Two inmates made a daring and cinematic escape over the weekend from Clinton Correctional Facility, the upstate prison known as “Little Siberia,” somehow obtaining the power tools necessary to carve their way out of their steel cells and into a large pipe leading to a street outside. The account below is based on statements from the New York State governor’s office and police officials.
First, the inmates cut neat rectangular holes in the steel at the backs of their cells. They fashioned dummies from sweatshirts and stuffed their beds to thwart discovery during regular cell checks by guards.
The inmates, both serving long terms for vicious murders, had adjoining cells. The rectangular holes can be seen in both walls from the catwalk behind the cells.
Once inside the mechanical corridors of the prison, the men broke through a brick wall, made their way to a 24-inch drain pipe and cut a hole in it.
They left a taunting note for the authorities that included a racist caricature …
and crawled through pipes and tunnels to a manhole about 400 feet outside the walls of the prison, cutting through a steel lock and chain to open it.
The two killers have disappeared. It was the first escape in the 150-year history of the maximum-security prison in Dannemora, N.Y., the state’s largest. One side of it, which has 30-foot-high walls, faces Cook Street, part of a state highway between Plattsburgh and the Canadian border. The authorities said on Sunday the men could be “anywhere.”
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