08-06-2025
The Escape at Dannemora: 10 Years Later
DANNEMORA, NY (WVNY/WFFF)
It's been 10 years since the notorious Dannemora prison break that thrust the North Country into the national spotlight.
Most of the world doesn't know the small town of Dannemora, New York, home to Clinton Correctional Facility, even exists.
On the morning of June 6, 2015, that changed.
Charlie Lawfer was a corrections officer at Clinton Correctional, at the time.
'I was working the midnight shift; I was C block. (It was) just a normal night, you know. Me and my partner, Josh. Nothing crazy happened all night, said Lawer, now a Sheriff's deputy in Manatee County, Florida. 'At about 5:30, I think, in the morning, somewhere around there, a sergeant came in, said we had to do a standing live count, which is rare because this doesn't happen. He said there was an escape.
Two convicted murderers were missing from their cells.
Clinton County Sheriff, David Favro, recalls that morning, 'Getting that call at 7 o'clock in the morning was surreal. It's like, 'No, they just miscounted, they're in the kitchen, they're doing a duty somewhere. They're not out there in the community.'
Lawfer said it became an all hands-on deck situation at the prison, as officers scrambled to locate the two men.
'We figured they wouldn't be too far Honestly; I figured we'd find them within an hour. Before that I never thought in a million years that anybody would escape from that prison,' said Lawfer
According to then governor, Andrew Cuomo, nobody ever had escaped from Dannemora's maximum security portion of the prison.
'The facility opened in 1865, so this is quite an unusual occurrence,' said Cuomo.
Richard Matt, 48, was serving 25-years-to-life for kidnapping and beating a man to death, in 1997. David Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence for killing a Broome County sheriff's deputy, in 2002. Both men had, in fact, tunneled their way out of their cells, through steel walls, steam pipes, and eventually through the drainage system, to a manhole cover, just a few blocks away from the prison.
As the day developed, it became clear that this was not just some little thing. This was two really scary dudes who had broken out of the maximum-security prison,' said Television News Anchor, George Mallet.
All of a sudden, Dannemora, New York was in the world's spotlight.
'Everyone converged onto Plattsburgh and the North Country. You couldn't drive down the street without seeing a media truck, or police or checkpoints. They were everywhere ,' said Freelance Journalist, Heather Van Arsdel, Freelance Journalist. 'They were everywhere, and there were satellite trucks almost permanently placed at the courthouses.
With all the world watching, the folks in our other quiet community were now in unfamiliar territory.
'There were a lot of people that were scared in the community. Several of them called us up, especially elderly women that had firearms in the house, their husbands had recently passed and said 'I have this shot gun or I have a handgun. I don't know how to load it. I don't know how to use it. Could you send someone up to show me?' said Favro.
People were really scared, and honestly, I don't blame them. If you look at the back story on the two guys, both murderers, both really bad guys, and now they're running around in the North Country,' said Lawfer. 'If people weren't scared, then they were misinformed and they should've been scared'
'It was absolutely terrifying for the residents, especially if you lived near the prison, which are a lot of rural houses, and somebody's back yard might have 10 acres of woods behind them. They were absolutely terrified, and they had every right to be,' said Van Arsdel.
For 20 days, more than 1,000 law enforcement officials, from all over the state, followed lead after lead, combed countless acres of land, checked thousands of cars at checkpoints, tirelessly searching for any clues in the case.
A big break occurred on June 26 when Richard Matt was found just outside of Malone. A shooting took place with police, which lead to his death.
Two days later, a chance encounter between David Sweat and then NYS Police Trooper, Jay Cook.
((***SOT***))(JAY COOK – FRANKLIN COUNTY SHERIFF, RETIRED NEW YORK STATE TROOPER)
'I was patrolling on Covey Town Road and I saw a suspect walking down a stone wall in an alfalfa field when it was raining out,' said Cook.
Cook said he knew something wasn't right, so he initiated contact.
'He ended up taking his hood down and showing me his face, probably trying to bluff me or whatever, and that's when I realized it was actually him,' said Cook.
Within seconds, Sweat took off. Cook followed on foot, commanding Sweat to stop or he would shoot.
'Stop or I'm going to shoot. He didn't stop , so that's what ended it,' said Cook. 'He went down and we got him in custody and got him medical care. That's how quickly it happened, just like that.'
Just like that, the weeks-long manhunt came to an end. Miraculously, no civilian or law enforcement officers were injured.
As hundreds of police, investigators and officials hit the road back to their home communities, local focus turned to those charged with helping the inmates escape.
Ultimately, Joyce Mitchell, the prison taylor shop worker that was charged with smuggling tools into the prison for Matt and Sweat's escape served just over 4 years of her 3 to 7 year sentence. She was released in 202 and is said to still be living in Dickinson Center with her husband, Lyle.
Corrections Officer Gene Palmer, also charged with helping Matt and Sweat, served 4 months of his six-month sentence and was released in 2016.
Reports show David Sweat is behind bars at Mid-State Correctional Facility, serving out a life sentence.
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