Toxicology tests show a convicted killer who escaped from prison and was on the loose for three weeks was drunk when he was fatally shot by border patrol agents who tracked him down in a forest, authorities said Wednesday.
The additional autopsy results indicated Richard Matt had a blood alcohol level of 0.18 percent, more than twice the level of intoxication for drunken driving under New York law, when he died from skull fractures and brain damage on June 27, state police said.
The prison escape by Matt and fellow inmate David Sweat launched a massive 23-day manhunt amid rugged terrain involving more than 1,100 law enforcement officers in far northern New York. Matt and Sweat escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora after cutting through cell walls and a steam pipe. Matt was found about 30 miles west of the prison, and Sweat was shot and captured nearby two days later.
A U.S. border patrol sector chief, John Pfeifer, in describing Matt's killing a week later, said that a member of the patrol's tactical team opened fire after Matt aimed a 20-gauge shotgun, which he had taken from a hunting camp, at the officer. Pfeifer also said that the tactical team found Matt lying down behind a fallen tree and that one of the escapees had stolen alcohol from a camp.
Someone with a blood alcohol content between 0.16 percent and 0.30 percent is considered severely impaired and is likely to suffer loss of balance and muscle control, vomiting, dangerously impaired judgment and decision-making and possible loss of consciousness, according to theNational Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Sweat is now housed at the Special Housing Unit at Five Points Correctional Facility in central New York.
Police have said they now know most of the winding route the two escapees took while on the run though the heavily wooded area west of the prison, having identified a half-dozen hunting camps they broke into.
A former prison tailor shop worker, Joyce Mitchell, has pleaded guilty to charges of aiding the pair by smuggling hacksaw blades and other tools.
Authorities said she smuggled the tools into the prison by hiding them in frozen meat she placed in a refrigerator in the tailor shop. They said a prison guard, Gene Palmer, unwittingly helped by taking the meat to Sweat and Matt, who were housed in a section where inmates are allowed to cook.
Authorities have said they don't believe Palmer knew of the escape plan. He was arrested on charges including promoting prison contraband, insisted he didn't know the inmates were trying to escape and was released on bail.
