Editor’s note: The new limited event series on SHOWTIME, “Escape at Dannemora,” is based on the stranger-than-fiction account of a prison break in upstate New York in the summer of 2015 that spawned a massive manhunt for two convicted murderers. The series, which stars Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Arquette, and Paul Dano and is directed by Ben Stiller, premieres on November 18th at 10pm ET/PT. “Escape at Dannemora” recounts a story that was covered extensively by the Post at the time. The following is the first excerpt in a series of three articles from 2015, republished in cooperation with SHOWTIME.

Prison worker had romps with both escaped killers

By Jamie Schram, Frank Rosario and Bruce Golding

Published: June 15, 2015

They shared more than just an escape plan.

Married prison worker Joyce “Tillie” Mitchell had dirty prison sex with each of the inmates she helped bust out, sources told The Post on Monday.

Mitchell, 51, first hooked up with convicted cop-killer David Sweat, whom she supervised in the sewing shop at the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora, sources said.

Sweat got transferred out of the shop after an inmate tipped off authorities to their relationship — and she landed in the arms of his fellow murderer Richard Matt, sources said.

Matt and the dumpy granny got hot and heavy behind the same prison walls — and she fell in love with him, sources said.

Matt — whom an ex-detective has described as “well-endowed” — allegedly persuaded Mitchell to smuggle in tools that he and Sweat used to break out of the maximum-security slammer.

They have been on the run since June 6, eluding a massive manhunt by an army of law enforcement officers.

“They both played her,” a source said.

Mitchell had reportedly plotted with the inmates to kill her husband, prison maintenance worker Lyle Mitchell, as part of a plan that also involved fleeing to a cabin in Vermont.

Clinton County Sheriff David Favro speculated that Joyce Mitchell would have wound up dead if she hadn’t backed out of meeting Sweat and Matt with a getaway car when they climbed out of a manhole beyond the prison walls.

“Joyce Mitchell, in my mind, would have just been luggage and would have slowed them down,” Favro said.

“If she went with them, I believe she would have been killed. I mean, why keep her? It makes no sense.”

Favro said the men had clearly “played on her emotions.”

“They looked at her characteristics and they took advantage of her. They knew they could get something out of her,” he said.

“In reality, she was the fallout that was going to take the heat off.”

Monday marked Day 10 of the search for the killers, which Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said was costing taxpayers “upwards of a million dollars a day.”

The manhunt now involves more than 800 local, state and federal law enforcement personnel who are focusing on a stretch of Route 374 that runs from the prison through Cadyville, about five miles southeast.

The state police said part of the road would remain closed to traffic at least through Tuesday.

Mitchell, who was busted Friday, appeared briefly Monday in Plattsburgh City Court, where she was brought in wearing handcuffs and leg irons.

The disgraced prison employee wore black-and-white-striped jail clothes under a blue bulletproof vest, and a pair of bright orange rubber clogs.

She stood stone-faced and spoke only once, softly saying “Yes” when the judge asked whether she agreed to have her lawyer, Keith Bruno, replaced due to an unspecified conflict of interest.

Her new lawyer, Stephen Johnston, waived Mitchell’s right to a preliminary hearing, and she was hauled back to jail to await indictment by a grand jury.

Johnston didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Favro said Mitchell, who is being held on $200,000 bond, was “under direct, one-on-one supervision” with “an officer several feet away from her at all times.”

Favro also said she was put in the bulletproof vest as protection from potential assailants outraged over her alleged crimes.

“There is a lot of fear in the community . . . There are people out there who may feel hostility towards Ms. Mitchell,” he said.

“I can’t have those people fully informed and lining up outside ready to throw stones or, even worse, shower us with bullets.”

Also Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had ordered the state Inspector General’s Office to hire “a respected outside expert in corrections and law enforcement” for a top-to-bottom review of how Sweat and Matt were able to pull off their elaborate escape.