A missing Alabama prison official who disappeared last week with an inmate had a “special relationship” with him, according to a police department statement released Tuesday.
Assistant Director of Corrections Vicky White disappeared on Friday while escorting inmate Casey White. The 56-year-old official left the detention center to take the 38-year-old prisoner for an alleged mental health evaluation. However, the patrol vehicle that the pair were using was found at a nearby shopping center. The two are not related.
On Tuesday, Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office announced that investigators confirmed a “special relationship” existed between the pair.
“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,” the statement explained. “That relationship has now been confirmed through our investigation by independent sources and means.”
Last week, Sheriff Rick Singleton said that moving an inmate alone is not permitted. “Our policy is for any inmate with those kinds of charges to have two sworn deputies escort them. And that did not happen,” he explained. Casey White had also not been scheduled for a mental health evaluation. Vicky White, however, told colleagues that she had a doctor’s appointment of her own, to which she never showed.
Vicky White’s mother-in-law, Frances White, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Vicky had amassed large sums of money over time to keep herself afloat and “may have been brainwashed” into freeing him. “She had said that she’d like to live in Florida, that’s the only thing I can think of,” Frances White told the outlet.
Vicky White’s late husband passed away in January due to complications with Parkinson’s disease.
“I’m just proud he wasn’t still alive, cause he still thought she was a good person,” Frances White continued. “I can’t imagine her running off with that guy, but you never know. He walked into a woman’s house and stabbed her.”
Indeed, Casey White confessed in 2020 to fatally stabbing Connie Ridgeway five years earlier. The woman’s body was found by a neighbor after the neighbor noticed that Ridgeway had not been seen that day. Casey White claimed he was paid to carry out the murder.
Frances White also told The Daily Beast, “Everybody’s trying to figure out what made her do it.”
“Somebody said, ‘Maybe she was just having a bad day.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s not an excuse.’” Indeed, Vicky White had filed retirement papers the day before she disappeared, and she had sold the home she had shared with her late husband five weeks earlier to move in with her mother.
“She had money before she sold her home,” Frances White continued. “She saved her money. I figure if she’s still got her money, she’s still got enough to live on for a while.”
Frances White also said that Casey White, who could face the death penalty, “doesn’t have anything to lose,” adding “I don’t think that man’s got any feelings for anybody.”