The murder suspect who escaped from an Alabama jail on Friday is a ‘dangerous monster’ who promised to kill his ex-girlfriend if he ever got out in 2015.
Casey White, 38, broke into a home in Athens and ordered two men inside to get down on the ground at gunpoint, according to court documents.
He fired multiple shots and left bullet holes in the wall during the rampage. His ex-girlfriend managed to escape. Two young children were found hiding in the basement, while a dog was found shot dead in a hallway, Fox News reports.
‘He stated that he wanted to kill her and have the police kill him,’ according to a police report from December 2015. ‘His only regret was that neither was successful. He stated that if he was released he would kill the victim.’
He was eventually convicted on nine counts including attempted murder, kidnapping and animal cruelty and sentenced to 75 years in prison. While serving time, he confessed to killing 59-year-old Connie Ridgeway in a murder-for-hire plot two months before the crime spree.
The 6ft 9in inmate was escorted out of the Lauderdale County jail on Friday by a female guard who had recently sold her house and filed for retirement. Authorities charged Vicky White, no relation, with ‘permitting or facilitating an escape in the first degree’ on Monday.
Authorities say they consider Casey to be ‘extremely dangerous.’ Ridgeway’s son Austin Williams says the convict is a ‘monster’ who needs to be ‘back behind bars.’
Casey’s arrest at the age of 32 finally came after he engaged in a crime spree that played out in two counties in Tennessee and Alabama in December 2015.
In one night, he staged a home invasion and carjacked two vehicles at gunpoint, shooting one person in the arm, WHNT reports.
At the home, he fired multiple rounds and killed a dog.
The crimes were followed by a chase where speeds reached more than 100 miles per hour.
It ended with a stolen car stuck in a field south of Huntsville, and officers – who were evidently well known to him – pleading with him to put down his gun and give himself up.
He was charged with attempted murder, two counts of kidnapping, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, third-degree burglary, breaking and entering a vehicle, animal cruelty for shooting a dog and attempting to elude.
While imprisoned in June 2020, he wrote to Lauderdale County requesting a meeting with the sheriff’s office and confessed to killing Connie Ridgeway – providing a detailed description of the crime scene.
Ridgeway was killed in her home at Meadowland Apartments in Rogersville, Alabama in 2015, according to WAFF.
He said he was paid to kill her, although no motive for hiring a hitman has ever been disclosed.
He pleaded not guilty on grounds of insanity and was temporarily moved from prison to the Lauderdale County jail to face trial.
That’s when he escaped with the help of Assistant Director of Corrections Vicky White.
‘He’s definitely a monster,’ Ridgeway’s son Austin Williams told Fox News. ‘We have to get this guy back behind bars.’
In 2020, Casey’s request to be transferred out of prison and into the county jail was denied after authorities found a makeshift knife stashed in the shower that they believed he intended to use to force someone to let him out.
But he was moved to the jail anyway in order to face capital murder charges for the death of Ridgeway.
On Friday,