Authorities put spotlight on prison employee
For the first time since the escape, law enforcement officials acknowledged publicly that a woman who worked with the convicts in the tailoring shop at the prison may have played a role in the elaborate breakout.

Investigators think prison employee Joyce Mitchell had planned to pick up the inmates after their escape, only to change her mind at the last minute, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

D'Amico, without elaborating, said Mitchell had befriended the men and "may have had some sort of role in assisting them."

She has not been arrested or charged in connection with their escape, nor has anyone else. The source added that Mitchell is cooperating with police, having provided information as needed.

Her cell phone was used to call several people connected to Matt, according to another source with knowledge of the investigation. It's not clear who made these calls, when they were made or if Mitchell knew about them.

Mitchell went to the hospital this weekend because of panic attacks, according to one of the sources. By then, authorities had discovered during a 5:30 a.m. Saturday bed check that Matt and Sweat had escaped.

Mitchell has worked at Clinton for seven years as an industrial training supervisor, according to Jennifer Freeman, a spokeswoman for the New York State Comptroller. Her salary was $57,697 a year.

Mitchell's son Tobey Mitchell told NBC News his mother was in a hospital Saturday evening because "she was having severe chest pains and she was concerned about that." He added that his mom, who works at the prison with her husband, "worries a lot about everything" but strongly challenged suggestions she had done anything wrong.

"She is not the kind of person that's going to risk her life or other people's lives to let these guys escape from prison," he said.

His wife, Paige Mitchell, told CNN on Wednesday that "95% of what is being said" about her mother-in-law is not true.

"They don't have the facts to prove this," she said. "This is just slander and rumor."

Paige Mitchell said she believed Matt may have persuaded her mother-in-law to contact people for him who knew about art.

"He was interested in art," Paige Mitchell said of Matt. "Her heart was in the right place."

Paige Mitchell denied that her mother-in-law was to be the getaway driver or helped provide the power tools used in the escape. Saturday's hospital visit stemmed from the fact that Joyce Mitchell is a "very nervous person," she said.

A brazen escape

Matt and Sweat's escape was so extraordinarily complex that experts say the two must have had help.

Using power tools, they cut through a cell wall that included a steel plate, maneuvered across a catwalk, shimmied down six stories to a tunnel of pipes, followed that tunnel, broke through a double-brick wall, cut into a 24-inch steam pipe, climbed through the steam pipe, cut another hole so they could get out of the pipe and finally surfaced through a manhole.

Aside from the mystery of how they got the necessary power tools, many wonder how they could have used them without detection.

The hole in the cell's steel wall suggests they used a cutoff wheel, ironworker Ernesto "Ernie" Peuelas said. But using that tool would have produced a loud sound and detectable odor.