FRIENDSHIP. N.Y. — The search for two killers landed Saturday in New York’s southern tier near the Pennsylvania state line, about 350 miles from the prison where they escaped two weeks ago.
New York State Police spokesman Beau Duffy said officers were investigating a possible sighting of the prisoners near the Allegany County hamlet of Friendship. He gave no other details.
David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped June 6 from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, near the Canadian border. The two broke out of the maximum-security prison using power tools and leaving behind dummies under covers in their adjoining cells.
A door-to-door search involving up to 800 law enforcement officers has been underway since then, concentrated in a several-mile radius of woods and fields around the prison in the Adirondacks.
State police moved the search command post from the prison Saturday to the nearby village of Cadyville and focused attention on the other side of the state.
Authorities on Friday said two men fitting the description of Sweat and Matt had been seen a week ago in Steuben County, east of Allegany County. Two men were seen walking near a rail yard in Erwin on June 13 and were seen the next day in Lindley, N.Y., heading toward the Pennsylvania line.
Investigators conducted interviews in both communities and have surveillance video that initially was deemed inconclusive but was being sent to Albany for analysis.
Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff’s deputy. Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.
Prison worker Joyce Mitchell remained in custody Saturday on charges she helped the two men escape by providing them hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools. She has pleaded not guilty.
Officials said a corrections officer also has been placed on administrative leave as part of the investigation into the men’s escape.
