U.S. Marshals arrested a Tennessee man wanted on first-degree murder charges.
Wilquonta Haslyn Bailey, 29, was taken into custody in connection with a killing in Smyrna, Tennessee, according to a U.S. Marshals Middle Tennessee Task Force press release.
Bailey was wanted for allegedly killing Jaccarrio Vaugh, 26, on Cannon Drive in Smyrna. Smyrna Police Department found Vaugh’s dead body on April 19, 2022, the task force noted.
On Tuesday, law enforcement located Bailey on Elliot Williams Private Way in Gallatin and arrested him. He was arrested without incident and transported to the Rutherford County Jail, the task force said.
The General Sessions Court for the Town of Smyrna issued a warrant for Bailey’s arrest on August 20, 2025, the task force stated.
Earlier this month, the Smyrna Police Department requested assistance from the U.S. Marshals in help arresting Bailey, the task force said.
Besides a first-degree murder charge, Bailey has two open felonies and one misdemeanor from 2022, court documents show.
Bailey previously had four misdemeanor charges from 2019, but they were all dismissed, according to court records.
Compared to the national average, Smyrna has a much lower murder rate.
Smyrna’s murder rate is 1.7 per 100,000 people as of 2023, which is the latest available data for the town of 55,000 people. The national average in 2023 was 5.0 per 100,000 people.
This murder rate is much lower than that of Tennessee’s second-largest city, Memphis, which the FBI Director Kash Patel called “the homicide capital of America, per capita.”
In 2024, Memphis had a murder rate of 40.6 murders per 100,000 people.
To help the city reduce its crime rate, the Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF) was started in September. The task force has arrested over 6,000 people since its inception.
Forty percent of the arrests have been for felony charges, according to MSTF data.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com.
Photo “U.S. Marshals” by Office of Public Affairs. CC BY 2.0.
