Killer Who Axed Radio Talk-Show Host Pleads Guilty to Murder

June 05, 2009

No, the victim was not Rush Limbaugh.  In fact, the victim did not even broadcast conservative views.  He was 52-year-old Mike Webb, of Seattle, Washington, who shared his Queen Anne area home with 29-year-old Scott Brian White and had been broadcasting his late-night liberal talk show on KIRO-AM radio for approximately 10 years before being fired after he was charged with insurance fraud. 

Like Rush Limbaugh, you either loved listening to the guy or you hated listening to him - even some of those who hated listening to him listened to him anyway.  Toward the end of his tenure at KIRO-AM, some people began to think that Webb had become irrational and possibly mentally ill, partly because he had become paranoid over a death threat that he had received and apparently was concerned that he would meet a violent end like Alan Berg, a radio talk-show host from Denver who was gunned down in his driveway by a neo-Nazi in 1984.

Although it was believed that Webb disappeared in April 2007, a missing person report was not filed until May 13, 2007, when family members told police that he had begun associating with "shady" people.  His remains, however, were not found until June 2007 when the property manager who had rented the Queen Anne area house to Webb began cleaning up the abandoned house.  The property manager made the grisly discovery in a basement crawl space, into which Webb's remains had been stuffed and covered by a blue tarp.  His body, police discovered, had been dismembered.  The medical examiner determined that he had died as a result of repeated stab wounds.

White was arrested a few weeks after Webb's body had been discovered, and was charged with first-degree murder.  After being taken into custody, investigators and others believed that White had mental health issues, prompting his attorneys to begin planning an insanity defense.  Background information indicated that White and Webb had met at a recovery group for addicts - the two had purportedly been sharing drugs prior to Webb's death.  Webb, an openly gay man who also had problems with alcohol, often took on causes that he believed affected the little guy.

According to prosecutors, White suffered a psychiatric condition known as schizoaffective disorder, which can include psychotic episodes if gone untreated.  Because of his psychiatric condition and the fact that he had allegedly been using drugs at the time of the killing, psychiatrists concluded that it was unlikely he was able to plan Webb's murder and therefore lacked the element of premeditation.  White's defense attorney, Julie Lawry, said that White had accepted responsibility for the killing.

"I don't think in Scott's mind he felt he had a choice," Lawry said.  "It's been very difficult on him.  He feels very responsible for what went on.  Someone he cared about is gone."

Although Lawry believed that White's chances for acquittal at trial were very good, he entered a plea of guilty to second-degree murder on Thursday, June 4, 2009, so that the case could be resolved expeditiously.  He was allowed to make the guilty plea to second-degree murder because of the apparent absence of premeditation.  White faces a 12-year jail term when he is sentenced on July 10, 2009, but his attorney has indicated that she will ask for a 10-year term.

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