Alan White

It has been a year since Alan White was murdered, but police assure community the investigation remains active

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

Oct. 22 marked one year since the disappearance of Alan White. While police have not arrested anyone or named any suspects in his murder, Dallas police this week assured the LGBTQ community that the case is still open and still being investigated.

Dallas Police LGBT liaison Megan Thomas said this case has “definitely not moved to cold case status.” The rules for moving an investigation to cold case status aren’t hard and fast, she said, but the general guideline is that if investigators have found no leads within about a year, they would consider closing the active investigation.

Homicide cases might remain active longer, she said. And in this case, it’s less than six months since Alan White’s body was found.

After White’s body was located in a field in South Dallas, he was taken to the medical examiner’s office where toxicology tests were done and an autopsy performed. Results were not released to the public. But as a result of the autopsy, police began calling the case a homicide rather than a missing person case and, later, an unexplained death.

Thomas said there are a number of reasons police don’t reveal autopsy information. “The public is not always given all of the information,” she said. “It’s all about solving the case,” and releasing some of the information investigators have might hinder the investigation.

When asked if something from the autopsy might verify whether information someone calls in is valid, Thomas suggested that question might have come from having watched too much TV, as did the question of police choosing not to release autopsy results because those results might include information only the killer would know.

“Police are following up on every lead that comes in,” Thomas reassured, going on to describe the detectives in the Dallas Police Department as a different breed of cop. “They have a drive to get every case solved,” she said.

But this case, she agreed, is particularly frustrating.

What happened
On the morning of Oct. 22, 2020, White and his husband, Rusty Jenkins, both left their home at around 4:45 a.m., driving separate cars and going to different gyms. White was seen on security cam video checking into the CityPlace LA Fitness at about 5 a.m.

While security cameras at White’s gym on Haskell at Central Expressway caught no clear image of White leaving the gym, it is believed he left at about 6 a.m.

Security footage captured him at the RaceTrac gas station on the corner of Maple Avenue and Inwood Road soon after that. That video shows him leaving the station headed north on Inwood toward his home.

White, an executive with KPMG, worked from home and was scheduled to participate in a video conference at 7:30 a.m. He never arrived at home. At 11 a.m., after being unable to reach him all morning, White’s husband, Rusty Jenkins, filed a missing person report.

The car White was driving was a loaner from Park Place Motors. The dealer’s GPS tracking couldn’t locate the car. Although the car was distinctive — he was driving a black Porsche Macan — it wasn’t found until a week later, on Oct. 29, in South Dallas — the opposite direction from which White was headed when he left the gas station on Inwood.

Police haven’t revealed whether the GPS tracker was removed from the car or disabled.

A $10,000 reward for information about his whereabouts was doubled to a $20,000 reward.

White’s body was finally found in a field near Paul Quinn College on May 13. The Dallas County Medical Examiner confirmed his identity and performed an autopsy to determine cause of death. Again, police haven’t released autopsy results, only confirming that White was murdered.

Thomas said you never know what will help investigators. Anyone who saw White before his disappearance that morning might have information that could help, and police would like to know if anyone saw the car after White drove out of the RaceTrac station.

Anyone with any information about the case is asked to contact Dallas Police at 214-283-4818 and refer to case #188623-2020.