The husband of Joyce Mitchell says he’s “absolutely 100 percent” certain he and his wife would have been killed by the two escaped murderers she’s accused of helping break out of a New York maximum-security prison.

Lyle Mitchell told NBC’s “Today” show that if his wife had gone through with David Sweat and Richard Matt’s plan to have her pick them up in the couple’s vehicle after the June 6 escape, the convicts would have killed them. He said the inmates offered to give her pills that would have knocked him out.

Lyle Mitchell said if just his wife had shown up with the vehicle, the convicts would have killed her “within a half-hour.” The husband isn’t suspected of having aided the escape.

Sweat and Mitchell remain at large today, with police searching an area 20 miles west of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. That search area is about 20 miles east of the Mitchells’ home in Dickinson Center.

Joyce Mitchell remains in custody on charges she helped the two men escape by providing them hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools. She has pleaded not guilty.

Authorities say she had talked to the inmates about killing her husband, who also works at the prison. Andrew Wylie, Clinton County district attorney, said Joyce Mitchell told authorities that she and Matt discussed having Matt and Sweat go to her house after they escaped to kill Lyle Mitchell.

Lyle Mitchell told “Today,” in an interview aired today, that there was nothing unusual about his wife’s demeanor when they heard about the escape later on June 6, after she was treated for a panic attack earlier that day. It wasn’t until police called to talk to his wife that he first learned she may have been involved in the escape, Lyle Mitchell said.

“Mr. Mitchell, your wife is more involved than she’s letting on,” he said an investigator told him.

Lyle Mitchell said his wife told him Sweat and Matt offered to give her pills to knock her husband out so she could pick them up after they made it out of the prison, but she refused because she said she still loved her husband.

“Do I still love her? Yes. Am I mad, yes,” Lyle Mitchell said.