Is “Escape at Dannemora” Based on a True Story? All About the Real Jail Break That Inspired the Miniseries

The 2018 miniseries sees Patricia Arquette as the prison seamstress who helped two convicted murderers break out of a maximum-security prison

Escape at Dannemora stars Benicio del Toro and Paul Dano as two convicted murderers who break out of a New York prison with the help of an employee played by Patricia Arquette.

Though the series debuted on Showtime in 2018, it was added to Netflix in October 2024 and quickly entered the streamer’s Top 10 list. While many details of the Ben Stiller-directed crime drama are exaggerated, but Escape at Dannemora is based on the true story of the 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape.

On June 6, 2015, convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from the maximum-security portion of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y. They drilled through steel walls using power tools smuggled into the prison by prison tailor Joyce “Tillie” Mitchell and slipped through a network of underground tunnels. Police later learned that the prisoners had seduced the seamstress as a part of their escape plot.

After a massive 22-day search across multiple states, the two men were found and shot by police. Sweat survived but Matt did not.

Here’s everything to know about the true story behind Escape at Dannemora — and what happened to Tillie’s character in real life.

Who was Richard Matt?

Richard Matt was one of two prisoners who escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora in 2015. He was arrested in 2008 for the 1997 kidnapping and murder of 76-year-old businessman William Rickerson, who fired him.

According to testimony from his accomplice, Lee E. Bates, Matt beat Rickerson unconscious with a knife sharpener. He then wrapped the man in duct tape, tossed him in his truck and drove around for 27 hours before reportedly telling Bates he “had enough of this” and snapped the victim’s neck.

Matt dismembered Rickerson’s body with a hacksaw and dumped him in the Niagara River before fleeing to Mexico. He was extradited to the United States after he stabbed an American outside of a bar and was found guilty of three counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery in Rickerson’s death. He was sentenced to 25 years to life.

“There’s no doubt that if he got out, he’d do something,” a juror told The Buffalo News after Matt’s sentencing. “It’s sociopathic behavior. He needs to stay in there.”

The 2015 escape wasn’t the first time Matt broke out of a prison. In 1986, he scaled the fence surrounding the Erie County Jail in Alden, N.Y. and was on the lam for four days before being caught by police.

Who is David Sweat?

David Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole for the 2002 shooting death of a sheriff’s deputy.

According to NBC News, he and two other men stole a pickup truck and loaded it with firearms they had stolen from a gun store in Pennsylvania. After crossing the state line into New York, they were stopped by Deputy Kevin Tarsia. The three men shot the officer 15 times and ran over him with the stolen car.

To avoid the death penalty, Sweat pled guilty. Deputy Tarsia’s fiancèe, Christi-Ann Ciccone, said during his sentencing that the men who killed her husband did not deserve to live.

"These are not people," she said, according to ABC News. "These are monsters."

Who is Joyce Mitchell?

Joyce “Tillie” Mitchell is a former tailor at the Clinton Correctional Facility who helped Sweat and Matt escape the prison by smuggling in power tools. Though the inspector general’s report alleged that she had a romantic relationship with Matt, she claimed he had “complete control” and sexually assaulted her.

“Mr. Matt had grabbed me a couple times and kissed me and then there was one point where he had he wanted me to perform [a sex act] on him and I said no. And when I said no, he grabbed my head and pushed me down,” Mitchell said in a 2015 interview with TODAY.

The prison worker admitted to striking up a flirtation with the two convicts and said depression was the reason she agreed to aid in the escape. She started bringing the men cookies and brownies and eventually, they asked her for tools. When she refused, Matt allegedly threatened to hurt her husband.

“I was going through a time where I felt like my husband didn’t love me anymore. I guess they saw my weakness,” she told TODAY. “Their attention made me feel good.”

Eric Jensen, an ex-jailmate of Matt and Sweat, told PEOPLE that he witnessed the interactions between the convicts and the seamstress. Reports confirmed that Sweat was removed from the tailor shop in 2013 after an investigation into an improper relationship with Mitchell.

“You know when they’re getting it on, by the way they act, the body language, the way they look at each other, they way they laugh with each other,” Jensen said. “We all did. It was like a running joke in that, ‘You’re going in the back with your boo.’ He would laugh, but he would never confirm or deny.”

How did Richard Matt and David Sweat escape?

Matt and Sweat were the first convicts to escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility’s maximum-security area, and they were able to do so with Mitchell's help.

Mitchell smuggled hacksaw blades, chisels, lighted glasses and drill bits into the prison using frozen hamburger meat. A prison guard named Gene Palmer was sentenced to six months in jail after he admitted to passing the convicts frozen hamburger meat. He denied knowing that there were blades and tools hidden inside.

For 85 nights, Sweat and Matt used the contraband to cut through the walls of their side-by-side cells and escape into a network of tunnels. The men crawled underground for more than a city block before exiting through a manhole. Sweat later told police that they would work for up to three hours a night and left dummies on their beds to get past guard inspections.

When they made their escape, they left a note on their beds for the prison staff. Matt’s read: “You left me no choice but grow old & die here. I had to do something."

Mitchell told police she had originally agreed to pick up Matt and Sweat and take them to Mexico. Matt also allegedly wanted to kill her husband, Lyle Mitchell. The seamstress said the convicted murderer even gave her pills to incapacitate him, but she got cold feet and destroyed them. When their ride failed to show up, Sweat said they decided to flee to Canada instead.

The escape was seemingly inspired by the 1997 crime thriller The Shawshank Redemption, in which a wrongfully convicted man spends 20 years tunneling his way out of prison. According to a report released by New York’s inspector general, Sweat told investigators that he and Matt joked about the movie while they were working.

“We were laughing and joking about how Andy [Dufresne] did it in 20 years,” he said. “I think we might be able to do it in 10.”

What happened to Richard Matt and David Sweat?

After 20 days on the run, Matt was shot and killed by police on June 26, 2015. A civilian complaint of a gunpowder smell coming from a cabin in Malone, N.Y. led law enforcement to the convict’s location. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a briefing that customs and border patrol “came upon Matt, they engaged Mr. Matt and Mr. Matt was shot and killed.”

Sweat remained at large at the time of Matt’s death. He later told police that after two weeks of walking to Canada through the woods, Matt started developing severe blisters on his feet. “Sweat felt that Matt was slowing him down,” Cuomo said. So he left him behind.

Two days later, Sweat was spotted by police walking down a road in Constable, N.Y. He was shot twice in the torso and airlifted to a nearby medical center for treatment. He recovered and later pleaded guilty to escape and promoting contraband.

According to NBC News, he was sentenced to three-and-a-half to seven years on top of his life sentence.

What happened to Joyce Mitchell and how many years did she get?

Mitchell pleaded guilty to helping Matt and Sweat escape and was sentenced to a maximum of eight years in prison. She was released from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 2020 after serving over four years and was on supervised release until June 2022.

According to PIX 11, her husband, Lyle, visited her every other weekend for the entire time she was incarcerated.

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