A manhunt is underway for a missing Alabama sheriff’s deputy and a murder suspect

A sheriff’s official and a capital murder suspect went missing on Friday.

Authorities in northwestern Alabama are searching for both of them.

Vicki White, the sheriff’s office’s assistant director of prisons, and the suspect, Casey Cole White, left a detention center on Friday morning to head to a courthouse, but never arrived, according to the sheriff’s office.

The two are not related.

Investigators are trying to figure out if Vicki White helped Casey White, but for the time being, they’re treating her as if she was kidnapped against her will.

“I do think this, knowing the inmate: I think she’s in danger, whatever the circumstances,” Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton told reporters. “He was in jail for capital murder.”

Vicki White picked up Casey White from the jail center around 9:40 a.m., ostensibly for a mental health evaluation in court, according to Singleton.

There was no evacuation scheduled.

She also transported the suspect alone, which, according to the sheriff, would be a clear violation of the rules requiring two sworn deputies for someone facing those charges.

They were in a marked 2013 Ford Taurus patrol car, which was later discovered at a shopping mall.

Casey White, 38, has been charged with capital murder in the killing of Connie Ridgeway, who was murdered at her home in 2015.

Any further information about any upcoming court appearance sent to the district attorney was not immediately replied.