A prison break in the US has ended after a female prison guard on the run with an inmate she allegedly helped to escape, died as police moved in to arrest them at the end of a 10-day search.
Vicky White and Casey White, who were not related, were arrested in Evansville, Indiana, yesterday after their car crashed into a ditch as police acting on a tip were in pursuit, officials said.
Vicky White, 56 and described as romantically involved with the fugitive prisoner, took her own life, said Vanderburgh County sheriff Dave Wedding.
The county coroner's office later confirmed her death.
Casey White, 38, sustained minor injuries in the crash.
"We got a dangerous man off the street today. He is never going to see the light of day again," said Rick Singleton, the sheriff of Lauderdale County in Alabama, home to the scene of the original prison escape.
Casey White has had numerous run-ins with the law, and has been sentenced to 75 years' imprisonment for kidnapping, burglary and attempted murder, among other crimes.
No shots were fired by law enforcement officers, and no police or bystanders were hurt.
The arrest was made thanks to a tip-off after the couple were spotted at a hotel, Sheriff Singleton said.
"It ended the way we knew it would," he said.
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Chris Swecker, a former FBI assistant director, told CNN this was a case of someone "looking for love in the wrong places".
"You have this guard falling in love with a prisoner who probably groomed her over a period of time," said Mr Swecker, "to collude with her on this escape".
Vicky White, an Alabama prison guard with a spotless record, was suspected of helping long-time criminal Casey White escape custody on 29 April on her last day of work before retirement.
Investigators also learned that she had sold her home in the weeks before the escape, and had withdrawn about $90,000 in cash from several banks in the area, Sheriff Singleton said last week.
He said last week that Ms White had used an alias to purchase a sport utility vehicle used as the getaway car, and was likely to try to do that again.
The US Marshals Service also said Ms White might have darkened her hair.
The agency released composite images of what she would look like, as well as photos of Casey White's tattoos, including one associated with a white supremacist prison gang.
On her last day at work, Ms White fabricated a court-ordered psychological evaluation for Casey White.
She said she needed to drive him to the appointment. But the two never returned, and authorities realised they had disappeared that afternoon.
Ms White's mother Pat Davis said she was in disbelief over that escape.
"I thought at first it was a mistake," she told a local TV channel. "She's never done anything, I bet she's never even had a speeding ticket."
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe told CNN a prison escape like this is a tough mission.
"It's getting harder very year to pull these things off successfully, with the ubiquitous nature of video surveillance, and the ability of the media and quite frankly social media to get that sort of intelligence out to the public in a real-time manner," he said.
