DANNEMORA, N.Y. – A manhunt is on for a couple convicted murders who broke out of a prison in the foothill of the Adirondacks, about 100 kilometers from Cornwall, Ont.
U.S. authorities in upstate New York are heavily armed and on high alert and Canadian border officials are also keeping watch.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Richard Matt and David Sweat staged an “elaborate, sophisticated operation” to escape the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.
The escape from the maximum security prison included cutting through walls using power tools and then cutting through steel pipes to make their way out through a manhole cover.
It’s believed the two convicts may have got their hands on the power tools while contractors were working at the prison, according to CBS News.
Matt and Sweat were unaccounted for during a 5:30 a.m. bed check on Saturday.
Matt, 48, is white, six feet tall, 210 pounds, with black hair and hazel eyes. He has a tattoo on his back that says “Mexico Forever,” heart tattoos on his chest and left shoulder and a Marine corps tattoo on his right shoulder.
Matt is serving 25 years to life for kidnapping and murdering his former boss in 1997.
Sweat, 34, is white, five foot 11 inches tall, 165 pounds with brown hair and green eyes. Sweat has tattoos on his left bicep and right fingers.
Sweat is serving a life sentence for the murder of a sheriff’s deputy in 2002.
New York State is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to their capture.
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