Missing prison officer Vicky White and prisoner Casey White have been arrested after being caught following a car chase with fugitive hunters, the US Marshals.

Mr White, who was awaiting trial on a capital murder case, disappeared with Ms White after leaving a detention centre in Florence, Alabama.

On 29 April, Ms White told colleagues the 38-year-old inmate needed to go to the courthouse for a mental health evaluation.

Later that day, when she was not answering her phone, the authorities discovered no such evaluation had been scheduled.

Ms White’s patrol car was also found abandoned at a shopping centre.

On Monday, police reported the pair – who are not related – had been arrested after a truck they were in, that was being pursued by US Marshals, crashed in the town of Evansville in Indiana.

Ms White, 56, was taken to hospital.

Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said. “This has ended a very long and stressful and challenging week and a half. It ended the way that we knew it would. They are in custody.”

The US Marshals, a federal law enforcement agency that deals with, among other things, tracking fugitives, said it received a tip that the Ford pick-up truck they were in, had been spotted at a car wash in Evansville.

‘Special relationship’

Investigators believe it had been stolen in Tennessee about 175 miles away.

Mr White had been serving a 75-year sentence for a string of crimes that included attempted murder, robbery and burglary.

He was facing a further charge of murder over the stabbing of a 58-year-old woman.

Police said there had been “a special relationship” between him and Ms White in jail.