An Alabama inmate who escaped from prison last year with the help of a female jailer has pleaded guilty to escaping in exchange for murder charges being dropped for the death of the jailer.
Casey White, pleaded guilty to first-degree escaping as part of a plea deal to drop the felony murder charge he faced for his jailer girlfriend Vicky White’s (no relation) death. Vicky shot herself as police were closing in on the pair following an 11-day nationwide manhunt.
Accepting the plea deal means Casey would receive the maximum sentence of life in prison, Chief Assistant District Attorney Angie Hamilton told The New York Post.
The plea deal was reportedly hastily agreed to when Casey appeared at the courthouse on Thursday, the Post reported. He was only in court for a status hearing, but after defense presented a possible resolution to prosecutors, the district attorney’s office received a blessing to accept the deal from Vicky’s family.
“The White family is relieved that this is almost over and behind them so they’re very satisfied with it,” Hamilton told the Post.
Vicky and Casey first met in 2020 when Casey was taken to Lauderdale County, Alabama’s detention center on murder charges for the 2015 stabbing death of a 59-year-old woman before being taken back to a different prison. Vicky and Casey apparently talked over the phone over the next two years and formed a “special relationship” when he was returned to the Lauderdale detention center in 2022.
Before the escape, Vicky was considered an exemplary employee and had worked as a prison official without incident for 17 years. She had turned in her retirement papers, and on her last day, April 29, 2022, she told coworkers she was taking Casey to a mental health evaluation, but the two ran off together instead.
Investigators later discovered that shortly before running off with Casey, Vicky sold her home for about $95,000, even though it had a market value of about $235,000. She then withdrew $90,000 from various banks before the two fled. They used the money to buy clothes, wigs, and hotel rooms, and to obtain various vehicles in order to evade police.
Police were already tracking an orange Ford Edge Vicky purchased prior to their escape. That vehicle was towed in Williamson County, Tennessee. They then drove a Ford F-150 to a car wash in Evansville, Indiana, where they abandoned it. Car wash surveillance video showed a man believed to be Casey with the truck. That video then showed the suspects leaving in a Cadillac.
A police officer saw the Cadillac at a motel and police began surveilling the vehicle. Vicky and Casey got in the car and police pursued, eventually ramming the vehicle and flipping it into a ditch.
Vicky apparently started yelling at Casey, telling him to get them “back to the f***ing hotel” and that the airbags would “go off and kill” them. Casey was taken into custody and Vicky was found with what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She died later that day.
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