Four prisoners escape from Mississippi jail, two recaptured

(Reuters) - Law enforcement officers in Mississippi have apprehended two of four prisoners who broke out of a county jail and they are now searching for their accomplices, police said on Tuesday.

The four, who faced charges ranging from murder to robbery, escaped from the Raymond Detention Center near Jackson shortly after midnight on Monday, authorities said.

"Based on our preliminary investigation we are inclined to believe that this was a prearranged and preplanned escape," the Hinds County Sheriff's Office said in a statement posted on Facebook.

On Monday evening, authorities recaptured 19-year-old Jermaine Wilson, who is charged with capital murder in the 2012 rape and killing of a woman.

An inmate charged with armed robbery, Kevin Holmes, 18, was recaptured on Tuesday.

"This investigation continues and we will get to the bottom of it," Hinds County Sheriff Tyrone Lewis said in a statement. "We won't stop until it is done."

The jailbreak follows the escape of two convicted murderers from a maximum security prison in northern New York last month.

One of them was shot and killed after three weeks on the run, while his accomplice was captured two days later. The pair led law enforcement authorities on a grueling manhunt through the dense forests and bogs near the state's border with Canada.

(This story has been refiled to fix the headline)

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla.; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Sandra Maler)