The last few Independence Days have been tough for Austin Williams. It’s not just that his mother, Connie Ridgeway, loved America and collected anything with his flag on it, but the 4th of July was his birthday.
When the family was checking out their home in Rogersville, Alabama, after his fatal stabbing in 2015“Half the things in his apartment had an American flag on them,” the 42-year-old Williams said. It seemed fitting that her headstone was adorned with fireworks erupting over the stars and stripes.
For years, the Fourth of July was a painful reminder that their matriarch was gone and the investigation into her murder was put on hold. Then, in the summer of 2020, an Alabama inmate jailed for a series of violent crimes wrote authorities and asked to speak to a Lauderdale County investigator. When the officer arrived Casey White confessed to kill Ridgeway, authorities said.
Awaiting trial, White escaped on April 29 and is now on the run with one of the Lauderdale County officials responsible for keeping him locked up. They are the targets of a nationwide manhunt.
Ridgeway’s family awaited White’s trial. scheduled to start last month – could bring some closure. His son worries, given White’s violent nature, that the persecution will not end amicably, and the questions his family has asked for nearly seven years will go unanswered.
White has retracted his confession and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the Ridgeway murder, authorities said. But his original confession, along with what authorities say is White’s knowledge of the unpublished details of the murder, leave Williams fairly certain that the police had his mother’s killer. Yet he still wants answers to the “whys and hows and hows in the world,” he said.
“If this doesn’t end well, we’re not going to make it, which is incredibly disappointing. We fought for years and years with the cold case. We caught him. We had him. We thought we had him. He got away,” Williams said. “You learn that the life is what it is. There are so many things you can control.”
What helps Williams is the deep faith her mother, a Southern Baptist, instilled in her children and the fact that she would not want her loved ones to suffer. White is a violent and frightening man, she said. If the police need to crack down on protecting the public, that’s more important than shutting him down personally.
She was always there for her children.
Ridgeway’s family members aren’t the only ones missing her, Williams said. At Meadowlands Apartments, where she lived, many of her neighbors were elderly or on fixed incomes. Some did not have cars. She would take them to the grocery store or the doctor’s office, or even Huntsville or Birmingham.
He also enjoyed creating and molding white felt angels to hand out to friends, family, and fellow congregants at Clements Baptist Church, just across the Wheeler Reservoir from Rogersville. Before Austin and her brother Cameron left for college, she made sure they attended church every Wednesday night and twice on Sunday. They usually sat with their grandparents, five rows from the pulpit, Williams said.
“She was the kind of person who never met a stranger. In that community, she was really loved and appreciated,” he said. “Everyone knew her as a sweet, kind, smiling and happy person.”
The last time Williams saw her mother was in August 2015, shortly before her birthday. Ridgeway always celebrated her birthdays in style. When Austin and Cameron were kids, she didn’t earn much, but she saved enough to buy her kids the gifts they wanted, including video games that cost $50 or more, a small fortune for a woman who works at Hardee’s. (Cameron Williams, 40, was not immediately available for an interview; his brother says he is in a “tough spot” and Cameron has requested a few days to gather his thoughts.)
The tradition continued as they became men. Ridgeway loved visiting Atlanta for Austin Williams’ birthday and Atlanta Braves games. One year, she visited despite having a broken toe. She was certainly in pain when they entered Turner Field, Williams recalled, but the opportunity to be with her children was too important to pass up.
One of the things Williams misses the most, she said, is the Mississippi mud pies she used to make on her birthday. She made it just the way he liked it: no nuts, just marshmallow and chocolate frosting on top.
As of August 2015, Ridgeway was struggling financially. Her second husband had died in 2003 without life insurance, Williams said. She lived in Rogersville, a city of 1,400 about 14 miles from the Tennessee border, and wanted to see Williams for her birthday. Williams asked her brother to send him gas money, and to ease the burden, they met halfway at a pizzeria near Birmingham, Alabama.
It was the month after Cameron’s wedding, and there was a “newlywed vibe” to the occasion, Williams said. Much of the conversation revolved around Cameron and his new wife, Rachael. After pizza, they went to a park, then said goodbye, certain that they would see each other soon. They were wrong.
Ridgeway would speak on the phone to Williams’ now-wife Eljona, then in Albania, but would never meet her in person. Ridgeway’s last text message to Williams, four days before her body was found, was about Eljona’s visa and her wedding plans. He would never meet his grandchildren either. The first of five was on its way when Ridgeway was killed.
An inmate’s escape robs him of hope
The apartment complex and surrounding community were shaken by Ridgeway’s murder. A neighbor became concerned after not seeing her and visited her apartment on October 23, 2015, only to find the door ajar and Ridgeway on the floor. A Lauderdale County High School football game was in progress across the street when police arrived at the complex. Word spread quickly.
Williams was in Atlanta, on her way to a Halloween event at a cemetery, when she got a call from her brother, who said their mother had been found in her apartment with “blood on her.” An ambulance was on the way.
Williams somehow knew she had been stabbed, she said. She went home, packed up, and headed to Rogersville. Her worst fears were confirmed when she stopped along the way to talk to her father, Ridgeway’s first husband, who told her what had happened.
When Williams arrived hours later, the crime scene had been cleared, but her brother was still there. Everything was a blur, and it wasn’t until the next day that reality set in, along with a “heaviness” and depression. Ridgeway was a petite woman, and Williams couldn’t stop thinking about what she felt when someone inflicted a disturbing kind of violence on her. She would break up talking to friends. It was hard to cry in the midst of all the unknowns, she said.
Williams didn’t realize how deep his depression was until August 2020, when a representative for the victim from the Lauderdale County District Attorney’s Office called to request a meeting with him and his brother. He later explained that Casey White had confessed to the murder of his mother two months earlier and that authorities had corroborated parts of his account.
Casey White was a household name, Williams said. Police had told Williams that White was interviewed early in the investigation, but he denied his involvement. With the news of the confession, Williams felt for the first time since the murder of his mother that the feeling of heaviness eased. His mother could rest in peace now that she had met the alleged killer.
Williams’ serenity was shattered again when he learned that White intended to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, and again months later when he heard that White had recanted his confession, but remained hopeful that some answers could be provided and closure in court. .
“You’re miserable for a long time. Going through the cold case, you don’t know how miserable you are. He confesses, and it’s much lighter for some reason. Wow, I didn’t realize how miserable he was.” he said. “I’m sure she would be glad and happy that we pursue justice as much as we can, but I think, for her, she would want us to not be miserable…so that helps me get through it.” Being in total doubt for so long, it’s like, ‘Well, I hope they catch the guy, but if they don’t, I don’t want him to be a public threat.
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