00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: It is Friday, October 30th, and we have an escaped convict. He's on the loose. No, not that one everybody's been looking for for the past week. There is another convict on the loose, and he had a much more violent escape. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. The first one was in. What's going on in In Tennessee and Arkansas, they're having some problems holding on to their convicts right now.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is an active manhunt in Arkansas. We're talking about 41-year-old Rodney Smith. And he took advantage of a situation, I guess you could say. But as you pointed out, it was a violent way out of custody. He's been in prison since 2013. Firearms possession, drug possessions.
00:01:02
Speaker 2: And now.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: He's got a taser on him.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Not supposed to be a deadly weapon, but they are certainly telling folks, if you come across him, don't challenge him. He's a big boy, too. What is he, 5'10, 260, something like that? Dude's about my height and got 100 pounds on me almost. So I don't know how fast he's running, but he, at this moment, has been able to evade police, robes. We talked about this with the guy in Tennessee and how so many escapes don't involve violence. This guy, however, sounds like he fought his way out, and it sounds like Robes, he might have been willing to kill to get his way out.
00:01:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, he seemed pretty desperate. This happened around 7 o'clock in the morning yesterday, and it was described as, him assaulting a jailer, assaulting a police officer, basically beating two prison guards up, so to speak. Did you get any sense of the condition of those officers?
00:02:05
Speaker 2: I have not heard. Well, you know what? I should say no, but I didn't get the impression they were, I don't know, life-threatening injuries.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: But you'd want to at least believe, I would imagine the guard and the police officer would want it to at least look as though they were Pretty incapacitated to be able to allow him to get one of their tasers off of them. Thank God he didn't get a gun off of the police officer, I guess.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: Well, at the same time, you wouldn't want to be embarrassed that you guys asked what by a prisoner either. An armed guard couldn't handle an unarmed prisoner.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: There are questions. Yeah, you make a good point. One of them, they had a gun and a taser. I would imagine the police officer did. I don't know what jailers or guards have, but if you are now in charge of a prisoner who was in the city jail awaiting bed space at a state prison, so overcrowded prisons, this actually, that that situation led to this escape, but that is hard to get your head around. How was he able to overtake not one, but two seemingly armed prison officials?
00:03:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody's going to get fired because no matter what, this isn't supposed to happen. There should be protocols in place that are supposed to absolutely prevent this from ever taking place. Now, can make the argument he just overpowered them he was too big for them he caught them off guard and all these things this just you cannot have a guy literally walk out of a city jail and again this is a smaller spot this doesn't this isn't the high security spot he might have supposed to have been in yeah.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you well yes in this spot he was in um was uh not in a an official prison but in a i guess i don't know what the difference in security is between where he was being held and where he was supposed to eventually be incarcerated. But you know this area of Arkansas, and look, he fled. This is also kind of wild. He had on his prison jumpsuit. He had on a white T-shirt. They said he had on socks, but they made a point to say he didn't have shoes on, and he fled on foot. Give us a sense of this terrain. He was last seen walking along a railroad track, but where could he go in this neck of the woods, so to speak?
00:04:21
Speaker 2: Rural as hell. There's a bunch of spots out there to hide out. It's right off the highway. Brinkley is between Memphis and Little Rock, essentially, along I-40, that highway. And there's just, yeah, it's a highway that cuts through. But to the left and the right, you see fields and forests. So, yeah, he's got space. He's got some rural space to roam.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Obviously, as we mentioned, he has a taser on him. But he's going to need food. He's going to need shelter. And I would imagine he'd need to have some help along the way.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: This was what, guns and drug possession? This guy probably knows how to procure whatever items he might need, and he would seemingly be pretty violent in doing it. This is a guy who, yeah, to your point, he's going to need help. He is going to be looking for it. He's not going to have a lot of options. And, babe, to think, I mean, does he know that area? Where is he from in the state? Does he have help in that area? Is he trying to get back to home? Is he just trying to get the hell out of there? I don't know. But yeah, food and water is going to be real necessary real soon.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: Yes. And you mentioned 5'10, big guy, 260. But they've given out his description, short black hair, brown eyes, but multiple tattoos on both arms, including his upper left arm, his back, his neck. This guy is tatted up. My point being in saying all of that, he seems like he'd be pretty identifiable. And right now, Arkansas police are obviously flooding the airwaves and online with his description, his photo, to try and make sure anyone who sees him would immediately notify police and not obviously approach him in any way. But I just wonder how long. I'm shocked, to be honest. It's been, as of this recording, more than 24 hours since his escape, and I have not seen anywhere that there has been a sighting of him. Again, we keep talking about these flock cameras being taken down. These are the moments where you kind of wish they were up.
00:06:15
Speaker 2: But how mobile is this guy? He needs to get shoes on if he's out there.
00:06:20
Speaker 1: Right?
00:06:20
Speaker 2: They said he didn't have on shoes.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: He has no shoes on. He is literally in his socks.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: He needs to get shoes on. The weather's not terrible there yet, but it is cold at night. He's going to need some shelter. And look, he ain't in the best of health. This is a big dude. He's hungry. He probably can't run a half marathon kind of shape. How is he? Like, what is he up to? So I'm curious. I don't know where he is from, actually, in the state. So is he in an area of the state that he knows? He knows well. People might know him. Is he communicating with somebody yet? Surely they're monitoring all his friends and family at this point. Man, these manhunts are fascinating.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: They certainly are. And just to know that he's not armed with shoes, but armed with a weapon, and as you pointed out, likely to be able to procure another one. But think about this. He has been in prison since 2013. I, that, you know, I try to get my head around that. He's been behind bars for 13 years, unclear how long, how much longer he had in his sentence, but with drug and firearms possessions, I felt like a 13 year sentence is longer than some murderers serve. That's longer than some rapists serve. That's longer than a lot of folks serve. I was kind of perplexed at the fact that he would escape after 13 years of being behind bars. How much longer is, Did he have on his sentence where he felt like he needed to escape?
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Didn't want to ride it out? Or maybe he just saw an opportunity. He was in a place. I don't know when. Have they announced when his transfer was supposed to be? He was waiting to go to a different prison, a state prison. Maybe his time was running out. Maybe he knew this was an opportunity at a smaller jail in Brinkley, Arkansas.
00:07:59
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, it's hard to imagine though, where maybe he was concerned about where he was headed. Maybe he knew somebody was in that prison waiting for him. There's a lot of stuff that goes on behind bars that we don't have an idea because it doesn't make a lot of sense because obviously this escape and assaulting a prison guard and a police officer and stealing a weapon, this dude's never getting out of prison after that. If he had charges against him and convictions against him already, This is basically sealing his fate when and if he's ever captured that he's probably never going to leave prison ever. It's just to make that calculation to say, ooh, I see an opportunity. But if I get caught and if statistics hold up in this case, he's going to be. Why would you? Yes. Why would you risk never, ever being released from prison? Because that's where I was. My head went. He wasn't on a murder charge. He wasn't there. He wasn't a lifer. Why would you risk becoming a lifer?
00:08:56
Speaker 2: It was worth it. Something about this made it worth it to him. I mean, if he spent 13 years or whatever it is in prison, if you got another five, if you got another 10, that's a long time. Well, he's still 41.
00:09:08
Speaker 1: He's 41, so he's been behind bars since he was in his 20s. And I don't know what that does to a person and what his experiences have been like. And maybe it's just so damn awful. where he was going or where he came from, that it was worth risking being there for the rest of his life to have a shot at freedom. I don't know what goes through these prisoners' minds. I can't even think of a story where this ends well for the prisoner.
00:09:37
Speaker 2: Let me think of one. Let me think of a guy who escaped and we just forever never knew what happened to him.
00:09:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, has anyone escaped prison and then never to be heard from again? I feel like sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it takes months. The New Orleans breakout, that last holdout, the most violent of them all, who was a convicted, I think, double murderer, he did last for.
00:10:00
Speaker 2: Two months one several.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: Months, but still okay, but still he's back behind bars now He had a murder conviction a double murder conviction, I believe so I understand why he had nothing to lose this guy I would imagine had an end date and he just sealed his fate and When he gets caught.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Okay. In his mind, he didn't seal his fate. He just got freedom. In his mind, he is going to be out of prison now forever. He has to think that. And yes, criminals don't ever think they're going to get caught in the first place. So, this makes sense.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: That's the mindset of a criminal. When they commit their crimes, they think they're going to get away with it and just... the idea that they could be among the very few who have never been found. I actually was just Googling how many. And yes, there have been some dying under assumed names or disappearing under mysterious circumstances. But literally, I think I see five or six being named, and that's it. So it's exceptionally rare. And I guess the thought that somebody would take that chance when they do have a release date eventually is kind of mind-blowing to me. All right, well, when we come back, it's not that shocking because there, yes, is another prisoner on the run, this one out of Tennessee. We've been talking about it, 28-year-old Jacob Morley. Yeah, he truly did have nothing to lose because he was a lifer, and he's still on the run. We'll keep you updated on that situation when we come back. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. We are talking about an active manhunt going on in Arkansas right now. 41-year-old Rodney Smith was able to beat up not one but two police officers, one a prison guard, one a police officer, I believe, as he was awaiting a permanent residence at a nearby prison. And he grabbed a taser. He's on the run, considered armed and dangerous. And, yes, he's not the only one who is on the run. 28-year-old Jacob Morley broke in. out of a Tennessee prison on Sunday, and they still don't know where he is.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's going to be fascinating to figure out. This guy seems to be pretty resourceful. We know he's hundreds, at least was able to get hundreds of miles away from the prison because he went to Illinois, dropped off that truck, and I haven't seen any updates about where they are concentrating a search even this morning. And this dude is a murderer. He is serving life in prison.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: He has nothing to lose at all. And look, there are folks talking now about this particular prison that they were understaffed, underpaid. And now there is a report out that he may have had, Jacob Morley may have had a seven hour head start before prison guards were even aware that he was missing because apparently they did a check earlier in the evening and his cellmate said he was in the bathroom, and the prison guards took his word for it. Can you imagine that? How is that possible? He's in the bathroom?
00:13:12
Speaker 2: Cool. That person's going to get fired as well. Seven hours is an eternity. That's an insane amount of time to be behind and trying to play catch up. So by the time he stole the truck, they didn't even know he was gone.
00:13:28
Speaker 1: Correct.
00:13:28
Speaker 2: So we say seven hours, and five of those, he might have been in a vehicle.
00:13:34
Speaker 1: Uh, yes. And by the way, according to sources, police weren't even notified that he was missing until 6 a.m. And that is when they started going through surveillance cameras. And that is when they finally realized that, oh, yeah, around 1 a.m., he was able to get this car. He had to walk two miles. That'll take you a while, but he obviously didn't have a direct beeline to this car. We were talking about this earlier. He wouldn't have necessarily known where he was going to find a waiting vehicle for him that he was able to either hotwire or had keys in it.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Nobody's that lucky. That is the one detail that makes me feel like there was some planning involved in this, and I don't know about help, but you're just walking out of a prison cell And you're walking what direction? And you just happen upon a vehicle that has the keys in it. Now, you're the luckiest dude in the world, or did he know exactly where the hell he was going? And if he did, he'd walk along a road. I mean, he had no way to know what direction he was going. He didn't have a device on him.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: Man. There are so many things that you pointed out had to go right, and it's hard to imagine that that just happened. amounts to luck if not planning. And so yeah, to now know, it makes a little bit more sense how he was able to do what he did unnoticed, get a car and drive as far as Illinois. It's like, what, 130 miles where they last found the car near a wooded national park. And they have warned residents, but they have no idea where he is right now. And that is deeply concerning to folks who live in that area. But at this point, he could be anywhere. And his Victim's family obviously upset because not only were police not made aware until 6 a.m., the family of his murder victim claim the sheriff, nobody, nada, called them to even let them know that this man was on the loose. There are a number of things that went wrong. There is going to be a lot of, well, there's going to be some investigations. And you're right, heads are going to roll. They have to.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: Oh, people are going to get fired if they haven't resigned. And they might resign ahead of time to not go through this. But no, you can't let a murderer, you just can't let them walk out of prison and get into a vehicle and drive into another state. You just, now, right, even other states are going to be pissed at you. Like you let this guy, a murderer is loose, possibly in Illinois, because y'all in Tennessee didn't do the right thing. That's no good. And most of the people are in, um, The victim's family. They're still in Tennessee, right?
00:16:07
Speaker 1: Correct. They're still in Tennessee.
00:16:08
Speaker 2: He was going north, at least initially. Don't know where he went after the truck.
00:16:13
Speaker 1: Well, there is some conversation that he could have gone to the state of Wyoming. There was a bank robbery.
00:16:20
Speaker 2: I thought it was Wisconsin.
00:16:21
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: Oh, Wisconsin, yeah.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: Was it Wisconsin? Oh, it was Wisconsin. My apologies. Oh, yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker 2: Now, they haven't given a lot of detail. Oh, yeah, that's a very, very big part of the story. They haven't given a lot of detail, but there was a bank robbery up there. A guy walked in armed, they said. And now they're taking a peek at that as possibly connected to this. How did he get to Wisconsin? What other vehicle is he possibly in? They didn't say how much this person got away with, but they are looking into it.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Yes. So, yes, what we have about this bank robbery, again, in Wisconsin, one of several W states. But, yes, they say this happened on Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Wisconsin, an armed robbery occurred. And yes, they said an undisclosed amount of cash, but they do know he drove off in a, or whoever the bank robber was, a Lincoln MKZ that he stole from the parking lot. So if this is Jacob Morley, he knows how to steal vehicles. It's, I hate to say impressive, but kind of impressive.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: Or he's just getting lucky and everybody leaves their keys in the car, like in the movies.
00:17:26
Speaker 1: Can you hotwire a newer vehicle?
00:17:28
Speaker 2: You can't hotwire a car anymore.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: No. No. No.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: How would he learn how to... No. MKZ? That has a fob to it. No. How did he get his hands on that?
00:17:38
Speaker 1: How is he doing this?
00:17:40
Speaker 2: This might not be him, we should say.
00:17:41
Speaker 1: How is that bank robber... If it's just a coincidence that a bank robber and the escaped inmate both are unbelievably adept at stealing cars at exactly the moment they need to, it's kind of remarkable. And to think that... This bank robbery is going on. The sheriff's office launches a drone, a canine unit. They know the vehicle. They can't find him. They found the vehicle abandoned on a road a short time later. But whoever robbed the bank, wherever Morley is, we don't know. But this is pretty remarkable at how far he has gone without any detection.
00:18:16
Speaker 2: That's the only detail about that bank robbery that makes me think it could be him. Because nobody goes and robs a bank without a getaway car already. You do not go to a bank and then look for a getaway vehicle. You just don't do it. This sounds like a desperate person who needed something in the moment. This does not sound like a planned out thing. That is the one thing that suggests this was something else.
00:18:45
Speaker 1: So if that was Jacob Morley, just saying it is, that would mean that he now has cash, a weapon... And we know he's pretty skilled at getting in and out of places undetected. Pretty remarkable. So we will keep our eye on these two manhunts that are going on.
00:19:03
Speaker 2: Head north. Where are they going? Are they going to Canada?
00:19:05
Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking. But Canada, we have extradition treaties in place.
00:19:10
Speaker 2: He should be heading south.
00:19:11
Speaker 1: Right. He should be going to Mexico or somewhere like Canada.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: I don't know.
00:19:15
Speaker 1: We have no idea where he's headed, nor do police. And so we will keep our eye on what's happening with Jacob Morley. What is it about trying to get over the border? Is it just that we, do they think that we just will stop caring?
00:19:29
Speaker 2: Well, we won't. They know that Canadian mounted beliefs are not going to put the same effort into finding him as United States forces. Whatever.
00:19:40
Speaker 1: U.S.
00:19:40
Speaker 2: Marshals. He knows that. But heading north, hey, it's cold, man. They're not going to look for me. The next thing that's going to get robbed is a Columbia store in Patagonia.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: He's going to need someone.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: Winter gear.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: It's that time of year. So, yes, the search is on for Rodney Smith. The search continues for Jacob Morley. And we'll stay on top of both stories for you, everyone. And with that, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: It is Friday, October 30th, and we have an escaped convict. He's on the loose. No, not that one everybody's been looking for for the past week. There is another convict on the loose, and he had a much more violent escape. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. The first one was in. What's going on in In Tennessee and Arkansas, they're having some problems holding on to their convicts right now.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is an active manhunt in Arkansas. We're talking about 41-year-old Rodney Smith. And he took advantage of a situation, I guess you could say. But as you pointed out, it was a violent way out of custody. He's been in prison since 2013. Firearms possession, drug possessions.
00:01:02
Speaker 2: And now.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: He's got a taser on him.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Not supposed to be a deadly weapon, but they are certainly telling folks, if you come across him, don't challenge him. He's a big boy, too. What is he, 5'10, 260, something like that? Dude's about my height and got 100 pounds on me almost. So I don't know how fast he's running, but he, at this moment, has been able to evade police, robes. We talked about this with the guy in Tennessee and how so many escapes don't involve violence. This guy, however, sounds like he fought his way out, and it sounds like Robes, he might have been willing to kill to get his way out.
00:01:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, he seemed pretty desperate. This happened around 7 o'clock in the morning yesterday, and it was described as, him assaulting a jailer, assaulting a police officer, basically beating two prison guards up, so to speak. Did you get any sense of the condition of those officers?
00:02:05
Speaker 2: I have not heard. Well, you know what? I should say no, but I didn't get the impression they were, I don't know, life-threatening injuries.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: But you'd want to at least believe, I would imagine the guard and the police officer would want it to at least look as though they were Pretty incapacitated to be able to allow him to get one of their tasers off of them. Thank God he didn't get a gun off of the police officer, I guess.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: Well, at the same time, you wouldn't want to be embarrassed that you guys asked what by a prisoner either. An armed guard couldn't handle an unarmed prisoner.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: There are questions. Yeah, you make a good point. One of them, they had a gun and a taser. I would imagine the police officer did. I don't know what jailers or guards have, but if you are now in charge of a prisoner who was in the city jail awaiting bed space at a state prison, so overcrowded prisons, this actually, that that situation led to this escape, but that is hard to get your head around. How was he able to overtake not one, but two seemingly armed prison officials?
00:03:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody's going to get fired because no matter what, this isn't supposed to happen. There should be protocols in place that are supposed to absolutely prevent this from ever taking place. Now, can make the argument he just overpowered them he was too big for them he caught them off guard and all these things this just you cannot have a guy literally walk out of a city jail and again this is a smaller spot this doesn't this isn't the high security spot he might have supposed to have been in yeah.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you well yes in this spot he was in um was uh not in a an official prison but in a i guess i don't know what the difference in security is between where he was being held and where he was supposed to eventually be incarcerated. But you know this area of Arkansas, and look, he fled. This is also kind of wild. He had on his prison jumpsuit. He had on a white T-shirt. They said he had on socks, but they made a point to say he didn't have shoes on, and he fled on foot. Give us a sense of this terrain. He was last seen walking along a railroad track, but where could he go in this neck of the woods, so to speak?
00:04:21
Speaker 2: Rural as hell. There's a bunch of spots out there to hide out. It's right off the highway. Brinkley is between Memphis and Little Rock, essentially, along I-40, that highway. And there's just, yeah, it's a highway that cuts through. But to the left and the right, you see fields and forests. So, yeah, he's got space. He's got some rural space to roam.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Obviously, as we mentioned, he has a taser on him. But he's going to need food. He's going to need shelter. And I would imagine he'd need to have some help along the way.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: This was what, guns and drug possession? This guy probably knows how to procure whatever items he might need, and he would seemingly be pretty violent in doing it. This is a guy who, yeah, to your point, he's going to need help. He is going to be looking for it. He's not going to have a lot of options. And, babe, to think, I mean, does he know that area? Where is he from in the state? Does he have help in that area? Is he trying to get back to home? Is he just trying to get the hell out of there? I don't know. But yeah, food and water is going to be real necessary real soon.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: Yes. And you mentioned 5'10, big guy, 260. But they've given out his description, short black hair, brown eyes, but multiple tattoos on both arms, including his upper left arm, his back, his neck. This guy is tatted up. My point being in saying all of that, he seems like he'd be pretty identifiable. And right now, Arkansas police are obviously flooding the airwaves and online with his description, his photo, to try and make sure anyone who sees him would immediately notify police and not obviously approach him in any way. But I just wonder how long. I'm shocked, to be honest. It's been, as of this recording, more than 24 hours since his escape, and I have not seen anywhere that there has been a sighting of him. Again, we keep talking about these flock cameras being taken down. These are the moments where you kind of wish they were up.
00:06:15
Speaker 2: But how mobile is this guy? He needs to get shoes on if he's out there.
00:06:20
Speaker 1: Right?
00:06:20
Speaker 2: They said he didn't have on shoes.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: He has no shoes on. He is literally in his socks.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: He needs to get shoes on. The weather's not terrible there yet, but it is cold at night. He's going to need some shelter. And look, he ain't in the best of health. This is a big dude. He's hungry. He probably can't run a half marathon kind of shape. How is he? Like, what is he up to? So I'm curious. I don't know where he is from, actually, in the state. So is he in an area of the state that he knows? He knows well. People might know him. Is he communicating with somebody yet? Surely they're monitoring all his friends and family at this point. Man, these manhunts are fascinating.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: They certainly are. And just to know that he's not armed with shoes, but armed with a weapon, and as you pointed out, likely to be able to procure another one. But think about this. He has been in prison since 2013. I, that, you know, I try to get my head around that. He's been behind bars for 13 years, unclear how long, how much longer he had in his sentence, but with drug and firearms possessions, I felt like a 13 year sentence is longer than some murderers serve. That's longer than some rapists serve. That's longer than a lot of folks serve. I was kind of perplexed at the fact that he would escape after 13 years of being behind bars. How much longer is, Did he have on his sentence where he felt like he needed to escape?
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Didn't want to ride it out? Or maybe he just saw an opportunity. He was in a place. I don't know when. Have they announced when his transfer was supposed to be? He was waiting to go to a different prison, a state prison. Maybe his time was running out. Maybe he knew this was an opportunity at a smaller jail in Brinkley, Arkansas.
00:07:59
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, it's hard to imagine though, where maybe he was concerned about where he was headed. Maybe he knew somebody was in that prison waiting for him. There's a lot of stuff that goes on behind bars that we don't have an idea because it doesn't make a lot of sense because obviously this escape and assaulting a prison guard and a police officer and stealing a weapon, this dude's never getting out of prison after that. If he had charges against him and convictions against him already, This is basically sealing his fate when and if he's ever captured that he's probably never going to leave prison ever. It's just to make that calculation to say, ooh, I see an opportunity. But if I get caught and if statistics hold up in this case, he's going to be. Why would you? Yes. Why would you risk never, ever being released from prison? Because that's where I was. My head went. He wasn't on a murder charge. He wasn't there. He wasn't a lifer. Why would you risk becoming a lifer?
00:08:56
Speaker 2: It was worth it. Something about this made it worth it to him. I mean, if he spent 13 years or whatever it is in prison, if you got another five, if you got another 10, that's a long time. Well, he's still 41.
00:09:08
Speaker 1: He's 41, so he's been behind bars since he was in his 20s. And I don't know what that does to a person and what his experiences have been like. And maybe it's just so damn awful. where he was going or where he came from, that it was worth risking being there for the rest of his life to have a shot at freedom. I don't know what goes through these prisoners' minds. I can't even think of a story where this ends well for the prisoner.
00:09:37
Speaker 2: Let me think of one. Let me think of a guy who escaped and we just forever never knew what happened to him.
00:09:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, has anyone escaped prison and then never to be heard from again? I feel like sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it takes months. The New Orleans breakout, that last holdout, the most violent of them all, who was a convicted, I think, double murderer, he did last for.
00:10:00
Speaker 2: Two months one several.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: Months, but still okay, but still he's back behind bars now He had a murder conviction a double murder conviction, I believe so I understand why he had nothing to lose this guy I would imagine had an end date and he just sealed his fate and When he gets caught.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Okay. In his mind, he didn't seal his fate. He just got freedom. In his mind, he is going to be out of prison now forever. He has to think that. And yes, criminals don't ever think they're going to get caught in the first place. So, this makes sense.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: That's the mindset of a criminal. When they commit their crimes, they think they're going to get away with it and just... the idea that they could be among the very few who have never been found. I actually was just Googling how many. And yes, there have been some dying under assumed names or disappearing under mysterious circumstances. But literally, I think I see five or six being named, and that's it. So it's exceptionally rare. And I guess the thought that somebody would take that chance when they do have a release date eventually is kind of mind-blowing to me. All right, well, when we come back, it's not that shocking because there, yes, is another prisoner on the run, this one out of Tennessee. We've been talking about it, 28-year-old Jacob Morley. Yeah, he truly did have nothing to lose because he was a lifer, and he's still on the run. We'll keep you updated on that situation when we come back. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. We are talking about an active manhunt going on in Arkansas right now. 41-year-old Rodney Smith was able to beat up not one but two police officers, one a prison guard, one a police officer, I believe, as he was awaiting a permanent residence at a nearby prison. And he grabbed a taser. He's on the run, considered armed and dangerous. And, yes, he's not the only one who is on the run. 28-year-old Jacob Morley broke in. out of a Tennessee prison on Sunday, and they still don't know where he is.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's going to be fascinating to figure out. This guy seems to be pretty resourceful. We know he's hundreds, at least was able to get hundreds of miles away from the prison because he went to Illinois, dropped off that truck, and I haven't seen any updates about where they are concentrating a search even this morning. And this dude is a murderer. He is serving life in prison.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: He has nothing to lose at all. And look, there are folks talking now about this particular prison that they were understaffed, underpaid. And now there is a report out that he may have had, Jacob Morley may have had a seven hour head start before prison guards were even aware that he was missing because apparently they did a check earlier in the evening and his cellmate said he was in the bathroom, and the prison guards took his word for it. Can you imagine that? How is that possible? He's in the bathroom?
00:13:12
Speaker 2: Cool. That person's going to get fired as well. Seven hours is an eternity. That's an insane amount of time to be behind and trying to play catch up. So by the time he stole the truck, they didn't even know he was gone.
00:13:28
Speaker 1: Correct.
00:13:28
Speaker 2: So we say seven hours, and five of those, he might have been in a vehicle.
00:13:34
Speaker 1: Uh, yes. And by the way, according to sources, police weren't even notified that he was missing until 6 a.m. And that is when they started going through surveillance cameras. And that is when they finally realized that, oh, yeah, around 1 a.m., he was able to get this car. He had to walk two miles. That'll take you a while, but he obviously didn't have a direct beeline to this car. We were talking about this earlier. He wouldn't have necessarily known where he was going to find a waiting vehicle for him that he was able to either hotwire or had keys in it.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Nobody's that lucky. That is the one detail that makes me feel like there was some planning involved in this, and I don't know about help, but you're just walking out of a prison cell And you're walking what direction? And you just happen upon a vehicle that has the keys in it. Now, you're the luckiest dude in the world, or did he know exactly where the hell he was going? And if he did, he'd walk along a road. I mean, he had no way to know what direction he was going. He didn't have a device on him.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: Man. There are so many things that you pointed out had to go right, and it's hard to imagine that that just happened. amounts to luck if not planning. And so yeah, to now know, it makes a little bit more sense how he was able to do what he did unnoticed, get a car and drive as far as Illinois. It's like, what, 130 miles where they last found the car near a wooded national park. And they have warned residents, but they have no idea where he is right now. And that is deeply concerning to folks who live in that area. But at this point, he could be anywhere. And his Victim's family obviously upset because not only were police not made aware until 6 a.m., the family of his murder victim claim the sheriff, nobody, nada, called them to even let them know that this man was on the loose. There are a number of things that went wrong. There is going to be a lot of, well, there's going to be some investigations. And you're right, heads are going to roll. They have to.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: Oh, people are going to get fired if they haven't resigned. And they might resign ahead of time to not go through this. But no, you can't let a murderer, you just can't let them walk out of prison and get into a vehicle and drive into another state. You just, now, right, even other states are going to be pissed at you. Like you let this guy, a murderer is loose, possibly in Illinois, because y'all in Tennessee didn't do the right thing. That's no good. And most of the people are in, um, The victim's family. They're still in Tennessee, right?
00:16:07
Speaker 1: Correct. They're still in Tennessee.
00:16:08
Speaker 2: He was going north, at least initially. Don't know where he went after the truck.
00:16:13
Speaker 1: Well, there is some conversation that he could have gone to the state of Wyoming. There was a bank robbery.
00:16:20
Speaker 2: I thought it was Wisconsin.
00:16:21
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: Oh, Wisconsin, yeah.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: Was it Wisconsin? Oh, it was Wisconsin. My apologies. Oh, yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker 2: Now, they haven't given a lot of detail. Oh, yeah, that's a very, very big part of the story. They haven't given a lot of detail, but there was a bank robbery up there. A guy walked in armed, they said. And now they're taking a peek at that as possibly connected to this. How did he get to Wisconsin? What other vehicle is he possibly in? They didn't say how much this person got away with, but they are looking into it.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Yes. So, yes, what we have about this bank robbery, again, in Wisconsin, one of several W states. But, yes, they say this happened on Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Wisconsin, an armed robbery occurred. And yes, they said an undisclosed amount of cash, but they do know he drove off in a, or whoever the bank robber was, a Lincoln MKZ that he stole from the parking lot. So if this is Jacob Morley, he knows how to steal vehicles. It's, I hate to say impressive, but kind of impressive.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: Or he's just getting lucky and everybody leaves their keys in the car, like in the movies.
00:17:26
Speaker 1: Can you hotwire a newer vehicle?
00:17:28
Speaker 2: You can't hotwire a car anymore.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: No. No. No.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: How would he learn how to... No. MKZ? That has a fob to it. No. How did he get his hands on that?
00:17:38
Speaker 1: How is he doing this?
00:17:40
Speaker 2: This might not be him, we should say.
00:17:41
Speaker 1: How is that bank robber... If it's just a coincidence that a bank robber and the escaped inmate both are unbelievably adept at stealing cars at exactly the moment they need to, it's kind of remarkable. And to think that... This bank robbery is going on. The sheriff's office launches a drone, a canine unit. They know the vehicle. They can't find him. They found the vehicle abandoned on a road a short time later. But whoever robbed the bank, wherever Morley is, we don't know. But this is pretty remarkable at how far he has gone without any detection.
00:18:16
Speaker 2: That's the only detail about that bank robbery that makes me think it could be him. Because nobody goes and robs a bank without a getaway car already. You do not go to a bank and then look for a getaway vehicle. You just don't do it. This sounds like a desperate person who needed something in the moment. This does not sound like a planned out thing. That is the one thing that suggests this was something else.
00:18:45
Speaker 1: So if that was Jacob Morley, just saying it is, that would mean that he now has cash, a weapon... And we know he's pretty skilled at getting in and out of places undetected. Pretty remarkable. So we will keep our eye on these two manhunts that are going on.
00:19:03
Speaker 2: Head north. Where are they going? Are they going to Canada?
00:19:05
Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking. But Canada, we have extradition treaties in place.
00:19:10
Speaker 2: He should be heading south.
00:19:11
Speaker 1: Right. He should be going to Mexico or somewhere like Canada.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: I don't know.
00:19:15
Speaker 1: We have no idea where he's headed, nor do police. And so we will keep our eye on what's happening with Jacob Morley. What is it about trying to get over the border? Is it just that we, do they think that we just will stop caring?
00:19:29
Speaker 2: Well, we won't. They know that Canadian mounted beliefs are not going to put the same effort into finding him as United States forces. Whatever.
00:19:40
Speaker 1: U.S.
00:19:40
Speaker 2: Marshals. He knows that. But heading north, hey, it's cold, man. They're not going to look for me. The next thing that's going to get robbed is a Columbia store in Patagonia.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: He's going to need someone.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: Winter gear.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: It's that time of year. So, yes, the search is on for Rodney Smith. The search continues for Jacob Morley. And we'll stay on top of both stories for you, everyone. And with that, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
