Officials reveal what an inmate said he would do if he ever got out. They released new photos of him and the corrections officer he escaped with

CNN

By Elizabeth Wolfe, Ryan Young, Jaide Timm-Garcia and Paradise Afshar, CNN

While investigators sift through hundreds of tips on the whereabouts of a fugitive Alabama inmate and the officer he escaped with, authorities have released new information that may help the public identify them.

Image renderings by the US Marshals Service show what officer Vicky White, 56, who was blonde at the time of her disappearance, would look like if she altered her appearance to have darker hair or a shorter hairstyle.

“Obviously, there was a side to Vicky White that we weren’t aware of. And she has coordinated this and taken advantage of her knowledge of the system and played it to her advantage and made it very difficult,” Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton told CNN on Thursday.

Officials also released new photos of inmate Casey White’s distinctive tattoos. The Marshals Service disclosed that the inmate in 2015 allegedly threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend and her sister and said he wanted police to kill him. The agency said authorities have advised his “potential targets” about his escape and the threats against them and have taken “appropriate protective actions.”

There is a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the location of the officer and $10,000 leading to the capture of the inmate, the agency said Thursday, adding the “subjects should be considered dangerous and may be armed with an AR-15 rifle, handguns and a shotgun.”

Meanwhile, investigators are frantically pursuing the hundreds of tips they have received from the public, some of which, they say, may have potential.

“The tips that we’re getting, we’re following up on as aggressively as we can. Some of them do look promising, but it takes a time to follow through on those things,” Singleton said Thursday. “We’re hoping that one of them will pan out for us, and we’ll be able to locate them.”

Authorities continue to emphasize that Casey White should be considered “extremely dangerous.” He was in the Lauderdale County jail awaiting trial for the capital murder charges against him and was also serving a 75-year sentence for a series of crimes committed in 2015.

The officer and inmate, who are not related, left the Lauderdale County Detention Center on April 29 and have been on the run ever since. Over the course of this week’s investigation, authorities have discovered the pair may have had a romantic relationship and believe Vicky White likely willingly assisted in the inmate’s escape.

There is an active warrant out for the officer’s arrest on charges of permitting or facilitating escape in the first degree. She is also no longer employed as assistant director of corrections by the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office, the office said in a statement Wednesday. While she was set to retire on Friday, her papers were never finalized, he said.

To help the public identify the pair, the Marshals Service also released an image showing the height difference between the two, as well as their height compared to the Ford Edge SUV they are believed to have escaped in.

Not ‘the Vicky White we know,’ sheriff says

Singleton has described the officer as an “exemplary employee” that had the respect of her colleagues and “an unblemished record.”

The sheriff could not provide a reason why the officer allegedly aided the escape, saying that the behavior isn’t “the Vicky White we know.”

The officer had made some significant financial decisions leading up to April 29, including selling her home for well under market value. The house sold for $95,550, documents show, but county records list the current total parcel value of the property to be $235,600.

The relationship can be traced to 2020 when the inmate was brought to Lauderdale County for arraignment on his murder charges, according to the sheriff.

Singleton said the pair had a “special relationship” that was confirmed, in part, by other inmates who told authorities Casey White “was getting extra food on his trays” and “was getting privileges no one else got. And this was all coming from her.”

The sheriff said the pair kept communicating after Casey White was transferred back to the state prison. Casey White returned to the Lauderdale County Detention Facility in February to attend court hearings in his capital murder case.

Then, on the morning of April 29, authorities say Vicky White asked that Casey White be prepared for transport. She said she would take him to the courthouse by herself, which was a violation of the department’s policy requiring that inmates be accompanied by two sworn deputies at all times, Singleton said.

Investigators have determined the two then drove to a shopping center parking lot, ditched the officer’s patrol car and drove off in an orange or copper-colored 2007 Ford Edge SUV with minor damage to the rear left bumper, the US Marshals said, noting it is unknown whether the car has a license plate and what the plate number could be.

Investigators believe Vicky White purchased the escape vehicle in Rogersville, in Lauderdale County, and staged it in the parking lot the night before the pair fled, according to Singleton. It is likely they have since ditched the escape car because the description is being widely shared, he said.

Tips pouring in

The U.S. Marshal’s task Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force has received 210 tips since Tuesday from across the US, Chad Hunt, Commander Deputy of the task force, said Thursday.

“We’re seeing stuff coming in from the Northwest down to the Southwest to the Northeast and everything in between … and we have to look at every single one, because it’s going to be that one small tip that we think might be irrelevant that really kind of breaks the case open,” Hunt said.

Hunt said this investigation was unique because Vicky White helped the inmate escape.

“We were several hours behind, it wasn’t a typical over-the-wall escape, so our investigation does look a little different than a typical manhunt where somebody jumped the fence,” he said.

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CNN’s Erin Burnett, Jamiel Lynch, Chuck Johnston, Amara Walker, Jade Gordon, and Tina Burnside contributed to this report.