Husband visits jailed N.Y. prison worker
DANNEMORA, N.Y. - A prison worker now behind bars after she was charged with helping two killers break out of a maximum-security facility in upstate New York has been visited by her husband.
Lyle Mitchell, who also works at the prison, visited his wife, Joyce Mitchell, in the county jail for about an hour, according to Clinton County Sheriff David Favro. The couple communicated via telephone and were separated by a glass divider. Favro says he saw no sign of emotion from Joyce Mitchell, who is under constant monitoring.
Mitchell is a prison tailoring shop supervisor who befriended inmates Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34. Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff's deputy. Matt was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.
Mitchell was charged Friday with supplying hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and a screwdriver to the convicts. Her lawyer entered a not guilty plea on her behalf. She has been suspended without pay from her $57,000-a-year job overseeing inmates who sew clothes and learn to repair sewing machines at the prison.
CBS News learned earlier Monday that police believe Mitchell smuggled the tools to the escapees with the understanding that the convicts would kill her husband.
Law enforcement officials are investigating the alleged threat to determine if it was an attempt by Matt and fellow inmate Sweat to force her to help them and keep her quiet about their escape plans, or if she had willingly plotted the murder of her husband with them.
Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said Sunday that the killers apparently cut their way out using tools stored by prison contractors, taking care to return them to their toolboxes after each night's work.
"They had access, from what we understand, to other tools left in the facility by contractors under policy and were able to open the toolboxes and use those tools and then put them back so nobody would notice," he said.
There is still no sign of the prisoners 11 days after their escape.
CBS News reports Mitchell had an intimate relationship with one of the prisoners. A law enforcement source confirmed Mitchell told authorities she was involved with Matt and gave details of their encounters.
On Sunday Wylie would not confirm a sexual relationship but said, "Obviously, Joyce Mitchell went a step a further as far as her relationship with these two individuals. Whether it's showing them more attention than anyone else or them showing her attention or affection."
Search teams were back in the woods of northern New York Tuesday looking for the escapees. The more than 800 law enforcement officers steadily shifted their focus eastward along Route 374 leading from the village of Dannemora, home to Clinton Correctional Facility.
Roadblocks are still in place in some spots and teams of officers are making their way through woods in the neighboring town of Plattsburgh.
Police say Route 374 is expected to remain closed at least through Tuesday