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Alabama Jailbreak

Cars, cash, wigs and guns: How the Alabama jailbreak came to a deadly end
By Faith Karimi, CNN
Updated 12:21 PM ET, Fri May 13, 2022

(CNN)The chaotic 11-day escape started with a simple lie.

Around 9:30 a.m. on April 29, Vicky White, a 5-foot-5 blonde woman with a waddling gait, was working her last day on the job as an assistant director of corrections in Lauderdale County, Alabama.
She ordered her subordinates to prepare Casey White, 38, for transport from the county jail in Florence to a courthouse for a mental evaluation. But no such evaluation was scheduled.

Cameras inside the jail captured what turned out to be the beginning of the final, deadly chapter of 56-year-old Vicky White's life. Dressed in a black jacket and black pants, she nonchalantly held the door open as a handcuffed and shackled Casey White emerged. The 6-foot-9 inmate in an orange prison outfit that partially covered his White supremacist tattoos shuffled to the back seat of the patrol cruiser. Vicky White whisked him away.

And so began a flight from justice that spanned at least three states, grabbed national attention and left Vicky White's colleagues stunned. It ended Monday evening in Evansville, Indiana, with Casey White in custody, Vicky White dead and authorities trying to unravel the mystery of how -- and why -- it happened.
"All of her co-workers are devastated. She was a model employee," Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said. "What in the world possessed her to pull a stunt like this? The only conclusion I guess we can come to at this point is just a jailhouse romance."
They ditched the sheriff's cruiser minutes from the jail
After nearly two decades with the department, Vicky White didn't spend her last day on the job eating cake and hugging her coworkers to celebrate her retirement. Instead, she was on the run with a criminal who was already serving 75 years in prison for attempted murder and awaiting trial on a separate murder charge.

Shortly after the pair escaped, authorities began to uncover a laundry list of evasions and fabrications.
Transporting an incarcerated person alone was against protocol. So Vicky White told a booking officer she was the only deputy available with a certified firearm to transport Casey White. Her coworkers didn't question her because of her position as second-in-command at the jail. It was also a plausible explanation -- several deputies had left minutes earlier with two vans transporting a dozen inmates, Singleton said.
That was likely part of the plan.
"She scheduled the van transport that morning, made sure all the other armed deputies were out of the building and tied up in court ... knew the booking officer wouldn't question her when she told her she was going to take him to court and drop him off with other employees," Singleton said.

Just 10 minutes after leaving the jail, the pair ditched the sheriff's cruiser -- with Vicky White's jail keys, radio and handcuffs still inside -- at a shopping center parking lot in Florence.
Casey White failed to return to the detention center that afternoon, and repeated calls to Vicky White's phone went to voicemail. By then, the couple had fled in a copper-colored Ford SUV that Vicky White had purchased using an alias a few days prior. She'd parked it at the shopping center the night before the escape, Singleton said.
It was parked in a section used for cars for sale, which helped investigators identify it as the vehicle they were hunting. "We had a witness who saw it there because he was looking at the car for sale but noticed that it didn't have a for sale sign and thought it was unusual," Singleton said. "When news broke that her patrol car was found there, he called in and said, 'Hey, I saw this car out there.'"

It was the second of four cars that would help provide a road map of where the fugitives were during the intense manhunt.
She bought men's clothes and shopped at an adult store
In the 11 days they were on the run, they made it 280 miles away from Florence. They had tens of thousands of dollars in cash. They used the new clothes, wigs and several vehicles to throw investigators off their trail.
As authorities worked to track them down, they wondered how a respected law enforcement colleague got entangled with a violent criminal. Why did an employee with an exemplary work record risk her life, pension and a sterling reputation to help a dangerous inmate? How long had they planned their jailbreak?
Casey White and Vicky White
Casey White and Vicky White
"A lot of the questions we had may never be answered now," Singleton said.