Jail guard Vicky White, who seems to have shot herself after allegedly serving to a harmful convict escape, was reportedly as a result of be offered with an 'worker of the yr' award subsequent week.

The Alabama jail official, a 56-year-old divorcee, spent 10 days on the run with Casey Cole White (no relation) after the pair pulled off an escape from the Lauderdale County Jail. She died on Monday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an Indiana coroner mentioned.

Her former cost was caught alive by authorities.

Vicky White's motive for allegedly aiding the convict stays a thriller, with some suspecting a romantic relationship whereas others feared she had been threatened or coerced not directly.

On Tuesday, Information Nation senior nationwide correspondent Brian Entin tweeted: "This yr Vicky White was voted corrections worker of the yr in Lauderdale County. The awards ceremony is subsequent week. The sheriff says the employees is taking the information of Vicky's loss of life onerous."

Vicky White
Casey Cole White, left, and Assistant Director of Corrections Vicky White.U.S. Marshals Service and Lauderdale County Sheriff's Workplace

Newsweek has reached out to the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Workplace looking for additional details about claims White was in line for an award. It's unclear whether or not the ceremony continues to be as a result of go forward and whether or not White would obtain her award posthumously or, extra doubtless, whether or not she can be pulled from the class whereas investigators set up precisely how she was concerned in Casey White's escape.

Vicky White had beforehand gained the award 4 instances, The New York Occasions reported, and had been described as an "exemplary worker...[with] an unblemished report" by Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton.

Talking whereas she and Casey White have been nonetheless being sought, he added: "I suppose we're attempting to carry on to that final straw of hope that possibly for some purpose she was threatened and did this underneath coercion... however completely you'd really feel betrayed [otherwise]. All of her co-workers are devastated. We have by no means had any state of affairs like this with Vicky White. She was a mannequin worker."

Information that Vicky White had gained 'corrections worker of the yr' comes after U.S. Marshal Martin Keely informed CNN's Anderson Cooper 360that Casey White talked about to officers to assist his "spouse" after his seize, sparking theories the pair had married whereas on the run. Keely, nonetheless, added that "to our information, they are not married."

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez mentioned White shouted as he was being apprehended: "Y'all assist my spouse, she shot herself within the head and I did not do it."

Vicky White was as soon as married to a person who she divorced in 1991, in response to The Related Press. He died earlier this yr.

Casey White was serving 75 years in jail for a string of crimes he dedicated in 2015, together with a house invasion and a carjacking, whereas he additionally faces two counts of capital homicide after being accused of stabbing 59-year-old Connie Ridgeway additionally in 2015.