The System Fails Aiden White featuring Venson Dix

The story of Aiden White is very different from our normal story, we simply can not blame this kid for his actions.  Our system failed him.  

We leave you with a happy ending and on a good note as promised with:

Venson Dix

Bandcamp:  https://vensondix.bandcamp.com/album/montshon

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Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@vensondixjr

Transcript

Sisters Lakes/Benton Harbor Michigan 

Aidan White, 23 years of age of Benton Harbor, Michigan is living on his own.

Aidan’s mother, Gloria, 55 year old, is  an elementary school art teacher at Dowagiac elementary. And he has an sister who is older than him.

As a child, Aidan was the class clown. He was very loving and fun to be around. 

He had a wonderful childhood and was close to his mom and sister, until his mental illness started creeping in.

Aidan White at just 23 years old, had already been through the ringer dealing with both our legal system and our mental system.

He grew up in the Benton Harbor area.  

Benton Harbor 

The first part of his life was great, he had a wonderful relationship with his mother, Gloria and his sister Alysson

Aidan did well in school and was generally a good kid.  As he aged though, he started having more and more mental problems.

He would end up dropping out of high school because he was having such a hard time with everything.

At first, Aidan’s illness manifested as depression and suicidal ideation, White recalled. 

When they realized how serious it was, his sister would take weekends off from college, come home and bring their brother to different hospitals. 

Aidan’s partner at the time would do the same and so would his mother.

According to court documents, Aidan had a long history of interaction with the mental health system dating to adolescence and received various diagnoses, including paranoid personality disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.

Allyson White remembers their brother as a curious, loving child.  He was funny and full of love.

She also remembers trying desperately to get her brother help.  Everyone in their family spent their free time trying to get him admitted somewhere.  They were continuously turned down.

At one place, she was telling them how suicidal he was and everything and the lady asked Aidan if he had a gun.  He said no but I can get one.  She literally told them to come back when he was serious.

“(Aidan) was sitting on the floor, and he broke down crying,” 
Allyson told News 8. “He’s like, ‘I know you think I’m schizophrenic. And I’m scared. I just don’t want to be. I don’t want this to be happening to me. I’m scared of what it means for me and my life and what I could do.’ You know, he was just terrified and he was asking for help.

During a stint at his apartment, he thought that he heard voices in the wall.  He ended up being admitted that day and Gloria stayed at his apartment to listen for the noises, to prove to him that there were none. 

Aidan again ended up at the rehabilitation facility. Emails shared with News 8 show that the rehab facility set a discharge date for Aidan despite the family’s objections.

Gloria sent numerous emails back and forth with the facility pleading for them to keep him in there, that he wasn’t ready to be out.

In one email Gloria stated  “At the very least Aidan needs to be on proper medication. … I was there when he asked if I heard the neighbors threaten him and there was no one in the apartment next door. I do not know what to do.”

They still released him, despite him having no home to go to, I believe somewhere in here they went from talking about his apartment to him being homeless.   Aidan ended up staying in an old blacked out ambulance.

On Halloween, October 31, 2024 Aidan was breaking into his mom’s home.

Gloria called 9-1-1 at 5:15 a.m. and you can hear the commotion on the line.

She was screaming. 

 She told the operator that her son was trying to break in, he had schizophrenia and is now breaking items in the home.  She told the operator that her son is trying to hurt her.

At the time, his sister said, Aidan was experiencing a delusion that Gloria had harmed someone.

He proceeded to attack his mom with the intent of great bodily harm.

The neighbor heard the screaming and came over to help peel Aidan off of his mother.   Aidan took off running.

Despite  first responders efforts to save Gloria’s life, she still passed away.

Aidan had rushed over to Gloria’s house because he was going through another delusion.  

According to his sister, on the morning of Gloria’s death, he believed that something horrific happened to his family, and he was trying to protect them.  

He was arrested just a little while later, I believe he was just down the road at a different home.  I don’t know the story with that.

His sister stated that he looked unhealthy, underweight.  When he was booked Aiden weighed 125 pounds at 5 feet, 10 inches tall.

At the East District Court in Paw Paw, Aiden White was arraigned and is being held on a $2 million dollar bond.

When he was interviewed by detectives right after being brought in, he was “noted to be acutely psychotic” 

Aidan was reacting to hallucinations throughout the interview according to court records. 

He was also hearing his voices and noises in his head for a week before he went to his mom’s house that awful morning.

At first, I don’t know how, the court still charged him with home invasion and murder and he was set to stand trial 

However, he was apparently sent to numerous doctors and finally to the center of forensic psychology and was found NOT to be competent to stand trial actually, that he was legally insane at the time of the murder. 

This is when he was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Honestly, pissed his sister right off because they know that he should have been diagnosed with this prior to the murder and not just because he became violent.

Then, the court had to drop the charges against Aidan due to his mental competency.  There would be no trial for Aidan the Open Murder 

According to Van Buren County Prosecutor Jay Blair, a court found Aidan White, 23, not guilty by reason of insanity on June 16

News 3 reported that Kalamazoo County’s prosecutor Jeff Getting said  "As a result of a mental illness, he either didn't know or understand that what he was doing was wrong, or that even if he did know that it was wrong that because of that mental illness he wasn't able to stop himself," 

Every article that I read stated what a rare result this is.  I think that we see the results of someone who truly needed help…a family who tried to get it for him and sadly the system failed all of them.  

Unfortunately, that part is nothing new.  The system always seems to be a few steps behind.

Aidan is institutionalized now.  Something that his mom, Gloria and his sister fought so hard for before all of this delusion happened.

Directly after the murder, as a way to grieve and possibly memorialize their mom,  reached out to a local artist that she had just told her mom about, Tails Jekel.

She needed her mother and brother to be memorialized in the best way, so she reached out to Tails and together with telling their story…and Tails listening.  He created “She Named Him Little Fire” and it was displayed at the Gerald R. Ford Museum for the 2025 Artprize. 

 It’s gorgeous.  Some of this story, I learned from their reddit account Tails tells the story as a timeline of him painting plays.  It's really sweet.

later, they would find the brown curly afro wig in the front seat of her car, as she intended to dress up as Bob Ross that day for her students.