Jacob Allen Morley, the 28-year-old convicted murderer who escaped from a West Tennessee prison on October 25, is back in custody. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) confirmed around noon on Tuesday that Morley had been captured, ending a nine-day manhunt that stretched across Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri.
Source: NewsChannel 5 Nashville (Scripps)
The Missouri State Highway Patrol arrested Morley near Norborne, in Carroll County, Missouri — about an hour east of Kansas City — before midday on Tuesday. Tennessee authorities had flagged Missouri after Flock automated number-plate camera footage pointed investigators toward the state, according to reporting on the arrest.
Source: No Bulls News, from TBI and agency reporting
Nine days on the run
Morley escaped from the Northwest Correctional Complex near Tiptonville, in West Tennessee, on Sunday, October 25. Prison staff realised he was unaccounted for at around 11:30 p.m. that night, and security video showed him going through a perimeter fence still wearing his prison uniform, according to the TBI's account of the escape.
A white Ford F-350 that Morley allegedly stole in Tennessee was later found abandoned in Marion, Illinois — the development Awaaz Punjab reported last week as the manhunt widened. The Williamson County Sheriff's Office in Illinois says he then stole a farm pickup there on Tuesday morning, hours before Missouri troopers took him into custody.
Source: No Bulls News, from TBI and agency reporting
A life sentence for a workplace killing
Morley was serving a life sentence for killing his coworker Cody Birchfield in 2022. Alongside first-degree murder, his convictions include aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, vandalism and evading arrest, according to the NewsChannel 5 report. Tennessee officials had placed him on the TBI Most Wanted list and warned the public that he was dangerous; Birchfield's sister told NBC News he is "a very dangerous man."
Source: NewsChannel 5 Nashville (Scripps)
Questions over the seven-hour delay
The escape has also put the Tennessee Department of Correction itself under scrutiny. A NewsChannel 5 investigation found that the department waited more than seven hours to alert the public — and several hours to notify local law enforcement — after discovering that Morley was missing. Prison officials initially offered a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to his arrest; by the final day of the manhunt, contributions from the Tennessee Governor's Office, the TBI and the U.S. Marshals Service had raised the total reward to $17,500.
Source: NewsChannel 5 Nashville (Scripps)
While the search was under way, the TBI had urged residents in the areas Morley passed through to check their properties and security cameras — including vacation homes, lake houses, cabins, sheds and hunting properties where an escaped prisoner could hide.
Source: NewsTalk 98.9 WKIM, reporting the TBI manhunt appeal
Awaaz Punjab followed this manhunt from the moment Morley's stolen getaway truck was found in southern Illinois. Read the earlier manhunt report
What happens next
Investigators have not yet said exactly how Morley got through the prison perimeter fence, and officials say more details of the capture are still to come. As of Tuesday afternoon, authorities had not announced the timing of Morley's return to Tennessee custody or any additional charges arising from the escape and the alleged vehicle thefts in Illinois. What is settled is the end of the search itself: a man serving life for murder, loose across at least three states for more than a week, is back behind bars.