Killer of ex-radio-show host pleads guilty

The man who killed former radio talk-show host Mike Webb two years ago pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree murder.

Scott White, 29, had originally been charged with first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, but the case was downgraded when mental-health evaluators doubted his ability to premeditate the crime, said King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Don Raz.

White, who has had longtime drug addictions and mental-health problems, will be sentenced on July 10. Raz said that he will ask Superior Court Judge Laura Inveen to sentence White to 12 years in prison, which is at the low-end of the sentencing range.

White could face a maximum sentence of nearly 20 years in prison.

Defense attorney Julie Lawry will ask the judge to sentence White to 10 years in prison.

Lawry said her client is remorseful about the slaying and was relieved to have the case almost over. She said her client has schizoaffective disorder, which leads him to have intense mood swings and symptoms similar to schizophrenia.

White and Webb had been living together in Webb's Queen Anne rental home for six months when White killed his roommate with an ax in April 2007, authorities said. Workers hired to clean out the rental home, which was thought to be abandoned, found Webb's body in the crawl space nearly two months later.

The body was covered with a blue tarp, and a double-sided ax was found nearby, according to court charging papers. An autopsy showed that Webb had stab wounds to the chest, neck and shoulder and had five lengthy lacerations across his face.

After the slaying, White text-messaged Webb's friends and family, posing as Webb, saying that he was out of town, police said. After the slaying, White reportedly lived in various city parks.

Lawry said that after meeting White at an addiction-recovery meeting in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, Webb asked the younger man to move into his home. Webb was openly gay and was known to friends and neighbors as a recovering drug and alcohol addict.

At the home, the two used drugs regularly, Lawry said.

"It was not a healthy relationship," Lawry said.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com