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Prison inmates Richard Matt, 48, (L)
and David Sweat, 35, are seen in a combination of enhanced pictures released by
the New York State police June 17, 2015, showing how they might look after
escaping 12 days ago. Reuters/New York State Police/Handout
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Law enforcement officers shot and killed a man who is believed to be one of
two prisoners who broke out of a maximum security prison in New York three
weeks ago and the second escapee is still at large near the Canadian border,
police said on Friday.
A man thought to be convicted murderer
Richard Matt was killed during a shootout with U.S. Border Patrol officers
after he was spotted in a wooded area near the town of Malone, the New York
State Police said in a statement. A positive identification is pending.
Reuters report continues:
Police were still combing the vicinity
for Matt's accomplice, David Sweat, after a second man was seen fleeing. ABC
News reported that a gun battle had erupted in the woods where Sweat was
believed to be cornered.
Malone lies 27 miles (43 km) northwest
of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, where the convicted killers
staged their elaborate escape and were discovered missing on June 6. The
manhunt has involved as many as 1,100 law enforcement officers.
After the shootout, dozens of law
enforcement vehicles, some of them equipped with floodlights, were converging
on the area, signaling the search for Sweat would go on all night if necessary.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to speak in Malone at 8:30 p.m.
(0030 GMT on Saturday)
Jeff Tough, who lives within the search
perimeter across from Lake Titus, said state troopers were lining State Route
30 at regular intervals.
A state police spokesman did not return
calls seeking more information about the manhunt.
On Friday afternoon, a man driving a
camper in Malone contacted police after hearing shots and realizing bullets had
pierced his vehicle, the Buffalo News said, citing unidentified sources. Police
mobilized a tactical team and a shootout ensued, the News said.
“I feel relieved to be honest,"
Malone resident Matt Maguire said after learning of the shootout while he was
stopped at a roadblock. "Everybody’s been on edge for 20 days.”
Police said earlier Friday that
searchers found items that the pair appeared to have left behind in the area,
cementing suspicions that the fugitives were headed for the Canadian border.
DNA testing on the undisclosed items
was under way to see if they belonged to Sweat and Matt, said New York State
Police Major Charles Guess.
"They dropped some items and left
others behind," Guess said at a news conference in Malone, about 10 miles
(15 km) from the Canadian border. He declined to identify the items or say
where or when they were found.
During their escape, Matt and Sweat cut
through the walls of their adjoining cells and sneaked along the catwalk to a
steam pipe, slithered through the pipe and popped out of a manhole outside the
prison walls.
Two prison workers have been charged
with aiding them. Gene Palmer, 57, a corrections officer for 27 years, was
suspended without pay from his job, the New York State Department of
Corrections and Community Supervision said.
He is accused of bringing hacksaw
blades and a screwdriver bit to the inmates, hidden in frozen hamburger meat
supplied by Joyce Mitchell, 51, a training supervisor in the prison tailor
shop. She also has been charged in connection with the escape.
Palmer also let the men slip behind
their cell walls onto a prison catwalk to hide contraband and alter electrical
wiring so they could cook in their cells, according to court documents.
Matt, who turned 49 on Thursday, was
convicted in the 1997 torture, murder and dismemberment of his boss in
Tonawanda, New York, and was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence
after his conviction in the shooting death of a Broome County Sheriff's deputy
on July 4, 2002.
Immediately
after the escape, the manhunt focused on an area east of Dannemora along the
shore of Lake Champlain. But last weekend, the search shifted to New York's
Southern Tier along its border with Pennsylvania. Officers were deployed to
that area, where Sweat once lived, after a series of unconfirmed sightings of
the pair, but the effort proved fruitless.
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