Prison employee Joyce Mitchell, 51, has admitted to smuggling in contraband to help two convicted killers escape a maximum security prison, according to one report

The female prison worker who allegedly helped two killers make a 'Shawshank Redemption'-style prison break has admitted to smuggling hacksaw blades, drill bits and lights into the prison, according to a new report.

Joyce Mitchell, 51, a training supervisor at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, told investigators she provided the tools and use of a cell phone to Richard Matt, 48, and 34-year-old David Sweat, theAlbany Times-Union reported.

Mitchell supplied hacksaw blades, drill bits and goggles with lights for the escapees, according to CNN, which were bought in the last few months.

A police document seen by the Times Union revealed on Friday that Mitchell's husband who works at the prison, Lyle Mitchell, may have also had a role in the escape.

Clinton County district attorney, Andrew Wylie, said Mitchell did not bring power tools into the prison but did bring contraband.

The two prisoners used an electric saw and a sledgehammer to make their escape route, The Times-Union reported.

They cut holes in the back of their cells, lowered themselves to a catwalk and hot-wired lighting outlets to power a hand-saw to cut into a 24-inch steam pipe that led to a sewer system.

Matt and Sweat popped out of a manhole outside of the 40ft prison walls on a quiet street in the village of Dannemora and fled.

They potentially had up to a seven-hour head start on law enforcement.

Despite a week-long search involving hundreds of officers, bloodhounds and marine and helicopter units across three states, the prisoners have not been found.

The explosive new claims came after it was alleged on Thursday that Mitchell was questioned about an 'inappropriate relationship' with Sweat within the past year.

The details of Mitchell and Sweat's alleged relationship remain unclear.

The New York State Department of Corrections ultimately found there insufficient evidence to take action against Mitchell, sources told ABC News.

Sweat was moved out of the prison sewing shop that Mitchell supervised.

It had also emerged that Mitchell, who is married to another prison worker and has an adult son, reportedly told investigators that Matt had 'made her feel special' and she 'thought it was love'.

Mitchell, an instructor at the prison tailor shop, where the two convicts worked, allegedly planned to be the getaway driver for Matt and Sweat, but got cold feet at the last minute.

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The female prisoner worker was allegedly investigated for an 'inappropriate relationship' with David Sweat in the last year (right). She also reportedly told investigators Matt (left) 'made her feel special'

The 51-year-old prison training supervisor supplied hacksaw blades, drill bits and goggles with lights for the escapees, according to one report

Matt and Sweat escaped from the maximum-security prison early on Saturday using power tools to cut through steel walls then squeeze along a steam pipe (pictured) and pop out of a manhole

She checked herself into hospital for nerves on Saturday, the day of the elaborate escape.

Matt, who has a history of escape attempts', wooed Mitchell for months and established a relationship in which she agreed to drive the getaway car, it is alleged.

'She thought it was love,' one official told NBC News.

The killer was 'very handsome and, in all frankness, very well endowed', retired detective David Bentley told the New York Post this week.

Mitchell also told investigators that Matt made her feel 'special', sources told CNN.

Mitchell has not been charged and is cooperating, according to authorities. She does not have a lawyer.

Mr Wylie told CNN on Thursday that Mitchell 'comes in and each day has been providing... additional information that's assisted the investigators'.

The Clinton County prosecutor said Mitchell is under surveillance but not in protective custody.

According to anonymous officials, Mitchell's statements to police about the escape plan were incriminating enough to result in her being indicted.

In the state of New York, aiding and abetting is Class-D felony which carries a punishment of up to seven years in prison. Conspiracy charges carry a similar sentence.

The prison worker's son Tobey Mitchell told NBC on Wednesday that she would not have helped the inmates to escape.

A longtime neighbor also was stunned by the suspicions swirling around Mitchell.

'I just can't believe she'd do something so stupid,' neighbor Sharon Currier said. She said Mitchell is always happy to help people, but she's 'not somebody who's off the wall'.

She said Mitchell is a former town tax collector in Dickinson, a community around one hour's drive from Dannemora.

Arrest: Mitchell, 51, an industrial training supervisor at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, was questioned in relation to Sweat (pictured during his arrest in 2002), 34, within the past year, sources claim

Matt, who is said to be well-endowed, is seen posing in prison in the 1980s, wearing a correction officer's uniform shirt and holding a night stick. A handwritten caption reads: 'Who said I can't escape this place!'

Quick with a laugh and skilled at sewing, she has worked for five or more years at the prison, where her husband also works, Currier said

New York Governor said that the law will come down hard on any prison system employee who crosses the line.

'If you do it, you will be convicted, and then you'll be on the other side of the prison that you've been policing, and that is not a pleasant place to be,' Cuomo said on Friday.

He also said investigators are 'talking to several people who may have facilitated the escape'.

Mitchell, who is married to another prison worker Lyle Mitchell, earns a salary of $57,700 for the state corrections department job she has held since 2008.

State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico said at a press conference on Wednesday: 'She befriended the inmates and may have had some sort of role in assisting them.'

Matt was serving 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of Matt's 76-year-old former boss, whose body was found in pieces in a river.

Matt and an accomplice stuffed William Rickerson in a car trunk in his pajamas and drove around with him for 27 hours because he wouldn't tell them the location of large sums of money he was believed to have.

According to testimony, Matt bent back the elderly man's fingers until they broke and later snapped Rickerson's neck with his bare hands.

After the killing, Matt fled to Mexico, where he killed a man outside a bar.

Sweat was doing life without parole for his part in the 2002 killing of sheriff's Deputy Kevin Tarsia, who was shot 15 times and run over after discovering Sweat and two accomplices transferring stolen guns between vehicles.

Married woman: Mitchell reportedly planned to be the getaway driver for Sweat, 34, and his fellow inmate, Richard Matt, 48, but got cold feet at the last minute. Above, she is seen with husband Lyle and son Tobey

Mitchell's ex-husband had told Daily Mail Online on Wednesday that she was 'serial cheat'.

The besotted prison worker - known as 'Tillie' - had at least two affairs during her five-year first marriage, her then-husband has confirmed to Daily Mail Online.

'Sure she cheated on me,' 51-year-old farmer Tobey Premo said.

'It wasn't just with Lyle, her husband now, but with another guy she worked with. I found out because his girlfriend came to me and told me about it.'

Mitchell had been caught having sex on railroad tracks outside the factory where she worked.

And Premo, 51, her sweetheart at St. Regis Falls High School confirmed she had cheated on him with Lyle Mitchell, who she then went on to marry.

'I was devastated,' he said. 'I kissed her on the bus when I was 16 and I liked her ever after.'

Premo said he and Mitchell — then Joyce Clookey — were together for 13 years, but only five as man and wife. They divorced in 1995 when their son Tobey was just one.

'She was with me for 13 years - maybe that's all she can take,' said Premo, who now lives in Massena, a town on the Canadian border, an hour west of Mitchell's home in Dickinson Center.

Prison: The inmates were still on the run on Friday after they were found missing from their cells at Clinton Correctional Facility (pictured on Thursday), having drilled holes in the cement walls with power tools they obtained

'She cheated on me, so I could see her falling for someone in prison,' he said.

During their marriage, Tillie worked at the now-shuttered Tru-Stitch slipper factory in Bombay, New York. Former workmate Nancy Hewitt called her a 'troublemaker' in an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Online.

Victim: Sweat shot dead Broome County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Tarsia (pictured), 36, in July 2002

Another former colleague revealed how Tilley and Lyle, a mechanic at the factory, had been caught having sex on railway tracks outside the plant.

'I don't know anything about that,' said Premo. 'But then I was her husband, so she wouldn't have been telling me. But I do know she had an affair with another guy, he was a cutter at the factory.'

He says he first heard that she is suspected of being involved in the prison break-out on television.

'I thought that can't be her, then they put her Facebook picture up, and I realized it was.'

He said he has also had no contact with his ex-wife. 'I wouldn't call her a bad apple - I really don't know her. I have only seen her once since we signed the divorce papers,' he said.

Former detective Bentley was one of the team who arrested Matt in 2007.

The retired detective shared a photo with Inside Edition showing a younger Matt in prison during the 1980s.

In the disturbing image, the killer is pictured wearing a correction officer's uniform shirt and holding a night stick. Beneath the photo, Matt has scribbled: 'Who said I can't escape this place!'

In an episode that aired on Thursday Bentley said he feared for his life now that Matt is free.

Standing guard: A prison employee stands guard on a tower at the prison following the murderers' escapes