On the day of the escape
He takes a pencil from behind his ear and underlines a passage in his prison-issue
bible. Genesis 9:5-6: “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.”
He doesn’t know it yet, but these words are going to come back to haunt him.
All he’s known in his life is violence, from being a young victim to an adult perpetrator. He’s
killed and he'll kill again if anyone tries to get in the way of his escape. He and his accomplice,
a man no stranger to extreme violence himself, will do something that is unheard of in
the annals of American incarceration. Shawshank Redemption has nothing on these guys.
Tomorrow, June 6, 2015, at 5.17 am, both of these men will be discovered missing from their cells
at New York state’s Clinton Correctional Facility. This is a huge complex of sprawling buildings
first opened in the mid-1800s, that once served as a notorious insane asylum. Among the criminal
fraternity, it's sometimes called Little Siberia, due to the freezing winters and the fact
it's surrounded by miles and miles of rugged wilderness - a good place to get lost if you’re
a criminal, but a harsh place to try to survive. The authorities will find a cheeky note left for
them, a slap in the face if ever there was one. Down a tunnel, another note reads, “You left
me no choice but to grow old and die in here. I had to do something.” On a picture of Tony
Soprano that the escapee has painted himself, he’s written, “Time to Go Kid! 6-5-15.” No one was supposed to be able to escape
from this maximum security fortress. No one ever has escaped. The authorities
can’t believe what they’re seeing. They now know they’ve underestimated these
two uneducated felons, cold-hearted killers as cunning as a vengeful Greek God. Millions
of dollars will be spent on trying to catch them but suffice to say, they ain't intending
to live behind bars again. They are armed and dangerous and they are heading to the border.
Their names are David Sweat and Richard Matt, and this is the story of their truly
outstanding escape. This is how it all starts. Day 1
Matt and Sweat have just started working together in one of the prison tailor
workshops. Around 400 guys in Clinton make inmate clothes and other tailored stuff such as lab coats
and sweatshirts. They get 25 to 50 cents an hour. It’s not much, but the job passes the time.
Matt is known throughout the prison as “hacksaw”. He’s both respected and feared. Feared
because of the fact he got his nickname for dismembering a man. Respected because
he'd do it again but warn you first. Weeks 1-6
Outside of crime, these two men have another skill: the art of flirtation,
and as luck would have it, the object of their flirtation is a civilian female supervisor who
loves the attention of the men she supervises.
Her name is Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell. She isn’t
exactly easy on the eye and she knows it, which makes her vulnerable to all the
guys she’s supposed to watch over. On top of this, her relationship with her
husband lacks any sort of passion. He’s Lyle, and he’s a bright star in this story of
lies and deception. He's a good person, in a tale full of bad people. He will get a hit
put on his head, from a place he least expects. When Sweat and Matt flirt with Mitchell,
she can’t help but giggle and blush. The first to really go after her is Sweat,
who occasionally flashes naughty winks and smiles at her as he’s sewing clothes together
on his machine. It should be said that Mitchell has been accused before of improper conduct with
inmates, including Sweat, but as you’ll see, she is really good at getting away with things. That’s
why she is fine with flirting with Sweat again, only this time she’ll take things much further.
Sweat has the instructor’s job and Matt a regular machinist’s job. Good friends, their machines
are side by side. All day they plan and conspire and stare over at Mitchell. Both these guys have
been designated as a “Central Monitoring Case”, meaning great care should be taken to watch them.
Sweat falls into this category just because of the sheer brutality of his crime. The reason
Matt is monitored is that he’s an escape risk, as well as a brute. He escaped from another
prison in the past. A document relating to him reads that “all necessary precautions should be
taken whenever it is required to move the inmate outside the facility, regardless of the reason.”
So, despite having some very sketchy backgrounds and not having great prison records, they
are allowed to work in the tailor shop. Lately, they’ve had quite a good run
in terms of staying out of trouble, so both have a cell on what’s called the Honor
Block. Here there are 180 prisoners in 174 cells. Security is just the same here, or should be,
but the inmates are at least allowed to wear some civilian clothes, have much more time to hang
out with other inmates in the recreational areas, as well as getting a bunch of other
privileges. All this will help Sweat and Matt. Sweat is described by another inmate as being
“very, very self-sufficient in all ways”. He’s clever, and he’s resourceful. He's even a bit of a
survivalist. Matt is the chatty one, described as “sociable” and “gregarious.” He’s also tough, and
can back up his fierce reputation if need be. He's a survivor, but far from being a survivalist.
He’s in his late 40s and Sweat is in his early 30s. It’s Matt who introduces
Sweat to the wonders of painting, a hobby they’ll both employ as a means to escape,
and one in which Matt shows considerable talent. Weeks 12-17
It’s now plain to see for the other inmates in the workshop that
Sweat and Micthell have got something going on. It becomes more obvious when after a while
she starts going into the stock room with him. Mitchell comes out looking all flustered and red
in the cheeks. The inmates know exactly what is going on, but one of the guards in the workshop is
more interested in reading his book than watching out for inmate-supervisor relationships.
Weeks 18-25 She gets reported for treating the inmates like
friends and being way too close to some of them. Mitchell fires back, complaining that she feels
she’s being harassed for no reason. She then files a grievance, and to be honest, the prison
doesn’t want the hassle and so she keeps her job. Let’s now introduce another
main character in this story. He is Corrections Officer Eugene Palmer,
a man who’s been at Clinton for 27 years. He’s the go-to guard for inmates when they have
a problem, and he and Matt are described as being “two peas in a pod.” They’ve been close, too
close, for years now. If Sweat is working on Mitchell during the day, then Matt has Palmer
in the palm of his hand on the Honor Block. This is ideal for the pair. It makes
life easy, but at the start, they don’t realize it also provides a means to escape.
Matt often gives his paintings to Palmer, who’s impressed with the artwork. He’s especially
impressed when Matt gives him paintings and sketches of his own family and house, which he
does on a few occasions over the years, and he works really hard at completing them. The better
the work, the more favors that come Matt’s way. When Palmer starts dating Clinton Correction
Officer Mary Lamar, he even commissions Matt to do a bunch of paintings of Lamar’s family.
One day she starts crying outside Matt’s cell when he gives her the finished picture. She can’t
believe how amazing it is. Palmer is made up. He's made this woman happy, and he owes Matt big time
Matt also informs Palmer when violence is about to happen. One day, they both walk into a quiet
corner and Matt warns, “You’re going to lose your prison. It’s a powder keg and it’s about to
explode. My informant tells me that when it goes, they’re going to show no mercy.”
For this, both Matt and Sweat enjoy the best conditions in that block, receiving TVs from
Palmer and as many painting supplies as they want, in spite of the fact that a paintbrush can
be used for all kinds of wicked purposes. But more importantly, when Palmer escorts
these guys back to the block from the workshop, he sometimes takes them a way in which they
don’t have to pass through any metal detectors. This is foolhardy to say the least, especially
when you find out what kinds of things Mitchell is giving them in the workshop.
Weeks 26-29 Things are about to change. The prison
authorities receive an anonymous letter. It states that Sweat and workshop supervisor
Mitchell are having inappropriate relations and it is damn obvious to everyone. In that
storeroom, says the letter, the two bang like beavers. The complaint even says that Mitchell
is always doing favors for the white guys, but she is always on the backs of Latinos and blacks.
Further down, the letter states, “It’s funny that she goes to the next door with the same guy once
or twice a week for 3 to 5 minutes and comes out with nothing. I have noticed that since I
started working here the past 5 months.” In short, Mitchell is furious and denies
everything, but in the end, Sweat gets 30 days in the punishment block without privileges and is
taken out of the workshop “for security concerns”. That’s when he is told he will be moving
into a cell away from his buddy Matt. He loses his place on the Honor block
and now has no way of making money. This will play a big part in his wanting to escape.
Mitchell’s outrage and the tsunami of complaints she sends to the warden go a long way to helping
her keep her job, The prison doesn’t dare to bring charges against her knowing that she’ll kick
up a stink about harassing a female. But she’s more upset about losing the love of her life. She
even cries in front of some of the other inmates. She’s lost the man who she believes really
understands her, cares for her, and she’s also lost the best damn machinist she’s ever had.
Suffice to say, things go really downhill in the workshop after Sweat is gone.
Weeks 30-51 Matt asks Palmer to help make him the
workshop supervisor, and Palmer does it. Now Mitchell’s special little
helper is Sweat’s best friend, and if any other inmates complain, he’ll
get them thrown out of the workshop. She’s also quite attracted to Matt, who
it has to be said, has a way with women “He makes me feel special,” Mitchell
secretly tells one of her friends. “He just understands me…I still haven’t gotten
over David, but there’s just something about Richard… I don’t know, he just listens.”
Matt is by far the better manipulator, even if it's Sweat that has a high IQ. In
no time at all, Mitchell is breaking all the rules for him, one time buying him a $9 pair
of reading glasses on eBay. This is about as big a transgression as you can get, but for the
time being their relationship is not sexual. For her efforts, Matt paints her a picture of
her son, an 11-inch by 16-inch work that she is overjoyed with. Such a thing isn’t easy to
pass someone in prison, so Palmer takes it from Matt and then drops it off in Mitchell’s car.
Since Palmer has all those years behind him, no one at the gate asks him what’s in the package
he now has that he didn’t come in with. This is how lax things are.
Week 52 Matt tells Mitchell he really needs a pair of
gloves as his hands are hurting when he works out. Can she buy him some, he asks, telling her he’s
only too happy to paint something else for her. Hmm, she says. Can you do dogs? Sure,
Matt says, dogs aren’t a problem. Week 53
Mitchell breaks the rules even more times, once calling Matt’s daughter
for him and passing on a message. It’s at this point that Matt is thinking this love-struck woman
will do absolutely anything for him. Meanwhile, even her husband Lyle knows she’s been helping
Matt and receiving paintings in return. Lyle tells her one night, “This aint worth losing
your job over, darling. They’re nice paintings, but this could get you in serious trouble.”
He can snitch on Palmer if he wants, but there’s one thing you don’t do in prison and
that’s tell on someone, even if you’re a guard. Weeks 54-55
Mitchell keeps smuggling stuff in, including 70 containers of black and cayenne
pepper, 10-ounce packages of Café Bustelo coffee, several decks of playing cards, and
numerous other prohibited items. It is at this point that Sweat’s busy brain gets
going. Still irked about losing his cushy job, one day he turns to Matt and says, “I
just want to get out of this place. I just want to be free. I want to go
live somewhere away from everybody.” He then says if Mitchell will get you anything,
why not ask her to bring in stuff we can use to escape. He says the gloves and the
glasses will already come in handy, but they can do even better than that. “We have
the ideal situation right now,” he tells Matt, “Do you think she’ll be up for it?” Matt
laughs, and says, “She’s freaking nuts, she’ll bring us whatever we want, just tell me
what you need, and I’ll get her to bring it in.” Sweat envisages getting through his cell door by
exploiting a vulnerability in the locking system, and then walking to the yard, where he’ll use
his new tools to get a rope over the wall. He tells Matt he needs a star-headed screw bit
and some putty, and later Mitchell doesn’t let him down. Matt tells her these things are
for his art and the frames he’ll make. Weeks 56-59
Sweat changes his mind and says to Matt, “What about getting
through the sewer system? He says for this, they’ll have to be in cells next to each other. He
explains that they’ll saw through the wall and get into the tunnels he thinks are back there.
Matt asks for another favor from Palmer. Can he help to get Sweat back in the tailor shop,
not necessarily his tailor shop, but any of them. If this happens, it will mean Sweat gets a cell
back in the honor block. Palmer does as he’s asked, and stage one of the plan is complete.
Week 60 Sweat is now working in workshop 8; Matt
is working not too far away in another shop. Mitchell occasionally now sees Sweat
as they pass each other in the corridor. Each time she smiles and surreptitiously gives
his hand a little squeeze. This mother and wife, who’s old enough to be his mother, is acting like
a love-struck teenager. For the time being, she had no idea about any escape plan, but she’s more
than willing to bring stuff in for Sweat and Matt. Week 61
Sweat is now in cell A6-23, right next to Matt in cell A6-22. He was
assigned another cell on the block but has paid the guy in A6-23 $100 worth of smokes
and given him some homemade pornography books. Sweat says to Matt, “We need saws, hacksaw
blades. That’s what you need Tilly to bring in, as many as is possible.”
Five Hours Later Mitchell is at a Walmart store close to her house
handing over $6 for a bunch of hacksaw blades. She uses cash, even though she’s already used her
credit card to buy other items. The next day, she places them at the side of Matt’s workstation.
Back in the cells, Matt gives three of them to Sweat. It’s time to do some sawing.
During the evening, they both use the blades to start cutting a ten by a ten-inch hole
through the 3/16-inch-thick rear steel wall. As handles for the blades, they use rubber
bands wrapped around cloth. To prevent any noise when they move the heavy table away from
the wall, they put tape under the table legs. The sound of the sawing is also obscured much
thanks to the general din of a prison and the fact every evening guys slam dominoes down on tables.
They have sawn their first tiny hole. Success! There are air vents and attached ducts behind the
wall, which will also have to be sawn through in time. The little bits of filings will be picked up
by magnets the guys have stolen from the workshop. Weeks 64-65
They do this every day from 6:30 pm to 8 pm when most of the other prisoners are in
the mess hall or the recreation area. The officers are never suspicious. Sweat and Matt rarely eat
in the mess hall and during the evenings it’s quite normal for them to paint in their cells.
They only ever cut one at a time for 10 to 20 minutes while the other uses a mirror to
look down the landing for approaching guards. If a guard is seen, both men jump into
their beds and pretend to be asleep, or look like they’re painting or listening
to music. One day Palmer almost catches them, but he's just come to give them some more
prison hooch, of which Matt drinks a ton. It takes Sweat three weeks to cut a hole
that is 17-inch-by-12½-inch. For Matt, an 18½-inch-by-14½-inch hole is
complete in four weeks. The older, bigger man is always lagging behind, which in
time to come will be a matter of life and death. Week 66
When Sweat is able to crawl through his hole, he starts leaving a dummy in his
bed so if the guards walk past his cell, they’ll think he’s sleeping. The dummy is hardly a work of
art and if those guards just pay more attention, they’ll likely see it for what it is – a pair
of stuffed pants and a prison-issue sweatshirt. Once Sweat is through the hole, he clips a painting against the outside with
magnets he’s stolen. Now he’s free to explore. Week 67
One day when he returns after his adventure, he tells Matt
that he feels like a Ninja. What freedom he has during these nights, but what he doesn’t know
is the hidden complexities of a giant prison. One night Sweat manages to descend down three
tiers. There he finds himself in a place that is littered with objects that have been thrown away
over the years: cigarette butts, bits of paper, Styrofoam cups, and plastic bottles. After
a bit of a walkabout, he gets to B-Block, just below the laundry building. This is progress.
To get from B-Block to C-Block, he has to crawl through a steel pipe and that pipe is blocked by a
steel brace. Cutting this will not be easy at all. Even if he can, he’s not sure if the heavy-set
Matt will be able to squeeze through the pipe. Luckily for them, Sweat has found a measuring
tape on his nightly walks so he can now measure the pipe and also Matt. Matt will be able to
get through the pipe, but it won’t be easy. Weeks 68-70
It takes Sweat two days to saw through the brace, only to become somewhat
discouraged not to find the sewer system but some old boards in front of a great big cement wall.
This is now turning into a mission of intense labor, but it’s that or getting old in prison.
He spends the next few nights shuffling around the subterranean maze of passageways under blocks C,
D, and E, but he keeps hitting more cement walls. At least he’s got tools and a nightlight, but he
has to be careful. He’s so close to the catwalk, up above he can see the guards walking around.
One night a discarded cigarette butt hits his head and when he looks up he sees a pair of officers’
shoes. Just one wrong move and he’s done. Sweat is so tired from these nightly
jaunts and he never gets enough sleep. Each night after headcount at 11.30 he leaves
his cell and he doesn’t get back until 5.30 a m. That’s how much work he’s doing, and he can hardly
just sleep during the day. He has to work, and if he tries to sleep, someone will get suspicious.
He looks so ragged that an officer remarks that Sweat’s appearance has changed. “My
God, what the hell has happened to him? The officer tells another officer. “He
looks like he’s had been wrung through a knothole. He’s so frail and exhausted.”
That’s true. Sweat has lost 30 pounds since he started his explorations. Still, he’s now
fit as a fiddle, and this will bode well for him in the near future when he’s on the run
and has to turn into a veritable iron man. Week 71
Sweat now admits to himself that the only way to freedom is to
take apart one of those cement walls. He starts removing three or four bricks a night out of a
wall that is three layers thick. He’s basically dismantling a prison from the inside, which is why
the authorities will be astounded in time to come. As luck would have it, one day Sweat opens a
contractor’s “gang box” in a tunnel under E-Block, and inside is a gift from God: a sledgehammer.
This won’t be the last time he gets so lucky that he’ll start thinking he has the angels on his
side. Let’s just say here that he doesn’t think he deserved to get such a long prison sentence.
He thinks the sledgehammer is his good karma. Weeks 72-74
He has to do the wall smashing ever so delicately, only striking the bricks whenever the
pipes start to moan and scream. Within two weeks, he’s breached the wall. This is it. Now he’s
close to the outside, or at least he thinks he is. After winding through yet more tunnels,
he comes across his biggest obstacle yet. That’s a seven-foot-thick son-of-a-gun
in the shape of the perimeter wall of the entire prison. At least he knows this
is the last thing he has to get through. It’s impossible. The wall is a huge block of
cement that can only be knocked down with a machine. Even Matt joins him down there for a
couple of days when he’s just too exhausted to do the work by himself. Matt’s highly impressed at
the work Sweat’s done. He looks at him and says, “Man, I can’t believe you’ve done
this. I’d have given up weeks ago.” Matt’s seen everything in his life. He’s a
career criminal who got involved seriously with crime at a young age. Later in life, a cop
once described him as being “the most vicious, evil person I’ve ever come across in 38 years as
a police officer.” Matt escaped from a care home for children when he was 12 by riding away on a
horse, and he stayed alone in the forest for two weeks. But even with this crazy existence of his,
he thinks Sweat’s tunnels are on another level. Still, Sweat cannot get through that wall.
No amount of bashing with a sledgehammer will work. Now he has another idea. There’s
a steampipe. Why not crawl through that. It’s another tight space at just 24 inches and it’s hot
as hell, but Sweat thinks it’s doable. Normally, you wouldn’t be able to crawl through hot steam,
but now it’s May, and the prison has just turned off its heating system. It’ll still be warm in
there and it’s 20 feet long, but it can be done. Week 73-75
He struggles with the pipe, but after buying an extension cord from the
prison commissary and rigging up some more lights, he knows he can take his time. He then returns
to that gang box of tools and inside is a power drill, a hammer, an angle grinder, battery packs,
more lights, and even some masks for all the dust. Again, he puts this down to karma and
the wrongs of America’s justice system. He still needs more tools, so he tells Matt to
tell Mitchell to buy two chisels, a steel punch, and some bits for the drill, stuff they say they
need for picture frames and other handiwork. This won’t be easy to sneak in, but
then Matt gets the idea for Mitchell to hide the bits in ground beef and
then freeze the meat. If anyone asks, she’ll say it’s for the guys to make hamburgers.
If anyone complains, well, that’s harassment. She tells Matt she feels guilty about
what she’s been doing to her husband Lyle. As Lyle’s arranging a surprise anniversary gift
for her, one of Matt’s paintings, she tries her hardest to stay out of his way. She has a new
word for Lyle, calling him a “glitch” in her life. Week 76
It’s at this point that Matt tells her that he and Sweat are going to escape. That’s
why they’ve been asking for so many things. Sweat will be upset about Matt doing this, but Matt
knows that Mitchell won’t breathe a word about it. She’s attracted to Matt, but she hasn’t given
up on loving Sweat. Now she thinks, if these guys leave, I’ve lost everything. She won’t tell
on them, but them going is something she doesn’t want to think about. Matt can sense this, and for
the first time, he starts to get nervous. What if she does lose her cool and blabs? He talks to
Sweat about it and they come up with an idea. Week 77-78
Matt puts his arm around Mitchell's waist when they’re in the storeroom and he whispers
in her ear, “Why don’t you come with us?” He tells her she can finally be rid of that useless
husband, that he and Sweat will take care of her. This manipulation goes a step further when Matt
and Sweat agree that Sweat needs to confess his undying love for Mitchell. Matt starts passing
her letters that Sweat has written, notes that talk about how much he misses her, signed off
with XOXOXO. “I want to feel myself inside of you,” he writes while he and Matt laugh out loud.
And after this, she starts bringing in so many tools Sweat’s pipe cutting gets easier. In one
letter, he writes, “I love you, can’t wait to get you in my arms, and make love to you.” Then at the
bottom, he writes, “P.s. I need some more of those drill bits. XOXOXO.” All these notes are destroyed
after reading, just as Matt has told her to do. Week 79
But Matt feels she still needs to be worked on more. One day he
finds an opportunity to move things along when they are both together in a room next to Tailor
Shop 9. Matt says he needs a machine part, but he doesn’t really. He grabs her out of the blue and
kisses her. For a moment, she’s taken aback, but man is this guy strong. And he’s so attractive.
Still, she thinks, does he have to be so forceful? “You can love two people, you know,” Matt says.
“We both love you.” This is a man with extreme violence towards women in his criminal history.
His sweet words are tinged with so much darkness. Almost immediately it’s arranged that she’ll be
the getaway driver once they’re on the outside. She’ll have her car and she’ll have food and
money. As she’s lying in bed with Lyle, ignoring his entreaties to have sex, she sees the three of
them with a motorbike rental business somewhere on the coast of Mexico. The next day she goes out
to buy some new underwear, sexier than her usual stuff. Poor Lyle thinks it's for him.
Week 80 The inmates notice that Mitchell starts dressing
nicer, and suddenly she’s losing lots of weight and doing her hair differently. During
her lunch break, she reads her new book, Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish.
What they don’t know is that at home she’s taking photos of herself naked and later
handing them to Matt so both he and Sweat can utilize them when they’re alone in their cells.
She is living a fantasy. Her photos are burned and certainly not used to facilitate orgasm.
Matt tells her to buy black cargo pants for the escape. On the honor block, you have to wear
prison-issue pants, even though you can have civilian tops. He tells her to get a tent, some
sleeping bags, fishing poles, and a hatchet. Oh, he says, we’ll also need one rifle, one shotgun,
and a load of ammunition. Off she goes to the hardware store and later to the gas station
to pick up a map of the local area and beyond. Matt and Sweat decide at first that after
escaping they’ll drive for a few hours and rent a cabin up in the mountains in Vermont.
Matt and Mitchell will pretend to be husband and wife and Sweat will be the nephew.
This plan changes pretty quickly after Matt says he has connections with the Mexican
drug cartels, so if they get to Mexico, they’ll have a safe place to hide before they
head to the beach and start their new business. The plan suits everyone, but more so Matt, who
has a tattoo on his body saying, “Mexico Forever.” Week 81
Sweat tells Mitchell via a note handed to Matt that they should
go scuba diving together once they’re there, which almost brings tears to her eyes. As much
as she’s attracted to Matt, her future fantasy is with Sweat only. When that happens Sweat will
have already changed his name to James Tuttle and Matt will be Tony Goya. That's the plan, anyway.
It’s about this time that Matt makes a strange request. He asks Mitchell to smuggle in a bottle
of Bacardi 151 and a bottle of Wild Turkey. Let’s just say that Matt has had alcohol problems in the
past, and as you’ll soon find out, booze is going to play a big part in what happens to him. She
does as is told, but draws the line when he asks her for a handgun, a micro-knife, and a cellphone.
You might now be wondering, what about Mitchell’s ever-faithful husband. He adores his wife. He
would chop off his right hand to keep her safe. Will she not miss him one bit? One day Matt asks
her about him, to which she replies with a snarl, “Oh, pop my husband, he’s worth
more to me dead than he is alive.” She means it, too. She tells the
guys that on the night they leave, they should go to her house and shoot her husband
dead with the gun she’s bought for them. She’s done with him. He’s boring. He’s a creep, and
God knows she can’t stand sharing a bed with him. She looks at Matt and in all seriousness, as if
she’s thought about this a lot through the night, says, “Or, I will drug him until he’s passed
out and then we take the car and drive him off a cliff.” At least that won’t look like
murder, she says. Even Matt with his dark past is thinking this woman is cold.
Matt agrees, and Sweat also agrees, but they’re both playing her. Still, Matt goes to
the prison hospital and gets some pain medication for a nerve pain he has. He later passes them
on to Mitchell and tells her to keep them in her purse until the big night.
Week 82 It’s almost time and Sweat is just
about done with the steampipe. It’s thick and breaks a lot
of blades, but two pounds of hamburger meat stuffed with blades saves
the day again. Mitchell does the stuffing, but Palmer is the one who takes it out of
the freezer and walks it into the block without going through the metal detectors.
He has no idea what’s in the meat, though. The heat is now killing Sweat as he tries to
cut the exit hole at the other end of the pipe. He again puts his brilliant mind into action
and makes a ventilation system using the fan, a bunch of plastic bags, and a t-shirt. He fastens
all the bags together to make a tube and connects them with rubber bands to the fan. Hey presto,
he can now stay in the pipe for hours at a time. Week 84
Sweat pushes out the last bit of pipe. On the other side,
he walks for a while until he sees a manhole. He then cuts the chain it's locked with using
his hacksaw blades and pushes it out. It’s his first taste of freedom in years. Looking
over the street he sees the local school, and boy does he grin a wide grin. He
knows he’s at the intersection of Barker Street and Bouck Street, and he knows the
guards in the towers can’t see this area. It's four in the morning and he thinks right
then, man, I could just go now and have 90 minutes until they do the morning roll call,
but he puts an end to that thought and remembers he must stick to his word and get Matt out,
too. His loyalty might just be his downfall. When he gets back to his cell, even though he
doesn’t smoke, he lights a cigarette and uses a mirror to show Matt what he’s doing. Matt whispers
back, “Are you serious, are you kidding me, you made it through?” Sweat takes a drag and replies,
“No, dude, I made it out, twice, and I came back.” They decide they will go in the night. Sweat
writes one last letter to Mitchell. It says: “Tonight’s the night. Meet us at midnight. Park
your car at the manhole at the intersection of Barker Street and Bouck Street. Leave it running
but turn off the headlights. Get out of the car and pretend you’re on the phone. That way if
anyone sees you, they won’t become suspicious. See you soon my love. XOXOXO.
P.s. I can already see us swimming with manta rays.”
She doesn't know what a manta ray is, but it sounds exotic.
The question is, can they rely on her? Sweat doesn’t know that she’s been stressed of
late. A few days ago, there was a big fight in the prison, and it was looking like there’d be
a full lockdown. This always gets to people. But there was also an incident in the workshop when
a new officer turned up and actually did his job, meaning he told Mitchell not to get too close to
the prisoners, especially Matt. She huffed and puffed and slammed a few doors, and she did
wonder if the prison was somehow on to her. It got worse when the officer told her to get away
from Matt’s workstation, even though she told him there was no work to do right then.
This was harassment! She shouted at him, “Leave my freaking inmates alone. If they don’t
have any freaking work, they can’t do no work now, can they?” The officer shot back, “Ma’am, I am
security. We can’t be having this in the shop.” What a bully, she thought. How dare he!? She
kept quiet, though, knowing that any more trouble could get in the way of the guys escaping.
She couldn’t sleep for a few nights after that. Week 85
The last time she gets to talk with Matt, he tells her, “If
you’re not there, we’re dead, they’re going to kill us. You understand… they’re going to kill
us.” She nods her head like a chastised child. June 5, 2015. Hour 1, the day of the escape
The inmates on the honor block are surprised when Matt gives away his color TV. In
the next cell, Sweat puts all his things together in a guitar case: Clothes and new
boots, 20 packs of peanuts, 40 granola bars, and 12 sticks of pepperoni.” He doesn’t know yet,
but they’re going to need that food in a big way. Hour 23
The two leave through their holes. They follow the tunnels, and
on his way, Sweat leaves the smiley face note and another one with a picture of an alien. “Are You
Trying Me Punk?” he’s written on the picture. It’s stuck to a metal surface with a stolen magnet,
another kick in the teeth for the authorities. When they arrive at the steam pipe, Sweat enters
and makes it through easily. Matt gets stuck, so Sweat has to throw in a sheet and drag him
out. When Matt comes out of the other end, his pants are down. Sweat smiles and
says, “Oh, Matt, I didn’t know you cared.” It’s 11.50, a bit too early, but they get out
through the manhole anyway and wait on the road. Under his breath, Sweat says, “Shawshank ain’t got
nothing on me.” It’s true. This is better than any Shawshank escape. It’s the greatest escape
in US prison history, but it’s not over yet. Sweat knows that they don’t look too
sketchy standing there in the street, even if they are wearing prison-issue pants.
They have a guitar case and let’s face it, who escapes from prison with a guitar. They’re just
two guys who’ve been out playing with their band. Hour 24
Things then take a turn for the worse. Matt sees a car coming down
the street and he bolts into someone’s garden. Sweat just stands there, thinking why the hell is
he running. The driver sees Matt, gets out of his car, and shouts, “Hey, what are you freaking
scumbags doing in my yard?” Sweat replies, “Oh, man, I’m sorry. I apologize. We were just
cutting through. We were on the wrong street.” Thankfully, the guy seems to believe him, even
though there’s a prison just up the street. The guitar case must have worked. This guy will later
tell the cops, “Who escapes with a guitar case?” But Matt is wired as hell and every time
he thinks he hears a car, he bolts again. This is making Sweat very anxious. “Rick,”
he says, “Just act normal. We are normal. We’re civilians.” Matt has issues, mental health
issues, and inside the prison that hasn’t always been obvious to Sweat. Now they’re on the outside
he sees the desperation in Matt. He knows he’ll strike first and ask questions later if anyone
should even look like getting in their way. 24 Hours, 50 Minutes
(Why does Mitchell fail to turn up? And, who exactly are these two convicts
now free to do what they want on the outside?) They both curse under their breaths. Unbelievable.
She’s backed out. This is what love means to her, thinks Matt, who’s offended even though he’d
gladly cut her head off with a blunt knife. Where is she? What has happened?
Earlier that day, at 3.30 pm, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell clock off from work and head
home, stopping for something to eat on the way. In her purse are those pills. She’s panicking, and
all through dinner she can’t eat a thing. Lyle sits opposite, as always, concerned about her.
“Are you ok, Tilly,” he says. She ignores him, as she always does. When they are home, she
says she feels strange. It’s a feeling she’s never had before. She’s dizzy. Her
heart is beating faster. Something is wrong. “What’s happening to me!” she thinks.
It’s a panic attack, the first she’s had in her life. Lyle tells her to sleep it off, but when she
awakes at about 9 pm, it starts happening again. Lyle then drives her to the ER, and when the
guys are waiting on the street at midnight, she’s in a hospital bed. About 2 am, she tells
Lyle, “You go home. I’ll be ok here by myself.” In her mind, when he gets home, he’s going to
meet with two men with a history of violence. She believes they’re going to kill Lyle because that
is the plan. They’ll then take the car and drive away. The next morning, she’s surprised when Lyle
turns up at the hospital and says he’s taking her home. He gives her a big hug, and she looks over
his shoulder wondering what the hell is going on. Now we must explain something.
Two men are on the loose, and they will not go back to prison, never mind
what it takes to stay out. You need to know why they were in prison in the first place.
Both of them had horrid upbringings, but Matt’s was arguably worse. He was in and
out of foster homes as a child and when he did see his family it was often in an environment of
extreme violence. By the time he was a teenager, he was already stealing cars, taking drugs,
and beating people up, including women. He escaped from that children’s home, and later,
he escaped from jail. One time in jail, he agreed to kill another inmate’s wife and children,
for a price of course. That inmate turned out to be an informant, but if that plan had gone
through, Matt could have murdered innocent people. On December 3, 1997, Matt and another guy turned
up at the house of William Rickerson, Matt’s former employer. Rickerson ran a food brokerage
firm and Matt knew he always kept lots of cash. It was a cash business with hefty takings. Matt
needed some of the money, wanting to head to Canada where his stripper girlfriend was waiting.
The guy, getting on in age, had always liked Matt and had tried to help him any way he could. It was
this trust that helped Matt get into the house. He punched his frail body as soon as he walked
through the door and then started looking for the cash. Matt grew angrier when he couldn’t find
any, tying Rickerson’s guy’s hands and feet and beating him around the face. They then kidnapped
him and shoved him in the trunk of their car. They stopped the car on the highway and
opened the trunk. Matt punched Rickerson, stabbed him in the leg, and demanded to know where
the money was. The old guy said he had no money. He’d never had a safe or anything like that. After
27 hours of intermittent torture, Matt started to believe him. There was no money. But now Rickerson
would go and tell the cops and Matt would end up back in prison. Looking at Rickerson covered
in blood and bruises, Matt slammed the trunk. The next time he opened it he strangled him. He
pulled the dead body out of the trunk at the side of the road and covered it with sticks. Later,
Matt returned to the scene of the crime with a hacksaw, did the dismembering, and threw the bits
in the Niagara River. He then fled to Mexico, where he later stabbed an American engineer
while they were both in a bathroom. The guy died, and Matt got away with only a few dollars.
The Mexican cops later arrested Matt and in 2007 the Mexican government extradited him back
to the US. A report said he’d been a “difficult prisoner” and had tried to escape, getting shot a
few times doing so. The Mexicans didn’t want him. No one wanted to be near him. Even his own former
attorney in the US said, “Rick Matt was a fun but dangerous guy to hang around with.”
In court, Matt heard his parole was up in 2032, when, if he survived, he’d
be an old man. God, he hated prison. When a detective who’d known Matt all his
life heard that he had escaped from prison, he said, “It’s not a good feeling to know he’s
out there. Anything is possible with Rick Matt.” Sweat was not anywhere close to Matt in terms
of danger, but he too had been a troubled youth not afraid of using violence. He was always
known as the brains of the operation when he and others committed burglaries.
But he also got caught and like Matt, he did some prison time early
on in life. Then, on June 4, 2002, he and two other young guys were on their way
trying to deliver some firearms they’d stolen when a young Sheriff's Deputy pulled them over. This
man had a wife and two young children at home. A guy sleeping in his house nearby heard
three pops which startled him from his sleep. Soon after, he heard a car screeching. He put
on some clothes and went to see what was up. He found the young cop lying in the park on the
tarmac, his body horribly twisted from being run down by a car. As he lay on the floor, the car
had reversed over him. He still wasn’t dead, though. He pleaded for his life and cried
out that he had kids at home, and then one of the guys fired two bullets into his face.
Sweat later admitted in court that he had fired the first shots at the officer but not the two
that hit him in the face. He said that he only fired back because the officer had pulled
a gun on him first. Sweat hit him once, but it was just a nick. The court heard that
after that, the driver reversed over him. Sweat got out and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”,
only for the other kid to fire those bullets. The family of the victim wanted Sweat and
his friends executed but after a guilty plea, he got life behind bars. He always felt
bad about what had happened that night, but he also believed he didn’t deserve to grow
old in prison. His friends were crazy, not him. Sweat’s sentence was life without parole, so
the thought of escaping never left his mind. Day 2 after the escape
Mitchell is under suspicion soon after the police find the tunnel and
talk to prison officers and other inmates. Sweat and Matt are covering as many
miles as possible, sticking to the woods. Everyone is after them, the cops, the US
Marshalls, the FBI, the border cops, and the Rangers. A $75,000 reward is on their backs, but
people are told to approach with great caution. “I have no idea,” says Mitchell when the
state cops ask her if she knows where Matt and Sweat might be. They don’t know she’s
involved, but they have a good idea she is. The prison staff have already talked all
about her close relationship with the pair, and her habit of taking things in for them.
She pretends to be as shocked as anyone, saying at one point, “How the hell did they
get out of Clinton Correctional . . . Because I just – I’ve never heard of anybody getting
out of there. That’s why I just – I mean, how they – even Lyle said that, you know,
‘How did they escape out of there?’” She is as bad an actress as she is a wife. The
next day she cracks a little bit, saying ok, I might have brought some stuff in for them, but
I never knew what they were up to. She certainly doesn’t admit to planning to go with them and
have her husband killed. But as time goes on, she folds. She admits most of the story,
but not everything. The only ones who know the full story are the ones on the run.
On June 12, Mitchell is arrested on a felony charge of Promoting Prison Contraband
and misdemeanor Criminal Facilitation. Little by little, over many hours of interviews,
she talks more about what really happened. Days 4-10 Even with hundreds of people looking for them
and bloodhounds scouring the local forests, the pair manage to evade the authorities.
It’s believed they’re heading to Canada, but it could be Mexico, or they could
just be staying put. No one really knows. What is actually happening is they have found
a cabin in the woods that looks like it's not been used for a long time. There they get some
needed rest and some food, and they even find a 20-gauge shotgun. Sweat again thinks the angels
must be watching over him. He's vindicated in this respect again when he goes to the bathroom
and finds a loaded pistol hidden above the door. They find something else, too, but
at this Sweat is not impressed. That’s a big stash of booze that Matt soon starts
swigging down in enormous quantities. Sweat is trying to get them to freedom and it’s as if Matt
doesn’t care. He’s getting wasted like a teenager who’s found the key to the family booze cabinet.
Matt says he needs it. They’ve walked and run around 30 miles already. Both have blisters on
their feet and cuts and bruises on their bodies. When Sweat reprimands him, the much larger Matt
gives him a look that says, “I’ve killed people for less. Know your place little guy.” Yet again,
Sweat realizes that Matt is very unstable and he’s certainly not the type of man you’d want to
fight. He doesn’t dare say anything when Matt refuses to stop drinking the next day, or
even turn off the TV he’s always watching. Day 11-12
They can’t stay in the cabin forever, so they head off. Now though, Matt is half-baked
and he can’t keep up. When Sweat loses his temper, again there’s a threat of violence. Matt
still has the shotgun, and Sweat the pistol. It is around this time that Palmer is charged
with a bunch of felony crimes, all related to the things he has done for the guys. He will
resign from his job, spend six months in jail, and pay $5,000 in fines.
Day 20 They are both waiting at the side of a road
when Matt says he’s going to hold up a car with the rifle. Bad idea, thinks Sweat.
He pleads with him not to do it. It will attract unnecessary attention, and he also
knows that Matt will not think twice about killing someone. That’s not what Sweat wants.
Nonetheless, Matt waits in the woods close to the road with his gun, still drunk. Sweat shakes
his head. This will never work, he thinks, and so he runs… and he runs, and he runs, and he
runs. They’ve already covered 50 miles (80 km) but Sweat has the energy of an athlete after doing
what he did under the prison. As he’s taking off, a car has seen Matt and reported him to the cops.
Soon a U.S. Border Patrol Supervisory Agent is on the scene. Matt won’t run, and he won't go
back to prison. He stumbles forward with the gun and takes a bullet from the agent’s M-4
rifle. As the agent walks toward the body, he can smell the booze from yards away. Matt’s
blood alcohol level is 0.18%, a classification that comes with the words “mentally impaired.”
In his final moments, he might just remember those lines in the bible, “Whoever sheds
man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.” Day 22
Sweat has been running for so long. He’s exhausted, but now within 1.5
miles (2.4 km) of the US-Canada border. He can almost taste freedom, but then when crossing a
hayfield his luck finally runs out. He’s spotted by a state trooper, who just so happens to be a
firearms instructor. Sweat runs, and the officer shouts at him to stop while aiming his gun. He
doesn’t stop, and a second later he’s lying on the ground having taken bullets to the shoulder
and arm from a 45-caliber Glock 37 pistol. Sweat’s grim future
He will survive, and in time he’ll end up in a Special Housing Unit
in the maximum-security Five Points Correctional Facility. This is the place where he’ll write up a
very cogent escape plan and try and trade it with the prison. “This is how someone can escape,”
he’ll tell the warden. “Now I’ve told you that, can I please see my new girlfriend.”
That didn’t work out for him, and he was moved to another prison. In 2022, he went on
hunger strike against the terrible conditions he was being kept in. A judge ruled that the state
could force-feed him after being restrained, and drug him if necessary. That’s what you get for
embarrassing the powers that be and costing the state $23 million.. Sweat remains in prison today,
and he’ll be fully locked down for years to come. Years after the escape: The lovebirds
Lastly, what about Mrs. Mitchell and her dear husband Lyle?
She has always denied wanting her husband killed, but the evidence shows otherwise.
An official 142-page report states, “Despite her claims to the contrary, Mitchell took steps
consistent with a plan to murder Lyle Mitchell.” The report says she admitted she took the
pills from Matt, but in one interview she said she’d forgotten about them, and in a
separate interview, she said she had flushed them down the toilet. One time she said
she had never even been given any pills. That’s not what Sweat said. It’s in his version
of events where we get much of the other story. Mr. Mitchell has always stood by his wife’s
side, despite the criticism he’s taken for that. In an interview, he said, “Do I still love
her? Yes. Am I mad? Yes… All I want is for my wife to be coming home…She would never have
gone through with it…That’s what she told me, and that she really loved me.”
Now that’s a dedicated husband… or an abused one lacking in confidence.
Mitchell was sentenced to 2⅓ to 7 years in state prison. The report states, “She
was ordered to pay restitution of $79,841 and a 10 percent surcharge to the state
for costs relating to the repair of the walls in Matt’s and Sweat’s cells
and pipes and walls in the tunnels.” She got out in 2020. Soon after she found herself
getting takeout food with Lyle. It was just like the old days. In the truck, she looked at Lyle
and his familiar bucktoothed smile. The glitch wasn't so bad. A quiet life wasn't so awful.
Now have a look at some other escapes in “The Most Insane Ways Men Escaped
from Prison.” Or, have a look at…
