Ex-guard: NY prison escape could have been stopped
A former prison guard who worked at Clinton Correctional Facility, from which convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped, says he knew the fugitives, as well as the couple now at the center of the investigation, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller.
"You watch. You watch the inmates and you watch civilians," James Pray said.
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Pray worked at the prison for seven years. He told CBS News Matt was a model inmate, but he had his eye on Sweat.
"He was an alright inmate, but he was -- he was shady," Pray said. "He just seemed to be a little more sneakier than Matt."
Pray also worked closely with civilian employees Lyle and Joyce Mitchell. Joyce, who is charged with helping the two inmates escape, was an instructor at the prison tailor shop where Matt and Sweat worked.
"She seemed very comfortable around them," Pray said.
And, he said, others took notice.
"She was talked to about getting too close to the inmates," he said.
She's now admitted to investigators being sexually involved with one of the men she helped escape.
Pray believes the fugitives not only used Mitchell to supply them with hand tools, but also exploited the prison's lax security.
"I just don't know how they got the tools from the tailor shop to the blocks, because those are steel, they would have went off crazy in the metal detector," he said.
Familiar with the security procedures, and knowing the people involved, Pray has an idea about the escape plan.
"I suspect there was probably somebody else involved," he said.
Pray also thinks there was a missed opportunity, after a riot that broke out two weeks before the brazen escaped.
"I heard they had a riot, and they used gas in the yard. They usually lock the jail down the following day and those cells are searched," Pray said. "I believe if the jail would have been locked down like it should have been, they would have found holes in the walls -- they would have found everything."
In a statement to CBS News, the New York State Department of Corrections said: "There are a number of ongoing probes into the escape at Clinton Correctional Facility. Until they have concluded, we will not be able to provide information on issues that may be under review in those investigations."