The most popular movie on Netflix right now isn’t a kid-friendly animated feature like The Super Mario Bros. Movie or a thrilling action flick like Rebel Ridge. Instead, it’s a bizarre and upsetting true crime documentary called Jailbreak: Love on the Run, about a detention center employee who quit and ran away with one of the inmates.
Jailbreak recounts the unbelievable story of Vicky White, former assistant director of corrections at the Lauderdale County Detention Center in Florence, Alabama. Back in 2020, Casey White, a convicted felon serving a 75-year sentence, was transferred to the detention center where Vicky worked. He and Vicky quickly formed a connection, and she began to fall for him as he awaited trial in connection to the death of a 59-year-old resident of Rogersville, AL.
“Casey White was described as a ‘romancer’ by one of his former cellmates, and those who worked at the jail said he was a polite, even charming, prisoner,” Rachel Stockman, executive producer of the true crime documentary, told Tudum. “Vicky, who was used to doing things for others, fell for Casey’s manipulation, especially when he claimed he was being framed for a murder he didn’t commit. He made her believe in him.”
If you followed the story as it broke in 2022, you know what happened next. Everyone else is in for a true whirlwind of a police chase—one that ended in tragedy.
“Initially, I couldn’t understand how such a well-liked, stellar employee would throw everything away for a criminal,” Stockman added. “But by the end of production, I understood — and it was both heartbreaking and tragic.”
Viewers of the documentary are in a state of disbelief, as social media posts reveal:
In 2022, Tubi adapted the story of Casey White’s prison escape into a movie called Prisoner of Love, starring Nicholle Tom as Vicky and Adam Mayfield as Casey. A year later, Lifetime put out its own adaptation starring Wendi McLendon-Covey and Rossif Sutherland.
