Manhunt for Escaped Killers Shifts After Possible Sighting

Investigators tracking two murder convicts who escaped from a northern New York prison scoured a rural area near the Pennsylvania border Sunday.

Authorities speak to one another during a search for two prisoners that escaped Clinton Correctional Facility two weeks prior, Saturday, June 20, 2015, in Allegany County, N.Y. Kathryn Ross/The Wellsville Reporter via AP

FRIENDSHIP, N.Y. — Investigators tracking two murder convicts who escaped from a northern New York prison scoured a rural area near the Pennsylvania border Sunday, saying an unconfirmed but credible report of a sighting had shifted the search across the state.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers walked railroad tracks and checked car trunks as a helicopter flew back and forth over the town of Friendship, where state police said a woman on Saturday reported spotting two men who resembled the convicts near a railroad line that runs along a county road.

We will search under every rock, behind every tree and structure until we are confident that that area is secure.

— Michael J. Cerretto, State Police Maj.