Dramatic police footage has been released of the moment that capital murder suspect Casey Cole White was captured and his prison guard lover Vicky White’s body was pulled from their vehicle with a gun still in her hand.
Evansville Police Department shared the footage on Tuesday night as the coroner ruled the 56-year-old corrections officer’s death a suicide and the 38-year-old career criminal was sent back to Alabama to face charges.
Shocking 911 audio also revealed that Ms White was on the phone to a 911 dispatcher at the time of the crash and urged her lover of two years “let’s get out and run” moments before apparently shooting herself in the head.
Ms White and White, who was serving a 75-year sentence and awaiting a murder trial for the slaying of a 58-year-old woman, were finally tracked down to Evansville, Indiana, on Monday after spending 10 days on the run.
Following a brief police car chase, White surrendered to authorities and was taken into custody. Ms White was rushed to hospital with a gunshot wound to the head and died from her injuries hours later.
Dashcam footage released on Tuesday shows a patrol car racing to the grassy bank where the couple’s Cadillac was rammed off the road by law enforcement officers following the brief chase.
A group of officers are already on the scene and are seen pulling the six foot nine inch tall fugitive away from the car and pinning him to the ground.
White is placed in cuffs and held there for a few moments before the officers pull him to his feet and lead him away.
Dressed in in black trousers, a white t-shirt with a blue shirt open over the top and dark sunglasses, the 38-year-old is seen glancing behind him back in the direction of the car where his lover remains trapped. The Cadillac is seen flipped on its side in a ditch by the side of the road with other officers gathered around it and no sign of Ms White.
Two officers push White down onto the bonnet of the patrol car before sitting him down on the ground.
In the second video, taken from the bodyworn camera of a first responder arriving on the scene, Ms White is seen being pulled from the vehicle and given first aid.
The first responder first pulls up in a vehicle and runs along the road to where the flipped Cadillac lies.
“She shot herself,” someone is heard saying in the footage.
The officers say that Ms White is still clutching the firearm in her hand that she allegedly used to shoot herself.
“She’s still got it in her hand,” one officer says.
“What the gun in her head?” another replies.
The first officer responds: “Yes, there... finger’s on the trigger.”
At that point, Ms White is still breathing, the officers say, as they work to free her from the wrecked car.
After around five minutes, one of the officers first takes the gun from her hand and then pulls her limp body out of the vehicle. Other officers help, bringing her out onto the ground.
First responders begin performing life-saving measures.
On Tuesday night, the Vanderburgh County Coroner said that Ms White’s death was ruled a suicide.
The autopsy found that she died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
This came as officials faced questions over whether it could have been her jailhouse lover who pulled the trigger.
Immediately after his arrest, White told officers that he was innocent of causing Ms White’s injuries, according to US Marshals.
“Y’all help my wife, she shot herself in the head and I didn’t do it,” he allegedly said.
The Whites were not married, officials have confirmed.
No law enforcement officers opened fire during the encounter with the fugitives.
Chilling 911 audio was also released capturing Ms White’s final words before the couple’s car was rammed and she allegedly shot herself, as she tells her jailhouse lover they should “get out and run”.
At the start of the seven-minute audio, the dispatcher is heard saying “911” and “hello” while Ms White is heard speaking in the background saying “oh my god” and “stop, stop”.
“The airbags are going to go off,” she cries, sounding panicked.
“Airbags are going off. Let’s get out and run,” she says, as sirens are heard ringing out in the background.
Moments later, Ms White suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
A voice is later heard saying “her finger is on the trigger” – as the call continues in the aftermath of the crash.
Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said on Tuesday that the couple, who are believed to have been in a relationship for the last two years, were planning to have a shootout with police officers but were stopped from doing so after being rammed off the road by officers.
A trove of weapons including at least four handguns, a semiautomatic gun and an AR-15 were found inside their vehicle, along with around $29,000 in cash and multiple red and blonde wigs.
Evansville Police Department also released a third video taken from the bodyworn camera of an officer who was dispatched to check the vehicle abandoned at a local car wash by the fugitive couple last week.
James Stinson, owner of Weinbach Car Wash, said that he reported a 2006 Ford F-15 pickup truck with Tennessee licence plates left at his business last week.
But he has claimed to NewsNationNow that police failed to take him seriously, with an officer arriving to check out the vehicle but then telling him they couldn’t do anything about it as the vehicle hadn’t been reported stolen.
The business owner had the vehicle towed away himself last Wednesday.
It was only on Sunday when he was contacted by the US Marshals Service about the truck and Mr Stinson checked his surveillance footage, finding White on camera last Tuesday.
On Monday, officials released the images and confirmed the truck as belonging to the fugitives.
The delay in acting on the tip has come under fire, with officials defending their actions in a press conference on Tuesday.
In the bodycam footage, from 4 May, the officer is seen arriving at the car wash and approaching the suspicious vehicle.
The four-minute long video shows the officer looking inside the car, which appears to be unlocked with the passenger window wound down.
Inside, the officer finds a Glock magazine loader but no gun.
“Its weird,” he is heard saying over his police radio, before walking away.
At that time, officials said there was no indication the Ford F-15 was connected to the fugitives on the run from Alabama.
Evansville is about 175 miles north of Williamson County, Tennessee, where the couple abandoned their first getaway car – a rust-coloured 2007 Ford Edge.
On Friday, the US Marshals Service announced that the Ford Edge had been found along a rural road in Tennessee around a two hour drive north of the Lauderdale County jail.
Officials said the couple left the jail in Ms White’s patrol car before abandoning the vehicle in the parking lot of a nearby shopping centre and changing into the getaway car.
However, officials believe they were forced to switch vehicles again after the Ford Edge broke down.
The Ford Edge was actually located just hours after the pair disappeared and was taken to a tow lot in Williamson County, Tennessee – but its connection to the case was only realised on Friday.
The couple bought the pickup truck in cash from a home close to where the Ford Edge was abandoned and continued their journey in that, US Marshsals said.
White was transferred back to Alabama on Tuesday night after waiving his right to extradition that morning.
He appeared in Lauderdale County Courthouse in Florence where he was charged with escape in the first degree.
As he was led in and out of the courthouse he ignored members of the media who asked him if he had any remorse for the death of the woman who gave up her home, job and life to go on the run with him.
Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said at a press conference on Tuesday that White had shown no remorse for Ms White’s death.
His latest charge will be added to an already long rap sheet, as he is scheduled to stand trial in June for the 2015 stabbing murder of 58-year-old mother Connie Ridgeway.
Ms Ridgeway was found stabbed to death in her apartment in Rogersville, Alabama, on 23 October 2015.
The case went unsolved for five years until White sent a letter to authorities confessing to the crime and was charged in 2020 with two counts of capital murder.
At the time he was already behind bars serving a 75-year sentence after being convicted of a crime spree in both Alabama and Tennessee.
The spree includes a home invasion, carjacking and a police chase, with White shooting one person and holding six at gunpoint.
The Marshals Service said that White had also threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend and her sister in 2015, and previously said that he wanted to be killed by police.
The net closed in on the Whites after authorities learned that the couple were staying at a hotel in Evansville – just across from Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office.
The Whites, who are not related, had booked a 14-day stay there.
After leaving the Ford F-150 at the car wash, the couple had switched into another vehicle – a Cadillac – and officers were on the lookout for it.
When it was spotted in the Motel 41 parking lot on Monday afternoon by an officer, a taskforce descended on the site, beginning surveillance there.
The suspects were then seen exiting the hotel, getting into the Cadillac and driving away.
At that point, law enforcement gave chase and rammed the couple’s car off the road into a ditch.
Once the car crashed, Ms White shot herself in the head while White “gave up”, he said.
A nationwide manhunt was first launched back on 29 April when Ms White picked the inmate up from Lauderdale County jail at around 9.30am claiming that she was taking him for a mental health evaluation at Lauderdale County Courthouse.
She told her coworkers that once she had escorted him to court she was going to seek medical attention for herself as she felt unwell.
The pair never arrived at the courthouse.
Officials said that they later learned that White had no scheduled court appearance or appointments that day.
Ms White’s 2013 Ford Taurus patrol car was found abandoned in the parking lot of a shopping centre not far from the jail at around 11am that day.
But several more hours passed before the pair fell under suspicion.
At around 3.30pm that afternoon, Ms White’s coworkers grew concerned that she hadn’t returned and they were unable to reach her by phone.
It was only then that they also realised that White had also not returned to jail.
With Ms White now dead, many questions remain unanswered around both the shock prison escape and the alleged suicide of the 56-year-old widow who had a two-decades-long “exemplary” career.
Sheriff Singleton said that the couple had been in what he described as a “jailhouse romance” or “special relationship” for the last two years.
He said that there is evidence that they had been in contact since 2020 when White was transferred out of the county jail after he was rumbled plotting another prison escape.
Ms White allegedly communicated with him by phone before the inmate was then transferred back to the local jail in February.
On his return, White had received special treatment from the corrections officer including being given extra food on his trays, officials said.
Ms White had also sold her home just five weeks earlier for well below its market value, withdrew $90,000 in cash from her bank accounts and filed for retirement days before the pair vanished.
Her last day of work was the day she disappeared, though her retirement papers had not been finalised.
After selling her home, she moved in with her mother who previously said that she knew nothing about her daughter’s plans to retire and had never heard her speak of White.
In the early aftermath of the prison escape, Ms White was described as an “exemplary employee” who had repeatedly won employee of the year awards.
If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
