NY Prison Escape: Gas Station the Latest Focus of Hunt for Convicts
The search intensified after bloodhounds picked up a strong scent.
— -- Investigators focused on a gas station in the search for two inmates who escaped from an upstate New York prison, as the manhunt for the convicted murderers entered a seventh day.
The search for David Sweat and Richard Matt intensified after bloodhounds picked up a strong scent at a Mobil gas station in Dannemora, with the scent followed east to Cadyville, Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said.
The Mobil gas station also has a Subway restaurant, and Wylie said there's a chance the inmates were rummaging for food.
State Route 374 remains closed east of Dannemora, and the nearby Saranac Central School District is closed for a second consecutive day.
There has been no confirmed physical sighting of either man, but authorities are hopeful that the men will soon be found.
"We’re following every tip, that’s all I can say," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. "Look, they could either be 4 miles from the prison or they could be in Mexico, you just don’t know."
Sweat, 34, and Matt, 48, were reported missing from Clinton Correctional Facility, located about 20 miles south of the Canadian border, on Saturday. Two sources briefed on the case told ABC News that investigators are talking to prison worker Joyce Mitchell about whether she was supposed to drive a getaway car on Saturday and pick up the men after their escape.
If so, she never showed, instead checking into a hospital 40 minutes away complaining of a panic attack.
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