(Reuters) - Four inmates escaped an eastern Tennessee jail early on Friday by overpowering deputies and fleeing in an officer's vehicle, and two are still on the run, the sheriff said.
The inmates assaulted the deputies as one of them, Adam Lethco, 24, was being treated for an injury at the Jefferson County Work House in Dandridge. They stole the keys to a deputy's car and fled just after midnight, Sheriff G.W. "Bud" McCoig said in a statement.
The stolen vehicle, a black Chevrolet, was found abandoned near Sevierville, about 20 miles east of Knoxville. Deputies from Sevier and Jefferson counties captured two of the escapees, McCoig said.
Lethco and inmate Matthew Porter, 27, remain on the run. They were described as wearing white shirts and black-and-white striped pants.
Lethco was serving a sentence for burglary and theft, McCoig said. Porter has been sentenced for reckless endangerment and evading arrest, and faces a prison sentence in Alabama for parole violation.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler)
