reaction. but first, an update on the latest breaking news on this day we have in upstate new york where a nearly three-week-long manhunt for two escaped murderers is coming to a dramatic head. at this hour one escaped prisoner is dead while one remains at large. richard matt and david sweat escaped from a maximum security prison 21 days ago. tonight law enforcement tells nbc news richard matt has been shot and killed while authorities believe they are close to closing in on sweat. governor andrew cuomo of new york is expected to address the situation later in this hour. if it happens in this hour we will bring that news conference to you live. joining me now, nbc news correspondent john yang. john, can you give us the latest? reporter: here s what we know, chris. we know that new york state police major charles guess told us in a statement that at 3:45 this afternoon, a tactical unit doing a search through a wooded area through an area near here encountered someone, sh
the people nervous here. we spoke to a few residents who call this home. many say at least half the threat is gone. if i step out of the shot you ll see one of several authorities that have been really rushing to this area again just south of malone the clinton county sheriff confirming for us they are all rushing to the scene in an area that s commonly known as elephant head specifically the northwest side of lake titus, an area that s really just heavily visited through the wintertime as a ski resort. during the summertime there are plenty of campgrounds. we ve told you before about the concern of the authorities, that people are heading up to this remote area of new york to spend the summer so that s been a heavy concern, these two in that area now today that fear confirmed, we are getting that thismgs that at least one of thinks fugitives continues on the run as authorities continue
second a major development in the desperate search for david sweat. the convicted killer on the run. we are reporting that officials are quote, unquote, right on top of david sweat. former u.s. marshal telling me that means they have had eyes on him. that is a major development. obviously, this is something that is going down in the seconds and minutes as i m speaking. richard matt was shot and killed by border patrol officers earlier this evening in a shootout. alexander field is on the right and alex what are you learning? we re hearing right on top of david sweat. reporter: right. getting that information from law enforcement sources. what we re seeing on the ground is an onslaught of police units moving toward lake titus. i m hearing a helicopter hovering overhead. this is something we ve seen throughout the afternoon but obviously the helicopters have
that is the cabin we were just talking about earl yerl today. the second cabin where they found evidence where they were. it is right on route 30 a woodland trail leads to an isolated hill top nearby. these are very dense mountainous areas in the adirondacks. we are talking about 6 million acres of woodland they were traveling through. again this is where they located and apparently where he was shot. it is elephant s head just south of lake titus, nearby the town of malone where we ve been for the last week. and that is what we have now. adam, do we know anything about the search for david swaetd? and can you give us a sense how many officers are working on this? we had a thousand searcher 2200 leads. all week long. and it would appear and i m just speculating at this time and we don t like to speculate. but it would appear obviously
because this area narrowed quite a bit. once they got richard matt and we don t know what evidence they found, what law enforcement officials are telling us on background that they found some evidence that sweat was nearby. we don t know how far away. this is an area around a lake called lake titus. there s a ski area where they ve actually had the command post the staging area for the law enforcement since last night called mt. titus ski area. we have no sense of how big this area is. i was up there a little bit ago earlier this afternoon before this happened. it is very densely wooded. it is thick forest. it is narrow narrow two-lane roads, some unpaved roads. they re looking along this area for the last couple of days. it is narrowing is really the