Briton Daniel White, 36, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the UK Justice after murdering his own wife, Angie White, 45 years old. The court used the couple’s voice assistant records to understand the perpetrator’s step-by-step on the night of the crime.
According to The Independent newspaper, on the night of October 22, 2022, Daniel was on the 1st floor of the house where he lived with Angie when they both started an argument over WhatsApp. The killer wanted to go into the room where the wife was to get some clothes, but the victim, out of fear, didn’t want to open the door.
The husband, however, forced his way into the room and strangled Angie. Then Daniel went downstairs, got a knife from the kitchen and went back to the bedroom to slit his wife’s throat.
Shortly before 6 am, the convict called the emergency and confessed to the crime.
“I killed my wife earlier and left, I had gone to see someone and then left to turn myself in. I strangled her, I slit her throat, she is dead,” Daniel said on the call. “I slit her throat because I wanted to make sure she was dead and not in pain.”
Despite the killer’s confession, the couple’s voice assistant – who controlled electronic devices in the house – was essential for the court to be able to piece together this barbaric crime.
According to the voice assistant’s records, Angie asked at 3:03 am for the equipment to increase the volume of the bedroom TV. At 3:16 am, the device registered a command from Daniel, who ordered the object to be silenced.
Investigators believe that these 13 minutes represent the interval between the convict strangling his wife and going downstairs to get the knife. Later, coroners identified that Angie died from the slit throat and not from asphyxiation.
In the minutes after the murder, Daniel gives other commands to the voice assistant, such as turning on the light in the room and turning off the television.
Still according to The Independent, at the time of the crime the Briton was on parole after being convicted of rape and assault. Judge Paul Thomas called Daniel a coward for not appearing at the sentencing reading and mourned the women he had raped over the years.
“You have a shameful history of assaulting women who had the great misfortune of being in a relationship with you,” Thomas said. “When Angie was face to face with you, with her hands around her throat, she must have been absolutely terrified. After she probably lost consciousness, you didn’t seek help for her, you went down and got a knife.”
Despite the life sentence, the British judge imposed a minimum sentence of 20 years and 10 months in prison for Daniel, who will not be able to leave prison before that period.