[Breaking news alert, posted at 8:21 p.m. ET Tuesday]
Prison tailor Joyce Mitchell told her husband about two convicted murderers’ plans to break out of the facility and warned him that his life could be in danger, a source with direct knowledge of the investigation told CNN. An attorney for Mitchell’s husband, Lyle, denied that the husband knew anything about the escape plan.
Joyce Mitchell began having a sexual relationship with escapee Richard Matt in 2013, the source said. The sexual relationship took place at the tailor shop in the Clinton Correctional Facility, the only known place the two were ever together, the source said.
Investigators are looking into whether other inmates may have helped create some type of diversion before, during or after Matt and David Sweat escaped from the prison, the source said.
[Previous story, posted at 7:30 p.m. ET Tuesday]
With few clues pointing toward where two murderers went after they escaped from a New York prison, investigators are changing tack.
It’s day 11 of the search, and now the area hundreds of law enforcement officers are combing is expanding, New York State Police said Tuesday evening.
Teams will be redeployed to new areas near the prison in Dannemora, New York, police said, saying the shifting search zone was based on information uncovered so far in the hunt for the fugitives.
More than 800 local, state and federal officers are popping open trunks, peering into cars and scouring heavily wooded areas. Canine units are also still searching for a scent that might lead police to Richard Matt and David Sweat, who escaped from a maximum-security facility known as “Little Siberia” in upstate New York on June 6.
Motion detectors and cameras have been placed in the woods, and an airplane able to fly at high altitude and detect movements on the ground is aiding in the search, a New York state official said. But despite promising leads, the official said, the search has gone cold.
Authorities are also offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the escaped inmates’ arrests.
It’s not clear how much has been spent, but judging from the boots on the ground, it can’t be cheap.
Police have developed 1,200 leads, according to New York State Police. But so far it’s not clear whether any of them will pan out. Authorities have said the killers could be anywhere — in Vermont, Mexico or still be in the woods near the prison.
Despite promising leads last week — including an abandoned campfire, human tracks and a bloodhound picking up a possible scent — hopes of finding Matt and Sweat anytime soon appear to be on the wane, the state official said.
Accused prison worker gets visit
Joyce Mitchell, a prison employee, sits in jail while Matt and Sweat, whose escape she is accused of assisting, remain on the run.
While solid information about the killers’ whereabouts seems to be lacking, more details are coming to light about Mitchell’s relationships with them and the escape plot, which one official says could have taken a deadly turn.
Mitchell’s husband, Lyle, visited her in prison Tuesday morning.
Authorities announced after the escape that the husband, too, was under investigation. In recent days, however, sources have told CNN that Joyce Mitchell had relationships with Matt and Sweat — and the relationship with at least one of the men was sexual — and Matt and Sweat had intended to kill Lyle Mitchell upon their escape.
Lyle Mitchell was his wife’s first visitor, and he spent an hour with her. The pair were separated by glass and spoke over a phone in a private, unmonitored conversation, Favro said. Lyle Mitchell was supportive, and his wife seemed comforted by his visit, the sheriff said.
Joyce Mitchell’s attorney, Stephen Johnston, said he did not know what the two talked about.
“All I know is that he said that he is standing by her, so that’s what he told me when I spoke to him,” the attorney told reporters.
Asked about his client’s state of mind, he said, “She is distraught, very weepy and very upset.”
Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie has not commented much on the husband, other than to say he’s under investigation, but he told CNN on Tuesday that Lyle Mitchell had hired attorney Peter Dumas.
Was husband marked man?
Joyce Mitchell, a prison tailor, is accused of sneaking hacksaw blades, chisels, drill bits, a punch and other contraband into the two convicts’ hands. She has pleaded not guilty to the two charges brought against her but has been talking to investigators.
Matt and Sweat had a plan to kill Mitchell’s husband, who worked in the same tailoring block as his wife, a source with detailed knowledge of the investigation said.
It’s unclear why, when they intended to do it and how much Joyce Mitchell actually knew about that plan, but Johnston told reporters that he thought the allegation was likely bogus.
“I don’t know very much about it other than I believe it’s a specious plan, a specious argument,” he said. “The problem is I’ve been involved in this since yesterday morning and law enforcement has been interviewing her and interviewing a lot of other witnesses for many, many days.”
Investigators are looking into whether the two inmates threatened Mitchell to force her to help in the escape, the New York state official told CNN. Investigators believe Mitchell began getting cold feet about executing the plan but possibly had agreed to be the getaway driver because of threats to her and her husband, the official said.
Favro says his gut instinct tells him Mitchell wasn’t the convicts’ main getaway plan, because she “would have been baggage to them.”
“She was the backup plan, not the front plan,” he told CNN.
Relationships under scrutiny
Mitchell was having a sexual relationship with Matt, the source with detailed knowledge of the investigation said.
She’d also been investigated in the past for an inappropriate relationship with Sweat that led corrections officials to move him out of the tailor shop and keep them separated, said Wylie, the district attorney.
Mitchell told authorities that the two inmates picked a destination for their getaway, but that they did not give her any specifics.
“That was the information that she was told by Matt and Sweat — that it was about seven hours away,” Wylie said.
It’s not clear if Mitchell has shared everything she knows, the prosecutor said.
“It’s apparent that she’s trying to be as truthful as possible, but in any of these investigations, we always find out that potentially somebody continues to hold things back for one reason or another, and that may be the case here,” he said.
At this point, investigators can’t say for sure whether anybody else was involved, Wylie said.
Mitchell has been in jail since last week and will remain there unless she posts a $220,000 bond or $110,000 in cash. If convicted, she could face up to eight years behind bars.