In June 2015, two convicted murderers, aided by a prison seamstress and guard, escaped from their jail cells at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Upstate New York after patiently using power tools to cut a breakout path by pipe. Often described as stranger than fiction, the prison break has been compared to The Shawshank Redemption [1], a film based on Stephen King [2]'s novella. Reporters likened it to the stuff of movies [3], and now it's actually receiving the onscreen treatment under the direction of Ben Stiller [4].
Debuting in November, the project, a Showtime miniseries titled Escape at Dannemora, stars Benicio del Toro [5], Patricia Arquette, Paul Dano, and Bonnie Hunt. The powerful cast will no doubt do justice to the harrowing story. Still, it's worth knowing the factual foundation of the show. The story possesses the quaintest details that add layers of intrigue, including sexual affairs, narcotic pills, and prison violations for artwork. Keep scrolling to learn the jaw-dropping details of the case.
Before the Escape
Both convicted of murder [6], David Sweat and Richard Matt resided at the Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in New York. Matt had been serving 25-years-to-life in prison for kidnapping and killing his former boss, and Sweat had been serving a life term for murdering a sheriff's deputy. They formed a friendship in prison and created an escape plan that hinged on their relationships with the prison's staff.
One prominent figure who helped them was prison seamstress Joyce Mitchell, who supplied them with drill bits and hacksaw blades smuggled in through frozen hamburger meat [7]. Mitchell had sexual contact [8] with Matt and had been reported to have been involved with Sweat as well. In an inspector general's report, Sweat suggested that he had manipulated her loneliness, admitting to telling her [9] that they would go down to Mexico and get a place by the beach together.
Matt also shared a relationship with prison guard Gene Palmer [10], who gave them the meat that contained the contraband. Palmer claims that he didn't know that the meat contained the tools that would help them escape, but giving them the meat itself was violating prison rules. Additionally, he didn't require them to pass through a metal detector to return to their housing blocks. On top of everything, Palmer accepted Matt's personalized artwork, which often depicted his family.
The Day of the Escape
Matt and Sweat had taken their provided power tools and cut through the back of their cells and into a steam pipe. After 85 nights [11] of creating their route by trial and error, they slithered through the pipe and went through a manhole just one block away from the prison on June 6, 2015 [12]. On the pipe, they left a note with a racist caricature [13] that read, "Have A Nice Day."
Matt had provided Mitchell with narcotic pills to "knock out [14]" her husband Lyle so that she could pick them up. She didn't appear [15], and the two men escaped by foot instead.
How They Got Caught
Between June and July, the 23-day hunt for the criminals cost the New York State Police and the state Department of Corrections $23 million [16]. After many leads [17], officials tracked down and killed Matt at Lake Titus in New York with three gunshots to the head on June 26. Fifteen miles north of this location and 30 miles from the Dannemora prison, they found and captured Sweat.
Mitchell [18] and Palmer [19] both plead guilty to helping the two convicts escape. Sweat, prior to pleading guilty himself, believed that he had a defence, which was rejected by the judge on his case.
"It was a matter of duress. Threats that were made upon him. That the circumstances that existed in Clinton Correctional Facility caused him to escape," Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie [20] said, explaining his defence.
The State Department of Corrections in New York sentenced Sweat to six years in solitary confinement at Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, New York.