An inmate in the Grand County Jail escaped on Friday, Feb. 7, and was located and detained about a block away from the jail after about an hour of searching by officers.

Brittany King-Graham, 22, was being held in the Grand County Jail for a probation violation and failure-to-appear charge and was completing a work detail that involved cleaning the bathrooms at the sheriff’s office when she fled out of the front door of the office and escaped custody around 8:30 p.m.

The jail normally uses inmates to complete work around the sheriff’s office, though uses inmates that are deemed low-risk, according to Grand County Sheriff Rod Johnson.

Johnson estimates it took the jail deputy about three minutes to realize the inmate had left through the front doors that are not locked from the inside of the building.

Grand County Sheriff’s deputies, a Granby Police officer, and a Fraser/Winter Park Police officer responded to the jail to help look for the escaped inmate.

Officer Brett Shroetlin of the Fraser/Winter Park Police responded with his K9, Argo. Argo was used to sniff out and track the escaped inmate to a vehicle that was located about a block from the jail.

After the K9 smelled the vehicle King-Graham was hiding in, a sheriff’s deputy noticed that the windows were fogged from the inside of the vehicle and determined she was hiding inside.

King-Graham was reportedly inside the vehicle and had put on a jacket she found to replace the standard jail-issued uniform, a black-and-white striped jumpsuit, she was wearing when she escaped from the jail.

The escapee was taken into custody around 9:46 p.m., according to a press release from the Grand County Sheriff’s Office.

King-Graham will now be facing additional charges of felony escape, felony trespass, misdemeanor theft, and misdemeanor obstruction of a police officer.

This is the second inmate to escape from the jail in recent history, Johnson said. The last inmate to escape did so around 10 to 12 years ago and was also apprehended.

Reid Tulley can be reached at 970-887-3334