Cuomo: Upstate New York Prison Escape Probe Focuses On Likely 'Inside' Help
DANNEMORA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Investigators are looking into whether civilian employees or private contractors helped two convicted killers obtain the power tools they used to break out of a maximum-security state prison near the Canadian border, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Click Here For More Pictures Of Escaped Prisoners
Cuomo said during a round of appearances on television morning news shows that he'd be shocked if a prison guard was involved in the escape from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, 20 miles south of the border.
Officials said David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48, cut through steel walls at the back of their adjacent cells and steel pipes while making their "Shawshank Redemption''-style breakout, which guards discovered early Saturday. Sweat and Matt were still on the loose late Monday night.
As CBS2's Valerie Castro reported, Philp Tarsia said his family was assured their son's killer would never walk free. That killer was Sweat, and now, of course, he is on the loose.
"They said they couldn't give them the death penalty. That's what they told us so they gave them life without parole," Tarsia said. "We had to go along with it. They're the ones who made the decision."
As of Monday, more than 150 tips had been called in about the pair's whereabouts.
"They will go after every single lead," said former NYPD Tactical Sgt. Joseph Anderle.
Anderle said the search will be methodical and every scenario will be explored.
"You don't want to speculate," Anderle said. "They could be traveling together. They could have split up."
As CBS2's Lou Young reported, a patchwork of roadblocks and vehicle checks have been set up in the wooded region around the old upstate prison, as hundreds of police officers and U.S. marshals fan out in search of the two killers.
Meanwhile, fresh pictures of Sweat and Matt include their identifying tattoos.
"They could be out of state, but could still be holed up in Dannemora," said New York State Police Maj. Charles Guess.
The convicted killers broke out of the Dannemora State Prison late Friday or early Saturday, in an elaborate escape straight out of a movie plot. It was complete with dummies in the beds and a taunting note left behind.
The escape involved a hole in a solid steel wall at the back of the maximum security cell leading to a catwalk normally used for maintenance, a drop down to a tunnel below, a break through a two-foot brick wall, a cut into a 24-inch vertical pipe, and another cut out farther along the line into the local sewer system. The suspects finally reached a manhole secured with a lock and a chain, which was also cut, authorities said.
New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo toured the escape route over the weekend, and quipped to nearby inmates about the obvious use of power tools for such work.
"They must have kept you up with all that cutting, huh?" Cuomo told the inmates.
Investigators have been questioning prison employees in their search for accomplices.
To find out more about the layout at Dannemora, CBS2 tracked down Marty Tankleff, who was wrongly convicted of murder and exonerated, and spent 10 years at the prison.
Tankleff believes all the heavy prep work was done during the day.
"Individuals who have jobs such as masons, or electricians, or plumbers would have access to tools throughout the day that they would've signed out and they would have brought back in at the end of the day," Tankleff said. "So the fact that all the tools are accounted for really means nothing."
Tankleff said the catwalk was the most important element of the escape route.
"The key really is the catwalk," he said. "The catwalk seems to be the access point for everything that was done there."
The thing that most perplexes Tankleff, and other former inmates with whom he has spoken, is how the damage to the back of the cell on the catwalk side went undetected.
"To gain the knowledge that they gained of the steam pipe system and everything else -- somebody had to give them information," Tankleff said.
In a photo from their cell, you can even see padding on the bed's legs, installed to keep it from making noise as it was slipped away from the hole at night.
Investigators are interviewing hundreds of civilian employees and the contractors who have been doing extensive renovations at the 150-year-old facility, Cuomo said.
"We're going through the civilian employees and private contractors first,'' he said on NBC's "Today'' show. "I'd be shocked if a correction guard was involved in this, but they definitely had help, otherwise, they couldn't have done this on their own, even from the equipment point of view.''
A female prison worker is being questioned, CBS2 reported.
Cuomo said the escape was a "sophisticated plan'' and announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to men's capture.
"It was really unbelievable. if it was a movie plot, you would say it was overdone," Cuomo said.
"We'll find out who gave them the assistance because I believe they were assisted, probably from the inside," Cuomo said.
Sweat was serving a sentence of life without parole for the 2002 killing of a sheriff's deputy in Broome County. Matt had been sentenced to 25 years to life for kidnapping, killing and dismembering his former boss in 1997.
"These are killers. They are murderers,'' the governor said. "There's never been a question about the crimes they committed. They are now on the loose, and our first order of business is apprehending them.''
Officials gave no details on how the men managed to avoid detection while cutting their way out. "They had to be heard,'' Cuomo told ABC's "Good Morning America'' on Sunday.
After the search is over, "we'll go through the exact details of what they did and how they did it to ensure this never happens again,'' Cuomo said later.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers fanned out around the prison, following up on dozens of tips. Authorities set up roadblocks and brought in bloodhounds and helicopters.
Dubbed "Little Siberia'' by locals, the prison houses nearly 3,000 inmates, guarded by about 1,400 correction officers. Surrounded by farmland and forests, the prison is about a 45-minute drive by car to Montreal.
Cuomo said the escapees may have crossed into Canada or headed to another state or Mexico, where Matt served time for killing a man in 1998.
"This is a crisis situation for the state,'' he said. "These are dangerous men capable of committing grave crimes again.''
New York State Police, the FBI and New York Forest Rangers are taking part in the search.
Vermont State Police and the Grand Isle County Sheriff's Department are also on heightened alert, although authorities say the two have no known ties to the state. Authorities tell the Burlington Free Press they began closer monitoring of traffic along the state border after an alert from New York State Police on Saturday.
New York State Police have been monitoring the Lake Champlain ferry that runs between Cumberland Head, New York, and Grand Isle.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police are also on alert for any sign of the men.
More than 150 tips have been called in, prompting police to search everywhere, CBS2's Valerie Castro reported.
"We encourage all New Yorkers to be on alert, all across the state," Cuomo said. "There's been a significant amount of time that has elapsed so there is a good possibility that they are no longer in just the surrounding area of the prison but they could be anywhere in the state."
Prison officials found the inmates' beds inside their separate cells stuffed with clothes on Saturday morning in an apparent attempt to fool guards making their rounds. On a cut steam pipe, the prisoners left a taunting note containing a crude Asian caricature and the words "Have a nice day.''
Officials said the inmates cut through the steel wall at the back of their cells, crawled down a catwalk, broke through a brick wall, cut their way into and out of a steam pipe, and then sliced through the chain and lock on a manhole cover outside the prison.
To escape, the inmates had to cut into the steam pipe then shimmy "some distance,'' Cuomo said, before cutting themselves out again. Their path brought to mind "The Shawshank Redemption,'' the 1994 adaptation of a Stephen King story about an inmate's carefully planned escape.
It was the first escape from the maximum-security portion of the prison, which was built in 1865.
Cuomo said investigators were confident the men obtained the tools inside the prison. Acting Corrections Commissioner Anthony Annucci said an inventory of prison tools had so far shown none missing and he was in contact with contractors who were doing or had done work at the prison.
Martin Horn, former commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said prison breaks are not common.
"Prison escapes are a relatively rare event,'' said Horn, who is not involved in the probe of the Clinton escape. "That tells you that a great deal of planning is involved because it's not an easy thing to accomplish.''
Horn, a former secretary of corrections for the state of Pennsylvania and a prison warden in New York state during the 1980s, said the two inmates had to "obtain some fairly sophisticated tools,'' either from the prison, which he said maintains an inventory of their tools -- "every pair of scissors, every wrench, every power tool'' -- or from an outside contractor.
But he said many questions remain, among them how long it took to prepare for the escape, the kinds of tools used, what powered them, why no one heard the noise and how the prisoners hid the holes they made.
"Clinton is as secure a prison as you'll find anywhere in the United States,'' said Horn. "If it can happen at Clinton, it can happen anywhere.''
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