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Police check out new lead on escaped New York prisoners

 
FILE - At left, in a May 21, 2015, file photo released by the New York State Police is David Sweat. At right, in a May 20, 2015, file photo released by the New York State Police is Richard Matt. New York State Police are investigating a possible sighting of the two convicted killers who escaped from an upstate New York prison two weeks ago. In a news release posted late Friday, June 19, 2015, State Police say two men fitting the description of inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt were seen a week ago in Steuben County, New York, over 300 miles southwest of the prison in Dannemora.  (New York State Police via AP, File) NY107
FILE - At left, in a May 21, 2015, file photo released by the New York State Police is David Sweat. At right, in a May 20, 2015, file photo released by the New York State Police is Richard Matt. New York State Police are investigating a possible sighting of the two convicted killers who escaped from an upstate New York prison two weeks ago. In a news release posted late Friday, June 19, 2015, State Police say two men fitting the description of inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt were seen a week ago in Steuben County, New York, over 300 miles southwest of the prison in Dannemora. (New York State Police via AP, File) NY107
Published June 21, 2015

FRIENDSHIP, N.Y. — The search for two killers landed Saturday in New York's southern tier near the Pennsylvania border, about 350 miles from the prison where they escaped two weeks ago.

New York State Police spokesman Beau Duffy said officers were investigating a possible sighting of the prisoners in Allegany County near the Pennsylvania border.

A person spotted two men Saturday near a railroad line that runs along Route 20 in the town of Friendship, state police said, and police concentrated the search in the area along the route and Interstate 86.

David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped June 6 from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, near the Canadian border.

The two broke out of the maximum-security prison using power tools and leaving behind dummies under bedcovers in their adjoining cells.

A door-to-door search involving up to 800 law enforcement officers has been under way since then, concentrated in a several-mile radius of woods and fields around the prison in the Adirondacks.

State police moved the search command post from the prison Saturday to nearby Cadyville and focused attention on the other side of the state.

They advised the public to report any suspicious activity and asked residents who live in the Friendship area along the New York-Pennsylvania border to be on alert.

The two men are "very dangerous" and should not be approached, state police said.

Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff's deputy. Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.