Insets, from left: Mattix White (Benton County Memorial Park) and Katie White (Benton County Detention Center). Background: Area of South 47th Street and West Poplar Street in Rogers, Arkansas, where she ran over Mattix (Google Maps).
A 26-year-old Arkansas woman is headed to prison after she fatally ran over her 11-year-old stepson when she allowed him to run alongside her car, cops say.
Katie White was sentenced to four years behind bars after she pleaded guilty to negligent homicide, aggravated assault of a family member and endangering the welfare of a child in the death of Mattix White, records show.
"Ma'am, I'm never going to be happy," the boy's father, Brent White, told Judge Robin Green when asked about the plea deal, according to a courtroom report from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "I lost my son."
The defendant said no prison sentence could punish her more than she punishes herself.
"The weight of this tragedy will be something I live with the rest of my life," she reportedly said.
According to a probable cause affidavit, cops responded around 8 p.m. on April 13, 2025, to the area of South 47th Street and West Poplar Street in Rogers for a car accident involving a pedestrian. When cops arrived, they found Katie White doing chest compressions on the boy.
Paramedics rushed Mattix to the hospital, where he died.
White told cops that she worked for a company that cleaned a nearby car dealership. She drove to the dealership with her children to let a co-worker inside the business.
She unlocked the door and briefly went inside with the kids. As White drove away, she quickly realized one of the children had been left behind. That child got back in the car but was upset about being left behind. To comfort the sibling, Mattix voluntarily got out of the car and began running alongside the vehicle — to show that White would not drive away and leave him.
In all, the boy ran with the vehicle for about 280 feet.
White told police that when she "attempted to accelerate for a brief second," she did not realize that the boy had grabbed the door handle.
Mattix fell, was pulled under the vehicle and was run over.
White exited the car and attempted chest compressions but did not know how to perform them. She then called 911.
Cops concluded that by allowing the boy to run alongside the car, she created a "substantial risk of serious injury or death."
According to a GoFundMe, the White family experienced a tragedy about five years prior to Mattix's death when his mother died. His obituary said he was the only boy in a family with four sisters whom he "absolutely adored and loved to make laugh." He loved to play basketball, Fortnite and Sonic the Hedgehog.
"Mattix and his father, Brent, shared the most beautiful bond," the obituary reads. "Whether they were shooting hoops, telling jokes, playing video games, or just simply in each other's presence, the love between them was pure and deep. Brent was his hero and Mattix was so proud of his last name and loved being Canadian."
Katie White and Brent White were divorced earlier this year, according to a listing of divorces posted in the Democrat-Gazette.