When I read online that Vicky White, the jail employee who helped an inmate escape, had died after reportedly shooting herself in the head, I immediately wanted to know her story.
First, I searched her name on Twitter to see if someone posted an article that gave more details about her life – didn’t find anything. Then I went to The Daily Beast, my go-to for comprehensive investigative coverage of stories like these, but even their articles were just rehashing the recent events – I wanted more. It’s still early yet – I’m sure somebody over there is on it, and months later they’ll publish a 10,000-word investigative report detailing everything.
But, I couldn’t shake myself from wondering how did this happen. How does an exemplary employee – so much so that five times, including this year, she was voted employee of the year – someone who is financially secure (I mean she was by no means rich, but she wasn’t struggling) and about to retire throw that all away for a murder suspect?
I ask that question with true curiosity, though a bit disingenuously, because some of the answers to my own questions can be deduced just by looking at her. This was an older woman, some may even classify her as a senior since she was over 55, single, heavy set and not conventionally beautiful.
You may think it mean of me to focus on all these superficial things, but I don’t make the rules. They are already firmly established in present society and many, many societies before now. One need only look at the comment section of any tweet, Instagram post, YouTube video, or article that talks about the case to see what people have been focused on. People are calling her fat, old, ugly you name it. That’s all in addition to calling her stupid, desperate and other jokes made about her poor choice to aid a convicted inmate in escaping jail.
It’s interesting how people weren’t just making fun of her appearance, but they were also judging her as a person – judging her as if they’ve never made a foolish decision in their lives. Of course most people’s folly doesn’t rise to the occasion of going on the run with an inmate, but still, your own fuck-ups should extend a little understanding to someone else’s…at least a little.
I think the thing I takeaway most from this case is the pressure on women to be beautiful and sexually desirable, and if, for whatever reason, society deems her not to be, she becomes practically invisible, which can contribute to low self-esteem that can leave her vulnerable to the smooth-talking advances of an inmate.
From what I can gather, Vicky White was an independent woman: she had her own house, she had her own car, she had a good job that she was good at. But she had no companionship. And my guess is she also didn’t feel loved. It’s a tragic tale that many women know all to well. They just don’t take it this far, they keep it to themselves.
As a writer, these are the kinds of stories that fascinate me. These are the types of stories I love to tell – stories of real people who’ve made decisions that we all can learn from. Stories that help us all learn more about ourselves, more about each other, and society in general.
I think this story is for sure going to be a miniseries, and I would love to be a writer on said miniseries – just sayin’. And when they do do it, whoever does it, I hope the take it from the angle I laid out here. I hope they don’t focus on the sensationalism of the case, and instead try and get to the heart of the matter. It’s interesting how many people, in reference to her relationship with Casey White, say how you should never associate with someone who has nothing to lose. I even asked the question earlier, how could someone who had what she had risk it all for an inmate? But what always seems to be left out, is how evidently she also felt she had nothing to lose. That’s part of what makes this story so sad.
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