Chelsia Rose Marcius, WILD ESCAPE

On June 6, 2015, inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility, New York State's largest maximum security prison. Aided by prison seamstress Joyce Mitchell, the two men sliced their way through steel cell walls, meandered through a maze of tunnels, climbed out of a manhole and walked off into the night. After nearly three weeks on the run, a border patrol agent shot and killed Matt. Two days later, a state trooper shot and captured Sweat.

Since then, New York Daily News staff reporter Chelsia Rose Marcius has spent more than 100 hours interviewing Sweat behind bars about every facet of the escape, the manhunt and the aftermath of one of history's most thrilling prison breaks. The following is an excerpt from her book, to be released Tuesday, “Wild Escape: The Prison Break from Dannemora and the Manhunt that Captured America.”