An Alabama prison officer and an inmate who authorities say disappeared together were involved in a “romantic relationship”, a report alleges.
Speaking on Wednesday, Sheriff Rick Singleton said he believed 56-year-old Vicki White disappeared with an inmate from the Lauderdale County Detention Facility on Friday because she was involved in a “romantic relationship” with Casey Cole White, aged 39.
The Lauderdale County sheriff told CNN that authorities investigating the pair’s disappearance had discovered a “special relationship” between Ms White and White, who are not related.
Inmates at the detention facility told investigators White “was getting extra food on his trays”, Mr Singleton said, and “was getting privileges no one else got and this was all coming from her”.
On Monday, an arrest warrant was issued for both Ms White and White, with the FBI involved in the search for the pair.
“We consider both of them dangerous and, in all probability, both individuals are armed,” US Marshal Marty Keely added at a press conference the same day, noting that White was over six feet tall so was easily noticeable.
The Lauderdale County sheriff said shortly after the pair’s disappearance that Ms White, an assistant director of corrections, was last seen leaving the prison facility with White, who was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit.
A video showed that he was handcuffed, the sheriff said, although the pair’s disappearance was only realised almost six hours after they left the prison on Friday morning.
The two drove to a nearby shopping mall, CNN reported, where Ms White transferred both herself and White from a police vehicle to copper-coloured 2007 Ford Edge SUV.
Mr Singleton told a news conference he was also “aggressively investigating” how she was able to escort the capital murder suspect to a mental health evaluation hearing that did not exist, when they were alleged to have vanished together.
Neither did she follow department policy which says “any inmate with those kinds of charges to have two sworn deputies escort them. And that did not happen,” Mr Singleton said.
She was otherwise described as an “exemplary employee” of 16 years with an “unblemished record” by the sheriff.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press
