Cuomo: DNA Miles From Prison Is Linked To Escaped Inmates
BELLMONT, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- DNA found just miles from a maximum-security prison is linked to the convicted murderers who escaped more than two weeks ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, as the manhunt for the convicts continued in far northern New York.
Searchers using dogs and helicopters on Tuesday continued to focus intensely on the heavily wooded area not far from the Canadian border.
Franklin County Sheriff Kevin Mulverhill said the search area remains around the remote hamlets of Owls Head and Mountain View.
Cuomo told reporters Monday night that the current lead has "good evidence, DNA data'' regarding inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt. It wasn't immediately clear if the DNA belonged to one or both of the inmates.
"I believe we will get these guys,'' Cuomo said. He also cautioned that they've had a number of leads and have to follow each as if it's the one that's going to bring authorities to the escapees.
State Police Maj. Charles Guess said Monday that authorities had recovered "specific items'' from a cabin in the Adirondacks that were sent to labs for DNA and other testing. He did not elaborate on what the items were.
But a law enforcement source told CBS2 a pair of boots was found in the cabin located about 20 miles from the prison. The discovery raises the possibility that one of the escaped prisoners is barefoot.
Terry Bellinger, owner of nearby Belly's Mountain View Inn, said a hunter told him he saw a man run into the woods as he approached the cabin Saturday on an ATV. When the hunter went inside, he noticed two things out of place: a jug of water and an open jar of peanut butter on a table. Bellinger said the hunter went to his restaurant, where he talked to police for several hours.
"He was visibly shaken. He wanted a glass of water,'' Bellinger said.
Guess urged residents and seasonal camp owners to call police if they notice anything out of place or capture footage on trail cameras of any suspicious activity.
Sweat and Matt escaped from the prison in Dannemora on June 6. Authorities say they cut through the steel wall at the back of their cell, 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.
A law enforcement source told CBS News that Matt never served in the U.S. Marine Corps despite his large Marine Corps style tattoo on his right upper arm.
Sources said the information is helpful because it gives further indication to investigators that Matt possibly has no survival skills training.
Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnapping, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss. Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff's deputy.
Meanwhile, the husband of the woman accused of helping the inmates escape said in an interview aired Tuesday on NBC's "Today'' show that he's "absolutely 100 percent'' certain the pair would have killed him and his wife if his wife had been their getaway driver, as initially planned.
Lyle Mitchell said his wife, Joyce Mitchell, told him Sweat and Matt offered to give her pills to knock him out so she could pick them up after they escaped, but she refused because she said she still loved her husband.
"Do I still love her? Yes. Am I mad? Yes,'' Lyle Mitchell said.
Joyce Mitchell remained in custody on charges she helped the two men escape by providing them hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools. She has pleaded not guilty.
Tuesday's search area was about 20 miles east of Mitchell's home in Dickinson Center.
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