New York prison break: Expert shows how hard it is to cut through steel pipe

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) says that investigators are "talking to several people who may have facilitated the escape" of two convicted murderers, David Sweat and Richard Matt, and that anyone found to have helped the men break out of the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility last weekend will face harsh justice. "You will be convicted, and then you'll be on the other side of the prison that you've been policing, and that is not a pleasant place to be," he said.

One of the main reasons police believe Sweat and Matt had help in their escape — multiple reports suggest a key suspect is Joyce Mitchell, one of Sweat's former instructors at the prison tailor shop — is that they apparently had power tools robust enough to cut their way out of a large steel steam pipe:

Making a cut like that, especially so clean, isn't an easy task, says Larry Jeffords, owner of Jeffords Steel and Engineering in Plattsbourgh, New York. "I'm in the steel business, and I've said before, I could have sent my best men up there with an acetylene torch or a plasma cutter, and I couldn't have done a better hole," he told The Associated Press. Watch and learn in the AP video below. Peter Weber

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