New York prison escape

A three-week manhunt that began when two convicted murderers staged a brazen prison break involving stolen power tools and hacksaw blades hidden in frozen hamburger meat ended June 28, 2015, when a single state police sergeant spotted a suspicious man walking down on a rural road near the Canadian border.

David Sweat's capture came two days after his fellow escapee, Richard Matt, was killed in a confrontation with law enforcement while holding a shotgun. Sweat was unarmed when he was shot twice by Sgt. Jay Cook as the fugitive ran for a tree line.

Cook, a 21-year veteran, was alone and on routine patrol when he stumbled upon Sweat in the northern New York town of Constable, about 30 miles northwest of the prison, and recognized him. He gave chase when Sweat fled and decided to fire upon fearing he would lose him in the trees, state police said.

The arrest ended an ordeal that sent 1,300 law enforcement officers into the thickly forested northern reaches of New York and forced residents to tolerate nerve-wracking armed checkpoints and property searches.

The men had been on the loose since June 6, when they cut their way out of a maximum-security prison about 30 miles away using power tools. Two prison workers have been charged with helping them.

Matt and Sweat used power tools to saw through a steel cell wall and several steel steam pipes, bashed a hole through a 2-foot-thick brick wall, squirmed through pipes and emerged from a manhole outside the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.

Sweat was serving a sentence of life without parole in the killing of a sheriff's deputy in Broome County in 2002. Matt was serving 25 years to life for the killing and dismembering of his former boss. (AP)


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