The True Story Behind Escape At Dannemora, Explained

"Escape at Dannemora" is a true crime miniseries that premiered on Showtime in 2018. Starring Patricia Arquette, Benicio del Toro, and Paul Dano, the series was nominated for twelve Emmys (it won nine) and currently enjoys an 89% critics score and a 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The series is based on a real-life escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in 2015 and follows a female prison employee as she engages in a romantic relationship with two inmates.

Of course, when it comes to TV shows and movies that are "based on a true story," it's important to remember that the writers, actors, directors, and others involved in making them will always take at least a few creative liberties. It's impossible to recreate a real-life event perfectly; changes need to be made to a theatrical adaptation of a real-life crime in order to account for logistical and practical impossibilities. Aside from the more utilitarian reasons for making alterations to a real-life event or series of events, there are also story considerations that need to be made. After all, real-life events don't always progress or get wrapped up the way an onscreen narrative has to in order to keep audiences engaged.

In 2015, two inmates — Richard Matt and David Sweat — managed to escape the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. Both men were convicted murderers and were serving life sentences when they escaped with the help of a prison seamstress named Joyce Mitchell and a guard named Gene Palmer.

Palmer, for his part, admitted to bringing in tools for Matt and Sweat and doing other favors for them in exchange for paintings from Matt, who was a skilled artist. Joyce Mitchell, however, was more directly involved in the escape plan, bringing in hacksaws, chisels, and other items they needed to execute their breakout. Mitchell was also supposed to be waiting for Matt and Sweat outside of the facility in order to help them make a quick getaway following their elaborate escape, but she ultimately opted not to show up due to a combination of nerves and a lingering sense of loyalty to her husband.

Richard Matt and David Sweat had both been resident inmates of the maximum-security prison Clinton Correctional Facility for several years by the time they put their escape plan into action. Both Sweat and Matt were housed in Honor Block, a section of the prison that granted more lenience and privileges to its residents (i.e., access to TVs, kitchens, etc.), and they used the tools provided for them by prison employees Gene Palmer and Joyce Mitchell to carve holes into the backs of their cells.

The pair left dummies fashioned out of sweatshirts in their beds in order to keep the guards from realizing that they were gone and used a maintenance catwalk to get down to ground level. From there, they got into the basement level of the prison and cut a hole in one of the steam pipes that were sitting idle in the warmth of upstate New York's June. They then traveled through the pipe and used their tools to break through a latched manhole cover outside of the prison.

After escaping Clinton, Richard Matt and David Sweat were on the run from authorities for nearly three full weeks. An enormous number of resources were applied to the manhunt for Matt and Sweat, including search dogs, helicopters, and enough law enforcement officers to carry out door-to-door canvassing within a five-mile radius of the prison. The escapees had been missing for 10 days when the police decided to halt their grid search (they had covered an area totaling 16 square miles) and focus on witness tips. Thanks to eyewitnesses, the police found Richard Matt 20 days after his escape; he was cornered after he shot at a car with a pilfered shotgun and came to blows with a Border Patrol officer and a discharged army ranger. Matt died after being shot three times in the head.

David Sweat was not with Matt when he was killed; Sweat was instead caught by law enforcement approximately 15 miles north of where Matt had been discovered and 30 miles north of the Clinton Correctional Facility. Sweat was shot twice in the shoulder and taken back into custody for medical care. He was only a little over a mile away from the US/Canadian border when he was captured. After healing from his wounds, Sweat was remanded to the Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, New York, where he remains in custody to this day.

During the manhunt for Matt and Sweat, Joyce Mitchell was identified as someone who may have assisted the two convicts in their escape; she came forward as an accomplice before they were found. Mitchell has denied any romantic or sexual involvement with Sweat or Matt but admitted that she had discussed the idea of hiring Matt to murder her husband and had provided both inmates with the tools necessary for their escape. For her role in their crime, Mitchell was charged with first-degree promoting prison contraband and fourth-degree criminal facilitation. After pleading guilty per a deal with the prosecuting attorney, Mitchell was sentenced to seven years in prison, fined $6,375, and ordered to pay almost $80,000 in restitution.

After serving four years of her seven-year sentence, Mitchell was released on parole from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison exclusively for women prisoners. Since Mitchell's supervised parole ended in 2022, she has made no public statements, and her current whereabouts are unknown. Despite their rocky status before the escape, Joyce Mitchell and her husband, Lyle Mitchell, remained married through Joyce's investigation, trial, and sentence, and there is no reason to believe that they aren't still together today.