david sweat cell
IN PHOTO. A handout picture from the New York Governor's Press Office taken at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, on June 6. Reuters/New York Governor's Press Office/Handout

David Sweat, one of the inmates who managed to escape the maximum security section of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York on June 6, has revealed the grueling details that led to his path to freedom, albeit short-lived. The 35-year-old life detainee relayed the details to investigators from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from the two gunshot wounds he received upon his capture.

In a statement to the investigating team, Sweat revealed that his plan to break out of the Clinton Correctional Facility started in late January 2015, shortly after he was transferred to a cell beside Richard W. Matt, another convicted killer. Using tools smuggled into the facility, including a hacksaw blade, Sweat slowly cut a hole in the back of his cell and then through Matt's cell to gain access to the network of pipes hidden behind the walls. The tools were reportedly brought in by prison tailor Joyce Mitchell who hid it inside frozen blocks of hamburger meat. CNN reports there were at least six blades. Sweat also managed to get his hands on a sledgehammer, which was assumed to have been unintentionally left behind by a construction worker on an unknown occasion.

After every guard roll call at 11:30 p.m., Sweat would allegedly crawl into the hole to look for possible exits and just return before the 5:30 a.m. call to perform his usual tasks. While it seemed that the guards did not notice any suspicious activity at all, New York Times reports that another inmate had actually heard something like sawing on some nights -- only to be told that Matt was just working on an artistic project for the facility. Matt is known there as a skilled painter and often provided some of his finished projects to an unnamed corrections officer in exchange for special concessions.

Finding ways out of the maze was not an easy task for Sweat. At one point, channeling a scene from the movie "Shawshank Redemption," he thought that accessing the sewer would get him free, but his efforts failed because it was a dead end. But he was not one to give up easily. Eventually, after repeated tries, he spotted a section on the wall where pipes ran through and out the prison's walls.

CNN also notes that the night before Matt and Sweat escaped, the two even managed to conduct a practice run to their exit. The next night, they finally broke out, only to face further trouble when their supposed getaway vehicle, to be driven by Mitchell, did not show up. Despite this glitch, the two were still able to evade the search party, which consisted of hundreds of state troopers, federal agents, corrections officials and local police, for at least three weeks.

Sweat and Matt reportedly hid in the woods in upstate New York. But, eventually, Sweat, the more athletic and younger one, started seeing Matt as a burden and became irked when the latter got drunk in the cabin where they were staying. According to his account, the escape mastermind reportedly then decided to ditch his companion, who eventually was shot dead on June 26 by the police. Sweat was able to get as far as two miles off the Canadian border before he, too, was shot. As of this writing, Sweat has been taken out of the hospital in Albany and placed in solitary confinement at another prison facility.

The New York Times notes that the escape highlights the lack of monitoring and policy enforcement at a supposed maximum security prison. The publication said that the "laziness and apparent inaction — and, in at least one instance, complicity — made the escape possible." Both David Sweat and Richard W. Matt were serving a life sentence for murder on separate incidents. This was not the first time that Matt had broken out of jail. In June 1986, he also escaped from the Erie County Correctional Facility.

To contact the writer of this story, send an email to v.doctor@ibtimes.com.au