Escaped Tennessee killer's manhunt widens to Illinois and Wisconsin

Five days after a convicted killer slipped through a perimeter fence at a West Tennessee prison, the manhunt for Jacob Allen Morley has widened into a multistate search spanning three states, with investigators now examining whether he is tied to an armed bank robbery in Wisconsin committed two days after his escape.

Morley, 28, was serving a life sentence for the 2022 murder of Cody Birchfield when staff at the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville discovered him unaccounted for during an emergency count around 11:30 p.m. on October 25, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction. Security camera footage reviewed afterward showed Morley breaching the facility's perimeter fence and walking away still wearing his prison uniform.

A truck, a 142-mile trail, and a cold trail since

Investigators say Morley stole a white 2008 Ford F-350 marked with the logo of a local farming operation, Lindamood Planting Company, from a property roughly two miles south of the prison in the early hours of October 26. He was caught on camera passing the Hornbeak Fire Department in the truck shortly after 1 a.m. The vehicle turned up abandoned behind a shopping center in Marion, Illinois, roughly 142 miles north of the prison, early on October 27. No one has reported seeing Morley since, and investigators have said there is no evidence he remained in the area where the truck was found.

The reward for information leading to his capture has climbed sharply as the search has stretched on, from an initial $2,500 offered by the Department of Correction to a combined $17,500, listed on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's Most Wanted list, which added Morley on October 26. The current total includes $7,500 from the governor's office, $5,000 from the TBI and $5,000 from the U.S. Marshals Service, which has joined the search along with Illinois State Police.

• Escape discovered: approximately 11:30 p.m., October 25, at Northwest Correctional Complex, Tiptonville
• Stolen truck last seen: roughly 1:18 a.m., October 26, near Hornbeak, Tennessee
• Truck recovered: approximately 4 a.m., October 27, in Marion, Illinois, about 142 miles away
• Reward for information: up to $17,500

The Wisconsin lead

The newest thread in the investigation runs through Deerfield, Wisconsin, well north of where the abandoned truck was found. The Dane County Sheriff's Office said it is investigating an armed robbery at the Bank of Deerfield on Shaul Lane the night of October 27, in which a gunman restrained two employees and fled with cash and a stolen Lincoln MKZ, later found abandoned nearby. The sheriff's office is asking residents along several rural roads near the bank for trail-camera or dash-camera footage from October 26 and 27, and said its detectives are working the case with the FBI.

The TBI has said only that it is aware of the Wisconsin robbery and is examining any possible connection to Morley, without confirming one. The Dane County Sheriff's Office has likewise said it has not ruled him out as a suspect but has declined to release surveillance images or a suspect description while the investigation continues.

Who Morley is, and the case that put him away

Morley was convicted in Carter County of first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and related charges in the killing of Cody Birchfield, a coworker who was reported missing from Elizabethton in February 2022. Investigators found Birchfield's body hidden beneath Morley's residence weeks later. He was taken into custody after a police pursuit that ended near the North Carolina state line. He is serving his sentence with the possibility of parole.

His escape was the second from Tennessee Department of Correction custody in less than a week, following an earlier breakout that ended in a recapture within hours, prison officials said. The department canceled visitation over the weekend at three facilities, including Northwest Correctional Complex, as a security precaution.

Communities on alert across three states

The search has touched rural Lake County, Tennessee, where the Hornbeak Fire Department logged the last confirmed sighting of the stolen truck; Williamson County, Illinois, where investigators spent days combing the area around Marion after the truck surfaced; and now Dane County, Wisconsin, where the sheriff's office has asked residents near the Bank of Deerfield to check outbuildings and report anything unusual. The TBI has repeated similar guidance for Tennessee residents, urging people to check vacation homes, barns, sheds and on elderly or isolated neighbors, and warning that Morley should be considered dangerous.

Local businesses along the suspected escape corridor, including the farm whose truck was taken and the Deerfield bank now working to reassure customers after the robbery, have found themselves pulled into a fast-moving investigation that officials acknowledge remains unresolved.

"He's a monster. He will do it again."

That warning, attributed to friends of Birchfield in local reporting on the case, has circulated alongside the TBI's own description of Morley as armed and dangerous. A U.S. Marshals Service representative involved in the search has told reporters that catching Morley is an urgent priority regardless of how long it takes, noting that his sentence does not expire while he remains free.

What happens next

As of Friday afternoon, Morley's location remained unknown, and no arrest had been announced in either the escape or the Wisconsin robbery. The Tennessee Department of Correction said it continues to coordinate with local, state and federal law enforcement, and the Dane County Sheriff's Office said its detectives are still reviewing camera footage collected from residents along the roads near the bank. Tennessee authorities are asking anyone with information to call the TBI tip line rather than approach Morley directly, and Wisconsin investigators are routing tips through Madison Area Crime Stoppers. Both the prison escape and the bank robbery remain open investigations, and officials in both states say the inquiry into any link between the two is ongoing.