via Associated Press
UNITED STATES – These « Bonnie and Clyde » of 2022 will have spent ten days on the run before a tragic outcome. The American police announced on Monday May 9 that they had arrested in the State of Indiana Casey White, an “extremely dangerous” detainee, who escaped on April 29 thanks to the assistance of a prison officer. She died after shooting herself with a gun during the arrest.
« Casey White is under arrest again, » Sheriff Rick Singleton told reporters. For their part, Vanderburgh County authorities are “investigating the death of Vicky White, a fugitive from Alabama”, they confirmed Monday evening. The 56-year-old woman died at 7 p.m. local time and an autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, they said in a statement.
A fascinating and out of tune couple
Vicky White and Casey White (who are unrelated despite their common surname) were arrested after a car chase with the police. The couple were chased while they were in a Ford pickup truck in the city of Evansville, in the heart of the Midwest, said sheriff Rick Singleton, responsible for coordinating the hunt for the fugitives.
« She shot herself and was seriously injured, » Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding told CNN. “During the pursuit, the pickup had an accident. Casey White surrendered,” Sheriff Rick Singleton said earlier.
After starting in an Alabama prison, their flight lasted ten days, over hundreds of kilometers and in at least four states. The improbable duo has aroused great interest, in particular because of the contrasts between them: she, a model little civil servant with an apparently orderly life; he, a 2.06 m multi-recidivist colossus imprisoned for presumed murder.
Casey White ‘will never see the open air again’
« We have today put a very dangerous man out of action, » said Sheriff Singleton. “And he will never see the open air again”. His men received a tip about the couple’s presence in Indiana and CCTV footage shot at a car wash where the Ford pickup was seen.
« It becomes more and more difficult each year to succeed in this kind of escape, with the omnipresence of video surveillance, and the ability of the media and social networks to make this information public in real time », noted the former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on CNN. However, in recent days and until Monday, the two fugitives seemed to keep at least one step ahead of their pursuers.
« We’re kind of back to square one, » Sheriff Singleton lamented on Friday, noting that the escape plan had been « very well thought out. » On April 29, it was with disconcerting ease that Vicky White extracted Casey White from his penitentiary in the city of Florence, where he was serving a 75-year prison sentence. The woman oversaw prisoner transfers for the Lauderdale County Sheriff.
A video showed the official escorting the tall, tattooed inmate, whose feet and hands were restrained with chains, into his police car, and taking him outside under the false pretense of a psychological evaluation to the court.
A perfectly polished escape
The “model employee” according to the sheriff, described by the county prosecutor as “the most reliable person in the prison”, had then planned a substitute vehicle in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center.
This car, which the official had bought under an assumed name, was found in a Tennessee pound, without this rebound in the investigations really allowing the investigators to progress.
It will be learned later that the prison officer had withdrawn in cash some 90,000 dollars, proceeds from the recent sale of her house, and bought civilian clothes to replace her companion’s prison suit.
The bounty offered by the authorities in exchange for any information that could lead to the arrest of the two fugitives had been raised to 25,000 dollars.
See also on the HuffPost: “Ragnar the dog”, the fugitive who documented his escape on TikTok