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Woman arrested after walking away from corrections department warehouse in Salem, another still at large

(Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)

A woman who in October walked away from a work crew at an Oregon Department of Corrections warehouse in Salem was arrested Tuesday night in Texas.

The Robertson County Sheriff’s Office arrested Brandy Woodward three months after she and another woman, Shelly Radan, walked away from the work crew with a box cutter and a heavy lock.

Oregon State Police have been working with law enforcement in Texas, where Woodward is in custody awaiting extradition to Oregon. Radan is still unaccounted for, a Wednesday news release said.

Woodward, 45 of Long Creek, and Radan, 43 of Otis, were both incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville before walking away.

Each day, they would ride a corrections department bus with dozens of other women to a work location known as the “commissary,” where they filled orders for cafeteria food and hygiene items for people in custody at other state prisons, state corrections spokeswoman Jennifer Black said in October.

The day they left, 51 incarcerated people were working at the Central Distribution Center in Salem where the commissary is located along with other work units, Black said in October. They are supervised by corrections department employees, who are responsible for counting them every hour.

Woodward and Radan walked away from the facility on Oct. 11 around 9:10 a.m. with a box cutter and a “heavy lock that could be used as a weapon,” she said. The department did not provide other details about security procedures at the facility or how the women were able to walk away from the unit.

They were last seen on Northeast Amber Street headed toward Dick’s Sporting Goods on Northeast Lancaster Drive, according to a news release issued that same day.

Woodward pleaded guilty to two counts of delivery of methamphetamine and three counts of possession of methamphetamine over three cases in Grant and Umatilla county circuit courts, according to court records. She has been in custody since April 29 and her earliest release date is Jan. 14, 2024.

Radan weighs 174 pounds and has brown hair and eyes, according to the Wednesday news release. 

She pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree burglary in Lincoln County Circuit Court, court records showed. She has been in custody since Nov. 3, 2020, and her earliest release date is Sept. 2, 2024. Radan’s previous name was Michael Price Crawford.

The corrections department’s Fugitive Apprehension Unit and the Oregon State Police are still investigating the walkaways and asked anyone with information to contact state police at 1-800-452-7888, their local police department’s non emergency number or the Fugitive Apprehension Unit at 503-569-0734, the news release said.

 -Ardeshir Tabrizian