February 18, 2025 • 41 mins
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Flora and Son, Mr. Corman) and Arturo examine the troubling trends behind a modern day escape in Dannemora, NY.
Read this episode's transcript on Mental Floss: https://www.mentalfloss.com/columns/greatest-escapes
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is great as Escapes, a show bringing you the
wildess true escape stories of all time. Now, in this episode,
we're telling the story of two escapees who had a
true neck for smuggling tools into prison so they could
cut their way out. I'm Marturo Gastro and I'm joined
by a man who's talent on screen and behind the
camera has been completely undeniable for decades. One of my
(00:22):
favorite co stars of all time. Please welcome Joseph Gordon Levitt.
(00:56):
It's Joseph Gordon Levit. Thanks, of course, thanks for being here.
And Joe, I got to tell you. You know in our
audience you know this, but you are one of the
kindest people I've ever worked with. And I mean that
very sincerely.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I feel the same way about you, man.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
And I'll tell you what it is, man, that you
just like, no matter who it is on set that
has a question, you always stop and make time to
answer it, no matter how small it could be, Like
you know.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Because I just love hearing myself answer questions yes.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If there's somebody recording it and an
artist sort of drawing, you do it. At all times.
You're just heard. I'll give you an example if somebody
comes over and they're like, hey, so, yeah, I think
I'm just gonna make those curtains blue, and you're like, wait, wait,
stop the roll. Yeah, okay, So I wanted to ask you,
even though it's kind of a hard question to ask
while being honest, but you know, being in films for
(01:46):
as long as you've been and still being such a
well adjusted human being, what what do you attribute that to?
How you've sort of kept your head straight all these years.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
That's I mean, so flattering that you would ask me that.
I mean, it's a pretty simple answer. I think I
got real lucky with the parents I got, And you
know that's not my doing that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
We all just roll dice and get who we get.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
And my parents were never very enchanted with all of
the poisonous accoutremont they can come along with show business.
You know, I've been working in acting and stuff since
I was six years old, and my parents always just
saw that I loved doing it.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
But anytime I.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Didn't want to do it, if I didn't feel like
going on an audition that day or something, my mom
would always say and very sincerely, you really don't have
to do this, will you know? We'll be so in
love with you and proud of you no matter what
you do. Wow, you did commit to this thing today
and it's important that you honor your commitments.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So let's go today.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
But if you after that, if you don't want to
do this, you never have to do this.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
And I think it's it's more common that people feel
pressure to do it, and that can be the beginning
of the I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yes, of the end say it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Let me ask you something, what do you consider it
to be your greatest escape?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Well, I honestly, I think what we did escaping the
pandemic to New Zealand. And I feel half bad, you know,
saying this, because it was such a privilege to get
to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
But that was an incredible escape.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And just to tell the brief version of the story,
you know, we were shooting this show, mister Corman, that
i'd been you know, trying to put together for years
is My Baby. We're three weeks into the shoot in.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
March of twenty twenty when the whole world shut down.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
We have to stop along with everybody else, and we
were trying to get.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The production back up.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Everyone was running around trying to figure out how to
shoot during the pandemic, and the intrepid producers over at
A twenty four called me and said, would you ever
consider spending a lot of.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Time in New Zealand?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
And I was, I mean, I felt like I won
the lottery. I had been literally, not exaggerating. My wife
and I had been fantasizing. We'd been staying up at
night looking at google Maps street view of New Zealand,
picking where we wanted to be, just because it sounded
like such a dream to be out of the pandemic,
(04:26):
and when there was no COVID there at the time,
and then we got to go, and I remember, and
I got to bring my family and we spent a
time there and a long time, and I remember when
we got there. My older boy, who at the time
was I think five, we got off the plane in
the airport in Wellington and no one was wearing masks,
(04:49):
and we got off and we took off our masks
and my boy goes, we're out of the pandemic, and
I was like, yeah, that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Leave it to a five or well.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
But it was an escape, right, It was just like
we were able to I remember I would post stories
or I send my friends videos of like just shopping
at a grocery store without a mask, and it was
like the biggest flex in the world. Okay, so are
we ready to get into this? Do you want to
hear some crazy escape?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I want to hear this story. I love storytelling, so
I can't wait.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
I'm gonna hate you.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
It's the summer of twenty fifteen, and we begin in
a remote hunting cabin in upstate New York. The rooms
are dark, quiet, musty. The cabin is empty. Footsteps approach, crunch.
I'm not gonna do my own side effects. Two men
come to the door. They try the handle. They're silhouettes
loom in the windows. They force their way inside. Yes,
(05:46):
it's a break in. The men are looking pretty rough.
They've been trekking through the woods near the Canadian border,
living off the land and carrying their supplies in a
battered guitar case.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Of guitar case.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
A guitar case.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
They didn't mean to go living in the wilderness. Is
they're carrying a guitar case?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, no, they didn't. This wasn't part of their plan.
They have ragged name tags they're still sewn into their clothing.
It's they're called David and Richard.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Name tags what like TGIF waiters or something.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yes, yes they both work. They work at Applebee's and
this is just how do some crazy turn of events.
They are now in the woods. So they're in this
crusty cabin in the woods and it's a gold mic.
They rummage to the cabinets and dressers. Do you have
any guess what they're going to find their joe?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I mean food, water, I don't know, like Nintendo.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
A TGI Friday store.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
They found a full so they open up a fully
stocked pantry and begin to feast. But even better, they
find a bottle of moonshine and a propane heater, and
you also find plenty of choice weed. So one of
them sleeps sweeps up the glass. The other one grabs
the moonshine, rosa joints and settles on the couch. We
get a glare from the sweeping guy and he just takes.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
The same marijuana and alcohol.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Not my favorite, not a favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
It's always seems like a good idea, you know when
I was younger, Like you're drawing somebody that you want
to hit. This and sudden one.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
What kind of evening do you want to have? Pick one?
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So something, I mean the couch and brain.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yo'll be like, oh, man, three years ago, it's kind
of rude to that, Maarissa, I.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Should call them.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So this is when David and Richard's Great Escape started
to go sideways. There were two murderers on the run
after an epic prison escape, and the.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Law was hot on their heels.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Oh damn, So Joe, let's meet these two shady characters. Okay,
we established they're not actually from TJA Fridays.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Oh their prison name tags after all.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Exactly, So these guys were worse than shady. These two
guys were cold blooded killers. And so we're gonna start
with David Sweat. Yeah. So he was born in nineteen
eighty and he grew up in a little town of Deposit,
New York. Incidentally, it's not known for their deposits. They
were all cash in hand. That's such a stupid joke,
but I have to get it in there.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So by the time he was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
David had already had a long rap sheet, a list
that included violent attacks and burglees and car crashes to
his knee. What coind of parents, did he He did
not have great parents. They all, yes, none of them. Yeah,
they all believed in name text that wasn't even a
prison thing. They just like it was just the thing
he picked up from youth. So once while he was
in prison, a guard found him making a list of
(08:12):
future crimes that he hoped to commit one day. You
got to admire the fucking audacity of this insane viition board.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Is he writing down just like the actual offenses I
want to perform armed robbery check, I want to perform
arson check?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Or is he like, yes, exact, I want to commit
each and every one of these before my time is done.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So, oh, he's ill. He's sick. He's mentally ill.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
He's a sick man. But when he first got out
on parole, David started living out of a camper in
the woods in upstate New York. He gathered some friends
like minded prince, you could say, and they started boosting
cars from the parking lots of nearby towns now.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
David, sorry, let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Let me go back to this for a second.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Do you believe that some people.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Even if they're not mentally ill or there's not something
inherently wrong with him. Do you think there's just some
people that are born.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Cruel or their race cruel?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I mean, cruel has the value judgment. I definitely think
there are people who are born ill. And I mean,
I'm sorry to get all serious here. We're trying to
have a fun time telling an escape story. But like
for sure, our world, especially our country, does not do
a good job of taking care of mentally ill people.
And the fact that someone who's clearly mentally ill has
(09:28):
ended up in prison, that's probably not the right place
for him.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
That's not going to help him.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And to your point, through throughout these stories that we've
been telling, a lot of them are prison escapes, and nobody,
not one person in any of these stories gets reformed
by going to the prison system.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
You know, it's supposed to be rehabilitation.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Well, it's it's worth noting, you know, in sorry to
get all geeky about this is something I'm.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Quite interested in.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
There's a lot of prisons that they actually are private
for profit companies, so it's in their interest that they
have more prisoners, and so what incentive do they have
to make sure that their prisoners rehabilitate and get out
and go lead more healthy, positive lives.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
They don't, they have the incentive to bring them back.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Like any good business, you want your customers to come back.
I do think it speaks to the kind of larger
values and understanding. And this goes back to the kind
of meritocracy myth that we were talking about a minute
ago when you asked like, Hey, how did you end
up so lucky to be?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
You know, a happy person?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
And I think so much of it comes down to luck,
whether that's who your.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Parents are, or just the physiology and your brain.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Are all the cylinders firing right, or are some of
those cylinders firing in a way that drive you as
a young person to think about crime and want to
do that. I definitely think that that's luck. And you know,
the there's a saying I forget the exact wording of it,
but like the measure of a good kind society is
how well you treat the unlucky people.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Joe, because we're spending too much money spying on our
own citizens. But he's like, you know, that gets expensive.
People need to know who I'm fucking TEXTI man, you know.
And so when he was with with these like minded people,
David bracked to others about the police scanner that he
used to avoid cops, and he said that if they
ever came at him, he would blow them away. So
in two thousand and two, on the fourth of July,
(11:22):
David Sweat and two accomplices ran the truck through the
back wall of a fireworks and gun shop. They ran
through the store and they loaded up a duffel bag
with guns and also fireworks and guns in the same shop.
Is there anything more American than a flock sip store
of everything that goes boom? You know? It's like, do
you like guns?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
You like explosions?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Why spend any time anywhere else when you're having fun
there fireworks when it gets serious, we.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Have weapons and when you don't know which, bury both,
which is kind of incidentally the tagline for My King Senira.
So with their loot, David raised to a tiny park
three miles away where they were moving the gun to
a second car. That's when a local sheriff's deputy pulled
up in his cruiser and had them in the headlights. Now,
the deputy got out of his car to confront the men,
(12:08):
but David Sweat just started shooting man and he and
the other Roberts shot the deputy fifteen times, stole his gun,
and even this is fucking rough. They ran him over
with their getaway car, the old bloody premated Tata murder.
But and again not to go on another tangent of this,
but you know, it's I'm sure for the family of
this deputy, it's hard to understand this, you know what
(12:28):
I'm saying. It's hard to have any sympathy for somebody
just killed your fucking husband, of.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Course, but that's just it.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
It's it's bad for the police too, Like why the
first government intervention of like trying to handle this very
sick person should not be a sheriff's deputy, a mental
health professional talking to this kid a decade prior so
that he doesn't kill the sheriff's deputy.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That's exactly the.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Problem, exactly. So then they made it their escape. But
David could not stop bragging. And so within a week,
David's it always fucking happens with criminals, with the criminals
that we learned.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
About here, what is he writing about?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
He's like, they're gonna fucking talk about me on a
podcast one David.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So within a week, David's girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Told the police, and when they called him, David pled
guilty to the murder. In order to avoid the death penalty.
He received the life sentence without parole. Now they send
him to Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York, and
that's where he would meet our next escapee, Richard Matt
His story is a lot like David's. You know, he
was another troubled kid who didn't get the help he
needed When he was a kid. He actually ran away
from a foster home by stealing a horse and riding
(13:34):
off at the age of fourteen. He even tried to
steal a houseboat man. You got to give this guy
a credit for like niche getaway vehicle. You know. He
was also well known for a penny farthing escape. You know,
have you have you ever owned a unicycle or written
a penny farthing?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
My wife can ride a unicycle. I've never owned one personally,
and I've tried to ride it.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It's very difficult, I'm sure it is. I don't think
I could ride also ride one fast enough to like
get away.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I would love to see that.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That should be our new reality show. So Richard's crimes
only got worse from there, right felonius, felony weapon charges,
felony assault, and plenty of misdemeter harassment charges. It's like
he just couldn't meet somebody without attacking them, you know.
So when he was caught, he often escaped heavy charges
by pleading guilty to lesser crimes. What's the most trouble
you ever got into as a kid?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Uh? I? I remember shoplifting a greeting card once at
the mall because there was a picture on the front
that looked like my dog, and I wanted to show
it to my mom and dad. But I also probably
I think I had probably enough money to buy the thing,
but I was tickled by the idea of, you know,
stealing it.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And what do you know, I didn't get caught.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Like you, but even Jewish kid in the mall, no
one punished me or sent me to foster care for shoplifting.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Well, actually funny she should mention that because we have
the shop owner here.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
With us today, come on out found him. We fucking
found him us.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It's hill on the refrigerator at my parent's house.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I can give it back to you. No, no, no, no.
He doesn't want to speak right now, but he is
very mighty myth. So the neglect was obvious though, you know,
with with Richard's life. He made his first prison break
the easy way. A guard left his prison so open,
and he just kind of fucking walked out. You know,
I didn't know that that's you could do.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
He scaled this nice little guardian on it.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
No, no, no, he was just neglectful. You know, we
also have him here. He's just giving me excuses. So
this guy scaled a nine foot brick wall and slashed
up his arms on the barbed wire in the process.
He jumped the freight train to make his escape, but
he didn't go far though. It only took him four
days for police to catch up with him at his
brother's apartment. So, you know, he's not the brightest dude
at hiding, but he's good at like the first part
(15:42):
of escape, but he lacks a little follow through, which
is why we'll see later on the story. So every
time he got out of prison, Richard committed horrible assaults.
It was a pretty vicious cycle. And this part is nuts. Okay. Once,
while he was in prison awaiting trial, he struck a
deal with another inmate to kill the dude's wife.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
The dude paid for Richard's bail.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
But once Richard got out, he turned the tables and
told the authorities about the plot.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
But wait, it gets it gets crazier.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Wasn't this guy the married to the heir of the
Warner Brothers fortune overlords. That is correct?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Wait wait, wait, the guy that was hiring Richard to
kill his wife while in prison, That guy, the wife
that he wanted to kill, was the great granddaughter of
the actual Warner Brothers.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So she was an heiress of
the Warner Brothers family.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Can you believe?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh wow?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So he got out because he rad it on this guy.
But his next rhyme was the only one that would
finally get him locked in maximum security. Now, it started
when he took a job with a business dealing with
kid this nearly expired meat, so they would buy a
cheap and they were selling it to new customers.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Oh so it's the thing, nearly nearly expired meat.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Nearly yeah, keto, it was the old keto version. So
have you ever had any sketchy jobs?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I mean, I'm an actor, so it is kind of
a sketchy job.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I hear. So Richard made his expired meat job even
more sketchy. He started stealing the meat, smuggling over the
border into Canada for cash that he would then take
the strip close, right, So who's buying all this fucking
expired me? By the way, I don't want to know.
So after strivers, Yeah, not the stripper, I hope. After
only a few weeks, the boss caught him and fired Richard. Now,
(17:25):
unfortunately for the boss, Richard had overheard him make a
comment one time about one hundred grand that he had
buried in the basement. So Richard thought it was real
and he wanted that money. So he got a friend
and the two of them rolled up on the meat
dealer at his house. They beat him up, They stuffed
him into the trunk of Richard's car, and they drove
around for hours, stopping to interrogate and beat the guy.
(17:46):
They never learned anything from him, so Richard eventually just
killed him. But here's the most gruesome ploy. Yeah, he's
the most gruesome part. Richard cut him up into pieces
and dumped him in a river.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah. So he went to Mexico, but like David Sweat,
he just couldn't keep quiet. He went berserk and killed
another man in a bar. Jeez. Richard did nine years
in a Mexican prison before he got shipped back to
the United States. Oh so, how bad do you have
to be for the Mexican jails to be like? Nokout
you know what you can't have No, no, you can
have him. This is two wiki for us.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
No like it. I don't like the vibe. I don't
like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I just don't give him to us.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah no, no, we had him.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
No, this guy just keeps pissing on us. I don't
like it. He keeps telling us experiment. Where does he
get it from? Where does he get You're.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Gonna take him and you're gonna pay for it?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Oh god, damn it. Fine? Uh speaking in Mexico, alrities
might not know that you speak Spanish.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yop yo in no noise noise.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
He just insulted me and my whole family for Spanish speakers,
and I do.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Take event do you wait?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Sorry?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Just quickly, Spanish French.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
French would be French better than Spanish.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Okay, Spanish, French and English.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah yeah, that's impressive. Man. When are we starting with Dutch?
You and I just like just throwing it out there
on the weekends. We can learn it in a year,
will be great for ends.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Let's do Chinese.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Oh my god, I would love to Why I would
look to Japanese that I would really really love.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Back in the States, they have Richard back with him,
and Richard finally stood trial for murdering the meat boss,
and this time they really tried not to let him escape,
so they put him in a stun belt and even
posted snipers on the roof to the courthouse. A stun belt,
what is that? I'm guessing it's like a stun caller
for dogs, but like you just you just have it
(19:37):
around your body, like.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
What while he was in court or while he was
he was sitting there in a in a belt and
someone's got a button when.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Thinking while they're transporting him. It's my guess, but let
me get my overlords on this. What do we mean
by a stun belt? You guys, Joe is correct, he
was sitting in the court and somebody has a button. Yes,
Oh that wow?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Okay, uh, well sounds like a good fair trial if.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
You're at the trial.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
But he was easily convicted and they sent him to
Clinton Correctional facility, and that's where he met David and
the two of them started planning their great escape. Now
we're in two thousand and eight when David Sweat and
(20:25):
Richard Matter are serving their respective prison sentences in Clinton
Correctional Facility. So David had been there for eight years
and Richard was a new arrival. But Richard even came
with a new nickname, Hacksaw.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
I want to think that David.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I want to think that David was extremely jealous of
what a hard ass nickname he wanted. He wanted to
make up one up for himself. But I never called on,
you know, like call me lion Eater. No, sorry, dude,
you just kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
David hex On, David, David and Haxaw. That's our shots, right.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
He just never He's like, we can call you Sweat.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Did you ever have a nickname?
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Joe?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I was doing a movie about soldiers and we all
were doing a simulated boot camp, which is about the
you know, that's as hard ass as I get a
simulated boot camp. I hear it was like crazy ass
Chan because he is sort of a crazy person, smoking
ass iron because he smokes a lot, and it was
they called me regular Joe because they were all they
(21:20):
were all too prissy to ship in the outhouse and
they wouldn't ship. And I don't care like I'll go
take ship. I'm not gonna not take a ship. Everybody
we don't has to go.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
We just you know, on set, I noticed this. We
just had to look away. If Joe has to go,
this man will not walk two feet. He would just
fucking drop.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Stay regular man.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I eat a lot of vegetables. I'm gonna go ship
in the outhouse.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Come on.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So I was regular Joe. There you go, and that
name kind of stuck. Some people still call me regular Joe.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
That's a good one. So let me tell you about
Let me tell you about this person that they were
in right so as and I want to check in
with you. Is this is? How do you feeling?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
This is?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It's a hard story to hear, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
It's just hard for me.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I have to admit I have a hard time enjoying
the horrendous misfortunes of these terribly tragically ill people and
the pain they cause. But I've run the moral calculation
in my head as we're doing this, and that's exactly
where I net it out. It was like, okay, well,
if we can make a podcast where yes, we're telling
(22:25):
a story that's crazy to hear, but we're also actually
breaking it down and trying to understand what are the
larger problems in our world that are leading to these things.
That sounds like a fair way in to have some
important conversations.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So I'm down.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
I'm in full support to be going through the story
and having this conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Awesome, man, thank you, And you know I agree, and
you know I think it helps to tell these kinds
of stories with some context. Right, So let's go back
a little bit and get into the history of the
person that they were in. So the prison was called
Clinton Correctional Facility and it was originally built by labor
gangs of prisoners in the eighteen hundreds. The Cold Winters
gave the prison its nickname Little Siberia Labor Gangs.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Wow, sorry, I just said labor gangs.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Then it's an important thing to note the American prison
system is there's there's not even a dotted line between
the American prison system and the American slavery industry.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
From not even a dotted line.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
It's not even it's a solid line. It's not even
a very long line. It was like as soon as
slavery was outlawed in whatever it was, eighteen sixty five,
very very shortly thereafter, they started figuring out, okay, well
then how are we going to get all this work done?
And prisoners was exactly one of the biggest answers and
(23:42):
it's still happening today.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And for our listeners, if you want to hear more
about it, Ava Duverne did an amazing documentary called The
Thirteenth Yeah, which you can find on Netflix, which was
incredibly powerful. Yeah. So you know, imagine the conditions of
any place when it gets compared to a fucking Soviet
gulag like little Siberia too, you know what I'm saying,
that's when you're really fucking up. So the guard tower
(24:04):
in the sixty food concrete walls dominate the surrounding streets.
Now in two thousand and eight, the people locked up
there were put to work in an assembling office. They
were making furniture, clothes, license plates, and road signs in
an industrial building inside the prison walls. It's like a
fucked up Etsy shop, you know what I'm saying, Like,
it's just like wrong, Yeah, so most people in this
and this is another thing, right, most people in the
(24:26):
surrounding town called then dan Mora were jobs in the prison.
They were guards, clerks, cooks, and supervisors for the prison labors.
For instance, take Tilly, and she's going to be essential
to our story. She and her husband both worked in
the prison, and Tilly had been a supervisor since two
thousand and eight. She ran the show in the tailoring shop,
and that's where she met David and Richard. So there
(24:48):
are conflicting stories about what happened in the tailor shop,
including whether the sexual acts were consensual. Even Tilly's own
account has changed over time, Like what she told the
state investigators differs from the accounts that she's giving to
the press. You know, it's possible that Tilly herself was
a victim of sexual violence and coercion. And we just
want to make it super clear for our listener that
there are multiple sides of this story and the facts
(25:10):
are not one hundred percent clear, you know, But first
maybe it seemed like there wasn't much to worry about.
After all, David and Richard lived in Cell Block A,
which was known as the Honor Block. So inside Clinton correctional.
Richard and David had taken up painting and build themselves
a good reputation, because if history has taught us anything
it's that people who take a planting class never do
anything wrong like ever. Ever, so in the Taylor's shop
(25:32):
where they work, David had also become really good at
sewing and was even made shop instructor. Now other workers
started noticing that Tilly had made friends with David. She
started bringing him contraband treats. And at first there was
things like homemade brownies or cookies, but once Tilly even
brought him a big mac from a McDonald's that was
almost an hour away from prison. Wow, that is fucking commitment. Dude.
(25:55):
My girlfriend and I like argue about who's going to
like shut the lights out like four feet away from
our band.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Okay, I was gonna say our long big mac run.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's not just that's not friendship. No no, no no.
And so eventually the violations were too obvious, you know,
an anominumous letter to the prison administrators got David kicked
out of the tailoring shop. And that's when Tilly got
close to David's prison friend, Richard, like very very close Okay.
As we noted earlier, there are some differing accounts about
whether or not the relationship became sexual. By the spring
(26:23):
of twenty fifteen, the State Investigation reports that it was
Tilly and Richard who were going into the empty room
for sex. Tilly would also give Richard sexual notes to
pass along to David, including nude photos of herself. Later,
in at least one interview, Tilly said that she was
worried about her safety in her husband's life.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
But we'll come back to that later.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Okay, okay, So she's married during this, she's married turing
this to a guy that works at the prison. Wow. So,
because despite all of this special treatment inside the prison,
Richard and David were determined to get out, So listen.
Once David and Richard had Tilly tangled up in the
(27:00):
most bizarre thrutle ever, they had the plan to use
her as a means for escape.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Richard until he started to trade.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
At first, it was just small things, you know, paint
brushes for their art, stuff like that. But then it
started to get a little more elaborate. He said he
needed some glasses with built in flashlights because it would
help him paint tonight. He then said he needed some
hacksaw blades. What do you think she had?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Like she thought he needed this for.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Like he was just jealous of the nickname.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, I want to be hacks off too, you know,
I'm tired of being sweaty sweat I'm a sweaty Dave.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
So until he brought in the.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Blades secretly and stashed them at Richard's workstation in the
tailory shop. Then to get them out of his cell,
Richard taped them to his body and underwalk and this
is important. On the walk back to the tailory shop,
the guard let him go around the metal detector. Right,
So this was honor block, after all, What reason did
they have to be suspicious of Richard? But this just
seems like gross neglect or he was in on it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well, I mean, if there's a metal detector there, what's
the why don't you just.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Go fucking through it? Yeah. So, once he was back
in his cell, Richard passed half of the blades of
David next door and the two men went to work.
They started to slowly cut the steel walls of their cells.
They will wait until the evening when other inmates from
other blocks were allowed to use the common recreation areas. Now,
Richard and David would hang back and they all say
they always said they were painting or something like that. So,
(28:19):
night by night, inch by inch, the men cut holes
into the back walls. They covered the holes with their
own paintings, and that's when the plan really began.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Hold on, they're cutting a wall. They're cutting a hole
in a wall.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
The wall is made of How do you how do
you cut a hole in a wall, even if you
have a hacksaw?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
How do you even do that.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
With a lot of patients? Joe, Yeah, no, no, no, overlords,
was this a what they were hacking at?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
The concrete?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Was it the bars? No, they couldn't do it the
bar the bars.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Yes, their cell walls were made of steel.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Wow, and you can do that with a hacksaw, with
a hacksaw blade, yes, jeez. And you're right.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Patients, Yes, absolutely, patients And yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Okay, so they just this is a long term project.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You know, a lot of when when you hear about
a lot of these escape stories, there is this sort
of sense of shame of like man if like. Some
of these require a lot of mental fortitude and planning
and patience and hard work, and you can just imagine
what people under different circumstances with more help might have
been able to do had they applied this to something else.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
That's exactly right, that's exact.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, it's entrepreneurial to do to pull all that shit
off and take the initiative and like plan ahead.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. So behind the back walls
there was a whole nest of pipes and conduits for
plumbing and electricity that went to every cell and along
with them there were catwalks that spread through the prison
to allow for maintenance. David was able to then walk
all the way from Honor Block, through the next prison
laundry and even under the next cell block. But you know,
the whole prison was like a maze. So now that
(29:48):
they were outside of their cells, David and Richard needed
to find a route all the way out of prison,
and they needed to do it at night. Now do
you remember what tool might come in useful here?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Uh? The glasses with the Yes.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
There you go. So they were using the flashlied glasses
they got from Tilly. Then Richard and David started planning,
all planning way through. They slowly selected cement walls and
metal grates for their escape, and then night by night
they spend time cutting holes into each one, so over
time they carved the path through the various buildings toward
the outer wall. Tilly continued to pass them more and
more tools, and eventually they gave a ball pretense. They
(30:23):
just wanted heavy heavy duty workloves concrete, drill beats, chisels,
more hacks aw blades, and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And no one's noticing this is everyone Tilly's rooting for
them to get out, which is a little confusing because
it seems like she's on I don't know, having a
positive experience with them being in jail.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So does she.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Maybe when they're out of jail, they can continue this
on their run, right, Maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
That's the she thinks they're gonna stick around.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I think so. I mean, by this point, if you're
so psychologically addicted to somebody, which is what it sounds like, right.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Then it's believe anything.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah you're And so Tilly had a unique way to
get them inside right at home. She packed the tools
inside blocks of ground beef and put them into the freezer.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
And the really beef comes back into this story.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, ma'am, dude, this is we are sponsored by the
beef industry.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It wasn't nearly expired, hope.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
So let me make a little segue to think our
sponsors and e m right, nearly expire meat for all
the masses. Yes, it's cheaper than regular meat and only
slightly more dangerous.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
It's what's for dinner, button beef.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
What's for dinner? The next morning? Is he carry the
frozen meat into the tailory shop. Then she arranged for
a prison guard to deliver the loaded meat to Richard's cell.
It went so she got another prison guard to deliver
the meat. That's fucked up, so it went without a hitch.
So next time they put in an order for tools,
she did the exact same thing. Now. Eventually, Richard and
(31:49):
David found a steam pipe system and that connected to
a power plant outside the prison wall. So David cut
a hole in the side of a pipe that was
large enough for men to crawl in, and at last
they had a clear path to the outside. The final
(32:10):
plan for the escape was drawn up like this. Richard
and David would leave life sized dummies in their beds,
made from bundles of old clothes so the prison guards
wouldn't notice they were missing. It's like Ferris Vieler kind
of and they loved eighties coming of age movies. Step two,
with a guitar case full of supplies, they would climb
through the holes in the back of their cells and
(32:30):
onto the catwalk and follow the path through the walls
and tunnels that led to the outside of the prison walls.
They would then crawl through a manhole up to the
nearby street and flee the prison.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Step three, This is fucked up.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Tilly would drug her husband with narcotics that Richard had
been prescribed by the prison doctors. That way, he wouldn't
notice when she left in the car to pick up
Richard and David.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Step four.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
When the two escapees hopped into Tilly's cars, she would
drive them home. Then the pair of them would murder
her husband, and the three of them would then collect
the life insurance policy and write right off into the sunset.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Good lord, Wait.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Wasn't that the whole fucking reason that she was helping
them because she was afraid they might hurt her husband?
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Like, doesn't that that just doesn't you.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Oh, yeah, you did say that she was scared for
the safety of her house.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It just seems like an I think she was just
all in.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Also likely, like how long do they think it takes
a file an insurance claim? Like how were they just
going to like wait inside the fucking house for money
for months? You know?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And I guess then they have to make the murder
look like they can't cut them up and throw them
in the river. Yeah, I have to do something else
pretty tricky if they're going to get the life insurance money.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
It's so macarv Am I saying that word correctly? My uh,
I don't know macarv.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
There is no correct way to say that.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Okay, macabre. It is incredibly macabay.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
That was the most correct I've actually ever heard that
word pronounced.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
So Richard and David packed their guitar cases with the
necessities Pepperoni sticks, toilet paper, and electric shaver and forty
granola bars because they were watching their figure. That's just kidding.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I don't know what before shaver. This based on a shaver.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Also, Also, I would not have thought of toilet paper,
but it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
That sounds more necessary than the shaver.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I would expect regular Joe to thinker that up, you know,
because regular show take a shit in the bud. I
just wouldn't have thought of it. Also, an electric shaver,
maybe to change their look. That would make more sense.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So Tilly even brought them in a compass, the New
York State, pages of an atlas, and.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Lots of black pepper.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
They were hoping to use the black pepper to keep
dogs off their scent, which I have to admit, it's
pretty fucking clever.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Does that work?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I don't know if it worked or not. Did it
work everything?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
As if I need to keep dogs off myself?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
No, no, no, it's so shady. I get every other way
You're like, but what was the success rate for that?
So Richard gave So Richard gave Tilly the narcotics he
had saved up, and the tunnels were complete and everything
was ready to go. So on the night of June fifth,
twenty fifteen, Richard and David left their prison cells for
the last time. As they made they were through their
escape route, they left notes at the spots that had
(35:02):
been difficult to overcome. At a pipe between B Block
and C Block, they left a picture of an alien
and a little tagline that said, are you trying me punk.
I think they would have workshopped that time if you're king,
yeah one percent.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Wow. Also they're having fun doing that.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
They're having fun.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. Also, Like, I don't blame you, dude. Like most
people's conundrum with me is that they never know when
I'm fucking serious, you know, So I would make a
terrible doctor. I'm like, no, man, you really have to
go now there I this fucking gut At the final
outer wall, where they had spent thirty nights sawing through
the steam pipe, their notes said have a nice day.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. So then Richard and David got to the manhole
cover and this was it. They were free. But thank
you for that manhole cover opening outside. Yeah, but when
they popped out into the street, there was no one there.
Turns out the Tilly, the accomplice in their ghetaway driver,
got cold feet.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
She did didn't feel so confident in.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
The plan after all, at the last second, something about
drugging her husband and running off with these murders.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Killing and killing him. That was part of the plan.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Too, right, Yeah, I just didn't sit right.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Good for Tilly.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, instead of hitting her husband with a roofye, Tilly
had a panic attack at nine pm. Her husband drove
her to the hospital where she was admitted for observation.
Later she would say that she never intended to drug
and kill her husband. It just took her this long
to finally abandon the plan. Who that was really at
the eleventh hour to Tilly. But that left these two
escapees standing in the middle of the street at midnight
(36:31):
with no driver and no Golden Life insurance policy on
their side for their dumb plan. So they decided to
haul ass into the nearby forest of Little Siberia. And
this is where we come full circle. Okay. So once
they were out into the woods, they started breaking into
hunting cabins. Remember the moonshine and the weed and all
that stuff. Oh yeah, okay, So at one hunting cabin
(36:52):
they even found a transit to radio, which was lucky
for them because the cops started a huge manhunt. It
was the US Marshalls, it was the forest rangers, it
was everybody, border patrol, helicopters, the whole thing, right, And
that's where the to escape he split. Now, David wanted
to run for the border, but Richard was just done caring.
So instead of heading back into the forest, he actually
(37:13):
took a shotgun down to the road and started shooting
and passing cars. Man he hit a family camphor Ban
and they called in the location.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Right, Yeah, wildly fucked up.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
But that also meant that the cops knew exactly where
he was, so they closed in and they actually killed
him before he had.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
A chance to shoot at them too.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
And as for David, he did try to make a
break for it, but he was caught on the road
to Canada before he could escape across the border.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
He survived.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, so he had been shot, but he survived. So
he was brought in and he told the story of
his escape in great detail to the investigators, to the police,
and to the prison officials, resulting in over five hundred
pages of interview transcripts. You know, he even compared their
escape to Shoshank redemption, but he said, Shashank ain't got
shit on me. So after such a quazy escape, there
(38:02):
was a scramble to figure out how it had all happened.
Investigators interviewed one hundred and seventy people to help peace
together the puzzle. According to the report, there were many
points of failure.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Can I just pause and be the nerd for a second,
one more time. If we're talking about, oh, hey, we
don't have money to pay for mental health treatment of kids.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
That's too expensive. How are we going to spend that money?
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Okay, cut to now X years later, the kid didn't
get mental health treatment, And now how expensive do you
think it is for them to be conducting this investigation
with how many people?
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Did you say? They're interviewing one hundred and seventy people?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
You know, I mean, I don't know what the number is,
but that's so expensive now that they're they're having to
clean up this.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So much power, so expensive, so deliberate.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Right, it's the it's the old thing of like if
you don't want to, you know, spend a lot of
money on your doctor's bills, just like eat healthy. Right,
If we just spent some money up front on taking
care of people who are mentally ill, especially like you said, kids,
I thought that was a really important point you made.
Maybe we wouldn't be spending the enormous budget it must
(39:09):
have taken to clean up this fucking mess of this
guardank people, to.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Accuse people, to interview people, and then to put them
back into prison.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Right, the practical, cold, hard like dollars and cents of
it would actually make so much more sense if we
were helping people earlier instead of trying to incarcerate and
punish and shit later on.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
And it's such a powerful note to end on, my friend.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
That's our story, and I hope the takeaway for our
audience is that there is such a bigger conversation here
about not just a prison system, but like how you know,
it's just really easy to wash our hands on people
that are just that we just see as the dejective
ones from society. But it's just so important. And also, listen, man,
this is a great credit to you. I got to
tell you before we have to let you go. We're
(39:57):
firing you. Apparently I don't know way how to hire you.
But you're so well versed in the business of empathy.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
You understand what I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
And I think that's a big credit to you, man,
And I think we need more people like you in
a position in positions and power. Man. And so when
you run for president, I would like to put myself
off vice president.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Let's do it perfect. You mean you president, I want
to be VP. You're your president?
Speaker 4 (40:23):
No, all right, brother, much love to you. Joe We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Thank you so much, brother, love you dude, good to
see you. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are
me Or Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show was produced and
edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chug, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is
(40:59):
Tory Smith, who our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riiseek, Sarah Joyner, nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(41:28):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next week.
This is great as Escapes, a show bringing you the
wildess true escape stories of all time. Now, in this episode,
we're telling the story of two escapees who had a
true neck for smuggling tools into prison so they could
cut their way out. I'm Marturo Gastro and I'm joined
by a man who's talent on screen and behind the
camera has been completely undeniable for decades. One of my
(00:22):
favorite co stars of all time. Please welcome Joseph Gordon Levitt.
(00:56):
It's Joseph Gordon Levit. Thanks, of course, thanks for being here.
And Joe, I got to tell you. You know in our
audience you know this, but you are one of the
kindest people I've ever worked with. And I mean that
very sincerely.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I feel the same way about you, man.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
And I'll tell you what it is, man, that you
just like, no matter who it is on set that
has a question, you always stop and make time to
answer it, no matter how small it could be, Like
you know.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Because I just love hearing myself answer questions yes.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If there's somebody recording it and an
artist sort of drawing, you do it. At all times.
You're just heard. I'll give you an example if somebody
comes over and they're like, hey, so, yeah, I think
I'm just gonna make those curtains blue, and you're like, wait, wait,
stop the roll. Yeah, okay, So I wanted to ask you,
even though it's kind of a hard question to ask
while being honest, but you know, being in films for
(01:46):
as long as you've been and still being such a
well adjusted human being, what what do you attribute that to?
How you've sort of kept your head straight all these years.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
That's I mean, so flattering that you would ask me that.
I mean, it's a pretty simple answer. I think I
got real lucky with the parents I got, And you
know that's not my doing that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
We all just roll dice and get who we get.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
And my parents were never very enchanted with all of
the poisonous accoutremont they can come along with show business.
You know, I've been working in acting and stuff since
I was six years old, and my parents always just
saw that I loved doing it.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
But anytime I.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Didn't want to do it, if I didn't feel like
going on an audition that day or something, my mom
would always say and very sincerely, you really don't have
to do this, will you know? We'll be so in
love with you and proud of you no matter what
you do. Wow, you did commit to this thing today
and it's important that you honor your commitments.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So let's go today.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
But if you after that, if you don't want to
do this, you never have to do this.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
And I think it's it's more common that people feel
pressure to do it, and that can be the beginning
of the I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yes, of the end say it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Let me ask you something, what do you consider it
to be your greatest escape?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Well, I honestly, I think what we did escaping the
pandemic to New Zealand. And I feel half bad, you know,
saying this, because it was such a privilege to get
to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
But that was an incredible escape.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And just to tell the brief version of the story,
you know, we were shooting this show, mister Corman, that
i'd been you know, trying to put together for years
is My Baby. We're three weeks into the shoot in.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
March of twenty twenty when the whole world shut down.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
We have to stop along with everybody else, and we
were trying to get.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The production back up.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Everyone was running around trying to figure out how to
shoot during the pandemic, and the intrepid producers over at
A twenty four called me and said, would you ever
consider spending a lot of.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Time in New Zealand?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
And I was, I mean, I felt like I won
the lottery. I had been literally, not exaggerating. My wife
and I had been fantasizing. We'd been staying up at
night looking at google Maps street view of New Zealand,
picking where we wanted to be, just because it sounded
like such a dream to be out of the pandemic,
(04:26):
and when there was no COVID there at the time,
and then we got to go, and I remember, and
I got to bring my family and we spent a
time there and a long time, and I remember when
we got there. My older boy, who at the time
was I think five, we got off the plane in
the airport in Wellington and no one was wearing masks,
(04:49):
and we got off and we took off our masks
and my boy goes, we're out of the pandemic, and
I was like, yeah, that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Leave it to a five or well.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
But it was an escape, right, It was just like
we were able to I remember I would post stories
or I send my friends videos of like just shopping
at a grocery store without a mask, and it was
like the biggest flex in the world. Okay, so are
we ready to get into this? Do you want to
hear some crazy escape?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I want to hear this story. I love storytelling, so
I can't wait.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
I'm gonna hate you.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
It's the summer of twenty fifteen, and we begin in
a remote hunting cabin in upstate New York. The rooms
are dark, quiet, musty. The cabin is empty. Footsteps approach, crunch.
I'm not gonna do my own side effects. Two men
come to the door. They try the handle. They're silhouettes
loom in the windows. They force their way inside. Yes,
(05:46):
it's a break in. The men are looking pretty rough.
They've been trekking through the woods near the Canadian border,
living off the land and carrying their supplies in a
battered guitar case.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Of guitar case.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
A guitar case.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
They didn't mean to go living in the wilderness. Is
they're carrying a guitar case?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, no, they didn't. This wasn't part of their plan.
They have ragged name tags they're still sewn into their clothing.
It's they're called David and Richard.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Name tags what like TGIF waiters or something.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yes, yes they both work. They work at Applebee's and
this is just how do some crazy turn of events.
They are now in the woods. So they're in this
crusty cabin in the woods and it's a gold mic.
They rummage to the cabinets and dressers. Do you have
any guess what they're going to find their joe?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I mean food, water, I don't know, like Nintendo.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
A TGI Friday store.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
They found a full so they open up a fully
stocked pantry and begin to feast. But even better, they
find a bottle of moonshine and a propane heater, and
you also find plenty of choice weed. So one of
them sleeps sweeps up the glass. The other one grabs
the moonshine, rosa joints and settles on the couch. We
get a glare from the sweeping guy and he just takes.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
The same marijuana and alcohol.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Not my favorite, not a favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
It's always seems like a good idea, you know when
I was younger, Like you're drawing somebody that you want
to hit. This and sudden one.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
What kind of evening do you want to have? Pick one?
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So something, I mean the couch and brain.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yo'll be like, oh, man, three years ago, it's kind
of rude to that, Maarissa, I.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Should call them.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So this is when David and Richard's Great Escape started
to go sideways. There were two murderers on the run
after an epic prison escape, and the.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Law was hot on their heels.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Oh damn, So Joe, let's meet these two shady characters. Okay,
we established they're not actually from TJA Fridays.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Oh their prison name tags after all.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Exactly, So these guys were worse than shady. These two
guys were cold blooded killers. And so we're gonna start
with David Sweat. Yeah. So he was born in nineteen
eighty and he grew up in a little town of Deposit,
New York. Incidentally, it's not known for their deposits. They
were all cash in hand. That's such a stupid joke,
but I have to get it in there.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So by the time he was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
David had already had a long rap sheet, a list
that included violent attacks and burglees and car crashes to
his knee. What coind of parents, did he He did
not have great parents. They all, yes, none of them. Yeah,
they all believed in name text that wasn't even a
prison thing. They just like it was just the thing
he picked up from youth. So once while he was
in prison, a guard found him making a list of
(08:12):
future crimes that he hoped to commit one day. You
got to admire the fucking audacity of this insane viition board.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Is he writing down just like the actual offenses I
want to perform armed robbery check, I want to perform
arson check?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Or is he like, yes, exact, I want to commit
each and every one of these before my time is done.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So, oh, he's ill. He's sick. He's mentally ill.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
He's a sick man. But when he first got out
on parole, David started living out of a camper in
the woods in upstate New York. He gathered some friends
like minded prince, you could say, and they started boosting
cars from the parking lots of nearby towns now.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
David, sorry, let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Let me go back to this for a second.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Do you believe that some people.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Even if they're not mentally ill or there's not something
inherently wrong with him. Do you think there's just some
people that are born.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Cruel or their race cruel?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I mean, cruel has the value judgment. I definitely think
there are people who are born ill. And I mean,
I'm sorry to get all serious here. We're trying to
have a fun time telling an escape story. But like
for sure, our world, especially our country, does not do
a good job of taking care of mentally ill people.
And the fact that someone who's clearly mentally ill has
(09:28):
ended up in prison, that's probably not the right place
for him.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
That's not going to help him.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And to your point, through throughout these stories that we've
been telling, a lot of them are prison escapes, and nobody,
not one person in any of these stories gets reformed
by going to the prison system.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
You know, it's supposed to be rehabilitation.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Well, it's it's worth noting, you know, in sorry to
get all geeky about this is something I'm.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Quite interested in.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
There's a lot of prisons that they actually are private
for profit companies, so it's in their interest that they
have more prisoners, and so what incentive do they have
to make sure that their prisoners rehabilitate and get out
and go lead more healthy, positive lives.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
They don't, they have the incentive to bring them back.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Like any good business, you want your customers to come back.
I do think it speaks to the kind of larger
values and understanding. And this goes back to the kind
of meritocracy myth that we were talking about a minute
ago when you asked like, Hey, how did you end
up so lucky to be?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
You know, a happy person?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
And I think so much of it comes down to luck,
whether that's who your.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Parents are, or just the physiology and your brain.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Are all the cylinders firing right, or are some of
those cylinders firing in a way that drive you as
a young person to think about crime and want to
do that. I definitely think that that's luck. And you know,
the there's a saying I forget the exact wording of it,
but like the measure of a good kind society is
how well you treat the unlucky people.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Joe, because we're spending too much money spying on our
own citizens. But he's like, you know, that gets expensive.
People need to know who I'm fucking TEXTI man, you know.
And so when he was with with these like minded people,
David bracked to others about the police scanner that he
used to avoid cops, and he said that if they
ever came at him, he would blow them away. So
in two thousand and two, on the fourth of July,
(11:22):
David Sweat and two accomplices ran the truck through the
back wall of a fireworks and gun shop. They ran
through the store and they loaded up a duffel bag
with guns and also fireworks and guns in the same shop.
Is there anything more American than a flock sip store
of everything that goes boom? You know? It's like, do
you like guns?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
You like explosions?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Why spend any time anywhere else when you're having fun
there fireworks when it gets serious, we.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Have weapons and when you don't know which, bury both,
which is kind of incidentally the tagline for My King Senira.
So with their loot, David raised to a tiny park
three miles away where they were moving the gun to
a second car. That's when a local sheriff's deputy pulled
up in his cruiser and had them in the headlights. Now,
the deputy got out of his car to confront the men,
(12:08):
but David Sweat just started shooting man and he and
the other Roberts shot the deputy fifteen times, stole his gun,
and even this is fucking rough. They ran him over
with their getaway car, the old bloody premated Tata murder.
But and again not to go on another tangent of this,
but you know, it's I'm sure for the family of
this deputy, it's hard to understand this, you know what
(12:28):
I'm saying. It's hard to have any sympathy for somebody
just killed your fucking husband, of.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Course, but that's just it.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
It's it's bad for the police too, Like why the
first government intervention of like trying to handle this very
sick person should not be a sheriff's deputy, a mental
health professional talking to this kid a decade prior so
that he doesn't kill the sheriff's deputy.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That's exactly the.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Problem, exactly. So then they made it their escape. But
David could not stop bragging. And so within a week,
David's it always fucking happens with criminals, with the criminals
that we learned.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
About here, what is he writing about?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
He's like, they're gonna fucking talk about me on a
podcast one David.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So within a week, David's girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Told the police, and when they called him, David pled
guilty to the murder. In order to avoid the death penalty.
He received the life sentence without parole. Now they send
him to Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York, and
that's where he would meet our next escapee, Richard Matt
His story is a lot like David's. You know, he
was another troubled kid who didn't get the help he
needed When he was a kid. He actually ran away
from a foster home by stealing a horse and riding
(13:34):
off at the age of fourteen. He even tried to
steal a houseboat man. You got to give this guy
a credit for like niche getaway vehicle. You know. He
was also well known for a penny farthing escape. You know,
have you have you ever owned a unicycle or written
a penny farthing?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
My wife can ride a unicycle. I've never owned one personally,
and I've tried to ride it.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It's very difficult, I'm sure it is. I don't think
I could ride also ride one fast enough to like
get away.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I would love to see that.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That should be our new reality show. So Richard's crimes
only got worse from there, right felonius, felony weapon charges,
felony assault, and plenty of misdemeter harassment charges. It's like
he just couldn't meet somebody without attacking them, you know.
So when he was caught, he often escaped heavy charges
by pleading guilty to lesser crimes. What's the most trouble
you ever got into as a kid?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Uh? I? I remember shoplifting a greeting card once at
the mall because there was a picture on the front
that looked like my dog, and I wanted to show
it to my mom and dad. But I also probably
I think I had probably enough money to buy the thing,
but I was tickled by the idea of, you know,
stealing it.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And what do you know, I didn't get caught.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Like you, but even Jewish kid in the mall, no
one punished me or sent me to foster care for shoplifting.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Well, actually funny she should mention that because we have
the shop owner here.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
With us today, come on out found him. We fucking
found him us.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It's hill on the refrigerator at my parent's house.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I can give it back to you. No, no, no, no.
He doesn't want to speak right now, but he is
very mighty myth. So the neglect was obvious though, you know,
with with Richard's life. He made his first prison break
the easy way. A guard left his prison so open,
and he just kind of fucking walked out. You know,
I didn't know that that's you could do.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
He scaled this nice little guardian on it.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
No, no, no, he was just neglectful. You know, we
also have him here. He's just giving me excuses. So
this guy scaled a nine foot brick wall and slashed
up his arms on the barbed wire in the process.
He jumped the freight train to make his escape, but
he didn't go far though. It only took him four
days for police to catch up with him at his
brother's apartment. So, you know, he's not the brightest dude
at hiding, but he's good at like the first part
(15:42):
of escape, but he lacks a little follow through, which
is why we'll see later on the story. So every
time he got out of prison, Richard committed horrible assaults.
It was a pretty vicious cycle. And this part is nuts. Okay. Once,
while he was in prison awaiting trial, he struck a
deal with another inmate to kill the dude's wife.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
The dude paid for Richard's bail.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
But once Richard got out, he turned the tables and
told the authorities about the plot.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
But wait, it gets it gets crazier.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Wasn't this guy the married to the heir of the
Warner Brothers fortune overlords. That is correct?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Wait wait, wait, the guy that was hiring Richard to
kill his wife while in prison, That guy, the wife
that he wanted to kill, was the great granddaughter of
the actual Warner Brothers.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So she was an heiress of
the Warner Brothers family.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Can you believe?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh wow?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So he got out because he rad it on this guy.
But his next rhyme was the only one that would
finally get him locked in maximum security. Now, it started
when he took a job with a business dealing with
kid this nearly expired meat, so they would buy a
cheap and they were selling it to new customers.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Oh so it's the thing, nearly nearly expired meat.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Nearly yeah, keto, it was the old keto version. So
have you ever had any sketchy jobs?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I mean, I'm an actor, so it is kind of
a sketchy job.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I hear. So Richard made his expired meat job even
more sketchy. He started stealing the meat, smuggling over the
border into Canada for cash that he would then take
the strip close, right, So who's buying all this fucking
expired me? By the way, I don't want to know.
So after strivers, Yeah, not the stripper, I hope. After
only a few weeks, the boss caught him and fired Richard. Now,
(17:25):
unfortunately for the boss, Richard had overheard him make a
comment one time about one hundred grand that he had
buried in the basement. So Richard thought it was real
and he wanted that money. So he got a friend
and the two of them rolled up on the meat
dealer at his house. They beat him up, They stuffed
him into the trunk of Richard's car, and they drove
around for hours, stopping to interrogate and beat the guy.
(17:46):
They never learned anything from him, so Richard eventually just
killed him. But here's the most gruesome ploy. Yeah, he's
the most gruesome part. Richard cut him up into pieces
and dumped him in a river.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah. So he went to Mexico, but like David Sweat,
he just couldn't keep quiet. He went berserk and killed
another man in a bar. Jeez. Richard did nine years
in a Mexican prison before he got shipped back to
the United States. Oh so, how bad do you have
to be for the Mexican jails to be like? Nokout
you know what you can't have No, no, you can
have him. This is two wiki for us.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
No like it. I don't like the vibe. I don't
like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I just don't give him to us.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah no, no, we had him.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
No, this guy just keeps pissing on us. I don't
like it. He keeps telling us experiment. Where does he
get it from? Where does he get You're.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Gonna take him and you're gonna pay for it?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Oh god, damn it. Fine? Uh speaking in Mexico, alrities
might not know that you speak Spanish.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yop yo in no noise noise.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
He just insulted me and my whole family for Spanish speakers,
and I do.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Take event do you wait?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Sorry?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Just quickly, Spanish French.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
French would be French better than Spanish.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Okay, Spanish, French and English.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah yeah, that's impressive. Man. When are we starting with Dutch?
You and I just like just throwing it out there
on the weekends. We can learn it in a year,
will be great for ends.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Let's do Chinese.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Oh my god, I would love to Why I would
look to Japanese that I would really really love.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Back in the States, they have Richard back with him,
and Richard finally stood trial for murdering the meat boss,
and this time they really tried not to let him escape,
so they put him in a stun belt and even
posted snipers on the roof to the courthouse. A stun belt,
what is that? I'm guessing it's like a stun caller
for dogs, but like you just you just have it
(19:37):
around your body, like.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
What while he was in court or while he was
he was sitting there in a in a belt and
someone's got a button when.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Thinking while they're transporting him. It's my guess, but let
me get my overlords on this. What do we mean
by a stun belt? You guys, Joe is correct, he
was sitting in the court and somebody has a button. Yes,
Oh that wow?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Okay, uh, well sounds like a good fair trial if.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
You're at the trial.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
But he was easily convicted and they sent him to
Clinton Correctional facility, and that's where he met David and
the two of them started planning their great escape. Now
we're in two thousand and eight when David Sweat and
(20:25):
Richard Matter are serving their respective prison sentences in Clinton
Correctional Facility. So David had been there for eight years
and Richard was a new arrival. But Richard even came
with a new nickname, Hacksaw.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
I want to think that David.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I want to think that David was extremely jealous of
what a hard ass nickname he wanted. He wanted to
make up one up for himself. But I never called on,
you know, like call me lion Eater. No, sorry, dude,
you just kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
David hex On, David, David and Haxaw. That's our shots, right.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
He just never He's like, we can call you Sweat.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Did you ever have a nickname?
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Joe?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I was doing a movie about soldiers and we all
were doing a simulated boot camp, which is about the
you know, that's as hard ass as I get a
simulated boot camp. I hear it was like crazy ass
Chan because he is sort of a crazy person, smoking
ass iron because he smokes a lot, and it was
they called me regular Joe because they were all they
(21:20):
were all too prissy to ship in the outhouse and
they wouldn't ship. And I don't care like I'll go
take ship. I'm not gonna not take a ship. Everybody
we don't has to go.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
We just you know, on set, I noticed this. We
just had to look away. If Joe has to go,
this man will not walk two feet. He would just
fucking drop.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Stay regular man.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I eat a lot of vegetables. I'm gonna go ship
in the outhouse.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Come on.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So I was regular Joe. There you go, and that
name kind of stuck. Some people still call me regular Joe.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
That's a good one. So let me tell you about
Let me tell you about this person that they were
in right so as and I want to check in
with you. Is this is? How do you feeling?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
This is?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It's a hard story to hear, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
It's just hard for me.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I have to admit I have a hard time enjoying
the horrendous misfortunes of these terribly tragically ill people and
the pain they cause. But I've run the moral calculation
in my head as we're doing this, and that's exactly
where I net it out. It was like, okay, well,
if we can make a podcast where yes, we're telling
(22:25):
a story that's crazy to hear, but we're also actually
breaking it down and trying to understand what are the
larger problems in our world that are leading to these things.
That sounds like a fair way in to have some
important conversations.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So I'm down.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
I'm in full support to be going through the story
and having this conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Awesome, man, thank you, And you know I agree, and
you know I think it helps to tell these kinds
of stories with some context. Right, So let's go back
a little bit and get into the history of the
person that they were in. So the prison was called
Clinton Correctional Facility and it was originally built by labor
gangs of prisoners in the eighteen hundreds. The Cold Winters
gave the prison its nickname Little Siberia Labor Gangs.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Wow, sorry, I just said labor gangs.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Then it's an important thing to note the American prison
system is there's there's not even a dotted line between
the American prison system and the American slavery industry.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
From not even a dotted line.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
It's not even it's a solid line. It's not even
a very long line. It was like as soon as
slavery was outlawed in whatever it was, eighteen sixty five,
very very shortly thereafter, they started figuring out, okay, well
then how are we going to get all this work done?
And prisoners was exactly one of the biggest answers and
(23:42):
it's still happening today.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And for our listeners, if you want to hear more
about it, Ava Duverne did an amazing documentary called The
Thirteenth Yeah, which you can find on Netflix, which was
incredibly powerful. Yeah. So you know, imagine the conditions of
any place when it gets compared to a fucking Soviet
gulag like little Siberia too, you know what I'm saying,
that's when you're really fucking up. So the guard tower
(24:04):
in the sixty food concrete walls dominate the surrounding streets.
Now in two thousand and eight, the people locked up
there were put to work in an assembling office. They
were making furniture, clothes, license plates, and road signs in
an industrial building inside the prison walls. It's like a
fucked up Etsy shop, you know what I'm saying, Like,
it's just like wrong, Yeah, so most people in this
and this is another thing, right, most people in the
(24:26):
surrounding town called then dan Mora were jobs in the prison.
They were guards, clerks, cooks, and supervisors for the prison labors.
For instance, take Tilly, and she's going to be essential
to our story. She and her husband both worked in
the prison, and Tilly had been a supervisor since two
thousand and eight. She ran the show in the tailoring shop,
and that's where she met David and Richard. So there
(24:48):
are conflicting stories about what happened in the tailor shop,
including whether the sexual acts were consensual. Even Tilly's own
account has changed over time, Like what she told the
state investigators differs from the accounts that she's giving to
the press. You know, it's possible that Tilly herself was
a victim of sexual violence and coercion. And we just
want to make it super clear for our listener that
there are multiple sides of this story and the facts
(25:10):
are not one hundred percent clear, you know, But first
maybe it seemed like there wasn't much to worry about.
After all, David and Richard lived in Cell Block A,
which was known as the Honor Block. So inside Clinton correctional.
Richard and David had taken up painting and build themselves
a good reputation, because if history has taught us anything
it's that people who take a planting class never do
anything wrong like ever. Ever, so in the Taylor's shop
(25:32):
where they work, David had also become really good at
sewing and was even made shop instructor. Now other workers
started noticing that Tilly had made friends with David. She
started bringing him contraband treats. And at first there was
things like homemade brownies or cookies, but once Tilly even
brought him a big mac from a McDonald's that was
almost an hour away from prison. Wow, that is fucking commitment. Dude.
(25:55):
My girlfriend and I like argue about who's going to
like shut the lights out like four feet away from
our band.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Okay, I was gonna say our long big mac run.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's not just that's not friendship. No no, no no.
And so eventually the violations were too obvious, you know,
an anominumous letter to the prison administrators got David kicked
out of the tailoring shop. And that's when Tilly got
close to David's prison friend, Richard, like very very close Okay.
As we noted earlier, there are some differing accounts about
whether or not the relationship became sexual. By the spring
(26:23):
of twenty fifteen, the State Investigation reports that it was
Tilly and Richard who were going into the empty room
for sex. Tilly would also give Richard sexual notes to
pass along to David, including nude photos of herself. Later,
in at least one interview, Tilly said that she was
worried about her safety in her husband's life.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
But we'll come back to that later.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Okay, okay, So she's married during this, she's married turing
this to a guy that works at the prison. Wow. So,
because despite all of this special treatment inside the prison,
Richard and David were determined to get out, So listen.
Once David and Richard had Tilly tangled up in the
(27:00):
most bizarre thrutle ever, they had the plan to use
her as a means for escape.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Richard until he started to trade.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
At first, it was just small things, you know, paint
brushes for their art, stuff like that. But then it
started to get a little more elaborate. He said he
needed some glasses with built in flashlights because it would
help him paint tonight. He then said he needed some
hacksaw blades. What do you think she had?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Like she thought he needed this for.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Like he was just jealous of the nickname.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, I want to be hacks off too, you know,
I'm tired of being sweaty sweat I'm a sweaty Dave.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
So until he brought in the.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Blades secretly and stashed them at Richard's workstation in the
tailory shop. Then to get them out of his cell,
Richard taped them to his body and underwalk and this
is important. On the walk back to the tailory shop,
the guard let him go around the metal detector. Right,
So this was honor block, after all, What reason did
they have to be suspicious of Richard? But this just
seems like gross neglect or he was in on it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well, I mean, if there's a metal detector there, what's
the why don't you just.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Go fucking through it? Yeah. So, once he was back
in his cell, Richard passed half of the blades of
David next door and the two men went to work.
They started to slowly cut the steel walls of their cells.
They will wait until the evening when other inmates from
other blocks were allowed to use the common recreation areas. Now,
Richard and David would hang back and they all say
they always said they were painting or something like that. So,
(28:19):
night by night, inch by inch, the men cut holes
into the back walls. They covered the holes with their
own paintings, and that's when the plan really began.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Hold on, they're cutting a wall. They're cutting a hole
in a wall.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
The wall is made of How do you how do
you cut a hole in a wall, even if you
have a hacksaw?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
How do you even do that.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
With a lot of patients? Joe, Yeah, no, no, no, overlords,
was this a what they were hacking at?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
The concrete?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Was it the bars? No, they couldn't do it the
bar the bars.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Yes, their cell walls were made of steel.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Wow, and you can do that with a hacksaw, with
a hacksaw blade, yes, jeez. And you're right.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Patients, Yes, absolutely, patients And yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Okay, so they just this is a long term project.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You know, a lot of when when you hear about
a lot of these escape stories, there is this sort
of sense of shame of like man if like. Some
of these require a lot of mental fortitude and planning
and patience and hard work, and you can just imagine
what people under different circumstances with more help might have
been able to do had they applied this to something else.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
That's exactly right, that's exact.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, it's entrepreneurial to do to pull all that shit
off and take the initiative and like plan ahead.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. So behind the back walls
there was a whole nest of pipes and conduits for
plumbing and electricity that went to every cell and along
with them there were catwalks that spread through the prison
to allow for maintenance. David was able to then walk
all the way from Honor Block, through the next prison
laundry and even under the next cell block. But you know,
the whole prison was like a maze. So now that
(29:48):
they were outside of their cells, David and Richard needed
to find a route all the way out of prison,
and they needed to do it at night. Now do
you remember what tool might come in useful here?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Uh? The glasses with the Yes.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
There you go. So they were using the flashlied glasses
they got from Tilly. Then Richard and David started planning,
all planning way through. They slowly selected cement walls and
metal grates for their escape, and then night by night
they spend time cutting holes into each one, so over
time they carved the path through the various buildings toward
the outer wall. Tilly continued to pass them more and
more tools, and eventually they gave a ball pretense. They
(30:23):
just wanted heavy heavy duty workloves concrete, drill beats, chisels,
more hacks aw blades, and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And no one's noticing this is everyone Tilly's rooting for
them to get out, which is a little confusing because
it seems like she's on I don't know, having a
positive experience with them being in jail.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So does she.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Maybe when they're out of jail, they can continue this
on their run, right, Maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
That's the she thinks they're gonna stick around.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I think so. I mean, by this point, if you're
so psychologically addicted to somebody, which is what it sounds like, right.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Then it's believe anything.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah you're And so Tilly had a unique way to
get them inside right at home. She packed the tools
inside blocks of ground beef and put them into the freezer.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
And the really beef comes back into this story.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, ma'am, dude, this is we are sponsored by the
beef industry.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It wasn't nearly expired, hope.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
So let me make a little segue to think our
sponsors and e m right, nearly expire meat for all
the masses. Yes, it's cheaper than regular meat and only
slightly more dangerous.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
It's what's for dinner, button beef.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
What's for dinner? The next morning? Is he carry the
frozen meat into the tailory shop. Then she arranged for
a prison guard to deliver the loaded meat to Richard's cell.
It went so she got another prison guard to deliver
the meat. That's fucked up, so it went without a hitch.
So next time they put in an order for tools,
she did the exact same thing. Now. Eventually, Richard and
(31:49):
David found a steam pipe system and that connected to
a power plant outside the prison wall. So David cut
a hole in the side of a pipe that was
large enough for men to crawl in, and at last
they had a clear path to the outside. The final
(32:10):
plan for the escape was drawn up like this. Richard
and David would leave life sized dummies in their beds,
made from bundles of old clothes so the prison guards
wouldn't notice they were missing. It's like Ferris Vieler kind
of and they loved eighties coming of age movies. Step two,
with a guitar case full of supplies, they would climb
through the holes in the back of their cells and
(32:30):
onto the catwalk and follow the path through the walls
and tunnels that led to the outside of the prison walls.
They would then crawl through a manhole up to the
nearby street and flee the prison.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Step three, This is fucked up.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Tilly would drug her husband with narcotics that Richard had
been prescribed by the prison doctors. That way, he wouldn't
notice when she left in the car to pick up
Richard and David.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Step four.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
When the two escapees hopped into Tilly's cars, she would
drive them home. Then the pair of them would murder
her husband, and the three of them would then collect
the life insurance policy and write right off into the sunset.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Good lord, Wait.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Wasn't that the whole fucking reason that she was helping
them because she was afraid they might hurt her husband?
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Like, doesn't that that just doesn't you.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Oh, yeah, you did say that she was scared for
the safety of her house.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It just seems like an I think she was just
all in.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Also likely, like how long do they think it takes
a file an insurance claim? Like how were they just
going to like wait inside the fucking house for money
for months? You know?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And I guess then they have to make the murder
look like they can't cut them up and throw them
in the river. Yeah, I have to do something else
pretty tricky if they're going to get the life insurance money.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
It's so macarv Am I saying that word correctly? My uh,
I don't know macarv.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
There is no correct way to say that.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Okay, macabre. It is incredibly macabay.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
That was the most correct I've actually ever heard that
word pronounced.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
So Richard and David packed their guitar cases with the
necessities Pepperoni sticks, toilet paper, and electric shaver and forty
granola bars because they were watching their figure. That's just kidding.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I don't know what before shaver. This based on a shaver.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Also, Also, I would not have thought of toilet paper,
but it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
That sounds more necessary than the shaver.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I would expect regular Joe to thinker that up, you know,
because regular show take a shit in the bud. I
just wouldn't have thought of it. Also, an electric shaver,
maybe to change their look. That would make more sense.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So Tilly even brought them in a compass, the New
York State, pages of an atlas, and.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Lots of black pepper.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
They were hoping to use the black pepper to keep
dogs off their scent, which I have to admit, it's
pretty fucking clever.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Does that work?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I don't know if it worked or not. Did it
work everything?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
As if I need to keep dogs off myself?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
No, no, no, it's so shady. I get every other way
You're like, but what was the success rate for that?
So Richard gave So Richard gave Tilly the narcotics he
had saved up, and the tunnels were complete and everything
was ready to go. So on the night of June fifth,
twenty fifteen, Richard and David left their prison cells for
the last time. As they made they were through their
escape route, they left notes at the spots that had
(35:02):
been difficult to overcome. At a pipe between B Block
and C Block, they left a picture of an alien
and a little tagline that said, are you trying me punk.
I think they would have workshopped that time if you're king,
yeah one percent.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Wow. Also they're having fun doing that.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
They're having fun.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. Also, Like, I don't blame you, dude. Like most
people's conundrum with me is that they never know when
I'm fucking serious, you know, So I would make a
terrible doctor. I'm like, no, man, you really have to
go now there I this fucking gut At the final
outer wall, where they had spent thirty nights sawing through
the steam pipe, their notes said have a nice day.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. So then Richard and David got to the manhole
cover and this was it. They were free. But thank
you for that manhole cover opening outside. Yeah, but when
they popped out into the street, there was no one there.
Turns out the Tilly, the accomplice in their ghetaway driver,
got cold feet.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
She did didn't feel so confident in.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
The plan after all, at the last second, something about
drugging her husband and running off with these murders.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Killing and killing him. That was part of the plan.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Too, right, Yeah, I just didn't sit right.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Good for Tilly.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, instead of hitting her husband with a roofye, Tilly
had a panic attack at nine pm. Her husband drove
her to the hospital where she was admitted for observation.
Later she would say that she never intended to drug
and kill her husband. It just took her this long
to finally abandon the plan. Who that was really at
the eleventh hour to Tilly. But that left these two
escapees standing in the middle of the street at midnight
(36:31):
with no driver and no Golden Life insurance policy on
their side for their dumb plan. So they decided to
haul ass into the nearby forest of Little Siberia. And
this is where we come full circle. Okay. So once
they were out into the woods, they started breaking into
hunting cabins. Remember the moonshine and the weed and all
that stuff. Oh yeah, okay, So at one hunting cabin
(36:52):
they even found a transit to radio, which was lucky
for them because the cops started a huge manhunt. It
was the US Marshalls, it was the forest rangers, it
was everybody, border patrol, helicopters, the whole thing, right, And
that's where the to escape he split. Now, David wanted
to run for the border, but Richard was just done caring.
So instead of heading back into the forest, he actually
(37:13):
took a shotgun down to the road and started shooting
and passing cars. Man he hit a family camphor Ban
and they called in the location.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Right, Yeah, wildly fucked up.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
But that also meant that the cops knew exactly where
he was, so they closed in and they actually killed
him before he had.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
A chance to shoot at them too.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
And as for David, he did try to make a
break for it, but he was caught on the road
to Canada before he could escape across the border.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
He survived.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, so he had been shot, but he survived. So
he was brought in and he told the story of
his escape in great detail to the investigators, to the police,
and to the prison officials, resulting in over five hundred
pages of interview transcripts. You know, he even compared their
escape to Shoshank redemption, but he said, Shashank ain't got
shit on me. So after such a quazy escape, there
(38:02):
was a scramble to figure out how it had all happened.
Investigators interviewed one hundred and seventy people to help peace
together the puzzle. According to the report, there were many
points of failure.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Can I just pause and be the nerd for a second,
one more time. If we're talking about, oh, hey, we
don't have money to pay for mental health treatment of kids.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
That's too expensive. How are we going to spend that money?
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Okay, cut to now X years later, the kid didn't
get mental health treatment, And now how expensive do you
think it is for them to be conducting this investigation
with how many people?
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Did you say? They're interviewing one hundred and seventy people?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
You know, I mean, I don't know what the number is,
but that's so expensive now that they're they're having to
clean up this.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So much power, so expensive, so deliberate.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Right, it's the it's the old thing of like if
you don't want to, you know, spend a lot of
money on your doctor's bills, just like eat healthy. Right,
If we just spent some money up front on taking
care of people who are mentally ill, especially like you said, kids,
I thought that was a really important point you made.
Maybe we wouldn't be spending the enormous budget it must
(39:09):
have taken to clean up this fucking mess of this
guardank people, to.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Accuse people, to interview people, and then to put them
back into prison.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Right, the practical, cold, hard like dollars and cents of
it would actually make so much more sense if we
were helping people earlier instead of trying to incarcerate and
punish and shit later on.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
And it's such a powerful note to end on, my friend.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
That's our story, and I hope the takeaway for our
audience is that there is such a bigger conversation here
about not just a prison system, but like how you know,
it's just really easy to wash our hands on people
that are just that we just see as the dejective
ones from society. But it's just so important. And also, listen, man,
this is a great credit to you. I got to
tell you before we have to let you go. We're
(39:57):
firing you. Apparently I don't know way how to hire you.
But you're so well versed in the business of empathy.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
You understand what I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
And I think that's a big credit to you, man,
And I think we need more people like you in
a position in positions and power. Man. And so when
you run for president, I would like to put myself
off vice president.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Let's do it perfect. You mean you president, I want
to be VP. You're your president?
Speaker 4 (40:23):
No, all right, brother, much love to you. Joe We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Thank you so much, brother, love you dude, good to
see you. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are
me Or Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show was produced and
edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chug, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is
(40:59):
Tory Smith, who our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riiseek, Sarah Joyner, nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(41:28):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next week.
Host
Arturo Castro
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