More Evidence against Prison Worker?
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. I want to begin with a desperate manhunt for two convicted killers. We now know prison worker Joyce Mitchell provided escape tools, including hacksaw blades. She supplied those things to Richard Matt and David Sweat before they broke free from a prison in upstate New York. That's according to two law enforcement sources. Mitchell has not been arrested or charged as of yet. Authorities say she is cooperating with police.</s>ANDREW WYLIE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, CLINTON COUNTY, NEW YORK: She continues to cooperate. She continues to come in and speak to us, and each day we're learning a little bit more information as to her involvement in this case and how she developed a relationship with these two men. I can't speak for Miss Mitchell, but she may feel obviously some responsibility and guilt for her involvement, and she wants to help that situation or help herself out in her situation.</s>COSTELLO: All of this as bloodhounds pick up the inmates' scent at a gas station just one mile away from the prison. Moments ago I talked with one resident who lives in Saranac, New York. He claims there's a swarm of police activity in his neighborhood. Listen.</s>THOMAS LASALLE, LIVES IN SARANAC, NEW YORK: We just got word from one of our neighbors that they possibly spotted the inmates jumping a stonewall at -- near the intersection of Cringle Road and Bucks Corners Road, and I know SWAT is there, and we also have several armed officers moving in towards the house. The helicopters are now flying south of me doing like search grids and to the east. So I'm not sure if it's like a delayed report and that they're searching other areas near there, but there definitely is a swarm of activity now.</s>COSTELLO: OK. So we're still trying to figure out what's going down in that neighborhood. But we want to get right to CNN's Jason Carroll and Alexandra Field. They're both on the ground in upstate New York. Let's start with you, Jason. Tell us the latest on the search.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, from where our vantage point, we're at the eastern section of Route 374, that portion of the route still shut down. It was shut down yesterday. You heard from that resident there from Saranac, the Saranac Central School District has shut down classes again for the second day. A bit of new information emerging, Carol, about the possible trail of these two inmates, and that has to do with the gas station that you mentioned located just about an hour -- excuse me, located just about a mile or so away from where the prison is located. That's the Maple Field Gas Station. It's in all likelihood these two inmates stopped there trying to get food, perhaps trying to get supplies, maybe went through the dumpster there. Investigators are currently reviewing security cameras to see if that in any way will provide them any leads as well. In the meantime, as you know, those same dogs that hit on a scent there at the Maple Field Gas Station also hit on an area not too far where we are right now. We talked a little bit about that yesterday, that particular spot where perhaps these two had been bedding down for a period of time. Investigators now at this point have to try to confirm if, in fact, they were there for a period of time. We talked about those wrappers that were there on the ground that they found. Well, they've got to make sure that those wrappers were brought there, not blew in from another location and just happened to end up here -- happened to end up there. That's all going to be a part of the investigation that's going forward. In the meantime, they do have a perimeter there off of Route 374. They have narrowed that perimeter, but at this point still no sign of those two missing inmates -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Jason Carroll, many thanks to you. Now let's head to Alexandra Field for more information about this prison worker, Joyce Mitchell. Good morning.</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You spoke to one resident who described how he and so many others in this area are feeling pure disgust he said for the alleged responsibility that Joyce Mitchell may have had in helping these two inmates to escape. The Clinton County district attorney has said that he believes that she might be feeling some sense of guilt or responsibility and that's what could be motivating her to continue speaking to investigators on a daily basis without even having an attorney present. We are learning more about her alleged role. Two law enforcement officers saying she brought not only hacksaw blades into that prison but also drill bits and eyeglasses with lights on them, materials they say she had purchased within just the last few months. Another law enforcement official saying that it was her cell phone that was used to contact some of Richard Matt's associates. Police, of course, believe that Joyce Mitchell had planned to drive the getaway car and then at some point, the last minute perhaps, changed her mind leaving the two fugitives without any sort of plan here. The district attorney investigating her alleged role in the escape, while of course -- investigators are trying to track down the two fugitives who are still on the loose. The district attorney here says that at the end of this investigation he has every intention to pursue charges. Those charges could include felony charges like accessory to escape and promoting prison contraband. We are also learning a little bit more about why investigators focused so quickly on Joyce Mitchell in the aftermath of that escape. It was apparently investigated an earlier time, there had been reports of some kind of relationship between Joyce Mitchell and one of the escapees. There was an investigation. The D.A. says they didn't turn up any evidence that would confirm a relationship, but David Sweat was moved out of the tailor shop that she worked in here at the prison. We also know, Carol, that she has told investigators about her rapport with Richard Matt, saying that he made her feel special.</s>COSTELLO: It's just hard to fathom. Alexandra Field, Jason Carroll, thanks to both of you. I want to bring in criminologist Scott Bonn now. He's the author of "Why We Love Serial Killers." I'm also joined by CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, he's also a former FBI assistant director. Welcome, gentlemen.</s>TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning.</s>COSTELLO: Good morning. Scott, I want to start with you. Joyce Mitchell, what was she thinking?</s>SCOTT BONN, CRIMINOLOGIST: Well, this woman sounds like that she was in love or obsessed with one or both of these individuals, and these things happen sometimes. I really believe that in the case of Richard Matt you're dealing with an individual here who based upon everything that I have been able to learn about him is likely a psychopath and psychopathic individuals are very manipulative. They tend to be very intelligent and it's come out Matt's own son has said that his father has, he believes, a genius level IQ. So you have an individual here who is diabolical, cold-blooded, very manipulative, very intelligent, and it's very likely that he just won the affection --</s>COSTELLO: But it's one thing for a psychopath to talk to a woman and the woman doesn't know his criminal background.</s>BONN: Right.</s>COSTELLO: I mean, Mr. Matt is a bad guy. He dismembered his boss. David Sweat is a bad guy. He shot a deputy 22 times, and Miss Mitchell would have known that.</s>BONN: That's absolutely true, but even Charles Manson had his groupies and continues to have his groupies today. There's this fascination sometimes with individuals who become obsessed with very bad people, and perhaps she thought that he was misunderstood. Perhaps she thought that she was some -- in some way a soul mate, that she could change him somehow. You know, we don't know this woman's psychological makeup. She may be a very damaged or troubled person herself, and he fulfilled some need. That's what psychopaths do. They find a need that you have and they manipulate you and twist it in order to get what they want, and clearly this was extremely well planned. I mean, this was a meticulously well planned escape. And the fact that they may be in the woods just a few miles away from the prison is an indication that this was a botched job. Probably Joyce didn't show up as planned to pick them up because if she had, they probably would be long gone by now.</s>COSTELLO: Interesting. So, Tom, supposedly Miss Mitchell smuggled in hacksaw blades, safety glasses with lights, and drill bits. How would she have done that if she did indeed do it?</s>FUENTES: Well, Carol, we don't know what the security measures were there for employees, contractors that come into the prison every day to work. So, you know, did she bring in a gym bag so she could work out and maybe, you know, hid it with that or made it look like she was trying to work out? You know, so we just don't know the security measures that were in place there to see how easy that would have been.</s>COSTELLO: And, Tom, I don't know if you heard him, but I just heard from a resident in Saranac that says there's a swarm of police activity just a couple of miles from where that prison is. Supposedly his neighbor said on Facebook that her -- in her parents' backyard these two guys jumped over a fence and went into the woods. Do you think that police are closing in or do they get a lot of these kinds of calls that may be accurate and maybe not?</s>FUENTES: Could be both. You know, they do get a lot of those type of calls, and particularly if they get a call like that in this area where they believe these two are hiding in pretty close proximity to the prison, that they didn't get picked up and get driven out of town, out of state, so -- but even so they're going to take every one of these completely seriously and send in all of the police and SWAT teams and use aviation assets, everything they can do to try to locate them. They're not going to just blow off somebody that calls in on the phone and says, I have seen these guys. They're going to go. They're going to explore every possibility.</s>COSTELLO: It seems pretty obvious that authorities think they're still somewhere in the area because that's where they're concentrating their search. Is that a good guess on my part?</s>FUENTES: No, and I think they've said that. That they were pretty, I guess, confident that that was the best choice at the moment, but they've also said, don't disregard the possibility that even if they were in that area up until as recently as yesterday, that they could have slipped out of the net. They could be out of state by now and on the loose, on their way somewhere else. You just don't know. And we don't know as cunning as they are whether their plan might have been to find a vacation home that nobody is occupying, enter it, shelter in that house for several weeks until all of this dies down a little bit and officers go back to more normal duties and the media stops covering this every day and showing their pictures and their tattoos and they're alleged girlfriend and, you know, at that point maybe try to get out of town. So we just don't know what their complete strategy was in the aftermath of somebody not picking them up that should have been there.</s>COSTELLO: So authorities say Joyce Mitchell was involved, but there had to be more people involved, right? How many people would have to be involved in something like this to go down?</s>FUENTES: Well, I don't know. If she was able to bring in all of the tools and equipment that they were able to use to actually get out of the prison, then the question is what was the plan when they got out of the prison? If she was one of the people that was supposed to pick them up, she did let them use, or they did get access to her cell phone, so we don't know if they called other people and maybe they led her to believe that she was the one and she's the one they were going to rely on and maybe they did have somebody else that came along and was already always supposed to come along to pick them up or pick them up nearby at a couple miles from the prison. We just don't know. So we don't know that somebody that did all of the planning they did to get out of that prison must have had plan A, plan B, plan C for what they would do when they got out. It's hard to believe that once their ride didn't show up that they were completely stymied in where they were going to go and what they were going to do at that point.</s>COSTELLO: Yes, and I see, Scott, you're nodding your head. You agree?</s>BONN: Absolutely. This was too well-planned on the inside for it to be so botched on the outside. Something went awry. There's been so many hits now with the dogs indicating that they slept in the woods. At a gas station they picked up the scent again. So there's a very strong indication that they are in that very, very close vicinity, and if that's the case, that can't possibly have been the original plan. And so something went awry. If they're now left to having to commit crimes in order to just survive to get food, to get money, to get shelter --</s>COSTELLO: There's no indication of that, though.</s>BONN: But if -- as this goes on, if they -- they stopped by a Subway sandwich shop and if they're stealing food and going to dumpsters and things like that, they're going to make mistakes and they're going to get caught sooner than later.</s>COSTELLO: Scott Bonn, Tom Fuentes, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.</s>BONN: Thank you.</s>COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, President Obama makes a surprise trip to Capitol Hill ahead of a crucial trade bill vote. Plus, former president Clinton opens up to our Jake Tapper. Why his answer to this question might surprise you.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": There are polls that show that fewer and fewer Americans think that your wife is honest and trustworthy, and this has happened at the same time these questions about the foundation, questions about her e-mail, and that must really bother you.