Connie Ridgeway

Case background and investigation

Connie Ridgeway, 59, lived at the Meadowland Apartments on Prince Drive in Rogersville, in Lauderdale County, Alabama. According to Newsweek, on October 23, 2015, police went to her apartment for a welfare check requested by a neighbor and found her dead in her living room. Fox News, citing investigators, reported that she had been stabbed multiple times and struck with a hammer.

The case remained open for several years. According to Newsweek, Casey White, who was serving a 75-year sentence for a separate 2015 crime spree, told investigators in a 2020 prison interview that he had killed Ridgeway and that he had been paid to do it; the district attorney said White supplied details that matched unreleased evidence. A Lauderdale County grand jury indicted him in 2020 on two counts of capital murder. White later recanted and entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, according to Wikipedia and other reports.

While awaiting trial in the Lauderdale County jail in Florence, White escaped on April 29, 2022, with the help of Lauderdale County corrections officer Vicky White. The pair were caught in Evansville, Indiana, on May 9, 2022, after a chase, and Vicky White died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In October 2022 the district attorney announced that the state would no longer seek the death penalty in the Ridgeway case. On May 5, 2023, Casey White pleaded guilty to first-degree escape and received a life sentence, and a felony murder charge tied to Vicky White's death was dropped.

On July 28, 2023, WAFF reported that the Lauderdale County district attorney had moved to suspend the capital murder prosecution, with leave to reinstate it later, about two weeks before trial. The state cited White's existing sentences, which leave him ineligible for parole until 2081, the resources a trial would require, and continuing inquiries into whether others were involved. Ridgeway's two adult children supported the decision. Her son told Fox News in 2024 that he did not believe the confession.

Casey White has not been convicted of Ridgeway's murder. In March 2026, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's State Bureau of Investigation announced a $5,000 reward for information that helps resolve the case, according to WAFF.