New York prison break ends with shooting of 2nd fugitive

AUDACIOUS BREAK-OUT

In their audacious break-out, the pair cut through cell walls, climbed along a catwalk, shimmied through a steam pipe and emerged from a manhole outside prison walls, authorities said.

Matt, 49, was shot and killed on Friday near Malone, about 27 miles (43 km) northwest of the maximum-security prison, by a member of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection tactical unit.

Autopsy results released earlier on Sunday showed he was shot three times in the head and died of severe skull fractures and brain injuries.

Matt also had bug bites, blisters and minor abrasions "consistent with living in the woods for three weeks," the New York State Police said in a statement.

The manhunt for the pair had scoured a remote, heavily wooded area where law enforcement agents worked around the clock in scorching weather and driving rain using infrared devices and listening posts.

The New York Daily News published on Sunday what it said was an exclusive photograph of the pair walking in sunlit woods, taken by a trail camera, while they were on the run on Wednesday. In the picture, one of them appears to be holding a shotgun or rifle.

Sweat's DNA had been found on a pepper shaker, about a mile from where Matt was shot, in an effort to throw tracking dogs off the scent, D'Amico said.

Sweat had been serving a life sentence without parole in 2003 for killing a New York sheriff's deputy.

Matt was convicted in the 1997 torture, murder and dismemberment of his boss in Tonawanda, New York. After he apparently fired a shot at a passing motorist on Friday, officers spotted and confronted him outside a cabin.

He was shot and killed after he refused to comply with orders to put down a shotgun he was holding, police said.

The Buffalo News has reported that Matt, who turned 49 the day before, may have been intoxicated, citing the owner of a burglarized cabin who said he had found empty liquor bottles.

Police said toxicology results were pending.

Two prison workers have been charged with aiding in the escape. Gene Palmer, a 57-year-old corrections officer, is accused of bringing hacksaw blades and a screwdriver bit to the inmates, hidden in frozen hamburger meat supplied by Joyce Mitchell, 51, a training supervisor in the prison tailor shop.