The Oregon State Penitentiary on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
State corrections officials and police are looking for a man in custody who they say walked away from an Oregon Corrections Enterprises warehouse Friday morning.
Benjamin Dean Woods walked away from the warehouse on Oregon State Penitentiary grounds in Salem around 10:15 a.m., according to a corrections department news release.
People in custody can be paid to do varying jobs at the warehouse including making furniture, metal work and laundry, said corrections department spokesperson Jennifer Black.
Black said there are Oregon Corrections Enterprises employees and a corrections department security officer onsite at the warehouse. The Oregon Corrections Enterprises employees are responsible for counting the adults in custody and go through the same training as corrections department security except for firearms and use of force training. “OCE participates in general self-defense,” she said.
Woods, 38, of Keizer, is a white male who is 5-foot-10, weighs 190 pounds and has blue eyes and brown hair. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a blue T-shirt and a sweatshirt, the news release said.
Woods entered the correction’s department’s custody on March 24. He pleaded guilty in February 2019 to attempted first-degree burglary and in March 2020 to first-degree burglary, both in Marion County Circuit Court, according to court records.
He was housed at the Santiam Correctional Institution and was working as a clerk at the corrections enterprise warehouse. His earliest release date is Aug. 29, 2024.
The corrections department’s Fugitive Apprehension Unit and the Oregon State Police are investigating the walkaway. The department asked anyone with information to contact the state police at 1-800-452-7888, their local police department’s non emergency number or the Fugitive Apprehension Unit at 503-569-0734.
“Do not approach Woods,” the news release said.
State officials are also still looking for Brandy Woodward and Shelly Radan, two women who walked away from the corrections department’s commissary facility on Oct. 11.
Both were incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. They left the facility with a boxcutter and a “heavy lock that could be used as a weapon,” Black said. The department said in a news release that the women should be considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached.
Benjamin Dean Woods (Courtesy/Oregon Department of Corrections)
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
