For eleven days the U.S. was transfixed by the escape, from an Alabama jail, of a male prisoner with a female guard. The prisoner was Casey White and the guard was Vicky White. Despite having the same surname the two were not related.
On what was reported to be her final day of work before retirement, Vicky White said that she was transporting Casey White to a mental health evaluation, as he was awaiting trial for murder. It turned out that no such evaluation was ever scheduled. Vicky White had bought a car, a Ford Edge using an alias. She left the car in a shopping center parking lot overnight. She then drove Casey White to the parking lot. They abandoned the police car and drove off in the Ford Edge.
The two were ultimately caught in Evansville, Indiana. They had abandoned the Ford Edge, in Tennessee, and had bought a pickup truck. They then decided to abandon that, in Evansville, after buying a Cadillac. But they made the mistake of abandoning it in the bay of a car wash, where Casey White was caught on security camera with his clearly visible tattoos. Another security camera caught them driving off in the Cadillac.
In the U.S. most prisons are operated by the state, although there are also federal prisons. The local "holding centers", for people who have been arrested but not yet convicted, are operated at the county level, and run by the Sheriff's Department. Short prison terms might also be served at the local holding center, as opposed to being sent away to a prison. It was such a Sheriff's Department that Vicky White worked for, not the prison system. A sheriff's department patrols rural areas and towns that don't have their own police department.
My information about the case is solely based on what I have read in the news. The conclusions here about the case are based on the presumption that what has been reported in the news is correct.
Vicky White was supposedly on her last day at work when she escaped with prisoner Casey White. She had sold her home and had been talking, at work, about moving to "The beach". From northern Alabama "The beach" can only mean moving southward, particularly to Florida. There were no beaches to the north of where she was located.
This was a diversion. The escaping pair drove due northward, ending up in Evansville, Indiana. The talk about "moving to the beach" was set up to lead the search for them in the wrong direction.
In the home that Vicky White had recently sold there was a tanning bed. The only people who would buy a tanning bed of their own are people who really want to get a suntan. But yet none of the photos that I have seen of Vicky White show that she has the slightest suntan, including photos of her in the past. None of the descriptions of her following the escape make any mention of a suntan.
That's because the tanning bed was part of the diversion of her living at "the beach" after retirement. If she had just talked to her coworkers about "the beach", it might have been guessed that it was a diversion. But her purchase of a tanning bed appears to back it up.
Just before the escape Vicky White bought a car, using an alias. The car was a reddish colored Ford Edge, which is a SUV. The car was their getaway vehicle. She left the car in a plaza parking lot overnight. The following day she said she was taking Casey White for a "mental health evaluation". She drove to where the Ford Edge was parked and got into that car, abandoning the patrol car in which they had left the jail.
The reddish Ford Edge was carefully chosen as the escape vehicle, this was the second diversion. With a limited supply of money, and the price of fuel so high, why would she choose a SUV to escape in? When they were caught they were found to have camping equipment. Vicky White lived in a rural area and so would be familiar with the natural environment. The rear seats of a Ford Edge fold down, and the front seats can be moved forward. I believe that Vicky White intended for them to sleep in the car.
A Ford Edge is a smaller SUV. If she had bought a van that might make it obvious that they were planning to sleep in it. Casey White was 6 feet, 9 inches tall (205.75 cm), and who would think of someone that tall sleeping in a vehicle? It would avoid the security cameras and possible scrutiny of staying in hotels.
Surely they weren't planning on camping in the woods, where a bright red vehicle would stand out. That was why Vicky White bought a bright red vehicle, knowing full well that her purchase of the vehicle would be discovered even though she used an alias.
The tanning bed fits with this second diversion also. The tanning bed was the same red color as the Ford Edge. This was just to be sure that the bright red color of the vehicle wasn't part of any diversion. They could see by the tanning bed that she had chosen a vehicle of that color simply because it was her favorite color.
The car was found abandoned in Tennessee. Part of the car had been painted a dark green, the ideal color to hide in the woods. Notice that their final car, the Cadillac that they were caught in, was about the same dark green color that they had started to paint the Ford Edge. Some reports have it that the Ford Edge had developed mechanical troubles. I think it more likely that they had given up on painting the car and were worried that an amateurish partial paint job on the car would draw attention.
Their next vehicle was a pickup truck, which they apparently bought in cash in Tennessee. This was the vehicle that they abandoned in Evansville, at the car wash where they were caught on security camera. But why did they abandon the pickup truck when there was no report that it had mechanical troubles, or that police were looking for them in a pickup truck? The obvious answer is that a pickup truck isn't sleepable.
One of the mysteries of this case is why Vicky White stayed in a hotel the night before the escape. She had sold her home and had been staying with her mother. Interestingly, even though she was close to her mother she reportedly never told her of any plans to retire to "The beach". This might be the last she would ever see of her mother, so why would she spend it in a local hotel?
This was the third diversion. She wanted to make it look like she was making a "dry run" of checking into a hotel, seeing what kind of identification they ask for, where security cameras might be located, and so on. This was to deceive police into looking for them or their car at hotels. But instead of driving a red SUV and staying at hotels while moving southward they would be driving a dark green SUV and camping in the woods while moving northward.
According to some news reports the two had made a "dry run" of their escape from the jail, Vicky White leaving the building in a patrol vehicle with Casey White, but hadn't been gone for long. This was done to make investigators after the escape think that she was in the habit of making a "dry run" before actually doing something. This would make them think that her stay in a hotel, on the last night before the escape, was a "dry run" for the two staying in hotels after the escape, but she was actually planning that they would be sleeping in the car.
CASEY WHITE TAKES OVER
I believe that, as time went on, Casey White, the escaped prisoner, took more control. Vicky White had planned the escape well. Casey White had quite a criminal record but doesn't seem to have been good at avoiding getting caught.
After being caught Casey White told police that they had stopped at a motel in Evansville to "get their bearings" and decide what to do next. This reveals that the initially well-planned escape seems to have gone awry.
To stay at the motel in Evansville they found a homeless man and paid him to rent a room for them for two weeks. They had reportedly already been there one week when they were caught. Finding a homeless man to help them was awkward, time-consuming and, risky but now they only had the pickup truck, not a vehicle that they could sleep in.
While in Evansville they bought a Cadillac, paying for it in cash. The car was like a dark green that wouldn't stand out if they were camping in the woods, about the same color that they had tried to paint the Ford Edge. But now they had to dispose of the pickup truck, and that is what got them caught.
Going to a car wash and leaving the truck in one of the bays was absolutely crazy. Maybe Vicky White was getting tired and wasn't fully alert by this point.
Of course the owner of the car wash would check the security video to see who left the pickup truck. I don't know why criminals often get tattoos but there was the unmistakable image of Casey White, with the prominent tattoo on his forearm clearly visible. Security cameras at the car wash also got the car that Casey White got into, the dark green Cadillac, although not the plate number.
Police looked around Evansville and a car of that make and color was seen in a motel parking lot. The car was watched, to see who got into it and, sure enough, it was them. After a chase of about 2 miles (about 3 km) northward on Highway 41, the car ended up in a ditch.
One of the eeriest things about this escape is that, just before the end of the chase, Vicky White made a call to the 911 (emergency) line. She may have made the call inadvertently, not realizing that she made it, but what went on inside the car, both before and after the crash, was recorded.
The two drove off the highway and through an industrial parking lot. Then, surrounded by police and Marshals' cars, went across a grassy area. Vicky White's southern-accented voice can be heard twice expressing alarm, to Casey White, about the airbags in the car going off, suggesting that they "get out and run" and also a reference to "that (expletive) motel". Her words are not very intelligible but I believe what she was saying to Casey White is "We never should have stayed in that (expletive) motel".
After the crash into the ditch, with Vicky White mortally wounded from a self-inflicted gunshot, the voices of the police officers outside the car can be heard on the phone call, saying that "she has a gun", "she is still breathing" and, "her finger is on the trigger". They disarmed her, and got her out through the sunroof of the car. She died in hospital. Casey White surrendered peacefully.
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