Missouri troopers on Tuesday caught Jacob Allen Morley, a 28-year-old convicted murderer serving a life sentence, more than a week after he slipped out of a Tennessee prison and set off a multistate manhunt.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said the arrest came at about 11:30 a.m. local time near Norborne, a small city roughly an hour's drive from Kansas City. Officers found three guns inside the truck he was driving, all of them previously reported stolen.
The break in the case came Tuesday morning. Tennessee investigators learned that Morley had taken shelter in a shed on a hunting property near Marion, Illinois, and that someone had stolen a truck from the same site.
At about 9:30 a.m., the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation alerted Missouri authorities that he might be heading west on Interstate 70 near Independence, according to the patrol. Flock license plate cameras picked up the vehicle, and undercover officers later spotted it moving south on Missouri 291 in Liberty.
Troopers said that as they moved in, Morley tried to swerve off the road and became stuck. He was taken into custody without further incident roughly two hours after police first got word of where he might be.
The Kansas City and Independence police departments, the Career Criminal Task Force, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Marshals Service all helped surround him, the patrol said.
Thank you to the public for your assistance, vigilance, and the tips provided during this investigation,
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
How the escape unfolded
Morley escaped from the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, about 90 miles from Memphis. Staff realized he was missing around 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 25, and security video later showed him, still in his prison uniform, getting through the perimeter fence.
Tennessee Highway Patrol dispatch audio indicated he had last been seen at the prison around 4 p.m. that Sunday. Investigators have not explained exactly how he got out beyond saying he breached a fence.
Video released afterward showed him stealing a white 2008 Ford F-350 from Lake County in the early hours of Oct. 27. That pickup turned up abandoned later that day in Marion, about 150 miles north of the prison.
A life sentence and a troubled prison
Morley had been placed on the bureau's most wanted list. The bureau, the governor's office and the U.S. Marshals together put up as much as $17,500 in rewards for tips that led to his capture.
He was sentenced to life for the 2022 killing of Cody Birchfield, a former coworker. Birchfield had been missing for weeks before investigators discovered his remains in a box beneath Morley's house in Carter County.
Morley ran when deputies came to his home that year and was caught in North Carolina. A jury convicted him in 2025 of first-degree murder, aggravated burglary, evidence tampering, vandalism and evading arrest.
The Tiptonville prison can hold 1,776 men at security levels up to maximum and also houses minors convicted as adults. It has seen repeated violence, and this July a grand jury handed up dozens of indictments tied to the killings of five inmates and attacks on staff.
Members of the Tennessee Inmate Disciplinary Oversight Board recently discussed continuing problems at the facility and suggested leadership was part of the cause.
