Prison employee suspected of helping 2 escape NY prison

Associated Press

DANNEMORA, N.Y.

Investigators believe a female prison employee had agreed to be the getaway driver in last weekend’s escape by two killers but never showed up, a person close to the case told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The manhunt, meanwhile, dragged into a sixth day with a renewed burst of activity by searchers in the woods close to the prison after bloodhounds were said to have picked up the convicts’ scent. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators also are “talking to several people who may have facilitated the escape.”

David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48, used power tools to cut through steel and bricks and crawled through an underground steam pipe, emerging from a manhole outside the 40-foot walls of the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, about 20 miles south of the Canadian border, authorities said.

The person close to the investigation said authorities believe Joyce Mitchell – an instructor at the prison tailor shop, where the two convicts worked – had befriended the men and was supposed to pick them up Saturday morning but didn’t.

The person said that was one reason the manhunt was focused so close to the prison. The person was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mitchell has not been charged. Her son Tobey Mitchell told NBC on Wednesday that she checked herself into a hospital with chest pains Saturday. He said she would not have helped the inmates escape.

A longtime neighbor also was stunned by the suspicions swirling around Mitchell.

“I just can’t believe she’d do something so stupid,” neighbor Sharon Currier said. She said Mitchell is always happy to help people, but she’s “not somebody who’s off the wall.”

She said Mitchell is a former town tax collector in Dickinson, a community near Dannemora. Quick with a laugh and skilled at sewing, she has worked for five or more years at the prison, where her husband also works, Currier said.

Hundreds of police using dogs and helicopters blocked off a main road and concentrated their search on a swampy area just a couple of miles from the prison. Schools were closed, and residents received automated calls warning them to lock their doors, close their windows and leave outside lights on.

The governor said that investigators had received tips that the convicts were in the area, and tracking dogs had picked up the scent Thursday morning.

But he added: “Look, they could either be 4 miles from the prison or they could be in Mexico. Right? So you just don’t know.”

State police said they bolstered the force looking for the fugitives to 500 officers from 450 a day earlier.

Authorities suspect the inmates also had help from the inside in obtaining the power tools. Guards and other staff members have been questioned, but no one has been disciplined or charged.