Escaped sex offender found in Oklahoma, police say

A violent sex offender suspected in a North Richland Hills carjacking has been found and is in custody in Oklahoma, authorities said Friday.

Charles Raymond Sprague, 44, was taken into custody without incident at 9:44 a.m. Friday in Thackerville, Oklahoma, according to a North Richland Hills police news release.

North Richland Hills police are still investigating the connection between Sprauge and a carjacking and kidnapping of a woman on Wednesday.

The gunman confronted the woman in the parking lot of a call center in the 5200 block of Rufe Snow Drive and forced her to get into her Toyota 4Runner while he took the wheel, police said.

Police said he drove the SUV around the corner and let the woman out behind a vacant building in the 6500 block of Iron Horse Drive,

About 5 a.m. Wednesday, convicted sex offender Charles Sprague, 44, walked away from a halfway house on Henderson Street near downtown Fort Worth, police have said.

“We have information that indicates the aggravated robber could be related to the individual that escaped from the halfway house,” Investigator Keith Bauman, a North Richland Hills police spokesman, told the Star-Telegram on Thursday.

Staff writers Monica S. Nagy and Maricar Estrella contributed to this report, which includes information from the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published April 16, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Escaped sex offender found in Oklahoma, police say."