Fame Finds Richard Matt
Richard Matt lay on his side in a thicket of woods dressed in camo and with a hunter’s backpack near his legs, his head resting on his right shoulder. In any other story it would be a brief flash image of a homeless man taking refuge in what little refuge nature has to offer. The pool of blood, the congealed bullet wound entering his forehead and exiting his crown and the pink hints of brain, however, tell a different story.
It’s a story of violence and fear and desperation. And it’s a story Matt had lived throughout his 49-years on God’s green Earth. A native of Tonawanda, New York, Matt aged as a persona non grata throughout school, according to the BBC and apparent classmate, Rand Szukala. He was a bully and frequently in trouble. When the burden of his early years grew to be too much to bear at the age of 13, he ran away on a stolen horse. He found sustenance in the goods he stole from Upstate New York’s numerous summer cottages and hunting cabins.
It wouldn’t be the last time Matt would run. In 1986, Matt would flee from the Erie County Correction Facility during a year-long sentence for assault. His escape was simple: he snuck past a guard, climbed a 9ft razor-wired fence and was gone. His scarred hands would serve as a badge, a symbol of his character and thirst for criminal fame, for life.
As life progressed, so did Matt’s crimes. He strained beyond the reach of many “small-time thugs,” as the media would put it during his escape and before his eventual death, and dismembered his former boss, William Rickerson, a Buffalo businessman. Matt left Rickerson’s pieces and parts in the Niagara River before he fled for Mexico. Rickerson’s corpse was found by a local fisherman.
While on the lam in Mexico, Matt reportedly killed again. His victim was another American who made the unfortunate mistake of sharing a bar with the escapee. Matt was caught, jailed, shot for trying to escape, extradited, charged, and sentenced by United States Federal Courts to 25 to life with no chance of parole before 2032. He would’ve been 66 years old before facing the possibility of freedom.
He did not wait for that to happen.
Instead, Matt, with the help of fellow inmate David Sweat, 35, and, allegedly, prison tailor Joyce Mitchell, 51, decided to run, again. After years of good behavior, and after being smuggled goods, Matt and Sweat cut and drilled their way through the walls and pipes of Clinton Correctional Facility. The alarm was raised on June 6, 2015.
Matt and Sweat’s escape set the New York media ablaze with worry, speculation and coverage. For 21 days Matt ran, by foot, through the hills and woods of Upstate New York. As before, he found sustenance in the hunting cabins and vacation cottages so common to the area. They were heading to Canada, an apparent stepping stone to that romanticized refuge for those on the run: Mexico.
At some point during his escape, Matt armed himself a 20 gauge shotgun. He used it once on a camping trailer, occupied. The driver would escape the encounter, not knowing they had been shot on, and eventually bring the concerted efforts more than 1,000 law enforcement officers, federal, state and local, to the area.
When society found Matt, he was hiding in the woods of Malone, New York, armed but resting. He was 20 miles from the Canadian border. The officers who found him, from the federal Customs and Border Protection agency, ordered Matt to lower his firearm and raise his hands in surrender. Saying nothing, he raised himself and apparently refused. A single agent fired in response and Matt’s troubled life came to an end.
Superintendent Joseph D’Amico of the New York State Police would say that “Mr. Matt did not fire any shots at the agents, nor was he known to have said anything …” before his death.
What they did know was this: the days before his final rest, Matt was sick. The bugs, the unclean water and the refuge of nature proved unkind to Matt and his fellow escapee. CBS would report that Matt attempted to cure himself by seeking refuge in stolen booze; he had left behind half-drunken bottles and empties throughout his numerous break-ins. But no matter where Matt went he would find no rest, no refuge and no salvation from his choices.
In the end, a day after his birthday, fame gifted itself on Matt. It was delivered through a federally issued firearm with federally issued ammunition in a thicket of woods in Upstate New York.