Authorities in Alabama have said that a correctional officer who disappeared with an inmate on Friday share a “special relationship”.
Vicky White, 56, an assistant director of corrections for the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office, vanished with inmate Casey Cole White, 38, on their way to a non-existent court appearance last Friday.
“Investigators received information from inmates at the Lauderdale County Detention Center over the weekend that there was a special relationship between Director White and inmate Casey White. That relationship has now been confirmed through our investigation by independent sources and means,” the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to news outlets on Tuesday.
The sheriff’s office did not elaborate on the nature of that relationship.
In a statement the US Marshals Service also said on Tuesday that authorities believe the officer helped the inmate escape.
The US Marshal service said that a warrant has been issued for Ms White, “charging her with permitting or facilitating escape in the first degree in connection with capital murder suspect Casey White’s escape from jail,” the statement said.
In addition, the US Marshals Service has also offered up to $10,000 for information leading to the capture of the escaped inmate from Lauderdale County Jail and up to $5,000 for the correctional officer.
On Monday Sheriff Rick Singleton had said at a news conference that officials had obtained a video showing the pair leaving the jail in a patrol car on Friday morning.
Ms White, who was decribed as an “exemplary employee” with an “unblemished record”, had been with the sheriff’s office for two decades.
Just days before the pair vanished, Ms White sold her home and filed for retirement.
The US Marshal Service has stated that the Whites are not related.
White is currently serving a 75-year sentence for a 2015 crime spree across two states where he shot one person and held six at gunpoint.
He was also charged with capital murder in September 2020 in the brutal stabbing of 58-year-old Connie Ridgeway.
