but now, with sweat no longer in the tailor shop, matt moved in. he looked at me one day and said, you know, joyce, i do love you. and i said, i love my husband. and i walked away. reporter: speculation has run rampant, joyce, that there was something more here. that while mr. matt told you he loved you, that by this point, you loved him as well. no. it started out as a flirtation thing. but that s all it ever was. there was never any love between myself and mr. matt. reporter: at some point there was sexual contact between you and richard matt. and when i interviewed your husband lyle, he said you swore to him that there was not. and that wasn t true, was it? there was never any actual sexual intercourse. mr. matt had grabbed me a couple times and kissed me. and then there was one point
getting them. but i m a redhead, and i tend to be stubborn at some things. reporter: these things that go on inside the walls of a prison, a maximum- security prison, shock a lotta people. and i think a lotta people ask the question, didn t somebody in an official capacity have to know this stuff was going on? do you think people within the prison turned a blind eye to things like this? i can t speculate on what they were doing, what they were thinking. anything s possible, i guess. reporter: anything was possible, it seemed. if joyce could get cookies and sparring gloves into the prison and paintings out no questions asked what couldn t she bring in? in early 2015, richard matt decided to find out. he asked joyce to bring him something much more serious than cookies and brownies.
heartstrings. mr. matt would ask me to bring stuff in for mr. sweat so that he would have food or something. reporter: astonishingly, joyce responded and agreed. she says she found herself at home baking tasty treats and brought them to the prison for sweat. reporter: does that break prison rules? it actually does. reporter: what did you bring him? cookies, brownies. you know, stuff like that. reporter: pretending that you were bringin them in for yourself? yes. reporter: did you ever tell your husband that you were doing any of this? he didn t know a lot of what i was doing. no. reporter: why? you re smiling about that. why? no, i m not really smiling. i m just i didn t want him to be in trouble. and if i got caught, okay, then i m the one in trouble. but i didn t want my husband to be in trouble also.
hid them in hamburger meat. she put the meat in her bag and, as usual, clocked in at the prison. reporter: so you walked right in the prison, nobody checked your bag. nobody checked. reporter: in it, you had hacksaw blades. yes. reporter: once in the prison, she put the meat in a freezer. that s when the officer come and took it. reporter: and that officer was? mr. palmer. reporter: gene palmer. yes. reporter: the same gene palmer who joyce said helped her smuggle two paintings out of the prison. reporter: so obviously, some arrangement had been made between richard matt and gene palmer. and some arrangement, obviously, was made between you and mr. matt. you re getting the hacksaw blade, you re putting it in the frozen beef. yes. reporter: you re transferring the frozen beef to mr. palmer, and mr. palmer is getting it to mr. matt. yes. reporter: you re in deep trouble, at this point. yes, i am. i am in deep, deep reporter: and so is mr. palmer. w
reporter: for lifers david sweat and richard matt, the clinton correctional facility was not only home, it had become a comfortable one. part of the reason is that they lived close to each other in the prison s cosiest neighborhood the honor block. the liberties that they were given was definitely a detriment to the security. reporter: many prisons have honor blocks. at clinton, inmates like sweat and matt had more rec time. there were fewer guard checks and a lot of noise says jeffrey dumas. there s tvs going, movies, sports. cards, dominoes. you know, they re either arguing or they laughin . matt and sweat could have laid in their cell, sawed away at their wall, and nobody would have ever heard a thing. and that s what sweat and matt began planning to do. to break through their cell walls to freedom.