A convicted killer who escaped this month from a New York state prison was fatally shot Friday by police.
U.S. media reports said that law enforcement officers killed Richard Matt in a wooded area about 30 miles from the prison, and that police were pursuing his fellow escapee, David Sweat, in upstate New York.
Matt and Sweat escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, near the Canadian border, on June 6. More than 1,000 U.S. agents were tasked with finding the inmates.
Matt and Sweat cut their way out of their cells at the maximum-security prison using tools that had been smuggled to them in frozen hamburger meat.
Two prison employees were arrested in connection with the escape. Gene Palmer and Joyce Mitchell were accused of helping to smuggle the tools, which included hacksaw blades and drill bits.
Matt, 49, was serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnapping and dismembering of his former boss.
Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for murdering a sheriff’s deputy in New York state in 2002.
New York state had offered a reward of $100,000 for information leading to the arrests of the two men, or half that amount for either one of them. (Africansuntimes).
