TIPTONVILLE, Tenn. — Authorities are searching for a convicted murderer who escaped from a northwest Tennessee prison by getting through a fence, CBS News reported.
Prison staff realized Jacob Morley, 28, was missing at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday at the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, the Tennessee Department of Correction said. Security video showed him leaving in his prison uniform; officials have not said how he got through the fence.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation later released footage it says shows Morley stealing a white 2008 Ford F-350 with Tennessee plates and a Lindamood Planting Company logo on the door at about 1 a.m. Tuesday in Lake County. He is on the TBI’s most-wanted list, with a reward of up to $2,500, and residents are being asked to check doorbell and trail cameras.
Morley is described as 5-foot-11 and 240 pounds with brown hair and green eyes. He was sentenced to life for the 2022 killing of co-worker Cody Birchfield, whose body was found under Morley’s Carter County home.
The rural lockup sits near the Mississippi River roughly 90 miles above Memphis and has a history of violence; in July, a grand jury handed up dozens of indictments connected to five inmate killings and assaults.
Sources: CBS News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Tony Webster / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.