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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them. Gacy Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker BTK
Speaker 6: every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 6: and infamous killer in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 6: your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening. It
Speaker 6: was one of the biggest crime stories of the decade.
Speaker 6: Two deadly killers, desperate and on the run after months
Speaker 6: of planning Ricky, Matt and David Sweat cut, chopped, coerced,
Speaker 6: and connived their way out of a maximum security prison
Speaker 6: in the wilderness of upstate New York and managed to
Speaker 6: elude police for three weeks, sending the region into lockdown
Speaker 6: and keeping the entire country on edge. The media called
Speaker 6: it a bold escape for the ages, and veteran true
Speaker 6: crime writer Michael Benson leads us along the stories every
Speaker 6: wild path to dig out a tale of adventure, psychology, sex,
Speaker 6: and brutality. Escape from Dana Moore examines the strange case
Speaker 6: of Joyce Mitchell, the longtime as an employee who had
Speaker 6: a sexual relationship with at least one of the killers,
Speaker 6: and who smuggled them tools and aided in the escape
Speaker 6: while they cooked up a plan to kill her husband.
Speaker 6: In the end, Benson looks closely at conditions at the
Speaker 6: Clinton Correctional Facility in Danamore and New York, a crumbling
Speaker 6: Gothic pile now under investigation for charges of drug trafficking
Speaker 6: and brutality. The book that we're featuring this evening is
Speaker 6: Escape from Danamora. Richard Matt David Sweat in the Great
Speaker 6: Adirondack Manhunt with my special guest journalist and author Michael Benson.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much
Speaker 2: for greeting this interview. Michael Benson, thanks for having me,
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Congratulations on another again fantastic, fantastic book.
Speaker 2: Now I always ask this question, so I'm just curious
Speaker 2: what brought you to this story, in particular to write
Speaker 2: this book, Escape from Denamora.
Speaker 4: Well, I think you put it very well in your opening.
Speaker 4: It's a story that has everything. It's got the adventure
Speaker 4: of a man hunt through rugged terrain and inclement weather.
Speaker 4: It's got a sex component to it. And the thing
Speaker 4: that my book talks about that I think isn't widely
Speaker 4: known is exactly what David Sweat and Richard matt did
Speaker 4: to get into prison in the first place. Because once
Speaker 4: you understand how brutal and horrible these men were, you
Speaker 4: realize how why there was so much frustration with law
Speaker 4: enforcement that instead of having the key thrown away, they
Speaker 4: were handed the key to get out.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Now, do you tell also talk about the history
Speaker 2: of the prison and Danimora, and so tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit of just about Donamor and just the history
Speaker 2: of the facility.
Speaker 4: Sure, there's been a prison on that spot since eighteen
Speaker 4: forty four. It predates the village around it, and it
Speaker 4: was originally built as an outpost prison, and the location
Speaker 4: was considered prime because it was in a valley close
Speaker 4: to the iron mines near the hills of Wayan Mountain.
Speaker 4: So the first inmates they lived in shacks heated by
Speaker 4: wood in the winter, and they were chained together and
Speaker 4: forced to build the prison. And once the prison was built,
Speaker 4: they're put to work mining the iron from the mines,
Speaker 4: and it eventually developed into a maximum security prison. Basically
Speaker 4: because of it's like the real estate, the best place
Speaker 4: to put a prison is the place is very remote
Speaker 4: because the surrounding area, the terrain is not meant for
Speaker 4: the average human being, and it forms an outer outer wall,
Speaker 4: much like they put Alcatraz on an island in the
Speaker 4: middle of San Franis. If you got out of the prison,
Speaker 4: you still have to deal with the chop he wars.
Speaker 4: And in the long run, it was the outer outer
Speaker 4: wall of the Anadas that captured Matt Sweat.
Speaker 2: Now you talk about some the conditions in Dana Mora
Speaker 2: over the years there. You talk about in nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: nine there was a riot occurred exposed of the prison's
Speaker 2: brutal conditions. But we just for the sake of brevity,
Speaker 2: we have to talk about more modern times with Danama.
Speaker 2: So let's just talk about Dana Mora before David Sweat
Speaker 2: gets there, because David Sweat precedes are part, precedes Richard
Speaker 2: Matt by five years in Dana Moora. So let's go
Speaker 2: back to Dana Moore in more recent times and talk
Speaker 2: about the conditions that were prevalent in there before we
Speaker 2: talk about any of the crimes and the history of
Speaker 2: David Sweat and Richard Malo.
Speaker 4: Dan Moore was a kinder and genular place in two
Speaker 4: thousand and two than it was in nineteen twenty, but
Speaker 4: that's not saying much. It was still the worst place
Speaker 4: to do time in New York State and perhaps in
Speaker 4: the country, although there are some prisoners down in Texas.
Speaker 4: I think they'd give it a run for its money.
Speaker 4: I was known for its brutality, known for inmates being beaten.
Speaker 4: It's where they put a lot of gang members from
Speaker 4: New York City, so there's constant dangers. So but on
Speaker 4: the other hand, the riot that you mentioned brought about
Speaker 4: some reforms and one of those reforms was they instead
Speaker 4: of just punishing prisoners, they tried to rehabilitate them. And
Speaker 4: part of that was the tailoring shops. Prisoners if they
Speaker 4: chose to, could learn how to sell make a suit
Speaker 4: and perhaps earn a living when they got out, if
Speaker 4: they were going to get out. And it was in
Speaker 4: the in the Terror Shop where Matt and Sweat Mcjulie
Speaker 4: Mitchell who turned out to be the co conspirator in
Speaker 4: the escape.
Speaker 2: Now you talk about the the conditions you talk about
Speaker 2: they want to rehabilitate prisoners, but I don't know if
Speaker 2: everybody's familiar with with that entails and again like maybe
Speaker 2: somebody could have a skill, but you're looking at and
Speaker 2: as you provide in the book, there's some very very
Speaker 2: dangerous people like you member the gang members, but also
Speaker 2: famous guys like Lucky Luciano that have been in Dana Morris.
Speaker 2: So these are not less serious people despite being called
Speaker 2: a Clinton correctional facility. But this you do talk about
Speaker 2: the actual conditions brought on by again the unusual circumstances
Speaker 2: that bring people together for years and years relationships developed.
Speaker 2: And you also say that some of the restrictions rules
Speaker 2: all of those things go by the wayside or get
Speaker 2: stretched or so as you do in the book, explain
Speaker 2: really the conditions in a place like this with dangerous
Speaker 2: criminals and despite that conditions in reality.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that one thing that I can't emphasize
Speaker 4: enough is that what these two guys pulled off was
Speaker 4: practically impossible. And it's doubtful that any other two prisoners
Speaker 4: could put their heads together and come up with a
Speaker 4: plan to get out and then execute it. What you
Speaker 4: had was two guys with complimentary skills, and they used
Speaker 4: the tension within the prison as a distraction. You know,
Speaker 4: the guards were worried about gang fights. Nobody was looking
Speaker 4: at these two guys who you know, weren't going anywhere
Speaker 4: for a long time and weren't affiliated with any group
Speaker 4: and sure have fun being adjacent self. And what they
Speaker 4: did was they created a two headed monster. You know,
Speaker 4: Richard Matt is a schmoozer, he's a ladies man. He
Speaker 4: can attract people to his cause and get people to
Speaker 4: do things for him favors. And David Sweat was a
Speaker 4: three dimensional thinker. He could seuth puzzles, could read a
Speaker 4: blueprint from across the room upside down, and he could
Speaker 4: figure out a way to get out, and Matt's job
Speaker 4: was to recruit the help they would need to accomplish
Speaker 4: their plan. So yeah, I mean the conditions at the
Speaker 4: prison are important in the sense that there was a
Speaker 4: focus of concern at the time of the escape, but
Speaker 4: it was not on the escapees.
Speaker 2: Before. We talk about the escape as you do, and
Speaker 2: this is the information that people are not aware of,
Speaker 2: and this is horrifying stuff. You talk about the early
Speaker 2: life of David Sweat and how he became a planner,
Speaker 2: and then you have the shining example of what he
Speaker 2: does with these skills with his friends Noveinger and Deval
Speaker 2: and well that's his fireworks in Grand Bend, Pennsylvania. So
Speaker 2: tell us about it a little bit about his early life,
Speaker 2: but this robbery in particular is very demonstrative.
Speaker 4: Well, Sweat a bad kid growing up to an ol delinquent,
Speaker 4: and as many do, he graduated to become a bad
Speaker 4: young adult. He's in a small town down near Binghamton,
Speaker 4: New York with two of his buddies and they're stealing
Speaker 4: cars in r v's and they're living in the woods.
Speaker 4: I had a place they're calling one dirt road it's
Speaker 4: a remote spot and they fancy themselves and a commandos
Speaker 4: or something that they're tearing around the woods and these
Speaker 4: these cars, and they're bragging to each other about if
Speaker 4: they ever get caught by the cops, they're going to
Speaker 4: shoot it out. You can never have enough guns. So
Speaker 4: they come up with a plan to go down there,
Speaker 4: you have a fireworks plant in Pennsylvania, steal a bunch
Speaker 4: of weapons. They plow a pickup truck right through the
Speaker 4: front door, alarm goes off. They load up the truck
Speaker 4: with the guns, tear out of there, and then they
Speaker 4: stop at a park closer to home and where they're
Speaker 4: going to transfer the guns from one vehicle to the other.
Speaker 4: And as they're doing this, Officer Kevin Tarzia of the
Speaker 4: Binghamton County Sheriff's Department comes pulling up and puts the
Speaker 4: spotlight on them. So they've been waiting for this moment
Speaker 4: for a long time. They come up firing. Both Sweat
Speaker 4: and his cousin shoot the officer. Sweat gets in his
Speaker 4: car and runs the officer over a few times just
Speaker 4: to make sure he's dead. And you know, that's that's
Speaker 4: the kind of guy he was. But the planning that
Speaker 4: had come into the into the the robbery that day.
Speaker 4: Here's your indication of how he thought. He had had
Speaker 4: a diagram of the entire fireworks plant and where exactly
Speaker 4: the guns were going to be. So when they got inside,
Speaker 4: the knew exactly where to go with what's the tape,
Speaker 4: and they were in and out very quickly. But the
Speaker 4: idea of shooting it out with cops if they ever
Speaker 4: got stopped, of course, was a was a stupid one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then so he does that. He again, as
Speaker 2: you say, he likes to talk. And soon after there
Speaker 2: him and Nabager are charged with murder, and Sweat's girlfriend, Audrey,
Speaker 2: cooperates with police. They find the story vehicle calling Audrey.
Speaker 4: That's not her real name.
Speaker 2: Right now, you tell us to avoid the death penalty,
Speaker 2: Sweat pleads guilty and he's gets life without parole, and
Speaker 2: he's packed off to Danama in October two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: Now tell us we get Dana Moore. But the time
Speaker 2: Richard matt gets there, he has met this Joyce Mitchell.
Speaker 2: So tell us a little bit about more about Joyce Mitchell, her,
Speaker 2: a little bit of her background, and when is it
Speaker 2: that these two meets David Sweat and Joyce Mitchell and
Speaker 2: what's his status By the time Richard Matt gets to Denimora.
Speaker 4: Well, Joyce Mitchell is the fe fetale of the story.
Speaker 4: She's a civilian employee of the prison. She teachest the
Speaker 4: Clinton Correction Facilities tailor shop, and she was a believer
Speaker 4: in inmates with benefits. Now, I didn't get a chance
Speaker 4: to speak with her because I think, as many people know,
Speaker 4: she would only talk to Matt Lauer of the Today Show.
Speaker 4: But I spoke to a lot of people who knew her,
Speaker 4: and sexual intrigue was part of her lifestyle. Her husband, Lyle,
Speaker 4: was the lover who broke up her first marriage. There
Speaker 4: there was always she always had one husband, one boyfriend.
Speaker 4: The fact that she would, you know, commit adultery inside
Speaker 4: the prison not that shocking. So yeah, she believed that
Speaker 4: inmates with benefits. And she's a plain woman, bespectacled, middle aged, blond,
Speaker 4: a little heavy, and she's been with her husband for
Speaker 4: fourteen years. At this point, they're living on a nice
Speaker 4: street in Dickenson Center, about fifty five miles from the prison.
Speaker 4: Her husband, Lyle, also works in the prison, and she
Speaker 4: becomes Sweats good friend, and he becomes the prisoner in
Speaker 4: charge of that Taylor shop. But what happens is she
Speaker 4: ends up taking some some nude pictures of herself and
Speaker 4: gives them to him, and they get caught doing that,
Speaker 4: and she gets reprimanded, not fired, and he gets moved
Speaker 4: to a different job. But then his good buddy, Richard
Speaker 4: Matt moves in and by the time he gets there,
Speaker 4: you know, the he already knows from his buddy David
Speaker 4: that Joyce is susceptible to the attentions of men. And
Speaker 4: that's all Richard Matt needs to know. You know, he
Speaker 4: knows he can manipulate this woman. So yeah, she uh yeah,
Speaker 4: she told her first interview with the police after she
Speaker 4: was a questioned, said that she had taken naked photos
Speaker 4: of her breasts and vagina and given them to Sweat,
Speaker 4: but she didn't know what he did with them. I
Speaker 4: can imagine, I suppose. And during that interview she said
Speaker 4: that although she had uh she'd been punished at work
Speaker 4: for having an inappropriate relationship with Sweat, it was really
Speaker 4: Matt that she liked, and he liked her back, and
Speaker 4: he made her feel special. She she brought him all
Speaker 4: kinds of present brownies cookies. He was able to relay
Speaker 4: messages to his daughter through her. She would call Matt's
Speaker 4: daughter and then say, you know he's Back's doing fine.
Speaker 4: You know, did you get the president he sent that
Speaker 4: kind of thing. In exchange for this, she gave them
Speaker 4: hexaw blades, supposedly at first, saying she didn't know what
Speaker 4: the hecksaw blades were for. She thought maybe they oh,
Speaker 4: they were using them to build frames for the paintings
Speaker 4: they were doing or something like that. But eventually she
Speaker 4: figures out that there's an escape and she thinks she's
Speaker 4: going to be part of them. She thinks she and
Speaker 4: her new boyfriend, Richard Matt, who she's fooling around with
Speaker 4: in the rooms behind the behind the tailor shop, thinks
Speaker 4: that they're all going to run away together and live
Speaker 4: happily ever after. Now, Mitchell's coworkers noticed a change in
Speaker 4: her during the two months before the escape. She starts
Speaker 4: to wear makeup, to wear extra button on his shirt
Speaker 4: would gun button. She's lost way. She was trying to
Speaker 4: look more beautiful and sexier while on the job. And
Speaker 4: this is this is a pattern in her life. The
Speaker 4: longtime friends would go, oh that means a boyfriend, so
Speaker 4: she's a The sex served to make Joyce Mitchell dependent
Speaker 4: on the prisoners, and the men convinced her that she
Speaker 4: was their trusted partner, that they were even going to
Speaker 4: bump off her husband on the way out so that
Speaker 4: she could dry right off into the sunset with them
Speaker 4: as a single gal so and she even went so
Speaker 4: far as to call Cabins for Rent and Vermont inquiring
Speaker 4: about raps because that's what that's where they were going
Speaker 4: to go. So she lived in a fantasy world right
Speaker 4: up until the last minute, when all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: the light bulb went on over her head and she
Speaker 4: realized that she was being duped by these guys. And
Speaker 4: the chances are if she showed up on the outside
Speaker 4: with the getaway Carrie she promised to do that she
Speaker 4: would be killed. They didn't meet her, they needed her car,
Speaker 4: and that caused her an anxiety attack and she went
Speaker 4: into the hospital so well instead of supplying the getaway car,
Speaker 4: she was many miles away, and that ended up being
Speaker 4: the key factor. Because these guys were not outdoorsmen. The
Speaker 4: last thing they wanted to do was to go into
Speaker 4: those woods, but they had to another choice you know,
Speaker 4: the getaway car didn't show up, so they went to
Speaker 4: Plan B, even though they didn't have a Plan D.
Speaker 4: And it was it was because they weren't really I
Speaker 4: suspect Richard Matt had never really slept outdoors in his
Speaker 4: entire life, and Sweat had some scout like training when
Speaker 4: there was a kid, and he fancied himself an outdoors
Speaker 4: Then he was the guy who was out in the
Speaker 4: woods driving the ar Visa around. But they weren't really survivalists.
Speaker 4: They needed civilization, so they couldn't get too deep into
Speaker 4: the atronics. They had to stay close to civilization. They
Speaker 4: used the cabins in the woods and stay close to
Speaker 4: roads so they would know that they were going in
Speaker 4: the right direction. That kind of thing. That was eventually
Speaker 4: their undoing. But Joyce Mitchell also she was responsible for
Speaker 4: them not getting away because she backed out at the
Speaker 4: last minute.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Richard Matt as you do, because he
Speaker 2: is the most interesting character here. Oh yes, and you
Speaker 2: talk about him growing up in nineteen was born in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six in Buffalo, New York. Now this is
Speaker 2: a tragic upbringing, and not that it explains anything, but
Speaker 2: tell us as you do about his upbringing before we
Speaker 2: talk about how he got to Dani Mora, and also
Speaker 2: the very interesting story of David Bentley, the motorcycle cop,
Speaker 2: who had faith in this guy and thought there was
Speaker 2: some hope. So tell us as you do about Richard
Speaker 2: matt Well.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you recall it. I wrote a
Speaker 4: book a couple of years ago called The Devil Agency Junction,
Speaker 4: which is about the murders of two girls and when
Speaker 4: I was a kid. That murder took place on June
Speaker 4: twenty fifth, nineteen sixty six, which bizarrely was the day
Speaker 4: Richard matt was born. The Devil was busy that day.
Speaker 4: He was abandoned, left in a car, grew up in
Speaker 4: a series of foster homes, one in particular, and his
Speaker 4: foster parents were actually pretty good to him and got
Speaker 4: him involved in youth activities in sports, which he excelled.
Speaker 4: But again a nature versus nurture type thing. He was
Speaker 4: the son of an air do Well, a criminal without
Speaker 4: a conscience, and that's what he grew up to be himself,
Speaker 4: and he turned into a little bit of a one
Speaker 4: man crime wave in the Buffalo area. He's a bad kid,
Speaker 4: frightening propensity for violence, and his crimes, as often happens,
Speaker 4: escalated until he was arrested for kidnapping, torturing, and killing
Speaker 4: and dismembering a former boss in an attempted robbery that
Speaker 4: went really, really bad. His partner that twenty five year
Speaker 4: old Lee Eugene Bates, who was a part time strip
Speaker 4: club employee and criminal justice major at Erie Community College.
Speaker 4: Interesting combination, and Bates was largely responsible for the prosecution
Speaker 4: and getting a conviction against Maddy, who read to cut
Speaker 4: a deal and testify against him. But the crime starts
Speaker 4: because Matt's boss was fired him makes a comment, offhand
Speaker 4: comment that don't worry, I've got one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 4: in a shoe box buried in the basement or what
Speaker 4: he said, something like that, And it's like the creepy
Speaker 4: couple of guys in Cold Blood. They got it in
Speaker 4: their head that these people had money and they weren't
Speaker 4: going to leave until they got it. And the problem was,
Speaker 4: you know, Rickerson lied, he didn't have one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: There was no treasure in the basement. But Richard Matt
Speaker 4: was not gonna believe it. And William Dickerson was seventy
Speaker 4: six years old, and they put him in the trunk
Speaker 4: of a car and drove him around, and they'd stopped
Speaker 4: periodically and beat him. Or actually they did, They shouldn't
Speaker 4: say that, because Baits, as far as we know, drove.
Speaker 4: Matt did all of the torture. Then they threw him
Speaker 4: in the trunk of the car. They drove back and
Speaker 4: forth between the Buffalo area and Ohio a few times,
Speaker 4: and every he would use the stick, the security device
Speaker 4: that keeps people from stealing your car. He'd beat him
Speaker 4: with that, and when he's still, you know, the old
Speaker 4: man still wouldn't say where the money was, Matt upped
Speaker 4: the torturing and he broke Rickerson's fingers, you know, snapping
Speaker 4: the aging bones like Brent sticks. And when Rickerson howled
Speaker 4: in pain, that got on Matt's nerves. So after it
Speaker 4: was more than a day, it was like twenty eight
Speaker 4: hours of this this horrible scene, going up and down
Speaker 4: the roads with this man in agony in the basement, screaming. Finally,
Speaker 4: Matt got sick of it, realized that they were never
Speaker 4: gonna get the money, and they couldn't leave this guy
Speaker 4: alive because he knew who they were because they hadn't
Speaker 4: bothered to wear masks, grabbed him by the head and
Speaker 4: twisted till it snapped, and that was it for William Rickerson.
Speaker 4: They went to a park near the Niagara River and
Speaker 4: hid the body underneath a woodpile, and then later Matt
Speaker 4: decided that wasn't good enough, so he went back with
Speaker 4: the hacks off and cut the body up into pieces
Speaker 4: and through the through the gory chunks into the Niagara River.
Speaker 4: Which but that's not where the story stopped, because Matt
Speaker 4: gets away to Mexico and his brother's car, and the
Speaker 4: car almost next to to Mexico, it's found abandoned in Texas,
Speaker 4: crosses into Mexico, and of course he can't stay out
Speaker 4: of trouble. He just can't do it. He goes to
Speaker 4: a strip joint Mexico and sitting next to a guy
Speaker 4: who says he's in the oil business. So this goes ching,
Speaker 4: you know. Matt says, here's a good guy to rob,
Speaker 4: follows him into the men's room and stabs the guy
Speaker 4: to death and takes his money, runs out of the
Speaker 4: bar and gets maybe one hundred two hundred yards when
Speaker 4: they catch him and now he's on the fast track
Speaker 4: of Mexican justice. They throw him into a hellhole prison
Speaker 4: where he's tortured with cigarette butts, where he gets a
Speaker 4: tramp stamp tattoo that says Mexico Forever. Guys don't down there,
Speaker 4: don't like gringos that much, and so yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 4: all of this despite the fact that there were there
Speaker 4: were adults in Matt's childhood and teenage years who thought
Speaker 4: that he he was mad rather than bad, and he
Speaker 4: could be saved. But they were wrong, and that was
Speaker 4: that was a bad, bad man. He was never going
Speaker 4: to be anything other than someone who hurt and abused people. Saw.
Speaker 4: Another hero of the story is north Towne Wine. The
Speaker 4: chief of direct detective is Glenn Gardner. Now he's astute.
Speaker 4: Crime scene investigation at the Rickerson House really led to
Speaker 4: a major break in the case. He was such a
Speaker 4: pain in Matt's butt that Matt once tried to put
Speaker 4: out a hit on the investigator and the prosecutor was
Speaker 4: lou Heremski. After ten years of being in the Mexican prison,
Speaker 4: they're sick of him down there, keeps trying to get out.
Speaker 4: He's a pain in the butt, So they give him back,
Speaker 4: even though nobody asked for him, and he comes back
Speaker 4: to Erie County and he's prosecuted for the Rickerson murder
Speaker 4: ten years after it happens, which is a really tough
Speaker 4: thing to do because jurors can find reasonable doubt in
Speaker 4: ten year old memories a lot easier than they can
Speaker 4: in more immediate ones. A job on all parts down there,
Speaker 4: and if the trial itself went on for a very
Speaker 4: long time, it was very expensive because they were convinced
Speaker 4: that Matt was going to try to escape. He had
Speaker 4: a history of escape. He'd been gotten out of the
Speaker 4: Eerie every correctional facility when a guard quote forgot to
Speaker 4: lock his door unquote, and he'd made prison escape attempts
Speaker 4: down in Mexico, so that extra security. He was wired
Speaker 4: up with a with a stun gun. You know, they
Speaker 4: had just press the button and he would have sizzled
Speaker 4: on the ground for a little while, and that would
Speaker 4: have kept him from running away. They were afraid that
Speaker 4: people were going to he had friends who were going
Speaker 4: to invade the courtroom and take him. None of that happened.
Speaker 4: But when he finally was sent to Dana Mora, all
Speaker 4: of those people in Tanawanda in an old Buffalo area
Speaker 4: really really didn't want to ever hear his name again.
Speaker 4: They were they were pretty sick of him. And he
Speaker 4: meets David Sweat and Dan and Moorra. They realize that
Speaker 4: they've got things to come and their thinkers and they
Speaker 4: put their heads together and you know, within days of
Speaker 4: meeting each other, they start thinking about how to get
Speaker 4: out of here. Between the two of them, they came
Speaker 4: up with the plans.
Speaker 2: We're going to use this Michael as an opportunity. Just
Speaker 2: to stop for a couple seconds to talk about sponsors
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Speaker 2: When we last spoke, Michael, we were talking about the
Speaker 2: conditions that were ripe for these two people to get
Speaker 2: together with complementary skills, with a concerted plan with this
Speaker 2: woman that they knew could be an asset. These people
Speaker 2: cunning and clever and like you say, complimentary skills. How
Speaker 2: was it. What's the first thing they did? It's very
Speaker 2: interesting how they got a jaining adjacent cells. Tell us
Speaker 2: what they did besides get that cell, and how they
Speaker 2: got those cells together? And what is the first thing
Speaker 2: they did in this escape plan in a practical way.
Speaker 4: Well, they they got into adjacent cells by bribing the
Speaker 4: guy who was next to next to Matt so the
Speaker 4: Sweat could move into the into the cell, or the
Speaker 4: other way around way it went. And the first thing
Speaker 4: they did was they built back doors to their cells.
Speaker 4: And in order to try to cut a hole with
Speaker 4: your cell, you have to know ahead of time that
Speaker 4: there's something on the other side that's going to be
Speaker 4: part of the part of the escape. I mean, if
Speaker 4: there's just a concrete wall there and on the other
Speaker 4: side is the sky, you know you're gonna have to
Speaker 4: tie sheets together to get out. But that's that was
Speaker 4: the way it was. When they cut through their cell walls,
Speaker 4: there was a sizeable infrastructure crawl space. It's there so
Speaker 4: that repair men can fix the heating system and the
Speaker 4: electric system and all the all the stuff that they
Speaker 4: needed to do. It was right on the other side
Speaker 4: of their of their cells. Now, every night, for months
Speaker 4: after the holes are made, Sweat crawled out of his
Speaker 4: cell and worked on finding and creating a way out.
Speaker 4: And now, during much of that time, it was it
Speaker 4: was Matt's job to get them the tools they needed
Speaker 4: to get them mobile they would need once they got out,
Speaker 4: and his other job was to lose weight because Sweat
Speaker 4: finds it. The only way out is to crawl through
Speaker 4: the heating pipe, which is turned off in the spring,
Speaker 4: and Matt's too chubby to fit, so he loses thirty
Speaker 4: forty pounds during the weeks leading up to the escape
Speaker 4: so that he will be able to fit through the
Speaker 4: through the pipe. And even so it was a tight squeeze,
Speaker 4: and during the actual escape, Sweat had to pull him
Speaker 4: through a lot of to tie him up, tie him
Speaker 4: and pull him. At one point, I guess when he
Speaker 4: was trying to get through the pipe's pants came down
Speaker 4: and there was a big laugh. But it was estimated
Speaker 4: that Sweat crawled out of his cell eighty five times.
Speaker 4: He wasn't in his cell for any night for three months,
Speaker 4: and he crawled back for only eighty four of them.
Speaker 4: Were supposed to believe that he did this only with
Speaker 4: very primitive tools. He says, he used, you know, hack
Speaker 4: saws and drill bits and things like that. And if
Speaker 4: you look at the pipe, they cut the hole in
Speaker 4: not only to get in the pipe, but then another
Speaker 4: hole to got out of the pipe on the other
Speaker 4: side of the wall. It looks like power tools are
Speaker 4: really necessary. And the reason he knew ahead of time
Speaker 4: that there was a crawl space back there was because
Speaker 4: of one of the prison guards showed him there. Sure,
Speaker 4: come on, think a look, you know, let's change your
Speaker 4: electriccy a little bit so that you can better paint.
Speaker 4: They were using they're both very skilled artists, and they
Speaker 4: were painting and using that to give to h to
Speaker 4: guards and civilian employees in exchange for favors. And so
Speaker 4: what says that there were often guards. Guards went back
Speaker 4: into the into the crawl space area to smoke, and
Speaker 4: he remembers one time he was down and they're trying
Speaker 4: to figure out how to get out of the prison
Speaker 4: and he had to dodge a cigarette butt that came
Speaker 4: flying down from an upper level. So, yeah, the escape
Speaker 4: route starts with a hole in the back of the
Speaker 4: of the cell, and then there was a staircase or
Speaker 4: not stairs, a ladder went all the way down to
Speaker 4: the sub sub basement. Then there was the They had
Speaker 4: to get into the into the heating pipe, which took
Speaker 4: like a month of work. Right there, crawl through the
Speaker 4: pipe which goes through the outer wall of the prison,
Speaker 4: the forty foot wall, go under it, and then for
Speaker 4: a while inside the pipe, got a hole to get out,
Speaker 4: and he asked to know once he gets out of
Speaker 4: the pipe, he's going to be able to get to
Speaker 4: another ladder that's going to lead up to a manhole
Speaker 4: that lets him out in the middle of a street
Speaker 4: intersection a block and a half away from the prison.
Speaker 4: So all of this is taking place in an atmosphere
Speaker 4: in which the prison employees believed that escaped is impossible.
Speaker 4: I mean, why do bedchecks? Where's the guy going? Nobody
Speaker 4: followed any rules the generations had god by, since anybody
Speaker 4: knew what the rules were, and it seems kind of
Speaker 4: unbelievable that this guy could leave his cell eighty five
Speaker 4: times and then never even come close to getting caught.
Speaker 4: And they were doing he was doing things down there
Speaker 4: that must have made noise too, like Governor Cuomo was.
Speaker 4: One of his early comments was a lot of people
Speaker 4: spill out of heavy sleepers around here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Any Way, they emerged at the intersection of bucking Barker
Speaker 4: Streets in the peaceful village of Danamora, and they were
Speaker 4: in for a surprise. They expected Joyce Mitchell would be
Speaker 4: there with the car, but she was a no show.
Speaker 4: They were carrying their their stuff in a guitar case.
Speaker 4: Figured they would look less suspicious, that looked like traveling musicians.
Speaker 4: And one of the things she had smuggled into them
Speaker 4: was seventy containers of pepper, which they were constantly sprinkling
Speaker 4: behind them, but thinking that that would throw off the
Speaker 4: canine searchers that would becoming or eventually some saying they
Speaker 4: against their will, they started to go across backyards and stuff,
Speaker 4: and immediately they got yelled at, hey, get off my property.
Speaker 4: Some guy said, sorry, we're on the wrong street. We
Speaker 4: don't know where we are, and they head into the woods,
Speaker 4: which is up and down mountains and all. This is
Speaker 4: really tough on Richard Matt's legs. He's not in good condition.
Speaker 4: So as they get deeper and deeper further from civilization,
Speaker 4: they start to squabble a little bit because Sweat says,
Speaker 4: Sweats only thought that I'm continuing to be free, and Matt,
Speaker 4: who was an alcoholic on the outside, is you know,
Speaker 4: let's let's let's find a drink, Let's find a place
Speaker 4: for where there's a war mattress to sleep on. That's uh.
Speaker 4: So they time in a series of cabins that aren't
Speaker 4: being used, and eventually then they leave evidence of themselves
Speaker 4: behind when they leave, and that's, uh, that's when the
Speaker 4: news starts to tighten around them when they get a
Speaker 4: positive DNA match from the spittle in a sink that
Speaker 4: they found, you know, in one of the cabins, and
Speaker 4: they said, well, you know, this is about a day old.
Speaker 4: And that really helped because it has for the first
Speaker 4: two weeks of the search, no we had any idea
Speaker 4: which direction they went in, and it was really like
Speaker 4: searching for, you know, two needles in a very very
Speaker 4: big haystack.
Speaker 2: Now what you talk about is too and we just
Speaker 2: glossed over it is the the incredible rec from this
Speaker 2: first again right out of the movies when they look
Speaker 2: and there's a couple of dummies in the cells, and
Speaker 2: then in that response and then you talk about the
Speaker 2: escalating volunteers or the search team going from seven hundred
Speaker 2: to the thousand to So what is the reaction in
Speaker 2: the community of Danima again, these people unsuspecting, believing that
Speaker 2: nothing like this could ever happen, including me, all the
Speaker 2: law enforcement. What's the law enforcement response, the media response,
Speaker 2: the community response as you describe.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, from law enforcement was really admirable because
Speaker 4: you had many, many different agencies all working together and
Speaker 4: remarkably few, remarkably little confusion and few squabbles. And I
Speaker 4: heard that that was because in that area, crime is
Speaker 4: not really the problem. The problem is nature. And the
Speaker 4: safety officers up there often worked together because they're not
Speaker 4: catching criminals as much as they're just helping people. There's
Speaker 4: a nice storm, we all get together. We'd go rescue
Speaker 4: people who were stuck in places, and so teamwork is
Speaker 4: part of the pattern of that area anyway, And they
Speaker 4: got up to about twelve hundred people who were involved
Speaker 4: in the manhunt, and the community really really was supportive
Speaker 4: once they found out these guys were out there searching
Speaker 4: in the woods. Donations came in, restaurants gave free food, everybody.
Speaker 4: Everybody wanted to be helpful, and they were. The other
Speaker 4: factor is the weather's just horrible. It's just rained sheets
Speaker 4: the entire time. That the helicopters are rarely used as
Speaker 4: part of the search. But instead of morale getting low
Speaker 4: because of the weather, the manhunters were kind of they
Speaker 4: they got pumped up that a little bit because they
Speaker 4: knew if they were miserable, the guys they were chased
Speaker 4: or twice is miserable.
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Speaker 3: In line at the Delhi I guess ah, in my
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Speaker 4: Yes? You do?
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Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 5: Excuse me?
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Speaker 2: Now? How fast does it take to discover and how
Speaker 2: do they discover Joyce's participation in this? I mean they're
Speaker 2: looking for how on earth did they get out of here?
Speaker 2: They so they see the escape route, right, they know
Speaker 2: that there's indications that there's other participation. They have to
Speaker 2: check that out. How fast and how do they discover
Speaker 2: hervation and what's their response?
Speaker 4: Very quickly they find out about her while interviewing Matt's daughter,
Speaker 4: and she says that she had gotten some texts in
Speaker 4: a phone call from a lady who worked in the
Speaker 4: prison relaying messages from Dad, and her name was Joyce Mitchell.
Speaker 4: And the second they hear that name, bell goes off
Speaker 4: because Joyce Mitchell's was brought up for punishment once because
Speaker 4: she had a personal relationship with David Sweat evolving photographs.
Speaker 4: So they bring her in and her first story Rings
Speaker 4: of the Truth, and that's the story where she says
Speaker 4: that she, you know, she was lonely, she was depressed,
Speaker 4: she got involved in she kind of fell in love
Speaker 4: with Richard Matt She was looking forward to the running away.
Speaker 4: There was a fantasy, and then the last second she
Speaker 4: realized it wasn't gonna happen. And time went on, of course,
Speaker 4: and her lawyers talk to her more and more. She
Speaker 4: changed her tune, and all of a sudden it was,
Speaker 4: you know, Richard mass abuse, and he terrorized her and
Speaker 4: said he was going to kill her husband if she
Speaker 4: didn't do what he said. And that's the story she's
Speaker 4: sticking with now. But she let her fantasies get away
Speaker 4: with her, and luckily for us and for herself, I'm
Speaker 4: sure she did back out at the last second because
Speaker 4: the Favid Sweat might have been satisfied with tying her
Speaker 4: up and leaving her by the side of the road.
Speaker 4: But I'm thinking Richard matt would have killed her.
Speaker 2: The other thing was that there wasn't The other part
Speaker 2: of the plan was that David, I believe or had
Speaker 2: given her pills to give to her husband Mile to
Speaker 2: knock him out, to facilitate further right, so.
Speaker 4: He wouldn't report her missing right away and give them
Speaker 4: some extra time to head down the road. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's hard to say, is that the Are
Speaker 4: those pills the same kills that were gonna kill him?
Speaker 4: Were they gonna knock them out? Were they going to
Speaker 4: go over to the house and bump them off or
Speaker 4: was that I'll just talk. We don't know, because that
Speaker 4: part of the plan never never manifested itself. I'll tell
Speaker 4: you one story I liked, the story of Joshua Lamity.
Speaker 4: Joshua Lamity was a good kid in his early twenties,
Speaker 4: got a young wife and babies, and he works a
Speaker 4: couple of fast food jobs to make ends meet in
Speaker 4: the town of Alone, where he was born and grew up.
Speaker 4: But he bears a strong facial resemblance to David Sweat,
Speaker 4: and for three weeks. Every time he would try to
Speaker 4: walk to his job, screaming up and guys would be
Speaker 4: pointing guns at him, and so no one was happier too.
Speaker 4: To know that the crisis is over, then Joshua Lamity's
Speaker 4: life go back to normal.
Speaker 2: You also talk about the two prisoners on the run.
Speaker 2: One's much older, you say, one's not in good shape,
Speaker 2: but they are. Also you say that David Sweat is
Speaker 2: totally sick of hearing Richard Matt talk about murdering this
Speaker 2: person murdering that person, and so tell us about a
Speaker 2: little bit of this, how the relationship sours, and also
Speaker 2: what David decides to do and what Matt decides to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that while they were staying in one
Speaker 4: of the cabins, Matt says, what are we going to
Speaker 4: do if somebody shows up, and David's let's says, well,
Speaker 4: we're going to run away. Let's kill him. Let's kill him.
Speaker 4: And it's pretty much Richard Matt's solution to all problems,
Speaker 4: all obstacles can be murdered away, and Sweat sees that
Speaker 4: it's just another way to leave a trail and Sweats
Speaker 4: in a lot better shape. He's done most of the
Speaker 4: work digging out of the prison in the first place.
Speaker 4: I think Matt only goes down into the hole twice
Speaker 4: before the actual escape, so he's done all the work.
Speaker 4: He could have escaped on his own, but he was
Speaker 4: a man of his word. He went back and got
Speaker 4: Matt as he promised he would. And the thinking was
Speaker 4: that that really had done his share, because Joyce Mitchell
Speaker 4: is gonna be outside waiting with a car, and that
Speaker 4: was Matt's responsibility to get that done. But the second
Speaker 4: that they all of a sudden become killers on the
Speaker 4: run in the woods, in the mountainous terrain, the difference
Speaker 4: between their ages and then their physical capabilities becomes really obvious,
Speaker 4: and Sweat is being bobbed down by Matt at every turn.
Speaker 4: It's like having a ball and chain on. And the
Speaker 4: other problem is that every time they go into a
Speaker 4: cabin where there's a little relief and get some warmth
Speaker 4: and rus, Matt gets drunk. So not only has he
Speaker 4: got the fatso who can't walk fast anymore, Richard Matt
Speaker 4: inebriated and unable to really function well. So there comes
Speaker 4: a time when Matt's very very drunk. He falls down
Speaker 4: in the woods and doesn't get up and sweats as
Speaker 4: that's it, I'm done, and just splits heads off in
Speaker 4: another direction. So and after that, Matt does not last
Speaker 4: very long at all. He's got a shotgun and he
Speaker 4: he wants to see if it works. I mean, he
Speaker 4: goes out and shoots at a camper driving by, and
Speaker 4: that that again, that brings law enforcement around, and now
Speaker 4: that the news is really tight, they know he's They
Speaker 4: know he's in there someplace because the report of the
Speaker 4: show when when did the shot take place? Just now,
Speaker 4: so they're on the site and Matt's lying on the
Speaker 4: ground in the stomach with his shotgun. I think he
Speaker 4: only had one shell. He doesn't have a second shell.
Speaker 4: Gun's empty, but he pointing it anyway, and he makes
Speaker 4: a fatal mistake, which is he he coughs, and these
Speaker 4: manhunters hear it. And a guy from from the Texas
Speaker 4: Border Patrol, whose unit was on hand to help with
Speaker 4: the man hunt, is the is the sharpshooter who puts
Speaker 4: man away, puts three, you know, three shots into the
Speaker 4: same hole in his head, even though even though Matt's
Speaker 4: obviously did when they get to him and he's wreaking
Speaker 4: of alcohol. The first thing they do is they pull
Speaker 4: the shotgun away from him, and that's and that's that.
Speaker 4: And you know, there's no sigh of relief because as
Speaker 4: far as they know Sweats nearby with their temple and
Speaker 4: his cross hairs, they don't know that he's miles away
Speaker 4: at this point, heading in to be tedding north for
Speaker 4: the Canadian border.
Speaker 2: Now you say that, they they don't know, so they
Speaker 2: clear this area. Finally, they they're precautious and they make
Speaker 2: sure he's not in the area. So clues are left
Speaker 2: because obviously they can't speak to Matt. So what clues
Speaker 2: are left? Then? Where do they think he's likely heading to?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not I'm not sure exactly what you're asking.
Speaker 4: There's a little bit of a back to the drawing
Speaker 4: board because they tighten this search, form a circle around
Speaker 4: where Matt was killed, and all heading towards the center,
Speaker 4: and they realize as it gets smaller and smaller, that
Speaker 4: Sweat has slipped the uh, the outer perimeter of their
Speaker 4: of their operation. They he ends up lasting two more days,
Speaker 4: and it's uh, truly, it's almost it's a little bit
Speaker 4: of a coincidence. State Trooper Sergeant Jay Cooked his supervising
Speaker 4: a search team on the Coveytown Road near the Sound
Speaker 4: town of Constable, and it's miles He's thirty miles from
Speaker 4: Dana Moore. Now he's sixteen miles from where Matt was killed,
Speaker 4: but he only a mile and a half from the
Speaker 4: Canadian border. And Cook's driving his vehicle on patrol and
Speaker 4: he spots a man in camouflaged outfit walking along the woodline,
Speaker 4: so he stops the car and he watches as the
Speaker 4: guy intoa chigues walks into a newly cut il salfa field.
Speaker 4: Cook stops the vehicle and pursues on foot, gets a
Speaker 4: strong visual realizes this is it. This is the guy.
Speaker 4: So now when Sweat realizes he's been recognized, he made
Speaker 4: a run for it, heading for the trees. And the
Speaker 4: officer knew that if the prisoner made it to the trees,
Speaker 4: he's likely to evade capture and maybe cross the border
Speaker 4: into Canada, and then the whole search would go on
Speaker 4: and on. So cooks a shopp or I'll shoot. Sweat
Speaker 4: doesn't stop what Cook does, and he's a marksman, so
Speaker 4: he takes aim, takes a deep breath, squeezes off a
Speaker 4: shot which hits Sweat but doesn't knock him down. And
Speaker 4: then the second one, Sweat falls to the ground. He's wounded,
Speaker 4: but he survives and is able to give us his
Speaker 4: version of events. Now, somewhat controversially, he was prosecuted for
Speaker 4: his escape and placed in permanent solitary confinement. Now that
Speaker 4: that's controversial because people say he's already serving life without burrow.
Speaker 4: How do you punish a guy further than that, there's
Speaker 4: no death penalty. But the prosecutor said, when you commit
Speaker 4: a crime in the state, you get prosecuted. That's how
Speaker 4: it is. So Sweat may have been able to burrow
Speaker 4: his way out of the beility of the Beast once,
Speaker 4: but he's going to be in a solitary confinement for
Speaker 4: the rest of his life. And that means the good
Speaker 4: guys won in the end.
Speaker 2: It's part of the interesting thing for people watching, and
Speaker 2: was millions watching, and this friends fixed all kinds of
Speaker 2: people and audience. Was the recreation of the actual route
Speaker 2: going in there and bringing cameras in and showing the
Speaker 2: actual route how these guys escape from this prison. This
Speaker 2: twenty minute drink.
Speaker 4: It makes me think of Governor Cuomo because he was
Speaker 4: there a day after the escape, and he's walking along
Speaker 4: on the catwalks and with the camera crew behind him,
Speaker 4: just be on top of the action. But the problem is,
Speaker 4: you know, the crime scene invest theres really hadn't gone
Speaker 4: over the area, so Cuomo's touching things and stepping on
Speaker 4: things they probably shouldn't have been and it turned out
Speaker 4: no big deal, but they didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 4: Please please don't, please don't go down there yet, governor okay, nearby,
Speaker 4: the governor did what he wanted to do. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: then but then they made a videotape of the actual
Speaker 4: so we can all go on YouTube and experience the
Speaker 4: just how clusterphobic there was to take the twenty minutes
Speaker 4: it took to get from their cells to that manhole
Speaker 4: out on Buck Street.
Speaker 2: Now you also, I mean, this book has just got
Speaker 2: so much of the background story of Donamor before, all
Speaker 2: the people that were in Donamore. But also the cost
Speaker 2: of this thing. He said he'll put this at twelve
Speaker 2: point six million, and also I think.
Speaker 4: That's probably a low estimate. Things like overtime for state
Speaker 4: troopers wasn't bacted into that, And yeah, I know it
Speaker 4: was very expensive. Oh you know, and that's another thing
Speaker 4: with Governor Polm I know it sound like a picking
Speaker 4: on him, but Toda, he had a budget that didn't
Speaker 4: allow prison wardens to declare their own lockdowns. Now, about
Speaker 4: three four days before the escape, there's a gang fight
Speaker 4: at Clinton Correctional and the warden wants to declare a lockdown.
Speaker 4: He calls Albany for permission and they say no, cost
Speaker 4: too much money. Now, if he had been able to
Speaker 4: call his own lockdown, who have been searches of all
Speaker 4: the cells, and the back doors to Matt and Sweats
Speaker 4: cells would have been discovered and there would have been
Speaker 4: no escape. So in trying to save money, they end
Speaker 4: up creating a situation that in the costume, you know,
Speaker 4: millions and millions of dollars keedny wise pound foolish.
Speaker 2: As they say, while you're on that too, what you
Speaker 2: had mentioned in the book too, is that there the
Speaker 2: people might find us either laxed or or sort of
Speaker 2: ridiculous that they couldn't even frisk people coming in. There
Speaker 2: were non staff right into that prison.
Speaker 4: As uh yeah, and everybody knew the rules and there
Speaker 4: was there was so much cheating going on. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just was no big deal. And when Joyce Mitchell
Speaker 4: brings in the Hamburger Meet with the hacks All blade
Speaker 4: hidden in it, she gives it to guard Jeane Palmer says,
Speaker 4: could you give this the mac for me? He says,
Speaker 4: sure does. Matt and he have been buddies for a
Speaker 4: long time.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: That's the problem maybe with having a prison that's in
Speaker 4: such a remote area, is that all of the civilians
Speaker 4: who live there work in the prison, and after a while,
Speaker 4: I think the adversarial nature of their roles is blurred
Speaker 4: by a sense of community, like we're all in this together.
Speaker 4: A lot of the prison employees saw the inmates more
Speaker 4: than they saw their own families, and you know, guards
Speaker 4: have friends were inmates. And then in this case that
Speaker 4: turned out to be a key factor because you've got
Speaker 4: a guard kind of giving these guys a little tour
Speaker 4: of the what's behind their cells, gives a preview of Hey,
Speaker 4: this is the first step in your escape plans.
Speaker 2: You talk about and discussed because again it's not a
Speaker 2: done deal. It's an issue about the power tools used
Speaker 2: or not used in this escape, and it was all
Speaker 2: about and you also talk about the toolbox. Downd So
Speaker 2: tell us about all this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, the complicating factor here is that
Speaker 4: Sweat maintains that no power tools were used, that the
Speaker 4: holes and those pipes, the thick metal was done entirely
Speaker 4: with little hacksaw blades. Bought it at kmart Uh with
Speaker 4: cotton wrapped around the end so that he wouldn't hurt
Speaker 4: his hand while he was sawing, and that he cut
Speaker 4: one of these holes while lying inside the pipe. It's
Speaker 4: it seems impossible. And there there was a toolbox down
Speaker 4: there that had been left behind by some construction workers
Speaker 4: and they picked the lock with a with a paper clip,
Speaker 4: and so there were there were tools available in it.
Speaker 4: Then the culture at Dana Moore wasn't tools weren't bad.
Speaker 4: One of the ways you rewarded prisoners for being good
Speaker 4: is you like them have little projects to go out
Speaker 4: in the in the backfield and you know, build a
Speaker 4: bird house or you know, the mat and Sweat were
Speaker 4: making frames for their paintings, so you know, idle hands
Speaker 4: were what they were worried about. Guys with tools were
Speaker 4: busy and then occupied and happy. But having tools that
Speaker 4: aren't really being accounted for. Another factor that was used
Speaker 4: and abused by the guys who are looking to get
Speaker 4: over and get out.
Speaker 2: Now, other than that Palmer which got in a lot
Speaker 2: of trouble, the officer Palmer from the CCF, what was
Speaker 2: Joyce Mitchell? How I mean, other than she tried to
Speaker 2: gain sympathy with these interviews with Matt Lauer on the
Speaker 2: Today Show and but doctor filledn't buy into it. But really,
Speaker 2: what was the fate of Joyce Mitchell in terms of
Speaker 2: the court?
Speaker 4: Well, Joyce Mitchell was was convicted of criminal facilitation and
Speaker 4: it was given two and a half to seven years
Speaker 4: in prison. I suspect, but she just had her first
Speaker 4: parole hearing and she was denied parole. Mike thinking is
Speaker 4: she's going to serve about two years and then somebody's
Speaker 4: going to realize that she should make the training film
Speaker 4: for future civilian employees of how to avoid the pitfalls
Speaker 4: of trusting inmates. That inmates are con mens supreme. They
Speaker 4: will find your weak point and they will exploit it.
Speaker 4: I think she's probably would better serve New York State
Speaker 4: in that capacity than sitting in a prison fell someplace.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, I kind of think that probably
Speaker 4: Joice is handling prison better than most because she's just
Speaker 4: familiar with being inside a prison, and what was the.
Speaker 2: As you write the response from her husband, Lyle through
Speaker 2: this whole thing.
Speaker 4: To you, Lyle is the patient of the patients of
Speaker 4: a saint. He has stayed true, but his support has
Speaker 4: had a limit. He's obviously very hurt and the It's
Speaker 4: going to be interesting to see what happens when she
Speaker 4: gets out, how much longer that relationship lasts. I know
Speaker 4: that their son has had problems during the time that
Speaker 4: she's been away, legal problems. He's kind of gotten himself
Speaker 4: into a little bit of trouble, so that the family's
Speaker 4: not doing well in the post escape, It'll be interesting
Speaker 4: to see if if Lyle sticks with sticks with her
Speaker 4: faithfully or if the uh, you know, she's driven a
Speaker 4: wedge in their relationship that really can't be healed.
Speaker 2: You also talk about the the attempted overhaul of the
Speaker 2: system and more than refinements that are needed again, it's
Speaker 2: just an overhaul of the system and re examination of
Speaker 2: what when went wrong, but also what they could do,
Speaker 2: the money that they could put in to make sure
Speaker 2: this never happens again.
Speaker 4: What was.
Speaker 2: Their response and what's the result.
Speaker 4: Well, the one year anniversary Escaped The New York State
Speaker 4: Inspector General's report was released, and it blamed the escape
Speaker 4: on long standing systemic failures and management and oversight. The
Speaker 4: culture was such that when you know, asked about sticking
Speaker 4: to regulations, many CCF employees admitted they didn't know what
Speaker 4: the regulations were. And at one point, you know, inspections
Speaker 4: of you know, CCF's tunnel infrastructure had been frequent, but
Speaker 4: it had none had been done since nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4: Weekly inspections of cell integrity, of any one of which
Speaker 4: would have busted men sweat discontinued so long ago that
Speaker 4: corrections officers didn't know they ever existed. Their estimated four
Speaker 4: hundred required checks of sweat sell they would have caught
Speaker 4: him sneaking out the back door. But they revealed that
Speaker 4: Joyce Mitchell smuggle more than seventy containers the pepper into
Speaker 4: the prison. Seventy container the pepper. It's a lot of pepper.
Speaker 4: One of the key items of prisoners were using in
Speaker 4: their escape of the tape measure. The tape measure was
Speaker 4: to measure the girth of Richard Matt to see if
Speaker 4: he would fit through the pipe. She also got them
Speaker 4: a map of the area, although they forgot to bring
Speaker 4: it when when they left it left it behind by accident.
Speaker 4: They used a long orange extension cord that Sweat used
Speaker 4: to hook up an electric fan and light during his work. Now,
Speaker 4: the report thoroughly itemized the proper procedures at CCS and
Speaker 4: supported their central thesis that new regulations were not as
Speaker 4: important as wiping out the culture of carelessness at CCS
Speaker 4: that prevented the old regulations from being followed. So that
Speaker 4: in a nutshell, they Inspector General recommended the tray staff
Speaker 4: be trained better. And I think that's where they're going
Speaker 4: to to probably use use Joyce Mitchell and as an example.
Speaker 4: You're going to be increased camera surveillance to stringently follow
Speaker 4: regulations already in place. Inspect the catwalking tunnel system more
Speaker 4: than once a year, hopefully monthly supply and oversight of
Speaker 4: the de corrections to ensure the integrity of the system.
Speaker 4: Use canines to detect contraband they'll search civilians when they
Speaker 4: come in and out. You know, keep a closer eye
Speaker 4: on tools left behind by contractors and maintenance people. You'll
Speaker 4: better oversee the tailor shops. One key factor about the
Speaker 4: tailor shop is on the third floor of the building
Speaker 4: and if you look out the window, you can see
Speaker 4: over the wall under the streets of the village of
Speaker 4: Dana Moore. So in theory, you know, think there's did
Speaker 4: there at that window and said there's where the pipe goes,
Speaker 4: and there's the man hall. They would have a visual
Speaker 4: from outside the prison to know where to head in
Speaker 4: order to get up and above ground again, right, and
Speaker 4: to revamp the honor system. And I think the honor
Speaker 4: system is probably going to be abolished. I mean, these
Speaker 4: guys should have been on death row if there was
Speaker 4: a death penalty, and instead they were because they had
Speaker 4: behaved themselves in the recent past. They were in the
Speaker 4: honor block, which allowed them extra privileges, civilian clothes, they
Speaker 4: could wander around outside their cells more frequently. And the
Speaker 4: last smidation of the inspector generals was just severely disciplined
Speaker 4: and effectively council officers and civilian employees who broke the rules.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's also incredible.
Speaker 4: I think it's a little bit unlikely it's going to
Speaker 4: happen again because it is very hard to do and
Speaker 4: it's going to be a long time before the Clinton
Speaker 4: Correctional facility returns to its ways of complacency in arrogance.
Speaker 4: There's no thinking that nobody can get out of here anymore.
Speaker 4: They know it's possible, now, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: You also, though, at the same time, sort of a
Speaker 2: as an alarm, you talk about a situation with some
Speaker 2: gang members in Baltimore. Tell us a little bit about that,
Speaker 2: just too a cautionary tale.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm sorry, what what gang members?
Speaker 2: We talked about the gang members again doing something similar
Speaker 2: in terms of even worse in a in a Baltimore
Speaker 2: correctional So, oh yeah, well, you.
Speaker 4: Know, it's a couple of times that year there was that.
Speaker 4: There was another one out in California, where again it
Speaker 4: was a woman, uh, employee of the prison who was
Speaker 4: who was helping out And although I guess os people
Speaker 4: on the outside a law biding people find it a
Speaker 4: little bit unusual, but there's there's a lot of romance
Speaker 4: going on.
Speaker 2: H Yeah.
Speaker 4: In prisons makes me think of the movie Raising Arizona,
Speaker 4: where the female corrections officer falls in the level with
Speaker 4: the guy who's constantly in and out of jail.
Speaker 2: It was interesting too. It was interesting to talk about
Speaker 2: the access as you do in the book about that
Speaker 2: Joyce Mitchell could have maybe forty minutes in a room
Speaker 2: with Sweat or Matt you talked about the you know
Speaker 2: so sex was and the inmates knew. They cracked jokes
Speaker 2: about that forty minutes. What could they possibly in doing
Speaker 2: so there.
Speaker 4: Was sure, well, and that's because female employees are given
Speaker 4: places of privacy much more so than male employees would be.
Speaker 4: Then there are little, heidy places to go, and if
Speaker 4: you're there for ten fifteen years, you know where they are.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, it strikes me as a little bit unusual,
Speaker 4: but I guess no matter where you go, there's going
Speaker 4: to be office romance. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other thing you did too, is that what's interesting
Speaker 2: in this story is the the public response in Dynamore
Speaker 2: and surrounding area, and to the point where seven officers
Speaker 2: or people involved in the search were given awards and
Speaker 2: then later Jay Cook couldn't come, but he was given
Speaker 2: an award.
Speaker 4: To oh sure, yeah, you know. The community up there
Speaker 4: was really great about expressing their thanks. I mean when
Speaker 4: when the when the manhunt was officially over, when Sweat
Speaker 4: was captured and there was a sort of a convoy
Speaker 4: of law enforcement heading back to where they came from
Speaker 4: the people of the area stood out on their front
Speaker 4: lawns holding signs saying thank you uh. And the heroes
Speaker 4: of the story were not forgotten, and everybody was very
Speaker 4: very grateful that so many of the men and women
Speaker 4: of of the law enforcement of the area were put
Speaker 4: in such long hours to and and really pulled it
Speaker 4: up against all odds. They got these guys without anybody
Speaker 4: getting hurt except for the escapees themselves, and boy, that
Speaker 4: was the best case scenario.
Speaker 2: You do examine too, the phenomena in this book, which
Speaker 2: is again something new for me and the readers, in
Speaker 2: the phenomena of the grooming by these psychopaths, these cunning
Speaker 2: criminals that have spent, as you do say with matt
Speaker 2: En Sweat, spent the majority of their life in prisons.
Speaker 2: These guys, so they're very good at what they were
Speaker 2: doing and they have a goal. But you talked about
Speaker 2: the actual article did with corrections officers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's downing the ducks if it works. Just like
Speaker 4: any turn artists, you find a mark, you figure out
Speaker 4: psychologically what their weakness is, and then you exploit that
Speaker 4: weakness to your own benefit. And it's it's very very cunning.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, Gene Palmer. It was apparently, by all accounts,
Speaker 4: a good guy, and why he would befriend of, you know,
Speaker 4: a psychopath like Richard Matt hard to say, but Matt
Speaker 4: was good and being one of the guys and making
Speaker 4: making another guy feel comfortable with him when he wanted to.
Speaker 4: I mean, he could turn off the evil briefly and
Speaker 4: uh yeah yeah, and then of course then being a
Speaker 4: ladies man by nature, he had no problems seducing Joyce Mitchell.
Speaker 4: It was a piece of cake. The fact that she
Speaker 4: was putting herself in a situation where her her she
Speaker 4: was going to ruin her marriage and ruin her job
Speaker 4: and her career not even occurred to her. She was just,
Speaker 4: you know, she was in love with him. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, of course not all prisoners are as skilled
Speaker 4: at it is these two guys, But that's what inmates do.
Speaker 4: They have nothing but time. They could sit around and
Speaker 4: think of plans of how to accomplish things that are
Speaker 4: far more detailed and patient, far more patient than anybody
Speaker 4: on the outside would be able to handle. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you have freedom, you're not going to spend months
Speaker 4: at a time trying to figure out how to bribe
Speaker 4: somebody with cigarettes, you know, it's it's a different world.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too how you talk about from the the
Speaker 2: entire the entire escape and all of the machinations that
Speaker 2: led to this escape. And now you say, like you say,
Speaker 2: the the unique nature of these two people to bring
Speaker 2: this this escape to fruition, but you also talk about
Speaker 2: again the unique characters of these two perpetrators to be
Speaker 2: able to pull this off. And luckily, thankfully they did
Speaker 2: not shoot him and he was alive. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: there was an incredible pressure that you didn't really write
Speaker 2: about and probably law enforcement didn't talk about for this
Speaker 2: guy to give as much of the real information regarding
Speaker 2: before the escape, enduring the escape, the entire escape itself.
Speaker 2: That was incredible and invaluable information for this book and
Speaker 2: for the resolution of this case, wasn't it.
Speaker 4: One of the reasons why Jay Cook is a hero
Speaker 4: is he took down Sweat without taking him out, because
Speaker 4: if both prisoners had been killed, there would be a
Speaker 4: big question mark about how they did it. And as
Speaker 4: it is, Sweat really does fill in a lot of
Speaker 4: detail for us, but not all detail, because he knows
Speaker 4: he's going to have to spend the rest of his
Speaker 4: life under the care of corrections officers. So he's not
Speaker 4: gonna rat But yeah, if there's anybody that's been involved,
Speaker 4: that was involved other than the guy, people were already caught. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he's going to keep that momp. You're never going to
Speaker 4: say so, and so gave me power tools. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's even been a rumor that somebody else cut the
Speaker 4: holes in the pipe for him. Wow, you know, because
Speaker 4: he bribed. But we're never gonna know, because that's he knows.
Speaker 4: If we start squealing on guys, life could get hard
Speaker 4: for him.
Speaker 2: Harder, yeah, harder, Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, it's a fascinating tale. Michael.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for coming on and talking about
Speaker 2: your latest mistake from Dana Mora. It's been a pleasure,
Speaker 2: as it always is. But thank you very much for this.
Speaker 2: And for those that might want to look at somebody
Speaker 2: rather work or is there a Facebook page for this,
Speaker 2: tell us how people might contact you or look at
Speaker 2: other work of.
Speaker 4: Yours Amazon dot com. I have my own page on
Speaker 4: the air. I'm the Michael Benson with a beard, because
Speaker 4: there are there are more than one. Michael Benton's the right,
Speaker 4: but I'm the one who does true crime, some sports books,
Speaker 4: a book about the Grateful Debt, and yeah, please buy
Speaker 4: my books on My son's still in college and my
Speaker 4: daughter's getting married, so I need some.
Speaker 2: You need money, Yeah, absolutely, thank you so well. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much Michael for coming on and doing this.
Speaker 2: And you have a great day. And I know I'll
Speaker 2: be talking to you again soon because you've got kids
Speaker 2: in college and Bill stipa.
Speaker 4: So that's all right. Thanks a lot, take.
Speaker 2: Care, thank you, Michael.
Speaker 4: Yeah, goode.