Police searching for two murderers who escaped from prison six days ago have shut down route 374, a major highway in upstate New York, a day after they expanded their manhunt to the neighbouring state of Vermont.
Law enforcement agencies have intensified their efforts around Dannemora, the village in the shadow of the Clinton Correctional Facility, forming a series of checkpoints and scouring surrounding woodland.
More than 450 officers assisted by sniffer dogs and helicopters are searching for the escaped pair – Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34 – who have set the record for the longest jailbreak in New York state history.
Authorities extended their hunt to Vermont on Wednesday after police revealed that the escaped prisoners had discussed heading to the rural state by a ferry 40 miles south of the prison.
“We have information that suggests that they thought New York was going to be hot,” said Vermont governor Peter Shumlin, “and Vermont would be cooler in terms of law enforcement and that a camp in Vermont might be a better place to be.”
Joseph D’Amico, the New York police superintendent, said officers had received more than 500 leads and would check “behind every tree, under every rock and inside every structure” near Dannemora.
D’Amico also confirmed that a female civilian employee “was befriended or befriended the inmates, and may have had some sort of role in assisting them”, but declined to provide any further details.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo conceded on Wednesday that the investigations inside and outside the prison had yet to produce tangible clues.
Since Matt and Sweat chiselled through their cell wall with power tools and clambered through pipes and sewers to freedom, investigators have been interviewing uniformed and civilian employees and residents of the town. A spokesman for the Civil Services Employees Association said most of the 150 or so civilian employees who work at the prison had been interviewed.
This week, Cuomo echoed many investigators’ suspicions that the inmates were assisted by someone who provided them the tools and possibly a mobile phone, but police have not ruled out the possibility of Matt and Sweat acting alone.
At least one civilian employee has drawn special notice from law enforcement for reportedly having known the prisoners from her work in the prison’s tailor shop, which Matt and Sweat would have had access to due to their good behaviour and residence on the “honour block”. The woman was questioned by police, officers confirmed.
The longest previous escape from a New York prison lasted just three days, according to data from the New York Department of Corrections. In the past decade, freedom lasted less than six hours for 60% of the 30 inmates who succeeded in breaking out.
Nationwide, the number of prison escapes has dropped sharply, from 100 inmates per 10,000 in the 1980s to one per 10,000.
Reuters contributed to this report
