MALONE – Richard Matt has been shot and killed near Malone, two sources have told The Buffalo News.
The sources said that a shootout occurred and that Matt was killed.
The FBI and other law enforcement were involved in the incident. No police were injured.
David Sweat is believed to be in a nearby wooded area, and a furious ground search is underway, one source told The News.
Tweets from the Plattsburgh Press Republican said that several state trooper cars with lights flashing were headed west in Malone on Fayette Road about 4 p.m,, earlier Friday, authorities said.
“Oh my gosh. If this is true, I’m elated. I’m relieved,” said Gabe DiBernardo, the retired North Tonawanda Police detective chief who headed the investigation that led to Matt’s imprisonment for murder.
“I have been worried for the public, for the police and for people here in the Buffalo area who have had trouble with Matt and have been threatened by him in the past. I have been worried that he would come back and do harm to people that testified against him. … I’ve been worried that some poor citizen would be hurt by this guy.”
DiBernardo said he is watching developments closely and praying that no police officers were hurt in the confrontation with Matt.
DiBernardo and his detectives were the investigators who cracked the case and charged Matt after the December 1997 kidnapping, torture, robbery and murder of Matt’s former boss, William Rickerson, 76, of North Tonawanda.
Earlier Friday, investigators on the hunt for the two escaped killers who broke out of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora on June 6 believed Matt and Sweat were trying to make it across the Canadian border.
“We have no reason to believe they’re in Canada yet,” Major Charles Guess of the State Police said at a news conference midday Friday. Authorities in New York working with Canadian law enforcement “are standing up a picket line using all of their resources to ensure they do not cross the border.”
The more than 1,100 federal, state and local police involved in the search were targeting two areas – the area of north of the Village of Malone as well as around the Town of Bellmont.
Evidence has been gathered that led authorities to believe the killers were making their way north.
Matt and Sweat were likely moving at night, Guess said. The two men stole supplies from the seasonal cabins in the area, the major said.
“They have some basic supplies,” Guess said.
Guess said the terrain they were in was rugged and waves of rain made conditions difficult.
“It’s as much a challenge to the inmates as it has been to the law enforcement,” Guess said.
Once again, DNA provided leads for the searchers. Traces of DNA belonging to the escapees were found at two sites – one in a cabin in the Malone area and one at an outdoor location, State Police spokesman Beau Duffy told reporters after the major’s news conference.
He emphasized police are not sure if the two escapees are together, or if the DNA evidence can be linked to only one man.
“Preliminary results are conclusive enough that they were there, though maybe not together,” he said. “I don’t know if they have evidence of both.”
Duffy added he expects forensic investigators will eventually determine answers to those questions.
The spokesman said the heavily forested terrain of the northern Adirondacks still presents challenges to the search parties, since it is still extremely rugged before flattening out toward the St. Lawrence River. And though the search area has been relocated, he said it still involves cast expanses of forest, mountains, and swamps.
“It’s pretty spread out,” he said.
Duffy also said there is no evidence either Matt or Sweat is receiving outside assistance.
The Plattsburgh Press-Republican reported Friday that DNA evidence in two locations in Malone.
At the Malone cabin, the Plattsburgh paper said there were “signs of intrusion” in a Malone cabin. It wasn’t clear if the second Malone site was also a cabin.
The paper reported that an intense search took place Thursday night along Low Road in the hamlet of Wippleville, which is in the southern part of Malone. That area is about eight miles north of Owls Head, where authorities last week found DNA evidence in another cabin confirming that Matt and Sweat had been there. Additionally, a witness reported seeing a man fleeing from that seasonal hunting cabin last Saturday.
Dannemore, Owls Head and Malone are connected by a recreational/ATV trail.
At about 7 a.m. Friday, residents in Malone and Constable, which is between Malone and the Canadian border, received robo-calls alerting them to increased police presence, the newspaper said.
Also Friday, the prison guard charged with giving escaped killers Matt and Sweat tools in exchange for paintings was suspended without pay, the state Department of Corrections announced.
Gene Palmer, 57, earned $72,644 a year.
He had been on paid leave while he was under investigation. His pay was suspended Thursday.
Palmer was hired as a correction officer in 1987 and had been working at Clinton Correctional since 1988.
Matt, 49, is from the City of Tonawanda and was serving 25 years to life following his conviction in the 1997 torture and murder of a North Tonawanda businessman, and Sweat, 35, was serving time for killing a Broome County sheriff’s deputy in 2002.
wow… body/photos?
Damn! Forgot to get more popcorn when I was at the store last night!
Hey Angel! 🙂
He May be a bit freezer burned by now.
Give them some time to photo shop out those parts.
LOL… feeling a little ‘freezer burned’ myself, today.
A blast from the past… heh, heh, heh…
Yep, both will be ‘shot’ and probably incinerated. It will be like they never existed…oh thats right, they dont exist, this whole thing was a martial law drill for new york to play police state and search everyone’s house, property and vehicle.
Doubt # 2 will survive either, regardless of the circumstances.
That ‘escape’ story might not sound so credible coming from the actual ‘perpetrator’.
This kind of stuff must be the “transparency” that Obama promised us. These staged events are so transparent that you have to be sleepwalking not to notice.
Yes, the perpetrator wouldn’t stop so they had to kill him. Dead men tell no tales. One inmate still on the lamb. So, what’s the chances of seeing a peaceful arrest like the one in which the Charleston shooter was apprehended?
“The FBI and other law enforcement were involved in the incident. No police were injured.”
As usual, all the pigs are just fine…can’t seem to find a fake perpetrator who can shoot some pigs. You’d think they would at least report a fake piggy injury. Not even a twisted ankle or a paper cut or a hangnail. Mild sunburn. Nothing.
As Mettalica sings, “nothing else matters”…..
They’re going to bury him at sea; Currently looking for an aircraft carrier in the atlantic.
Still trying to figure out how they even fit into a steam pipe that they supposedly cut a hole into that would barely fit a baby? Sandy claws must’ve had a part in the “escape” and taught them a thing or two. Pictures of the governor and warden inspecting the pipe look as if they would barely be able to put their head in and turn! I am going with the freezer burn scenario too as these guys definitely never escaped through that hole. Iced in prison probably and will eventually be paraded as trophies by the pigs and feds. Once they hit room temperature anyway.
Nice story, but of course, there’s no telling what actually happened.
But they did manage to squeeze in a little pro-cop propaganda, so I guess it was worth the effort for someone.
Wow! My hometown area (Buffalo, NY) is being invaded by these government pigs who are trying to catch a person who may or may not be real and who may or may not be crossing the border with no proof or photos or anything. Oh joy.
“Escaped prisoner David Sweat captured by police 5 miles from Canadian border”
http://pix11.com/2015/06/28/escaped-prisoner-david-sweat-in-police-custody/
http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/state/source-david-sweat-was-shot-in-the-back-as-he-fled-from-trooper-20150628