WASHINGTON –
It was about three hours after the Alabama sheriff’s office learned that a murder suspect and a senior prison official who had taken him in for a mental health assessment had disappeared when Sheriff Rick Singleton called in U.S. marshals.
Law enforcement officials initially believed the suspect, Casey White, may have abducted Vicki White, Lauderdale County Assistant Director of Corrections and a 17-year veteran of the sheriff’s office. (They were not married or related in any other way.) But they quickly realized that her cover-up story was false – the mental health assessment was fabricated – and persecution began.
US Marshal Marty Keeley has launched a regional task force for refugees on the Gulf Coast. The fugitive hunters took to the streets and quickly began to gather tracks.
Keeley’s account of the 11-day search, in an interview with the Associated Press, is the most detailed and comprehensive account to date of the U.S. Marshals Office’s investigation into a nationwide persecution that ended with the death of Vicki White, Casey White arrested again and law enforcement. authorities are trying to figure out how the escape could have happened.
The task force received its first information at the beginning of the investigation when a fellow prison official announced that Vicki White had called them and asked a colleague to pick her up at the Academy Sports + Outdoors store in Florence, Alabama. White said she had locked her keys in her car and needed transportation to work, Keeley said. The officer thought it was strange, they would tell the investigators later, but he wanted to help a friend.
In the parking lot of a sporting goods store, investigators found Vicki White’s patrol car, the same vehicle in which she left the sheriff’s office hours earlier in Casey White’s handcuffs in the back seat, according to Keeley. It was also the place where the video from surveillance showed that she had hidden an escape vehicle, an orange Ford Edge, which she had bought just days before the escape with a handful of money.
Investigators interviewed family members and colleagues, reviewed financial and other records, and learned from other inmates that Vicki White had a “special relationship” with Casey and the two were involved in a “prison romance,” officials said. Weeks before the escape, she sold her house for $ 95,000, far below market value, sold her car and applied for retirement, Keeley said. She had also bought an AR-15 rifle and a rifle to add to her 9mm service weapon and a .45-caliber pistol, investigators said she had.
Other clues emerged: she bought men’s clothing at a local Cole store and had also visited a sex toy store.
They also learned that Vicki White had left prison with Casey White before what investigators said was a flawless escape, two law enforcement officials told the AP. She released him from prison in about 40 minutes, officials said. Officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigation.
A large fugitive, a jailer and their orange car are wanted. But investigators had no idea that the duo had already left the state and was nearly 200 miles away.
The Marshals’ Office and the Sheriff’s Office received advice, but nothing came of it until a Tennessee tugboat driver called. He had towed a Ford Edge three or four days earlier and he was still in his towing yard, Keeley said.
Investigators from the task force rushed north to Williamson County, Tennessee. They had the right car, but the next question was, where are Vicki and Casey?
Authorities toured rural Tennessee for clues and showed pictures of Vicki and Casey. They found a home with several cars and a truck to sell the lawn, Keeley said. The owner immediately recognized a photo of Casey White and helped authorities assemble what happened. He told investigators he sold a Ford F-150 pickup to White for money. The truck did not have registration numbers, but White was not interested, the man told authorities.
“He says, ‘Yes, I sold him a truck,'” Keeley told the homeowner. “So we learned that he sold him a truck the same day they escaped from Lauderdale County Correctional Facility. And that was only a few hours after they escaped.
During the sale, a woman in an orange Ford stopped and the two set off, following each other, the man told authorities. And the owner of the house provided another clue – the vehicle identification number of the pickup or VIN, according to Keeley.
The two abandoned the Ford Edge and headed to Evansville, Indiana, where Casey White eventually abandoned the pickup truck in a car wash bay.
In Evansville, investigators say the two paid a homeless man to use his identity to rent a hotel room, paying in cash in advance for a 14-day stay. They lived under the alleged motel nickname and got a third car, a Cadillac sedan.
The car wash manager first spotted the abandoned pickup on Tuesday, May 3, and realized something was wrong when he was still there the next morning. He called the police and an officer came out, inspected the license plates, took a report and left. The car was not stolen and the local police could do nothing.
On Sunday there was a break because the employee wrote VIN in the protocol. Keeley’s team spotted him as they checked databases. The team of fugitives landed in Evansville, working with fellow deputy marshals in Indiana.
A video of an observation from the car wash showed a Cadillac. Investigators from the task force began touring motels and restaurant parking lots, Keeley said.
Eventually, they found the car at a local motel and placed it under surveillance. Vicki White soon appeared in a wig, along with Casey, 6 feet 9 feet tall, Keeley said. They jumped into the Cadillac and set off with the marshals secretly watching them, but the officers were spotted, according to Keeley.
The brief chase ended when police crashed the car. The Cadillac overturned and at one point Vicki White shot herself in the head, authorities said.
As officers pulled them out of the wreckage, Casey White exploded, “Please help my wife, she just shot herself in the head,” Keeley said. It was not clear why he named Vicki his wife. Investigators quickly handcuffed him and he began helping Vicky while medical teams arrived on the scene.
The pursuit was over. Indiana Sheriff’s Office officials said they had about $ 29,000 in cash, four pistols and an AR-15 rifle. Vicki White has been pronounced dead at the hospital, and Casey White was returned to Alabama on Tuesday night, where he is expected to face additional charges, in addition to the murder case and the 75-year sentence already serving for attempted murder and other charges. If convicted of murder, he could be sentenced to death.
He told investigators he was ready to have a shootout with police when he was arrested, officials said. Jamie Poss, a lawyer representing White in the murder case, declined to comment.
“This case was solved only with boots on the ground, good police work,” Keeley said.
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