Searchers buoyed by fresh evidence

Associated Press

BELLMONT, N.Y.

Hundreds of searchers spurred on by fresh evidence methodically combed through heavy woods in far northern New York on Tuesday hoping to finally close in on two elusive murderers who escaped from a maximum-security prison more than two weeks ago.

Authorities began committing heavy resources to the remote woods days ago after leads from a hunting camp that was apparently broken into led to “good evidence, DNA data” regarding inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Roadblocks were in place Tuesday around the remote hamlets of Owls Head and Mountain View in an area of rugged terrain about 20 miles west of Clinton County Correctional Facility.

Searchers were checking ATV trails, logging roads and railroad beds and going door-to-door and conducting grid searches in the thick, mosquito-infested forests, said Franklin County Sheriff Kevin Mulverhill. He said people were checking seasonal properties for signs of intruders.

Authorities hoped that an 18-day search punctuated by fruitless tips – officers spent part of the weekend scouring a rural area by the Pennsylvania line more than 300 miles away – might finally be close to the end.

Meanwhile, the husband of the woman accused of helping the inmates escape said in an interview aired Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show that he’s “absolutely 100 percent” certain the pair would have killed him and his wife if his wife had been their getaway driver, as initially planned.

Lyle Mitchell said his wife, Joyce Mitchell, told him Sweat and Matt offered to give her pills to knock him out so she could pick them up after they escaped, but she refused because she said she still loved her husband.