The last man to escape from a New York prison is rooting for the two murderers who broke out of an upstate penitentiary.
"I hope they stay out of sight and don't commit any new crimes," Timothy Vail, 47, told the Daily News inside Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill.
In a remarkably candid 90-minute interview, Vail described in detail his botched bid for freedom and expressed admiration for escapees Richard Matt and David Sweat.
Vail said he believes the pair can elude the police indefinitely if they remain "patient" and can "outlast all the news coverage."
But the biggest enemy is your own mind, he said.
"You're in a cell 24/7 but the minute you get out, you can't stay still," said Vail, speaking behind plexiglass and wearing a forest green uniform and black-rimmed glasses.
"The adrenaline is unbelievable."
Vail has been closely following the case on NPR and suggested Matt and Sweat used techniques they learned from him. "There are so many similarities," said Vail, who was serving 49 years to life for the 1988 rape and murder of a pregnant secretary in Binghamton.
"I wonder if they saw that show about us on Nat Geo."
Vail and fellow inmate Timothy Morgan were captured two days after their July 2003 escape from Elmira Correctional Facility.
SETH WENIG/AP
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlinduring a news conference in front of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y.
They had spent four months chipping away at the steel-reinforced concrete ceiling using screws, a sledgehammer and other tools they smuggled out of a prison carpentry shop.
They concealed the hole with a piece of cardboard painted black and stuck to the ceiling with toothpaste. On the night of their escape, they left behind life-like dummies in their beds.
An "associate" had stashed a bag full of "survival gear" in the woods a fair distance from the prison, Vail said.
But the painstakingly planned escape went awry when Vail fell while shimmying down the prison walls using sheets tied together.
He fractured his shoulder and ankle. They spent a day hiding out in the woods surrounding the prison. "We should have just stayed there," Vail said.
But with Vail injured, the pair decided to tempt fate and head into a town five miles north of the prison.
They were caught after Morgan stole a van.
Vail regrets the escape try — he was hit with an additional sentence of 3 ½ to seven years and has been stuck in solitary ever since.
But he believes it easily could have turned out differently. "If I didn't get hurt, I would've never been seen again," Vail said.
"I hope they stay out of sight and don't commit any new crimes," Timothy Vail, 47, told the Daily News inside Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill.
"When you commit crimes, the cops are all over you. That's the mistake we made."
In a remarkably candid 90-minute interview, Vail described in detail his botched bid for freedom and expressed admiration for escapees Richard Matt and David Sweat.
Vail said he believes the pair can elude the police indefinitely if they remain "patient" and can "outlast all the news coverage."
But the biggest enemy is your own mind, he said.
"You're in a cell 24/7 but the minute you get out, you can't stay still," said Vail, speaking behind plexiglass and wearing a forest green uniform and black-rimmed glasses.
"The adrenaline is unbelievable."
Vail has been closely following the case on NPR and suggested Matt and Sweat used techniques they learned from him. "There are so many similarities," said Vail, who was serving 49 years to life for the 1988 rape and murder of a pregnant secretary in Binghamton.
"I wonder if they saw that show about us on Nat Geo."
Vail and fellow inmate Timothy Morgan were captured two days after their July 2003 escape from Elmira Correctional Facility.
SETH WENIG/APNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlinduring a news conference in front of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y.
They had spent four months chipping away at the steel-reinforced concrete ceiling using screws, a sledgehammer and other tools they smuggled out of a prison carpentry shop.
They concealed the hole with a piece of cardboard painted black and stuck to the ceiling with toothpaste. On the night of their escape, they left behind life-like dummies in their beds.
An "associate" had stashed a bag full of "survival gear" in the woods a fair distance from the prison, Vail said.
But the painstakingly planned escape went awry when Vail fell while shimmying down the prison walls using sheets tied together.
He fractured his shoulder and ankle. They spent a day hiding out in the woods surrounding the prison. "We should have just stayed there," Vail said.
But with Vail injured, the pair decided to tempt fate and head into a town five miles north of the prison.
They were caught after Morgan stole a van.
Vail regrets the escape try — he was hit with an additional sentence of 3 ½ to seven years and has been stuck in solitary ever since.
But he believes it easily could have turned out differently. "If I didn't get hurt, I would've never been seen again," Vail said.
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