The State - News from Nov. 18, 1988

A shackled inmate disarmed a Tulare County sheriff’s jailer, yanked a motorist from her car at gunpoint and fled in the vehicle, but he was recaptured after officers fired tear gas into a home, authorities said. Deputies said they found the house where Lester Earl Smith, 38, had holed up in Farmersville by talking to some of his friends. Smith jumped Deputy Mary Chadwell, grabbed her around the neck and stole her .38-caliber service revolver outside a health center, deputies said. Smith threatened to shoot Chadwell unless she unchained his leg and hand irons, but the 15-year veteran officer refused, officers said. He then limped out into an intersection and confronted motorist Doris Fay Comstock of Pixley and commandeered her vehicle.