9th Judicial District Attorney General Russell Johnson issued the following press release on Friday, April 10, 2026:
TBI Predicated by District Attorney in recent MCCX Stabbing Death of Corrections Officer
After much consideration and consultation with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, as well as State Senator Ken Yager (who represents Morgan County), and Senators Tom Hatcher and Ed Jackson, who are the current Chair and immediate past Chair of the Corrections Oversight Committee in the Legislature, I have predicated the TBI to perform an investigation into the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the brutal stabbing death of Corrections Officer Dustin Pedigo in the late evening of February 24, 2026 while performing inmate cell door checks at Morgan County Correctional Complex, a Tennessee Department of Corrections facility.
Senator Yager brought some of these issues to the public’s attention during a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing with his questioning of TDOC Commissioner Frank Strada. One of the main issues is with the inmates’ ability to ‘jam’ the cell door locks so that they can effectively ‘spring’ them open. Commissioner Strada admitted in his testimony that TDOC has known about this issue since 2013, but TDOC has still not replaced the doors, or at least the locking mechanisms, in any of the MCCX inmate cells in the last thirteen years.
Additionally, it is apparent that TDOC has not undertaken precautionary efforts to provide secondary exterior locks or made the necessary additional efforts to ensure corrections officer safety. Yager also brought up other ‘red flags’ with the Commissioner relative and specific to the inmate that murdered Pedigo.
These are some of the issues that the predication to TBI has requested the agency to investigate while TDOC investigators carry on with the conclusion of the investigation into Pedigo’s death.
The next meeting of the Morgan County Grand Jury is May 26th.
END of RELEASE
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