Joyce "Tilly" Mitchell's husband, Lyle Mitchell (who also worked at Clinton Correctional Facility), told "TODAY" in 2015 that he was with Joyce when they learned that David Sweat and Richard Matt had escaped. Lyle claimed Joyce initially denied knowing anything about the case, saying that his partner of 21 years acted shocked. "Her reaction was like, 'They really escaped?' I left it at that,"" Lyle said.
However, Joyce soon admitted her role in the inmates' escape to Lyle, confessing, "I got [in] over my head, and I was scared,'" Lyle told Matt Lauer, revealing that Joyce claimed Sweat and Matt threatened to harm her and kill Lyle if she didn't cooperate. But Joyce told them she wouldn't do it. "She said, 'I love my husband, I am not hurting him,'" Lyle recalled.
Joyce served for four years in prison for her role in the escape. She was released in early 2020, and in February 2020 she was spotted with Lyle outside their home in Franklin County, New York, The New York Post reported. In 2015, Lyle said he was angry at Joyce, but that he ultimately believed she was manipulated. "Do I still love her? Yes. Am I mad? Yes," he told Lauer. At her sentencing, Joyce characterized the events at Dannemora as "by far the worst mistake I have ever made in my life," per ABC News. "I live with regret every day and will for the rest of my life."
