The Halloween Killer Who Hid In Plain Sight

Halloween is supposed to be a night of innocent fun and make believe, then 2012 the night brought real life horrors to a small community when a young mother vanished. We're in shock and I believe that any human being could ever do anything so evil to anyone else, especially someone who was loving and kind and good like Rebecca was. Halloween is the one night out of the year where you can dress up, put on a mask and become a monster. Knowing that all of the ghouls outside are just pretend, but that night there was a real monster walking amongst the costumes, and the mask that he was hiding behind was pretending he was a good man that his entire community could trust. This is the tragic murder of Rebecca Gay. My name is Brianna and I'm hot on the case. Recently, I felt like every single piece of clothing that I was buying was falling apart way too quickly, so I started looking for clothing that didn't need to be replaced after just a few months. 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That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com/hotc, and when Quince asks where you heard about them, make sure to tell them that it was hot in the case, because that is the best way to support the show. Thank you so much Quince for sponsoring this episode, now back into this week's investigation. Very quickly, I wanted to start off this episode, just letting you all know that during my research for this week's episode, I found a lot of conflicting information. Actually, some of the most conflicting information I've ever found while researching a certain case, like one source will say that a couple was engaged. While another will say they were just a boyfriend and girlfriend, one source will say that a suspect took a lie detector test, while another source will say that that same suspect actually denied, refused to take a lie detector test. So for this episode, I truly did my best to find and compile all the information that I believe to be the most accurate. But of course, if you believe that I got something wrong, or maybe left something major out that should have been discussed in this investigation, just please let me and your fellow detectives know down in the comments. Rebecca Gay was born on March 26, 1988, to her parents Tommy and Sally Gay. Her parents met and fell in love very young, and they got married on April 3, 1976. A few years later, they welcomed their first child, a daughter that they named Deborah, followed quickly by two sons, James and Aaron. And then lastly, there was the baby of the family, their youngest daughter, Rebecca. They would affectionately call Rebecca, their little Becca Boo, and her mother would even say that Rebecca was the heart and soul of their family. The family were devout Christians, all of Tom and Sally's children were named after different names in the Bible. Rebecca even had the biblical spelling of her name, which was R-E-B-E-K-A-H. Thomas and Sally were raising their children in Midland, Michigan. This is a small town where everyone knows everyone and the community was very tight-knit. Thomas was a pillar of their community. He was involved in a lot of charity work. He did work raising money for injured veterans, or raising money for the local children's hospital. Rebecca was living that typical small town childhood, and by all accounts she had a very happy childhood. Her parents did eventually split up, but again by all accounts it seemed like the two were still on good terms. Rebecca was very well-liked throughout her school years. She was obviously very, very beautiful, but it was Rebecca's inner beauty that really stood out to people. Rebecca was compassionate. She was loyal. She was supportive and gentle. She was also extremely family-oriented. She was close to her entire family, but her sister Debra and her mother Sally were like her two best friends in the entire world. Throughout high school, Rebecca did a lot of volunteering, just like her father. She was on the equestrian team, and then she graduated from high school in 2007, ready to follow her passion in life, which was cosmetology. Throughout high school, Rebecca had already started studying and working towards getting her cosmetology license, and after graduating high school she went to continue her training at in-session school of cosmetology. And after completing her training, Rebecca landed a dream job at a hair salon. This really was her passion in life. There was something about making people feel confident and beautiful that Rebecca was extremely passionate about, but it was not very long later that Rebecca's entire life changed when she discovered that she was pregnant. Her boyfriend Chad was the father of this baby, but her and Chad were both extremely young when they discovered that Rebecca was pregnant. I believe that they were both only 20 years old. I imagine that this was very shocking that the two were really nervous for what the future was going to hold, but both of their lives just completely changed when their son Conway came into the world. Unfortunately, all the stress at the time did end Rebecca and Chad's relationship, but the two still strived to make co-parenting work. They both worked really, really hard to still say on good terms and be supportive of each other. To co-parent their son Conway and do what was ever in their son's best interests. Becoming a mother, a single mother at 21 years old really did change Rebecca's life. It was her passion to work in cosmetology. She was working her dream job as a stylist at a hair salon, but unfortunately, those hours and the schedule just really wasn't flexible for a single young mother trying to make things work. So she ended up stepping away from her job at the hair salon and instead taking a retail position at a goodwill amount pleasant, just a townover, because they were willing to be a lot more flexible with Rebecca's schedule. Even though retail wasn't Rebecca's preferred profession, she still worked this job with the same dedication and hard work that she worked her position as a hairstylist. Rebecca absolutely adored her son Conway. He was her entire world. She would have literally done anything for that little boy and she would soon have some help with her young son. After splitting from Rebecca's father, Rebecca's mother Sally would find love again. Sally really fell for the pastor at her local church, the Christ Community Fellowship Church. This was where Sally and Rebecca both went to church, but this was also the church that Sally taught Sunday school out. And this was Pastor White. Pastor John Douglas White. Sally and John were even engaged to be married and they were living together in a mobile home in a trailer park, in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. So about three months before Halloween 2012, Rebecca decided to make a big life change for her and her son Conway by renting a mobile home in the exact same trailer park as her mother and her future stepfather. It was a lot closer to her new job and it was really, really exciting to be close to her mom. She was super happy that she would just be a few steps away from being at her mom's house. It was also super convenient for her because Sally and John were super helpful and hands on with her son Conway. They would both constantly go out of their way to help Rebecca with whatever she needed, especially if that meant getting to hang out with this cute adorable baby. So going into the fall of 2012, Rebecca Gay really had so much going for her. She had just moved into a new home for her and her son. All of her hard work and dedication really paid off when she got her raise and a promotion to a management position at her job at Goodwill. Rebecca was also in a long term and very loving relationship with a man named Aaron Quinn. Aaron Quinn seemed like the perfect guy. Rebecca's entire family loved him and his entire family just absolutely adored Rebecca. And most importantly, of course, Aaron really loved and accepted Rebecca's son Conway. He had actually been in Conway's life since he was about one year old and he was extremely committed, not just to Rebecca, but also to her child, which just made her love him so much more. Halloween was quickly approaching and Rebecca could not have been more excited and this Halloween was going to be even more special as special since she was a child herself because this was going to be the first Halloween that her son Conway would really know what was going on. This year Conway would be three years old, meaning that he would really understand Halloween and dressing up and trick her trading and it would just be so much more fun and exciting for Rebecca. She had window decals on all of the windows, she had crime scene tape on the windows and the balconies, she had pumpkins and she had eight, eight scarecrows put up in the front lawn. Conway was going to be Spider-Man that year for Halloween and Rebecca had plans to take Conway out trick her trading later that evening with her boyfriend Aaron. It was really going to be just the best night ever and she was so so excited. But since Halloween was on a Wednesday that year it actually meant that Conway's father Chad would actually have custody of him during the day. Typically how these Wednesday drop-offs would go is that someone would drop Conway off with Chad really early in the morning and then Rebecca would pick him up around 430 in the afternoon and then after that they would be able to go out trick her trading and eat their entire weight in candy. The night before Halloween was a very low-key night for Rebecca just a quiet night at home. While others were out partying and teenagers were pulling pranks on Devil's Night, Rebecca was at home with her son, Conway. On that evening Rebecca spoke on the phone with her boyfriend Aaron and her mother Sally telling both of them how excited she was for the following night, Halloween. She got off the phone at around 10 pm and that was the last time that anyone ever heard from Rebecca gay. Rebecca had a very early morning shift at Goodwill on Halloween morning but she never showed up. This immediately concerned her co-workers. Rebecca was the perfect employee. I mean she didn't get promoted to a management position showing up late or not showing up at all. Rebecca was never late and if she thought that maybe she was going to be late she would call them in advance to let them know. This was just so out of character that her co-workers immediately felt like something was seriously, seriously wrong. So much so that one of her co-workers even drove out to Rebecca's trailer to check and make sure that the young mother was alright. Just walking up to Rebecca's home there was already an uneasy feeling. All of the Halloween decorations, the crime scene tape in the windows and on the front porch. Rebecca's car wasn't there. Rebecca wasn't answering the door and the door was unlocked. So her co-worker actually left and started driving back towards Goodwill to go back to work when that co-worker actually found Rebecca's car. Rebecca's car was found just abandoned in the parking lot of a bar that was just down the street from her mobile home. This immediately made her co-worker's stomach drop. This was so unusual. This was so unlike Rebecca. This co-worker walked into the bar and luckily the employee that was working that morning was the exact same employee that closed down the night before. This employee confirmed that Rebecca hadn't been in the bar the night before and her car that was parked right outside the bar wasn't there when the employee closed down and left the night before. And even more lucky the employee at this bar actually knew Rebecca's landlord and was able to help Rebecca's co-worker get in touch with her landlord. And after explaining the situation and saying that they were nervous that Rebecca might be hurt inside, the landlord agreed to unlock Rebecca's door and let her co-worker go inside. But Rebecca wasn't just injured in her home. She wasn't there at all. Her cell phone wasn't there. Her car keys weren't there, but her purse, her wallet, her ID, all of her money was just out on the table. This absolutely isn't looking good. If you have spent any time researching true crime, you know that when a woman disappears and her purse, her wallet, her ID are just left at home and it's completely out of character for her to just take off. It's a huge red flag. But a discovery would later be made in Rebecca's home that made everyone even more scared of what could have happened to Rebecca. It was clear that someone had attempted to clean certain parts of the carpet that was in the hallway. Upon closer inspection, they discovered what looked to be blood in the carpet. And there was the same reddish brown liquid found on the walls, on the back door, and on the cabinets in the kitchen. The driver's seat in Rebecca's car was also pushed all the way back, meaning that someone much taller than Rebecca was the person that last drove this car and was the one that parked it in this parking lot. It really did seem like the car being parked here in this bar was staged to make it look like Rebecca had gone out drinking, even though she had a young son at home. She was just a crazy party girl and maybe she met someone sketchy at the bar or she ran off with a stranger because she was just so crazy and something happened to her from there. There was an immediate concern about where Rebecca's son Conway was, but he was quickly located. Like I mentioned earlier, her mother Sally and her soon-to-be-step father John would help out Rebecca whenever they could. Well, on the days where Rebecca was set to work really early in the morning, like she was set to do on Halloween morning, either her mother Sally or her soon-to-be-step father John would help her out, come by really early in the morning and help get Conway ready and then drop him off with his father to make Rebecca's morning easier. The police were immediately contacted, but because Rebecca was an adult and 24-year-old women are allowed to just leave, they're allowed to just not go to work one day, they don't want to, they didn't really take this as seriously as they should have. This is obviously very frustrating, they don't know Rebecca, they don't know that she would have never done this before, that it's extremely out of character. But the police did feel like Rebecca was a great mother that she was very devoted to her son. So they agreed if Rebecca wasn't there at 430 that afternoon to pick up her son, then then they would start investigating her disappearance. So as family and friends, wait for the police to start investigating, they just start doing it themselves. They start by canvassing the entire area surrounding the trailer park, going door to door asking neighbors if maybe they saw Rebecca or heard anything suspicious that night. John White even went to his church members asking them to pray for Rebecca and also join the search. And then a few hours passed, and now it's 430 in the afternoon. Rebecca's ex-boyfriend Chad is standing in the parking lot with his son Conway where they always did drop-offs, but of course Rebecca never showed up. And as soon as this happens, police actually do begin investigating immediately. Since what looked like blood was found in the home that Rebecca shared with her young son, the home was immediately being treated as a crime scene. It's so eerie looking at photos of her home on that day, she has all these decorations up for Halloween, crime scene tape in the windows, and on her front porch, and now there's real crime scene tape in her front lawn. The next thing that police want to do is build a timeline of Rebecca's last moments. So they speak with her mother Sally and her mother's fiance, John. And John told investigators that that morning it was his turn to get Conway ready and drop Conway off with his father. He told them that he arrived at Rebecca's trailer around 630 that morning. Rebecca was in the bathroom getting ready. He never actually saw Rebecca, but he spoke to her like he was in the living room and she's in the bathroom, so they're kind of like speaking like that. He said it was very straightforward, it was business like usual, nothing seemed off at all. Conway wasn't awake yet, so Rebecca just asked John if he could hang out in the living room. There were blankets in the living room if he wanted to take a little nap on the couch and wait for Conway to wake up. Rebecca also asked John if when he left, if he could turn the heat down in her trailer. I mean, it just seemed like a completely normal morning. John did end up falling asleep on the couch and when he woke up, Rebecca was already gone, she'd already left for work again. This was very, very normal for them. So John got up, he got Conway ready for the day. He even dressed him in his Halloween costume. He then drove to the parking lot. He met Chad and he handed Conway over to Chad. In true crime cases, when a woman is missing or she's found dead, usually the first suspects are always the boyfriend, the husband, or the ex. Rebecca had two men in her life that police really wanted to speak with, her boyfriend Aaron, and her ex-boyfriend Chad. Chad's story lined up perfectly with John story and he really didn't seem suspicious at all. They believed that he likely didn't have any involvement in Rebecca's disappearance. So they started to speak with Rebecca's boyfriend Aaron Quinn. But Aaron seemed genuinely worried and scared for Rebecca. He was adamant that he didn't have anything to do with her disappearance. He even told investigators that he bought a ring for Rebecca and he was planning to ask her to marry him. had plans to propose that very day. Halloween because it was her favorite day of the entire year. So investigators believed that they could also likely rule out Eren as a person of interest. So now police are left with absolutely no leads to go on. The only thing they have to work with is John, who was the last person to see Rebecca alive. They question him again and they're asking lots of questions. They want to know if there was any detail, anything that he could possibly think of that was out of place. That was weird. Just anything, anything he could think of at all. But throughout this questioning, Ben asking him every single detail of his Halloween morning, John is getting visibly upset and frustrated. He keeps saying it was early, it was 6am, I was tired. I don't remember every single detail. And he was starting to get really, really offended that it seemed like maybe they were focusing too much on him and not focusing enough on finding Rebecca. So investigators move on and they start asking the community and those closest to Rebecca about the people in her life. And there were a lot of conflicting things that people had to say about Pastor John White. The community as a whole and the people that were members of John's church all saw John the same way. As this great, great amazing guy, he had an extremely good reputation in Mount Pleasant. His neighbors and his congregation raved about him with all these amazing stories, how he would go over to his elderly neighbor's homes and clean out the gutters for them without them even having to ask. He would volunteer to watch the children of struggling parents trying to make ends meet. He was a handyman and he would volunteer his services to help out any time he could. John White was the kind of man that would come over on a summer afternoon and build a family an entire back deck. But throughout this entire investigation, the detectives on the case were shocked to learn that the small town pastor didn't have as squeaky clean of a background as you would expect a man of the cloth to have. Members of his congregation and of his community told investigators that John White was a success story. That in his youth, he even spent a little time in prison. But while behind bars, John White found God and after being released, he gave his life over to the Lord. And how some of the most common messages in his sermons were about forgiveness and second chances and how sinners can become saints. So right as investigators believe that they're starting to paint a complete picture of who Pastor John White was, they started to hear more stories about him. That pastor White, a man of the cloth, might have had a drinking problem. He was seen at his local bar quite often and recently it was even more often. And how John White would make a lot of comments about his fiance's daughter Rebecca's beauty. Those closest to Rebecca, her co-workers, her friends, her boyfriend, Aaron revealed that Rebecca had started to become creeped out by her soon to be stepfather John White. She was scared to tell her mother because she knew how happy her mother was and how much her mother was in love with John. But Rebecca had become so creeped out by John that even though she had just moved into this trailer park three months earlier to be closer to her mother and be closer to her job, she was actually considering uprooting her and her son's entire lives and moving out of the trailer park. This was news to the investigators because as far as they knew, Rebecca and John were really, really close. John took a father role in Rebecca's life, a grandfather role in Conway's. They truly believed that John White and Rebecca had this very close and beautiful relationship. He would help her out all of the time babysitting Conway without expecting anything in return. When John White got really, really sick one flu season, Rebecca came over to care for him every single day. She would bring him soup, get him medicine. So investigators think that it's probably a really good idea to invite Pastor White to speak with them one more time. At this point, investigators aren't even completely suspicious of John. They more so just want to rule him out as a suspect because at that point, he was their only lead. So they offer John a polygraph test. And although at first John White was extremely hesitant to take a lie detector, he did eventually agree. So he got in a car with one of the detectives and drove up to the place where this polygraph test would take place. And on the way the detective was doing his best to just make John feel comfortable, like he was on their side. They're just two buddies in a car together making small talk. He was doing this so hopefully John would trust him and open up to him and it actually started to work. John tells the detective that the reason he was so hesitant to take the polygraph test in the first place was because he actually had a criminal history. This was something that investigators already knew because it was no secret that John White spent some time in prison when he was younger but he was reformed. He explains the detective exactly how he ended up in prison for two years. He explains that when he was much younger, he knew this girl. They were really really close friends and this girl actually died of a drug overdose right in front of him. He got in trouble for this. He actually served two years in prison before the entire case was thrown out. So he was pretty much explaining that he was wrongfully convicted if his case is thrown out. He just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone he knew died of a drug overdose. It was just a tragic accident but that's why he was so nervous to take this lie detector because he had already been wrongfully convicted of a crime before. That's why he was so nervous. The thing is John White should have been nervous because when pastor John Douglas White went to take a polygraph test about the disappearance of his fiance's daughter Rebecca, he failed. They now have John in an interrogation room and while they are interrogating John, they start to do a background check on his criminal history to find out all of the details and what they discovered, shocked and horrified them. The people of Mount Pleasant and the members of his church believed that they knew pastor John White. They believed that they knew all of the details of his sorted pass but they would soon discover that they did not know a single thing about pastor John White or the skeletons in his closet. By all accounts, John Douglas White lived a very normal happy childhood in small town Michigan. He came from a very well-known and respected family. In his small town, his father was the fire chief, the police chief, and even the mayor. From the outside, John seemed like this perfectly normal while just a child but there was a darkness inside of him even back then. One day, John's little sister threw one of her toys into her brother's bedroom just trying to mess with him. He came storming at her and threatened to kill her if he did it again. There was another instance when he was walking to school with his little sister and one of his neighbor's dogs came running at them and accidentally knocked his little sister to the ground. The next day, that neighbor found their dog shot dead. No one ever suspected John at the time, because like I said, he just seemed like this totally normal person. He went throughout school, like a normal teenager, and out of high school he joined the Navy. Once out of the Navy, John got a job as a long-haul truck driver. He married a woman named John and they seemed like a sweet, normal couple living a sweet, normal life. Until 1980, at 22 years old, when John White stabbed a teenager. There are two very different sides to this story. According to John, he claimed that his neighbor, 17-year-old Teresa Atherton, came over to his house one afternoon to smoke weed with him. But while they were smoking weed out of nowhere, Teresa attacked him and tried to steal the rest of his weed from him. So he claimed he had to attack Teresa, the 17-year-old girl, in self-defense. Afterwards, he ran upstairs to his wife, who was home at the time, screaming that she had to call an ambulance to get Teresa help. The thing about cases of self-defense, though, you typically see that the person that needs to defend themselves just applies enough force on their attacker to get the attacker to stop. So if that's the case, why did John White, a 22-year-old man, need to stab this 17-year-old girl 15 times, and majority of Teresa stab wounds to her back, which again, you mostly do not see in self-defense cases. If you need to defend yourself against a teenage girl, why are you stabbing her in the back? Now miraculously, 17-year-old Teresa Atherton would survive being stabbed 15 times, and her story of what happened is completely different. She claimed that on that day, her neighbor, John White, invited her over to his house to see this stock car racetrack that he built in his basement. To be nice and polite, she agreed, but once her and John were down in the basement. Her back is turned to him, he came up from behind her and started to stab her. She tried to fight back, she tried to scream, but he just kept attacking her and attacking her. And at one point he even got on top of her and started to strangle her. And the entire time, John White was smiling. How creepy is that? And once it seemed like Teresa was close to death, John bent down, he wiped the blood that was pouring out of her mouth and any kisser. He then held her hand and whispered to her, "You're going to go now. I'm really sorry, you have to go like this, but what the fuck? You're just a woman." And it was actually Teresa's screams, screaming in pain, screaming for help, that alerted a neighbor that called 911 to help her. Not John's wife, Don, who again was still just upstairs. Unfortunately, even in the 1980s, a man's word held a lot more value than a 17 year old girl's word. And police at the time thought it was really awe that a married man would invite a 17 year old girl into his home to stab her randomly out of nowhere with his wife in the house. But still, John White was arrested for attempted murder. He was found guilty and he was sentenced to only five to ten years in prison. But while behind bars, John appealed his sentence, claiming that he did not get a fair representation because his defense attorney didn't raise an insanity defense. And if his lawyer did present him an insanity defense, he would have taken it. And surprisingly, John won this appeal. Instead of being retried, he was resentanced. And he would be released. After only serving two years in prison, he was then released in 1983. And just to make matters worse, just to add insult to injury literally, when the man that tried to kill her was released from prison after only serving two years, Teresa wasn't even made aware. And then just a few years later, while Teresa was standing in line at the Secretary of State's office, she heard someone from behind her, call out her name in a voice, she recognized all too well. She turned around to see John White standing behind her in line, smiling at her. John's wife, John, believed his story that the entire thing was self-defense, and the two remained married. And by 1994, they had two sons together at home and a third baby on the way. Since he now had a family, John, who was 37 years old, was looking for something more stable. So he left his job as a truck driver and took a position working maintenance at a textile company. And then on July 11th in 1994, tragedy would follow John White once again, when one of his co-workers disappeared. 26-year-old Vicki Sue Wall just disappeared, vanished without a trace. And investigation began piecing together her final moments. They discovered that her car was left abandoned in a local grocery store parking lot. Luckily, because it was 1994, there were actually security cameras in this grocery store parking lot. When they reviewed the footage, they saw 3am, the night that Vicki Sue Wall disappeared. She parked her car, got out of her car, and then got into a black pickup truck. The truck drove off and Vicki Sue Wall was never seen again. A black pickup truck, just like the one that John White drove. And in a few frames of the footage, you can actually see who is behind the driver's seat, and it's a man with a dark thick beard, just like the one that John White had at the time. So John White was brought into questioning, and at first, he adamantly denied even really knowing Vicki and absolutely denied knowing anything about her disappearance. That was, until he was confronted with the security footage, and then he changed his story. He admitted that the two had actually been having an affair. Mind you, he's 37 years old, she's only 26, and he's married with two kids at home and a third baby on the way. He explains that the two met up in that parking lot that night, so I was their usual meetup zone. She would get into his truck, they would go drive somewhere, and then they would have sex in his truck. But he said after that, he dropped her back off, and he didn't see her after that. Without any evidence, they couldn't hold John. But then, sadly, only six weeks later, the badly decomposed body of 26-year-old Vicki Suwhal was found in a rural area, only two miles away from the parking lot where she vanished from. She was found almost completely naked, except for a t-shirt that had been pulled up to expose her breasts, and she also had her bra that was wrapped around her neck. John was brought in once again to be questioned, and they got a warrant to search his truck. They did a luminal test in the truck to see if there was any blood and it lit up in a few places. So once again, confronted with this evidence, John changed his story once again, explaining that the two met up to have sex in his truck, but they were also doing drugs together. And at some point during the night, while they were hooking up, Vicki started to die from a drug overdose. He said after that, he just blacked out, but he must have panicked and dumped her body. Unfortunately because of how badly decomposed Vicki's body was, a cause of death could not be determined, but her manner of death was listed as a homicide. I mean, who is hooking up with someone? They start to have a drug overdose, and then they think, oh, I'm gonna dump this body because I'm so scared, but first, let me strip her completely naked. John White was arrested on first degree murder charges, but the state was not convinced that they had enough evidence to actually convict him, so they offered him a plea deal. At his sentencing, John was given the opportunity to speak to address the court and Vicki's family. He got up and he said that he was so sorry that he loved Vicki, but the entire thing was just a tragic accident. John White pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and he was sentenced to eight to 15 years in prison. I just want to pause right here just to address the obvious, this is a man that before even turning 40 was arrested for the attempted murder of a 17-year-old girl, he was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years but was released after serving only two. And then he is arrested for the first degree murder of another young lady, but again, it's sentenced to a maximum of only 15 years. It's completely unbelievable, and I wish I could say that I'm surprised, but at this point, with all the cases that we've covered, am I even surprised anymore? Disappointed but not surprised. But I will say it is surprising that John White was released early once again. And the reason that I'm so surprised about this is because while John White was sitting behind bars, serving out his sentence for the death of Vicki Sue Wall, he spoke with a psychiatrist, and John confided in the psychiatrist that he had deep, rooted, obsessive fantasies of killing women and having sex with their dead bodies. He especially fantasized about killing and abusing the corpses of the female prosecutor and the female defense lawyer at his trial for the murder of Vicki Wall. And despite knowing all of that, John White was released in 2007 after serving only 12 years in prison. Five years later, Rebecca Gay would disappear. It was behind bars that John's wife, Don, finally divorced him. It was also behind bars that John claimed he found God. He ended up getting the qualifications he needed to become a pastor while behind bars, and after being released, he moved to Mount Pleasant where he became the pastor at the local church. He started a relationship with Rebecca's mother Sally Gay, the two got engaged and they moved in together. He just got away with attempted murder and murder, and was able to just go on and fool an entire community of people and trick them into believing that he was the stand up guy. John would claim that he was very open and truthful about his past, but that was not the case. He seems to have merged the two stories of these two women that he harmed. There was the attempted murder where he won an appeal and was resentenced and only served two years, and then there was the case where he pled no contest to involuntary manslaughter and claimed that she OD'd in front of him and the entire thing was a tragic accident, but he served 12 years. And the story that he told his community, his neighbors, his congregation, and his fiance, Sally, was that he was just a young man, wrong place, wrong time, and a woman that he was friends with tragically died of an overdose right in front of him. It was a tragic accident, but he was still charged in her death. And then he served two years before the case was thrown out. No one in his life knew of his disturbing history of violence towards women or of his deep rooted obsession in Necrophilia. So the second investigators actually find out about his criminal history and that the story that he told was not true. They were now convinced that Pastor John White was involved in his fiance's daughter's disappearance. Police got a warrant to search Pastor John White's truck and his home and what they found only confirmed their worst fears. In his truck, they found blood and a woman's necklace had clearly been ripped off from her neck because the clasp was still intact, but the necklace was broken. In his trailer, found multiple pairs of extra small Victoria's secret woman's underwear that did not belong to his fiance Sally, but instead was the exact size and the exact brand that Sally's daughter Rebecca wore. And just like John White always does when he's confronted with evidence that conflicts the story he's telling, he changes his story and begins to tell the truth. And after being confronted with the underwear and the blood found in his truck, John White asked if they could make a deal. And with the promise of a plea deal on the table, Pastor John White told investigators that since he was 11 years old, he had fantasies of necrophilia. He claimed that as a child, he had an imaginary friend that would tell him that he should have sex with dead girls, and that this obsession followed him throughout his entire life. He told investigators the truth about Teresa and Vicki. He did not attack Teresa in self-defense and Vicki did not die of a drug overdose. He attacked and stabbed a 17-year-old Teresa because he wanted to and because he wanted to indulge in his fantasies, but a neighbor heard her screams and called 911 before he could. He said that after picking up Vicki from the parking lot, they were hooking up in his truck, but that's when he pulled out a zip tie he brought with him and he tied it tightly around Vicki's neck until she died. And after he was sure that Vicki was dead, he brought her to a wooden area where he abused her corpse. He explained that he had a problem with drinking and every time he got drunk his fantasies of wanting to have sex with dead bodies just got stronger and stronger, and he would occasionally watch snuff films, which if you don't know are videos, adult videos of people having sex with dead bodies. He admitted that he had an obsession with Rebecca and on the 9th of October 30th, he was drinking a loan in his trailer and he was watching some of these videos. Around 2am on Halloween, he left his trailer and he walked over to Rebecca's trailer. He knew the door would be unlocked because this is a community where people trust each other. He broke into her home and the sound of someone walking into the house that she shared with her three-year-old son, Wilk Rebecca up. She walked into the living room kitchen area and that's when John began to hit Rebecca over the head with a rubber mallet. Rebecca got one second to look at the man that broke into her home and was attacking her. And the only words she got out were "I know you." John hit Rebecca over the head with the rubber mallet multiple times when she was still alive. That is when John took out a zip tie that he brought with him. He tied it tightly around Rebecca's neck. He then sat down on a chair in her living room and watched her slowly die. And then after Rebecca, 24 years old, a young mother was dead. He brought her into the kitchen and on the kitchen floor he abused her dead body. He did all of that while her three-year-old son was sleeping in her bed in the other room. He would try and claim that he did not sexually abuse Rebecca's corpse, but the autopsy would prove that that is a lie. And personally, I think, because he's caught in this lie that should sort of cancel out the plea deal, but I guess not. Afterwards, John claimed that he attempted to clean up the scene. He wrapped up Rebecca's body. He dragged it out of the house. He then drove it to a ditch off of a wooden area near some pine trees. And then he dumped all of the evidence that he had in a dumpster, including her cell phone. He then went back. He drove her car to that bar to try and stage the scene. And then John White returned to Rebecca's trailer just in time to wake up her three-year-old son Conway and get him ready to be dropped off with his father. He did that after brutally murdering and abusing his mother. I can't even begin to imagine anything more disgusting. This truly is the face of pure evil. After his confession, John was able to make a phone call and he decided to call his fiance Sally, Rebecca's mother. On the phone, he told her that she was the love of his life, but she won't see him again and he can't fix it. Hi. I just called to tell you that you are the love of my life, okay? And you probably not going to see me anymore, or hear from me anymore, okay? This is, this is, will you listen to me? I love you. And I'm so sorry, but I don't, I can never fix it, okay? Bye. 24-year-old Rebecca Gay's body was discovered exactly where John White said it would be. This is where, for the very first time, everyone discovered the truth of who Pastor White was. And as part of John's plea deal, a life sentence was off the table. In April of 2013, it was John's sentencing hearing. The judge received multiple letters from people in the community begging for the maximum sentence that was possible. There were also a lot of people that came to speak at the hearing. Like Sally Gay, Rebecca's mother, she gave a heartbreaking 20-minute-long testimony about losing her daughter at the hands of the man she thought she was in love with, and the man that she thought she was going to marry. Conway's father Chad spoke about what an amazing woman and mother Rebecca was, and now how his son left the grow-up without his mother. Rebecca's boyfriend Aaron spoke about how he lost his entire future. The woman that he planned to marry spent the rest of his life with. The woman he thought was going to be the mother of his children. When John was given the opportunity to address the court and address Rebecca's loved once, all he said was, "I'm sorry for my crime, but that's all I have to say." His defense lawyer would ask the judge for leniency, claiming that John was very sorry, but he had been haunted by these fantasies his entire life, like that makes a difference. At the end of the day, the judge on this case called John White a deeply disturbed and dangerous man that should never be let out prison ever again. Should have never been let out prison in the first place, and he sentenced him to 56 to 85 years in prison, and at John White's age, that's effectively a life sentence. But John White would only serve five months in prison. Because on August 28, 2013, John White brought into his own life in his jail cell at the age of 56 years old. It is actually extremely possible that John White might be a serial killer. There's no concrete evidence in the fact, but there are a lot of bizarre statements that make it seem like it is incredibly possible. Apparently, during his time as a long-haul truck driver, John would make a lot of statements to his other buddies that were truckers about how he would pick up lot lizards, which is the name that truckers have given the sex workers that hang out around truck stops. And then he would say, "After he was dumb with them, he would dump them in dumpsters." And while he was stabbing 17-year-old Theresa Atherton, she claims that John told her he had done this before. It's absolutely in no way concrete evidence, but if I had to bet, I would confidently bet that there are more victims out there of John's. The disgusting, horrific crimes of John White affected so many people. The trauma that Theresa had to go through. Vicky Sue had a family-shant loved ones. I don't understand how Sally, Rebecca's mother could ever trust anyone ever again, after sharing a home, sharing a life, planning to marry the man that brutally killed her youngest child. Aaron Quinn thought the heat on the love of his life, the woman that he was going to marry, he was even planning to ask Rebecca to marry him the very same day that she died. An entire future was stolen from him. And poor Conway, who was supposed to grow up with this amazing mother in his life, that was completely stolen from him. He was so young, only three years old when his mother died, that it's so likely that Conway probably doesn't even remember a lot of things about his mother, and that is a tragedy all in itself. And this day, Halloween, that's supposed to be fun. Innocent, fun, exciting, things for children to do, his mother's favorite holiday was forever ruined because of this evil, evil act. This is a case that will stick with you for the rest of your life, because it is so frustrating how this is so clearly a man that should have never been released in the first place. But he was not once, but twice. It's not fair that he was able to be released and just moved to a different community in a different town, but in the exact same state where he committed these terrible crimes and no one knew of his violent past towards women. We have a national registry in this country for sex offenders, but there is not a national registry for violent offenders. If Sally and Rebecca knew the truth about John's past, it's extremely likely, very, very likely that Rebecca would still be alive today and Conway would still have his mother. I think so much could be learned from Rebecca Gaye's story and talking about her and her story, fighting for justice system reform, fighting for a registry for extremely violent offenders. But also to remind everyone that you need to check on the people that you are bringing into your life because sometimes people are not who they say they are. Thank you so much for joining me for this week's investigation. Please let me know all of your thoughts in the comments. But while you're there, please always remember to be respectful for Rebecca. This is her story. Please be respectful towards her loved ones. I know I've seen a lot of people say that somehow this is Sally's fault. Her mother when obviously that is not the case. And I would be really horrified if anyone that's a part of my community would put the blame on this mother. It's not her fault at all. So please always remember to be respectful while you're in the comments. While you're there, please let me know a case. You will see covered in a future episode of "Hot in the Case." But until then, that is all I have for this week's investigation. And I will see you guys all next time when we are hot in the case once again.