Dogs on the hunt for the two killers who escaped from an upstate prison have picked up their scents about five miles from the maximum-security slammer — and the fugitives may have split up, a law enforcement source told The Post.
Authorities — who also found footprints and wrappers from recently eaten food in the area — are working with the possibility that Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34, have gone their separate ways, the source said.
Various agencies, including the US Marshals Service, are taking part in the search as a tight perimeter has been set up in a dense forest area in Saranac, south of Dannemora.
Vermont has all but been ruled out as a possible location for the two.
The latest development comes as authorities have been searching Cadyville, another small town about five miles southeast of the prison.
There have been at least two apparent sightings of the escapees, who have been on the run for nearly a week.
Cadyville was in lockdown mode overnight after state and local police closed two state highways and numerous streets in the hilly village, refusing to let people out of their cars.
“We don’t want to risk it,” a law enforcement official said.
Drivers on Trudeau Road were told to either turn around or put their cars in park Wednesday night, as cops created a perimeter to search the nearby area.
Residents in the lockdown area said they received automated calls from police to lock their doors, stay inside and keep their lights on to help search crews see.
Visibility was a big problem for cops Wednesday as they battled intense fog caused by heavy rains that even their floodlights had trouble penetrating.
A team of state police surrounded a foreclosed empty house around 10:30 p.m. and later searched a farm area as a Border Protection helicopter circled overhead.
As of early Thursday, police continued to canvass Cadyville, which sits down the hill from the Clinton Correctional Facility, from which the two prisoners escaped early Saturday.
Local schools in the region were closed Thursday “to assist law enforcement personnel with their search efforts,” according to Saranac Central School District’s website.“The safety of our students and staff is priority number one. Please be assured that we will do all that we possibly can do to help everyone feel safe while they are at school,” the school district wrote about the the additional security precautions it’s taking during Regents Week.
Meanwhile, a recent brawl among inmates — and overtime costs — may have played a role in the escape, according to the local Press-Republican newspaper.
The fight in the recreational yard occurred about a week ago and included at least 40 prisoners, the paper reported, citing active and retired corrections officers who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The prison normally goes into lockdown mode after such an incident and the prisoners are kept in their cells.
But state corrections officials told supervisors at the prison that they could not lock it down because of high overtime costs, the paper reported.
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