So the “Shawshank” escapees form New York been out a week now. Assuming they are in the same area and hiding by day and foraging for food etc. at night why is it they are not being seen by infrared cameras?
Are these things not as good as we all lead to believe ?
Who seriously believes that they are still in the same area?
They obviously had help in breaking out. Seems likely they’d also have pre-arranged help in getting a ride far out of the area.
How exactly do you imagine they would be deploying infrared cameras, and how many do you think they have? Even if they were still in the area there would still be a large area to cover. If they are in woods, there are also likely lots of deer that would also register.
Well, you have to know where to point it. Let’s just say they were spotted at a gas station four hours ago. If one had no idea which direction they were heading, in theory the search area could be as large as 400 square miles (walking three miles per hour, for four hours, means they could have done 12 miles in any direction). Since one of these cameras probably has a field of view roughly the size of a football field, it can be like looking at the night sky through a soda straw.
But the camera can be very powerful, sometimes to the extent of picking up recent footsteps on the ground.
Well the girlfriend who was a prison employee was going to provide transportation–but she got cold feet, and supposedly had a panic attack which put her in the hospital. So the pre-arranged help would have had to have been backup to her–and this seems a bit doubtful. But any thoughts where that backup would have come from: they had both been inside a long time so the people outside were not close to them. They had not done big bank robberies so they probably didn’t have much money. The only possibility which comes to mind is a recently released ex con who was close friends in prison.
All these guys would have needed to do is to find a car somewhere in a farmhouse where the owners are not currently home. Or, kill the owners before they can call 911. (if they broke in at night, quietly, and the owners were just a single couple or something, maybe they could have stabbed them to death)
They could then steal the keys from the kitchen, hop in the car, and start driving. Wear sunglasses and hoodies and hats and things so they can’t be identified from the road. After a few hours of driving (if they killed the owners and took the car at say 10pm, they could probably drive until 6am), they need to break in somewhere else and lie low. Steal a different vehicle from outside the search area.
There’s a huge luck factor. Every single person they see might be able to identify them from the photographs that were published. Every gas station they stop at, they might be identified by passerbys or the clerk. Every person who does identify them or they break into the home of, they need to kill. (Jordan Dorner choose to tie people up instead and was burned to death for his mercy)
But, I think it wouldn’t take an unreasonable amount of luck to get pretty far and hide for a while. This is a huge country, and if they can escape that dragnet - get far enough away that they are outside the radius being searched - and they don’t go out in public with their faces unobscured - they could evade capture for a while.
These stories almost always have the same ending. The only way they could evade capture long term is if they had the money to escape to an extradition free country and buy citizenship. They don’t.
If they had an accomplice the police don’t know about, and that person had enough money to support them (since they obviously cannot leave their hideout or work a job outside), they could possibly hide for years. But this is unlikely.
You can’t really blame them for their actions. Both men were going to be kept in a cage until death with little hope of relief. They might as well kill whoever they encounter, it won’t make their life sentences any longer. Maybe they could steal some nice food and try to enjoy it, huddling in some farmhouse with the lights off and the heat turned low to escape notice.
I know these are bad men who committed murders. But, what’s the point of locking them in a stinking cage and making them suffer until they are dead? Do you think that other potential murderers are going to think that far ahead and decide to skip a murder because they are afraid of such a fate? This seems unlikely, criminals usually don’t plan ahead very far. I think they should either keep the prisoners in humane conditions or kill them.
Bank robber Willie Sutton had an autobiography in which he described his time in Dannemora and the incredibly bad conditions in that prison in the 1920s.
Inmates occasionally escaped, but didn’t last long in the woods up there before getting recaptured. I’d expect these guys to be back in custody soon, hopefully before killing and dismembering anyone else.
Moderator Note
Habeed, this goes way beyond the question in the OP. This last part in particular is highly inappropriate for this forum. There are other threads in other forums where other aspects of the case can be discussed.
Let’s stick to the topic of the OP, and limit ourselves to factual responses.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I am not suggesting it is even remotely likely, but what comes to mind is identity theft. They couldn’t do it on their own, but if they happened to have talented friends in “the trade” they might (heavy emphasis on the word might) be able to accomplish that. Wouldn’t take that long to make a significant change to their appearances (facial hair, glasses, hair colour, etc.).
[Moderator Note]
There’s an existing thread in MPSIMS in which people are speculating on how the inmates might elude capture. I would refer further comments of this sort there. I don’t think we need an additional thread on the subject here (and if I moved this one it would be redundant).
Please limit responses to the specific question in the OP. Otherwise this thread will be closed.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Not quite. He actually killed himself with a bullet to the head. Then, the fire cremated his body.