Grauman: 'I was afraid they'd kill me.'

CANON CITY, Colo. (WOOD) - One of four West Michigan suspects, captured in Colorado last week after a multi-state crime spree, has a message for her mother:

"Tell her I'm sorry."

24 Hour News 8's Joe LaFurgey spoke face-to-face with Laura Grauman from a Colorado jail Saturday; the latest chapter in the story 24 Hour News 8 has followed from its start in West Michigan to its conclusion in Colorado.

Laura Grauman's story is not about a romanticized "Bonnie and Clyde"-like cross-country crime spree, but the effect one drug can have on a life.

The drug is meth -- a drug Laura Grauman calls evil.

"It is. It is. This is the devil drug, just like my mom told me," Grauman told 24 Hour News 8 from an interview room at the Fremont County jail in Canon City, Colo.

She has been charged with suspicion of conspiracy to commit aggravated motor vehicle theft, conspiracy to commit theft and possession of a controlled substance. Her bail was set at $2,000.

Grauman said she was on meth shortly after her boyfriend, Greg Bradshaw, and cousin, Ken Grauman II, broke out of the Lake County Michigan Department of Corrections facility Sept. 29.

Grauman said she wanted to go with them.

"Once you decide you're going, you're not going back," Grauman said the two men told her.

She claims Ken's girlfriend, 17-year-old Brittany Rector, was just as willing to go along.

Grauman said meth will do that to you.

Then came the dramatic police chase through the cornfield near Dorr in Allegan County, Mich.

Laura Grauman told 24 Hour News 8 she was scared; demonstrating how she crouched down on the floor of a vehicle each time they got into a chase.

But Grauman said the seriousness of what was happening hadn't sunk in.

Again, Grauman said, meth will do that to you.

"Right or wrong don't matter."

The fugitives had again evaded police. Grauman said they stayed the night in a cornfield. She denies breaking into a nearby Dorr Township home that next morning. The fugitives eventually made it to Kokomo, Ind.

That's when Grauman said the fact they were in big trouble finally started to sink in.

They went from state to state; Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska are the states Grauman remembers. She can't recall how many vehicles they stole along the way.

By then, both women were scared.

"At one point, Brittany said, 'Run Laura, run!'"

But she didn't. Why?

"They wouldn't let me. I was afraid they'd kill me," said Grauman -- even though the women were, at least at one point, able to leave the men as they went on errands.

Eventually, the four made it to Canon City, Colo.

Laura said her sister lived here once and it was a nice place. She and Greg Bradshaw also had friends in Canon City. They left a message they were on the way, but they never heard back from the couple.

Grauman is convinced it was the friends who called police -- something for which she says she is grateful.

On Oct. 11, 12 days after the ordeal began, Laura and Brittany were in their latest stolen vehicle near the motel they were using as a hideout and meth lab.

Bradshaw and Ken Grauman had just been arrested at the motel. Police surrounded the cars, guns drawn. Grauman recalled the words she heard next.

"'Freeze! Put you hands in the air!'... That's when I knew it was over," said Grauman.

She said she feels fortunate it ended that way.

"I feel like if the cops hadn't caught us, I'd be going home in a body bag."

On Saturday, as she sat in the interview room, she broke down in tears several times. The 4-year-old daughter she has lost custody of is one of the people she has let down. Her mother, Dawn Morse, is another.

"Laura, as a person, knows not to do what she did," said Morse.

Grauman said she deserves whatever punishment comes her way. She has vowed to change her life once she's out of jail, starting with Bradshaw.

"I'm leaving Greg. I can't be with him anymore," she said.

And she had a message for her mother, who's warning about the dangers and addictiveness of meth went unheeded.

"Tell her I know she didn't raise me this way, and I'm sorry."