Cons May Have Plotted to Kill Seamstress's Hubby

Joyce Mitchell, inmates were to escape to Vermont after murder: source
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 15, 2015 9:57 AM CDT
Cons May Have Plotted to Kill Seamstress' Hubby
This Friday, June 12, 2015 photo provided by the New York State Police shows Joyce Mitchell.   (New York State Police via AP)

Breaking out of New York's Clinton Correctional Facility may have only been part of the plan for David Sweat and Richard Matt. A law enforcement source tells the Albany Times Union that jailed prison seamstress Joyce Mitchell told investigators she and the prisoners had discussed a plot to murder her husband. Mitchell was reportedly to pick up the prisoners at a nearby power plant and drive them to kill her husband, Lyle, before the group would escape to a cabin in Vermont. DA Andrew Wylie says Mitchell didn't know the exact location of the cabin, but the journey was about seven hours. "One of the reasons why she didn't show up was because she did love her husband and she didn't want to do this to him," Wylie said yesterday, making no mention of the alleged murder plot.

Authorities tell NBC News that Mitchell knew only snippets of the inmates' plan and provided only some of the tools they used to escape. Wylie says the men stole tools from prison contractors' toolboxes each night, allowing them to work between midnight and 5am, and put them back each morning, per the AP. They may have also slipped into the wall through which they would escape to analyze the tunnel system, but Wylie has found no evidence the inmates had a "Plan B" in case Mitchell was a no-show. NBC adds several Post-it notes were left along the prisoners' escape route, rather than just the one initially reported. Other inmates have said Matt and Sweat were spotted with cell phones before the escape, reports CNN. "But we have no proof of these cell phones," Wylie says. (More prison break stories.)

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