(NewsNation) — The former sheriff in the news during a highly publicized 2022 Alabama jailbreak involving a female guard and male inmate is commenting on the continuing manhunt in New Orleans following a breakout there.
Rick Singleton, now retired from his Lauderdale County post, said jails are different from state prisons.
“They’re not built with the security measures that state prisons are built (with),” he told “Banfield” on Friday. “On top of that, you constantly have people coming in and out. It’s a security nightmare.”
Singleton was sheriff when correctional officer Vicky White helped felon Casey White, no relation, escape from jail in Florence, Alabama, on the pretense of taking him to a mental health evaluation.
Instead, the romantically involved pair went on the run for 11 days before authorities closed in and Vicky White died by suicide. Casey White is serving life in prison at Donaldson Correctional Facility.
Singleton, who wrote a book about the fugitive pair, said male inmates can sometimes hold sway over women. Louisiana authorities say some of the inmates who escaped from Orleans Parish Justice Center last week received help on the outside from women, who are now facing charges.
“Within a week after Casey White was returned to the Donaldson prison in Alabama, he was communicating with five or six women. Women had put thousands of dollars on his commissary account,” Singleton said. “There’s just some attraction.”
Five fugitives remain at large from the New Orleans jailbreak.