As Casey White lay bleeding after Vicky White pulled the trigger, his main concern was that authorities would think he shot her, lawmen recounted around the one-year anniversary of the manhunt that began with an escape at an Alabama jail and ended in an Indiana ditch.

“You know what his concern was? He didn’t want us to think he shot his wife,” Sgt. Kurt Althoff of the Vanderburgh County, Indiana Sheriff’s Office told the Evansville Courier & Press in a story published Thursday. “He was saying, ‘I did not shoot her, I did not shoot her.’ It was really strange. It was like, ‘Well, we didn’t think you did.’”

The Whites, who had a romantic relationship, were not married.

The manhunt for Vicky White, a corrections officer at the Lauderdale County jail in Florence and Casey White, an inmate at the jail, ended on May 9, 2022 in Evansville, Indiana, as the Whites led federal, state and local authorities on a pursuit that ended with the Whites’ stolen Cadillac in a ditch.

As authorities closed in on the pair, authorities recounted Vicky White brandished a gun and shot herself.

The bullet, which pierced Vicky White’s skull, also nicked Casey White, who was bleeding substantially.

Vicky White died, while Casey White was taken into custody.

Last week, Casey White pleaded guilty to escape in connection with the incident.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” White said in court, as members of Vicky White’s family listened. “Things happened…and we was in love.”

Casey White also faces a capital murder trial set for Aug. 14 for the 2015 slaying of Connie Ridgeway in Rogersville. When he escaped from jail, White was being held for the trial, then just weeks away. That trial was delayed in the aftermath of the escape and White retaining a new team of attorneys.

He is serving a 75-year sentence for convictions stemming from an array of 2015 charges, including attempted murder.