New York – Video obtained by ABC News shows investigators documenting the escape route of two upstate New York prisoners through the use of GoPro cameras.
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In an ABCNews.go.com (http://abcn.ws/1U28uFj) EXCLUSIVE report, investigators narrate the inmates’ roughly 20-minute dash to freedom, beginning in their cells and ending with their first steps outside the prison after surfacing through a nearby manhole.
David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora on June 6. Matt was shot dead June 26, and Sweat was shot and captured two days later, ending a 23-day manhunt.
Of particular interest is the hand-cut hole through the prison’s steam pipe, which Sweat told police it took him 4 weeks to complete.
Authorities said the escapees had planned to drive to Mexico but ended up walking toward Canada when prison worker Joyce Mitchell backed out of giving them a ride at the last minute.
Mitchell, who worked in the prison tailor shop with the inmates, has pleaded guilty to first-degree promoting prison contraband, a felony, and fourth-degree criminal facilitation, a misdemeanor, for the help she gave the inmates, including smuggling hacksaw blades to them in packages of frozen hamburger.
Authorities have said they don’t believe there were any other people involved in the escape.