WARSAW, Mo. -- A woman who was in custody for a criminal charge in Arizona escaped from a Benton County sheriff's deputy on Wednesday by diving through a window at her home near Edwards. Gretchen Bradley, 52, was in a jail uniform at the time she bolted.
Sheriff Rick Fajen says Bradley had been arrested on a warrant from Arizona for trafficking in methamphetamine. She has a condition that required her to have some medical items, the sheriff says, so a deputy took her to her home to get those items.
While she was in the bathroom, Fajen says, a neighbor asked the deputy what was happening. That distracted the deputy, and Bradley broke out a window of the bathroom and escaped.
Bradley was captured later in the day hiding in a nearby home. She'd torn the jail uniform to get out of it, and changed into civilian clothes.
Bradley, who the sheriff says recently moved to Missouri from Arizona, is now charged here with escape from custody and damaging jail property (the uniform). She's back in the Benton County jail. Two people who live near Bradley's home are accused of helping her after she fled. Robert Lopez, 34, and Melinda Lopez, 32, are each charged with aiding escape, hindering prosecution, and damage to jail property. Fajen says the Lopezes helped her get out of her uniform and into other clothes, and took her to the home where she was hiding when she was re-arrested. A judge set their bonds at $20,000 apiece.
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