An 11-day search for a fugitive murder suspect and the Alabama corrections officer accused of helping him escape ended Monday with the suspect in custody and the former officer dead after shooting herself.
Vanderburgh County, Ind., Coroner Steve Lockyear said Monday night that Vicky White died at the hospital shortly after 7 p.m. An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday, he said, and his office is investigating the death with law enforcement.
“We got a dangerous man off the street today,” Singleton said of Casey White at a news conference. “He is never going to see the light of day again.”
Vicky White, 56, cited a nonexistent courthouse appointment on April 29 while taking Casey White out of the county jail, authorities have said. The two are not related, but investigators came to believe that they were romantically involved and that Vicky White aided the escape — which Singleton said was planned.
Local, state and federal law enforcers had spent more than a week searching for the fugitives. Casey White was facing murder charges and serving a 75-year sentence for convictions on counts that include attempted murder and kidnapping. Within days, the Marshals Service had offered up to $10,000 for information leading to Casey White’s capture and warned that the 38-year-old posed a serious threat to the public.
Law enforcement zeroed in on the Whites on Monday after a local police officer spotted their car, Vanderburgh County, Ind., Sheriff Dave Wedding said at a news conference. Vicky White shot herself as members of a U.S. Marshals Service task force hit the pair’s vehicle to end the pursuit, and the former corrections official was taken to a hospital in “pretty serious shape.”
Casey White “seems to be okay,” Wedding said.
Casey White will return to Lauderdale County for arraignment on a new charge of escape, Singleton said.
The disappearance of both Whites last month sparked a massive search as colleagues of Vicky White expressed shock. “Our hope and prayer is that we get him before someone gets hurt,” Singleton said at a news conference in late April. He called Vicky White a well-regarded employee of 25 years who broke department policy by leaving the jail alone with a dangerous individual.
“It just came totally out of left field,” Singleton said in an interview Monday evening.
Casey White was sentenced to prison in 2019 for violent crimes committed one night in 2015, in Huntsville, Ala., NBC affiliate WAFF reported. White was convicted of trying to murder his then-girlfriend, killing her dog and kidnapping her roommates, among other charges, according to WAFF and AL.com.
In 2020, authorities charged White in another case from 2015: the stabbing death of Connie Ridgeway in Lauderdale County. They said White confessed to the killing from prison. He eventually pleaded not guilty because of insanity and tried to escape county custody, WAFF reported. “We got information yesterday that he had made a shank and he intended to escape today and take a hostage,” Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly said at the time.
Casey White was awaiting trial in county jail when he made it out with Vicky White’s help, officials said.
The pair left the jail at 9:41 a.m., officials said. The sheriff said Vicky White told a booking officer that Casey White, who is 6-foot-9 and 260 pounds, had a mental health evaluation at the nearby courthouse and that she would drop him off before going to get medical treatment because she wasn’t feeling well.
By Friday afternoon, the sheriff said, staffers were struggling to reach Vicky White. Calls went straight to voice mail. Officials determined that Casey White had no morning appointment and that Vicky White escorted him alone.
Vicky White was “supposed to retire” that day, according to the Marshals Service, and had sold her home a month prior.
The Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office said Vicky White was no longer an employee prior to her death.
