From the Associated Press April 30, 2022, 4:49 p.m. • 3 minutes reading Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Email this article FLORENCE, Ala – An Alabama prison official is missing after accompanying an inmate to a court hearing. The Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Saturday that Assistant Director of Corrections Vicky White had disappeared while accompanying an inmate on a homicide charge. The prisoner is also ignored. On Saturday morning, Sheriff Rick Singleton confirmed that the Alabama Law Enforcement Service, the FBI and U.S. military are assisting with the investigation. White, 56, who has worked in the ward for 16 years, left the detention center with inmate Casey White on Friday morning, and neither has appeared since. The couple is not related. The vehicle they were traveling in when they left the detention center was found in a nearby mall parking lot, according to the sheriff’s office. White, 38, was charged with manslaughter over Connie Ridgeway’s death in 2015. He confessed to the murder in 2020 while in prison for other crimes, WHNT-TV reported. At a news conference Friday, Singleton said Vicky White, armed with a 9mm gun, left the detention center with the inmate around 9:41 a.m. heading to the courthouse for what he said was a mental health assessment for Casey. She was alone with the detainee, which the sheriff said directly violates the department’s policy. “Our policy is for every prisoner with such charges to have two sworn deputies to accompany him. “And that did not happen,” said Singleton. Singleton also said there was no mental health assessment for the detainee scheduled for trial. White also told colleagues she had scheduled a doctor’s appointment, which was confirmed, but the office said the deputy never showed up. Officials said no one realized the two were missing until 3:30 a.m. Friday. Deputies tried to contact Vicky White but her phone repeatedly went to the answering machine. Singleton said his department had “aggressively investigated” the incident and would look into the previous interaction between the two to “see if anything else happened”. Singleton said his unit was “shocked” and that it was obvious that the correctional officer had helped him escape. Singleton told news agencies that Vicky White had handed over her retirement documents the day before she disappeared. Regardless of her involvement, the sheriff acknowledged that she could very well be in danger.
