Summary: The surviving Clinton Correctional Facility escapee explains his escape plan.
Though one of the two inmates who escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility was killed by police last Friday, the younger member of the duo, David Sweat, was merely injured, and from his stay at a hospital bed in Albany, he explained himself as the mastermind behind the prison escape.
They came up with the idea in January, and planned it for five months. Nor did they escape only once, but a day before their actual escape, they smuggled themselves through a maze of tunnels and pipes, but upon peeking out of a manhole, determined there were too many houses nearby, and that they would try for another manhole another day.
“To make a dry run and … have the ability to escape, and then go back in, it is a little baffling,” said Sweat.
The escape was a group effort, involving tailor Joyce Mitchell who smuggled the pair hacksaw blades, the only implements used in the escape, by which they cut through their cell walls and a steam pipe. She has admitted to hiding the blades in frozen hamburger meat and having it delivered to Richard Matt, the other prisoner who escaped. She has been arrested and has been charged with promoting prison contraband and criminal facilitation.
Fellow employee Gene Palmer also faces scrutiny for taking the meat to the prisoners, and two counts of destroying evidence and one of official misconduct.
Necessarily there is an intense investigation into the matter, and three members of the prison’s executive team, and nine security staff, have been placed on paid administrative leave, including Superintendent Steven Racette and Deputy Superintendent Stephen Brown.
As for Mitchell, the trio had planned on killing her husband, Lyle, and escaping across the Mexican border. As she did not show up on the night of their escape, or give them further help, Lyle looks at it as if she saved his life.
“In a way, he’s looking at it like Joyce saved his life that night by not picking them up,” said attorney Peter Dumas. “He’s still in love with her, to put it bluntly. And I think he plans on waiting for her.”
News Source: CNN