NEW BOSTON, Texas–A Texarkana man indicted for murder in connection with the death of a fellow inmate at the Telford Unit had been convicted by a Bowie County jury just months before the killing to a decade in prison for child abuse.
Anthony Scott White, 40, is facing five to 99 years or life in prison if convicted in the Sept. 25, 2023, death of 27-year-old Malcolm Buckley. Buckley was found unresponsive in his cell shortly after 2 p.m. and a medical examiner later determined he had been struck in the head and strangled, according to an amended custodial death report.
White was sentenced in April 2023 to a maximum 10-year sentence for injury to a child. For three counts of child endangerment and criminal mischief charges, White was assessed maximum two-year terms in a state jail which were ordered to run concurrently to the injury to a child term.
White was keeping his three children–ages 5, 6 and 7 years–at a residence in the 1900 block of W. 19th Street when their mother called police on Feb. 13, 2022, asking them to check on their welfare, according to a probable cause affidavit. White was arrested after officers determined he had beaten the 7-year-old with an extension cord and after they found the children sitting in a room with an unsheathed ax and open cans of beer on the floor.
White’s indictment for murder includes a notice from the state that it may seek an enhanced punishment for White based on prior felony convictions.
White is currently being held in the Estelle Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, prison records show.
White’s murder case has been assigned to 202nd District Judge John Tidwell.
