day!”