Missing Corrections Official Charged With Aiding Escape

Authorities say Casey White, Vicky White are both fugitives
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 2, 2022 5:02 PM CDT
Missing Corrections Official Charged With Aiding Escape
This combination of photos provided by the US Marshals Service and Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office in April 2022 shows Casey Cole White, left, and Assistant Director of Corrections Vicky White.   (U.S. Marshals Service, Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office via AP)

A search for an Alabama fugitive and the corrections official who claimed she was escorting him to a court hearing is now officially a search for two fugitives. A felony arrest warrant was issued Monday for Vicky White, the Lauderdale County assistant director of corrections, AL.com reports. Sheriff Rick Singleton said Vicky White has been charged with helping Casey Cole White, an inmate being held on capital murder charges, escape from the county detention center. The pair, who are not related, were not reported missing until about six hours after they left the jail Friday morning. Investigators believe Vicky White drove her patrol car to a shopping center, where the pair changed vehicles.

The sheriff said Sunday that evidence suggests Vicky White "was involved and participated in the escape." He said she told officials she was escorting Casey White to a mental health evaluation, but it later emerged that no such hearing was scheduled. "All of her co-workers are devastated," the sheriff tells CNN. "We've never had any situation like this with Vicky White. She was a model employee." He says there's no evidence that Vicky White had a "romantic relationship" with the inmate, although "it's a possibility."

Singleton says Vicky White, a widow with no children, recently sold her house and submitted retirement papers. Friday would have been her last day at work after 17 years with the department. Casey White, who was already serving 75 years for crimes including a 2015 home invasion, was transferred to the county detention center in February for hearings in the capital murder case. Vicky White is "definitely in danger, willingly or not. This guy's no one to mess with," the sheriff says. "He's 6-foot-9, weighs somewhere around 250 pounds," he says. "We're assuming he's armed because she was armed." (More Alabama stories.)

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