NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. -- When retired North Tonawanda police chief of detectives Gabriel DiBernardo heard Richard Matt was one of two men who had escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora last month, he was very worried.
"Yes, I put weapons on every floor, I secured my house. I have an alarm system, yes I alarmed my house, we were very concerned. With Richard Matt anything is possible anything," DiBernardo said.
DiBernardo first encountered Matt more than 17 years ago while he was investigating the kidnapping, robbery and subsequent murder of North Tonawanda businessman William Rickerson.
Matt was wanted in connection with the incident but fled to Mexico, where he was later jailed on another murder charge, before being brought back to Niagara County to stand trial that would eventually lead him to Dannemora.
"Evil, sadistic individual," he said.
DiBernardo said Matt has had a long violent, criminal history and has been in trouble with the law from a very early age.
"He was arrested for assault, he was arrested for raping. So he's a rapist, he's a killer, you name it, he's all the things you can imagine," he said.
DiBernardo said it's hard from to imagine how Matt and David Sweat broke out of Dannemora in the first place.
"The two of them certainly couldn't break out without help, and how they got this help, it's still mind boggling how they broke out of that maximum security prison," he said.
Or why the two were kept in an honor block.
"There's no honor among killers, there shouldn't be such a thing," DiBernardo said.
Matt was eventually killed three weeks into the escape.
It's a killing DiBernardo described as true justice for the brutal Rickerson murder back in the late 90s.
"It took 17 years and it took a bullet, OK, it took a bullet to finally serve justice," he said.