Williams, 42, and his family were hoping for the best for Vicki White, the inmate accused of helping the fugitive escape from the Lauderdale County Detention Center 11 days ago. The news that she died, according to reports, took her own life, is devastating, he said.
“It really saddens me because we were hoping and praying for the best outcome, and that’s really not the case,” he said. “Our heart is with her family and her friends. We are very sad for her.”
The couple’s escape on April 29 caused a wave of emotions, Williams told CNN last week. Overwhelmed by the fatal stabbing of their matriarch in 2015 in Rodgersville, Alabama, the family was relieved to learn that Casey White had confessed to the 2020 murder, only to be disappointed when he denied his confessions and confessed to innocent.
However, the trial promises answers to many questions about Ridgeway’s death – but that hope is also snatched when the family learns that White has escaped.
Now the prospect of answers is back on the table, Williams said, and the family is excited.
“It was just brilliant news. There are really no words about it. It’s like a miracle,” he said in a telephone interview from his father’s house, where he and his brother Cameron, 40, met before heading to an emergency hearing for White in Florence, Alabama.
Once in custody – following a car chase Monday in Indiana – White appeared via video of an extradition hearing in Evansville, Indiana, where he told a judge he was waiving his right to be heard, saying: “I want to go back to Alabama. ”
White appeared on the podium with five security officers. Back in Alabama, Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said his team was also taking steps to ensure White didn’t run away again, including putting him in a cell himself.
“He will remain in handcuffs and shackles while in this cell, and if he wants to prosecute me for violating his civil rights, so be it. He will not be released from this prison again. I assure you,” Singleton said Monday.
White was returned to Alabama late Tuesday to stand trial in Lauderdale County Court. He listened intently as Judge Ben Graves informed him that in addition to the murder charges against him for Ridgeway’s death, he would be charged with first-degree escape.
Less than 10 feet away, Williams sat in the front row of the courtroom, watching White during the hearing.
Following the indictment, White was transported to the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama, just over 100 miles south of Lauderdale County. He must be housed in the facility until another court hearing returns him to Lauderdale County, Singleton said Tuesday.
Williams said the former fugitive, who was serving a long prison sentence for violent crime, was a threat to the public and there were reports that he once tried to commit suicide by a cop, Williams said, so he felt White’s chances of being arrested were alive. slender. The opportunity seemed less when he learned that Vicki White had carried out a well-planned escape and had a serious advantage over the authorities, he said.
Ridgeway was a mother of two who never had a chance to meet her grandchildren. A patriot and generous soul who had friends all over Rodgersville, she was also a strong Southern Baptist who drove neighbors and made little felt angels to give to friends and family.
She was “a man who has never met a stranger,” loved and valued by those who knew her, her son said. It never made sense for a violent criminal to target her, he said.
Williams would like to speed up the process of killing Casey White, he said, and hopes to find out during the proceedings whether White knew his mother, “how he ended up in her space, in her apartment,” and whether some of the speculation over her murder is true.
The trial is set for June 13, but White’s lawyer Jamie Poss said during Tuesday’s hearing that he plans to file a motion to change the venue, which the judge said he would consider.
“The whole story really blows me away,” Williams said. “Knowing what kind of person she is, the whole thing is really shocking. Nothing will make sense until it’s proven.”
As for his family’s condition late Tuesday morning, Williams said: “Everyone looks in a better mood.”
The incident reminds him of what a pastor heard in his former hometown of Atlanta, he said: The best marriages are boring.
“You don’t appreciate the normal as much as when you don’t have it and get it back,” he said. “Normal is not necessarily a bad thing. Normal and boring should not be taken for granted.”
Omar Jimenez, Jamiel Lynch, Jade Tim-Garcia and Nadia Romero of CNN contributed to this report.
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