Escaped Alabama inmate Casey White was prepared for a shootout with police before capture: sheriff
Casey White was ready for a gunfight.
The 38-year-old accused killer was recaptured alive Monday in Indiana after 11 days on the run with Vicky White, the Alabama corrections officer who helped him escape from jail, but authorities warned that it could have gone much worse had officers not managed to ram their getaway car.
“Had we not [hit the car], the fugitive was going to engage in a shootout with law enforcement,” Vanderburgh County, Ind., Sheriff Dave Wedding said at a news conference Tuesday.
“That action may have saved many of my deputies’ [and other officers’] lives.”
Investigators found at least four handguns, an AR-15 and about $29,000 in cash in the car Monday, Wedding said.
By the time police cleared the crash, Vicky White was unconscious from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and died later at the hospital.
“[Casey White] said he was probably going to have a shootout at the stake of both of them losing their lives,” Wedding said.
The pair were tracked to Evansville, Ind., Monday evening on a tip from a car wash attendant. Local police pursued the pair down the interstate before successfully ramming their car, causing it to crash and roll over, Wedding said at a news conference Monday.
As police closed in, Vicky White allegedly shot herself.
An official autopsy was expected Tuesday, but the initial reports from police were that the assistant director of corrections at the Lauderdale County, Ala., jail died by suicide.
Casey White suffered minor injuries and was immediately taken into custody. He is likely to face more charges for his prison break after being extradited to Alabama, which should be imminent after he waived his right to a hearing Tuesday. He appeared by video Tuesday in an Indiana courtroom.
He was already serving 75 years for a multistate crime spree while he awaited trial for the murder-for-hire stabbing death of a 58-year-old woman. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.
Vicky White, 56, checked him out of the Lauderdale County jail on April 29 to bring him to the courthouse for a mental health evaluation, she told deputies. Then, she said, she was taking the rest of the day because she felt sick.
Instead, the two took off, with a car registered under a fake name, several guns and cash from the sale of Vicky White’s house months earlier.
The pair had been hiding out in Evansville for a few days to “get their bearings straight and then figure out their next place to travel,” according to Wedding. They had a hotel booked for two weeks until their plans were foiled.
Vicky White and Casey White, who are not related, had a “jailhouse romance,” Alabama authorities said last week.
Investigators still have no idea why they decided to take off or how the corrections officer, described as an excellent employee, got involved with the accused killer in the first place.
“He was not forcing her. It was a mutual relationship,” Wedding said, about why she helped him to escape.
Vicky White had put in for retirement and April 29, the day of the breakout, was her last day of work.
Casey White’s mother, Connie Moore, told the AP that she spoke to her son by phone the day before he broke out of jail. “Everything was just as normal as it could be. I doubt he even knew he was leaving when she came in there to get him,” Moore said.
With News Wire Services
