It's been 10 years since two inmates escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, setting off a three-week manhunt for two convicted killers around and beyond a shaken North Country.
Spectrum News 1 returns to the prison in northern New York where it began, with "Escape from Dannemora: Retold a Decade Later."
Reporter Brian Dwyer, who reported from the village during those three emotional weeks during 2015, will host the 30-minute special. It airs at 9 p.m. Thursday.
By January 2015, Richard Matt and David Sweat had decided they wanted out of Clinton Correctional and began making plans to escape. With the help of prison tailor shop employee Joyce Mitchell, they carved their way through the hidden tunnels of the prison, emerging from a manhole cover over a nearby street.
Mitchell was supposed to be the getaway driver and meet them there, but she never showed up, leaving Sweat and Matt to take off on foot.
"Escape From Dannemora" takes viewers through the escape, the manhunt, including the heavy police presence, roadblocks and searches, and interviews locals about their memories from the time. It divulges new details and includes two exclusive television interviews – one with Ted Levison, the investigator who interviewed Sweat after he was captured, and one with Jay Cook, the state trooper who ended it all.
“It happened very, very fast. I mean, I didn't have a whole lot of time to think after I realized it was him. I was out of the car. I'm trying to get on my portable to tell people where I am and what I got going on, and he's running down through the field and I'm chasing him. And yeah, that happened fast,” he said.
The coverage also captures the fallout from the prison escape, and where those involved are today.