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For a short while after Liana White's killing, her 1991 Ford Explorer sat unused and parked on the left side of the family garage.

I noticed the police forensics folks left a tiny sticker on the hood of the SUV, and I asked White if he knew what that was about. White said he was told it was blood from an insect.

I opened the driver's door and asked, "May I?"

White replied, "Go ahead." I climbed in.

Sitting behind the wheel of Liana's SUV, I asked Michael White if either he or his wife smoked. "No," he said.

"Then what's with the cigarette package police say was in the front of her vehicle?"

White said he had no idea where it came from. So far, no one has answered that question.

I got out of Liana's vehicle and popped the trunk (the trunk lid lifted straight up). I noticed immediately that a small section of carpet – a foot square perhaps – had been cut out.

"Police did that," White explained.

Detectives thought Liana's blood was in the back of the vehicle – that's how her body was supposed to have been transported. This is one of the things that came up at Michael White's preliminary hearing and reported as 'fact' by the local media.

The tiny piece of carpet contained either rust or blood that wasn't human.

Liana's DNA was not in the back of the vehicle. Turns out, there was no evidence of human blood whatsoever in the Ford Explorer.

The police theory is that White:

stabbed his wife in their upstairs bedroom where she "bled out" from a deep wound on her neck, losing several litres of blood;

cleaned up the blood that spurted out (and did an extremely good job of it);

put the bloody rags into a garbage bag out in the garage;

carried Liana's body through the house and outside, opened the main garage door (there was no door that led from the house to the garage);

stuffed Liana's body in the back of the Explorer;

drove west to Poundmaker Road where he dumped her near the top of a ditch, pulling her panties down;

in the dark, found and cut some branches to hide Liana's body;

parked the Ford Explorer and dropped the bag that contained bloody rags grass clippings in a field;

drove the Ford Explorer and parked it in a nearly treeless city park, faked a robbery and maybe lit up a smoke;

jogged back home, got his daughter dressed, made themselves breakfast;

put the dog out, dropped off Ashley at a day-care, made a stop at Tim Hortons and ...

went to work.

White's boss, Rob Hanson, said White seemed perfectly normal that morning.

I asked Michael White how blood that wasn't human may have gotten into the back of his wife's SUV.

He said they once put their dog, Sid, in the back of the Explorer and drove to a vet after they clipped the animal's nails too close, causing it to bleed.

The couple named their mutt after 'Sid Vicious' (Sidney Raymond Eudy), the World Heavyweight Champion Wrestler.

Sid was a scrawny, skittish dog of average height.

I usually get along well with dogs, but not Sid. The little bastard once bit me when I tried to pet it.

One time I complained to White, who was off in another part of the house, that his dog was baring his teeth at me.

White shouted, "Don't worry, he always does that ... it means he likes you."

I told White it sure does it a lot. Then I asked him, "Are you sure your dog isn't queer?"

The dog's behaviour was interesting just the same. In the fall of 2005, Michael White was being interviewed in his living room by lawyer Marilyn Burns.

Burns sat on a couch making notes. White sat on another couch nearby, his hands folded, answering questions.

I nodded my head at the couple to indicate something out of the ordinary was about to happen.

I shoved Burns over, then walked over to Michael White and fake-slapped him in the face, causing him to jerk his head back.

The dog went nuts. It jumped all over the living room and would not stop barking at me.

The animal bared its teeth, charged, drew back and charged again. White grabbed the dog to calm it down but the dog continued to be aggressive. White ended up putting Sid out in the back yard, where it continued to bark.

I was relieved Burns wasn't hurt. She's an injury lawyer.

I asked White if the dog was in the house when his wife was supposedly killed upstairs. He said Sid slept in the master bedroom on his own mat on the floor, near the bottom of their bed.

If that's true – and Liana White was stabbed to death in her bedroom with blood spurting out – what was Sid doing at the time?

Burns would later muse, "On a warm summer night – with the windows open in Michael and Liana's house – how could neighbours not hear screaming and yelling, the noise of a woman in distress and a dog going ballistic?"

She said that just feet away from Liana and Michael's house, on the property line on the north side of the house, was a camper with people in it. They were visiting White's neighbours to the north. Burns says the evidence is that the campers went to bed at 2:00 a.m. – and didn't hear or see a thing.

Burns believes the reason no one saw or heard anything is because nothing happened.

Sid the dog died a couple of years ago. I was told it choked on some garbage in a friend's backyard in north-central Edmonton.

White was back at the Remand Centre when his dog died. He called to say he was down about that.

He said his world continued to unravel. He summarized his woes: his wife and grandfather were dead, he couldn't see his daughter, the dog was dead and he was facing a murder charge.

It sounded like a Merle Haggard country & western song.

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deadmonton - michael white - the untold story - 18