Two killlers used power tools to help them escape from the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York Saturday morning
Monday, law enforcement officers and police dogs went searching for David Sweat and Richard Matt, who escaped Saturday morning. Both men were in an “honor block” program which rewards inmates with good behavior with jobs like serving as assistants to private plumbers and electricians, according to the New York Daily News. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said,
These are dangerous men capable of committing grave crimes again.”
Matt, 48, was sentenced to 25 years to life in 2008 for killing a businessman, William Rickerson (a food broker) who had hired and then fired Matt. However, Saturday’s escape wasn’t Matt’s first; in 1986 he had also escaped from prison. During his trial years later, he was considered so dangerous that police snipers were posted on the courthouse roof.
The New York Daily News, indicated that Sweat and Matt’s escape was “the first-ever escape” Clinton Correctional Facility has ever undergone. The building consist of nearly 3,000 inmates, and is guarded by about 1,400 correction officers.
“This is a crisis situation for the state,” said Cuomo, who has offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the killers’ arrests. “These are dangerous men capable of committing grave crimes again.”
On Dec. 4, 1997, according to the trial testimony of an accomplice, Matt beat Rickerson with a knife sharpener, bound him with duct tape, tossed him in the trunk of a car, and then drove around for 27 hours looking for a place to kill and bury him.
Matt then fled to Mexico after the killing and was later arrested for stabbing an American to death outside a bar in a robbery attempt. He was returned to the United States to face trial in Rickerson’s killing, told NBC News.
Authorities described Matt as 6 feet tall and 210 pounds, black hair and hazel eyes, with a “Mexico Forever” tattoo on his back, heart tattoos on his chest and left shoulder and a Marine Corps insignia on his right shoulder.
Sweat, 34, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole in the shooting death of Kevin Tarsia, a sheriff’s deputy in Broome County, New York, on July 4, 2002.
According to investigators, Sweat and two other men stole a pickup truck in Pennsylvania, broke into a fireworks and gun store and stole a dozen handguns and rifles.
They drove across the state line to New York to move the weapons from a pickup truck to a car. Tarsia confronted them, as a result, they shot him immediately.
Authorities described Sweat as 5 feet 11 inches and 165 pounds, brown hair and green eyes, with tattoos on his left bicep and right fingers.
Sweat was sentenced in September 2003 along with one of the accomplices, Jeffrey A. Nabinger Jr. Sweat also had been convicted at 17 of attempted burglary and served a year and a half in prison, according to NBC News. Authorities claimed he had been involved in selling marijuana and stealing guns and cars.
With Sherley Boursiquot–@sherleybee_