Think of a lifetime locked in a dark two-by-three-meter cell full of cockroaches
.
Consider that that cell (and many others like yours) are spanned by a concrete wall ten meters high and two meters thick that could only be traversed with a tunnel boring machine or a pneumatic hammer, two unusual tools behind bars.
What would be your greatest aspiration?
Getting out of there cost what it cost, right?
You just need to know how to do it.
Richard Matt
and
David Sweat
could serve as an example when plotting the escape from one of the maximum security prisons in the United States: the Clinton Correctional Facility, located in the New York town of
Dannemora
and the scene of the second episode of the Canal docuserie History
Historical fugues
, voiced by Morgan Freeman.
Matt and Sweat only needed a few saws, an innate gift for manipulation and blackmail, an accomplice on the other side, and endless doses of patience.
Told like this, it seems like a simple plan, but once you get down to work, some complication usually appears.
What if there are no tools, what if an unexpected wall, what if a clueless guard ...
Richard MattAP mugshot
Before the story of the escape, however, it is worth introducing those involved. On one side Richard Matt, a murderer sentenced to life in prison and already with a jailbreak in Buffalo behind him. In his record: the kidnapping of his boss in 1997, the subsequent 27-hour drive with stops to torture him, and his murder after breaking his neck, throwing him into the Niagara River and then fleeing to Mexico. Also another murder in the Aztec country.
This expert in the art of manipulation and persuasion had been in Dannemora for seven years before he managed to escape.
On the other side, David Sweat, his 12-year-old shadow cell neighbor in Dannemora and sentenced to life in prison for participating in the murder of a sheriff. A meticulous man, with a brilliant mind, who since his adolescence has been going through different prisons in the country for different reasons and
united with Matt for his love of art
. The perfect escape companion.
Only the key character is missing: a loving collaborator (Joyce Michelle) and a loyal police officer (Jim Palmer).
She, a civil tailor supervisor fed up with the town of Dannemora and her husband,
has sex during the workshops with Sweat
.
A member of the prison beating squad and a friend of Matt's, he helps keep the peace inside.
Everything ready for the plan to go live.
David SweatAP mugshot
The original idea of the two inmates was to dismantle the doors of their cells and jump over the wall at night. But the torx bit Michelle provided was useless and an alternative had to be found. That's when Sweat discovered the ventilation grill next to his bed that leads to the galleries and the basement. It only took a saw to cut it; His accomplice sneaks it in,
Matt introduces it close to his chest with the help of Palmer and avoiding the metal control
.
Sweat cuts two inches in the afternoon,
when the prison is louder because the prisoners play cards or have movie time
.
In three weeks there is no screen and he is the night king of the galleries with some glasses with led lights that Michelle had given him while Matt distracts the guards in the counts.
That's where the second phase of the plan starts: looking for an exit to the power station that is across the street.
Sweat finds a steam inlet and outlet pipe in a brick wall, which he meticulously disassembles until he finds a worker's toolbox with a hammer and chisel bar.
After two weeks of work, a second concrete wall appears impossible to overcome.
It is April 2015 and the two inmates add three months of frustrated work.
Until Sweat's mind finds another way:
the heating pipe, which is turned off in the summer
.
From May 4, he has been cutting 25 centimeters a day until he opens a first hole.
Once inside, the difficulty grows to open another hole from the inside, because the pipe is very narrow.
On June 5 he makes the last cut, exits the pipe, crosses a tunnel and finds a culvert.
Climb it and see the freedom after 109 nights of work.
Of course, his partner is still in the train, so he decides to return and wait one night for Michelle to transfer them in her jeep.
Contributor Joyce MichelleAP
The escape is complicated when Matt and Sweat get into the pipe and the former gets stuck due to his claustrophobia.
The second helps him out by pulling a sheet, but when they go outside there is no car.
Michelle is in the hospital with a panic attack and the fugitives head to the mountains on foot
.
There they take refuge for days in hunting cabins, until they are separated because of Matt's alcoholism.
Upon discovering the leak, the State of New York assembles a police device with hundreds of agents and that will cost 23 million dollars.
On the 21st day of the search, June 26, they find Matt in a cabin, he raises his gun and the police shoot him down
.
His gun was unloaded, but he preferred death to going back to prison.
Two days later, on June 28, Sweat appears on the Canadian border.
He is wounded by police shots and returns to prison.
He is transferred to different centers, from which he still tries to escape today
.
And the collaborators?
For Joyce Michelle, who pleaded guilty to smuggling and criminal facilitation, it was a $ 86,000 fine and four years in prison.
For Jim Palmer, guilty of smuggling, six months and $ 5,000.
Today is a docuseries, but first it was reality.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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