Tennessee fugitive stole truck with plate 138BBQV after escape

Jacob Allen Morley, 28, breached the perimeter fence of the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, Tennessee, on Sunday night and stole a work truck to flee the facility. The Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed the escape and launched an immediate search.

Staff members discovered Morley was missing during a headcount at approximately 11:30 p.m. Sunday. Security footage from the facility showed him climbing over the fence while still wearing his prison uniform. He was serving a life sentence for the 2022 murder of Cody Birchfield, a crime that occurred in Elizabethton.

Video from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation captured Morley taking a vehicle around 1 a.m. Monday. The car is a white 2008 Ford F-350 with Tennessee license plate 138BBQV. The truck has the name Lindamood Planting Company printed on its side and contains an air compressor in the bed. It was stolen from the 400 block of Keystone Drive, located roughly two miles south of the prison.

Authorities describe Morley as 5 feet 11 inches tall and 240 pounds. He has brown hair and green eyes. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation listed him on the state's most wanted roster and advised the public to consider him dangerous. Federal and state law enforcement agencies are currently assisting in the search.

Morley was convicted in 2025 of first-degree murder, burglary, vandalism, tampering with evidence, and evading arrest. Birchfield disappeared in early February 2022. Investigators from the Carter County Sheriff's Office found signs of a violent crime inside his home. Morley was arrested in March 2022 after a police chase that ended at the North Carolina state line. His body was later found beneath Morley's residence.

Landree Sheperd, Morley's former girlfriend, testified at the trial. She stated that Morley told her at one point that he f, ing killed him. Officials provided the phone number 844-832-3463 for the public to report information regarding Morley's location.