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Liana White, 29, was stabbed to death July 12th, 2005.

Michael White, 29, was found guilty of second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a dead body.

In an attempt to unravel the mystery of Michael White, two Edmonton media outlets spoke to those close to White and close to the investigation.

CBC Edmonton carried an exclusive interview with the police homicide detective who was seen questioning White on interrogation tapes shown to the jury.

Edmonton Journal reporters David Staples and Jamie Hall dug deep into White's past and interviewed many old family friends in his childhood town.

The reporters also sifted through court testimony and numerous witness statements, and their story was published December 10th, 2006.

The journalists painted White as a man prone to greed and used to getting out of tight spots with a quick lie while often playing the victim of false accusation.

They suggested Liana placed him in such a small corner that his first response was to silence her, and then figure a way out of it later.

Staples and Hall went back to White's roots in Mar, Ontario. Among those they interviewed was Bruce Hepburn, the father of one of White's best friends.

"I'm just totally confused," Hepburn told the reporters.

"He was a good kid around us, no violence, nothing ... he just went along with the flow. He was one of the good guys. Happy. Laugh at everything. It's just got me totally baffled. What the hell happened?"

"What made him snap?"

Hepburn later called the boy "a compulsive thief and a goddamn good liar."

Michael White was born January 21st, 1977. He was the second of three sons born to Steve and Carol White.

One brother, Brian, became a paramedic firefighter, and the other, Jeff, ended up owning a construction firm. Michael's father told the Journal the other boys have turned out fine.

Steve had inherited the family's cattle operation and the White boys grew up feeding, cleaning the barn and tending to the usual agricultural chores.

Michael was the most inclined of the boys to farm, Steve said. "He was the one who was more enthusiastic about helping."

His parents broke up when Michael was ten. Carol then married the farmer who lived next door, Larry Forbes.

Forbes had two daughters, Sabrina and Brandy. All five ended up living together with Larry and Carol and the children became close.

Sabrina told the reporters, "He was the easiest going guy I've ever met. He was a great big teddy bear. He would never, ever hurt anybody. He doesn't have it in him to hurt anybody."

Steve White agreed. "Of any of the three boys, I saw him as being the most passive or non-violent. I never really saw the violent side of him."

When he was 12, Michael learned to weld. He loved to be in the shop and displayed little aptitude for academic work.

White drew attention to himself when he started to steal from family and friends.

His childhood chum Jim Fries recounted to the Journal the time White rifled through coat pockets in a locker-room, stealing money from teammates on a broomball team who were out on the ice.

White was also fingered for stealing from Bruce Hepburn and his wife, Betty Anne, White's aunt.

White was a good friend of Hepburn's son, Trevor. The Hepburns thought of White as a polite boy who always helped with chores, "a real good kid," according to Hepburn.

One day, Betty Anne sent Trevor to the bank with her debit card. Trevor was to get some cash and White went with him.

The next day Betty Anne's card was missing. Also missing was $1,000 from her account.

The bank card turned up at White's house. The police questioned Michael about the missing money but he denied taking it.

"They just said he was one tough little cookie," Hepburn said.

White visited Betty Anne at her work and told her, with tears in his eyes, "I would never steal off of you because you have raised me and let me stay in your house and fed me."

Hepburn told the Journal, "He's a little con artist. He's a sick boy. Every time I saw him on the street after that, his head went down – so guilty."

"He was a compulsive thief and a goddamn good liar ... it was almost like he believed he didn't do it. I don't know – split personality or whatever."

Hepburn said he heard of White stealing money from his own grandfather. "He wouldn't admit to nothing," Hepburn said.

Michael's father Steve said his boy made a few bad choices. Maybe because he was seeing a girl and wanted money to show her a good time, he said. "He had a tough time there for about a year."

After he graduated from high school, Michael White worked at odd jobs.

In 1997 he joined the Canadian Armed Forces, training first in Montreal and later in Wainwright, Alberta.

He learned to crew a Leopard tank for the Lord Strathcona's Horse armoured regiment. "It seemed good as far as I could tell," Steve said. "You just sensed he had found his niche."

By November 1997 White was transferred to Edmonton. A few months later, he and some buddies checked out Esmeralda's, a local bar.

It was there he met Liana. Steve and his new wife, Britt, were impressed with their son's fiancee.

"She was quite pretty, open," Steve said. "She fit right in. I really liked her. My wife and I, we miss her."

"We thought Liana was probably the best thing that happened to Mike. It had a settling influence. He met the right woman to settle down and we were really pleased with their choices."

Michael's stepsister, Sabrina, told the Journal she also liked Liana.

"She was really easygoing and polite ... it was 'please' and 'thank you' and she was really super nice. Michael was very affectionate with her. He liked to hold her and hug her and kiss her. They were always very huggy, huggy, touchy, touchy. And Mike is just that kind of guy. Once he gets ahold of her, he doesn't want to let her go."

Liana's mother, Maureen Kelly, didn't share the enthusiasm for the relationship.

Maureen found Michael to be "super polite" and to say all the right things, but he never sounded sincere. "You never knew what he was thinking. I didn't think he was genuine."

Maureen recounted an incident that occurred after the couple started dating.

White bought a new car but neglected to get insurance. A few weeks later, he got into an accident where he was at fault.

"I thought it was incredibly irresponsible to drive a vehicle and not have insurance," Maureen said.

White offered to pay $1,000 for the damage, but the victim refused the deal. White ended up paying $34,000.

Maureen said she tried to persuade her daughter not to marry White.

However, Liana was determined and asked her mother to stop "picking on him" because he "had a rough life on the farm."

They married on February 12th, 2000 and soon moved from an apartment into private military quarters in Griesbach, now a suburb of Edmonton.

Trouble first came to the marriage when Michael was charged with stealing equipment from another officer. In June 2000, he was found guilty, fined $800 and confined to barracks for 21 days.

Five months later, Ashley was born.

Steve told the Journal his son and daughter-in-law seemed to be doing fine.

"I never saw anything at any time that indicated there was a problem. There was a give and take. I just saw them as an ordinary couple. If Mike was sitting in a chair, she would come over and sit on his knee."

White was soon charged with stealing a number of miltary items, including tools and computer components.

Maureen recalled that White later gave the computer to Liana for Christmas.

When officers seized the computer, White told Maureen "It had top-secret information on it and the army wanted it back."

With his court martial pending, White knew he would have to tell his wife about the charges against him. At his murder trial he testified this was the scariest time of his life.

"You could see the disappointment in her eyes. I was expecting her to leave. The next day, she told me she loved me. 'We'll get through this. This is not going to break us up. I am not going to leave.' "

White pleaded guilty to 11 offences at his March 2002 court martial. He claimed he had money problems which led him to steal.

He was fined $3,000 and received a severe reprimand. He was taken off his tank crew and put to work repairing tanks.

Michael never told his father much about the court martial.

"He was embarrassed to admit that this had occurred and he was trying to just ignore it," Steve told Journal reporters Staples and Hall. "To tell you the truth, I was just kind of flabbergasted. Like, why?"

Maureen Kelly said that after the court martial, Liana seemed increasingly on edge.

"She was so humiliated by it, and didn't want to live on the barracks anymore. That's when I tried to get her to leave him and stay with me for a while."

Kelly said the marriage was a "train wreck, and I wanted her off. I predicted a divorce. But I never predicted a murder."

After the court martial, Kelly said Liana told Michael that if he ever stole anything again, he would have to go home to Ontario because she would be finished with him.

With White's military record now blemished, he left the service in November 2002 and went to work as an apprentice mechanic at Yellowhead Truck Repair. His boss, Rob Hansen, hired White because he seemed to be a likable guy.

"I thought Mike was a fine man. He came to work every day and he was capable and adequate at his job. I didn't know him really well on a personal note."

The Whites went to live with Liana's mother in St. Albert, saving money to buy their own house. After a year, they bought a small house in north Edmonton, then moved into a larger, more expensive place on Warwick Crescent.

Maureen was concerned the couple's finances were overextended. Liana insisted Michael needed the new place because it had a garage and "Mike needs a garage for his tools."

They bought a $170,000 bungalow with a small down payment. The couple still owed $166,000 at the time of Liana's death.

Journal reporters Staples and Hall theorise White's murderous rage was triggered by Liana's threats to leave him.

The move, they wrote, was perceived by White to be unfair and would bring about his personal and financial ruin.

Staples and Hall outlined how White worked hard to camouflage the nature of his crime and how he obscured the true state of his marriage.

When police first suggested he had a hand in his wife's disappearance, White complained to family friend Sheila Perilli.

"Nobody believes I didn't do it. Don't you feel sorry for me?"

Others believed Michael White was a victim as well, including two outspoken local church ministers and members of his family, including his stepsister, Sabrina.

"You guys have a serial killer out there," she said. "Coincidence? I don't think so. You guys got the wrong guy, and the police did a shitty investigation. There is no way Michael did it. He just doesn't have it in him to do it."

Not all of White's relatives were so sure of his innocence.

White's father, Steve, was with Michael during much of the five-day search for Liana.

He was in the car with Michael when Liana's body was found. With the car windows open on the hot summer day, together they smelled the odour of death. Michael's mother, Carol, discovered Liana's body.

"It was bad news," Steve said of Michael being part of the discovery team. "It looked bad for us to find her. We're not stupid. We thought, 'Oh, this is not good.' "

At the time Steve thought there was no way his son could have killed Liana. Over time, though, doubt crept in.

"I mean, anything can happen behind closed doors," he sais. "So I can't be 100 per cent. He's my son and I love him, but anything can happen."

In videotaped police interviews, White played the victim.

"When somebody says, 'Hey are you responsible for your wife (being) missing?' you know, that's like an absolute kick in the chest, you know. Like, I'm already hurting as it is, let's just put another coal in that fire."

When police told White that Maureen Kelly suggested that maybe somebody had been waiting in the garage for Liana that morning and had grabbed her, White felt that Maureen was blaming him since he was the last one in the garage and should have locked it.

"Well, thanks for putting that in my head, you know," he chastised police. "It is my fault now. I left the garage door open?"

The reporters suggested White's self-pity extended to his daughter Ashley.

"What the hell do I tell her?" he asked. "I'm scared to death of this now ... I can't live without [Liana]. I can't. I can't raise her myself. I can't look after this. God, I'm lookin' after stupid things. She takes care of the house, all the bills. I don't know how to do that. I don't wanna do it."

Staples and Hall also pointed to White's proclamation to media conducted on his driveway the day after Liana's disappearance.

"Liana – hold tight. If whoever has her, or if she is out there and you see me, just stay there and we will find you. I will find you."

Until that moment Liana's friend, Nathalie Durie, had told everyone including the police, that White was innocent.

But the interview made Durie's jaw drop.

Why ask Liana to stay put, she wondered? What the heck did that mean? "I got goose bumps down to the tips of my toes. To me, he was like a whole different person."

White's charade, according to the Journal reporters, continued even when White was incarcerated prior to making bail.

In an interview with 630 CHED Radio reporter Byron Christopher, White talked about launching his own investigation to find Liana's real killer.

"I'd have to say certain elements in the homicide division do have tunnel vision. It is unacceptable."

Regarding the court martial, White told Christopher he was an innocent victim of circumstance.

"When I took those tools, I was using them to fix my vehicle. I didn't steal them. I just removed them from the vehicle, signed them out, had them in my possession. After the summer break, I went back and there was a new tool box sitting there. So I was like, 'OK, not a big deal.' And each time my wife kept telling me, 'Oh, you better send them back.' I said, 'Oh, I will. I will.' Next thing you know somebody found out I have them."

When it came to the couple's struggling financial state, White said both he and Liana were prone to overspending. However, Maureen Kelly described her daughter as budget-wise and penny-pinching.

White said he placed a high priority on material goals himself: "I got a goal of I want to work hard, get a big paycheque, buy things. Have things, save away for things."

He told police the two of them were egging each other on to buy more things, splurging one month while planning to be frugal the next.

"We sit there and say, 'OK, well, guess we'll just do with that much less this next month.' "

White said, "I know she got tired of always living paycheque to paycheque."

He worked overtime but Liana objected to him staying late at work.

"She wants it, the money, the bigger paycheques, but then ... she'll get all mad when I'll be working [until] eight, nine, ten at night, you know. She goes, 'Come on, why, you know?' "

White said the overtime issue came to a head when Liana became pregnant in the spring of 2005. She asked Michael to cut back his hours.

"I know she gets tired. You know, she'd like a rest. She comes home, and the daughter's all playful, and you know she'd really like to sit down."

Although White spent more time at home, it didn't come across in the police interview that he was much help or comfort.

"I'll come down here and give my daughter a hug, go down, have a shower, and maybe not exactly go down and give the wife a hug right away. She'll say that once in a while. I'll say that, 'I'm busy, you know, I'm working.' I get in, I wanna get these clothes off, and work boots off and smelly, oily, greasy crap outta my hair."

"That's when I'll sit down, but by that time, you know, 'OK, I'm ready for bed.' Liana's like, 'OK, I'm ready for bed.' "

White figured on a brighter future, one where he and Liana would buy his father's farm in Ontario. There he would set up a mechanical shop.

Liana would "stop working," just having to care for the kids and do the accounting for the shop, as she handled all the family's bills and papers.

White claimed, both to police and in court, that Liana shared this dream. "She's so there to want to do a business for ourselves, to wanna see a lotta money coming and not put a lot out, you know."

Those close to Liana said she didn't want to move to Ontario. She hated visiting his family there, said close friend and co-worker, Nathalie Durie.

"She would come home hurt. Every time she went she was just devastated about the lack of attention to her and Ashley."

"She didn't want to move there," Maureen told the Journal. "She didn't even like to go for a visit. It wasn't her dream."

The biggest ongoing problem for Michael and Liana, the reporters suggested, was White's greed.

When he worked at Yellowhead Truck Repair, tools went missing from the shop. The theft stopped after White was arrested.

"Once he was gone, it was gone," his boss, Rob Hansen, said. "It stopped. So we did a lot of finger-pointing in his direction, of course."

White's garage at home was certainly well-stocked, Maureen Kelly said. He had "enough expensive tools in his garage to open a shop with."

On July 11th, 2005, the day before she disappeared, Liana likely got home from work at 3:30 p.m.

The Journal story surmised she took care of Ashley until around 8:30 p.m. when Michael got home.

"It happens all the time," he told the police about his coming home late. "And I know the wife, she never accepted it, but, you know, she lived with it."

The paper said White wasn't working overtime that night, but was out drinking at a bar.

"Could this have been the final straw for Liana, the event that pushed her to act and to demand a divorce?" posed the Journal story.

Perhaps she confronted him about his ongoing theft with suggestions she would go to the police.

Liana's leaving would have spelled trouble for White, the paper suggested.

His fantasy about their life in Ontario would be over. His family would hear he had failed at his marriage, just as he had failed in the military and in his own hometown. Liana would take Ashley and half their property. He would have to pay child support. And if he was stealing from his boss and Liana reported it, he might even end up in jail.

Michael White might well have concluded his life would be much better off without Liana to make such claims against him, the Journal suggested.

"He's a sociopath," Maureen Kelly said. "He lied and manipulated her. But she finally saw through it. He realised he was caught and there was nowhere to go with it. So this is what he did."

"I think it was a moment of extreme rage he couldn't control. He ruined a lot of lives, a lot of lives."

White's former boss, Rob Hansen, believed that Liana's finding out about her husband stealing from his shop was the tipping point for her. "We treated their family with respect and she probably didn't like what he was pulling off.

"I think that theft stuff maybe didn't stop and that she knew about it. It was still going on, and she was going home to give him an ultimatum that night."

In his testimony, White portrayed Hansen as the closest of friends. "I looked at him as my side of the family out here. He was a brother, a mentor."

Hansen said he was appalled at White's words on the stand.

"He's a filthy liar and he's very good at it, from what I see now. All I can say is, I hope the gentleman gets what he deserves."

In prosecuting the case against Michael White, the Crown did not have to demonstrate why White killed Liana, only that he did so intentionally.

The Journal suggested the jury did not accept White's version of events with the evidence pointing to his guilt being the result of bad luck.

The paper ventured that the jury believed White was a liar, an unrepentant one motivated by a sense of self-pity and the notion that he himself was the real victim, and that his actions were justified within his own mind – no matter how deceitful.

On December 10th, 2006 Michael White was found injured in his cell at the Edmonton Remand Centre.

On December 14th, 2006 CBC Edmonton carried an exclusive interview with the police homicide detective who was seen questioning Michael White on the tapes shown to the jury.

Det. Ernie Schreiber spent hours interrogating White at police headquarters and at White's house.

He predicted the convicted killer will continue to profess his innocence for years to come.

"That's who Michael White is. He's the little child who will forever say 'I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't do it.' I suspect however many years he's incarcerated, he will come out and he will continue to say 'I didn't do it.' "

The first time Schreiber questioned Michael White, he came right out and asked White if he was guilty.

"Are you involved in Liana's disappearance?" asked Schreiber.

"No. No. How can you ask me that?" White responded.

Schreiber told the CBC that jail time will not be easy for White.

"There's something about him and a lack of conscience. And as we saw throughout the trial, there's this whole pity thing where he wants people to feel sorry for him."

Referring to White's claim he was attacked by inmates at the Edmonton Remand Centre, Schreiber said those allegations will make things even more difficult for White.

"Considering he's kind of set the stage for himself at the remand centre by pointing fingers at inmates for this assault that may or may not have happened, that's not, to my way of thinking, a wise move on his part."

Schreiber, who spent hours with White in addition to what was seen on the tapes, said he was an out-going type who would be described as an easy-to-talk-to good neighbour if you met him.

However, White's true nature became evident at the end of one conversation when he asked Schreiber, "You believe me don't you?"

remembering liana white | the Vegreville Observer article | the untold story
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Note:

On October 19th, 2006 Michael White's legal counsel advised the media that statements which appeared in earlier published reports, that a search party led by White found Liana White's body, were not accurate and that Michael White states that he did not lead the search team that found Liana's body.

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