Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Two cold-blooded killers dramatic prison escape, go on the run! Inside job?

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Two cold-blooded killers dramatic prison escape, go on the run! Inside job? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: our partner. How did two convicted killers manage to dig
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Speaker 1: their way out of one of the most rock solid
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Speaker 1: SEI correctional institutes known? Clinton and Dana Mora. How did
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Speaker 1: they do it? How did they not get caught? Did
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Speaker 1: they have inside help? Two convict to killers, one a
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Speaker 1: cop killer, the other gets his victim, drives him around
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Speaker 1: and the trunk of his car, then snaps his neck
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Speaker 1: with his bare hands. These are the two that manage
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Speaker 1: to emerge from Clinton CI blocks away from the jailhouse.
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Speaker 1: How did they do it and what was left in
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Speaker 1: the aftermath? I mean, it'sy Grace. This is crime Stories.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 1: How do two convicted murderers manage to walk free? We
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Speaker 1: have heard of daring escapes in the past. Ted Bundy
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Speaker 1: managed to do it? Did they do it and did
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Speaker 1: they have help from the inside? I mean, it's Grace.
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Speaker 1: This is crime Stories. Thank you for being with us
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Speaker 1: here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM one eleven jaculates
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Speaker 1: kick it off. Here's ABC News correspondent Geo Benitez being
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Speaker 1: the lookout for to escapes from Clinton County Question Facility tonight.
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Speaker 1: The first convicts to ever break out of this maximum
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Speaker 1: security prison are on the run to days and counting.
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Speaker 1: Thirty four year old David Sweat and forty eight year
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Speaker 1: old Richard Matt both convicted murderers, now gone without a
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Speaker 1: trace from the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
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Speaker 1: They could be literally anywhere. We're leaving no stone unturned,
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Speaker 1: reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster the Shawshank Redemption. Officials say
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Speaker 1: the men were last seen in their adjoining sales at
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Speaker 1: ten thirty pm Friday night for bedcheck, and reported missing
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Speaker 1: at bedcheck the following morning at five thirty am, leaving
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Speaker 1: this note behind reading have a nice day in their
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Speaker 1: empty beds. Clothing was arranged to make it look like
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Speaker 1: someone was sleeping. You know, the thought of an escape
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Speaker 1: from behind bars for everybody to bellow be on the
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Speaker 1: lookout is scary if you've ever actually been behind bars
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Speaker 1: and met the people who are there, specifically convicted killers.
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Speaker 1: I've sat in court many a time, and I would
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Speaker 1: be trying a murder case, or even a serial murder
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Speaker 1: or a spree murder case and look over at the defendant,
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Speaker 1: of course, not while the jury was there. Didn't want
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Speaker 1: them to see that. And wonder do they have any
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Speaker 1: idea of the wake of pain they have left behind them,
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Speaker 1: Like a boat going across a lake. And you see
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Speaker 1: the wake behind the boat. It goes on and on,
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Speaker 1: and the ripple effects seemed to never end. And then
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Speaker 1: I would look them in the eye, not every time,
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Speaker 1: but so often they would look back at me, and
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Speaker 1: it would be as if I were looking at a
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Speaker 1: frog or a snake, a cold blooded creature that seemingly
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Speaker 1: had no emotion or feelings at all. That's just who
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Speaker 1: escaped from the Clinton CEI to Convicted Killers with Me
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Speaker 1: an all star panel, first of all, renowned lawyer joining me.
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Speaker 1: Attorney with Butler Snow, Legal counsel for various municipalities, Jim Elliott.
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Speaker 1: You can find them at Butler Snow dot com. Stephen Lampley,
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Speaker 1: former detective, author of Outside Your Door. Well that's not
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Speaker 1: enough to scare you. I don't know what will. Stephen
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Speaker 1: Lampley dot com, professor flood Beneath my Feet on Amazon
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Speaker 1: Death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan, renowned psychiatrists joining me from
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Speaker 1: the Atlantic. Boy, do I need a shrink? But straight
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Speaker 1: out to Crime Online dot com investigative journalists Alexis Terres
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Speaker 1: Chuck Alexis. They thought, especially when you live around a
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Speaker 1: CI of one of the no I don't mean a
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Speaker 1: low level dope addict or a low level dope dealer.
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Speaker 1: There are low level dope dealers. They send, they sell
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Speaker 1: maybe one five hits. I'm not talking about a drug lord,
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Speaker 1: a stolen car, blah blah blah. I'm not talking about that. Alexis,
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Speaker 1: You've got a baby boy. What if you had a
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Speaker 1: home and out in a rural area and suddenly they
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Speaker 1: build a CI a mile from you and you're stuck,
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Speaker 1: and then two convicted murderers escape, broke out a dude
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Speaker 1: and it is absolutely terrifying to dards. And that's the thing.
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Speaker 1: And these guys are not, as you said, low level criminals.
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Speaker 1: They're not like a little drug dealer who sold, you know,
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Speaker 1: a small bit of drugs. These guys are murderers. In fact, one,
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Speaker 1: David Sweat is a cop killer. He murdered a police officer.
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Speaker 1: Alexis Urez, Chuck, David Sweat and Richard Matt let's just
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Speaker 1: start with that. Who are these guys? So David Sweat,
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Speaker 1: he was really young, he was got you know, you know,
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Speaker 1: shootout with a police officer. Are you trying to make
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Speaker 1: me feel sorry for him because he's young? He's a
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Speaker 1: cop killer. M well, I was just saying that when
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Speaker 1: he was so young to be so evil. You know,
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Speaker 1: this guy was twenty three years old when he murdered
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Speaker 1: a police officer. Now, hold on just a moment, just
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Speaker 1: just just a moment. Let's just for argument's sake. When
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Speaker 1: I was twenty three, I had ordered in the victim
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Speaker 1: of violent crime, went back to undergrad to make up
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Speaker 1: for all the time that I lost when I dropped
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Speaker 1: out of school after the murder, got through law school.
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Speaker 1: Putting myself through with three jobs not easy. But let's
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Speaker 1: think about somebody else. My dad, he had already lied
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Speaker 1: to the US Navy and was on the other side
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Speaker 1: of the world fighting for his country. Let's see my
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Speaker 1: mom at twenty three. She probably already had one of
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Speaker 1: us twenty three. Hey, Joseph sky Morgan, what were you
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Speaker 1: doing when you were twenty three? Oh? Working in the
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Speaker 1: morgue and volunteering in the morning. That gives you an
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Speaker 1: idea of how insane I am. I was doing it
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Speaker 1: for free. He was just Jackie, what were you doing
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Speaker 1: when you were twenty three? I'm i'most afraid to ask
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Speaker 1: right working round the clock at CNN, So tell me
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Speaker 1: something I don't care that he's twenty three. He's a
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Speaker 1: cop killer. That's all I need to know about him.
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Speaker 1: What about the other one, Alexis so Richard Richard matt Is,
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Speaker 1: he was convicted of killing his boss. It was his boss.
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Speaker 1: He tortured him. That you were right. He was in
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Speaker 1: the trunk. He up here, you say, snapped something. He
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Speaker 1: snapped his bones, he was. I mean, he just kind
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Speaker 1: of rushed right over that. You know, I think you
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Speaker 1: may have a future as a defense lawyer. Alexis Torres Chuck.
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Speaker 1: If you ever get tired of the reporting business, you
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Speaker 1: cannot it just never trilled off of your tongue. He
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Speaker 1: snapped his victim's bones. Tell me exactly what he did
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Speaker 1: to his boss. He tortured him. He physically dismembered him.
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Speaker 1: He cut him into little pieces. He snapped his bones,
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Speaker 1: and he did this the bone snapping. He literally physically
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Speaker 1: did this with his own hand. He was so enraged
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Speaker 1: when he killed him. And that's who escapes the Clinton
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Speaker 1: c I but how did they do it? Again, Gia Benitez,
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Speaker 1: All the use was the hacksaw Blaze figured out, so
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Speaker 1: that would make sense on the length of time that
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Speaker 1: it took them to do it. By February, he has
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Speaker 1: methodically cut through the steel wall of his cell three
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Speaker 1: eighths of an inch thick, and continues carving through the
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Speaker 1: wall of his next door neighbor two Richard Matt where
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Speaker 1: they clean holes they work. There's an air duck bantoney
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Speaker 1: to these cells, but they move dead and they're large
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Speaker 1: enough for a person in the size of matter sweat
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Speaker 1: to get through it. And so behind those cells there's
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Speaker 1: some sort of corridor righte a catwalk. It's a catwalk
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Speaker 1: that goes through the length of the back of the cells,
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Speaker 1: and there are four different tiers. Night after night, after
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Speaker 1: guards finished bed chests, sweat freely wanders those catwalks, descending
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Speaker 1: into the bowels of the prison. Okay, wait a minute,
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Speaker 1: Wait a minute. Jim Elliott, attorney, veteran trial lawyer, practices
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Speaker 1: in multiple jurisdictions. Jim Elliott, I'm sure that you've been
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Speaker 1: in plenty of jails like myself. This sounds like a movie.
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Speaker 1: I thought they were impenetrable. Absolutely, that's what you know, Syb.
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Speaker 1: We all think, and so how in the world you
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Speaker 1: get the account of a quick in there to make
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Speaker 1: that happen? But the thought of this guy. Hacks say.
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Speaker 1: This is how the two were connected. David Sweat and
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Speaker 1: Richard matt were. They shared a wall. That's how they
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Speaker 1: were wall buddies. One in this cell, one in that cell.
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Speaker 1: So for one to saw through the wall, the other
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Speaker 1: had to be part of the scheme. Crime Stories with
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Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, we are talking right now about one of
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Speaker 1: the most notorious breakouts ever heard of, and the two
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Speaker 1: that break out. They're convicted killers, one a cop killer
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Speaker 1: and one who tortured his victim, literally snapped his net
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Speaker 1: with his bare hands, carried him out around in a
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Speaker 1: trunk before he killed him. These are the two that
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Speaker 1: could be sticking their foot through your back window. Let's
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Speaker 1: take a listen now to ABC's GEO Benitez. By May.
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Speaker 1: As the weather warms, the blistering steam is shut off. Meanwhile,
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Speaker 1: the stocky met goes on a crash diet so he's
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Speaker 1: skinny enough to slither through their escape route. To get
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Speaker 1: through the pipe, which was less than two feet in diameter,
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Speaker 1: and to get through the wallet they broke, he had
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Speaker 1: to lose weight, and even then, Sweat says he had
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Speaker 1: difficulty getting through. By that night in June, it's all
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Speaker 1: systems go. They execute their plan to perfection. They come
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Speaker 1: out of the pipe near a manhole cover and emerge
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Speaker 1: on the street a block from the prison. They leave
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Speaker 1: behind a twisted calling card, this tiny note have a
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Speaker 1: nice day, and there's that taunting message they left behind,
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Speaker 1: obviously to us. So there you are hearing information glean
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Speaker 1: from other inmates seemingly new about the breakout, and we
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Speaker 1: now learn that they dieted you know who. That reminds
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Speaker 1: me of Stephen Lampley, detective author of Outside Your Door
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Speaker 1: at Stephen Lampley dot com. It reminds me of Ted
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Speaker 1: Bundy who escaped not once but twice, and he kept
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Speaker 1: loose it through. I think it was a lighting fixture.
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Speaker 1: Uh do you remember that, Lampley? I do? I do? Nancy?
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Speaker 1: Then and this guy there, these two, the gentleman that
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Speaker 1: broke up mind who was already slender, and the older gentleman,
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Speaker 1: of course, was the weight problem, so to speak, and
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Speaker 1: had to lose weight in order to get through the
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Speaker 1: air duct in his celler. That's my understanding. And think
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Speaker 1: about this Steve at night after they had sawed through,
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Speaker 1: and they couldn't escape down that heat duct because it
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Speaker 1: was so it would it would burn them. They couldn't
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Speaker 1: go down it. They had to wait until the spring,
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Speaker 1: until May before they could make their escape. And that's
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Speaker 1: exactly what they did. But these heat ducks are only
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Speaker 1: about about that wantage to hack saw through their cell walls,
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Speaker 1: get into the heat up and go all the way down.
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Speaker 1: And for weeks on end, maybe even months, they had
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Speaker 1: been going through the ducks at night and going down
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Speaker 1: in the bowels of the prison, just walking around on
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Speaker 1: the interior of the prison. Wow. Okay, So they make
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Speaker 1: their way out to doctor Angela, Arnold's psychiatrist. The other
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Speaker 1: inmates that may have known about the escape plan, but
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Speaker 1: they never said a word. What is that mentality? Never
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Speaker 1: to say a word? Well, do we know that they
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Speaker 1: knew about the escape? Well from what perhaps and maybe
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Speaker 1: they were threatened. I think you just hit the nail
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Speaker 1: on the head, because life behind bars isn't anything like
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Speaker 1: life on the outside. If you snitch, as my son
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Speaker 1: always says, snitches get stitches, you'll die behind bars, especially
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Speaker 1: if you're snitch on a convicted killer Doctor Angela. And
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Speaker 1: these guys are mean, aren't they. They aren't letting anything
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Speaker 1: get in their path, are they? I know they're not,
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Speaker 1: so how does it progress from there? How did they
14:13
Speaker 1: manage to make their way out? We also heard that
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Speaker 1: they had a hack saw, that they had a hack
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Speaker 1: saw behind bars. Take a listen now to ABC's twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty owner John Stockwell and his black lab Dolly were
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Speaker 1: checking up on the cabin when they saw signs of
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Speaker 1: unwanted activity and challenged any of the occupants by saying,
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Speaker 1: who's in there? You better come out? Who's in there?
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Speaker 1: You need to come out now. Whoever was on the
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Speaker 1: back deck fled down the bank, and he could tell
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Speaker 1: that because he could hear the crashing through the brush. Inside,
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Speaker 1: Stockwell finds more signs that something's a miss a misplaced
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Speaker 1: coffee pot, a missing shotgun that had been hidden between
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Speaker 1: two mattresses, a map ripped off the wall. Stockwell quickly
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Speaker 1: alerts authorities, who find more evidence that Sweat is the
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Speaker 1: careful criminal and Matt the wild card. Sweat had wanted
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Speaker 1: to leave Matt's position. Was no sense in leaving just yet.
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Speaker 1: And if somebody intrudes upon our occupancy at the cabin,
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Speaker 1: you know, frankly, we're ready to deal with them. Now.
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Speaker 1: I have a shotgun. Yeah, we could we could kill them,
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Speaker 1: we could take them hostage. Sweat prevailed with the logic
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Speaker 1: of let's get out of here. You are hearing our
15:26
Speaker 1: friend over at ABC twenty twenty. That was Lindsay Janice.
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Speaker 1: So alexis terres shut. To add more to the drama,
15:35
Speaker 1: the two guys had very very different personalities. Well, can
15:40
Speaker 1: you tell me about this mountain cabin. So the mountain cabin.
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Speaker 1: These cabins are owned by the locals. They're up, they're
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Speaker 1: very deserted. But you know what is in all of
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Speaker 1: these mountain cabins a lot of weapons and a lot
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Speaker 1: of ammunition. These people's doctor. I don't want to use
15:56
Speaker 1: the word stocpol because I feel like that sounds like
15:58
Speaker 1: it's something to very see people. All legally, the owners
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Speaker 1: of the cabins legally owned all of all of these weapons,
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Speaker 1: and they legally own the ammy, but they kept it
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Speaker 1: up there because these are you know, rural areas to
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Speaker 1: all of these cabins had a lot of weapons in them,
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Speaker 1: they had maps of the area, they had food, they
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Speaker 1: had perfect hideout spots for these guys, and they were
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Speaker 1: going from breaking in cabin and cabins, stealing guns, stealing bullets,
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Speaker 1: steal eating their food, sleeping in their beds, but trying
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Speaker 1: to really keep a low profile, like not turning on
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Speaker 1: bites or anything like that, because they didn't want to
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Speaker 1: alert the authorities. Because the authorities knew they were up there,
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Speaker 1: they just had to view in on which cabin they
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Speaker 1: were in. You know, what's what I'm thinking about right
16:38
Speaker 1: now to doctor Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrists joining me out
16:42
Speaker 1: of Atlanta. Interesting to me that the owner of that
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Speaker 1: cabin and he knows somebody's been there. You know what's
16:49
Speaker 1: interesting our little idiosyncrasies. For instance, if I were to
16:56
Speaker 1: walk into the kitchen in the morning and see a
16:59
Speaker 1: chair out of place, or or a knife, a butcher
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Speaker 1: knife sitting out, or a utensil, the least little things
17:09
Speaker 1: were really creatures of habit and that's what really led
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Speaker 1: the investors of the teapot that had been moved. Isn't
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Speaker 1: that interesting that one little detail, Doctor Angela? Well, I
17:24
Speaker 1: think that we all have a little touch of OCD
17:28
Speaker 1: in all of us, and I would I don't know
17:32
Speaker 1: if I go that far, but go ahead. Well, I
17:35
Speaker 1: mean I think it's I think it works well for
17:37
Speaker 1: some people. And I also think that there could be
17:39
Speaker 1: a little bit of paranoia, different levels of paranoia in
17:43
Speaker 1: the people who own these cabins that are full of
17:46
Speaker 1: ammunition and guns. I'm not gonna come out against hunters.
17:51
Speaker 1: I'm not a hunter myself. I'm not. You don't like
17:54
Speaker 1: guns at all. I hate guns. To me, every gun
17:57
Speaker 1: was like a rattled snake. But in my mind, that's
18:00
Speaker 1: in the constitution. And I'm not gonna mess with a constitution.
18:04
Speaker 1: And you know, I disagree with you, doctor Angel, and
18:08
Speaker 1: I know I'm getting in deep water here because you're
18:12
Speaker 1: the MD. I'm just a JD. But the reality to you,
18:16
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, you have analyzed a million crime scenes.
18:21
Speaker 1: The reality is that we are creatures born of millions
18:26
Speaker 1: of years, millions of years of evolution, and we look
18:33
Speaker 1: around a room and see a million things at once,
18:36
Speaker 1: and we process it. So when you walk into a
18:39
Speaker 1: room and you see I have a special teapot, j Scott,
18:43
Speaker 1: I have a special teapot. And when I'm in New York,
18:47
Speaker 1: catch this, I point it toward home. When I am
18:52
Speaker 1: in Georgia, I pointed toward New York. It's just a
18:55
Speaker 1: little idiosyncracy. I don't know Nancy, and this is this
19:00
Speaker 1: is the this is the interesting thing. It's also heightened
19:03
Speaker 1: by this guy you're referring to this as his cabin.
19:06
Speaker 1: This is you know, for me, I love going to
19:09
Speaker 1: a cabin. This is your happy place. This is the
19:11
Speaker 1: thing that that's kind of imprinted on your brain. You're thinking,
19:14
Speaker 1: I'm going to go here and escape in a good way.
19:16
Speaker 1: I'm going to forget everything, and you're you're anticipating this
19:19
Speaker 1: moment you walk through the door, and it's not as
19:23
Speaker 1: if it's not it's not in the condition in which
19:25
Speaker 1: you left it. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, Joe Scott,
19:29
Speaker 1: let me use a different example. Okay, forget the teapots. Pertinue.
19:32
Speaker 1: You didn't hear that that it's gone, it's gone. Erase, Okay,
19:36
Speaker 1: this studio. I know that Jackie. Every day when she leaves,
19:40
Speaker 1: she shuts the door and she cuts the lights off.
19:44
Speaker 1: She does a million other things too. If I walked
19:47
Speaker 1: in here and a light was on, I would know
19:50
Speaker 1: something was amiss because that's just not her standard routine
19:54
Speaker 1: and practice. But wait a minute, wait a minute, before
19:56
Speaker 1: I get onto the light switch and the teapot, how
20:01
Speaker 1: the hey did they get a Hacksaw Crime Stories with
20:14
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Everybody did I thank you for being with
20:18
Speaker 1: us here at Fox Nation and series one eleven. Here
20:21
Speaker 1: at Crime Stories, we are talking about one of the
20:24
Speaker 1: biggest breakouts and jail house history. Two convicted killers bust
20:29
Speaker 1: out of Clinton CEI how did they get a Hacksaw.
20:33
Speaker 1: Let's just start with that. Take a listen to our
20:36
Speaker 1: friend Brian Todd. Inmate Eric Jensen worked at the Clinton
20:41
Speaker 1: Taylor Shop with Joyce Mitchell and David Sweat, and tonight
20:44
Speaker 1: he drops a bombshell. Jensen says, about four times a week,
20:48
Speaker 1: Mitchell and Sweat would disappear into a closet at the
20:50
Speaker 1: Taylor's shop, sometimes for a half hour or forty five minutes.
20:54
Speaker 1: I believe they were getting it on. I believe they
20:56
Speaker 1: were getting it on in that back room. Mitchell's husband,
20:59
Speaker 1: Lyle says she but Jensen says Mitchell's interactions with Sweat
21:03
Speaker 1: suggested otherwise, giggling like a schoolgirl. And not only that,
21:06
Speaker 1: it's actually like when when, like you know, a superstar
21:09
Speaker 1: football player, he asked a girl out on a date
21:12
Speaker 1: or for the prim or something like that. Um, this
21:16
Speaker 1: is not the superstar football player asking her to go
21:20
Speaker 1: to the prom. This is having sex in the closet
21:26
Speaker 1: with a convicted killer at clinton CI. Let's just let's
21:32
Speaker 1: make that clear distinction. Although I appreciate the analogy, thank
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Speaker 1: you so much in May, Eric Jensen. So now we're
21:41
Speaker 1: getting a picture of what may have happened. Let me
21:45
Speaker 1: understand this. I think I need a shrink before I
21:49
Speaker 1: can take another step. Doctor Angela Arnold. She has a
21:53
Speaker 1: husband that she's been with for years and years and years.
21:57
Speaker 1: He's always stuck by her. What is she doing in
22:01
Speaker 1: a closet with an inmate for half an hour giggling? Well,
22:07
Speaker 1: I have a feeling these inmates are very medipulousives and persuasives,
22:12
Speaker 1: and It'll be a cold day in huble L before
22:15
Speaker 1: I get in a closet with anybody number one. Apparently
22:19
Speaker 1: this goes on at these places, doesn't it. Well, I
22:21
Speaker 1: don't know anything about that. They saw some sort of
22:24
Speaker 1: weakness in her, and they made her feel good about herself,
22:27
Speaker 1: and they they took her in, didn't they. What we
22:31
Speaker 1: understand is that Mitchell was having a sex relationship with
22:35
Speaker 1: Richard Matt that she sent naked pictures to David. Sweat
22:42
Speaker 1: admits to smuggling in tools. Now, remember these two are
22:48
Speaker 1: on the run. Matt gives Mitchell peels to give to
22:53
Speaker 1: her husband on the day of the escape. Straight down
23:00
Speaker 1: to Alexas Terreschuk, Crime online dot Com investigative reporter. So
23:05
Speaker 1: the investigation turns toward the prison seamstress Joyce Mitchell. It
23:12
Speaker 1: sounds as if the plan was much bigger than an escape,
23:18
Speaker 1: that they were planning to kill her husband Lyle. Yep,
23:23
Speaker 1: she had planned in fact, so when they broke out
23:27
Speaker 1: of the prison, she was supposed to meet them. You know,
23:30
Speaker 1: they popped up one block away. She was supposed to
23:32
Speaker 1: drive her jeep and meet them there and take them
23:35
Speaker 1: and then three of them were going to go back
23:37
Speaker 1: to her house, get rid of her husband, and then
23:40
Speaker 1: go on together. Alexas Treschuk, we remember what happened with
23:44
Speaker 1: one of these guys when he took his boss on
23:46
Speaker 1: a rady trip. The boss ended up in the trunk
23:48
Speaker 1: with his next snapped. Remember that, yep, So it probably
23:51
Speaker 1: wouldn't have ended up very well for her. Doctor Angela
23:55
Speaker 1: Arnold made a very good point. A lot of these inmates,
24:00
Speaker 1: they're charismatic. I remember for years, in the years Jim Elliott.
24:05
Speaker 1: I was in one of the busiest courtrooms in inner
24:08
Speaker 1: city Atlanta. We tried more cases in that courtroom than
24:12
Speaker 1: any other courtroom. And I'll tell you why. As an aside,
24:16
Speaker 1: I had the oldest I was assigned to the courtroom
24:19
Speaker 1: to run the state's business. I had the oldest judge
24:22
Speaker 1: in the courthouse, Luther Alverson, but he was Shadies Jim.
24:29
Speaker 1: He was so old he got grandfathered in under the
24:33
Speaker 1: mandatory retireminat he didn't have to retire, so he was
24:38
Speaker 1: hell bent on showing everybody that he was fit to
24:41
Speaker 1: stay on the bench, which he was. He wanted to
24:43
Speaker 1: keep the lowest jail count in the Fulton County jail.
24:47
Speaker 1: Jail count means the people languishing in jail waiting for
24:49
Speaker 1: you to either plead him out, drop the case, or
24:52
Speaker 1: go to trial, and it would go out every Monday
24:55
Speaker 1: the jail count. What judge wasn't handling his or her
24:59
Speaker 1: b business and had a high jail count, so we
25:02
Speaker 1: would have to be on trial every other week to
25:05
Speaker 1: keep our jail count down. I don't care. It could
25:08
Speaker 1: have been a drug case, a murder case, a rate
25:11
Speaker 1: grand theft, it didn't matter. We had to move those cases.
25:15
Speaker 1: So long story short, I would do a lot of
25:19
Speaker 1: plea negotiations, and in that court, I would directly negotiate
25:24
Speaker 1: with the defendants sitting there and their lawyer. Some of
25:29
Speaker 1: them could be very persuasive and very charismatic. Of course,
25:33
Speaker 1: it meant nothing to me because I would read the
25:35
Speaker 1: police report and believe the cop But they are very
25:38
Speaker 1: charismatic sometimes, yes, And clearly the judge was well aware
25:42
Speaker 1: of how manipulative a lot of these people are and
25:44
Speaker 1: that was his goal was too. But then where they
25:47
Speaker 1: needed to be. My point is, I can see how
25:51
Speaker 1: this seems to struck up a friendship with these two
25:54
Speaker 1: convicted killers, because she would be with them every day
25:58
Speaker 1: and somewhat non threatening situation, but falling for one and
26:02
Speaker 1: making out having sex in the broom closet, that's a
26:06
Speaker 1: little beyond the pill. Agree or disagree, Jim Elliott, and
26:09
Speaker 1: then they saw her to be perhaps they're route out
26:12
Speaker 1: and so then flattery and all that sort of things.
26:14
Speaker 1: So you know that's that was going to be their escape. Well,
26:17
Speaker 1: Alexis Terreschuk, you hear what Jim Elliott is saying, but
26:20
Speaker 1: how do you explain sending one inmate nude photos of
26:23
Speaker 1: yourself and having sex on the closet with the other one. Well,
26:26
Speaker 1: you explained it as she was really in love or
26:30
Speaker 1: in lust with these guys, and she was definitely wanting
26:33
Speaker 1: to keep the work romance going. You people talk about
26:36
Speaker 1: having a work husband. Her hockey went out a guard.
26:39
Speaker 1: He worked in another part of the prison. So all
26:41
Speaker 1: this carrying on with these two inmates was happening while
26:43
Speaker 1: her husband was working at the exact same place, right
26:46
Speaker 1: under his nose. And I guess the inmates thought at
26:49
Speaker 1: some point they were going to kill the husband Lyle,
26:53
Speaker 1: because we understand that she got two pills to give
26:58
Speaker 1: her husband that I guess we're going to sedate him
27:01
Speaker 1: to kill him. Let's take a listen now to ABC's
27:05
Speaker 1: GEO Benitez. I'm sure once they realized that they could
27:08
Speaker 1: manipulate Joyce into bringing in the tools, that was the
27:12
Speaker 1: first step. What did she give them haxab blades, drill bits,
27:16
Speaker 1: a punch tool, a couple of the lay of eyeglasses
27:19
Speaker 1: that have lights on them. She later then provided batteries
27:22
Speaker 1: for those lights. But while he claims she had helped
27:25
Speaker 1: a guard on their unit named Gene Palmer, who brought
27:28
Speaker 1: ground beef to the prisoners with the critical saw blades
27:32
Speaker 1: hidden inside. It was a cool officer down to earth.
27:36
Speaker 1: I don't think he had anything any knowledge about what
27:39
Speaker 1: was in that meet. Palmer says he had no idea,
27:43
Speaker 1: but admits he cut corners other times, helping men on
27:46
Speaker 1: other prisoners, now properly equipped, while he says, sweat begins
27:50
Speaker 1: gnawing through the walls of Clinton Prison like a rat
27:54
Speaker 1: through rope after months of nocturnal labor. It's Friday, June fifth.
28:00
Speaker 1: In the Tiller shops. That day, Matt allectedly tells Joyce
28:03
Speaker 1: the time has come Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys,
28:19
Speaker 1: we are talking about one of the most notorious prison
28:22
Speaker 1: breaks ever known out of Clinton CEI to convicted killers
28:26
Speaker 1: managed to escape with the help of the prison same mistress.
28:31
Speaker 1: The way it looks right now, Joyce Mitchell, take a
28:34
Speaker 1: listen to our friend, Geo Benitez. Mitchell would pick up
28:38
Speaker 1: the escape ease and drive back home where they would
28:41
Speaker 1: kill her husband. But she gets cold feet, and when
28:44
Speaker 1: she doesn't show up, the men escape into the deep
28:47
Speaker 1: rugged woods, launching the three week man hunt. Joyce Mitchell
28:51
Speaker 1: soon under arrest. As we tracked down her husband. What
28:54
Speaker 1: do you make of the reports that she was trying
28:55
Speaker 1: to have you cool today, Lyle Mitchell visiting his wife
28:59
Speaker 1: in jail? And why did she do it? I was
29:01
Speaker 1: caught up in the fantasy, she says. I enjoyed the attention,
29:05
Speaker 1: the feeling both of them gave me, and the thought
29:08
Speaker 1: of a different life. Okay, I definitely need to shrink
29:11
Speaker 1: right now, straight out to doctor Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrists
29:16
Speaker 1: joining me out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, Doctor Angela, A
29:19
Speaker 1: different life, you know, doctor Angela. I've seen so much crime,
29:26
Speaker 1: so much deception, so much pillaging of humanity. I'm so
29:33
Speaker 1: happy to have an awesome husband and children. I would
29:38
Speaker 1: never jeopardize that. What other life? What other life would
29:42
Speaker 1: you want? Beside that? I don't get it. Well, I
29:46
Speaker 1: have a feeling that they were very good. Here you
29:49
Speaker 1: go blaming or blaming them, I mean, she's the one
29:53
Speaker 1: having sex in the closet and providing a hack saw
29:55
Speaker 1: well we also, I mean who knows what was going
29:57
Speaker 1: on in her life and in her home? Right? I
29:59
Speaker 1: mean who wants to be the seamstress in a prison
30:02
Speaker 1: for goodness sake? Right? I also get the impression that
30:06
Speaker 1: she felt a little empowered by us by what she
30:09
Speaker 1: was doing, and that's why. And then boom, she came
30:13
Speaker 1: out of that when she didn't meet them at the end.
30:15
Speaker 1: So she does have you know, she does have sense
30:18
Speaker 1: about her in that way. She wasn't able to do
30:20
Speaker 1: she wasn't, but I feel like she felt empowered in
30:25
Speaker 1: doing this. Empowered. Okay. Stephen Lampley, detective author outside your
30:29
Speaker 1: Door at Stephen Lampley dot dot com. Have you ever
30:32
Speaker 1: had a situation where you had co defendants, let's say
30:35
Speaker 1: two or three, and one of them backed out at
30:39
Speaker 1: the last minute, Because that's what she did when they
30:42
Speaker 1: got out of that heat duck blocks away from the jail,
30:46
Speaker 1: and she didn't go through with the plan to kill
30:50
Speaker 1: her husband. You ever seen a defendant back out of
30:53
Speaker 1: the plan, Nancy. It doesn't happen often, but of course
30:57
Speaker 1: in this case it did happen. And the supposedly is
31:00
Speaker 1: what I understand, she quote unquote got some sense about
31:03
Speaker 1: her and didn't want her husband to be killed. And
31:06
Speaker 1: I actually had a good line to lose that and
31:08
Speaker 1: in defense of her, maybe that was her good point.
31:12
Speaker 1: But again, she still did go through with the first part,
31:15
Speaker 1: you know, like a snake charmer, the whole bunch of you.
31:19
Speaker 1: It's like the snake's going like this, and I'm going
31:21
Speaker 1: like that and going No. These are two convicted killers.
31:25
Speaker 1: A cup killer, she helped let a cop killer at
31:31
Speaker 1: the victim's head with his bare hands. No, no, empowered,
31:37
Speaker 1: empowered my riant. Uh no, n oh. So these two
31:42
Speaker 1: go on the run while she's trying to explain to
31:44
Speaker 1: her husband. Uh well, let me think what happened in
31:49
Speaker 1: the meantime. Take a listen to Lindsay Janis. The authorities
31:53
Speaker 1: later learned that Sweat had gotten fed up with his
31:55
Speaker 1: increasingly unstable partner in crime. With the news quickly heightening,
32:00
Speaker 1: Matt decides to hold up here for a spell. Consider
32:04
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of food in the cupboard, yea. Eventually,
32:07
Speaker 1: Natt leaves the camper and hunkers down here in the woods,
32:11
Speaker 1: a swamp and a ravine behind him, state police lining
32:15
Speaker 1: the road in front of him. He points that twenty
32:17
Speaker 1: gage shotgun towards them, when suddenly he coughs, betraying his position,
32:23
Speaker 1: and then they communicate that quality in the woodline. They're
32:26
Speaker 1: coming up from behind where Matt is just here correct.
32:29
Speaker 1: A Border patrol agent levels his end core assault rifle
32:33
Speaker 1: at Matt and twice orders him to drop his shotgun.
32:36
Speaker 1: The border patrol agent engaged inmate Matt at this location
32:40
Speaker 1: because Matt failed to comply with his instructions. At least
32:43
Speaker 1: three rounds struck inmate Matt. Head two Alexis Terrez Chuck,
32:47
Speaker 1: Investigative Journalists, Crime online dot Com Alexis Terrez Chuck. The
32:51
Speaker 1: two split up while they're on the run. Why they
32:56
Speaker 1: split up, and that was I don't know was their downfall.
33:01
Speaker 1: But this is when it ended so Richard Matt that
33:05
Speaker 1: the portrol agents they get him. Okay, wait a minute,
33:08
Speaker 1: wait wait wait, Matt gets shot after he coughs and
33:12
Speaker 1: its border patrol agent hears it. But they dynamic. The
33:16
Speaker 1: dynamic between the two of them. To Joseph Scott Morgan,
33:19
Speaker 1: one is hot headed, one is level headed, and it
33:24
Speaker 1: gets to a point where they feel one of them
33:27
Speaker 1: anyway has to split up in order to escape. I
33:31
Speaker 1: mean it's basically the level headed one has a cement
33:36
Speaker 1: block around his ankle, the one he couldn't control. Yeah,
33:41
Speaker 1: you're right, and you know and once you look, these
33:44
Speaker 1: guys are inside prison they're dependent upon one another to
33:48
Speaker 1: escape this environment. But once they're out there, this whole
33:51
Speaker 1: new world opens up to them, literally and it's massive.
33:55
Speaker 1: And suddenly the faults you know in these ten circumstances
33:58
Speaker 1: are right here. You see where the Achilles heel is
34:02
Speaker 1: for everybody. If you got a sense about you to survive,
34:05
Speaker 1: which you're gonna note, uh, they're they're trail and yeah,
34:11
Speaker 1: have a nice day. And so this guy is like,
34:13
Speaker 1: I don't want this guy weighing me down. He's gonna
34:16
Speaker 1: he's gonna give us away. And so they're gonna split
34:19
Speaker 1: naturally like this this team that was on this on
34:23
Speaker 1: the trail of these guys, these guys are trailed, are
34:25
Speaker 1: are are trained in order to work in a tactical
34:29
Speaker 1: situation where they're gonna take down and look, trust me,
34:32
Speaker 1: these guys viols their criminals. These individuals that you know
34:37
Speaker 1: had literally one of these guys that actually dismembered a man.
34:40
Speaker 1: I wonder if he used that to charm this lady. Hey,
34:42
Speaker 1: did I everyone tell you about the time that you know,
34:45
Speaker 1: I dismembered a guy. I wonder if if he wooed
34:47
Speaker 1: her with that, and then you got another guy that's
34:49
Speaker 1: a cop killer. So they're gonna be on their toes
34:53
Speaker 1: looking for these people. It's a violent, violent, potential violent situation.
34:58
Speaker 1: You've got these individuals that are literally sit for the
35:01
Speaker 1: least little movement out of these guys and a cough
35:03
Speaker 1: gives them away. You know, when you put it like that,
35:06
Speaker 1: Joe Scott, just imagine the law enforcement out searching for
35:12
Speaker 1: them and they know they've got a cop killer. At
35:16
Speaker 1: another guy that dismembered the victim after snapping his neck.
35:22
Speaker 1: Take a listen to this. Sergeant Cook engages in conversation,
35:29
Speaker 1: says hey, stop, and Sweat says no, I'm good. Sweat
35:34
Speaker 1: kind of did a hand motion like this, framing his
35:36
Speaker 1: face as if to say, what, it's not me, you know,
35:39
Speaker 1: kind of like an unsolicited denial, which sweat head was
35:41
Speaker 1: clean shaven at this point. Correct, he made the facial
35:44
Speaker 1: gesture that he made like he got the wrong guy.
35:46
Speaker 1: But Cook knew immediately I've got the right guy. This
35:49
Speaker 1: is Sweat. It's on Suddenly it's a foot chase. Bear
35:56
Speaker 1: in mind, and Sweat had a good twenty five yard
35:59
Speaker 1: head start find Sergeant Cook. Sergeant Cook has his gun
36:02
Speaker 1: drawn at this point. He's running full speed, but he
36:05
Speaker 1: has to set himself here. Takes a deep breath. Cook,
36:08
Speaker 1: an expert marksman, ends the manhunt with two shots, to
36:12
Speaker 1: which Sweat dropped immediately the constable personnelity that's right, one,
36:20
Speaker 1: dad one apprehended. Just so you know, we're bringing you
36:24
Speaker 1: this story today because in the last weeks that prison
36:28
Speaker 1: seems just Joyce Mitchell has walked free from jail. Nancy
36:35
Speaker 1: Grace Crime Stories signing off goodbye friend,