Casey White, who was the subject of an 11-day manhunt with a jail supervisor in north Alabama in 2022, will not be held in the jail from which he escaped when he goes on trial for murder later this year.
“It is not my intention to bring him back to Lauderdale County,” Judge Benjamin Graves told White’s attorneys in a court hearing today in Lauderdale County.
Graves held the hearing to meet with the prosecutor and defense attorneys about scheduling White’s two murder trials.
In June, White is expected to go on trial in the death of Vicky White, the Lauderdale County jail supervisor who helped him escape last year.
Vicky White shot and killed herself after police closed in to capture her and Casey White in Indiana.
The case drew national attention as Vicky and Casey White (no relation) spent 11 days on the run. The authorities say that the two had a jailhouse romance, communicating for months from behind bars.
In August, Casey White is expected to go on trial for capital murder in the 2015 slaying of Connie Ridgeway. Prosecutors say White confessed five years after Ridgeway’s death and claimed that someone paid him to kill her at her home in Rogersville.
[Related: Casey White won’t face death penalty in murder-for-hire case]
He is already serving a 75-year prison sentence for a string of crimes, including robbery and attempted murder in Limestone County.
Graves said that when White is transported from prison to face trial in Florence, he will need to be housed in a different jail in north Alabama.
“You have to have a reasonable amount of time to prepare for the case with your client,” the judge told White’s defense attorneys, “which is going to require us to come up with — whether it’s Limestone County, Madison County or somewhere closer to y’all — that is going to require some communication between our sheriff and their sheriff.”
White is represented by Huntsville attorneys Mark McDaniel, Robert Tuten, Marcus Helstowski, Nick Heatherly and Nick Lough.
The judge and attorneys are also preparing for how to screen potential jurors for the high-profile trial. The prosecution and defense gave the judge questionnaires to be sent to potential jurors before jury selection.
“I think we’re going to have a rough time finding many citizens of Lauderdale County that don’t know about this case,” Helstowski said in court.
Graves replied, “I agree but the appropriate procedure is to try it,”