Alabama escapee, jailer had $29,000, ready for shootout
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — A murder suspect and the jailer who helped him escape from an Alabama lockup were carrying $29,000 in cash, four handguns and an AR-15 rifle and were prepared for a shootout when they were captured, an Indiana sheriff said Tuesday.
Authorities caught up with the pair Monday, more than a week after the breakout and nearly 300 miles away, and rammed their car into a ditch after a brief chase. Escaped inmate Casey White, 38, surrendered, while jail official Vicky White, 56, was found with a gunshot wound to the head and died at a hospital, officials said.
Vanderburgh County Coroner Steve Lockyear said in an email to The Associated Press that an autopsy was completed. The manner of death has been ruled a suicide.
Authorities were trying to piece together what happened during the 11 days that elapsed after Vicky White escorted Casey White from a Florence, Alabama, jail for what she falsely claimed was a mental health evaluation.
The inmate and Vicky White appeared to have had a “jailhouse romance,” Alabama authorities said last week. They were not related.
As for her role in the escape, the sheriff said: “He was not forcing her. It was a mutual relationship.”
At the time of the breakout, Casey White was serving a 75-year prison sentence for attempted murder and other offenses and was awaiting trial on charges of stabbing a woman to death during a 2015 burglary. If convicted, he could get the death penalty.
Investigators believe the pair spent about six days at a motel in Evansville. Authorities discovered wigs intended to hide their identities. Wedding said investigators do not believe the two had relatives or other contacts in the city of 120,000.
“They thought they’d driven long enough. They wanted to stop for a while, get their bearings straight and then figure out the next place to travel,” the sheriff said.
Casey White told investigators after his capture that “he was probably going to have a shootout at the stake of both of them losing their lives,” the sheriff said.
White was brought back to the courthouse in Lauderdale County, Alabama, by police late Tuesday. Video showed him ignoring questions shouted by journalists.
A woman who worked with Vicky White for 16 years could barely speak through tears Tuesday.
“I know she did wrong and made a terrible mistake, but she’s still your friend,” longtime jail employee Sherry Sylvester said.