Prosecutors: Man shot sleeping wife dead as payback
Jason White CLEVELAND — placed a blanket over his sleeping wife’s head so the gunshot that killed her wouldn’t wake their 2-yearold daughter asleep in the next room, prosecutors said in court Thursday.
White used the pistol he bought Stacy White to execute her in a calculated plan to end a 10-year marriage that White claimed was marred by infidelity, lies and constant fighting, Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Kristen Karkutt said.
White also planned to kill himself Feb. 7, but said he “lost the motivation” when the gun jammed, Karkutt said.
“He had a whole plan in place,” Karkutt said. “He just didn’t follow through with his exit strategy.”
The comments came during closing arguments in a trial where White is charged with aggravated murder and other charges in the shooting that took place at the couple’s Plover Avenue apartment. White is also charged with murder and felonious assault.
White waived his right to a jury trial, and instead chose to have a judge hear his case. Common Pleas Judge Sherrie Miday, who presided over the three-day trial, will announce her verdict Monday.
White doesn’t deny that he killed his wife as she slept. His attorney, Jaye Schlachett, argued Thursday that prosecutors did not prove White killed her with prior calculation and design, a necessary element to convict him of aggravated murder, which carries a minimum sentence of life with parole after 20 years.
If White is found guilty of the lesser murder charge, he will still serve a life sentence but get his first chance for parole after 15 years.
Schlachett asked Miday not to let prosecutors blur the distinction between committing a murder and planning one.
White’s decision to kill his wife was a spontaneous one, the culmination of his longheld suspicions of her infidelity and several weeks of heated arguments, Schlachett said. Schlachett pointed to White’s interrogation with Lakewood detectives after his arrest, in which he said he had “snapped” and he had had enough.
“If he had planned to kill somebody, would he do it in his own house in his own bed with his own daughter there?” Schlachett asked.
But Karkutt and fellow Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Jennifer King claimed White’s own explanation of the killing in two hourlong police interrogations played in court showed the decision wasn’t spontaneous.
“This was something he thought about, and in his own words, knew had to happen,” King said.
White began the interview by relaying the history of the couple’s relationship struggles. Cigarette butts left at their apartment by another man, cellphone calls and text messages on his wife’s phone led him to believe she cheated on him. The two argued for months, he said.
He told police that he decided Feb. 6 that he had enough, prosecutors said.
White told detectives that the couple woke up about 6 a.m. the next morning and smoked cigarettes together, Karkutt said. His wife went back to bed, and White retrieved the .380 pistol he had bought her for her birthday a year before, Karkutt said.
White let out a chuckle in the police interview as he recalled using that gun, which was one of eight kept in the house, Karkutt said.
He barricaded their daughter’s bedroom door with a chair to keep the child from witnessing the shooting, Karkutt said. He took time to use the bathroom and smoke another cigarette before he walked into the bedroom, Karkutt said.
White then threw a blanket over his wife’s head, pressed the gun barrel up to her temple and fired, prosecutors said.
“He decided long before he got that gun that he was going to end her life,” she said.
White then grabbed his wife’s cellphone, opened her text messages, took a screenshot and texted it to his father. He attached a long message in which he said, “it’s not like today just happened,” Karkutt said.
White’s father drove to the house and picked up the girl, who was taken into the custody of her grandparents, and dialed 911 to report the shooting.
Lakewood police arrested White at the scene.