Law enforcement officers shot and killed a man who is believed to be one of two prisoners who broke out of a maximum security prison in New York three weeks ago and were in pursuit of the second escapee, state police said on Friday.
The man was shot by officers from the U.S. Border Patrol in a wooded area in Malone, New York, near the Canadian border, the New York State Police said in a statement.
Authorities believe the deceased man was escaped inmate Richard Matt, but a positive identification is pending.
Police said they were still searching for Matt's accomplice, David Sweat, in the vicinity of the shootout after spotting a second man running into the woods.
Dozens of law enforcement vehicles had converged on the area, 27 miles (43 km) northwest of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, where the convicted killers staged their elaborate escape and were discovered missing on June 6. The manhunt has involved as many as 1,100 law enforcement officers.
On Friday afternoon, a man driving a camper in Malone contacted police after hearing shots and realizing there were bullet holes in his vehicle, the Buffalo News said, citing unidentified sources. Police mobilized a tactical team and a shootout with Matt ensued, the News said.
Sweat, who police believe to be armed, is thought to be hiding in the forest, the News said.
The New York Times, citing two people close to the situation, reported that there was a second episode of gunfire as law enforcement was chasing Sweat. It said Sweat's fate was unknown.
The two convicted killers were believed to have been heading for Canada after searchers in the third week of the manhunt found items they had dropped, police said earlier Friday.
DNA testing on the undisclosed items was underway to see if they matched Sweat and Matt, said New York State Police Major Charles Guess. "They dropped some items and left others behind," Guess said at a news conference in Malone, about 10 miles (15 km) from the Canadian border. He declined to identify the items or say where or when they were found.
During their escape, Matt, 49, and Sweat, 35, cut through their cell walls and sneaked along the catwalk to a steam pipe, slithered through the pipe and popped out of a manhole outside the prison walls.
Two prison workers have been charged with aiding the escape. Gene Palmer, 57, a corrections officer for 27 years, was suspended without pay from his job, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said.
Palmer is accused of bringing hacksaw blades and a screwdriver bit to the inmates, hidden in frozen hamburger meat supplied by Joyce Mitchell, 51, a training supervisor in the prison tailor shop. She also has been charged in connection with the escape.
Palmer also let the men slip behind their cell walls onto a prison catwalk to hide contraband and alter electrical wiring so they could cook in their cells, according to court documents.
Matt was convicted in the 1997 torture, murder and dismemberment of his boss in Tonawanda, New York, and was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Sweat was serving a life sentence after his conviction in the shooting death of a Broome County Sheriff's deputy on July 4, 2002.
Immediately after the escape, the manhunt focused on an area east of Dannemora along the shore of Lake Champlain. But last weekend, the massive search shifted to New York's Southern Tier along its border with Pennsylvania. Officers were deployed to that area, where Sweat once lived, after a series of unconfirmed sightings of the pair, but the effort proved fruitless.
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