Alabama prison official, capital murder suspect missing after inmate escort
Inmate Casey White, left, and Assistant Director of Corrections Vicki White (Photos courtesy Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office)
FLORENCE, Ala. - A prison official from Alabama is missing after escorting an inmate to a courthouse for a hearing.
The Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post Saturday that Assistant Director of Corrections Vicki White disappeared while escorting an inmate being held on capital murder charges. The inmate is also missing.
White left the detention center with inmate Casey White at about 9:30 Friday morning and neither has been seen since. No one realized they were missing until 3:30 Friday afternoon. The pair are not related.
The vehicle they were traveling in when they left the detention center was discovered at a nearby shopping center parking lot around 11 a.m. Friday, according to the sheriff's office.
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Officer White, a 25-year employee of the sheriff's office, told someone at the detention center that she was escorting inmate White to the courthouse for a mental health evaluation, then going to seek medical attention for herself because she wasn't feeling well, Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said at a press conference Friday night.
Singleton said there was no mental evaluation scheduled.
"Knowing the inmate, I think [Officer White] is in danger whatever the circumstances," Singleton said. "He was in jail for capital murder. He has nothing to lose."