Wild Escape: The Prison Break from Dannemora and the Manhunt that Captured America

A gripping, true-crime debut of imprisonment, escape, and survival from New York Daily News crime reporter Chelsia Rose Marcius.

On June 6, 2015, inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility, New York State’s largest maximum security prison. The media was instantly obsessed with the story: aided by the prison seamstress, who’d smuggled hacksaw blades, chisels, and drill bits inside the facility via a vat of raw hamburger meat, two convicted murderers sliced their way through the brick and steel wall of their cells, meandered through a maze of tunnels, popped out of a manhole, and walked off into the night. Not many have tried, and only a handful of inmates had successfully broken out of Clinton since the facility opened in 1845. Barbed wire, concrete walls, and the wilderness of the Adirondacks all serve as physical and psychological barriers to freedom. This seemingly impossible Shawshank-esque escape had the makings of a Hollywood film, and the public hung on to every twist as the story developed.

After nearly three weeks on the run, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent Christopher Voss shot and killed Matt on June 26, 2015. Two days later New York State Police Sgt. Jay Cook shot Sweat twice in the back. He survived. While we have come to learn how Matt and Sweat pulled off perhaps the most elaborate modern day prison break, no reporter, except Chelsia Rose Marcius, has talked directly to Sweat to ask perhaps the most important question in the case: Why?

“The details Marcius has amassed are comprehensive and stunning and serve to heighten the impact of her story. This is first-rate journalism, written about a crime and a criminal from the inside out.” ―Stephen Singular, New York Times bestselling author

Enjoy My Blog | Subscribe My RSS Channel