“This case was solved through just boots on the ground, good police work,” said U.S. Marshal Marty Keely of the capture of convict Casey White and Alabama jail official Vicky White in Indiana. At first, law enforcement officials believed Casey White, might have kidnapped Vicky White, the assistant director of corrections for Lauderdale County, Al., and a 17-year veteran of the sheriff’s office. (The two were not related.) Keely’s account of the 11-day search, in an interview with The Associated Press, is the most detailed description of the nationwide manhunt that ended with Vicky White dead, Casey White back in custody and law enforcement agencies trying to piece together how the escape could have happened.
Investigators interviewed family members and coworkers, examined financial and other records and learned from other inmates that Vicky White had a “special relationship” with Casey and the two were involved in a “jailhouse romance.” Weeks before the escape she sold her house for $95,000, far below the market value, sold her car and filed for retirement. She had also bought an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun to add to her 9mm service weapon and a .45-caliber pistol investigators believe she had. She bought men’s clothes at a local store and visited a store that sold sex toys.. The search was on for a hulking fugitive, a jailer and their orange car. Investigators had no idea the duo had already made it out of state and were nearly 200 miles. Keely described details of a hunt that proceeded from Alabama to rural Tennessee to Evansville, In., where the pair paid a homeless man to use his identification to rent them a hotel room, paying cash upfront for a 14-day stay. They were living under the assumed alias in the motel and had acquired a third car, a Cadillac sedan.