Dannemora, NY – State police say more than 50 digital billboards in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are displaying mugshots and information about the two men who escaped from a northern New York prison.
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Troopers say Wednesday the billboards donated by Lamar Advertising are part of a continuing effort to notify the public of the escape and generate new leads in the case.
The billboards feature information about 48-year-old Richard Matt and 34-year-old David Sweat. The convicted murderers were discovered missing from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora early Saturday.
The billboards are across New York; near Boston, Massachusetts; and in north central and Erie, Pennsylvania.
“We don’t want them out searching the woods,” Sheriff David Favro said. “But if you’re sitting on your porch, get your binoculars out and see if you see something unusual.”
Corrections officers in helmets and body armor also are searching houses near the northern New York prison.
Troopers said that the house searches were not the result of any new leads and that law enforcement was just retracing its steps made soon after the escape, discovered early Saturday.
“They’ll be doing a 100 percent sweep from the prison right out, see how that goes,” Favro said.
The searches come a day after hundreds of officers poured into Willsboro, a community 30 miles away, in a fruitless effort to find the men.
Earlier today, Unions representing guards and civilian staff at the northern New York prison where two killers escaped say many have been questioned by investigators but none has been suspended, disciplined or charged with wrongdoing five days after the getaway was discovered.
Among them is Joyce Mitchell, an industrial training supervisor at maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility.
Her son tells NBC that his mother, an instructor in the tailor shop where Richard Matt and David Sweat worked, wouldn’t have helped them escape.
Tobey Mitchell says his mother checked herself into a hospital Saturday with chest pains.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said the men must have had help in cutting their way through a steel cell wall and steam pipes with a power tool.
The Civil Service Employees Association says many of its 150 civilian employees have been questioned.
I would check local Home Depot stores. They might be trying to return the power tolls to get their deposit back.