Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY on June 6th today is June 24th and they are still on the run.
The New York Post reported that the escapees were housed in the lax 'Honor Block' area at Clinton.One of their privileges in that wing includes being allowed to wear civilian clothes - which will have given them an undoubted advantage in their escape attempt. Meanwhile, sources speaking to CBS News said that Matt and Sweat were known in the prison for spending a lot of time in each other's company, and would regularly take meals together. A profile for a Joyce Mitchell on Facebook lists her job as industrial training supervisor at Clinton Correctional Facility.
Richard Matt's former fiancée, a step-brother and co-defendant took turns at Matt's trial providing details of the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of Matt's 76-year-old former boss, whose body was found in pieces in the Niagara River.
Seven of the 12 jurors who in 2008 convicted Matt in Rickerson's murder returned to the courtroom to watch the sentencing. After nearly four weeks of testimony, they'd convicted him in four hours.
"Of all the cases I've tried this would top my list for the death penalty," prosecutor Joseph Mordino, whose experience at the time included more than 250 homicide cases, would tell a Niagara County judge.
Matt's sentence of 25 years to life in prison was the maximum for second-degree murder.
David Sweat was one of three men arrested after 36-year-old Deputy Kevin Tarsia of the Broome County Sheriff's Office was killed on the Fourth of July in 2002 in the town of Kirkwood, near the New York-Pennsylvania border.
Tarsia, a 13-year veteran, was shot 15 times and then run over with a vehicle after discovering the trio transferring stolen guns between vehicles in a park near his home. The suspects had stolen the guns after ramming the front door of a Pennsylvania fireworks store with a pick-up truck.
Tarsia was wounded in the stomach before being run over. While Tarsia lay dying, Sweat and co-defendant Jeffrey Nabinger went through his police car and his clothes and took the deputy's .40-caliber Glock handgun. Authorities say Tarsia was then killed with two shots, point-blank, to the face.
Sweat and Nabinger, who are cousins, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2003 to avoid the death penalty, instead receiving a sentence of life in prison without parole.
So here are two convicted murders, housed in an Honor Block" area with privileges - in a State Prison. Is this the punishment for murder?
There are too many questions - and so far not many answers. Will the prison system now be looked into for more discrepancies or will it stay the same?
