Richard Matt, one of two prisoners who escaped from a correctional facility in upstate New York and led authorities on a three-week manhunt, reportedly planned to see someone after gaining his freedom: his daughter.
“I always promised you I would see you on the outside,” Matt wrote to his daughter, a law enforcement official told the Buffalo News. Matt added: “I’m a man of my word.”
The letter was postmarked before the prisoners’ escape on 6 June – it arrived on 9 June.
On 6 June, Matt and David Sweat broke out of the Clinton correctional facility in Dannemora by drilling and sawing through their cell walls and heating pipes – leaving a note telling authorities to “have a nice day” – before emerging through a manhole outside the prison.
Almost three weeks later, Matt was found in the woodlands of upstate New York. He was shot three times in the head by a border patrol agent, after he refused to put down the 20-gauge shotgun he was holding. He died shortly after.
Two days later, Sweat was shot twice in the torso by a New York state police sergeant, close to the Canadian border. He survived and has been questioned about the escape.
According to the official interviewed by the Buffalo News, for a number of months Matt, 49, communicated with his daughter through Joyce Mitchell, 51, who worked at the prison’s tailor shop.
Mitchell, who was to be the getaway driver in Matt and Sweat’s escape, panicked and did not carry out her role. She is charged with providing the escaped prisoners with contraband such as hacksaw blades, chisels and screwdrivers.
Another prison worker, Gene Palmer, has been accused with providing contraband. He has denied the charge and it was reported this week that Sweat had told investigators Palmer had no knowledge of the escape plan.
As the investigation into the escape continues, a dozen officials have been suspended from the prison.
To establish contact with Matt’s daughter, the Buffalo News said, Mitchell texted her, saying: “I’m a friend of your father’s.”
“Mitchell called the daughter a couple of times, but most of the communications were through text messages from Mitchell,” the anonymous official told the Buffalo News.
“She would pass along tidbits on how Matt was doing. He had a bad back, and Mitchell gave medical updates. Matt asked that she provide his daughter with the updates. There was nothing suspicious in those exchanges. Nothing about the planned escape was mentioned.”
After Matt was shot dead Wayne Schimpf, his half-brother, told ABC’s Buffalo affiliate WKBW: “I was in a way hoping this was the outcome. Thank God this can finally end for me and my family. The next thought was: ‘That’s my brother.’”
Previously, Schimpf told the authorities he was afraid that Matt, who once threatened to kill him, would track him down.
“You never want to see anyone lose their life,” the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, said at the time of Matt’s death, “but I would remind people that Mr Matt was an escaped murderer from a state prison. Mr Matt killed two people who we know about.”
Matt was serving 25 to life for the murder of a former employer. He had already served a sentence in Mexico for murder. Sweat was serving a life sentence for killing a police officer.
