Lauderdale County Sheriff's Workplace
An Alabama corrections officer of 25 years disappeared Friday with an inmate charged with capital homicide.
Assistant Director of Corrections Vicki White left the Lauderdale County Jail jail at 9:41am Friday with inmate Casey White, Sheriff Rick Singleton instructed reporters at a press convention. (The 2 Whites should not associated.) The officer instructed jail officers she was escorting White to a psychological well being analysis on the courthouse, Singleton mentioned. No such analysis was ever scheduled.
Singleton mentioned Vicki White dropped the inmate off on the courthouse and instructed a reserving officer she was going to hunt medical consideration. When the officer tried to contact her later that afternoon, her telephone went straight to voicemail. That’s when jail officers registered that Casey White had not been returned to his cell, setting off a hunt for each the legal and the corrections officer.
Casey White was charged with two counts of capital homicide in September 2020 within the brutal stabbing of 58-year-old Connie Ridgeway. White was already serving time for a 2015 crime spree that concerned a house invasion, carjacking, and police chase, based on native information station WHNT. He wrote a letter to corrections officers asking for Lt. Brad Potts with the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Workplace, to whom he confessed concerning the homicide and offered beforehand unreleased particulars. He was awaiting trial on the Lauderdale County Jail when he disappeared.
Singleton mentioned Friday that the division was “nonetheless aggressively investigating and making an attempt to determine what occurred” within the disappearance. Authorities have been surveying the car parking zone at a neighborhood buying heart the place Vicki White’s patrol automotive was discovered empty on Friday morning, on the lookout for video footage that might reveal one other escape automobile. The division was additionally reviewing Casey White’s jail logs and telephone calls for added clues. The FBI and different native regulation enforcement companies are helping with the search.
Authorities have been additionally making an attempt to discern whether or not there was a preexisting relationship between the 2 Whites. Singleton mentioned Vicki White was an “exemplary worker” who had been voted supervisor of the 12 months on a number of events. “Each worker on this workplace is shocked that she’s lacking and this occurred,” he mentioned. “We’re in disbelief.”
The division would proceed treating Vicki White’s disappearance as a kidnapping except it discovered convincing proof that she had helped the inmate escape, Singleton mentioned. Both method, he added, “I believe she’s in peril regardless of the circumstances.”
“[Casey White] was in jail for capital homicide,” Singleton mentioned. “He has nothing to lose.”