Prison officers visit inmates in prison a few months before escaping

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An Alabama sheriff said Wednesday that a prison officer visited a murder suspect in prison before helping him escape last week and that his actions showed their plans had been in the works for some time.

“We have confirmed that there was a visit and there was communication between the two of them while he was in prison and he is still working here,” Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said.

He said prison visits showed the two had some kind of relationship possibly up to two years before escaping. The visit came after the inmate was transferred from the district prison in 2020 for his alleged escape attempt at the time and before he returned to the prison in February for trial in the ongoing murder case against him.

A national manhunt is under way for Casey White, who is awaiting trial for the massacre, and Vicky White, assistant director of corrections for the Lauderdale County prison, after the pair disappeared on Friday. Singleton said the ongoing contact spanned two years and that Vicky White’s actions, such as selling her home recently and buying a car for the holidays, indicated some prior planning.

The sheriff’s office said Tuesday that it determined there was a “special relationship” between the two, but Singleton added that they had no evidence at this time that it was a “physical or sexual relationship.” The two are not related despite sharing the same surname, authorities said.

“The inmates who reported to us on Saturday that they were in a relationship, their complaint was that he was getting special treatment. He got more food on his plate. He gets all the little things that don’t matter on the outside but are a big deal for the inmates,” he said.

Last Friday morning, Vicky White, 56, told coworkers that the 38-year-old inmate needed to go to the courthouse for a mental health evaluation. He was escorting the inmate alone, which the sheriff said was a violation of departmental policy. That afternoon, when he did not answer the phone, authorities found the two missing, and no such evaluation was scheduled. His patrol car was found abandoned in the parking lot of a shopping mall.

The sheriff said Vicky White had been talking about retiring for three or four months, and had suddenly filed his paperwork recently. Singleton said authorities later discovered he had purchased a 2007 Ford Edge and parked it Thursday night at the same shopping center where he apparently left the patrol car.

“There’s no question that it requires some planning and some coordination,” he said. “My hunch is that it has been going on for a while.”

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He said authorities hoped to locate the vehicle and determine the direction of the couple’s journey.

Authorities said Casey White, who is 6 feet, 9 inches (about 2 meters), should be recognized by his size. “Now, he is a master of disguise. He can change his appearance, but the one thing he can’t change is he’s six feet nine inches tall,” the sheriff said.

Authorities warned that anyone who saw the couple should not approach them but to call law enforcement.

Family members and colleagues say they are confused by the involvement of Vicky White, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 16 years, with the inmate who is already serving 75 years in prison for attempted murder and other crimes.

“I can’t imagine Vicky running away with that man,” her former mother-in-law, Frances White, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The sheriff said he was shocked by his former employee’s actions.

“Vicky White would be one of the last people in the world I think would do something like this,” Singleton said.