SALT LAKE CITY - The Lincoln Police Department has confirmed that two inmates who escaped from the Uintah County Jail on Wednesday have been caught in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Officials say Officer Terry Jones approached Jason Max Braham, 21, and Dallas Ephraim Derrick, 31, who were on the side of the road in Lancaster County, Nebraska, trying to fix a stolen car they'd been driving. Jones became suspicious after their stories didn't add up and arrested them.
"He then saw two white males that were walking eastbound on the Harris overpass. He directed those males to come back to his vehicle, and they refused to, they just kept walking. But they didn't run," said Lancaster County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Novacek. "So Deputy Jones advised dispatch, and at that time Sheriff's deputies and Lincoln Police Department converged on the area. We contacted two male parties. They weren't very forthcoming with their identities at first. It was later discovered through interviews here at the office that they were actually escapees out of the state of Utah Department of Corrections."
Novacek says the two men stole five cars on their way from Uintah County to Nebraska.
The first, a Chevy Tahoe, was found with a full tank of gas and keys in the ignition. The pair drove it on eastbound I-80 to Cheyenne, Wyo., where they ran out of gas and took a second vehicle, again with a full tank of gas and keys in the ignition.
"At that time they found an Escalade, which was full of gas, keys in ignition, five tall bottles of beer and a little bit of marijuana inside the vehicle. So they proceeded to party all the way on Interstate 80 until they got to approximately Maxwell, Nebraska," said Novacek.
In Maxwell, the pair again ran out of gas and found a third vehicle with its keys in the ignition, this time with only a quarter tank of gas. They traveled until running out of gas and finding another vehicle with its keys in the ignition and headed towards Lincoln where they encountered police.
Braham and Derrick are now in the Lancaster County Jail in Lincoln, Neb., pending charges and extradition to Utah.
They escaped from the Uintah County Jail on Sept. 19, corrections officials said. The men were working as part of a laundry crew. Uintah County Sheriff’s deputies said they kicked out a dryer vent in the laundry room, crawled through it and jumped out a window.
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