It has been a decade since New York state and beyond were in the midst of a massive manhunt after two inmates escaped from the Clinton Correctional prison in Dannemora. WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley looks back at the escape that gripped the nation.
It was a sunny Saturday morning when then-Department of Corrections and Community Supervision Commissioner Anthony Annucci announced the first escape from the maximum security portion of the prison since it opened in 1865.
“We noticed during the standing count at 5:30 a.m. at this facility, that two cells which were adjoining each other were empty. The search revealed that there was a hole cut out of the back of the cell through which these inmates escaped. They went on to a catwalk which is about six stories high. We estimate they climbed down and had power tools and were able to get out of this facility through tunnels, cutting their way at several spots. They were able to cut through a steam pipe and finally they ended up on the street in a manhole cover,” Annucci said.
The escapees, David Sweat and Richard Matt, were serving time for murder. They cut through their cell wall, maneuvered through a maze of catwalks, cut and crawled through steam pipes to emerge from a manhole in the village of Dannemora.
Then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, immediately traveled to the prison and traced their escape route.
“We went through the tunnels. You look at the precision of the operation, it was truly extraordinary and unusual and almost impossible to duplicate,” Cuomo described. “But we want to find out exactly what happened. First order of business is to find the two individuals and return them to prison.”
For nearly a month law enforcement chased tips across the Northeast and into Canada for the fugitives.
Now retired Troop B Commander Major Charles Guess was Incident Commander. Looking back, he recalls a pivotal point in the search.
“At day 14 John Stockwell went out to his hunting cabin to do a check. Unlike other times he’d gone to the cabin he armed himself because he knew there was a threat in the region. And arriving on the scene seeing some furtive movements inside the cabin. The two intruders ran off the back deck. He distanced himself and got the message out to law enforcement so we could envelop that area as we did by ground units and by aviation assets. That was a turning point for the entire investigation,” Guess recalls. “That was a source of confidence for us going forward and it enabled us to bring additional resources to bear and ultimately, I believe, with a bit of good fortune and luck result in their capture.”
On June 26th, 2015, then-State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico announced that Richard Matt had been killed.
“A tactical team from Customs and Border Protection met up with Matt in the woods, challenged him and he was shot dead by Border Patrol at that time,” D’Amico reported. “We recovered a 20-gauge shotgun from Matt’s body at the location.”
The search for Sweat continued for two more days.
“My absolute most vivid memory was being in my troop car on day 23, the final day of the manhunt and hearing over the radio that David Sweat had been shot and apprehended. So we got details that it was a member of the state police, that no member of law enforcement was hurt or injured,” Guess relates. “That in fact it was a single member of the State Police, Sergeant Jay Cook. And then the fact that we had Sweat so that’s going to give us ideally intelligence as we interview him later on about the entire thing. So my heart was about to burst. I was elated.”
The escape came to a dramatic end on June 28th when then State Trooper Jay Cook encountered, chased and shot Sweat in Constable, a rural area of northern New York near the Canadian border. Now the Franklin County Sheriff, Cook relates what happened as he came upon Sweat.
“I was patrolling up the road and I saw the person out in the field right next to a stone wall. And so I pulled up and I started yelling at the person out of my window to come over and talk to me and what are you doing here and who are you and all those kinds of questions. And he kept taking baby steps away from me. And then he took his hood down because it was raining that day. And when he took his hood down, I could see his entire face and that’s when holy you-know-what, this is him,” Cook remembers. “And after that there was literally no time to think and I chased him all the way down the edge of that field towards the woods. And he dumped his backpack, he had a big backpack of supplies on, and once he dumped that backpack he was starting to get a bigger lead on me, like he was getting away from me. So that’s when I started to yell stop or I’m going to shoot. He never stopped so that’s when I took the action I took.”
Cook shot Sweat in the torso. He survived. Cuomo heralded the end of the dangerous month.
“The nightmare is finally over. We can now confirm Mr. Matt is deceased and the other escapee Mr. Sweat is in custody. He’s in stable condition.”
Civilian Clinton Correctional tailor shop employee Joyce Mitchell and Corrections officer Gene Palmer were arrested and faced various charges in conjunction with the escape.
Mitchell was charged with helping the fugitives escape by providing them with hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and screwdriver bit. She brought them into the prison hidden inside frozen hamburger meat. She also intended to drive the getaway car, but said she had a panic attack and went to the hospital on the night of the escape.
Palmer was charged with one count of official misconduct, promoting prison contraband and two counts of tampering with physical evidence for destroying or attempting to destroy art given to him by Richard Matt.
Mitchell pleaded guilty in September 2015 to promoting prison contraband and criminal facilitation. She was released from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility five years later.
Palmer was released from the Clinton County Jail in July 2016 after serving four months of a six-month sentence.
Late in 2015, Sweat appeared in Clinton County Court to answer to two counts of escape in the first degree and promoting prison contraband, all felonies. He is currently incarcerated at the Mid-State Correctional Facility, a medium security prison in Oneida County.
In the midst of the search, Governor Cuomo ordered the state Inspector General to investigate the escape and recommend reforms. During a “Ten Years Later” panel discussion this month, then state Inspector General and now Court of Claims Judge Catherine Leahy-Scott recounted her probe.
“This escape underscores not only the actions of Sweat, Matt, Mitchell and Palmer, but highlights the substantial breaches in security and management oversight,” noted Leahy-Scott. “What was astonishing was the long-standing complacency exercised in lieu of security and that those involved forgot that they were in charge of a maximum-security correctional facility.”
Now with Newsday, reporter Keshia Clukey said the community may have been lulled into a false sense of security.
“Complacency was the issue. You know even as a kid I remember asking people aren’t you afraid living near Dannemora prison. It’s so scary, there’s all these like people inside. And they would say no. Nothing’s ever happened here. If someone escaped it’s all corrections officers that live in that community. They’d catch them really early and, oh, if I don’t go through the security check, it doesn’t matter because it’s so secure. You know all these little things added up, just that feeling that it can’t happen here,” Clukey said. “Well, it can and it did and it cost millions of dollars to the state. So, I think that was a big lesson learned.”
The manhunt cost the state nearly $23 million.
