(Reuters) - Hundreds of law enforcement officers stepped up their search in western New York state for two convicted murderers who escaped from an upstate prison more than two weeks ago, as a third possible sighting of the men was reported in the area.
The manhunt centered on the town of Friendship, located about 280 miles (450 km) southwest of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, where the escaped convicts were serving sentences for murder.
Police set up a search perimeter in the Friendship area, in New York's so-called southern tier along the border with Pennsylvania, after two reported sightings on Saturday.
A civilian told police that he believed he saw two men fitting the descriptions of the escaped convicts, Richard Matt and David Sweat, walking along a road in Friendship on Sunday morning, the Buffalo News reported.
The newspaper did not disclose how it learned about the reported sightings and a spokesman for the New York State Police declined comment on the report.
"We’re continuing to search still. We'll stay in the area until the lead is exhausted," spokesman Beau Duffy told Reuters.
State troopers and other officers were searching an area in Friendship mostly covered with dense forests and dotted with a few houses and barns, the newspaper said.
Sweat has roots in the region and may have relatives who live in and around Canisteo, about 35 miles (56 km) east of Friendship, according to the newspaper.
The reported sightings of Matt and Sweat, who are on the U.S. Marshals Service's list of 15 Most Wanted Fugitives, follows the suspension of a corrections officer at Clinton Correctional Facility in connection with the escape.
Another prison worker, Joyce Mitchell, is accused of assisting the escapees. Mitchell, 51, a training supervisor in the prison tailor shop who is charged with giving hacksaw blades to the pair, lost her nerve to drive their getaway car and instead checked into a hospital with a panic attack, authorities said.
The two inmates, who cut through prison cell walls and traveled through a steam pipe before emerging from a manhole outside the prison, were discovered missing during the morning bed check on June 6, officials said.
(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Editing by Frank McGurty and Eric Walsh)
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