John White, Convicted of Killing Rebekah Gay, Commits Suicide in Prison

By Jessica Fleischman
MLive
August 29, 2013

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2013/08/john_white_convicted_in_rebeka.html

John D. White enters the courtroom of Isabella County Chief Circuit Judge Paul H. Chamberlain on Thursday, April 18, 2013, for his sentencing in the murder of Rebekah Gay. White, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the Oct. 31 homicide of Gay at her home on Coldwater in Broomfield Township near Mount Pleasant, was sentenced to a minimum term of 56 years in prison.

John Douglas White, convicted of murdering Rebekah Jane Gay last year, has killed himself in prison, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.

White was found dead during the morning hours of Wednesday, Aug. 28, having hanged himself in his prison cell.

White, 56, was housed in the Michigan Reformatory correctional facility in Ionia at the time of his death, stated written correspondence from MDOC spokesman Russell Marlan.

After accepting a plea deal for second-degree murder as a habitual offender in the death of the 24-year-old Isabella County woman, White was sentenced to 56 years and three months in prison during his April 2013 sentencing.

White was initially arrested on Oct. 31, 2012 on charges of first-degree murder and open murder after police say he confessed to Isabella County Sheriff deputies that he killed Gay inside her home at a trailer park on Coldwater Road in Broomfield Township earlier that morning. The two were neighbors, and White was engaged to Gay's mother.

Police believe White went inside and attacked Rebekah Gay in the hallway, using a rubber mallet to hit her several times on the head and tightening a zip-tie around her neck to stop her breathing.

Police have said Gay's son, Conway, who was 3 at the time, was home during the attack and that White cared for the boy before delivering him to his father after dressing him in his Halloween costume.