A major manhunt for two dangerous murderers who made a surprise and “sophisticated” jailbreak this weekend from a maximum security prison in upstate New York is currently underway.
Escaped convict Richard Matt, 48, is serving a sentence of 25-years to life on three counts of murder, kidnapping and robbery at the Clinton Correctional Facility some 40 miles south of the Canadian border.
Matt is roughly 6-feet tall and 210 pounds with black hair and sports a "Mexico Forever" tattoo.
His younger and thinner cohort David Sweat, 34, is facing life without parole for the murder of a deputy. He stands about 6-feet tall but weighs in at only 165 pounds, and has brown hair with tattoos on his right fingers and left bicep.
Investigators say the two, who were in neighboring cells, methodically cut a hole in an adjoining wall with smuggled power tools, then stuffed their cots to make it seem they were still sleeping in them and crawled out onto a catwalk together.
Thereafter, they used that same technique to drill through a metal wall that leads to a maze of underground tunnels beneath the prison complex and, ultimately, out a covered manhole in the street nearby.
Guards at Clinton Correctional discovered the deadly pair of killers missing from their cells while performing morning bed checks -- both fugitives are considered extremely dangerous and the public is urged “not to approach” if sighted.
"These are not people to be trifled with," New York governor Andrew Cuomo strenuously warned.
