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Escaped Inmate, Jail Official had ‘Special Relationship’
An escaped Alabama inmate had a “special relationship” with the jail official authorities believe assisted in his escape, a sheriff’s office said Tuesday.
A manhunt was underway for Casey White, who was awaiting trial on a capital murder case, and Vicky White, a jail official, after the pair vanished after leaving the Lauderdale County Detention Center on Friday morning. The two are not related, authorities said.
“Investigators received information from inmates at the Lauderdale County Detention Center over the weekend that there was a special relationship between Director White and inmate Casey White. That relationship has now been confirmed through our investigation by independent sources and means,” the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to news outlets. The office did not elaborate on the nature of that relationship.
On Friday morning, Vicky White, 56, told coworkers the 38-year-old inmate needed to go to the courthouse for a mental health evaluation. She was escorting the inmate alone, which the sheriff said is a violation of department policy. That afternoon, when she was not answering the phone, authorities discovered the two were missing, and no such evaluation had been scheduled. Her patrol car was found abandoned in the parking lot of a shopping center.
A warrant was issued Monday for Vicky White’s arrest on charges of assisting in an escape.
“The subjects should be considered dangerous and may be armed with an AR-15 rifle, handguns and a shotgun,” the Marshals Service said in the bulletin.