The drama is over and the law enforcement has won again. No one has ever escaped a prison and lived or wasn’t caught and sent right back to their cage. We all followed each day and imagined the flight of the two guys who escaped just like in the old cartoons digging holes in their cells and slithering like rats in underground pipes to a manhole just one block from the razor wired fortress. After 21 days of running through 20 miles of rugged woodlands one is dead and the other is caught just about a mile from the Canadian border. The disheveled woman accomplice being escorted in her prison stripes for giving the men rugged tools hidden in hamburger meat. There was a small part of you hoping the bad guys would be able to escape the system but at the end we are all relieved that things are back to normal.

In the community where the manhunt was conducted there is a parade and cheers for police and every time a police car is seen, people celebrate. Convicted cop killer David Sweat   was finally caught after being shot twice. It was just 48 hours after his accomplice was shot and killed by authorities. The drama was being played out over hundreds of miles in a search involving a thousand officers. They escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility where they never had to worry about a heating bill or electricity. Joyce Mitchell helped the prisoners and now she is in custody. She was a supervisor and is in custody. The two prisoners had plans to kill her husband. The men worked their way down 4 floors in   24 inch pipes. They walked 3 to 400 yards through a tunnel then sawed open the manhole cover.

The woman Mrs.  Mitchell was going to drive the getaway car but instead checked herself into a hospital for a panic attack. It all evolved like a bad script to a stupid movie but we followed it all and wondered what was happening next for 21 days. When there is no Mrs. Mitchell waiting for them in a gas filled car, their plans change from riding down to Mexico to hoofing it to the Canadian border 20 miles away. The inmates were added to the United States Marshal’s Most Wanted List. Rewards were set at $50,000 dollars apiece. Now thoughts of the old Wild West go through your mind where poor ordinary citizens were also on the outlook for these men salivating over the reward money. Posters of the men were distributed along both the U.S. and Canadian Borders.

The escaped prisoners were considered armed and dangerous. Sweat was convicted for killing a police officer. Matt was convicted for killing and dismembering his former boss.  I guess they both had problems with authority figures. Matt made a fatal mistake that led to his death. He left DNA evidence behind that set a trail to his whereabouts. Soon after it was all over.