New York Times reveals more details of the shocking upstate New York prison escape

It’s been about six weeks since convicted murderers 35-year-old David Sweat and 49-year-old Richard Matt escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, and more
details of their elaborate escape are coming to light.

Matt was shot and killed by police in a showdown in late June. Sweat was shot and brought into custody a few days later.

Laid up in a hospital bed, Sweat provided an account of the escape to investigators from the State Police, the Corrections Department, and the State Inspector General’s Office during numerous sessions, the details of which have been revealed to The New York Times.

According to the Times, Sweat began plotting his escape this past January when he was transferred to a cell next to Richard Matt. Sweat almost immediately used a hacksaw blade to cut a hole in the back of his cell and then another one in the back of Matt’s cell.

He reportedly recieved the hacksaw, other tools, and help from collaborating corrections officers.

REUTERS/New York Governor's Press Office/Handout

A hole in the wall of a prison cell is seen in a handout picture from the New York Governor's Press

Office taken at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York June 6, 2015.

Every night, Sweat would investigate the tunnels beneath the prison in search of a way out. He would return to his cell by the morning with guards none the wiser. The Times described his daily routine as such:

He would wait each night until after the 11:30 head count to crawl through the hole, shimmy down a series of pipes going down several stories and begin roaming the tunnels. He would return to his cell each morning before the 5:30 a.m. count, camouflage his portal to the maze below and start his daily routine.

REUTERS/New York Governor's Press Office/Handout

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo views the scene of a prison escape in a handout picture from

the New York Governor's Press Office taken at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New 

York June 6, 2015.

In his account, Sweat portrayed himself as the main architect behind the escape. He searched through dead-end routes for months before finding a series of pipes that traveled through the prison’s outer wall to place 20 feet outside the prison. First he had to break through a concrete wall. For months, he worked at hacking away the wall. 

Perhaps what is most shocking about his account is just how much it hews to any number of  “prison-escape” movie plots. Sweat stole a sledgehammer and other tools to assist in the escape, kept a second set of clothes in the tunnels to work in, and even had an exceptionally lucky break when a shutdown of the prison’s heating system allowed him to take a shortcut. 

From the Times:

Around May 4, when the prison shut down its heating system for the season, one of the pipes, a blistering 24-inch steam main, started to cool. So he opted for a shortcut and decided to cut into the large pipe, which traveled through the large concrete wall. Using hacksaw blades with handles fashioned from rags, it took him more than four weeks of methodical work to cut holes into and out of the pipe that were large enough for the men to crawl through.

Thomson ReutersHandout photo shows a note with a caption

REUTERS/New York State Office of the Governor/Darren McGee/Handout

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (R) looks at the manhole believed to have been used by

escaped convicts near the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, in this handout 

picture taken June 6, 2015

A few days after the hole in the pipe was cut, Matt and Sweat escaped. 

The movie comparison wasn’t lost on Sweat or Matt. According to Sweat, he and Matt joked often about the similarities between their prison break and that of Andy Dufresne in "The Shawshank Redemption." The only difference, according to Sweat, was that their escape wouldn't take 20 years.