DOERUN, Ga. — A Colquitt County prison inmate who reportedly walked off a work detail on Thursday had only a brief taste of freedom as he was captured less than two hours later.

Dennis Murray, an inmate at Colquitt County Correctional Institution, was working in Doerun at the time he made a break for it, Warden Billy Howell said.

“He was helping the city of Doerun in getting ready for May Day,” Howell said. “They were taking their lunch break. They let him go into the bushes to take a bathroom break.”

When Murray, 38, of Hephzibah, Ga., did not return in a reasonable amount of time officers immediately put out the alert of his escape. Howell estimated that he left the work site at about noon.

A number of agencies responded, including the warden from Mitchell County’s prison, Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office deputies and investigators, Georgia Department of Corrections, the Georgia State Patrol, which also put a helicopter in the air, and an agency that brought a dog.

Doerun Elementary School, which is about three blocks northwest of the area where the inmates were working, was locked down during the incident, a school system spokeswoman said.

Deputies were deployed on Peachtree Street to try to prevent Murray from moving toward residential areas and Doerun Elementary, Howell said. Prior to that a witness reported sighting the inmate crossing a cotton field to the northeast of the city.

After that “we let the dogs get there” to track him, Howell said.

Murray was spotted trying to make his way toward a mobile home park, and officers captured him at about 1:43 p.m. after a short foot chase.

Murray was serving time on convictions for attempted burglary, criminal trespass, battery and terroristic threats and acts.

Howell said that the sheriff’s office will file an escape charge against Murray and he will be sent to another facility.

Colquitt County houses state inmates under a contract with the Department of Corrections, with the state paying a daily rate for each prisoner. Inmates are used in work and maintenance crews used by the county and cities, including Moultrie and Sylvester.