ALBANY, N.Y. – The civilian seamstress who helped two killers escape from New York’s largest maximum security prison near the Canadian border in June of 2015 was denied parole Monday.

New York’s Parole Board voted unanimously to reject the application of Joyce Mitchell, 52, who provided hacksaw blades hidden in frozen hamburger meat and other tools to convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat to facilitate their escape.

Mitchell pleaded guilty to providing contraband to the convicts and even admitted she had planned to flee with them to Mexico in a getaway car but got cold feet the night of the escape because the plot included killing her husband. She was sentenced to a maximum of seven years in prison.

Scores of law enforcement officers scoured the northeast New York wilderness for nearly a month in search of the escaped killers. Matt, 49, was found hiding near a ransacked hunting cabin and shot to death. Two days later Sweat, 35, was spotted walking down a country road by a state patrol officer, who shot and wounded the convict as he tried to run away.

The complicated breakout from the Clinton Correctional Facility in remote Dannemora, New York, compared with the “The Shawhank Redemption” movie. Matt and Sweat cut a hole in their cell, slipped out onto a catwalk and navigated a series of underground pipes and tunnels before emerging through a manhole outside the prison walls.

Mitchell pleaded for early release on the grounds of her good conduct and remorse during her 19 months in prison. But the parole board said  that did not make up for the consequences of her helping the killers escape, including the public safety fear at the time and the cost of the manhunt, estimated at $23 million for police overtime alone.

Supervisor of the prison tailor shop at the time of the escape, Mitchell said she planned to return to school and seek a job in the criminal justice system if she were granted a parole. But the parole board questioned “the propriety of that goal.”

The board said Mitchell lied and told half-truths to investigators even after discovery of her role in the bold escape.

“It is fair to say your crimes cost New York State millions in response to the escape of inmates Matt and Sweat that your actions facilitated,” the board said. “You allowed your common sense and supervisory duties to be compromised by developing unprofessional relationships with Matt and Sweat.”

A second prisoner worker, Gene Palmer, was also charged in connection with the escape. He was accused of delivering the frozen meat with tools inside them to the convicts’ cell and providing contraband to them in exchange for paintings that he later tried to destroy. He negotiated a plea bargain and was sentence to only six months in jail.

Details for this story were provided by the Plattsburgh, N.Y., Press-Republican.