Richard Matt, David Sweat, convicted murderers, escape from NY maximum-security prison, police say

Richard Matt, David Sweat, convicted murderers, escape from NY maximum-security prison, police say

DANNEMORA, N.Y. - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says two convicted murderers used power tools to cut through steel walls and escape from a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border.

Cuomo says 48-year-old Richard Matt and 34-year-old David Sweat are "dangerous individuals" who escaped through an elaborate plot. Officials are trying to determine where they got the power tools.

Authorities say Matt and Sweat were discovered missing from the prison Saturday morning.Cuomo spoke Saturday at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora after joining law enforcement authorities to trace the men's escape route.

Sweat is serving a sentence of life without parole in the slaying of a Broome County sheriff's deputy in 2002. Matt is serving 25 years to life for the beating death of a man in 1997.