CANTON — Now 10 years after two convicted murderers escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility, Watertown Daily Times reporter William T. Eckert remembers the intense days of reporting that captivated regional and national media.
Eckert, then the public safety reporter for The Times, was on the ground in the days after Richard Matt and David Sweat’s June 2015 prison break, tracking law enforcement’s massive 23-day manhunt through the wilderness between Dannemora and Malone.
Like many reporting assignments, it started with a phone call from an editor.
It was early in the morning, about 7:30, Eckert recalled.
“Where the (bleep) is Owls Head,” Eckert recalled thinking after talking with his editor.
Little did he know that, over the next few weeks, he would learn more about the backroads of northern Franklin County than he ever thought possible.
His curiosity, a trait he credits helping him land his reporting jobs, kicked in.
“We were out there every day, chasing leads, talking to locals, following state police vehicles,” Eckert recalled. Working alongside Times photographer Jason Hunter, he provided minute-by-minute coverage for local readers.
He and Hunter left St. Lawrence County early each day and often wrote an early afternoon story for the Times’ website and a more comprehensive report for the morning newspaper.
They worked on the road, but also took advantage of The Malone Telegram’s office, where they worked with Telegram reporter Frank DiFiore.
Eckert said he relied on deep local connections to enhance his reporting. Because he had worked with many state troopers, he said he had an edge over the national reporters who flooded the area.
His reporting caught the attention of national outlets. He was interviewed by reporters from several networks and had an extensive chat with CBS News reporter Anna Werner.
Using his connections and scanner-driven insights, he described being in constant motion, driving mountain roads, interviewing community members, and pursuing accurate information.
The escape and subsequent manhunt transformed the quiet rural community, with law enforcement and media saturating the landscape until Matt’s fatal shooting on June 26, 2015, and Sweat’s capture two days later.
Now working as a library manager, Eckert reflects on those weeks as a defining moment in his journalistic career.
He noted the community’s response, which came out in droves to thank and support the hundreds of police and corrections officers trudging through the woods and lining the mountain road, seeking any sign of the escapees.
“This was a community that not only expressed gratitude vocally, but showed it in action by providing them (law enforcement) with food and with water and offering up whatever they could to show that gratitude.”
He said the ordeal changed the community.
“You look out into this vastness of this forest that is the backyard for many people and think about the amount of fear and tension that two men filled this community with,” he said.