Corrections Officer Vicky White Dies From Suspected Self-Inflicted Gunshot During Pursuit That Ended In Casey White’s Recapture

Former Alabama corrections officer Vicky White is dead after suffering what authorities believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a dramatic chase that ended in the recapture of escaped inmate Casey White in Indiana.

Vicky White, the former assistant director of corrections at the Lauderdale County Detention Center, died Monday just after 7 p.m. at Deaconess Hospital, after being rushed to the facility following a law enforcement pursuit in Evansville, Indiana, People reports.

U.S. Marshal Matt Keely said the pursuit began after Vicky White was spotted leaving an area hotel in a wig, getting into a Cadillac with Casey White and driving away, CNN reports.

A pursuit ended when a member of the U.S. Marshals task force struck the Cadillac, causing the vehicle to roll over and come to a stop, according to the U.S. Marshals.

Casey White, who had reportedly been driving the vehicle, asked officers to help “his wife,” who had been pinned inside the car after suffering from a gunshot wound to the head.

Vicki White Photo: Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office

Casey White surrendered to authorities.

“We got a dangerous man off the street today,” Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said at a press conference, according to The New York Times. “He is never going to see the light of day again.”

While authorities believe Vicky White’s wound was self-inflicted, the results of an autopsy are still pending and Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding told People that further investigation is needed to definitively reach that conclusion.

There is no evidence at this stage to suggest that the pair—who are not related to one another—got married during their time on the run.

Casey White, a murder suspect already serving 75 years behind bars for a string of crimes in 2015, escaped from the Lauderdale County Jail in Florence, Alabama on April 29 with the help of Vicky White, a corrections official.

Vicky White told her coworkers that she was taking Casey White to the court house for a fictional mental health exam, but the pair drove to a parking lot instead where Vicky White had already stashed a getaway car.

That vehicle, a rust-colored 2007 Ford Edge SUV, was found abandoned on a rural country road in Bethesda, Tennessee the same day of the escape about two hours north of the jail, according to a previous press conference.

Authorities tracked the couple to Indiana after they received a tip Sunday night that a 2006 Ford F-150 had been found at a car wash in Evansville. After reviewing images provided from the security camera of a male with the vehicle, authorities believed it could be Casey White.

Singleton said it’s believed that the pair had been in a “romantic relationship” together.

He believes Vicky White, a widow with no children, may have been “concerned about coming back and facing her family and coworkers” as well as facing a series of criminal charges against her.

She had been charged with permitting or facilitating escape in the first-degree, along with forgery and identity charges in Alabama for allegedly purchasing the SUV under a fake identity.

“The whole sheriff’s office is like a family,” Singleton said of her sudden death, according to The Times. “When you have a family member that makes a bad choice, you know, you don’t like them but you still love them. She was family to us. And so yeah, it hurts.”

Casey White Photo: Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office

Casey White is currently being held in Indiana, and can be seen in a new mugshot released by Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office; however, Singleton told Fox News that authorities hope to extradite him back to Alabama in the next few days.

“There’s an extradition process, he obviously has the option to waive that,” he said. “If he elects not to, then we’ve got to initiate that process through the governor’s office and that can take several days up to a few weeks.”