Cobb County

Bad driving leads to capture of inmate who escaped more than a decade ago

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — An escaped convict from Atlanta’s federal pen is back in jail. He wasn't caught by a U.S. Marshal, but by his own bad driving.

Carolyn Barry told Channel 2’s Ross Cavitt she first thought the feds had simply released her brother Dennis Kitchens a decade ago.

But she told Cavitt a short time later in 2006 the feds came looking for Kitchens.

"They told my mom they weren't going to stop looking for him, and my momma told them that's your job," Barry said.

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Kitchens had just started serving a 12 ½ year sentence for drug trafficking at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary when a warrant said he escaped from the prison camp.

More than a decade later, his run ended because of his bad driving.

According to the arrest warrant, Kitchens was driving his ‘91 Olds on Powder Springs Road when he crossed two lanes in front of a police officer.

The officer pulled him over. Inside Kitchens' car, the warrant said investigators found nearly 25 wrapped bags of cocaine and nearly 50 painkiller pills.

Kitchens gave the officer a fake name, but at the Cobb County Jail they figured out he was the wanted federal fugitive who escaped more than 10 years earlier.

"In a way, I was kind of glad because we didn't know where he was and we had heard he was ill.  And I was praying and hoping they would take care of him and not beat him up," Barry said.

Had Kitchens remained in the federal penitentiary he would have been finishing his sentenced about now. Instead, he is in the Cobb County jail facing traffic and drug charges, and more than likely escape charges.