The two convicts who escaped from a maximum-security prison in upstate New York on June 6 made a "dry run" of their plan the night before their brazen breakout, officials said.
David Sweat, who was recaptured on Sunday, told police that he and Richard Matt made their way through an underground utility tunnel that linked Clinton Correctional Facility to Dannemora. The men peeked through a manhole, decided that the exit was too close to residences, and turned back.
"To make a dry run and ... have the ability to escape, and then go back in, it is a little baffling," Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie told NBC News.
They would escape early the following morning through a more isolated manhole, setting off a three-week manhunt involving hundreds of officers from state, local and federal law enforcement. The search for the men ended when state police apprehended Sweat near the Canadian border, two days after border patrol agents shot Matt dead.
Sweat is recovering at a hospital after being wounded by a state trooper during his arrest. Analyst Lisa Bloom told NBC News that Sweat is sharing the details of the escape in an effort to keep himself out of solitary confinement once he's returned to prison. Before the escape, he and Matt lived in Clinton Correctional's honor block and enjoyed numerous privileges.
"Gone are going to be the television, the hot plate, the working in the tailor shop," Bloom told NBC News. "Those privileges, if he wants to get any of those back, if he wants to get out of administrative segregation -- solitary confinement -- he has a little bit to work with there in terms of bargaining."
He is portraying himself as the mastermind behind the escape plan, and told police that he and Matt were planning the escape since January and originally intended to flee to Mexico. Those plans changed when their intended getaway driver, prison employee Joyce Mitchell, didn't show up at their rendezvous.
"They would have killed Mitchell's husband and then get in the car and drive to Mexico on the theory that Mitchell was in love with one or both of them, and then they would go live happily ever after," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told WCNY's Capitol Pressroom radio program Monday.
Mitchell told investigators that she had a last-minute change of heart. She has been charged with aiding the prisoners in their escape. Prosecutors say she provided Matt and Sweat tools such as hacksaw blades and chisels, which allowed them to cut their way through the utility tunnel to the outside.
The prison's superintendent and 11 other officials have been put on leave in the wake of the escape.
Correction: A previous version of this article misreported the date of the prisoners' escape.
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