Cabin lead shifts hunt for New York prison escapees upstate
The focus of an intense manhunt for two escaped murderers on the lam for more than two weeks has shifted back to upstate New York, with police saying Monday that Richard Matt and David Sweat may have spent time in a cabin about 20 miles from the maximum-security prison they fled.
A reported burglary near the Franklin County hamlet of Owl’s Head, about 20 miles from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, has led police to refocus search efforts there, New York State Police Maj. Charles Guess said in a news conference Monday.
Guess said authorities were not ready to release information about possible DNA evidence linking Matt and Sweat to the burglary.
“We have recovered specific items from that cabin. We have forwarded them to the appropriate labs. We have come to a conclusive determination, but we are not prepared to release that information,” Guess told reporters. He would not elaborate on what was found at the cabin, citing the ongoing investigation.
“This is a confirmed lead for us,” Guess said. “We’re going to run this to the ground.”
Matt, 48, and Sweat, 35, were discovered missing June 6 from the prison in Dannemora, near the Canadian border.
Over the weekend, law enforcement officials had swarmed New York’s Allegany County, near the Pennsylvania border – more than 300 miles away from the prison – after receiving a tip from someone who reported seeing two men on a railroad track in the town of Friendship who looked like Matt and Sweat.
Other sightings of the pair had been reported that week in neighboring Steuben County, according to New York State Police spokesman Beau Duffy.
“We responded immediately, interviewed the witness and determined it was a credible lead,” Duffy said of the reported Allegany County sighting. But after about 24 hours, the search in the area had wound down and police say they have not confirmed that the sightings in the area were of the escapees.
Guess declared the area in Allegany County cleared Monday, and said the primary focus of the search was now centered in Franklin County.