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 Only about 20 law enforcement officers continued to scour the small upstate New York town of Willsboro on Tuesday night after a massive search failed to turn up Richard Matt and David Sweat, the convicted murderers who busted out of a maximum-security prison over the weekend with power tools. 
 
 At the height of the search, scores of FBI agents, state troopers, forest rangers, sheriff's deputies, K-9 units and state Corrections Department agents, supported by a helicopter, responded along Middle Road in Willsboro. 
 
 Law enforcement officials told NBC News the swarm descended on the town after they got a specific tip from the Willsboro area, which is across Lake Champlain from Burlington, Vermont, and about 40 miles southeast of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, from which the men escaped overnight Friday. 
 
 By late Tuesday, most of them had left empty-handed. NBC station WPTZ of Plattsburgh, New York, reported Tuesday night that the focus of the search had returned to Dannemora. 
 
 Please lock house and car doors tonight. Avoid walking around town if possible. There will be increased police patrols tonight. — Town of Willsboro (@TownofWillsboro) June 9, 2015 
 
 More than 250 local, state and federal officials have pursued hundreds of leads in the search for Matt and Sweat. They busted out by cutting holes in the steel backs of their cells, seemingly with power tools, and climbing through pipes and tunnels until they reached and broke open a manhole cover a block away. 
 
 Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said all of the prison's tools were accounted for after the escape, presenting the question of where the men got the equipment they needed to cut through steel. 
 
 "They definitely had help," Cuomo said Monday. "Otherwise, they couldn't have done this on their own, even from the equipment point of view." 
 
 RELATED: Richard Matt and David Sweat, Convicted Murderers Who Escaped Prison, Have Grisly Past 
 
 Tobey Mitchell, the son of Joyce Mitchell, a Clinton Correctional Facility employee, confirmed that state police were questioning his mother in connection with the brazen escape. But he said Joyce Mitchell — who authorities said checked herself into a hospital Saturday — would have never played a part in helping the prisoners break free. 
 
 "She's not going to risk her life or other people's lives to help these guys escape," he said. ||||| (CNN) After convicted murderers David Sweat and Richard Matt pulled off their brazen escape from an upstate New York prison, their relationship quickly began to sour, according to a law enforcement official briefed on Sweat's interviews with investigators. 
 
 Sweat has told investigators that Matt, who was fatally shot last week, was out of shape and unable to keep up with him, the law enforcement official told CNN on Wednesday. 
 
 In particular, Sweat told investigators, he was irked that the older man began getting drunk after they broke into a cabin, the official said. The discord prompted the fugitives to split up. 
 
 After a border patrol agent caught up with and killed Matt on Friday, authorities said officers could smell alcohol on his body from a few feet away, according to a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation. 
 
 From his hospital bed in Albany, Sweat has been revealing details about the prison break and their time on the run that seem to baffle almost everyone -- except himself. 
 
 Sweat and Matt pulled off the sensational escape not once, but twice, the inmate told investigators. 
 
 Through it all, Sweat was the mastermind, or at least that's what he's telling authorities, a local district attorney said. 
 
 And while authorities initially spoke of the possible use of power tools in the escape, Sweat has said that he and Matt actually found a sledgehammer in an underground passageway. It was probably left behind inadvertently by a construction worker, according to the law enforcement official briefed on his interviews. The men supposedly used the sledgehammer to break down a brick wall on their way out of the maximum security prison, the official said. 
 
 During their time on the lam, the fugitives had several close calls as authorities closed in, Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie told CNN. While hiding in the hunting cabin, they heard voices of people nearby at one point. And after the pair split up, Wylie said, Sweat saw a law enforcement officer walk right by him as he hid in a tree stand used by hunters. 
 
 An escape before the escape 
 
 Sweat said the plot to break out of Clinton Correctional Facility actually started in January, Wylie said. 
 
 After five months of hashing out strategies, Sweat and Matt made a practice run 
 
 One night before prison tailor Joyce Mitchell was supposed to meet them at a manhole, Sweat and Matt escaped from their cells, a New York state official said. 
 
 They navigated a maze of tunnels and pipes before popping out of a manhole. But Sweat said they saw too many houses near that manhole and decided to try for a different one the next night, Wylie said. 
 
 So why didn't the guards notice? It's not clear, but the state inspector general's office has been looking into whether guards had fallen asleep, officials told CNN. 
 
 Just hacksaws 
 
 Speculation has raged over what power tools the pair used, but Sweat told investigators that he and Matt used only hacksaws to cut through their cell walls and a steam pipe inside the prison, the district attorney told CNN. 
 
 After interviewing Sweat for several hours over the past two days, state police investigators had no plans for now to speak with him further, spokesman Beau Duffy said. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Investigators looking into prison escape details Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Investigators looking into prison escape details 02:23 
 
 Duffy did not have information on where Sweat will go once he's released but said he will be turned over to the corrections department. Sweat is listed in fair condition and is expected to remain at Albany Medical Center for at least a few more days, according to the hospital. 
 
 Mitchell, the prison tailor, has admitted to smuggling hacksaw blades by hiding them in frozen hamburger meat and then having the meat delivered to Matt, a law enforcement official said last week. 
 
 She has been arrested and charged with promoting prison contraband and criminal facilitation. 
 
 Another employee, Gene Palmer, is accused of taking the meat to the inmates. He's charged with promoting dangerous prison contraband, two counts of destroying evidence and one count of official misconduct. 
 
 A dozen prison employees put on leave 
 
 But the investigation extends beyond Mitchell and Palmer -- and well beyond the escape. 
 
 Steven Racette 
 
 Three members of the prison's executive team, along with nine security staff employees, have been placed on paid administrative leave as part of the review of the escape, said the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. 
 
 Superintendent Steven Racette and Deputy Superintendent Stephen Brown are among the executives on leave, a state official told CNN on Tuesday. The other is First Deputy Superintendent Donald Quinn, according to a source familiar with the investigation. 
 
 Michael Kirkpatrick, a former first deputy superintendent of the Elmira Correctional Facility and head of the Corrections Emergency Response Team, on Wednesday was named the new superintendent of the Clinton Correctional Facility. 
 
 Since the escape, other measures have been taken: 
 
 -- Every cell at Clinton is being inspected once a week, with supervision from a senior security staff member. 
 
 -- The number of cells searched daily and randomly for contraband has tripled, with each cell being searched at least once every two months. 
 
 -- All tunnels are being inspected monthly instead of biannually. 
 
 -- The so-called "honor block," where the escaped prisoners had been housed, has been eliminated pending further review, according to the department. 
 
 JUST WATCHED FBI probes possible drug ring inside New York prison Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH FBI probes possible drug ring inside New York prison 03:08 
 
 The FBI is investigating possible broader corruption at the prison, law enforcement officials briefed on the case said. Agents are looking into whether drug trafficking or other criminal behavior among employees and inmates took place, officials said. 
 
 Some employees who have been questioned told investigators that there was heroin use among prisoners and an alleged drug trade involving employees. 
 
 How the plan derailed 
 
 According to Sweat, officials said, this is how the plan was supposed to play out: 
 
 Sweat and Matt would come out of a manhole and meet Mitchell, who would drive them away. The convicted murderers would then kill Mitchell's husband, Lyle, before fleeing to Mexico 
 
 Sweat has told investigators that it was Mitchell's idea for them to kill her husband, according to the law enforcement official briefed on his interviews. But her attorney denied that accusation Wednesday. And Mitchell has also told authorities that Matt and Sweat hatched the plan to kill her husband. 
 
 In his interview, Sweat also denied any sexual contact with Joyce Mitchell and said it was Matt who had a sexual relationship with her, officials said. 
 
 Authorities have said that Matt had a sexual relationship with Mitchell, and that she had been investigated in the past for an inappropriate relationship with Sweat that led corrections officials to move him out of the tailor shop where she worked. 
 
 The night of the escape, Mitchell did not show up, forcing the fugitives to improvise on the run for more than three weeks. 
 
 Police caught up with and killed Matt on Friday. Two days later, an officer shot and wounded Sweat less than two miles from the Canadian border. 
 
 Sweat told investigators that he was upset when he learned that Matt had been killed and decided to try to make it to Canada, the official said. 
 
 Matt's family members at first had said they wouldn't claim his body, but they changed their minds, Franklin County Coroner Brian Langdon told CNN. 
 
 Langdon believes the body will be turned over to Matt's son. 
 
 The Heald Funeral Home in Plattsburgh will handle the body's transfer, Langdon said. 
 
 Matt's body is at Alice Hyde Medical Center's morgue in Malone. ||||| (CNN) Recaptured escapee David Sweat has told police that he and Richard Matt conducted a practice run of their prison break the night before they disappeared from Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York, a state official says. 
 
 Agents with the state Inspector General's office have been trying to figure out how the convicted murderers were able to leave their cells at night to escape, and had been looking into whether guards had fallen asleep, officials have told CNN. 
 
 The admission that the inmates actually practiced making their way to freedom was the first of perhaps many shocking details officials hope Sweat gives up so they can understand how security broke down. 
 
 Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie told CNN in an email that Sweat said that he and Matt started planning their escape in January. They cut through steam pipes to get to an underground tunnel system. 
 
 The night before they broke out, Sweat and Matt went through the tunnels and reached a manhole, but decided it wasn't isolated enough, Wylie said. They decided to escape from a different manhole. 
 
 "To make a dry run and ... have the ability to escape, and then go back in, it is a little baffling," Wylie told NBC News. 
 
 Three members of Clinton Correctional Facility's executive team, along with nine security staff employees, have been placed on paid administrative leave as part of the review of the escape, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. 
 
 Superintendent Steven Racette and Deputy Superintendent Stephen Brown are among the executives on leave, a state official told CNN on Tuesday. The other is First Deputy Superintendent Donald Quinn, according to a source familiar with the investigation. 
 
 The official had been briefed on the convicts' elaborate escape from the maximum security lockup. For about three weeks, searchers combed terrain in upstate New York. On Friday, Richard Matt was shot and killed. David Sweat was shot and captured Sunday. 
 
 The FBI is investigating possible broader corruption at the prison , law enforcement officials briefed on the case said Monday. Agents are looking into whether drug trafficking or other criminal behavior among employees and inmates took place, officials said. Some employees who have been questioned told investigators that there was heroin use among prisoners and an alleged drug trade involving employees. 
 
 JUST WATCHED FBI probes possible drug ring inside New York prison Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH FBI probes possible drug ring inside New York prison 03:08 
 
 Steven Racette 
 
 A plan to head to Mexico? 
 
 Earlier, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the inmates had a plan: A prison worker, Joyce Mitchell, would pick them up after they broke out, kill her husband, and then the three would head to Mexico. 
 
 That's what Sweat told investigators from his hospital room in Albany, Cuomo said. 
 
 "They would kill (Joyce) Mitchell's husband, and then get in the car and drive to Mexico on the theory that Mitchell was in love with one or both of them," Cuomo told "The Capitol Pressroom" radio program . "And then they would go live happily ever after." 
 
 Sweat's condition was upgraded to fair Tuesday, according to a statement on Albany Medical Center's Facebook page. Medical director Dennis P. McKenna says he will remain in the hospital for "at least a few days." 
 
 Sweat is in a locked-off section of the hospital, separated by secure doors, a spokesman said. It's a section designated only for prisoners. No other patients would be treated there as part of the hospital's contract with the Department of Corrections, according to Jeffrey Gordon, hospital vice president of communications. Sweat is not allowed to have visitors. 
 
 Photos taken shortly after his capture show him bloodied and in leg irons, wearing an oxygen mask and apparently conscious as he's tended to. 
 
 Prison workers charged 
 
 Mitchell is in jail, charged with aiding Matt and Sweat. 
 
 District Attorney Wylie has said that she smuggled hacksaw blades and other tools embedded in meat through the prison's main gate and placed it in a freezer in the tailor shop where another prison employee, Gene Palmer, took the meat to an area where the inmates would be. 
 
 JUST WATCHED How one officer took down David Sweat Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH How one officer took down David Sweat 04:33 
 
 On Tuesday, Mitchell's attorney told CNN that she told him she was "ecstatic both that the manhunt has ended and also that it appears no harm came to any other person." 
 
 "She has been praying for this and she believes her prayers were answered," said Steve Johnston. 
 
 Shortly after the inmates broke free, Mitchell, who was supposed to be their getaway driver, hadn't shown up, Cuomo said. 
 
 She went to the hospital. Sweat, 35, and Matt, struggled to outpace searchers on their heels. 
 
 Ditching Matt 
 
 The two remained together for more than two weeks, Cuomo said. But eventually, Matt became a burden to the younger, more athletic fugitive. 
 
 "Sweat felt that Matt was slowing him down," Cuomo said. "Now we know that Matt had blisters on his feet because we found bloody socks. So that's possibly a reason Matt was slowing him down. And also Sweat was a younger man, and he was fit." 
 
 And evidence suggests Matt had been ill, possibly from contaminated food or water, a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation said. 
 
 By the time Matt was shot, Sweat had already left him behind. Police caught up with and killed Matt on Friday in Malone; Sweat made it within two miles of the Canadian border before he was captured Sunday. 
 
 "I still say to this day if that woman -- and whoever else was involved -- didn't give them that stuff, those guys wouldn't have ever broke out of jail," Sweat's mother, Pamela Sweat, told CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" on Tuesday. "My son could have been killed just like the other guy because they, more or less, let him loose. They knew what was going on, and they didn't stop it." 
 
 When asked what her hope and message for her son are, she said: "I just hope he learned his lesson, and he stays in where he's at, and I get to go see him." 
 
 "I hope that he gets better and I love him and I miss him," Pamela Sweat said. 
 
 Former FBI official: Mitchell would have been killed 
 
 But a former FBI assistant director cast doubt on the plan that Sweat described to investigators. 
 
 Chris Swecker said he doubts Sweat and Matt really intended to kill Mitchell's husband and then drive with her to Mexico. 
 
 "I don't think they'd take the time to go divert to her house just to kill her husband, and I'm not sure why they would want to do that. That just wastes time," Swecker told CNN's "New Day." 
 
 And he said Mitchell's failure to pick up the escapees at the manhole likely saved her life. 
 
 "They would have had no use for her whatsoever," he said. "They used her, and they would have tossed her out right away. And then she would have been in a very shallow grave within hours." 
 
 Camouflage, maps and Pop-Tarts 
 
 Matt and Sweat were well-equipped when they were found. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Inside a cabin where the fugitives stayed Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Inside a cabin where the fugitives stayed 02:12 
 
 Both were wearing camouflage. Matt was dressed in dark brown pants, a dark green jacket, and heavy boots when he was shot, Franklin County Coroner Brian Langdon told CNN. 
 
 "He was dressed for the woods," Langdon said. "He would blend right in if he stood still." 
 
 Matt's clothing was not torn or ragged, though Langdon did recall an odor of stale blood. 
 
 "I thought he was kind of well-kept for somebody who's been living in the woods for 20-some odd days," Langdon said. 
 
 Matt may have stolen clothing or other supplies from a cabin in Mountain View, where his DNA was found. 
 
 After Matt was killed, authorities could smell alcohol on his body from a few feet away, the law enforcement source said. 
 
 When Sweat was captured, he had a backpack full of supplies, Cuomo told CNN's "New Day." 
 
 "He had maps, he had a certain amount of tools, he had bug repellent, he had wipes, he had Pop-Tarts," he said. 
 
 It's not clear whether Sweat acquired those supplies before his escape, or whether he stole or collected them while on the run. 
 
 What's next for Sweat 
 
 Even though authorities want to know more about Sweat's plot and who helped him, it's unlikely he'll get a plea deal out of it, District Attorney Wylie said. 
 
 JUST WATCHED What will prison be like for captured convict David Sweat? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH What will prison be like for captured convict David Sweat? 02:23 
 
 "There's certainly no plea bargain that we could put out there," he said. "The Department of Corrections obviously wants information ... whatever benefit that may be for David Sweat, only time will tell." 
 
 But Jeff Dumas, a retired sergeant at Clinton Correctional Facility, said he thinks Sweat might try to work out a deal by giving more details in exchange for getting less time in solitary confinement. 
 
 Regardless, it's unlikely Sweat will go back to Clinton, criminologist Casey Jordan said. 
 
 "He would never be safe there," she said. 
 
 A former inmate at Clinton agreed. Louis Ferrante said someone like Sweat would usually be considered a hero to many prisoners -- a convicted cop killer who pulled off a stunning escape. 
 
 But Sweat's "ratting" on misdeeds in the prison means other inmates would harass or hurt him, Ferrante said. 
 
 "That's going to do him a lot of harm," he said. "They're going to be spitting on him. He's garbage now." 
 
 Feds probe possible drug trafficking 
 
 JUST WATCHED FBI probes possible drug ring inside New York prison Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH FBI probes possible drug ring inside New York prison 03:08 
 
 The idea that a heroin ring was happening in Clinton Correctional didn't surprise former inmate Louis Ferrante 
 
 "I was in federal, state and county prisons. There wasn't a prison I was in that wasn't heroin-infested," he said. 
 
 "There is heroin use in every single prison. If the feds want to tackle this, they better get ready" to take on a nationwide problem. 
 
 Corrections officers have for years brought contraband into prisons for a variety of reasons -- sex, love, money, ego. 
 
 A former guard at Rikers Island told CNN recently that he wanted to make more money to pay off mounting bills and started selling cigarettes, then cocaine, in the jail. 
 
 Gary Heyward said he made a lot of money, but he also got caught and served two years in prison for what he did. 
 
 Prison guard goes to court 
 
 Matt and Sweat needed help in their escape -- namely, power tools to carve through a maze of barriers. 
 
 Mitchell has admitted to smuggling hacksaw blades by hiding them in frozen hamburger meat and having the meat delivered to Matt, a law enforcement official said last week. She has been arrested and charged with promoting prison contraband and criminal facilitation. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Ex-warden: Prison worker likely knew about contraband Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ex-warden: Prison worker likely knew about contraband 04:31 
 
 And Gene Palmer, a guard on the honor block where Matt and Sweat were housed, was arrested and charged with promoting prison contraband, tampering with physical evidence and official misconduct. 
 
 He appeared in court Monday and waived any more hearings in Plattsburgh Justice Court. The case will now go to a grand jury in Clinton County Court. 
 
 Palmer's former attorney has said the guard was unaware of the meat's contents when he was asked to get it to Matt. 
 
 The district attorney said Sweat made similar comments. 
 
 "From what I understand, in reviewing the reports (Monday), he told investigators that Palmer had no involvement in the escape," Wylie said. "It was just Mitchell, he and Matt."
– Authorities are swarming the small upstate New York town of Willsboro to find the two convicted killers who escaped from prison last week, reports the Wall Street Journal. A motorist spotted two men walking on a "very rural" road last night, and they took off into the fields when he stopped, say police. Willsboro is about 35 miles from where Richard Matt and David Sweat busted out of the Clinton Correctional Facility. More details are filling in on the great escape, too. The leading theory is that a female employee of the prison who worked with the two men in its tailor shop smuggled in a small electrical saw and perhaps other tools such as a sledgehammer, reports the Albany Times Union. The woman also may have provided access to a cell phone after striking up a relationship with Matt. The men reportedly used the saw to cut holes in the metal walls of their cells, and the holes "led to a cavernous utility bowel inside the prison where the men spliced an electrical cord into a light fixture to power the saw they then used to cut a large hole in a 24-inch steam pipe that led to a sewer outside the prison," the Albany paper reports. The final barrier to freedom was a lock on the inside of a manhole cover, which they bashed with a sledgehammer. Authorities say the woman or someone else might have had second thoughts and scrapped a plan to pick them up Friday night. This is Matt's third escape attempt, his son tells the Buffalo News. The first was from a prison near Buffalo in 1986 (he climbed a wall and remained free for five days) and the second was in 1997 after he got captured in Mexico. “He said he made it up to the roof of the prison and got shot in the shoulder," says his son, who adds that his father has a "genius IQ."