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NC inmate finds brief freedom in overnight escape

The inmate used a mop to jump a prison fence before being captured two hours later

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Inmate Keith Fitzgerald Bradley was reported missing after midnight on Thursday.

Wake County Sheriff’s Office Image

The News & Observer

RALEIGH, N.C. — An inmate at the minimum-security state prison in Raleigh was free for just over two hours early Thursday between the time he used a mop to jump a fence and when he was captured.

Keith Fitzgerald Bradley, 38, was serving a sentence at the Wake Correctional Facility on Rock Quarry Road after a Wake County court convicted him in February of gun possession by a felon, heroin and methamphetamine possession and other drug charges.

State prison records showed his sentenced had been expected to end in August 2017.

The state Department of Public Safety said guards found out Bradley was missing about 12:15 a.m. He was assigned to work nights as a janitor in the facility.

They surmised that he used a bucket and mop to get over a fence, the agency said.

He was captured in Raleigh about 2:30 a.m.

Bradley has convictions going back to the late ‘90s. He was convicted on cocaine charges in Wake County in 2011. His convictions before that were in Hertford, Northampton, Halifax and Chatham counties.

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