Second N.Y. prison escapee caught near Canadian border

MALONE, N.Y. — Prison escapee David Sweat was taken into custody Sunday afternoon, ending a massive, three-week manhunt for two convicted murderers, law enforcement authorities said.

New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico said a veteran officer, Sgt. Jay Cook, encountered Sweat during a routine patrol Sunday afternoon. "As he was driving down the road, he spotted a male who was basically jogging" down the road, D'Amico said. "He recognized him to be David Sweat."

Cook stopped to question him, D'Amico said, and Sweat broke into a run across a field. Cook realized that he risked losing him in a line of trees and fired two shots from his service weapon. Sweat was unarmed at the time, D'Amico said.

He called the arrest "good, heads-up work" by Cook, a 21-year veteran. "I think he did a very courageous and brave act of policing."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the arrest took place in Constable, N.Y., just miles from the Canadian border.

"The nightmare is finally over," Cuomo said.

Police took Sweat to Alice Hyde Medical Center in nearby Malone, transferring him later to Albany Medical Center. The hospital's medical director, Dr. Dennis McKenna, later said Sweat was in critical condition and under the evaluation of specialists there. McKenna said late Sunday that it was still too early to say whether Sweat would undergo surgery for his wounds.

Earlier Sunday, D'Amico said state police investigators had yet to interview Sweat.

Fellow escapee Richard Matt was killed Friday by law enforcement. State police said Sunday that Matt was killed by three shots to the head from a semi-automatic weapon fired by a federal border officer.

Sweat and Matt escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., on June 6.

Matt's autopsy, conducted Saturday at the Albany Medical Center, concluded that the 49-year-old died from "severe skull fractures and brain injuries due to gunshot wounds to the head."

Matt also had suffered "bug bites on the lower extremities, blisters, and minor abrasions consistent with living in the woods for three weeks."

Toxicology results are pending. Authorities reported Matt may have been intoxicated when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Tactical Unit member flushed out the fugitive near a cabin he had fled in the town of Duane.

Matt apparently gave himself away by a cough. The officer fired "several rounds" after Matt did not obey an order to put his hands up and drop his weapon, the State Police said. A stolen 20-gauge shotgun was found beside Matt's body.

Originally from Tonawanda, north of Buffalo, it was not immediately known when or where Matt would be buried or cremated.

Matt was serving a 25-years-to-life sentence for the 1997 kidnapping, torture, killing and hacksaw dismemberment of his boss when he and Sweat cut their way out of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff's deputy.

The elaborate breakout was the first at the maximum-security prison in 150 years. Matt had escaped prison before and had served time in a Mexican jail for another killing after he fled the country.

He once vowed never to be taken alive.

More than 1,300 state, federal and local officers were involved in the search, which included tactical, K-9 and aviation units, the State Police said. The Plattsburgh Press-Republican reported on Sunday that local residents gathered outside the prison cheered law enforcement personnel as they drove by.

Major Charles Guess, Troop B commander of the New York State Police, said evidence found Friday prompted officers to concentrate their search north and west of Malone.

Searchers closed in on the pair after receiving a 911 call from a woman who heard someone knock on her door early Friday, said U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, who was briefed by Border and Customs Protection officials and the U.S. Marshals Service.

"She didn't answer the door, but she called the police," he said, according to the Associated Press. "They brought the dogs, and they got a scent. They followed that scent and put out a lot of troops around the cabin. They came upon him and found him and killed him."

Photos: Major prison escapes

Prison guard Gene Palmer, a 27-year-veteran who worked on the "honor" cellblock where the killers were housed, has been arrested on charges of promoting prison contraband, tampering with evidence and official misconduct in connection with the escape.

He told investigators he did favors for the prisoners — including giving them pliers and a screwdriver and allowing them into the rear catwalk — in exchange for paintings by Matt and information on illegal activity by other inmates.

Matt and Sweat escaped by cutting through a metal wall and some pipes and tunnels, then crawling from a manhole outside prison walls.

Contributing: Philip Tortora, Burlington Free Press, and The Associated Press