Escaped inmate Casey White and his jail guard lover Vicky planned to fight cops until the bitter end in a Bonnie and Clyde-style blaze of glory shootout, and were armed with four guns including an AR-15 when US Marshals rammed their truck into a ditch in Indiana yesterday.
The pair had been laying low at an old Motel 6 in Evansville, Indiana, for a week and planned to spend another seven days there ‘getting their bearings’ after fleeing Lauderdale County Jail in Alabama on April 29. As cops closed in on the pair yesterday, Vicky and Casey fled the hotel in a Cadillac.
Their plan was to fight the police officers chasing them in a gunfight, even if it ended in both of their deaths, sheriffs revealed on Tuesday.
They were armed four weapons including a 9mms handgun and an AR-15. They also had $29,000 in cash and multiple wigs in the car.
In the end, they were rammed into a ditch by US Marshals. Vicky shot herself before police swooped on the vehicle and Casey surrendered.
On Tuesday morning, he waived his right to an extradition hearing in Indiana, telling a judge: ‘I want to go back to Alabama.’
It’s unclear when he will be extradited. Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said at a press conference on Tuesday that he would be transferred into the custody of Alabama sheriffs secretly, out of the view of the media.
He confessed to investigators that he planned to fight officers in a shootout.
‘He said he was probably going to have a shootout at the stake of both of them losing their lives. Their plan was pretty faulty – they’re criminals. It failed. Thank god,’ Sheriff Wedding said.
They had reserved their motel room for two weeks and planned to ‘lay low’, wearing disguises, until they knew what to do next, he added.
‘He said he was just trying to find a place to lay low, hide out. They thought they’d driven long enough and they wanted to stop for awhile and get their bearings.
‘We don’t believe they had any relatives, friends in the area,’ he said.
Initially, police said she killed herself. Audio of a dispatch call between 911 operators reveals that Vicky told them she was holding the gun and had her finger on the trigger. However on Tuesday, it remained unclear if she killed herself or if Casey shot herself. An autopsy is pending.
‘When we made the arrest yesterday afternoon, when we were taking Casey into custody he said “help my wife, she just shot herself.” Obviously, there’s an ongoing investigation to determine just that.
‘That’s the information we were given from Casey White,’ US Marshals said in an interview with Good Morning America. He is now in custody in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, but is due to be transported back to Alabama.
It has also emerged that the pair had been hiding out in Indiana since May 3 and their vehicle was reported to local police on May 4 by a member of the public who saw it parked at a strange angle.
James Stinson, who operates a car wash in Evansville, says he called police and suggested that the vehicle might belong to the pair after they dumped it at his business last week.
Because it hadn’t been stolen, the authorities said there was nothing they could do.
Stinson told NewsNation that he towed the vehicle on May 4.
‘I walked up to the truck and went, ‘Oh my God, it’s probably this guy from Alabama.’ I walked and looked in the truck because I think he could be dead, passed out, who knows? So I backed up. I opened the door, the keys are in it. I start it up. I Googled the local police department’s number because I didn’t want to call 911.
‘They send a cop out. The cop says, ‘Well there ain’t nothing I can do. It’s not reported stolen.’ He ran the plates. Then he left and came back. He looked in it again. He found a gun lock in the seat and said, ‘Oh my God, there’s a gun lock but there ain’t no guns around.’ So he left. He just said, ‘Do what you’ve got to do.’ I towed it.’
On Sunday, May 8, police finally contacted Stinson and asked about the truck. That is when he checked surveillance camera footage from his business and found video footage of Casey.
‘I’m just glad it’s over and nobody got hurt. I was more concerned about one person trying to confront them. It took a team, and I’m glad it ended this way. This guy has nothing to live for; he’s dangerous. Any one of us could’ve said something wrong and he’d have went off. I could’ve got on him for leaving the car in the wash bay, but I chose not to,’ he added.
Initially, police believed Vicky shot herself in the car after the chase ended in a crash.
However Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Sheriff Singleton said he would not be surprised if Casey was the one who pulled the trigger. He was awaiting trial for the murder of a different woman when Vicky helped him escape on April 29.
‘He will never see the light of day again. He will be in a cell by himself. He will stay in handcuffs and shackles while he’s in that cell and if he wants to sue me for violating his civil rights, so be it.
‘He’s not getting out of this jail again. I’ll assure you that,’ Singleton said.
Vicky was driving the pair’s vehicle when it crashed after a police chase. When officers surrounded the car, Casey told them to help his ‘wife’ who had been shot.
On Tuesday morning, Singleton said she was the ‘mastermind’ of their logistical escape plan, but it’s unclear who came up with the idea to get Casey out.
‘To go from day one, thinking she’s been kidnapped and maybe in danger then finding out she took him out willingly, then trying to determine was she threatened or coerced in some way…then finding out that she was basically the mastermind behind the whole plan. It’s been an emotional roller-coaster.
‘Obviously, he was behind bars – he couldn’t have planned too much behind bars. Personally, I think she was the one who put the plan together. She was in a position of knowledge. She made sure the other armed deputies were out, she arranged to purchase the getaway car, she sold her house got her hands on cash, went shopping.
‘She obviously put the plan together,’ he told CNN.
Audio of a dispatch call reveals that Vicky told police she was in the vehicle with her ‘finger on the trigger’ before the pair crashed.
When police swarmed the car, Casey told them that she had shot herself. An autopsy has not yet proved that.
The pair fled the Lauderdale County Jail on April 29 then changed vehicles, driving to Tennessee before dumping that car and picking up another. It’s unclear what their plan was before they were caught.
I noticed the car hanging out of the bay, which was unusual. It kept sitting there … Every time I left and came back, the truck was still there.’
He said he notified the authorities last Wednesday but nothing was done.
‘I walked up to the truck and went, “Oh my God, it’s probably this guy from Alabama.’ I walked and looked in the truck because I think he could be dead, passed out, who knows? So I backed up. I opened the door, the keys are in it. I start it up. I Googled the local police department’s number because I didn’t want to call 911.
‘They send a cop out. The cop says, ‘Well there ain’t nothing I can do. It’s not reported stolen.’ He ran the plates. Then he left and came back. He looked in it again.
‘He found a gun lock in the seat and said, “Oh my God, there’s a gun lock but there ain’t no guns around.’ So he left. He just said, ‘Do what you’ve got to do.’ I towed it.’
Vicky had been seen entering and exiting the motel room in a wig. She and Casey had been having a secret affair for more than two years.
In the months leading up to the escape, Vicky sold her home and withdrew $90,000 in cash from her bank account.
Video posted on Facebook by Joey Medicis shows local Evansville police cruisers speed into a business, followed by police SUVs and pickup trucks with emergency lights.
The footage was filmed moments after Vicky White crashed her gray Cadillac into a ditch.
Casey White is then led away in handcuffs.
‘He went through the gate at work where we’re usually at,’ says a voice behind the camera. ‘They spun him out into the grass.’
Regarding Vicky, another person says, ‘She’s probably dead.’
The jail guard was found in the car with a gunshot wound to the head. She died in the hospital a couple hours later.
Casey and Vicky were in a ‘romantic relationship’ and that Vicky was ‘just as concerned about coming back and facing her family and her co-workers as she was the charges.’
Vicky was a widow and had no children.
Before she died, Singleton said of his employee, ‘I hope she survives this. She has some answers to give us.’
He continued: ‘You don’t know who you can trust. I had every bit of trust in Vicky White. She has been an exemplary employee. What in the world prompted her to pull off something like this, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.’
Vicky was set to be put in a different facility than the Lauderdale County jail where she worked for 17 years and helped Casey escape . Casey will be sent back to state prison.