This image from security video shows Jacob Morley stealing a vehicle on 26 October 2026 in Lake county, Tennessee. Photograph: John Lindamood/APThis image from security video shows Jacob Morley stealing a vehicle on 26 October 2026 in Lake county, Tennessee. Photograph: John Lindamood/APConvicted murderer who escaped from Tennessee prison captured in MissouriJacob Morley, serving a life sentence for killing a co-worker, slipped through a prison fence last week
A man convicted of murder who escaped from a Tennessee prison was recaptured on Tuesday in Missouri after more than a week on the run, authorities said.
Jacob Morley, who was serving a life sentence for killing a co-worker four years ago, was apprehended outside Kansas City, Missouri, before midday by the state highway patrol.
State and county officials didn’t provide many details on how they found Morley, saying only that automated license plate readers showed he was traveling through the state.
Man serving life sentence for murder escapes Tennessee prison, slipping through fence, officials sayRead moreMorley, 28, escaped from the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tennessee’s far north-western corner on 25 October, after he slipped through a fence in his prison clothes.
Surveillance video showed him stealing a truck from a farm near the prison, which he abandoned last week in Marion, Illinois, about 120 miles (193km) north of the prison.
Morley was serving a life sentence for killing co-worker Cody Birchfield in 2022. Birchfield’s body was found in a box under Morley’s home after he had been missing for a few weeks. The two lived in Carter county, in eastern Tennessee.
When Morley saw deputies at his home, he led officers on a chase that ended in North Carolina, authorities said. Morley was convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, vandalism and evading arrest.
After his escape, law enforcement agencies searched buildings and other structures near the prison, which is in Tiptonville, about 90 miles (145km) north of Memphis in flat farmland near a bend in the Mississippi River. Prison officials offered a reward of up to $17,500 for information leading to Morley’s arrest.
Morley’s escape is the latest blemish for Tennessee’s prison system.
Several violent attacks between prisoners and by employees have been reported in recent years at Northwest Correctional Complex. A grand jury in July returned dozens of indictments for five prisoner killings and other violent acts.
Following the failed execution of Christa Pike in September, the department of correction’s commissioner, Frank Strada, resigned, after less than three years on the job.
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