Prison worker’s family complains of media ‘madness’
DANNEMORA, N.Y. – The daughter-in-law of the prison employee under scrutiny by investigators seeking killers who escaped from the maximum security unit said Wednesday the family is being hounded by the news media.
“It’s just been madness, absolute craziness,” said Paige Mitchell. “Just because the news mentions something doesn’t mean it is factual.”
The comment referred to national reports that her mother-in-law, Joyce Mitchell, a training supervisor at the prison tailor shop, had befriended the killers and may have had a role in their escape five days ago from New York’s largest prison in this far northeast corner of the state.
Paige Mitchell said she would be shocked if her mother-in-law was involved in any way in the daring breakout. She said several workers at the prison have been interviewed by investigators but only Joyce Mitchell has been singled out in news reports.
“The news media need to leave it to the police and let them do their job,” she said.
The intensive search for the escaped murderers – David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48 – spread into neighboring Vermont on Wednesday after investigators learned the pair had talked before their escape about sparsely-populated Vermont offering a safer escape route due to fewer law officers and resources.
The information was released by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin at a news conference. They did not disclose where the information came from.
“New York was going to be hot,” said Shumlin. “Vermont would be cooler in terms of law enforcement.”
The escapees were found missing from their decoy-padded cell beds Saturday at 5:30 a.m. They were last accounted for in person at a stand-up inspection at 10:30 p.m. Friday.
The killers cut through a steel cell wall, climbed down to the bowels of the prison through a maze of pipes, cut through a brick wall leading to an outside drain pipe, and then cut a hole in the pipe and crawled through it to a manhole a block outside the prison. They emerged there after cutting a chain and lock off the inside of the manhole cover.
Sweat was serving life without parole for killing a sheriff’s deputy; Matt was serving 25 years to life for the brutal 1997 murder and dismemberment of a former boss.
When asked if her mother-in-law had ever mentioned Matt or Sweat or any other inmates under her supervision, Paige Mitchell replied: “Absolutely no way. She goes to work, she leaves her problems at work, she comes home, and she just does her own thing. She doesn’t get too involved.”
Details for this story were provided by the Plattsburgh, New York, Press-Republican