To catch a prisoner: Border Patrol reveals details of Richard Matt capture
Special agents descended on escaped convict Richard Matt from a helicopter, according to a statement released by Border Patrol on Thursday.
A helicopter flies over a building at Titus Mountain in Malone, N.Y., the current operations command post Friday night, June 26, 2015, after escaped prisoner Richard Matt was shot.
Jason Hunter/The Watertown Daily Times/AP
Armed US Border Patrol special agents were helicoptered in to the position of Richard Matt, one of the prisoners who escaped from a maximum-security prison in New York.
One of the agents then found Mr. Matt hiding behind a tree and shot him to death when he tried to raise his shotgun, according to a border patrol statement.
Law enforcement were first alerted to the area near Malone, N.Y., when the driver of a recreational vehicle called emergency services when he realized his camper had been shot, CNN reported.
Matt’s estranged son and his son’s mother have claimed the body and plan to transport it back to the Buffalo, N.Y., area for a private funeral, CBS News reported.
Fellow escapee David Sweat was caught two days later after a law enforcement official spotted him less than two miles from the Canadian border, shooting him twice in the torso, before apprehending him. He was caught 15 miles away from the position where Matt was found.
Mr. Sweat’s statements to police give some insight into why the two criminals were separated.
According to the New York Daily News, Sweat told authorities that his fellow escapee was too busy drinking alcohol and moving too slowly so he left him behind.
CNN reported that law enforcement officials could smell alcohol on the body of Matt.
The two prisoners escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility on June 6, sparking off a massive three-week manhunt that had more than 1,000 personnel in upstate New York looking for the them.
Since the escape two prison employees have been charged with aiding the escape of the two convicted murderers by passing tools to them in frozen meat.
Matt and Sweat used the tools to cut through the walls of their cells and escaped by navigating through a series of tunnels and pipes, breaking down a brick wall, and making their way out of a manhole outside the prison grounds.
In the aftermath of the escape, prison officials have instituted a number of additional security measures including stepped-up searches of inmates' cells, staffing changes to ensure bed checks are more effective, and installation of security gates in the facility's tunnels.