A MURDER SUSPECT and a prison officer who helped him escape from jail were armed and prepared for a shoot-out when they were captured.
Vicky White, a 56 year old prison official, was bringing Casey White, a 38 year old man awaiting charges for attempted murder, to a mental health evaluation when the pair absconded on April 29th.
They were sighted yesterday evening in the state of Indiana and Casey White was apprehended after a brief car chase with authorities.
Vicky White was found dead in the fugitives’ Cadillac from a gunshot wound to the head, along with four handguns, an AR-15 rifle and $29,000 (€27,449) in cash.
NBC’s Today show reported that federal marshals said Casey White told officers at the scene: “Please help my wife. She just shot herself in the head and I didn’t do it.”
Her gunshot wound was ruled to be self-inflicted by local coroners, however the fugitives were not married or related.
Casey White told investigators after his capture “he was probably going to have a shoot-out at the stake of both of them losing their lives”.
At the time of his escape he was serving a 75 year sentence for attempted murder and awaiting charges for stabbing a woman to death during a burglary in 2015.
The pair appeared to have had a “jailhouse romance”, Alabama authorities said last week.
As for Vicky White’s role in the escape, the sheriff said: “He was not forcing her. It was a mutual relationship.”
Authorities in Alabama believe that Vicky White may have been planning the escape for some time, according to CNN.
She applied for retirement in advance of the escape and was on her final day of work as assistant director of corrections at the Lauderdale County jail when she took White from jail.
In recent months, she had bought a rifle and a shotgun and also was known to have a handgun, US Marshal Marty Keely said.
Vicky White also sold her house for about half its market value and bought an SUV weeks before taking Casey White to a mental health evaluation in a patrol car without a second officer accompanying them, which was against jail policy.
Casey White was returned to Alabama last night, having escaped 300 miles with the prison officer in 11 days.
At an arraignment yesterday he was charged with escape in the first degree, in addition to capital murder charges he already faces.
He was then transferred to the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama, a little more 100 miles south of Lauderdale County.
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