DANNEMORA, N.Y. (AP) — Corrections officers and state troopers in helmets and body armor returned to search again Wednesday near the maximum-security prison where two killers escaped using power tools, as authorities renewed their plea for help from the public.
State Police said the fifth day of searching would include going house to house in Dannemora, where David Sweat and Richard Matt broke out of the Clinton Correctional Facility, a 170-year-old fortress-like structure about 20 miles from the Canadian border.
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,” Sheriff David 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.
Law enforcement officials reiterated their plea for the public’s help in reporting anything unusual. A $100,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the men’s capture.
“We don’t want them out searching the woods,” Favro said. “But if you’re sitting on your porch, get your binoculars out and see if you see something unusual.”
Unions representing guards and civilian staff at the prison said many have been questioned by investigators, but no one has been suspended, disciplined or charged. Among them is Joyce Mitchell, a training supervisor in the tailor shop where Sweat and Matt worked.
Mitchell’s son, Tobey Mitchell, 21, told NBC that his mother checked herself into a hospital with chest pains Saturday. He said she wouldn’t have helped the inmates escape.
Sweat, 34, and Matt, 48, cut through a steel wall, broke through bricks and crawled through a steam pipe before emerging through a manhole in the street outside the 3,000-inmate prison. Authorities suspect they had help from the inside in obtaining the power tools.
Around Dannemora on Wednesday, police dogs sniffed lawns as officers lifted garage doors, opened sheds and peered through windows, looking for signs of a break-in or other clues.
Barbara McCasland said officers asked to search her home but she told them no. “I’m pretty battened down here. My windows are locked and everything,” she said.
As the manhunt dragged on, she said she was getting worried: “I wasn’t in the beginning, but seeing that they’ve been out there so long, I am a little nervous.”
Many in the prison town greeted the return of the searchers with a shrug. Many suspect Sweat and Matt are long gone and they are past any danger.
“I’m not worried about it,” Jackie Trombley said. Referring to the searchers swarming the area, she said: “We’ve got these guys down the road. They’re everywhere, so it really doesn’t bother me.”
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Virtanen reported from Albany, New York.
