Police thought they were dealing with a simple confession after a Wisconsin man admitted to killing his wife at a motel. That assumption quickly unraveled as he started explaining what led up to the shooting.
Lance Devon White, 29, is facing first-degree intentional homicide after he allegedly fatally shot 29-year-old Alicia Machnik at a motel in Milwaukee on Jan. 14.
According to court documents obtained by WTMJ, police were called to the Port Motel that afternoon after a motel worker found Machnik’s body in a room.
Investigators say White and Machnik had been staying at motels lately and first checked into the Port Motel on Jan. 12.
Two days later, a motel worker who went to clean the couple’s room spoke to Machnik, who told the employee they’d be staying another night. The employee advised her to notify the front desk.
Ten minutes after that conversation, surveillance video captured White leaving the motel room. No one else was seen entering or leaving.
A few hours later, the motel worker returned to the room where he found Machnik’s body lying face-up on a bed.
Officers called to the crime scene discovered Machnik suffered a single gunshot wound on the upper right side of her forehead with an exit wound in the back. An intact bullet with blood was also found at the scene.
Investigators also found White’s state ID, birth certificate, debit card, and Social Security card.
White was arrested later that night at a local hospital.
His mother told police that White texted her earlier that day, asking to come home. When he arrived, she found her son outside “looking disheveled and dirty.”
She said that he seemed “off” and drove him to the hospital.
After his arrest, White confessed to detectives that he shot Machnik, but said that she asked him to.
White claimed that Machnik told him the father of her child was “getting out of prison in eleven months and was going to kill them,” and that she asked him to “shoot her at the spot his name is tattooed on her face.”
After the shooting, White told detectives he fled the room in shock, threw the murder weapon in a sewer near some apartment buildings, then tried to check into a different motel but was turned away because he didn’t have his ID.
Investigators also interviewed Machnik’s mother, who expressed concerns about her daughter’s relationship with White. She said the two got married a year ago, but that White had “spiraled out of control” ever since.
She also reported some “unusual activity” on her daughter’s phone involving Machnik’s “on-and-off boyfriend.”
In an interview with detectives, the boyfriend stated that he had been dating Machnik for five years and would regularly send her money to cover her cellphone bill and motel expenses.
He said he had access to her Uber account and noticed several rideshares recorded on Machnik’s phone the day of the shooting, including one that dropped her off at the Port Motel, one that picked her up from the Midpoint Motel, and one that dropped her off at an address near White’s mother’s home.
If White is convicted at trial, he could face life in prison.
