An Alabama correctional officer for 25 years disappeared Friday along with an inmate charged with murder.
Sheriff Rick Singleton told reporters at a news conference that Assistant Superintendent of Corrections Vicki White left the Lauderdale County Jail at 9:41 a.m. Friday. (The two whites are not related.) The officer told prison officials she was escorting White for a mental health assessment in court, Singleton said. No such review has ever been scheduled.
Singleton said Vicki White released the prisoner in court and told a reservationist she would seek medical attention. When the officer tried to contact her later that afternoon, her phone went straight to voicemail. That’s when prison officials registered that Casey White had yet to be returned to his cell, beginning a manhunt for both the criminal and correctional staff.
Casey White was charged with two counts of murder in September 2020 in the brutal stabbing of Connie Ridgeway, 58. White had served time on a 2015 crime case involving a home invasion, carjacking and police pursuit, according to local news stations. WHNT. He wrote a letter to rectify officials asking Lieutenant Brad Potts at the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office, to whom he confessed to the murder, and provide previously unpublished details. there. He was awaiting trial at the Lauderdale County Jail when he disappeared.
Singleton said Friday that the department is “still actively investigating and trying to figure out what happened” in the disappearance. Authorities are surveying the parking lot at a local shopping mall where Vicki White’s patrol car was found empty Friday morning, looking for video footage that could show a vehicle driving by. other escape. The department is also reviewing Casey White’s prison logs and phone calls for further clues. The FBI and other local law enforcement agencies are assisting with the search.
Authorities are also trying to distinguish whether there is a pre-existing relationship between the two whites. Singleton said Vicki White is an “exemplary employee” who has been voted supervisor of the year multiple times. “Every employee in this office is shocked to learn she is missing and this has happened,” he said. “We’re not believing.”
The department will continue to treat Vicki White’s disappearance as a kidnapping unless it finds compelling evidence that she helped the prisoner escape, Singleton said. Either way, he added, “I think she’s in danger under any circumstances.”
“[Casey White] was in prison for murder,” said Singleton. “He has nothing to lose.”
