Joyce Mitchell used 'large prison coat' to hide sexual encounters with inmate she helped escape

Joyce Mitchell's confessions contain some lurid details
(Image credit: G.N. Miller–Pool/Getty Images)

New York prison worker Joyce Mitchell confessed to helping inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NBC News reports, drawing from documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Her confessions, made June 7, 8, and 10, contain some pretty lurid details.

Mitchell told state and federal investigators that she had smuggled Matt and Sweat in contraband and agreed to pick them up after their escape "because I was caught up in the fantasy." She knew, she said, that after the escape, Matt was going to kill her husband, Lyle, whom the inmates called "the glitch." She sent sexually explicit photos of herself to Sweat, she said, but only had sexual contact with Matt.

That started in April, Mitchell said, when she and Matt were alone in the prison tailor shop, where both Mitchell and her husband worked. "It startled me, she said. "He kissed me with an open mouth kiss. I didn't say anything because I was scared for my husband, who also works for the facility."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

At Matt's request, she later performed oral sex on the inmate and "also groped his genitals in several instances, using a large prison coat to disguise their activities," The New York Times summarizes, citing the same statements from Mitchell. NBC News provides more detail: "Matt would come to her desk wearing a big coat in which he had cut a hole so that Mitchell could touch his genitals."

Mitchell told investigators that she "enjoyed the attention, the feeling both of them gave me and the thought of a different life," but got ill from worry as the escape neared, ultimately going to the hospital instead of picking Matt and Sweat up in her Jeep with supplies, as planned. Matt was later killed, Sweat captured. "I know I had agreed to help them escape and run away with them, but I panicked and couldn't follow through with the rest of the plan," Mitchell said. "I really do love my husband and he's the reason."

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.