There's always hope. Ex-corrections officer dead, murder suspect in custody after chase in Indiana ends in crash

A former corrections officer accused of helping a capital murder suspect escape from an Alabama jail last week died Monday after a police chase ended in a car crash in Indiana, authorities said.

The ex-officer, Vicky White, 56, was pronounced dead hours after the crash, Vanderburgh County Coroner Steve Lockyear said.

The murder suspect, Casey White, 38, surrendered to authorities after the wreck, Rick Singleton, the sheriff of Lauderdale County in Alabama, told reporters earlier.

The U.S. Marshals Service said when Casey White came out of the car, he exclaimed: "Please help my wife. She just shot herself in the head, and I didn’t do it."

Vicky and Casey White were not related, Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said Tuesday on NBC’s “TODAY” show.

While the initial information indicates Vicky White shot herself, the sheriff said that "we won’t rule anything out until we have a thorough investigation by the coroner."

An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday, Lockyear said.

Vicky White was pronounced dead at a hospital in Evansville, Indiana, shortly after 7 p.m. local time, Lockyear said. He didn’t say how she died.

“This has ended a very long, stressful, challenging week and a half,” Singleton said.

Casey White was taken into custody after he was seen on a security camera washing a Ford F-150 pickup in Evansville.

The business owner provided authorities with security camera images, and the agency confirmed they showed White, the Marshals Service said.

Officials had previously said the Ford F-150 was the vehicle White was driving when the crash occurred, but the pair appeared to have been in a different vehicle.

Officials have said Casey White had a "special relationship" with Vicky White, the former assistant director of corrections at the Lauderdale County Jail. Authorities said they had a relationship for at least two years and communicated over the phone.

Additional details about their relationship have not been disclosed. Vicky White is believed to have helped Casey White escape on her final day at work.

Vicky White was not seen in the photos from the car wash. It wasn’t immediately clear why they were in Evansville, roughly 270 miles north of the Lauderdale County Jail.

A warrant for her arrest was issued this month alleging she facilitated or permitted Casey White's April 29 escape.

Casey White was charged with two counts of capital murder in September 2020 in the stabbing of Connie Ridgeway, 58, and he was already in jail in connection with a 2015 home invasion, carjacking and police chase, according to the Marshals Service.

Casey White confessed to stabbing Ridgeway and was awaiting trial at the Lauderdale County Jail when he disappeared, according to the agency.

Austin Williams, Ridgeway's son, said he was relieved Casey White had been captured. "Just night and day difference. It’s like you’re going through the darkest night, and then the next day the sun is shining," he said. The Marshals Service said investigators have learned that before Casey White's sentencing in 2015, “he made threats against his ex-girlfriend and her sister, warning that if he ever got out, he would kill them and that he wanted police to kill him.”

Officers realized the two were missing around 3:30 p.m. April 29, when Vicky White’s phone went straight to voicemail after repeated attempts to contact her, Singleton said.

Vicky White and Casey White left the detention center, purportedly for a mental health evaluation in court. Investigators later confirmed that such an evaluation was never scheduled, Singleton said.

At the time of her departure, Vicky White told the booking officer she planned to go to a medical appointment after she dropped off Casey White because she was not feeling well. But she had no appointment scheduled, Singleton said.

She transported the suspect by herself — a violation of the policy requiring two sworn deputies to transport people under those charges, the sheriff said.

Vicky White had talked about retiring for months. She had sold her house, and her last day of work as a Lauderdale County corrections officer was supposed to be April 29 — the day she and Casey White vanished.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...firm-rcna28025

Given that age disparity, I guess it's not hard to imagine what might have happened there.

Yes. More news: Shireen Abu was a Palestinian-American correspondent for Al Jazeera was killed reportedly covering a raid by Israeli forces. I wish her family well. That's just horrific. Of course the blame game is going on. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/al-j...cy-afp-2964979

Considering how draconian Israel's general security measures are, I can imagine they're looking for someone to blame for a reporter's death. I don't say that lightly given the killing spree that's been happening. But journalist are in the region in large part because of the government's lack of transparency in how its police and military conduct themselves, particularly in times of crisis.

So yeah. It's always tragic when a reporter dies in the line of duty. We are all better off for the work that journalists do, especially in trouble zones such as Israel. And every death like this one is a cold shoulder on many in the profession, so the impact is more significant than anyone realizes.

the Israel - Palenstian mess is such a quagmire of politics, religion, war, destruction, two intractable sides that won't give an inch.


the battle-hardened and forever-on-alert IDF vs the cabal of PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah, backed up hundreds of millions of dollars of Iranian money. there are over a 120,000 rockets and missiles pointed at Israel from inside the Gaza Strip, it's a powder keg waiting to explode....and it will explode, it's only a matter of time. the palestianian people are caught in the middles of this mess, but they did vote in Hamas as their elected gov't, in a fair UN-monitored election. sometimes when you make your bed, you actually do have to sleep in it occasionally. ugh.

Buffalo had a mass shooting at a grocery store today. At least 10 people reportedly died there. Here's an update: The gunman in the Buffalo mass shooting was motivated by racism.

BUFFALO — A teenage gunman espousing a white supremacist ideology known as replacement theory opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo on Saturday, methodically shooting and killing 10 people and injuring three more, almost all of them Black, in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history.

The authorities identified the gunman as 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron of Conklin, a small town in New York’s rural Southern Tier. Mr. Gendron drove more than 200 miles to mount his attack, which he also live streamed, the police said, a chilling video feed that appeared designed to promote his sinister agenda.

Shortly after Mr. Gendron was captured, a manifesto believed to have been posted online by the gunman emerged, riddled with racist, anti-immigrant views that claimed white Americans were at risk of being replaced by people of color. In the video that appeared to have been captured by the camera affixed to his helmet, an anti-Black racial slur can be seen on the barrel of his weapon.

The attack, at a Tops Friendly Market in a largely Black neighborhood in east Buffalo, conjured grim comparisons to a series of other massacres motivated by racism, including the killing of nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015; an antisemitic rampage in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 that left 11 people dead; and an attack at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019, where the man charged had expressed hatred of Latinos. More than 20 people died there.

In the Buffalo grocery store, where four employees were shot, the savagery and planning were evident: Mr. Gendron was armed with an assault weapon and wore body armor, the police said. And his preferred victims seemed clear as well: All told, 11 of the people shot were Black and two were white, the authorities said.

“It was a straight up racially motivated hate crime,” John Garcia, the Erie County sheriff, said.

New York’s laws on buying long guns are less restrictive than for handguns.

While New York state has some of the country’s most restrictive firearms laws, its regulations on buying and owning long guns are much less rigid than those for handguns.

The suspect in the Buffalo shooting bought his assault weapon at a store in Endicott, N.Y., and said in an online manifesto that he also purchased a shotgun in Pennsylvania.

New York prohibits anyone under 21 from obtaining a handgun permit, but no permit is needed to buy a long gun. The state allows people to own long guns, such as rifles and shotguns, at age 16, and buy them at 18.

Pennsylvania allows New Yorkers to buy long guns if they are at least 18 and can pass a criminal background check. The firearms must comply with New York law.

The 2013 Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, a state law, tightened the rules by implementing universal background checks and stricter definitions for assault weapons. The F.B.I. uses the National Instant Criminal Background Check System at the point of sale in New York. The owner of the New York gun store where the suspect bought his Bushmaster XM-15 said a check turned up nothing.

New York City has separate licensing regulations. A person buying rifles, shotguns and handguns needs a permit. In recent years, legislation has been proposed to bring the age requirement for long guns to 21.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05...ing-buffalo-ny

Israel isn't without powerful allies either, though. I realize it has rocket attacks from the occupied territories. I certainly don't condone those. But the missiles other countries may be pointing at it aren't Palestinians' fault.

Of course, I don't condone Iranian or Lebanese threats on Israeli security either.

Just like I don't condone police attacking the mourners at the funeral of a reporter. :shrug:

Another mass shooting happened in the U.S. today. This time in Uvalde, TX near San Antonio at an elementary school. Reportedly 14 students & a teacher were killed. This suspect reportedly shot his grandma before entering the school.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/24/11010...hooting-uvalde

I hear the governor of that state is particularly worried about the rights of the unborn. It'd be cool if he could muster the same kind of zeal for the rights of children to be safe in school.

Yes. I believe that Greg Abbott wants teachers armed as well. Here is part of what he said earlier: "I hate to say this, but there are more people shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas. And we need to realize that people who think that, well maybe if we just implement tougher gun laws, it's gonna solve it. Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis. And so, if you're looking for a real solution, Chicago teaches that what you're talking about is not a real solution. Our job is to come up with real solutions that we can implement."

Of course Abbott's answer is to arm the teachers. :rolleyes: As if it weren't already blatant that he's the NRA's pocket. They're the ones that keep one raking it in every time there's a school shooting.

But with all the footage that came out today of the actual police standing outside for almost an hour while kids were being slaughtered inside, some of which likely bleeding to death too, I think it's clear the solution to school shootings isn't more guns. The guns were there. They did f-all.

Still, whatever, right? We've had other school shootings before. Nothing ever changes. :shrug: What's the point of getting upset thinking about those kids and what even the survivors went through when nothing's going to change?

The authorities have changed their story about what happened. This gunman went into that school unimpeded. The 60-minut gap is troubling. The officers waited for the tactical team to go in.

Also, I just saw on the Vancouver Sun YouTube channel that a woman posted a video on TikTok of Vanouver police fist-bumping each other after they tased a suicidal man.

There are rumours going around that the cops did get inside the school... to get their own kids out. And then went back out. :shrug: That's unsubstantiated at this point in time, but it's not a good look.

They also did the thing they did in Buffalo: restrain the parents from going in and trying to save the kids.

And, honestly, I'm not trying to police bash here. I think the entire U.S. police force (and, obviously, there's more than just the one - that's also part of the problem. I just mean all cops across the U.S.A.) have been completely let down by the gross lack of training they receive. It's left them unable to act in a crisis, frozen out of fear for their lives and incapable of saving chidlren bleeding out. They're more likely to kneel on a man's neck for nine minutes than they are to stop a kid from shooting up a school. (Not trying to diminish the killer's responsibility by calling him a kid. But, at 18, he was a child himself.)

But, again, no one's interested in preventing the next school shooting, so I need to stop being outraged when something like this happens. Because it's gonna keep happening. Because no one who could make a difference wants to stop it from happening. Not really.

the cops always wonder why they are called pigs. smh. the high five video is making the rounds right now. real professional there, orcs.

The reason why I don't want to police bash is that there are good cops.

What we saw in Uvalde is blatant evidence that there's also a lot of bad cops or, at the very least, grossly and criminally incompetent cops. Cops who only got in the job for the power trip and the high salary to little education ratio.

Anyone not living under a rock for the past 20-30 years has seen plenty of evidence in the news that the United States (and its not alone in having this problem, but it seems to have the worst of it) has a very serious bad-cop problem. Cops who murder civilians willy-nilly. Cops who face no consequences for their actions. Cops who are the bad guys.

But, more problematic than all of that is the fact that there is zero evidence that anyone, anywhere, is trying to change that.

So the only conclusion we're left with is that all these horrible cops are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. :shrug: Because, for all the power they do have over regular people, Cops, and even cop unions, are hardly the most powerful group in the country. So, if their actions were truly problematic to the PTBs, something would be done about it.