The getaway car Alabama prison guard Vicky White used to escape with a murder inmate has been found about 100 miles away in Tennessee, a small breakthrough in the escalating manhunt for the missing pair.
Vicky White, 56, and Casey White, 38, who are not related, had developed a “special relationship” before she signed him out of lockup a week ago under the guise of taking him to a court appointment that actually did not exist.
Authorities say the two had unusual contact since 2020 that included her giving him extra food and privileges and the two of them talking on the phone while he was at another facility.
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She sold her house recently and withdrew $90,000 in cash in the days before the extraordinary escape, the Lauderdale County District Attorney told ABC News. Investigators also received a tip from a car dealer that she recently bought a 2007 orange or copper-colored Ford Edge. After the pair left the Lauderdale County prison in Vicky’s patrol car, they drove about 10 minutes to a shopping mall, dumped the patrol car, and switched to the SUV, Sheriff Rick Singleton previously said.
But Singleton feared they would dump that car as well after a local police department prematurely released a description of it before investigators could use license-plate readers and other techniques to try to track it down.
On Friday, he said the pair, who had a “jailhouse romance,” had actually ditched the car last Friday—before authorities even realized they’d absconded—but it sat in a tow yard for a week before anyone realized.
It was found last Friday abandoned in a rural area off Interstate 65 near Bethesda, Tennessee, just a two-hour drive from the Alabama prison the Whites fled from. It was towed the same day but no one made the connection until Thursday night.
“They found the car before we even knew they were gone,” Singleton said.
Photos showing patches of the vehicle had been spray painted over, possibly to hide dings noted by authorities during public appeals for information.
As the manhunt stretches into its second week, federal officials also released new photos that could be used to identify the Whites.
One set of pictures shows what Vicky White, who was set to retire as Lauderdale County’s deputy director of corrections on the day she vanished, might look like if she dyed her blond locks or wore a dark wig.
The other set contains photos of the tattoos all over the body of Casey White, 38, who was serving a 75-year sentence for a violent crime spree and awaiting trial after confessing to a 2015 murder.
The hulking escapee’s body art includes some tats linked to the white supremacist prison gang Southern Brotherhood, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
Casey White, who stands 6-foot-9 to Vicky’s 5-foot-5, is considered extremely dangerous. Aside from having access to Vicky’s service firearm, Casey is also thought to have access to an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun.
“Investigators have learned that during pre-sentence reporting in 2015 he made threats against his ex-girlfriend and her sister, warning that if he ever got out, he would kill them and that he wanted police to kill him,” the Marshals said.
