SHERIFF: INMATE, JAILER WERE PREPARED FOR SHOOTOUT
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 was pronounced dead at a hospital, officials said.
Vanderburgh County Coroner Steve Lockyear said in an email that an autopsy was completed on White. The manner of death has been ruled a suicide.
Authorities are trying to piece together what happened during the 11 days that elapsed after Vicky White escorted Casey White from a Florence, Ala., jail for what she falsely claimed was a mental health evaluation.
The inmate and Vicky White appeared to have had a “jailhouse romance,” authorities said last week.
Casey White is serving a 75-year prison sentence for attempted murder and other offenses.
Investigators believe the pair spent about six days holed up at a motel in Evansville. Authorities discovered wigs intended to hide their identities.
Authorities closed in on them after the manager of a car wash reported that a man closely resembling the 6-foot-9, 260-pound Casey White had been recorded by a surveillance camera getting out of a pickup.
Investigators said they located the pickup, then learned that the pair might have switched to a Cadillac, which was then spotted outside a motel nearby. When the couple left the motel, police chased them down.