Law enforcement officers in Indiana warned each other about the gun Vicky White had in her hand as they discussed how to retrieve her from her flipped vehicle, according to footage of the incident released by the Evansville Police Department on Tuesday.
In one video, officers on the scene crouch in the grassy ditch by the overturned Cadillac, minutes after a U.S. Marshal rammed it, ending both a short police chase and White’s 11-day stint on the run with a murder suspect. The 56-year-old assistant director of corrections shot herself “almost instantaneously” before deputies could reach her, Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said at a Tuesday press conference.
Vicky is unresponsive but “still breathing” in the footage, according to one officer discussing how to get her out.
ADVERTISEMENT
A suggestion to pop the front windshield off is quickly disregarded. “Anybody got a Hooligan?” someone asks, referencing a Halligan bar, a tool with a pick-end used by officers to force entry.
Eventually, the officer is handed the tool. He lowers himself onto his stomach. “I’m gonna go for the gun,” he says, retrieving the gun from White. In the partially censored footage, he then pulls the guard out of the sunroof by her wrists, with other officers helping to drag her onto grass and gravel. First responders then close in to administer first aid.
In another video released by Indiana authorities, escaped inmate Casey White, no relation to Vicky, is seen being taken into custody after the chase. Authorities said that Casey had wanted to end his time on the lam with a police shootout, but a U.S. Marshal ramming the couple’s car during the chase swiftly put an end to that plan.
After he emerged from the Cadillac uninjured, more than half a dozen officers crowded the 6-foot-9-inch-tall man, handcuffing him on the ground. Casey is marched away as officers continue to swarm the flipped car and surrounding area.
The pair originally vanished from their Lauderdale County, Alabama, jail on April 29. On Tuesday, Sheriff Wedding told reporters that the lovebirds had driven to a cheap Indiana motel and holed up, trying to figure out where to go next.
Casey, 38, was extradited back to Lauderdale County on Monday. A day later, a judge set a June trial date for his original murder charge—the “brutal” 2015 stabbing of a 58-year-old woman.
Vicky was transported to a hospital, where she was declared dead on Monday night, according to police.
Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said Tuesday that $29,000 had been found in the Whites’ car, along with several wigs and a cache of weapons, including an AR-15 rifle and 9mm handguns. Casey had so far shown “no remorse” over his prison guard lover’s death, Singleton added.
