15 March 2024 , 21:40
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Angie White never wanted to get an Alexa device - in fact she loathed the idea of the voice-activated virtual assistant.
“She was adamant, saying ‘I’m not getting one, I’m never getting one. I don’t want somebody to be listening to me all the time,” says her sister Laura Harvey, 36. But like so many others, Angie, 46, did eventually succumb to the new technology. So much so that she had them in most rooms of her Swansea home she shared with husband Daniel White.
They would turn out to be the very thing that got her justice....the night he brutally killed her. In the early hours of October 22, 2022, abusive monster Daniel, then 36, snapped.
Daniel White has been jailed for life for murdering his wife, after Alexa voice recordings helped bring him to justice (PA)His once-besotted wife Angie was planning to leave him that next day, to escape his abuse. Enraged, he smashed the locked door to the spare bedroom where she was asleep, began strangling her and then went to the kitchen. He picked out a knife, returned to the bedroom and slit her throat.
Toyboy White’s guilt was never in question. Three hours after the murder - after visiting another woman - he phoned 999 saying: “I killed my wife earlier, and I left, I had gone to see someone and then left so I could hand myself in. I strangled her, cut her throat, she’s dead.” But despite admitting the killing there was one thing he didn’t count on - Alexa’s help in proving the murder was not, as claimed, a crime of passion in the heat of the moment, but a vicious attack that included a vital degree of premeditation.
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That meant the difference between 10 years in prison - and 20. And proving it, was all thanks to the voice commands recorded by the device. During his trial of issue at Swansea Crown Court, White maintained he had used a knife found in her bedroom. If he had used a weapon from the scene the starting point for sentencing would be 15 years, but if he had brought it to the scene with intent the starting point would be 25 years.
In a world first, police collected the recordings from Angie’s Alexa devices - and could soon hear White’s voice, asking to turn off lights and turn off the television in different rooms. Crucially they could build a timeline from the commands, and the way his voice sounded in those commands, to proved he had actually gone downstairs to the kitchen of their home in Plasmarl, to get the knife.
Angie's sister Laura Harvey said she didn't want to get an Alexa device initially (Discovery+)They could also tell he’d left Angie for enough time to be able to suggest some degree of premeditation before ending her life by slashing her throat. That meant he was sentenced to life, but the starting point for minimum term served would be 25 years, not 15 had the knife really been in the bedroom.
After mitigating factors he was sentenced to life to serve a minimum of 20 years 10 months. It was at least some comfort for Laura. She said: “When we sat there [in court] waiting to hear if it was going to start at 15 years or 25 years, it was horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. 15 years for killing someone, it makes me feel sick.”
The result may have gone their way - thanks to Alexa - but as far as the family are concerned it’s still not enough. White was actually already on licence having just been released from jail after serving just eight years of a 10 years extended sentence for various convictions relating to abuse and the rape of another woman.
That seemingly-short original sentence plus the fact he may have served 10 years less for Angie’s murder, had it not been for Alexa, is why the family are backing the Mirror’s Justice For Our Daughters campaign. The campaign is pleading for changes in the law to ensure there’s tougher sentences for domestic killers.
Angie and Laura as children (Discovery+)And it’s specifically calling for all murders with a weapon to face the same sentence: life with the starting point for minimum time served of 25 years, regardless of where the killer got the weapon. For Laura, speaking out, is also about telling the world about the big sister she lost.
“I miss her laugh, she had such a distinctive laugh, a laugh like no other,” says Laura. “You’d walk into a room and know that Angie was there. You heard her before you saw her. She made friends, wherever she went. She would do anything for anyone. She was my best friend. I could speak to her about anything, anything at all, she’d always be there. I spoke to her on the phone every single day.”
Angie and White’s romance was doomed from the start. Angie was already a doting mother-of-five when she met Daniel through a friend in 2010, when he was 24, and she 34.
“She was a full-time mum, she just loved being a mum and she was amazing at it,” says Laura. “Absolutely amazing. And then she was just blindsided by Danny. Just completely blindsided.”
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The two sisters with their mum (Discovery+)
Angie was a full-time mum (Discovery+)The family were surprised by their coupling as the pair were so different, and Angie soon became distant from them. “He was very shy. Well, that’s what we put it down to, him being shy and introverted,” adds Laura. “But we thought that because Angie was so outgoing that she kind of had to go down to his level because he wouldn’t be able to go up to her’s. He wasn’t her usual type, he was so completely different, and the fact he was so much younger than her. But then Angie was young at heart”
However, she was still talking to them on the phone, even if she wasn’t seeing them as much. In 2012 they married, but by 2014 Daniel attacked Angie by strangling her and breaking her jaw, so was sentenced to just 20 months in jail.
While in prison more abuses came to light - in the mid-2000s he had raped and assaulted one woman three times and in 2010 had assaulted another woman. Daniel was then jailed for a 10 year extended sentence. But by Autumn 2022 he was out on licence, and back living with Angie, having convinced her that he had changed.
“She told me they were having arguments, but they were normal marital arguments, if that makes sense,” says Laura. “She didn’t seem concerned.” But as it turned out the mum hid from her sister that he was abusive again, until it was too late.
Laura found out her beloved sister had died from Angie’s adult daughter Molly, and she thought it was a joke. “I thought she was winding me up, I don’t know why I thought that but I did. I had to ring my mum to confirm the news then I just broke down,” says Laura.
The abusive monster snapped in the early hours of October 22, 2022 (Discovery+)And nearly a year and a half later, she still can’t believe it is real. She and her family have also decided to tell their story on the new series of Quest Red’s Deadliest Families, in a bid to get people talking about sentencing for domestic killers.
In Angie’s case, Judge Paul Thomas, was forced to sentence White in his absence after he refused to attend, had been particularly damning about the killer’s history. He even said in his summing up: “Leopards do not change their spots.”
For the family it’s a shame he was even free to reunite with Angie, considering his history of abuse. In the meantime they are still getting used to the idea of life without her. “I am still trying to adjust. It’s very, very strange,” adds Laura. “It still hasn’t really hit me. I’ll still go to call her, and I ring but it just gets disconnected. And then it’s like, ‘Oh, right, she is not here’.”
Although he could now be out in less than 19 years, Laura believes Daniel can never be rehabilitated, and should have spent his life behind bars. It shouldn’t take having a device in every room to prove a man intended to kill his wife, but sadly until the law is changed that seems to be what it takes.
Alexa Catches a Killer - Episode 1 of a brand-new series of ‘Deadliest Families’, airs on Quest Red, tomorrow, Saturday, March 16. Also available to stream on Discovery+.