THIS BLOG IS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER – SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES
News of this case started to break on the day it happened – April 29, 2022, a Friday. This all started in Lauderdale County, Alabama.
News articles said that Corrections Officer Vicky White had gone missing after transporting an inmate to court.
Vicky is 57 years old and Casey is 38.
Vicky had been working with the Sheriff’s Office for over 25 years as of April 2022.
A Blue Alert was issued for Vicky. I saw lots of comments from people saying they had never heard of a blue alert.
A Blue Alert notification signals when a law enforcement officer is hurt or killed on duty at the hands of someone who could still harm the public. The alerts are rare, but they’re not new. Blue Alert has been in place for 10 years.
The Sheriff Rick Singleton made these comments about Vicky
“All of her co-workers, all the employees in the sheriff’s office, the judges, all have the most utmost respect for her.”
“She has an unblemished record. She’s an exemplary employee. So we’re very concerned for her safety.”
As some background into Casey, he was in jail for capital murder (amongst other things). He confessed to the 2015 murder of a woman named Connie Ridgeway.
Connie had been found stabbed to death in her apartment in Rogersville, Alabama on October 23, 2015.
This info about Casey’s criminal background is from whnt.com. It outlines how Casey was charged with capital murder after he confessed. He was already in jail:
Authorities arrested Casey White and charged him with two counts of capital murder. One of those counts is for murder during a first-degree burglary and one count of murder for pecuniary gain.
White is currently in the Lauderdale County Jail with no bond set.
White was arrested in December of 2015, for a crime spree that covered two counties, one in Alabama, one in Tennessee. It started with an armed home invasion. Two vehicles were hijacked at gunpoint. One victim was shot in the arm. That was followed by a chase, where speeds reached more than 100 miles per hour. It ended with a stolen car stuck in a field south of Huntsville.
Casey White pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease for the killing of Connie Ridgeway, according to the Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Conolly.
Connoly says before the arraignment hearing, White was allegedly found with a shank. Connolly said White intended to escape and take someone hostage.
We quickly learned that Vicky had said she was dropping Casey off for a mental health evaluation. She also told her colleagues that she had a medical appointment and that she wasn’t feeling well. This set the scene for her to not be missed at work straight away.
There were no appointments scheduled for either Casey or Vicky.
It was policy of the Sheriff’s Office that an inmate should not be transported by a single corrections officer. Her colleagues said that Vicky was definitely aware of that policy.
We learned pretty quickly that Vicky had sold her house in Lexington, Alabama just TWELVE days before this incident. She sold it for $95,550 which is apparently way below market value.
You can view details of Vicky’s house here.
You can see the auction details for Vicky’s house here.
There were many comments online early in this case about Vicky retiring from her job around the time that this happened. Some comments say that she turned in her retirement papers, others say that she had just been considering it. There is one article from WAAY news that says that Friday April 30 was meant to be Vicky’s final day at work. They reported that she told colleagues that she was going to goto the beach.
Vicky had been working at the jail for 17 years.
We have since learned that Vicky spent the night of April 28 at the Quality Inn in Lauderdale County. She drove the Ford Edge there and left it parked within walking distance of the hotel.
Authorities managed to establish a timeline for April 29. It is important to note that this timeline was not released publicly for a week after the disappearance, but I think it’s important to include it now so that we know how things went down.
April 29
• 8:47 a.m.: Transport Van 5 leaves the Lauderdale County Detention Center with seven inmates escorted by two deputies
• 8:56 a.m.: Transport Van 2 leaves the detention center with five inmates escorted by two deputies
• 9:20 a.m. Assistant Director Vicky White instructs corrections deputy to prepare inmate Casey White for transport to courthouse. Deputy removes White from his cell, takes him to booking and handcuffs him and shackles his legs.
• 9:41 a.m.: Vicky White leaves detention center with Casey White en route to courthouse for “mental health evaluation.” Prior to leaving, she tells booking officer that she is the only deputy available who is firearms certified and she is dropping him off to the other deputies at the courthouse. Vicky White says she’s then going to Med Plus from there because she isn’t feeling well.
• 11:34 a.m.: A Florence Police Department officer spots the vehicle parked among other cars left on a lot that are for sale. The officer is unaware of the situation involving Vicky White and Casey White.
• 1:50 p.m.: In Bethesda, Williamson County, Tennessee, someone reports an abandoned 2007 Ford Edge on the side of a road in a sparsely populated area.
• 2:37 p.m.: The car, found locked with nothing inside, is towed to a lot and left there. At this point, Lauderdale County officials don’t know that Vicky White and Casey White are missing, and have no description of a suspect vehicle.
• 3:30 p.m.: The booking officer reports to administration that they have been trying to contact Vicky White to check on her, and that her phone is going directly to voice mail. Co-workers had planned a retirement party, complete with cake and gifts. The officer also advises that Casey White was not returned to the detention center with the other inmates.
The administrator immediately contacts the sheriff’s office, and officers begin a search of the courthouse to determine if Casey White is still there.
Within several minutes, it is determined he is not there and that no court appearance or evaluation had been scheduled.
• 5:30 p.m.: U.S. Marshals, FBI, ATF, Secret Service and ALEA join the investigation.
Now back to the story, chronologically. On May 1, US Marshals announced that there was a $10k reward for Casey White’s return.
The U.S. Marshals Service is requesting assistance in locating 38-year-old Casey White. White is wanted for Escape. White went missing from the Lauderdale County (AL) Sheriff’s Office (LCSO)custody on April 29, 2022. White may be in the company of a female LCSO Correctional Officer who is considered by law enforcement to be missing and endangered. Casey has a lengthy criminal history to include Homicide, Robbery and Kidnapping. Tips can be called in to the U.S. Marshals Service 24 hour line at 313-202-6458.
Sheriff Rick Singleton says investigators believe Vicky had a “special relationship” with Casey, revealing she contacted him by phone when he was in prison.
The Sheriff said that he believed their ‘special relationship’ started in 2020. “As far as we know, that was the earliest physical contact they had,” Singleton said.
Around this time, the Sheriff also confirmed publicly that Vicky had been terminated from her job and would no longer be eligible to receive her retirement.
“Why, absolutely,” The Sheriff told AL.com when asked if Vicky had formally been terminated following the charge. “I mean, yeah. Of course, we haven’t had time to do the paperwork. But, yes, her employment is over with the Lauderdale County sheriff’s office.”
The Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office also confirmed Vicky White was “no longer employed by the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office” in a statement to AL.com.
“This is not the Vicky White we know by any stretch of the imagination,” Sheriff Singleton said. “Everybody thought she was going to retire.”
“Nobody saw this coming,” he added.
The Sheriff also confirmed that Vicky likely had a 9mm handgun on her at the time of the escape.
(Just to note that I have seen it reported as being both a Ford Edge or a Ford Escape – it is definitely an Edge based on the photos we have seen)
The car was not abandoned on May 6 though, it had been abandoned on April 29, just hours after Vicky and Casey made their escape. Authorities did not make the connection between the dumped car and this case until Thursday, May 5.
They had apparently only driven the car 100 miles, over the Tennessee border before dumping it. Before dumping it, they had shittily attempted to disguise the car by spraypainting part of it green lol.
Vicky’s keys, jail radio and handcuff were found in the Ford.
This info about the car being discovered is from AL.com:
Williamson County sheriff’s officials said the vehicle was reported abandoned on Friday, April 29, the day the two made their getaway.
Sheriff’s officials in Tennessee also said there were no tags on the vehicle and it was locked. A search of the area where it was found was conducted Friday morning.
“There is NO sign the two are still in our area,’’ Williamson County sheriff’s officials said on Twitter Friday.
Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said investigators learned the wanted vehicle, which was recently purchased by Vicky White, was reported abandoned on a rural county road just before 2 p.m. that Friday and towed at 2:37 p.m.
The two fled the jail around 9:30 a.m. April 29 and were not reported missing until that afternoon.
“They found the car before we even knew they were gone,’’ Singleton said at a 2 p.m. press conference held Friday, May 6.
Singleton said there was nothing found in the vehicle and said there had been an attempt to spray paint the Ford Edge.
“It’s a botched up job,’’ the sheriff said.
Singleton said he assumed the pair had mechanical problems with the Edge, which caused them to abandon it where they did.
“It was abandoned in the middle of nowhere on a county road where it would be found,’’ he said. “Somebody would obviously see it sitting on the side of the road and call it in, which is what happened.”
‘Somebody might have given them a ride -they could have walked and then stolen a vehicle. No one knew they were missing at that time,’ Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said.
‘This was a well thought-out, calculated plan…. we’re sort of at a loss.‘
“I would say to Vicky, ‘You know we’re going to find you. Hopefully we find you safe. If you’re safe right now, get out while you can,’’’ the sheriff said.
When news of the car broke, we also learned that authorities believe Vicky had a LOT of cash on her. She visited many banks in the days before her disappearance, and withdrew around $90k in cash. These funds came from the proceeds of her house sale.
Sheriff Singleton also said that Vicky had recently purchased an AR15 weapon as well as a shotgun.
Around May 6, we learned that the investigation into the death of Casey’s ex -girlfriend Christy Shelton.
Christy allegedly took her life in 2008. Casey was with her when she apparently shot herself in the chest with a sawn off shotgun. Christy’s family never believed the story though. Michelle Williamson with the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that investigators are going to re-examine the case.
Christy’s case isn’t the only additional side note to Casey’s story. On October 27, 2017, Steven White, Casey’s half-brother went missing.
This info is from the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office
The Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office needs your help with a missing person investigation. Steven Patrick White last was seen Friday October 27th, 2017, at 11295 Alabama Highway 101 Town Creek, Alabama. Steven White was reported to have walked away from the house around 4pm and walked into the woods. Mr. White has not been seen since. Multiple searches by family, friends, volunteers and law enforcement have been conducted. Anyone with information about White’s whereabouts is asked to call the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office at 256-974-9291.
Casey was in prison at the time Steven disappeared.
On May 6, Gov. Kay Ivey announced she is offering an additional $5,000 reward for both Vicky White and Casey White. The Lauderdale County District Attorney’s office asked for the maximum reward available, and within an hour, the governor OK’d it. The reward is limited to private citizens who are not members of or employees of any government law enforcement agency or their relatives.
‘It was really obvious to me what was going on here was planned out, methodical, and she had played it out in her mind, even to where how she parked the car,’ she told Fox News. ‘She was prepared.’
Her ‘waddling gait’ as she stepped out of her car and walked in to retrieve Casey shows she was ‘rough around the edges’ and somewhat masculine, Constantine said.
‘She doesn’t seem to have a care in the world,’ said Constantine, the body language expert. ‘Her stride movements are just at ease. There’s not a sense of franticness or rapid movement.’
On May 8, police released footage of Vicky from the morning that she disappeared.
One of Vicky’s former colleagues, Tyson Johnson spoke to the media at this time. Savage.
‘Vicky used the tanning bed a lot,’ he said. ‘Vicky may have been 57 years old but she looked 75. The photos that they’re releasing of her, there are filters, they’re all bright on the face because it’s not showing the true her. A lot of people, former employees, said if Vicky dyed her hair grey and put on some old lady clothes and glasses, she could walk right by you and you would never know it.’
A former US Marshals commander suggested at this time that the couple may have split up in an attempt to evade authorities. Lenny DePaul said that they ‘’would be fools to leave the country.’
‘That would be a dumb move,’ the retired Marshal, who worked for the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, said. ‘It does not make life difficult for us as an agency.’
‘You’ve got to remember, Interpol – 186 countries under them – we work well with our international folks. We have an international branch within the Marshal Service, and we’re on the ground in several countries.’
The US Marshals also released more info about Casey’s tattoos and appearance.
Many of his tattoos can be linked to white supremacy groups, including the ‘Southern Brotherhood’ – which is reportedly a white supremacist prison gang.
Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly told News Nation that one theory is that Vicky is rolling Casey, dressed as a woman, around in a wheelchair. They believe that Casey might be put in a wheelchair to distract people from noticing his 6-foot-9 frame.
Officials also suspect that Vicky might be disguising herself as an elderly woman with a grey wig.
Vicky’s mother Pat Davis has spoken to the media:
“As a mother, I didn’t know how to act because I thought at first it was a mistake. And then when I found out for sure it was, it was just disbelief,” said Pat.
“I lie in there at night and you can’t get it off your mind, and then when you wake up if you do fall asleep, that’s the first thing that you think of… You know if you got a kid and she’s out there, it’s just like she’s in danger and we don’t know where she’s at,” she says.
Pat also said that Vicky had been living with her since her house had been sold. This may be the reason why Vicky stayed at a hotel the night before the escape – she was too ashamed or afraid to face her mother?
“You know, I never heard of him, never seen his picture, nothing. I didn’t know anything about him,” Pat said.
“She’s never done anything, I bet she’s never even had a speeding ticket. But I mean, she’s always been what I say a good person. And like I say, this is all a shock.”
All she wants now is to reunite with her daughter, no matter what.
“We want her home. We’ll go pick her up if she’ll just call and tell us come and get her. We’ll go pick her up,” she said.
Casey’s mother has also spoken to the media. “I just have no idea why they’ve painted him as a monster,” Connie White said over the phone.
Connie said she spoke to her son the day before his vanishing act and “everything was perfectly fine.”
“He never mentioned Vicky White,” Connie said. “He said he had a pen pal but I had no idea who it was.”
“The only reason he came out to Lauderdale County was to get out of the prison he was in,” she said.
“He wrote a letter to say that he murdered that woman. But he didn’t really murder her, he just done that to get back up here.
“He just wanted to be out of that prison because it was so bad and there was no food.”
Connie stood by her son when asked if he was dangerous.
“I don’t think so. He’s not a monster, I’ll put it that way,” she said.
“He is not the monster they are making him out to be, at all.”
Casey’s former lawyer has spoken to the media about his client:
Dale Bryant, who was White’s public defender in his appeal against 2019 convictions for a slew of violent crimes, told local news outlets that in his mind White could be drawn into a firefight with police if he is not on his meds. “When Casey is on his medication and in jail in a structured environment, Casey’s an alright guy,’’ Bryant told AL.com without disclosing his mental illness diagnosis. “You’d never know he was a danger because he’s medicated and in a structured environment.”
When he is not—as was apparently the case when he tried to kill an ex-girlfriend, took three people hostage, and fatally shot a dog—anything could happen. “When he’s off his medication, he usually self-medicates through drugs, usually methamphetamine, and that’s when things become a problem,’’ Bryant said. “Because even if you don’t have a mental illness and you’re on methamphetamine, you become paranoid, irrational, impulsive, and if you take someone with mental illness, it just exacerbates that.”
Bryant said that Casey—who authorities have said has white-supremacist tattoos—previously expressed little will to live.
“Casey wanted to die,” Bryant said, referring to his 2015 crime spree. “He was trying to get the officers to shoot him, and that is kind of my fear, how this situation is going to end. Except for this time, I’m afraid that Casey may try to shoot them to try and get them to shoot him. I want to say in his interview after his arrest and in my conversations with him, he wanted to die that day.”
On May 9, 2022, we first learned of a new tip. Casey and Vicky had been allegedly spotted a car wash in Evansville, Indiana on May 3. Authorities released new images of Casey taken on May 3. He looked much thinner.
After the car wash info broke, so did news of a police pursuit in the same town, Evansville.
Comments said that a female was driving and crashed the vehicle into a ditch. There was also a male in the car. Police surrounded the vehicle and the female shot herself. Vicky and Casey were found.
What we know since their capture is that Vicky shot herself in the head and is in a serious condition in hospital. Casey has been taken into custody.
At 8.44pm Indiana time on May 9, authorities announced that Vicky had died from her self-inflicted injury.
Information about a 911 call Vicky made was released:
Casey was booked into jail at 1.42am on May 10. That same day police released information about what was found in the car – guns, wigs and cash. They had managed to spend over $61,000 in the 11 days that their escape lasted. $29k was found in the vehicle.
Casey also told authorities that the couple had planned to engage in a shootout with police and it may have been more deadly if their car had not been rammed.
“We later found out that had they not [rammed the vehicle], the fugitive was going to engage in a shootout with law enforcement,” Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said.
Casey also told authorities that the couple had remained in Evansville so long because they were trying to plan their next move. They had paid a homeless man to use his ID to make the motel reservation for two weeks for them – this was so their names would not be tied to the booking.
Vicky’s autopsy was also conducted on Tuesday and she was confirmed to have died from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Vicky’s obituary has been published online.
Obituary of Vicky Sue White
Vicky Sue Davis White, 56, of Lexington, AL passed away May 9, 2022. Vicky was the Assistant Director for the Lauderdale County Detention Center.
Vicky is survived by:
Mother: Patricia Lee Hughes Davis
Father: J.C. Davis
Brothers: Gary Davis & Steve Davis (Anita)
Nephew: Kyle Davis
Uncles: Ronnie Davis and Donnie Davis
Aunts: Joyce Minor, Shirley Davis, and Barbara Davis
Special Family: Chelsea Bolen, Hunter Ray, and Cooper Poague
There will be a graveside service for Vicky on Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 1:00 P.M. at Center Hill Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Hunter Ray, Shannon Davis, Robbie Jones, James Buddy Davis, Charles Allen, and Dylan Brown.
SOURCE LIST:
https://whnt.com/news/authorities-to-give-update-on-2015-murder-of-connie-ridgeway/
https://whnt.com/news/casey-white-pleads-not-guilty-to-connie-ridgeway-murder/
https://www.al.com/news/2022/05/vicky-white-casey-whites-getaway-car-found-in-tennessee.html
https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/escaped-alabama-inmate-casey-white-is-not-a-monster-mom-says/
https://nypost.com/2022/05/10/stacks-of-cash-guns-found-in-vicky-white-casey-whites-car/
CLIPS USED IN THE PODCAST EPISODE
https://youtu.be/tPCoG2trDX8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN3mWyb7nMc
https://youtu.be/b1j1NnOEVS8