85-year-old convicted in killings of husband, child gets parole decades later in NC
Sylvia White has spent almost three decades behind bars after being convicted in the killings of her husband and 4-year-old stepson. During her time in prison, she’s had several parole hearings and is now 85, according to WCTI and prison records.
Now, the Post Release Supervision & Parole Commission said White will be released next year, according to WITN. She was first eligible in 2005.
According to court records, White was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill her husband, Billy White. She was also charged with murder in the death of a child that happened years prior to the killing of her husband.
The Whites had been married and lived together in Kinston, North Carolina, with three of Sylvia White’s children from another marriage and Billy White’s four children from another marriage, including a son, who was 4 years old when he died in 1973, according to court records.
That June, Sylvia White rushed her stepson to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Nurses were told that he had swallowed a piece of plastic, and then the doctor pulled out what was in the child’s throat, it was a large piece of a plastic bag, according to court documents.
According to the hospital’s operating room manager in the court records, the bag was “tightly wadded up and came out in one piece, but it unfolded ’like a flower’ into a ’big handful.’”
There were ”no torn edges, teeth imprints, or bite or chew marks on the plastic,” said the court testimonial.
The court also recorded that White had taken out a $15,000 life insurance policy on the young boy days before his death.
The 4-year-old boy’s death was ruled accidental at the time. It wasn’t until she was accused of confessing to a hit man years later that the child’s body would be exhumed and examined for signs of foul play, according to the court records.
After White was charged in the killings of the two family members, the court examined evidence claiming that White had met with a hit man at least six times beginning in 1991 to discuss the killing of her husband, records show. It was during one of those meetings, according to records, that she had claimed to the hit man she had killed a child.
“”[I]t’s not that hard to do. I had a step-child. I put a bag over it until it stopped breathing. It was better off,” the hit man testified that White said, according to court records.
After White was arrested in connection with the death of her husband, her stepson’s body was exhumed, finding a large skull fracture that happened weeks before his death, and the examiner ultimately determined that it would not be possible for a 4-year-old boy to swallow a piece of dry cleaning bag as large as it had been, the examiner testified in court.
An archived article from the News & Record said Billy White was found deceased by a shotgun slaying, and his body was found on a logging road after police found his van the day after he was reported missing
According to WITN, White was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of her stepson in Lenoir County and found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of her husband, which occurred in Jones County.
She was given two life sentences and 10 years for conspiracy, WNCT reported.
Now, WCTI reported that the state has decided to let White go free, after more than 25 years in prison. She is set to be released on Dec. 2, 2022.
It’s a decision that the family of Billy White, including his daughter, has been fighting ever since parole was an option for White.
“I hope she doesn’t get out, because someone else will lose their life. It might be you, your brother, or your dad. She needs to rot there,” Billy White’s daughter, Teresa Murray, told WNCT when White was up for a different parole hearing.
This story was originally published December 30, 2021 at 12:17 PM with the headline "85-year-old convicted in killings of husband, child gets parole decades later in NC."
