The Army has taken over the prosecution of a Schofield Barracks soldier accused of murdering his former girlfriend, and officials working on the case have told the victim's mother that the death penalty is a possibility.

Spc. Jeffery White, 21, was indicted by an O'ahu grand jury last month for strangling Spc. Felicia LaDuke, running over her body with her car and then leaving it in an isolated area in Mokule'ia.

LaDuke was a Schofield Barracks soldier. If convicted, White would have faced a mandatory life prison term with parole.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Army charged White on Friday with premeditated murder, communicating threats and obstructing justice in connection with LaDuke's death, said Col. Timothy J. Pendolino, staff judge advocate for the 25th Infantry Division (Light).

"We are confident that the facts in this case will be considered and evaluated in an impartial manner and that the results will be fair and just," Pendolino said.

LaDuke's mother yesterday said military officials called the family last week and informed them that "the death penalty was a possibility." She welcomed the change in the case.

"I know there are a lot of details we have not had access to, but from the ones I have received, I can tell you that prison time alone, I don't think is fair," said Donna LaDuke by telephone from Warroad, Minn. "If you would have asked me this two months ago I wouldn't have had an opinion on it. But now I think it is a just sentence."

White was a military truck driver from Houston who returned earlier this year from a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan. LaDuke had also recently returned from a seven-month deployment to Iraq and re-enlisted for three more years.

White and LaDuke had a 2-year-old child and were involved in a custody dispute over the child, according to court papers.

Donna LaDuke said the child, who was 21-months old yesterday, is in foster custody somewhere in Hawai'i. The family "absolutely" wants to gain custody of the child.

"We are doing everything we possibly can to bring him back to Minnesota," she said.

Neither Donna, nor her husband Steve, have ever met White, but she said her daughter spoke of White's temper.

"She had never alluded to being afraid of him," Donna LaDuke said. "But she mentioned on a couple of occasions that he had a temper."

White's mother, Rhonda Henderson, of Houston, Texas, said her son was not like that.

"I know my son wouldn't do anything like that," Henderson said. "He loved women too much. That was not in his character or in his nature. If he did do this, what led him, what made him do it? That is what I want to know."

Peter Carlisle, Honolulu prosecuting attorney, said the military asked him last month to take the case and he agreed to turn it over because LaDuke and White as well as most of the witnesses are assigned to Schofield Barracks.

"There was overwhelming interest by the Army to try the case so I decided to release the case to Army criminal jurisdiction," Carlisle said. "It was important for us to know they had an equally severe penalty of life with the possibility of parole."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.