Harrowing Prison Escape | World’s Most Evil Prisoners | Forensic Files

[tense music] NARRATOR: In the United States of America, some of the world's most dangerous criminals
are locked behind bars. There are few so cold and callous that being imprisoned only makes their aggressive
behavior worse. Mikel Brady is one of them. NICK OCHSNER: Mikel Brady has a history of being violent.
MICHAEL POTTS: He just doesn't appear that he really has a care in the world for life.
DR. LINA HAJI: Violence is his niche. Violence is his comfort zone. NARRATOR: As a child, he violently
attacked his younger sister. - They were playing a game that resulted in Mikel actually stabbing his sister in the eye
and leaving her blind. NARRATOR: Brady's barbarity continued to escalate when he fearlessly attempted
to gun down law enforcement. NICK OCHSNER: Brady fires four shots. Two of the shots hit Trooper Potts in the face.
One shot hits Trooper Potts in the shoulder, and one shot goes right through both of Trooper Potts' hands.
NARRATOR: Once behind bars, Brady, along with four other inmates, plotted and planned
an escape in the only way they knew how, with extreme violence. DR. LINA HAJI: This is Brady's comfort zone.
He likes violence. He likes the rush. He likes hurting people. [suspenseful music]
NICK OCHSNER: They attack employees with a hammer and scissors. They were stabbed dozens of times.
[phone rings] HECTOR BRAVO: Mikel Brady is about as evil as they come because he's willing to kill
anybody that gets in his way. [theme music] [audio logo] [theme music] NARRATOR: The state of North Carolina
locks up more people than many countries of the world. With an incarceration rate of 559
people out of every 100,000. [tense music] These inmates are spread out across 54
prisons, including Pasquotank Correctional Institution. HECTOR BRAVO: Pasquotank Correctional Institution
is located in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It houses approximately 900 plus inmates.
NICK OCHSNER: It's in a pretty remote, desolate place. It's basically four buildings set
in the middle of an otherwise vacant vast field. Pasquotank Correctional Institution
houses two types of inmates. One is minimum security inmates, and the other is what in North Carolina
we call close custody inmates. What we think about is like a maximum security. [foreboding music]
JAMIE MORGAN KANE: Prisons are a dangerous place because you have the people there
that have not been able to exist in a nonviolent, functioning society. Things that happen so often, stabbings, beatings, killings,
you lose that shock ability. The level of violence sometimes becomes numbing. NARRATOR: One of Pasquotank most notorious inmates
was 36-year-old, Mikel Brady. [suspenseful music] NICK OCHSNER: When you look at what
Brady did at Pasquotank Correctional Institution and you look at all the things he's
done in the course of his life, there's no question that you can say he's evil. NARRATOR: His unhinged behavior makes him a deadly threat.
DR. LINA HAJI: His propensity for violence was something innate, was a predisposition,
something biological. I don't see Brady stopping being violent at any point in time.
[ominous music] NICK OCHSNER: He's been diagnosed with a serious mental illness that has largely
gone untreated, and has gone on to do violent and dangerous things. NARRATOR: No one is safe when he's on a mission.
[ominous music] NICK OCHSNER: An attempted escape like this doesn't happen overnight.
This can only be a thing that happens after a lot of planning and coordination by Mikel Brady and his three co-conspirators.
[tense music] HECTOR BRAVO: He proved that he did not value human life and not willing to take just one life, but up to four
to fulfill his personal gains and agenda. NICK OCHSNER: Brady stands alone among people,
certainly in North Carolina, who killed four prison workers, injured two others,
shot a state trooper to land in prison in the first place. More than 100 robberies, stole dynamite,
had bomb making equipment. That's a dangerous person. HECTOR BRAVO: He's like the walking grim reaper.
Nothing's going to stop him. [somber music] NARRATOR: Mikel Brady was born in 1989
and raised in New England, in the state of Vermont. NICK OCHSNER: Mikel Brady's childhood seemed very normal.
Seemed like he had very caring, supportive parents. He had a dad who really believed
in the importance of education and really wanted his children to excel at school.
Mother also supporting, working, trying to support the family. DR. LINA HAJI: He seemingly had a rather
what we would consider conventional childhood in the sense that he had his mother
present, his father present. He had two siblings. There were no indications of outward problems
or risk factors. NARRATOR: Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until Mikel Brady turned 7, and began
to say some worrying things. NICK OCHSNER: As a young child in elementary school,
he was telling teachers that he had suicidal thoughts. He actually started counseling.
DR. LINA HAJI: As advanced socially and as aware as a 7-year-old can be, there really is no indication that
a 7-year-old should understand what suicide is, or have thoughts of wanting to end their life.
So the fact that Brady has verbalized this to a teacher and is now required to attend counseling is a big red flag.
[somber music] NARRATOR: Three years later, at the age of 10, he committed his first act of violence
against his own sister. NICK OCHSNER: When Mikel Brady was 10, he was playing with his younger sister, who
was about two years younger than him, and they were playing a game that resulted in Mikel actually stabbing his sister in the eye.
[ominous music] DR. LINA HAJI: Even children who fight with their siblings usually do not go to the length of stabbing
their sister in the eye. What causes a 10-year-old child to engage in such an egregious violent act, seemingly out of the blue.
NICK OCHSNER: Around the same time, he was also being diagnosed as bipolar. Brady reacted to this pretty strongly.
He didn't always cooperate with his treatment. He didn't always want to take his medication,
even though he got access to both of those things. DR. LINA HAJI: Another factor of Brady's childhood
is that seemingly, his mother did not discipline him or his siblings at all. And what that tells me is that his act of violence
towards his sister was more likely the product of a lack of consequences and a lack of
learned behavior than it was a direct result of a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
NARRATOR: Mikel Brady continued to be raised in the family home. Two years later, tragedy struck.
NICK OCHSNER: In 2002, his dad was visiting his dad's uncle in a nearby town was staying overnight, and someone
broke into the uncle's house and he killed Brady's father while he was asleep. He's stabbed to death.
Brady returns to school after his dad's death and his behavior problems worsen. He starts mouthing off to teachers.
He starts getting in fights. [tense music] DR. LINA HAJI: Maybe he didn't know how to process that grief.
It's probably one of the most fragile times in a child's development where they really do
need their father as a source of support, as a role model to guide them. It could have been acting out.
It could have been a cry for attention. It could have been his way of grieving. [somber music]
NARRATOR: Mikel Brady quickly descended into lawlessness when a year later, he stole some fishing
gear from a garage. [somber music] Desperate to help her son, who was continuing
to spiral out of control. His mom sent him to a mental health facility. NICK OCHSNER: He's there for three weeks
and then is released, but he doesn't go back home. He actually goes to foster care because at this point, his mom,
she's working, she has a job, but she's struggling financially. In fact, the family had so little money one Christmas,
they couldn't even afford a Christmas tree. DR. LINA HAJI: I think that a lot of the times
we really underestimate what chronic poverty can do to a child, especially in terms of their development.
It could be negatively affecting their social skills. It could be negatively affecting their education.
When you add that to the risk factors that Brady already had, now we're really looking at kind of a perfect storm
for what the future holds. NARRATOR: At age 16, Mikel Brady was hit by another tragedy.
NICK OCHSNER: He's in a car with some friends. They're making a stunt video. The car crashes.
The car is going more than 100 miles an hour. Brady isn't badly injured, but one person, one of his friends
in the car, dies. It's after this accident that Brady then is diagnosed with PTSD and ADHD.
DR. LINA HAJI: He's lost his father. He's been separated from his family in foster care,
and now he's lost a friend. That's a lot of loss for a 16-year-old to process. [suspenseful music]
NICK OCHSNER: Despite his mental health diagnoses, despite the fact that he's getting
treatment on medication, when Brady turns 18, his insurance stops. And so he stops taking his medication.
He stops getting treatment. [foreboding music] NARRATOR: As Mikel Brady became a young adult,
his criminal activity took a darker path, one of violence. NICK OCHSNER: In 2008, Brady and three other people
break into a rock Quarry and they steal 209 sticks of dynamite. He was actually planning to give it to a drug dealer
in exchange for cocaine. [tense music] Flash forward to June 2009, Brady and another guy
break into a home where a mother and son are inside the house. They violently throw the mother up against a wall.
They chip her tooth. They also beat the son with a baseball bat until he says he's going to go get some money out of lock box.
He says he's going to go get $600, but he doesn't do that. He actually calls 911.
And by the time Brady realizes the police are en route, him and the other guy get out of the house.
DR. LINA HAJI: Typically, a burglary is a means to an end. You're taking something from somebody because you desire
that object or that money. But Brady is going above and beyond. This isn't just a robbery anymore.
This is Brady escalating. NICK OCHSNER: Here you have someone whose dad was killed
in a violent home invasion. Violently breaking into people's homes and attacking them.
It's nuts. NARRATOR: After months of investigating, police arrested Mikel Brady for the home invasion.
[tense music] NICK OCHSNER: This is where he confesses. He tells police he's been involved
in more than 100 burglaries. This is when he cops to stealing the 209 sticks of dynamite from the quarry.
It's rare for someone to go on such a long crime spree in such a short amount of time.
[tense music] DR. LINA HAJI: Was he engaging in these 100 burglaries while he was experiencing mania?
Or was it simply characterological in nature in the sense that he enjoyed the high, he enjoyed the rush,
he liked committing burglaries, and so he chose to continue to do so. NICK OCHSNER: Police arrest Brady,
but he's released on bond. Instead of sticking around, Brady flees to the Mexican border.
But he doesn't actually make it to Mexico because he's stopped by border police and he can't get into Mexico.
He's arrested again. NARRATOR: 21-year-old Mikel Brady was convicted and sentenced to 28 months to 10 years for the dynamite theft,
and an additional 1 to 3 years for burglaries, including the home invasion. Brady was potentially going to be spending up
to 13 years behind bars, but he was released just 2.5 years later after serving the minimum time
of his sentence. NICK OCHSNER: He only spends a couple years in prison because he is such a model prisoner.
He actually gets his GED and he really commits to bettering himself. DR. LINA HAJI: There's a big possibility
that he was still conducting criminal activities in prison and he just wasn't caught.
Maybe he was using superficial glib and charm to position himself as a model prisoner.
There might have been some secondary gain in that, such as early release, such as prison privileges.
I think he was putting on a show for two years. NICK OCHSNER: By the time he gets out,
he has a job waiting for him. He has the support of his family. Things really seem to be looking up.
NARRATOR: But it wasn't long before he returned to his criminal ways. NICK OCHSNER: Things outside of prison
don't go well for very long in Mikel Brady's life, things start to crumble again.
Brady is charged but not arrested for attempting to poach a deer out of season. He actually stops reporting to his probation officer.
Authorities in Vermont don't know where Mikel Brady is. [foreboding music] NARRATOR: Mikel Brady stopped reporting
to his parole officer in Vermont and moved 640 miles away to Durham, North Carolina.
[foreboding music] He rented an apartment with his pregnant girlfriend and attempted to remain under the radar.
Four months later, his violent behavior would eventually catch up to him and make his presence known to law enforcement.
[foreboding music] MICHAEL POTTS: My name is Michael Potts. I was with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.
I was a third shift interstate trooper. I primarily worked night time. [ambient music]
I like being out in the nighttime, and my main focus was to ensure safe, efficient transportation
on the highways. [ambient music] On a normal day as a state trooper, you know, you encounter seat belts and speeding.
NARRATOR: Michael Potts had been a state trooper for 12 years. [ambient music] On the evening of February 18, he
was in the middle of a shift. [ambient music] MICHAEL POTTS: I met up with my partner that I worked with.
My partner said he wanted to go to the east side of Durham. And I said, you know, there's probably going
to be a car chase out of that. And, uh, he said, well, I hope not. [ambient music]
Car chases were initiated on that side of town a lot, but it was an area known to us that we
could stop reckless drivers. [ambient music] NARRATOR: Trooper Potts and his partner
separated to monitor different sections of the NC98 Highway. He pulled into a used car lot.
MICHAEL POTTS: My unmarked car would blend in with cars in the used car lot. No way I could get a better look at traffic.
You can observe more, you know, from people drinking, you beer going down the road and/or no seat belts
or-- or things of those matters. NARRATOR: Around 6:00 PM, he spotted a driver passing by who
wasn't wearing a seat belt. [suspenseful music] MICHAEL POTTS: I observed him come by
and a black Nissan Altima, leaning up on the steering wheel. Clearly, he had no seat belt on,
so I pulled out, got behind him, went ahead and initiated my stop, and once I exited the car,
got up to his vehicle. NARRATOR: That driver was 23-year-old, Mikel Brady. MICHAEL POTTS: I printed the back
of the car, which in law enforcement they're trained to do that. The oil from your fingers, it'll put it
on the back of the taillight. So they were able to tie me to the car. [tense music]
I get up there to the car. I said, I stop you for a seat belt. I need your license and your registration.
Clean cut kid seemed to be well put together. [tense music] I knew he was real nervous.
I could see his heart beat in his neck. I'm thinking he's fixing to take off or exit the car
and, you know, fight or something along those lines. NARRATOR: While standing beside the car,
Trooper Potts was distracted by the noise of a vehicle hitting the rumble strips.
He looked away. Brady took advantage of the situation. MICHAEL POTTS: As I was turning to look at that,
I saw him reach underneath his right knee and he had a 380 underneath his knee. He spins in the seat and by the time I look back,
the gun's in my face. It's a foot away. And then he just started firing and I lost color vision,
and couldn't hear. [suspenseful music] NICK OCHSNER: Brady fires four shots. Two of the shots hit Trooper Potts in the face.
One shot hits Trooper Potts in the shoulder, and one shot goes right through both of Trooper Potts hands.
MICHAEL POTTS: Man fired at from a foot away at 12-1300 foot per second. Now the shockwave was coming out of it.
It was incredible. It felt as if I had like 10,000 pounds weights on my shoulder.
I was like, this is it. It's true what they say about your life starts flashing.
Definitely something I've never experienced before. [tense music] NARRATOR: Brady sped off down the highway,
leaving Trooper Potts for dead. MICHAEL POTTS: I never lost consciousness. I pulled my-- my weapon out, but he was--
his vehicle was too far away and I didn't want to fire because I couldn't see in color,
which was very strange. So that was a big distraction to me. And plus, I didn't want to hit somebody else, when
he-- he was just too far away. NARRATOR: Trooper Potts managed to drag himself back into his car.
MICHAEL POTTS: I thought he just grazed me because there was no pain associated with I had, but I'm like, I can't see in color
and I don't know why. I looked up in the rear view mirror just to see, which was probably the worst thing for me to do,
because it had nicked my carotid artery here and it was just spurting. That's when I realized I'm hurt a lot, worse than I think I am.
That's when my-- my right ear just started hurting so bad. I was like, I ain't experienced no pain like that in my ear.
[ambient music] NARRATOR: He managed to call in over the radio. Within three minutes, his partner was by his side.
MICHAEL POTTS: He grabbed some towels and he put it over my face and-- and helped me out a lot.
But to my understanding, fire and EMS got there. We were-- we were gone in less than five minutes.
NARRATOR: Trooper Potts was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, whilst Brady ended up in the parking lot
of a restaurant 5 miles away. [tense music] NICK OCHSNER: He abandons the car. He actually calls his girlfriend, who's seven months
pregnant to come pick him up. But at this point, troopers law enforcement have the vehicle information.
Trooper Potts would have radioed that when he stopped the car. And so they find the car, abandon it, in this parking
lot, and they search the car. [ominous music] NARRATOR: The police discovered that the vehicle
was owned by one Mikel Brady and obtained his address. The next morning, 12 hours after the near
fatal shooting on Potts. Brady was arrested in his apartment, located just outside
of Durham in Brier Creek. [foreboding music] NICK OCHSNER: When police searched Brady's apartment,
they find a large map of Durham on the wall with the locations of police, fire, and medic mapped out.
They also find PVC pipe, and they find all the ingredients that the FBI says could have made a bomb.
It's notable that we've made a massive leap from charged with trying to poach a deer in Vermont
to being in Durham, North Carolina, with bomb making materials and shooting at a state trooper.
[ominous music] NARRATOR: 23-year-old, Mikel Brady was charged with assault with a deadly
weapon with intent to kill. His case went to trial in a courthouse in Durham, North Carolina.
NICK OCHSNER: He actually pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 20 to 24 years in prison.
He was also sentenced to 40 years for having a gun. DR. LINA HAJI: It's understandable
that Brady does not want to return to prison by all means necessary, but the fact that he can immediately
turn around and shoot a gun at this trooper's face tells me he has absolutely zero value for human life,
and he only cares about himself. NICK OCHSNER: He starts by stealing fishing gear in a garage.
He goes to stealing dynamite. He escalates to violent home invasions, and then he ends up shooting and trying
to kill a state trooper. [tense music] This is someone who's getting increasingly more violent,
increasingly more dangerous. And it really leaves open the question, is there anything this man won't do
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: Thankful to be alive. Trooper Potts started on his long journey of recovery.
MICHAEL POTTS: It took a while for my jaw to heal up and-- and to get hearing back.
I was uh-- my right side of my face, was paralyzed for seven months and I couldn't blink my eye.
I'd have to take my shot to go to sleep. Keep it from drying out. It was only with the grace of God
that I was able to survive that. I still had some time left on Earth and I greatly appreciate it.
NICK OCHSNER: He actually goes back to duty in April of the following year, but ultimately, he takes a medical retirement
because he's dealing with PTSD and anxiety from what he went through. MICHAEL POTTS: I look back on it,
it's the right choice, right decision. It robbed me of my dreams, you know. I wanted to retire from the Highway Patrol.
You-- you have your retirement, I've lost that. I didn't get that. [somber music]
NARRATOR: Mikel Brady was sent to Pasquotank Correctional Institution to carry out his sentence.
[foreboding music] HECTOR BRAVO: Pasquotank Correctional Institution is located in eastern North Carolina,
kind of far out of the way from really anything. When you go to the prison, it's basically
in the middle of this field. You can see it from the highway driving by, and it's just this big set of buildings
in the middle of an otherwise pretty rural, desolate farmland. HECTOR BRAVO: One of the problems
that Pasquotank had was extreme staff shortages. The risk when it comes to staffing shortages
are immense, the lack of accountability, the lack of supervision. If there's less officers to observe crime taking place,
then there's probably going to be more crime taking place. NICK OCHSNER: There was about a 25% vacancy
rate at Pasquotank CI in 2017. Living in this prison is not great, but it's even worse for the staff who's
asked to-- to do the same amount of work with the same amount of prisoners, but with less people to help them, and
more importantly, with kind of less backup when you're inside these dangerous prisons.
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: Just as he had done when he was last in prison, Brady behaved.
For three years, he was a model prisoner, and with that came benefits. He was given a job.
NICK OCHSNER: Brady worked at the sewing plant inside Pasquotank Correctional Institution.
In North Carolina, a lot of prisons have plants that produce things, so some plants make license plates.
This one made upholstered items. A sewing plant, they make furniture. Their inmates go and work at these facilities.
HECTOR BRAVO: It's a good way to occupy their time so they're not getting in trouble.
Also, it prepares them to go back into society, and so they can have the responsibilities
of waking up on time, showing up on time, and bringing the proper materials to a job site.
JAMIE MORGAN KANE: Inmates who work all have access to tools to do the jobs they have to do, whether it
be carving wood, drilling wood, chisels, whatever. And the people that have access to them, many of them do
have a violent past. Most of the inmates that have had those tendencies, oftentimes will not play out on them
unless there's something they feel they have to do either they're feeling threatened
or they feel disrespected. NICK OCHSNER: Brady had access to things like claw hammers and
scissors, things that you would use to make upholstery and work in a sewing plant, but things
that you wouldn't necessarily want to trust someone who's tried to kill a state trooper.
[tense music] DR. LINA HAJI: Typically, inmates serving time with violent crimes don't tend to get as many of the jobs
as inmates serving time for nonviolent crimes. If he's willing to go after a police officer,
a trooper out in society, there's no reason why he wouldn't go after a correction officer
in a correctional facility. [suspenseful music] NARRATOR: While working at the sewing plant,
Brady, now aged 28, became acquainted with three other inmates. - Brady makes these friends, Seth Frazier, Wisezah Buckman,
and Jonathan Monk. NARRATOR: Frazier had been imprisoned on charges relating to burglary.
Buckman for murder, and Monk for attempted murder. NICK OCHSNER: They all have access
to tools that are really can be dangerous weapons in the hands of violent people.
And together, these four concoct a plan to escape Pasquotank Correctional Institution.
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: At 2:43 PM, Brady and his co-conspirators decided to put their escape plan into action.
Armed with claw hammers, they made their first move. In the most savage way imaginable.
NICK OCHSNER: Brady and Seth Frazier are waiting near a freight elevator, basically into the sewing plant.
And that's where Veronica Darden, she's an Enterprise Manager, basically managing the sewing
plant, comes out of the elevator and she's immediately attacked by Frazier and Brady.
[ominous music] DR. LINA HAJI: He seemingly attacks this civilian employee in the prison
for no particular reason. Brady has really shown that nobody is off limits at this point.
NARRATOR: After savagely beating Veronica Darden to death, Mikel Brady handed a claw hammer to Wisezah Buckman.
NICK OCHSNER: After Brady passes the claw hammer to Buckman, he goes and meets up
with another inmate, Jonathan Monk, and together they corner a corrections officer named, Justin Smith, in the storeroom
here at this plant. They attack the corrections officers, Justin Smith, until he's dead.
HECTOR BRAVO: Brady and the other inmates made a fake radio call on Justin's radio
to delay the response from other correctional officers. He then set a fire. Lighting a fire with very beneficial for Brady
because you're going to have the smell of the smoke, the sight obstructed, the sounds of the smoke detectors.
It creates a distraction every measure. NICK OCHSNER: The four men escape because it takes more than 20 minutes for staff
to reach the sewing plant, to give help to their colleagues that are under attack.
HECTOR BRAVO: It is definitely not common for a 20 minute response time. There had to have been some abnormalities,
weather barriers, lack of communication, lack of experience. All of these things could have accumulated to the 20
minute response time. [foreboding music] NARRATOR: After setting the sewing plant fire.
Brady, Frazier, Buckman, and Monk, traveled in the freight elevator to the loading dock.
NICK OCHSNER: They run into corrections officer Wendy Shannon and a maintenance man, Geoffrey Howe.
They attack both of those employees with a hammer and scissors. These employees were stabbed dozens of times.
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: After assaulting another officer. The four murderers ran out into the prison yard.
They headed for the perimeter fence. NICK OCHSNER: By this point, backup's arriving.
There's a full response going on. HECTOR BRAVO: These correctional officers chased these four inmates across the yard,
telling them to surrender. That's when Brady said, you're going to have to kill me.
DR. LINA HAJI: I think he was daring the officer. He was playing a game and he wanted to be in control.
Brady is the type of person that even when backed into a corner, he's unwilling to face
the consequences of his own actions. NICK OCHSNER: Another correction officer takes out
his pepper spray and used it, sprays it, and then he starts hitting Jonathan Monk
in the leg with his baton. But Monk doesn't give up, he actually starts attacking the corrections officer,
gets stabbed three times, but eventually, Monk is actually arrested. NARRATOR: Brady along with Frazier and Buckman
made it to the fence. They attempted climbing over. NICK OCHSNER: Buckman gets caught on the barbed wire.
The kind of razor wire at the top of the fence, and is actually sprayed with pepper spray
and is caught hanging upside down on the barbed wire from the fence. NARRATOR: Brady and Frazier were more successful.
- As they're going over the fence. The staff sees them. They actually call out to those guys.
Guys, you're not going to go very far. They fire a warning shot to try to get them to stop.
Frazier though, hears a warning shot fired and decides to stop and turns around and surrenders.
But ultimately, Brady is able to escape. NARRATOR: Brady was now on the run. NICK OCHSNER: Pasquotank CI is kind
of in the middle of nowhere. At this point, the response is just saturation. Law enforcement from all over the area and all over the state
are descending on this prison, they have vehicles now. Even though Brady has made it out,
he's got to get through a field and a big army of police before he could actually be free.
NARRATOR: There's really no way out for Mikel Brady. Now completely surrounded, his options were limited.
[tense music] NICK OCHSNER: Brady is only outside of the fence for 10, 15 minutes before he turns around
and comes back through the fence himself, and he surrenders. DR. LINA HAJI: Had Brady seen an actual viable way to escape,
I think he would have kept going. I think the only reason he stopped is because he knew
this was the end of the road. He knew he was not going to survive. He was going to get caught either way.
[tense music] JAMIE MORGAN KANE: Trying to escape from prison. I don't think it necessarily takes guts.
I think it takes a certain amount of being a bit of an adrenaline junkie. As someone who just wants a little bit of excitement.
[tense music] Most don't have a plan of what they're going to do when they got out.
I think it's more of either a desperation thing, or just the idea they want to try to prove they can.
HECTOR BRAVO: I personally do not think Brady had a sound plan for the escape attempt.
Reason being is all the brute force, that he used the claw hammer, lighting a fire.
It didn't really seem thought out, it seemed impulsive. [tense music] NARRATOR: At 3:30 PM, around 45 minutes after the incident
began, Brady was recaptured. He was interviewed and confessed to everything. HECTOR BRAVO: He was going to attempt to escape by any
means necessary. He proved that he's willing to kill somebody in order to escape.
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: The murders of four members of staff sent shock waves throughout the prison.
NICK OCHSNER: It's the enterprise sewing plant manager, Veronica Darden, it's corrections
officers Justin Smith and Wendy Shannon, and maintenance worker Geoffrey Howe. If you're a maintenance person, you don't have a baton,
you don't have maze, you're not trained to be a corrections officer, but you still show up every day
to this violent place, that's dangerous by its nature. HECTOR BRAVO: The atmosphere amongst the correctional
officers after a major escape attempt like that will be very somber, very eye-opening,
jaw-dropping, shocking. You're mourning the loss of your coworkers. You're in shock about what transpired,
and you're reminded of where you work. NICK OCHSNER: This is not normal. This is not what's supposed to happen.
And it's only because they launched a violent attack with access to weapons, tools, that they were
using at the sewing plant. Families of those killed in this violent escape attempt
were outraged. They really wondered why these people had access to these tools and weapons in the first place.
[somber music] HECTOR BRAVO: In all of my experience in my career, I've never encountered an escape attempt like that.
That is a very severe one, considering all the loss of life, the security breaches, and the amount of time
that all transpired in. NICK OCHSNER: When you have violent offenders, weapons, and minimal staffing, it
is a recipe for people to die. There was a ton of scrutiny on how this happened.
There were a lot of questions from lawmakers, from public officials, and really there was outcry from the public
how it could be so deadly. MICHAEL POTTS: I feel like they saw an opportunity and knew they were all short staffed, and said,
this is our day. We're going to do this. NICK OCHSNER: The response took more than 20 minutes before the first backup
reached the sewing plant. Now that's due in part to the understaffing, it's due in part
to the diversion. It's due in part to the fire, but you can't reach any other conclusion
than the response was slow. [somber music] NARRATOR: Mikel Brady and his co-conspirators
were all charged with murder and transferred to Central Prison, a maximum security penitentiary
near Raleigh, to await trial. Two years later, in Dare County Court, 30-year-old Brady was the first of the group
to be tried for all four murders of the prison staff. MICHAEL POTTS: I went down to testify on that as well.
It wasn't a good feeling being back in the same room with him. There were security all around him.
I believe, there was like six of those guys that were with him because of the risk of escape.
HECTOR BRAVO: Brady was said to have looked quite pleased for what he had done while he was on trial.
The only thing I make of that is he may have been egotistical and narcissistic, and he was probably happy at the uproar and the chaos
that he caused. DR. LINA HAJI: This is not somebody who's capable of remorse, or empathy,
or taking accountability for their actions. This is somebody who wants attention
for all the wrong reasons and is getting attention for all the wrong reasons. So this is exactly where he wants to be.
[somber music] MICHAEL POTTS: It was very hard at the court case to see the families out there.
And-- and that's when it really sunk in for the survival guilt for me. If I could have done something when that vehicle stopped,
then maybe nothing would ever-- he would have never been in jail in the first place.
And those four people would still be alive. NARRATOR: The jury only took 35 minutes
to deliberate before they came back with a guilty verdict. [suspenseful music] After just under two weeks of trial.
He was sentenced to death. [foreboding music] HECTOR BRAVO: I think it was appropriate for the evil act
that he committed, and ultimately, he was judged by a jury of his peers and sentenced in court to be condemned.
MICHAEL POTTS: Well, I still struggle with it to this day, thinking, why did this happen?
What could I have done different? [foreboding music] There's nothing that I could do.
You know, it's almost like you don't even have uh-- you know, a battlefield to fight on,
you know, it's just-- it's just got to go with, you know, the hand that you're dealt. And this is the one
that I'm dealt right now. But I'm getting along. [tense music] NARRATOR: Wisezah, Buckman, and Jonathan Monk were
also given death sentences. Seth Frazier is yet to be sentenced. Following the tragedy at Pasquotank Correctional
Institution, new measures were brought in to stop an event like this from ever happening again.
NICK OCHSNER: The real reason attributed for this deadly incident was an overwhelming staff shortage.
And ultimately, what we saw was a lot of change in safety procedures implemented,
all aimed at making prisons safer for the people working inside them. HECTOR BRAVO: The result of the prison escape in Pasquotank was
advanced security measures, some of which included putting body alarms on the correctional staff members, uh,
reviewing of all 2,300 inmates files for their job assignment. Also, the sewing plant was issued to be shut down.
NARRATOR: Mikel Brady is now being held at ADX Florence, Colorado, a supermax prison, where
he awaits his death sentence. - I think Mikel Brady wants to die. I think he wanted to die the day that he escaped
Pasquotank CI, we know that he was first expressing ideas of suicide when he was a child back in school, that
led to his bipolar diagnosis. As he's escaping the prison, he told the staff, you have to kill me.
He's been sentenced to death, but he's still very much alive inside a maximum security prison.
I have to imagine if I'm Mikel Brady today, I don't like life very much. HECTOR BRAVO: I am in belief that Brady
did want to be shot while he was attempting to escape. That would have just solved all his problems then and there.
He would have been dead. Almost like suicide by cop. DR. LINA HAJI: His crimes were so self-serving
and he displayed such little remorse and such little appreciation for human life.
Brady enjoys violence, he gets off on violence, and he has, for a very long time,
dating all the way back to the age of 10 when he blinded his sister. Somebody like Brady is probably going
to continue to engage in violence as long as he's physically capable of doing so.
[theme music]

After being linked to more than 100 robberies, Mikel Braddy shoots an interstate trooper and later leads a violent prison escape attempt with three accomplices, killing four staff members before being recaptured.

World’s Most Evil Prisoners is a chilling exploration of the terrifying offenders sentenced to a lifetime behind bars. Locked away, yet still driven by their twisted desires, these inmates delve into acts of torture, abduction, and homicide. Prepare to confront the criminals from the darkest facets of humanity.

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Brief Summary

Mikel Brady's violent life culminates in a deadly prison escape, resulting in four staff deaths and his death sentence.

Key points

Mikel Brady's Violent History. Mikel Brady's life is marked by extreme violence, starting from childhood.
The Attempted Escape. Brady and inmates plot an escape using extreme violence.
Trooper Potts' Near-Fatal Encounter. Trooper Potts is shot at close range by Mikel Brady during a traffic stop.
Brady's Arrest and Bomb-Making Materials. Brady is arrested with bomb-making materials after shooting a state trooper.
Brady's Sentencing. Mikel Brady pleads guilty and is sentenced to 20 to 24 years in prison.
Escalation of Violence. Mikel Brady's criminal behavior escalates from theft to attempted murder of a state trooper.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He's like the walking grim reaper.

Description of Mikel Brady's dangerous nature.

5:31WatchJan 14, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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