Talk about mystery meat.
Cops appeared to be closing in on a pair of killers, as details emerged Monday about their escape: Tools used in the “Shawshank”-style caper were smuggled into the prison inside a shipment of frozen hamburger meat — and a cabin they used while on the run belongs to corrections officers.
They may also be armed. A law enforcement source said authorities are investigating whether a shotgun was missing from the cabin.
Joyce Mitchell, the prison worker accused of helping Richard Matt and David Sweat escape, allegedly got a corrections officer to bypass the metal detector and deliver the meat to the murderers, a source told CNN.
At the time, Matt and Sweat were in an honor block where inmates who behave themselves are allowed to cook their own meals — instead of eating the prison chow.
Matt and Sweat have been on the lam for 17 days since they were reported missing June 6 from the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora.
Mitchell is charged with helping them, and two corrections officers who had access to a prison tailoring shop she supervised have been placed on administrative leave.
The bizarre report came as cops searching for the escaped convicts tightened the net after DNA evidence and dirty prison-issue underwear placed them in a remote hunting camp — owned by a group of corrections officers.
Sweat’s DNA was found on a jar of peanut butter at the hunting camp on Black Cat Mountain, the Press-Republican newspaper of upstate Plattsburgh reported. Police also found toiletries and a jug of water.
Maj. Charles Guess of the New York State Police said there was “conclusive evidence” that the items found in the cabin belonged to the killers.
It wasn’t immediately clear which corrections officers owned the cabin. The hunting camp is just 30 miles west of the prison Sweat and Matt escaped from.
“The dogs have got a good track, and we are tightening the perimeter,” a law enforcement official told the Plattsburgh paper. “So within the next 24 to 48 hours, we’re confident they will be caught.”
Residents also told the MyChamplainValley.com website that police found prison-issue underwear, bloody socks and the fingerprints of at least one of the prisoners at the camp.
Police believe Sweat, 35, and Matt, 48, are still together.
Law enforcement began combing through the area after one of the hunting camp owners went to inspect the property and found the peanut butter and the water on a table in the cabin. Drawing his gun, the man yelled for whoever was there to come out— and spotted a man hightailing it out through the back.
Heavily armed officers swarmed the area near upstate Mountain View within hours, while police helicopters searched from the sky.
Investigators now believe the pair followed power lines and an old railroad bed westward into Lyon Mountain after Mitchell failed to show up with the getaway car.
Then they soldiered on to the mountain camp, where hunters routinely stash canned goods and other nonperishable items.
“It looks like Mrs. Mitchell was Plan A,” an official told the Plattsburgh paper. “There was no Plan B.”
Searchers had been looking in Alleghany County near the Pennsylvania border over the weekend, but switched their focus based on the items found in the cabin.
A reward of $150,000 has been offered for information leading to the arrests of the escapees.
Mitchell, 51, is currently jailed in upstate Troy.
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