“Jailbreak: Love on the Run: ”What Happened to Casey and Vicky White?

In April 2022, corrections officer Vicky White helped felon Casey White escape from jail. Only one of them made it out alive

Violent felon Casey White and straitlaced corrections officer Vicky White were an unlikely match.

The pair (who were not related) met when Casey, 41, was extradited to the Alabama jail where Vicky, 56, worked. After more than a year of a clandestine romantic relationship, Vicky helped Casey escape. The couple went on the run for 11 days before it all came crashing down — literally — in a car chase with police that ended in an accident and Vicky's death.

The case is the subject of the new Netflix documentary Jailbreak: Love on the Run, which features previously unreleased audio recordings of Vicky and Casey, including both their jailhouse communications and her final words to him before ending her life.

From the details of their escape to if their love for each other was real, here's the true story of Casey White and Vicky White's jailbreak, including what happened to the felon and prison guard.

Who was Vicky White?

Vicky was born Vicky Sue Davis on Aug. 19, 1965. She married her first husband, Tommy White, in 2002, and they divorced in 2006 because of his drug abuse, according to Jailbreak: Love on the Run, though they remained friends. She then became engaged to another man who died in a car accident before they ever got married.

Vicky, who had no children, was a corrections officer at Lauderdale County Detention Center in Florence, Ala., where she rose to the rank of assistant director of operations. During her 17 years at the facility, she won the Employee of the Year title four times.

"It's a tough job. Vicky White did that job for 17 years as assistant director of operations," retired Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said in Jailbreak. "[That is] very commendable. Most people don't last that long."

Vicky's colleagues said she worked 50 to 60 hours per week and that she was a go-to person for any questions or needs within the detention center. Her fellow corrections officers, as well as several inmates, described Vicky as treating inmates "as human beings" and with compassion and kindness.

"She just wanted to take care of everybody," a coworker said in the documentary. "But who's taking care of Vicky?"

In April 2022, Vicky announced her retirement with just one day's notice, shocking the entire staff. A month earlier, she had sold her home for $95,000 — less than half of the reported value of the property — and had been living with her mother. According to the Netflix documentary, she also purchased several firearms from a Walmart in Huntsville, Ala., over a period of several months.

Who is Casey White?

Casey Cole White was born Aug. 20, 1983. Casey is a staggering 6'9" and has many tattoos, including a Confederate flag and other White supremacist symbols.

By the time Casey met Vicky as an inmate at the Lauderdale County Detention Center, he had a long rap sheet of violent crime dating back nearly a decade.

According to CNN, he went to prison for three years in 2012 for beating his brother with the handle of an axe-sledgehammer. In 2016, Casey was convicted of seven of 15 counts related to a crime spree the year earlier, including carjacking, robbery, home invasion and attempted murder.

Casey was sentenced to 75 years in prison for the 2016 convictions. While serving his sentence at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in 2020, he allegedly confessed to killing 59-year-old Connie Ridgeway. Despite his confession, he pleaded not guilty to two counts of capital murder in that case. He was extradited to Lauderdale County while he awaited trial for the Ridgeway murder.

While in Lauderdale County Detention Center, Casey unsuccessfully attempted to escape at least once in 2020 with a shank, Singleton later told CNN.

How did Vicky White help Casey White escape from jail?

Because of crowding issues, when Casey was in Lauderdale County Detention Center, he was put into the A1 cell, which Vicky oversaw.

In Jailbreak, other inmates and detention center workers recalled Casey starting to buy love cards from the commissary and writing love letters, but didn't know at the time that he was giving them to Vicky. Vicky's co-workers said they never remembered seeing Vicky with any man romantically, but said she told them she was "juggling" two men in December 2021.

It was later revealed that Vicky and Casey began communicating by phone (including having phone sex) in August 2021 and had 949 calls between them before their escape. In Jailbreak: Love on the Run, it was alleged that they also had physical sexual contact while Casey was in jail, and Singleton told The Washington Post that she had also given Casey other special privileges, including extra food, during his time in cell A1.

The detention center was short-staffed, with only five deputies on duty on April 29, 2022. It was Vicky's last day, and her colleagues noticed Vicky was quieter than usual, even during a retirement party the staff held for her.

On her last day, Vicky had a colleague bring Casey to booking and shackled him at 9:30 a.m., telling staff she was taking him out for a mental health evaluation at the local courthouse, which could sometimes take a few hours. They left at 9:41 a.m.

By 3:30 p.m., staff noticed that Vicky and Casey were gone longer than usual. They contacted Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton and lead investigator Matt Burbank, who were not at the jail that day. They immediately realized there was a problem, which was driven home further when they looked at camera footage of their exit, they noticed that Casey walked behind Vicky and that she was alone — which broke protocol for staff escorting violent criminals.

Vicky's patrol car was found deserted at a local shopping center, and the pair fled in an orange 2007 Ford Edge. An arrest warrant was issued for Vicky on charges of third-degree permitting or facilitating an escape.

Authorities attempted to track and chase the couple over the course of 11 days. The pair attempted to paint the Ford Edge a less conspicuous color before abandoning the vehicle in Tennessee, opting instead to drive a blue 2006 Ford F-150. They headed north and stayed in several motels, with surveillance footage showing Vicky either donning a wig or having dyed her hair a darker shade than her normal blond.

Vicky and Casey eventually ended up in Evansville, Ind., where they paid a houseless sex offender to reserve a room for them at a local motel for 14 days, The Birmingham News reported. On May 9, 2022, a car wash employee called in a tip to authorities after they washed their truck in the facility where he worked. Another tip led authorities to the motel where they were staying.

Police soon arrived at the motel where Vicky and Casey were staying, and the two fled in a gray Cadillac. A chase ensued, and the couple drove onto a grassy field before colliding with a patrol car. The Cadillac flipped over into a ditch, pinning Vicky inside. Casey surrendered to police, who found Vicky with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to her head. WHNT later reported that Vicky agreed to take her own life and Casey would die in a gunfight with police if they were ever caught.

An audio recording in Jailbreak: Love on the Run revealed that Vicky's final words to Casey were scolding him for making them stay at the motel where they were ultimately discovered.

What happened to Vicky White?

Vicky was hospitalized for her injuries, but was pronounced dead at Deaconess Hospital in Evansville, Ind., hours after the crash, authorities confirmed to PEOPLE.

Vicky was buried at Center Hill Cemetery in Lexington, Ala., with close to 200 in attendance for her funeral. Her supervisor at Lauderdale County Detention Center, Jason Butler, told the Daily Mail, "I think everyone is just tired and numb at this point. I choose to focus on the Vicky I know — she was a good friend and a good colleague for 16 years." He added, "I think what we're hoping for now is closure and healing. Her colleagues have to keep on doing their jobs and working day by day."

Did Casey White really love Vicky White?

Those close to Vicky are divided on the true nature of her relationship with Casey.

Burbank said in Jailbreak: Love on the Run that he thinks Casey manipulated Vicky. "I believe after looking at everything, Vicky's love was real for Casey. Casey didn't care about Vicky, not one bit," he said.

Singleton concurred, adding, "If he really loved her, he'd have never put her in that position. They'd have found another way to work it out."

Casey's cellmate, Tyler Purser, who was close with Vicky, said he thought their love was real.

"The best way to describe that is 'inseparable love,' " Purser said. "Casey wanted to be able to be normal with Vicky. You can't do that when you're in jail. She knew what the risks were. She didn't care. She knew what was going to happen. She didn't care. She got what she wanted, and that was time with him."

Casey told producers of Jail Break: Love on the Run that he and Vicky planned to live together in a "rinky-dink trailer" and "hunker down."

"Whenever we got to Kentucky, when I got out of the shower, she had me all new clothes laid out on the bed, and that was the best night right there ever," he recalled. "I hugged her and told her I loved her right there, and everything was great."

Casey also said he truly did love Vicky, who he viewed as his wife.

"I called her my wife right there 'cause we was [sic] married in my laws. We weren't married in the faith laws," he said. "We were married together right there. And I was her husband and she was my wife."

What was Casey White's sentence?

Casey was charged with first-degree murder after Vicky's death following the car chase, with authorities alleging that while he didn't pull the trigger on the gun she used to take her own life, his actions led to her doing so. He later pleaded guilty to first-degree escape in exchange for the first-degree murder charge to be dropped, WHNT reported. He was sentenced to life in prison and prohibited from ever contacting Vicky's surviving family.

"I feel like the most hated man in the world. I loved Vicky and I wouldn’t drag her name through the mud for anyone in this courtroom," Casey said during his sentencing hearing on June 8, 2023. "Vicky took me out because she said, 'Right was right. Wrong is wrong.' First person to show me affection. First person to give me a hug in six years." He added that he wanted to apologize for taking her away from her family, who he said she loved very much.

Where is Casey White now?

Casey is currently serving both of his sentences at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Jefferson, Ala. His attorney, Mark McDaniel, told The New York Times that Casey's life sentence for his first-degree escape charge was concurrent with the 75-year sentence he was already serving for his prior convictions and that he might someday be eligible for parole. Prosecutors say the earliest he will be eligible for parole is 2081.

In December 2022, Casey told NewsNation in a phone interview that he'd murdered a woman and a little girl in Evansville, Ind., while he and Vicky were on the run, but authorities, as well as Casey's own legal team, alleged that he was lying and that no such crime occurred. Public records of missing persons reports and murders in the Evansville area obtained by NewsNation also disputed the claim.

In July 2023, prosecutors dropped the capital murder charge against Casey for Ridgeway's killing just weeks before it was set to go to trial, AL.com reported, citing that Casey was already sentenced to life in prison and that Ridgeway's surviving children supported them, not pursuing the case further.

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