Kailua man called 'delusional,' saw 'vampires'

By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer

Micah White believed his mother and aunt had turned into vampires when he stabbed them, doused them with gasoline and then torched them and his Kailua home last year, a psychiatrist has reported.

White, 21, is charged with killing the two women, but psychiatrist Kosta Stojanovich said White believed he lived in a "terrifying world of danger and struggled with vampires."

He saw his aunt Sharon White and then his mother Kerry White "assume the appearance of vampires; and these vampires were snarling at him and the air was populated by their screams and voices," Stojanovich said.

Stojanovich concluded that White "probably" suffered a mental disorder that substantially impaired his ability to know right from wrong and to control his conduct, the legal test for insanity.

The psychiatrist is the first of three experts appointed by Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall to assess whether White should be held criminally responsible for the deaths and the April 5, 2004 fire.

The judge appointed the panel after Deputy Public Defender Susan Arnett raised the insanity issue, saying there were indications that her client had been hearing voices and experiencing hallucinations.

"We always expected that the defense in this case would be based on the statute (allowing for an acquittal based on a mental disorder)," Arnett said yesterday.

City Deputy Prosecutor Franklin "Don" Pacarro Jr. yesterday said he is prohibited under the rules governing lawyers from commenting.

Prosecutors, however, have hired their own expert to evaluate Micah White and are expected to oppose any insanity acquittal.

The fire at 1214 Kainui Drive stunned the Kailua neighborhood and left Kerry White, 48, and her sister-in-law, Sharon White, 58, with severe injuries. Both later died.

Micah White was arrested the next day at a scenic overlook along Pali Highway. He is being held in lieu of $1 million bail.

No clear motive emerged in the days following the fire, although there were suggestions that Micah White may have been using the drug ice. Police said Sam and Kerry White had suspected their son of drug usage, but when they confronted him, he denied it.

Stojanovich's eight-page letter filed with the court last month reported that Micah White said he had almost never used illegal drugs and said it had been a long time before the fire that he consumed any drugs.

Arnett said defense always believed that drugs were not involved.

In his letter, Stojanovich concluded White suffered from a psychotic disorder.

The psychiatrist said White's remarks during the evaluation suggested he suffered from a "delusional system of a rather bizarre type."

White viewed the world as inhabited by "spirits, Satan, devils, shadows, evil and vampires."

"Mr. White apparently felt that vampires, or spirits, had been threatening not only himself but also anybody who would be on his side; reportedly these experiences would often be accompanied by an apparent presence of CIA or FBI, or all combined, and his smelling blood," Stojanovich said.

On the morning of the fire, White's mind was "apparently clouded" from not getting enough sleep the previous night, the psychiatrist said. He had stayed in his room from 5 p.m. the previous day and into the morning of the fire, Stojanovich said.

White woke up in the morning, went back to sleep, then awoke at about noon, the report states.

"He apparently just navigated within the house, basically watching TV," Stojanovich said.

His mother offered him food, but he could not eat it because he felt it was "vampires' food," the psychiatrist said.

"Mr. White continued watching TV," Stojanovich said.

White recalls his mother calling his father complaining that their son was "tweaking," which White assumes was the result of him doing or saying "unusual things" or acting "out of control," the psychiatrist said.

White isn't clear about what happened between him and his mother, but "it appears that a world of the vampires closed in on him" and the two women appeared to him to be vampires, Stojanovich reported.

White then supposedly assaulted the two women with a "sharpened drum stick" and a rock, Stojanovich said.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at 525-8030 or kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.