he responded, and that's what they heard. they bent towent to the area and confronted him. >> adam reiss, great reporting. thanks for your time tonight. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. our continuing coverage is now picked up by anchor chris hayes. good evening, chris. good evening, i'm chris hayes and this is msnbc's special coverage. breaking news in hunt for two escaped murderers on the loose for three weeks. police have shot and killed a person they believe is richard matt. cell phone video caught some of the mayhem including the dramatic moment a police officer drove past bystanders saying we got him. >> it went pretty fast. >> one guy down.

>> yea! >> they got one guy? they got the guy? >> they shot one guy? >> high-five. >> dad, they got one prisoner! >> sources tell nbc news they believe matt and the other escapee, david sweat, were traveling close together when officers came across matt. the search for sweat continues at this very moment. today's shooting comes after weeks of pursuit helped by dna tests that confirmed the convict's presence in multiple cabins after 2,000 leads and 21 days one man appears to be dead another is still running. let me bring in nbc's john yang who is at the state police barracks in malone new york. john what can you tell us about what the scene is at this moment? >> right now, i can tell you that this area where they killed richard matt is being flooded with manpower right now. police state police new york

federal officials, border customs and border patrol state forestry officers are flooding into that area right now. we've just been told by law enforcement officials there's been a second round of gunfire as they try to close in. they believe they may be closing in on david sweat. i can tell you, chris, that multiple law enforcement officials are telling nbc news that how this happened was that a customs and border patrol tactical team -- these are the people who patrol the borders along the canadian/u.s. border were doing a sweep when apparently they heard gunfire. they turned and the initial reports are -- and we have to stress these are initial reports. the initial reports are that richard matt raised a shotgun and aimed it at these customs and border patrol tactical team. we're being told that they fired, they returned the fire or they fired at matt striking and killing him. now, all this time they say they've had no evidence that matt and sweat had split up.

so they believe that if they got richard matt david sweat cannot be far behind. that is why they've closed in on this area. they're flooding it with resources. and as i say, law enforcement officials are telling nbc news that within the past few minutes, there has been a second round of gunfire heard as they try to close in on david sweat. >> so there's every reason to believe, as far as we know that the two are together right? i mean that is the operating assumption. obviously, no one knows for sure. but that is at this hour law enforcement's operating assumption? >> that has been their operating assumption all along. they had no evidence that they split up. you know they were drawn to this area last weekend. it was on saturday when someone reported that their cabin, their summer hunting cabin had been broken into. they either saw or heard someone flee. they go inside they find half-eaten food. that food that evidence was sent to the state police labs analyzed and they got a dna hit on at least one of the inmates.

they came in here they started searching. things seem to have gone cold. then yesterday a report here in malone, a cabin was broken into. they found evidence there that was again sent to the state crime lab. enough came back that they were confident that they had a confirmed sighting not visual sighting, but dna sighting as it were of one of the inmates, one of the escapees. then this morning in a field not far away they found more evidence. this really closed in very quickly. they were able to quickly close in on this area. that's why they were doing the searches. the customs border patrol tactical team doing the search in that area when they came upon matt. there was some sort of confrontation that ended with richard matt being shot and killed. chris? >> i want to bring in -- john if you'll stay with us. i want to bring in investigative reporter jonathan dienst. what can you tell us about how they have managed to stay on the

trail of these gentlemen and how far they've gotten which i think is the most striking thing when we look at that map. >> right, they're about what 35 miles from the prison heading towards the canadian border it now appears. that's the malone area that's where this search is centering on at this hour. as john was just explaining, they were moving in as a result of some of the sightings and evidence taken from that cabin. why the shooting why the confrontation? we're hearing from law enforcement sources that richard matt was armed with a shotgun. this is preliminary. but that is why this shooting took place, that's why this suspect was shot and killed. and the search continues in a heavily wooded area near the shooting scene where they're trying to surround and move in on where they believe the second suspect now may be in those woods. and so that is the search that is happening. they're hoping they can track him down obviously, before sundown. >> throughout this entire

search we have not seen any evidence of the things you might expect burglaries in order to get money or stolen cars right? i mean the operating assumption is that these two individuals have been moving by foot if they've been moving and they've been not in main commercial areas or knocking off liquor stores or gas stations like that. if they have been breaking and entering it has been in these isolated cabins. >> that's because this is isolated area. parkland heavily wooded forest between the border of new york and canada. so the sporadic cabins up there, there really is not much up there other than this park line. so they can perhaps break in a cabin that's a vacation home for somebody, spend some time hide out there and move on to the next. that's the operating theory. and that appears to be the case. and that's how they were able to track down these suspects at this time and resulting in the deadly confrontation. we should stress it is not confirmed that richard matt is dead. that would require dna testing,

fingerprinting, dental. that still needs to be done but all the law enforcement officials say, and they're confident that it is him and that they are hopefully closing in on the second suspect. >> one of the things that immediately came to mind when we heard the news originally about the first cabin in which dna was found that there are a lot of cabins up there, a lot are hunting cabins. it was not implausible that they would be able to get access to weapons since these are fairly isolated cabins often not locked up when people aren't there and often have things like shotguns. >> that was certainly the concern. all the reporting this past week has been are they armed, was there a report from a resident that any weapons were missing. and again today from what we're hearing preliminarily from several law enforcement officials is that richard matt was armed, perhaps it was a shotgun, and as a result the customs border tactical team opened fire shooting him and apparently killing him in the woods there around 3:45 this afternoon. >> john, are you still there in

malone? do we still have you? >> hold on. >> i believe we have clint van zandt. clint, if i can bring you in for a second. >> sure. >> the process here obviously, there's a huge amount of leads that have been pouring in. and some of those leads have borne fruit in terms of the two cabins from which dna was apprehended which has allowed law enforcement to track the trajectory of these two individuals. what is essentially the process by which you go about searching dense wooded land like this? is this essentially just sufficient manpower and a grid that you walk through day after day? >> well it's that and more. of course, they've had almost 1100 law enforcement officers. many of the officers have night vision capability. they have dogs search dogs that would have the scent of both sweat and matt. they have air assets, helicopter fixed-wing assets that would be overhead. one of the reasons i think the new york state police suggested

their belief that one if not both fugitives were armed is that they had a trail camera picture within the last few days that showed two men along a trail, one holding a shotgun, that they believed was, in fact matt. so they had photographic evidence to support their belief that they likely had a gun, and then secondly the story that i'm hearing right now so far unconfirmed is that one if not both of these fugitives attempted to hijack a vehicle somewhere in the vicinity of malone, that the driver was able, somehow, to elude them and that they fired at least one shot at him. that caused the law enforcement response, the shoot-out and led to matt being shot in the belief that sweat is in that immediate area now. >> that actually again, all of these -- we should caution that you are getting now are initial reports. they're unconfirmed and often can later prove different. although the part of the account

that john gave us that didn't quite make sense is why that customs tactical unit why there was gunfire to begin with that they heard, but that would provide some explanation, jonathan, if in fact these individuals were trying to hijack a car. something that as of yet, it appears they had not done. >> i had not heard that piece. i've been in contact with certain officials who are up there on scene. from what i have been told that this is all taking place in the woods. it is perhaps the result of what we just heard about an attempted carjacking and they fled into the woods after that driver escaped. i have no information on that. one of the suspects the one that was shot and killed richard matt obviously armed with a shotgun or some kind of weapon and that's why the shooting took place in that wooded area around malone. >> we have an intensity concentrated law enforcement presence now pursuing the other

convict, david sweat. and there is cliff, there's reason to believe the two have been traveling together that they're close together and that second round of gunfire suggests maybe even near the grasp of law enforcement right now. john, any updates on the status -- >> i'm sorry, chris. >> any updates on the status of that pursuit and follow-up to the reports of a second round of gunfire? >> we still haven't gotten anything. this is all going on a few miles south of here. we haven't gotten any more word. interesting to hear my colleague jonathan dienst say that there was apparently an attempted carjacking that sparked all of this. that's interesting because we hadn't had anything like that up till now. for a long time we had no reports of break-ins until this past weekend. we had no reports of any attempts to steal a car or hijack a car until today. but all this is going down

several miles away in deep heavy woods. there's a lake there, lake titus. there's a ski resort -- not a resort but a ski area mt. titus area. it's very rural. it's very rugged. very heavily forested. it's all going on in that area now. and we still are awaiting word as to what's going on. sorry, i missed the question. >> no, that's fine. i want you to hang on for a second. i want to caution because during these circumstances information can get garbled and often bears out incorrectly. we have no hard confirmation of an attempted carjacking at this point. to the extent that we have hard confirmation from law enforcement is that a suspect has been shot and killed believed to be richard matt. the absolute confirmation of that would have to come with dna test testing, but law enforcement officials are confident that's happened. we have reporting from john that suggests there's a second round of gunfire suggesting that the other escaped killer could be

quite close. there was that trail photo that cliff van zant referred to that appeared to show both of the escapees one of whom was holding a gun. john, you're at the state police barracks just a few miles from where the most active part of the search is happening. is there a sense there that they are very close to nabbing the second fugitive? >> there was a briefing here this afternoon. they told us that not only did they have the dna evidence from the cabin that was broken into in malone yesterday, but this morning they found more evidence in what was called a field site sort of outdoors somewhere near that cabin. so it was a real indication that they had been there within very recently. in the past it's all been sort of -- they've seen evidence that they don't know how long it had been there. so there's a real sense today

that they had been behind them a step behind them for the past almost three weeks now. but that they were closing the gap. they were closing in they were getting closer. and now they were able to get pretty close, close enough within literal shooting distance to shoot richard matt and to kill him this afternoon. but there is i think, a great deal of optimism that they believe david sweat can't be far behind. >> i want you to stay with us. cliff van zant as well. one prisoner has been shot and killed. one other is still on the run. what could be going on in the mind of the remaining fugitive. stay with us. when you travel, we help you make all kinds of connections. connections you almost miss. and ones you never thought you'd make. we help connect where you are. to places you never thought you'd go. this, is why we travel.

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breaking news tonight on the escaped prisoners in upstate new york, again, new york state officials have confirmed one of the prisoners richard matt has been shot and killed the whereabouts of the second prisoner are still unclear. d during red lobster's island escape, three new dishes take me straight to the islands. like the ultimate island

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we're back with breaking news that escaped prisoner richard matt has been shot and killed in upstate new york. the other prisoner is still on the loose. joining me on the phone candice delong. what is going through the mind of mr. sweat at this moment? >> well probably that his minutes if not hours are numbered. presuming he's aware that his buddy has been shot and killed certainly he's thinking that could be him. and so then the question is does

he keep running, fight it out, figure out what's he got the lose or perhaps the fear of dying would be too much for him and he surrenders. >> that's what's been so remarkable about this escape from the beginning is how breathtakingly the escape was and how well planned it was. but looming in the background it just seemed absolutely impossible that these two men would be allowed to remain on the lam. they had no access to vehicles no access to cash. eventually this day was going to come. you have to think that they had made preparations for it. >> yes, that's true. but no matter how much someone prepares for the fact that they might die -- and there are many professions as you know where people actually sign up to die. law enforcement, military, that kind of thing. they know it's a possibility. but when the bullets start flying, all previous convictions can certainly become wobblers and sometimes people just buckle and are unable to act the way they thought. maybe these guys had plans of

going out in a blaze of glory as the cops got close. and you know there's probably 10 to 20 cops for every -- you know, for one of them if not more. >> yeah, and we have to imagine that, to stay together, if they indeed were together -- and again law enforcement has been operating under the assumption confirmed in some places by a photo, both of their dna found in one cabin, that they have been operating together. there's obviously some kind of sustenance a person can draw in these conditions from having a partner which is no longer the case for mr. sweat. >> exactly. exactly. that would certainly do at least one thing, and that would be his anxiety would skyrocket if they've been depending on each other for survival. and the knowledge that his buddy, his partner has been killed by law enforcement

certainly, i mean his options are numbered. >> jim, jim cavanaugh, retired atf special agent in charge. jim, can you give us a sense of what law enforcement is trying to do at this moment? >> i can tell you, chris, that any command post on these, you know, the commanders are always trying to stay ahead. whether eric rudolph or snipers or cop killers. the conversation you had with candice is spot on. and she is right. but take that conversation that you had just a little further. these guys traveled 35 miles in 20 days. that's less than two miles a day. because that terrain's so rugged rugged. so they're not at a fast pace because they're trying to hide. they're having a lot of conversations. the evidence is they're together. and they're having a lot of conversations about i'm not going back. remember, these guys are not

guys that are going to face a trial. there's a certainty of absolutely going back into the most secure facility. not the honor block. and they're having these conversations. i'm not going back. i'm not going back. once they gt the shotgun and/or a couple of guns that even gets enhanced. i don't care what happens, we're not going back. now some of that talk may be real and some bravado. like candice says suicide is ambivalent sometimes. you think you want to do it maybe just not today. but there's a certainty of where they're going that gives them determination. if you can just get ahead in your mind and you're in your command post and this is what the state police is doing and what tactical did a great job on this. they handled this guy. sorry to see anybody lose their life, but they should be commended. they did a good job, these tactical officers. they've got to be ahead -- this guy's manic now. he's in the woods. he has nobody to talk to he's surrounded by law enforcement, his friend's been killed he's been in the woods for 20 days. his mind is racing.

just picture a manic person. he's very dangerous, too. because if he can come across a citizen with a vehicle or something, if he's armed, he's very dangerous. he's manic. now, could it turn that he would walk out, spent and surrender? well, maybe. could a tactical team confront him from a distance and he only has a handgun and he surrender? maybe. or could it be that he'll shoot it out with them. that's possible as well. >> jim, there's a question of the plan post the escape. obviously the escape is extremely well planned. it was pulled off in somewhat stunning fashion. their seems to have been at least some guidelines for how they planned to go about what they would do after they were out, but it also seems that there's only so far they can go. i mean even the talk of the border there's obviously a lot of law enforcement on the other side of that border. do we have a sense -- does law enforcement have any sense of what direction they were headed or what the plan was? >> yeah i think if we go back

and look at all the evidence over three weeks -- and you know, msnbc and nbc covered this extensively and so well about what their motives, the prison people helping them, the officer sort of unknowingly helping and then joyce mitchell knowingly helping. they were going to get in joyce mitchell's car and they were going to drive some long distance. were they going to kill her, maybe. were they going to use her, maybe for a while. if they could have gotten seven, eight, ten hours away before they were discovered remember, they weren't discovered missing until 5:30 in the morning. did they come out of that manhole at midnight? they could have been in atlanta. >> right. >> they could have been a pretty good distance away by seven, eight hour maybe not quite atlanta, but halfway down the coast. and so then they could have melded in no perimeter, no saturation police and they could have maybe found their way somewhere else to the border. >> and sort of tragic irony that this kind of last moment of cold

feet and conscience from joyce mitchell, who obviously now is facing many years in prison for helping them could be the thing that essentially kept them contained into a searchable zone. jonathan, can you give us a sense of what law enforcement is on the ground there? >> well right now the latest update is it's a very small area in this wooded area near the shooting scene where they are searching for the second suspect. you've got state police who are the lead agency but they're being assisted by the u.s. marshals special operations group along with fbi agents along with customs and border protection teams, and it was one of those customs border protection teams that apparently shot and killed the suspect richard matt. remember, it was earlier this week governor cuomo reported that a shotgun was stolen or reported missing from a cabin where one of the suspects were believed to have been hiding out. so the reporting that we're getting now is that this customs team stumbled upon the suspects.

one of the suspects wa was armed with perhaps a shotgun and the shooting took place, again, richard matt shot and killed. the hunt on for david sweat in this wooded area. as you can see from some of this video, the enormous response you know there have been reports that as many as a thousand law enforcement officers have been involved in this 21-day search flooding that area which is now about 35 miles north and west of the prison where they escaped en route to canada. and the question is had they been hiding out in just camps and cabins all this time? have they been moving about just on foot? it appears to be so. the question now is will they be able to track down david sweat, and will they take him dead or alive. >> a witness who saw the activity near the richard matt shoot. we are the thinkers. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments

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t's progressive. welcome back. we are following breaking news in the manhunt for two escaped

murderers tonight. police say they shot and killed a man they believed to be one of the fugitive richard matt. a witness described some of the police activity. >> i was sitting on my dock and i heard -- well i first saw a number of armed police on the opposite side of the lake. shortly thereafter, i heard a gunshot. >> what went through your mind? >> that they may be got the escaped prisoner or that maybe he was shooting at them. i really didn't know. i assumed it had something to do with the search for the escaped prisoner. >> and you got out of there? >> i did get out of there. although i didn't feel imperiled at the time. i received a call telling me what was going on and i was encouraged to leave. >> now, leading up to hearing that gunshot, was the police presence any different than it had been days prior? >> yes. there certainly has been a

significant police presence over the last week. but today there were more troopers than normal the helicopter was flying overhead all day. and that was unusual. so i definitely felt more of a presence today. >> let's bring back nbc's john yang who is at the state police barracks in malone new york. john, what's the latest? >> i can tell you, chris, we don't have any official word but there are members of governor cuomo's staff and office have arrived here at the state police barracks in malone which is certainly a leading indicator that we might, might expect the governor here tonight to participate in a press briefing. that would lead -- obviously, we have this unconfirmed report or a report that state police have said they have shot and killed somebody they believe to be richard matt and they believe that they are following david sweat. i have to think that the governor wouldn't be coming here

if this was not going to be a successful end or if there wasn't a feeling that this was not goging to be an end of a successful pursuit here. this has all come together quickly today. the pursuit, the closing in on richard matt they started the day analyzing evidence that they pound in a cabin here in malone that had been left behind by one of the escapees. and then this morning they found more evidence in a field. there was a growing sense that they were closing in and indeed this afternoon this customs and border patrol tactical team doing a sweep through a field at about 3:45 this afternoon encountered richard matt. we don't know the details of the confrontation, but we do know that it ended with the customs and border patrol tactical team shooting richard matt or who they believed to be richard matt and killing him. this will take a final and firm

identification of the body but right now they are fairly confident, pretty confident that they've got richard matt. they're hoping -- they say that there was evidence, we're told that david sweat was nearby. they're hoping that they're closing in on david sweat right now. >> i want to distinguish between what we know and do not know at this hour. the whereabouts of david sweat are unknown. we do not have any hard confirmed reporting indicating that that tactical unit that shot a man that they believe very strongly to be ripped matt that they actually saw david sweat. we don't know if that's the case, am i correct? >> we don't know if that's the case at all. as a matter of fact, i'm not being told. the indications we're getting is that is not the case. that there was some evidence, they say, that david sweat was nearby in the area. >> nearby. >> exactly. and that's when the pursuit began. >> now, this custom border

patrol tactical unit. the sweep was part of one of the searches, the many searches law enforcement have been conducting? >> chris, they've been part of this search almost from day one. customs and border patrol just because we're so close to the canadian border. the prison itself about 20 25 miles, here in malone we're only about ten miles away from the canadian border. the customs and border patrol were lending manpower lending technology. there were customs and border patrol helicopters involved in this. they have infrared technology that they were doing sort of infrared scans particularly at night when things cooled off. it heightens the contrast between the surrounding environment and the human body so you can really see sharp contrast and spot people but you can also spot animals and livestock which some officers were telling us that led to some

false alarms within the past week. there have also been forestry service people new york state forestry people involved in this search just because we're near the adirondack national -- not national adirondack state park corrections officers state police, local police local sheriffs. this has all been a sort of hands-on deck search. they've been in the air with helicopters, not just that infrared technology but cameras, high powered lenses that can read, you know read license plates from an altitude of thousands of feet. they had bloodhounds on the ground. that was one of the early leads in the first week around keadyville, they had a positive hit from bloodhounds. they don't know how long that was. that scent i was told by some experts in the field can stick around for as long as 72 hours.

so this has been an all hands on deck search and it was the customs and border patrol we're told by the new york state police, they're saying that on the record that it was a customs and border patrol tactical team that did shoot the man they believed to be richard matt. >> john yang i want you to stay with us. you've been doing fantastic reporting. i want to bring in jim cav vau, retired atf special agent in charge. jim, it appears one of these fugitives have reached the end of the line. if i went back to you 20 days ago after this escape what would have been your best prediction for how long these two individuals could last out of prison? >> yeah i would have thought they probably would have got caught a little bit quicker. assessing it -- once they were seen on foot together by the neighbor, chris, you know, behind the neighbor's house where he reported spotting them together i would have thought in a command post they're going to stick together.

because if they're going to split up the time to split up is early on. but joyce, her cold feet destroyed their plan. they decided to stick together and try to get on foot out of the hot zone the area where the troopers were searching. they inched along, 35 nils 21 days. >> that's one of the striking things from today's news is they're not very far away. these two individuals have clearly been focusing on staying as hidden in places as wooded as possible. there have been no confirmed sightings or carjackings or burglaries near any big population centers, no cash stolen from stores for instance. the break-ins we do know about, there's two, two cabins in which their dna was found. i believe we have footage of the latter of those. stephanie gosk was able to get inside. she'll be with us in just a bit to sort of describe that.

but it really does appear they were going very slowly and carefully searching for essentially vacated hunting cabins that they could use to get food and it appears at least from the early reporting we're getting here possibly weaponly as well, right? >> right, exactly, look the weapon is the key to the highway. when they got the shotgun, that's the key to the highway. and what matt was likely doing and sweat was down by the road. they want to carjack somebody they want to get out of there. they had to get near the road. here comes cdp tactical team which is basically a s.w.a.t. team. that witness was critical. he heard one shot. it is loud. you would hear if there was a barrage of fire. it sounds like they spotted matt with the gun. he raised the gun, bun shot from an officer from customs and border protection and he's down.

he didn't report two or three shots. just have one shot. those are very very devastating high velocity rounds. i'm not surprised he's dead. but the key to the highway, the gun, trying to move there. remember, chris, their diet over these 20 days is foraging through cabins and eating berries. you're really moving through the woods. thing about when you go out in a day in the woods and camping, you need a lot of fat, food and in your everyday work. imagine in that fugitive status. they weren't getting enough nutrition, energy to keep going. they were getting desperate. they wanted to do something and were moving down near the road and i believe that's where they were seen. >> let's go to stephanie gosk who is covering this story from ma alone, new york. what are you hearing on the ground? >> we're standing on route 30 right now which is part of this active scene in malone. there's been a steady stream of screaming law enforcement

vehicles flying down here. in fact there are more on their way and going through this road block down here. what we know is that richard matt has been shot and killed according to senior new york officials but that his sidekick david sweat, is roaming in these woods right now. chris? >> stephanie, it sounds like -- again, we don't have a hard confirmation of the last -- of any spotting of david sweat. there's some reporting we have that there was evidence at the site where richard matt was shot and killed around 3:45 p.m. that sweat was near. stephanie, you were in that second cabin where i believe richard matt's dna was found from earlier this week. what did you see in that cabin? >> chris, we actually went to the first cabin that they were here near owls head. this is a hunting cabin that's up in the woods. it was an incredible journey we took today with two local hunters that brought us up there. what you were struck by almost immediately is we went by half a

dozen other cabins. these are cabins that were not broken into and that they would have had to have passed. they chose this one, which was in a remote location a mile and a half off the road that any vehicle could travel on. it really raised this question of how did they know it was there and how did they know they were going in the right direction? you would have to imagine they have some sort of map to work off of. there was food there, beds there, if they hadn't been caught they probably could have been there for quite a period of time. that cabin is owned by prison officers. three of those work at clinton. but what i would add is the prison they broke out of. what i would add, however, in this area there are a lot of prison officer. 800 prison officers work at clinton. a lot of these cabins are owned or partially owned by prison officers. so it doesn't necessarily tell us something, but it's still interesting to take note of. >> so the cabin was owned by

prison officer, the one they broke into? >> yes. the cabin is owned by prison officers. it's a group of them. the way these hunting camps work is everyone has a bit of the lease and they all use it through hunting season. all prison officers three from clinton correctional. the cabin officer that stumbled upon that cabin worked at upstate correctional. we don't have any link between any of these officers and richard matt and david sweat, and there are 800 prison officers that work at clinton. a lot of them hunt a lot of them have cabins up in these woods. so it isn't necessarily some kind of nefarious connection between these two, but it is worth taking note of. just to be clear, part of what is aiding appears to have aided the two fugitives in being able to make their way through this part of the woods where there are a lot of hunting cabins most of them don't have people in them at this time of year. it's not a period of the year

where there's the most hunting happening, right? >> yeah that's exactly right. the hunting season is in the fall for about three or four months in the fall. during the rest of the time, they're for the most part unoccupied. although some hunters have told me they don't keep their weapons in these cabins in the off-season, they're not so sure about everyone. one of the issues they were concerned about, state police and others there might have been a weapon or two in this cabin that they picked up. we're hearing in these reports tonight that richard matt might have had a shotgun. you have wonder where he got that and whether he may have picked that up in one of these cabins. again, what i would point out, something that struck us is this cabin, you don't just stumble upon it. you aren't going to walk through those woods and you aren't going to necessarily take that trail. it almost comes to an end in parts, extremely muddy, difficult to walk up quite a distance off any main road. it really left us with the

impression that you would have to know that it was there. >> wow, that's fascinating. we'll be brack with more of our breaking news this afternoon. one of the escaped fugitives apparently shot and killed one still remains at large with law enforcement. it seems possibly closing in at this moment. this is good, mom. "good"? (chuckles) it's delicious! and this new kibble blend is so healthy. thank you. no, nancy, thank you. kibbles 'n bits. because every bit matters.

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i heard i could call angie's list if i needed work done around my house at a fair price. sure can. so i could get a faulty light switch fixed? yup! or make a backyard pizza oven? oh yeah. i can almost taste it now. tastes like victory. and pepperoni... we're back with our breaking news coverage the search for david sweat remains at large at this hour. we just learned, as john yang indicated might be a possibility just moments ago, that governor cuomo will hold a press conference at 8:30 eastern. i'll be in the anchor chair at that hour. you should come back for that. now let's bring in former fbi profiler, msnbc contributor clint van zandt. clint, have you ever seen a situation quite like this one, the sophistication of the break, the duration that they've been out, and the amount of time that they appear to have sort of kept themselves off the grid?

>> well there's a number of things going on here. number one, i think you're right. the sophistication of the break. know that right now as you and i are talking, there are about 130, 135 escapees from federal and state prisons all over the united states that are in a fugitive status. but i think this story is so gripping, number one, because of the background of these two, the terrible crimes they committed, and number two, their ability to cut their way out of what has been to that date an escape-proof prison. so i think all of those facts come crashing together. you and i and i think others who have watched this story, we know that there's been at least one, perhaps two people on the inside employees who either by hook or crook have somehow aided these two. but notwithstanding that their ability to punch their way through concrete steel and other structures and get out,

this is an amazing story. were it not be for how serious these two individuals are as far as criminals, i think it would be an exciting story. right now the excitement is get this second person, sweat, in custody before he hurts somebody else. >> clint, you got to think the first thought of law enforcement after they were made aware, after they realized the break had happened first, were there people cooperating inside the prison that is borne out to be the case. there are now two people who have been indicted for that. the second thought had to be had they managed to coordinate anything with anyone outside the prison. was there a broader conspiracy? were there people on the outside that could provide them safe harbor, could have given them a place to go? so far it's looking like that second part of the plan did not materialize or as far as we know and given the events of what had

just happened which is these two individuals essentially in the woods, that there was no one on the outside that they were in contact with or were providing them with safe passage. >> and that seems to be the case, chris. i think that were there to have been a plan b other than the woman who worked inside the prison potentially going to drive them from the scene, there was no other plan to get away. i mean it was interesting when you talked to people these last three weeks, there were those who said for sure they've got be down in cancun or someplace sitting on the beach. then there were those in law enforcement who said we've had no car hijackings we've had no hostage takings, we've had no break-ins of homes. they have to be in this area. we have to be tenacious in our search and it looks like that tenaciousness has finally paid off. >> yes exactly right. very key that anything that would get them on a plane, on a

bus, you know that would require things like either a credit card or an atm or cash stolen something like that all of that never materialized. and that was the operating theory of law enforcement, which appears today to have borne out, which is we have them contained in this area. it's difficult terrain to traverse and it's difficult terrain to search. we're going to keep searching it. obviously, two huge breaks being the dna found in those two different cabins that were both broken into. i have jonathan back jonathan dienst back at the table here who has obviously been reporting. anything new about what's going on? >> some new updates. they have a perimeter set up in this wooded area in this lake titus area. and apparently the wooded area that they're searching in there's an unconfirmed sighting by law enforcement official in the wooded area. so they're now bringing in even

more reinforcement, i'm told to really seal off this wooded area near malone near lake titus. and they're going to hopefully push in gsh-- that is the goal -- >> i see. >> before sundown, to really search this set perimeter and see if they can find this second suspect, david sweat, and do an all-out search. they, of course have technology that can search even into the evening hours. heat sensing among other technology. so they're optimistic they're hopeful they have the second suspect somewhere in this vicinity. they are calling in lots of reinforcements and have this perimeter secure and they're going to try to make it more secure in case he is in fact in this limited area how big an area i don't know. i just know they're bringing in a lot of law enforcement now. >> that i bringing in reinforcements and they think they have a bead on broadly

some square acreage of where mr. sweat is. >> that's their hope they have one down which gives them the added leads and a possible sighting. >> yep. >> by not a witness but by law enforcement official who thought he saw something in that wooded area. so they're really honing in in this search area and perhaps we'll hear of some developments in the next hour two hours, as we heard from john yang governor cuomo's people on site now. so perhaps we'll keep an update later this evening officially from the governor's office. >> we're hearing the governor will be speaking at 8:30 tonight. we'll be back in just a moment. he importance of heart health. you watch your diet, excercise... and may take an omega-3 supplement, such as fish oil. but when it comes to omega-3s, it's the epa and dha that really matter for heart health. not all omega-3 supplements are the same. introducing bayer pro ultra omega-3 from the heart health experts at bayer. with two times the concentration of epa and dha as the leading omega-3 supplement.

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so we had just gotten word that governor cuomo will be holding a news conference at 8:30 on the search for that second escaped prisoner and presumably the governor will be giving an update perhaps on new information, perhaps even confirmation, official confirmation that richard matt was shot and killed. that's what we have been told pi law enforcement. they believe they have richard matt. hard confirmation coming with some kind of dna evidence but we are presuming that there will be some more information given by the governor tonight at 8:30. as of this hour david sweat, as far as we know remains at large. jonathan dienst just reporting that law enforcement has set up a perimeter around the lake titus region that's near malone new york about 35 miles through

very thicketed woods from the clinton correctional facility where those two individuals were able to break out. i believe it was 22 days ago, if i'm not mistaken. joining me now on the phone is eugene o'donnell at john jay college of criminal justice. does this feel like the endgame to you for david sweat, eugene? >> it does. it's real important that the law enforcement people not rush anything. it's important that civilians be kept out of the area because that's a possible bad ending. if this guy encounters any civilians. so clear the area of law enforcement people establish a perimeter, don't rush in unnecessarily, maintain firearms discipline, and to the greatest extent possible if the guy can be taken without violent incident, that's what law enforcement should do here. >> yeah and obviously just sheer amount of manpower and womanpower is key under these circumstances with the amount of terrain there is to cover. this sort of densely wooded

nature of that terrain. and the fact that we are starting to come up pretty soon against sundown. presumably that's the reason we've been seeing stephanie gosk reported huge amounts of law enforcement vehicles rushing into the area. >> right. obviously, they have equipment that allows them to work through the night. but this is -- i'm not exactly sure of that particular area, but we haven't thought about wilderness area, forested area difficult area that's unfortunate to navigate. again, there's no rush here. and you can make mistakes by rushing and misjudgments can be made. and the other thing they have to make sure is this firearms discipline, there's no friendly fire incidents. they really need to keep control. and it's hard with these many different agencies federal, local agencies working. >> all right. sorry, eugene. we'll be back in just a moment.

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to recap what we know richard matt has been shot and killed. law enforcement says they have found him. david sweat remains at large, but there's a belief by law enforcement he's close. coverage continues. "hardball" with steve kornacki is next. good evening. steve kornacki in for chris matthews. we're following breaking news on that manhunt for those two escaped killers in new york. richard matt one of the two escaped killers, has been shot and killed by a customs and border patrol tactical unit. david sweat is still on the run. police say there is evidence that he's nearby and there have been reports within the last hour of a second round of gunfire as police close in on him. we get the latest now from nbc's