Gov. Cuomo said Sunday that he is convinced someone inside the prison heard two inmates as they escaped from their upstate penitentiary over the weekend using power tools.
“I chatted with a couple of the inmates myself and said, ‘You must be a very heavy sleeper,’ ” Cuomo told ABC’s “Good Morning America. “They were heard, they had to be heard.”
As officials coordinated a massive manhunt that involved hundreds of law-enforcement officers, hounds, roadblocks and helicopters, new details were beginning to emerge on the daring, Hollywood-style prison break that led inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt on a path to freedom.
The two inmates were discovered missing early Saturday morning from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, about 20 miles south of the Canadian border.
Sweat, 34, and Matt, 48, managed to drill through steel walls, pipes and stone walls and travel underground without detection before surfacing through a manhole outside the prison in a nearby town.
Authorities said the two cut through the steel wall of their adjacent cells, shimmied down a series of internal catwalks and burrowed more than a city block away to escape. They left behind a note with a smiley face that read,“Have a nice day.”
The prospect of two escaped inmates, both convicted murderers, loose on the streets unnerved many in the neighborhood surrounding the correctional facility, where authorities said the prison break was a first.
Paula Ashley, who lives two blocks from the manhole that the prisoners emerged from, told NBC News that she couldn’t believe the situation that was unfolding in Dannemora, a town of less than 5,000 people.
“Is this a drill, or is this for real,” she asked. “This is very scary. This is my backyard. This is where my son plays outside.”
Elizabeth Ahern, who lives five miles from the prison in Saranac,said she locked her doors for the first time in 30 years.
“They’re not gonna scare us North Country people,” Ahern said. “We know how to handle a gun or a knife.”