Latest / Best of: Features / Man serving a life sentence for murder slips through a fence and escapes a Tennessee prison

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Man serving a life sentence for murder slips through a fence and escapes a Tennessee prison · Best of: Features

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  Man serving a life sentence for murder slips through a fence and
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  escaped a Tennessee prison. This article is being read by an automated
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  voice generated by Everlet. Tiptonville, Tennessee The AP A
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  man serving a life sentence for killing his co worker four years
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  ago has escaped from a prison in Northwest Tennessee by slipping through
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  a fence, authorities said. Officials realized Jacob Morley, twenty eight, was unaccounted
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  for around eleven thirty PM Sunday at the Northwest Correctional Complex in
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  Tiptonville, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said in a statement. Investigators looked
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  at security cameras and saw Morley escape while wearing his prison uniform,
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  officials said. They did not release any other details, including how Morley
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  got through the fence. Prison officials offered a reward of up to
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  two thousand five hundred dollars for Morley's arrest. They said law enforcement
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  throughout the area has searched buildings and other structures near the prison
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  about ninety miles one hundred forty five kilometers north of Memphis in
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  an isolated rural area of flat land, tucked near a bend in
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  the Mississippi River near Missouri. Morley is five foot eleven, one point
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  eight meters, and two hundred and forty pounds, one hundred and nine
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  kilograms. He has brown hair and green eyes. Morley was sentenced to
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  life for killing co worker Cody Birchfield in twenty twenty two. Birchfield's
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  body was found in a box under Morley's Carter County home after
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  he had been missing for a few weeks. Along with first degree
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  murder, Morley was also convicted of aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, vandalism,
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  and evading arrest. When Morley saw deputies at his home in twenty
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  twenty two, he led police on a chase that ended in North
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  Carolina, authorities said. Several violent attacks between inmates and by employees have
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  been reported in recent years at Northwest correctional Complex. A grand jury
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  in July returned dozens of indictments for five inmate murders, assaults against
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  staff and inmates, and other violence. Northwest Correctional Complex can house one
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  thousand seven hundred and seventy six men, and can house minors who
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  have been convicted as adults, according to the Department of Correction. In
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  twenty twenty three, an audit of Tennessee prisons found that the Department
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  was struggling to fill open positions at the prison, and had a
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  sixty one percent vacancy rate for correctional officers in that fiscal year.