Morgan County Correctional Complex (MCCX) is a
maximum security prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
in
unincorporated Morgan County, near
Wartburg
The Wartburg () is a castle originally built in the Middle Ages. It is situated on a precipice of to the southwest of and overlooking the town of Eisenach, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It was the home of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the p ...
,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, operated by the
Tennessee Department of Correction
The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) is a United States Cabinet, Cabinet-level agency within the Tennessee state government responsible for the oversight of more than 20,000 convicted offenders in Tennessee's fourteen prisons, three of w ...
. It opened in 1980. An expansion completed in 2009 increased its capacity to 2,500 prisoners. The prison is accredited by the
American Correctional Association. The current warden is Mike Parris.
When the
Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex closed in June 2009, its functions and most inmates and staff were transferred to the Morgan County Correctional Complex.
[Todd South]
Bars closing on Brushy Mountain after 113 years
''Chattanooga Times Free Press'', April 5, 2009
Notable prisoners
*
Byron Looper
Byron (Low Tax) Looper (born Byron Anthony Looper; September 15, 1964 – June 26, 2013) was a Democratic turned Republican politician in Tennessee and convicted murderer. In order to advance his political career, he legally changed his midd ...
- murderer and former politician; was held at Morgan County at the time of his death in 2013.
*Perry March - former Nashville lawyer convicted in 2006 of
killing his wife ten years earlier; currently incarcerated at Morgan County.
* Brandon Vandenburg - rapist in
Vanderbilt rape case
*
Travis Reinking - perpetrator of the
Nashville Waffle House shooting
*
Steven Hugueley was sentenced to death in 2003 for stabbing a prison counselor at Hardeman County Correctional Center. He used a homemade knife, stabbing the counselor 36 times until the knife broke. Hugueley had killed before: his mother in 1986 and a prison inmate in 1992. He tried to take the life of another prisoner in 1998. He was found dead in 2021, days after the state requested an execution date for him.
References
External links
Buildings and structures in Morgan County, Tennessee
Prisons in Tennessee
Capital punishment in Tennessee
1980 establishments in Tennessee
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