Bradley Gillespie, convicted killer who escaped Ohio prison, died of drowning, autopsy shows

A man who escaped from a northwest Ohio prison earlier this month died from drowning, according to autopsy results released Wednesday.

Bradley Gillespie, 50, was reported missing May 23 from the Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima along with another man who authorities said escaped alongside him. Authorities determined the two escaped by concealing themselves in a trash container.

The other man, James Lee, 47, was caught the next day in Henderson, Kentucky, after a police pursuit of a stolen car the men were in ended in a crash and a foot chase, but Gillespie avoided capture. His body was spotted Sunday in the Ohio River, not far from the area where he was last seen. Henderson is a city across the river from Indiana and about 350 miles southwest of Lima.

A boater on the river spotted the body and alerted police around 1:30 p.m. local time. Investigators believe the body had been in the water for “four to five days,” Henderson Police Chief Sean McKinney said Sunday.

The Henderson County coroner’s office released the preliminary autopsy results Wednesday and said toxicology results won’t be available for several weeks.

Gillespie was imprisoned since 2016 and was convicted of a double homicide. Lee was serving a sentence imposed in 2021 for burglary and safecracking.

A major and three corrections officers at the prison have been placed on paid administrative leave, and similar action may be taken against others as the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s internal investigation continues, officials have said. A criminal investigation by the Ohio State Highway Patrol is also ongoing.

The number of annual escapes from federal prisons is not “readily available,” a Bureau of Prison spokesperson told CBS News. Statistics on federal and state prisons are difficult to come by, as each system has its own definition of an escape and records the data accordingly. 

Cara Tabachnick and Alex Sundby contributed reporting.