The Death of Susan White

Not long ago I read the book "A Warrant to Kill" by Kathryn Casey.  It was about the shooting death of Susan White by Harris County Texas Sheriff deputy, Joseph Kent McGowen.  I had also seen several episodes of different shows pertaining to this case in the past such as 48 Hours and American Justice.  Per usual though I do not take a case to blog about solely based on one book or even a television show.  I do not simply use one website or one news article.  I dig, and dig until I find all of the information that I want or can find so that I can at least attempt to show all sides of a crime.  If you have read many of my blogs here, you know that I am not one to believe that all those convicted are guilty, but I also most definitely do not believe all that are convicted are innocent. There have been several cases in which I have expressed my views that the person convicted was in fact guilty as charged, however, I disagreed with the tactics taken in order to get that verdict.  There have been cases in which someone I felt was clearly guilty that was acquitted but I felt the verdict was just as the prosecution had not proven their case in my opinion.  

I would like to say that in this case I am not biased but admittedly I am unsure I can say that. Part of that obviously has to do with the fact of all the information I have seen or read that takes one side of the story and there was really only one real site that I found that disputes any of that.  The problem is that the one site I found was designed and written by the defendant.  The site seemed basically to consist of one page only and the information on the site was in the form of a letter written by Joseph Kent McGowen to the reader.  Basically it is him telling his story but in the same respect he says nothing.  Apparently the site was enacted in order to help him get funding, although admittedly I am confused as to what the funding was is supposed to be for.  He admits in the letter to the reader that basically he has hit a wall when it comes to appeals but that he was "railroaded" and "persecuted" by pretty much everyone.  He mentions the book by Kathryn Casey, he also mentions several different true crime shows and talk shows, referring to them all as tabloid trash and that they are all lies.  He claims that it was these shows and the media in general that caused his convictions and has hindered his appeals and parole opportunities.  He also re-victimized the victim on his site.  He never refers to Susan White by name but stated she was a "drugged out, psychotic suspect" who forced him to shoot her in order for him to save, not only his life, but the lives of his "backup team."  He also makes claims about "an ADA," although again he does not name any names.  He claims that this ADA not only attacked him while drunk when McGowen was out on bail awaiting appeals but he also claims he "tried sleeping with my wife" and "stalked my young children and family."  Apparently, he will reveal this person's name when you visit him in jail to hear his story and see the evidence he has proving his innocence.  The purpose of your visit to him is so that you can listen to his story and help fund his eventual release.  If you can do so he is certain that he will eventually receive compensation from the state of Texas and he will share that with you.  He has even figured out how much he will receive per year of incarceration per what Texas is apparently paying out now to people who were falsely incarcerated.  Admittedly I just felt I could not stomach the site much longer, so thankfully it is a small site.  Now, whether I am being justified in my feelings, I cannot fully say.  I do believe I know what turned me off of his site almost immediately and I have tried to reconcile it but I cannot not.  When he was talking about himself and his accomplishments he went on and on about his career in law enforcement.  He made sure to mention that he had worked not just as a patrol officer but had worked in divisions for narcotics, Special Operations and Organized Crime.  In Kathryn Casey's book she claimed that McGowen often bragged about working in those divisions and these wild crimes he had been involved in solving yet, she states he was never in those divisions working.  I did attempt to do more research in finding out which story is true but I was unable to do so.  If we are to believe Kathryn Casey's book, and I have found nothing to discredit it as reports, articles and even court transcripts seem to confirm things she said, then he did not work in those areas and yet he continues to say that he did on a site in which he is claiming his innocence, with proof.  If someone can come forward and show me that the things he stated on his site are valid then I am ready to listen.  Until that time I have to go with what I have.

No one disputes that on the night of August 25, 1992 Officer Joseph Kent McGowen, along with two other officers forcefully entered the home of Susan White to serve a federal warrant for "retaliation."  McGowen entered first, followed by his co-workers.  He found Susan White in her bedroom, she had a 911 operator on the phone, and his "back up team" as he called them were still in other parts of the home.  Within a few seconds of entering the bedroom shots were fired and when it was all over Susan White lay dead in her room. Those are the only events that both sides agree on.  There was never a question that Susan White was shot and died at the hands of McGowen.

Within a very short while many questions started being asked.  On October 28, 1992 the Harris County grand jury indicted McGowen.  He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in March of 1994.  There was a law that stated if someone was convicted and sentenced to 15 years or less they were entitled to receive bail pending their appeal.  McGowen's lawyer immediately filed for the appeal and McGowen was released on bail.  On his site he claims that when the judge released him he stated that he knew McGowen was innocent and indicated that is the reason he was released.  From my understanding the judge did not have a choice but to set a bail amount as the law required it.  It was also the first time I have heard any reference that the judge made that statement.  But again I have been unable to confirm that was said.  Eventually McGowen's lawyer was successful in having the original conviction and sentence thrown out based on an issue of his lawyer not being allowed to make an opening statement.  According to Casey's book the prosecutor had not made one and at the time it was his belief that a court had ruled that when the prosecution did not make an opening statement the defense was not allowed to either.  He stated that he did later learn of that mistake but it was too late to change that.  So, while the conviction and sentence was reversed it was not reversed based on any of the evidence presented, or the lack of evidence that was or was not allowed.  It took eight more years for his second trial to commence in March of 2002.  Once again the jury found McGowen guilty and he was sentenced to 20 years.  According to his site, his appeals have all been denied and come to an end.  He was denied parole in 2011.  He is next up for parole in 2015.

So now you know the people involved and the outcome of the case but what really happened?  Only two people truly know all the details.  One of them was Susan White, and the other is Joseph Kent McGowen.  So, in fairness I am going to attempt to tell you his story first.  I will be the first to admit that will be difficult to do and I will more than likely tend to intertwine the stories. McGowen maintains that Susan White's  sixteen year old son, Jason, was involved in gang and drug activity.  He also maintains that both Susan and Jason were involved with gun running.  McGowen had been working with a friend of Jason's, Michael Schaeffer, in trying to apprehend Jason.  Keep in mind when hearing this story, that no other officer, in any division or any department knew anything about these things involving Susan or Jason. Less than a week before the shooting McGowen had approached Schaeffer about him obtaining a gun from Jason and setting up a sting.  Schaeffer claims that he knew Jason was not involved in guns but that McGowen had been harassing and threatening him and in essence blackmailed him in getting Jason. Michael contacted Jason about a gun and while he was not involved in any sort of running of guns he did have connections and contacted someone else. They planned a meeting in a parking lot where monies would be exchanged.  McGowen had secured the funds for the gun and gave it to Michael Schaeffer.  In reality Jason never got money because he was not the one selling the gun.  We have all seen police stings on television.  The informant is arrested along with everyone else so as to look like they were in as much trouble as the others. Schaeffer was assured this sting would be just like that.  However, that is not how it went down.  Monies were exchanged, but as said Jason was not the seller so he did not have the monies.  At some point, McGowen along with a few other officers that he had gathered together came in the make the arrests. McGowen did not even pretend that Schaeffer was not involved. Schaeffer was cuffed but he was kept from the others and when McGowen discovered that $20 was missing from the money he made it very clear he had known how much was there and scoured everywhere and everyone for the missing money.  In the meantime Susan White had been out with her boyfriend and received a call. She showed up at the scene and began screaming at McGowen as her son was taken away.  She followed to the police station still highly upset and making comments about McGowen but she was unable to get him out. He was not released for a few more days. Other officers at the scene saw Susan White and her outbursts and while they really did not think a lot about it at the time they knew it was obvious that Susan White had had contact with McGowen before.  This did not set off any alarms however.  Susan White lived in an upper class housing development in which the sheriff's office was paid to keep officers on duty.  This was the district in which McGowen worked and patrolled.  Not only had Jason had some parties at the home in which the police were called a time or two, Susan had been claiming to friends, family and her new boyfriend many times that McGowen had it out for her.  In fact, when her boyfriend thought she was simply being dramatic and was overreacting when it came to McGowen she stated to him that he would believe her one day, but it would be too late because McGowen would have killed her by then.  Still, the boyfriend took what she said with a grain of salt. In fact they had many arguments because of this as he did not believe that an officer would behave the way she was describing. 

At the scene of the sting Susan caught on fairly quickly that Michael Schaeffer was involved in some way.  Over the next few days calls were make to Michael as well as Michael's mother by Susan White.  Michael had been a very good friend of Jason's and had lived with him and Susan for a short time.  Michael admitted that he was scared, but not of Susan, even though she had commented  to his mother that "informants don't live long in Houston."  Neither Michael or his mother took that as a threat, stated they were not scared of Susan and that she did not make that statement in a threatening manner.  Just after the sting McGowen contacted Michael and he was rather angry at McGowen for the way things were handled.  In the process he commented to McGowen about what Susan had said to his mother.  Michael claims he only did this to prove that the actions taken at the sting were obviously not concealed and that even Susan knew he was involved, which means Jason, already or would know.  He still considered Jason a friend but he was also worried about his reputation of being known as a "rat."  Michael was not the most popular boy around and Jason was one of his only true friends and here he was turning on him to save himself. Michael claims that McGowen really pushed him for what Susan had said to his mother and insisted on talking to his mother so he gave McGowen her number.  When he talked to Michael's mother she claims that she too told McGowen what Susan had said to her but that she had not taken it as a threat and was not concerned.  She claims that McGowen kept pressuring her to the point that there was a fleeting moment in which she believed Michael may have been in danger but it soon passed.  At this point McGowen by all accounts made it his mission to obtain a warrant for Susan's arrest on "retaliation" charges.  Both ADA's that he approached about obtaining the warrant said McGowen was insistent that Susan White was a threat.  At one point he was told that the complainant, meaning Michael's mother had to be the one to ask for it.  When he could not get a hold of Michael's mother because she turned her phones off at night when she went to bed he contacted the police department in her town to wake her and have her call him.  When she did so she said once again that she had not been afraid of Susan but said McGowen kept insisting that Susan and her son were involved in drugs and guns and she should be very afraid for her son and convinced her she needed to do this in order to keep Michael safe. She says she felt like most of us would, an officer was this concerned about things and she believed what he was saying about the drugs and guns and since she did not live in the same town she could not know for sure and she trusted him, mainly because he was simply a police officer. With the warrant in hand, McGowen still had to get it signed by a judge.  As his shift was ending and the warrant was still not signed another officer offered to wait for it to be signed and deliver it because McGowen had been insistent that it was very important that Susan White be arrested.  He was perplexed when McGowen declined his offer.  The officer later said that it seemed that McGowen was determined to serve the warrant himself.  The following night he got that chance.

On the night of August 25, 1992 McGowen and two other officers went to serve the warrant at Susan's house.  McGowen had informed the other officers about the drugs and gun running going on to prepare them in case there were issues in serving the warrant. He had also told them to be careful in case Jason and or some of his friends were at the house as they may cause issues too. They approached the house and knocked on the door.  Susan was at the door but refused to open it to McGowen.  The other officers thought it was odd, but Susan flatly said that if McGowen were to leave she would open the door that she simply had an issue opening the door to him.  McGowen refused.  At this point the officers know nothing but what McGowen has told them. 

Simultaneously two things happened next.  First Susan called 911.  She told the dispatcher that the police were at her door, that McGowen specifically was there and that she was refusing to open the door to him.  She claimed that McGowen had been harassing her and causing issues and that she had complained to his superior several times.  She also stated to the dispatcher what she had said to the officers, she had no issue opening the door to the other officers if McGowen were to leave. At the same time McGowen is contacting his Sergeant stating that it is confirmed that Susan White was home but that she was refusing to open the door so that the warrant could be served.  He asked permission to enter the home with force.  Permission was granted. At this point the the officers followed McGowen to the back door of the house. Susan was still on the phone with the 911 dispatcher when the officers forced themselves in the back door.  McGowen was in the lead and according to the other officers he made a direct route to Susan's room.  They later said they found this odd as he did not "clear" the rooms as officers are trained, especially considering all he had told them about the gun running.  They claim the next thing they heard was McGowen yelling and then gunshots.  McGowen told them that Susan had pointed a gun at him and when she refused to put it down he was forced to shoot her.  

Of course the shooting was called in and other detectives went to the scene. All of the officers were questioned but obviously focus was on McGowen to get his version of what happened.  He took the other officers back into the house and reenacted what had happened, including showing the position in which Susan was and how she pointed the gun at him.  There was doubt from a few officer's as to his demeanor and his story right away, although McGowen has and continues to  argue differently.  One of the things that supposedly caught the investigators interest was the fact that McGowen did not seem upset about the shooting at all.  Some said later that he seemed almost proud.  One article I read stated that one of the officers stated that after the shooting McGowen tried to get one of the bullets and mentioned having it put on a plaque, much like a trophy.  These officers found this very odd.  Most officers will tell you that when they fire their guns, especially when it ends in a fatality, regardless of the circumstances there is remorse and uneasiness.  They saw none of this from McGowen.  I do not recall if Susan's body had been removed from the home or not by the time the reenactment began but at the very least her body had not been gone long.  According to other officers, he pranced around like it was nothing as he showed them the position he claimed Susan to be in when he walked into the room.  A .25 caliber handgun was found on the floor next to her bed.  It was registered to her and she was known to have gotten it for protection.  Now, whether it had been on the table next to the bed and fell off, or whether she had pointed that gun at him as he said was the question. However, one thing that did come into question was the fact that when doing the reenactment and showing Susan's position and how she held the gun pointing at him, he showed her pointing it with her right hand and yet Susan was left handed.

McGowen claims on his site that Internal Affairs investigated and they came to the conclusion that the shooting was justified and cleared him.  Once again this is a claim that I cannot confirm but obviously someone did not think it was a clean shooting as things were investigated and just over a month after the shooting he was indicted on charges.  What follows is what the prosecution, co-workers, and friends and family of Susan  claim to know about Joseph Kent McGowen.  

Susan White's life was not going exactly as she had liked.  She had married and had her son Jason but had later divorced his father.  At the time of the shooting her last marriage had just ended recently and she was about to lose her home.  She had had problems with prescription drugs off and on in her life too.  Her last marriage had fallen apart largely over issues with Jason.  Many, including her own family, thought Jason was allowed to get away with too many things. As parents most of us know as our children grow, especially into teenagers, that they are not always truthful.  Yet Jason was getting into trouble, some minor, some a little more serious involving the law and most felt that Susan did not discipline him  or punish him enough and would always seem to blame others for Jason's behavior. It was this attitude that likely led to people taking her less serious about her issues with McGowen. Once Susan's husband moved out of the home, Jason got a little more wild, but minus one incident, nothing too serious. It mainly involved parties at the house and general teenage stuff.  Susan, for a while anyway, was living in self pity over her latest divorce.  Then she started dating again. During this time is when McGowen started patrolling in her housing area.  Susan told friends and family that McGowen had started asking her out repeatedly and it appeared since she refused that he was harassing both her and Jason. Some of Jason's friends, including Michael Schaeffer, claim that it was as if McGowen sat outside the house and waited for people to leave so he could pull them over and harass them too.  Few seems to take Susan serious, including her new boyfriend.  

Joseph Kent McGowen came from a fairly respected family.  He had been in the military and had family members, including a brother and uncle, in law enforcement.  He was married, although it was rocky from time to time it seems and had two small children.  McGowen's work record was not exactly stellar.  He had what people in law enforcement call a shady "jacket."  Basically a jacket is their reputation.  He had worked for a few different departments in the area, including the Houston Police Department in the past.  Each employer eventually either fired him or were glad to see him go when he left for another position, and while they vowed not to hire him back to work for them, few said anything or put anything in his files that would be available for someone to have access to if called in as a referral.  A large majority of his former bosses and co-workers claim that even they did not believe a large portion of the things that McGowen claimed or said.  He often seemed to exaggerate situations or flat out lie about things and they tried to keep their distance.  In the end though most claim they still never saw what happened coming.  While everyone from police investigators, and district attorney's looked into both McGowen, as well as his situation with Susan White a not so pretty picture began to emerge.  

Prosecutors claimed that Susan White's fears of McGowen were obviously valid. Besides his behavior at the scene one of the first things that investigators found unusual was the fact that Susan had called 911 when officers approached her door.  They immediately wanted to get their hands on that tape.  They listened to it closely and all determined they heard fear in Susan's voice when discussing McGowen.  They all felt that she truly was scared of him. They also found it odd that if McGowen's claims of illegal activity were true that she would have called 911 to begin with.  In general people who are engaged in the activity that McGowen insisted that Susan and Jason were would have either come out of the house to allow the warrant to be served in hopes that nothing else would be searched or barricaded themselves inside to resist arrest.  While later appeared on the surface to happen, the fact that she called 911, which could have possibly sent more officers to her home was unusual.  Add to the fact that Susan appeared both to the officers at the door, as well as the dispatcher that she would fully cooperate as long as McGowen left the area and was not involved.  After speaking with the other officers at the scene they also found it odd that with all they had been told about activity in the house that when they entered the back door McGowen had seem to directly go to Susan's room in the front of the home.  First this was odd to them as it appeared to them that he knew the lay out of the home as if he had been inside before but more importantly they found it odd that he did not "clear" each room before entering and go slowly since he himself claimed they had a "gun running" business and the home would be filled with guns, and possibly people to use them.  In the end the only gun that was found in the home was the one that was on the floor next to Susan's bed that people knew she had for protection.  It should be noted that the gun was checked for fingerprints and that Susan's were not reportedly not on them, indicating there was no way that she had that gun in her hand when McGowen said she did.  I did not see a report stating if anyone else's prints were found on the gun so I cannot imply that McGowen had touched or placed the gun, I can only report that it was there.

Through more digging, investigators and prosecutors came to believe that the stories that McGowen had claimed about drugs and guns were false.  They also determined that the warrant that he obtained had been done so basically on false pretenses.  They felt that he had intimidated Michael Schaeffer's mother into believing Susan White was a threat in order to obtain the warrant. It appears that when it came to his co-workers the Blue Code of Honor did not hold for very long.  There were a few officers who stood by him but not many and more came out of the woodwork it seems from his past.  It appears they had kept quiet about things, just being glad that he was no longer working with them, but the shooting had taken things too far.  It was theorized that McGowen shot Susan in essence because she had rejected him, but also because she had complained to his supervisor a few times.  From what I have been able to discover it does not seem that her complaints were taken too awful seriously in the beginning despite how superiors may have personally felt about him but it had put a bit of doubt in their minds.  There did not seem to be really anything solid to discipline him in any way, or they just simply did not worry with it. However, McGowen seems to relish the fact that he was in law enforcement.  He was one of those who not only tended to appear to the general citizen that he thought he was better than them because of his badge, but also wanted to impress his co-workers by making up stories to indicate he at least had been involved in very covert and important things.  Simply put the Harris County Sheriff's department was his last local stop to be in law enforcement in his area.  He had burnt his bridges pretty much every where else, including the Houston Police Department, and the county jail as well as a few other small departments. If he were to be fired from this job he knew first if he were to stay in the area he would not be involved in law enforcement but even still he knew it would be difficult to stay in the field either way.  And Susan White would be the reason. She was simply causing too many waves for him.

Today obviously McGowen, as well as his family claim he is innocent and as I stated earlier, was "railroaded."  As I read his website and tried to really pay attention, despite knowing all that I had already read and seen, I had a lot of difficulty in knowing what to believe.  He starts out stroking his ego in telling all the places he had worked, and in what departments.  He let's us know that he was a respected member of the law enforcement community.  He then goes into how he was falsely accused and convicted and into how the media has ruined his and his families lives with their lies.  He went on the speak badly of Susan White, although not by name.  He continued to make accusations on his site that from my knowledge have been proven false and on top of that made what I thought were outrageous claims against people involved in his case. It is not that he technically does not have the right to feel the way he does.  I mean obviously he truly believes or wants others to believe that he thought Susan White to be a "drugged up, psychotic suspect."  The problem I suppose for me is that in an open forum like his website his claims seem to do more harm for him than good. Most people realize that you do not gain a lot of sympathy many times when you blame a victim, let alone one that died at your hands, and he does openly and publicly.  Of course there is the rare case in which placing some blame on the victim is warranted such as cases of documented abuse or clear evidence of criminal activity.  This case had neither.  There was never any charged, reports or any indication that the things McGowen claimed against Susan White, or her son Jason were true, and the only person who ever said these things was McGowen.  He had nothing, and no-one to back his claims.  So when later in his "letter" to his readers when he claims that the prosecutors have "hidden a witness for 13 years" that could exonerated him but will not name the person or what this person would claim I am left feeling empty.  He also claims that in 2004 and again in 2007 he took a series of polygraphs, given by supposedly highly known and professional people, and passed all with flying colors, I am left wondering if that is true, as again, his site is the only place I have seen this claimed.  And then there is the claim that may or may not tell you just what kind of character Susan White dealt with.  After all of his boasting and then his allegations against people and claims of harassment against his family, McGowen states that his daughter has cancer, and suffers from both seizures and a heart ailment.  Once again, per usual to his site, I am unable to confirm this and welcome those who can prove it is correct, but I think that he mentions it is telling, true or not.  First, if it is true he has resorted to attempting to pull at the heart strings of the reader.  If feels as if he's saying, if not literally, "Well if I can't convince you I am innocent and was railroaded, maybe if I tell you my daughter is sick you'll feel bad for me."  I personally only recall that he had two children, but not their ages at the time or whether they were boys or girls.  He also claims that he has had two grandchildren born while he has been in prison.  Are these the children of the daughter with cancer now?  I do not know.  Secondly, this is coming from someone that by all accounts that I have found cannot be trusted to tell the truth.  I cannot tell you that he is the type of person that when he lies there is always a grain of truth to it and you are left to determine which part to believe.  He indicates in a round about way as if his daughters issues are a result of the stress and suffering she's had to endure because of his false imprisonment, which that alone despite all we know about him seems highly unlikely.  So there is a possibility that these claims are untrue also.  As I stated before he seems very elusive much of the time on his site because his ultimately goal is to have the reader contact him and see him in prison.  Yet he still cannot seem to prevent his boastful ego to shine through. Many of his former co-workers claimed that he was a man who told tall tales and exaggerated situations and his role in them.  For me all his website does is prove them correct.