Dannemora Manhunter Compares Infamous Prison Break to Joseph Couch Search

Clinton County Sheriff David Favro remembers June 6, 2015, like it was yesterday.

What started out as a normal day would end with his small community being thrust in the national spotlight as two prisoners escaped from the local prison.

“That particular morning, I had gotten up real early and I was going to install some pavers in my yard, and I had a crew of people coming over to help me, and I got the phone call that two inmates has escaped from Dannemora prison,” Favro told Newsweek. “And it was pretty much disbelief, that it can’t happen. And I knew it wasn’t a prank, of course, but I was just shocked.”

He would spend the next few weeks coordinating the search effort, with multiple agencies working together to find the at-large criminals and put the community at ease.

The two inmates escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, a prison located in a heavily wooded area. Richard Matt was found dead and David Sweat was captured two days later following a manhunt lasting several weeks.

Matt and Sweat were both serving sentences for murder when they escaped. They cut holes in their cell walls and a steam pipe, then used the pipe to escape into the city sewer.

Favro abandoned his initial plans for the day and began organizing a search effort.

“I hurried up and went inside and grabbed some gear, and immediately got in my vehicle and started heading up towards that general area, all the while making phone calls to call more resources, to get people to block off the roads and to assist with a perimeter setup as quickly as we could,” Favro said.

He spoke about the area where the prison is located.

“The prison was built and designed to be basically out in the middle of nowhere at the time, so that inmates wouldn’t even know where they are,” Favro said. “So it’s a very rural, mountainous area, very rugged terrain.”

The conditions at that time also complicated the search, according to Favro.

“The problem that we had was given the time of year, there was a very heavy canopy of foliage on all of the trees, the shrubbery, making it very difficult for tools like drones, helicopters, and FLIR thermal imagers to be able to detect anything,” Favro said.

Officials combed through the rough terrain on foot instead.

“A lot of it was boots on the ground, leg work, walking through various wooded areas to try to see if we could pick up trails on these people,” Favro said.

He said about two weeks into the manhunt, state police received a report of a break in at a cabin in the area. Officials collected evidence from the scene and sent it in for DNA testing, which yielded positive results for one of the inmates.

“That was a pivotal moment, not just in the investigation, but in the hunt, because it created a revived energy, if you will,” Favro said. “For all of the people that were working there, they were getting tired, long days, a lot of hours out in the woods, walking through thick buggy areas, muddy areas [it] now gave new life that, OK, they’re still around here.”

Comparisons to Another Recent Manhunt

The sheriff who helped lead the 2015 manhunt for two escaped inmates in New York said the search is “similar” to a recently concluded manhunt for a shooting suspect in Kentucky.

A 12-day search came to an end on Wednesday after Kentucky State Police located a dead body. It was officially identified as shooting suspect Joseph A. Couch by Kentucky’s Chief Medical Examiner Dr. William Ralston on Friday.

“Due to extreme decomposition of the body, the soft tissue DNA test was inconclusive, but today we were able use bone from the suspect to get a positive identification,” Ralston said in a statement. “I want to recognize the medical examiner’s office and KSP crime lab for working together and being diligent in obtaining positive identification so the commonwealth can move forward from this tragic situation.”

Couch, 32, was accused of opening fire at vehicles about “30-feet down from the top of a cliff” near Interstate 75 in Laurel County on September 7. Five people were injured in the shooting.

Officials searched over 28,000 acres for Couch, most of which were within the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Favro compared the environmental conditions in both searches.

“I would say that the terrain is definitely the same,” Favro said. “The weather conditions are still very similar and dealing with similar types of things in the wild as far as animals go, as far as bears that are in the deep woods, wolves, things of that nature that make it difficult.”

He said law enforcement down in Kentucky were also experiencing the difficulties of a lengthy manhunt.

“Their families are going through an awful lot with them working extra hours, but it’s all being done to find this person, to make sure that your community is safe and you don’t stop, you don’t rest easy until that mission is complete,” Favro said.

Favro said many people asked him how long the manhunt would take.

“You never really know,” Favro said. “In every geographic, every manhunt, I’m sure is different for a variety of reasons. But the one thing that’s not different is the law enforcement executives in all manhunts collectively are not going to stop until they’re confident they have their subjects either in custody or they have bones and teeth with DNA identifying that that’s their suspect.”

He also emphasized the importance of providing accurate information to the public during a time when the community is on edge.

“What I have found through experience [is] if you don’t keep the public informed, people will create their own story, their own scenario, which can be a bigger problem,” Favro said.

Do you have a story Newsweek should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com