How 2nd New York Escapee Was Found, Shot And Captured

David Sweat, a cop-killer on the run for more than three weeks after escaping from a New York maximum-security prison with a fellow inmate, was shot Sunday by a state trooper and taken into custody less than two miles from the Canadian border, according to the New York State Police. He was reported in stable condition.

“The nightmare is finally over,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a news conference. “These were really dangerous, dangerous men.”

The shooting came two days after Richard Matt, the man who escaped with Sweat, was killed in Malone, NY, where the news conference was held. The two had been missing since June 6, when they disappeared in an elaborate escape that Cuomo described as “too overdone” for a movie plot.

The men escaped, authorities say, by convincing prison workers to deliver a hacksaw in frozen hamburger, and then by their ability to cut through brick walls and into sewage tunnels before emerging from a manhole cover outside the prison grounds. Add to that a new detail the governor disclosed Sunday: they used pepper shakers to throw off the bloodhounds trying to track them.

After Sunday’s shooting, CNN showed a photograph of Sweat sitting upright with police surrounding him. He appeared to be wearing camouflage overalls, a shirt and a hooded jacket. He was muddy and wet, and appeared slightly bloodied, and he looked nearly clean-shaven except for a mustache.

Matt, 49, was shot and killed by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection tactical team near Lake Titus in the town Malone, about 40 miles west of the Clinton Correctional Facility, the prison from which the two had fled. State police reported that Matt was shot three times in the head.

RELATED:

• New York State Police report on Matt autopsy
• Leaders, Security Staff Suspended at Clinton in Escape Aftermath

An intense manhunt for Sweat, 35, continued over the weekend with some 1,300 officers involved, including helicopter patrols and K-9 teams. Officers patrolled in rain gear as residents in the border town stayed mostly inside, and a 22-square-mile perimeter was established around almost exclusively rough terrain, boxing him in.

Sweat’s ultimate downfall came when he was seen Sunday jogging down a road in Constable at about 3:20 p.m. by Sgt. Jay Cook, a 21-year veteran of the New York State Police who spent his career in the area and was stationed alone at the time, said Joseph D’Amico, the state police superintendent.

Cook yelled from his vehicle for the man to stop, the superintendent said, and when Sweat angled into a nearby field and fled, the sergeant jumped to the road, into the slippery grass and chased him on foot.

As the escapee was heading toward a tree line, the sergeant, a firearms instructor, fired twice, hitting Sweat both times, D’Amico said.

“I can only assume he was going for the border, that he was that close,” D’Amico said.

Sweat was airlifted to Alice Hyde Medical Center on Sunday and was being moved by ambulance to Albany Medical Center for further treatment, D’Amico said.

There were no reports of injured law officers.

Matt was serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the murder of a man he beat and dismembered in December 1997. Sweat killed a Broome County sheriff’s deputy in July 2002 and was serving a sentence of life without parole.

Cuomo said the investigation into the escape would continue.

“Now that we have Mr. Sweat, it gives us the opportunity to have some more questions and provide more facts on the overall situation,” he said. “Anyone who we find who was culpable and guilty of cooperating in the escape will be fully prosecuted.”

• Also See: How First NY Escapee Was Shot and Killed
• Corrections Officer Arrested in Clinton Killers’ Escape
• Prison Worker Helped Upstate Escapees: Police

This is a developing story. Refresh this page for updates as they come in.

Image 1 Credit: Alex Rose, Ambulance coming out of the area in Constable, NY

Image 2 Credit: Zach Hirsch of North Country Public Radio, Scene in Constable, NY