A 37-year-old Exeter Township woman has been sentenced to 16 to 40 years in state prison for strangling her 3-year-old daughter to death inside their home in 2022, closing out a case that took more than four years to reach a resolution. Solange J. White entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill to third-degree murder just days before her trial was set to begin, according to authorities.
Exeter Township police and emergency crews were dispatched at 3:41 a.m. on June 30, 2022, to a residence in the 100 block of West 46th Street after a 911 caller reported a non-breathing 3-year-old girl, according to the Exeter Township Police Department. Responding officers performed CPR before the child was transferred to Reading Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. As reported by WFMZ, White strangled her daughter until the child stopped moving and turned blue in the face, and she was initially charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault, and endangering the welfare of children.
What Officers Found at the Scene
When officers arrived at the home, they found White crying and visibly distressed, according to News Radio 1340 WRAW. A witness inside the residence told investigators that White had urged him to fetch a firearm shortly before the toddler was discovered blue in the face with neck injuries. Investigators later confirmed evidence of manual strangulation, the station reported.
The homicide investigation was carried out jointly by Exeter Township police and detectives from the Berks County District Attorney's Office, with Assistant District Attorney Meg McCallum serving as lead prosecutor. Exeter Township sits just outside Reading, where serious felony cases are routinely handled through joint task forces pairing township police with county detectives, as seen in other recent local investigations.
DA Points to Mental Health History
Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams said following the plea that severe mental health issues were central to the crime, noting that family members had previously raised serious concerns about White's mental health, per the same account from News Radio 1340 WRAW. Neighbors had also indicated that White had been receiving medical care for postpartum depression before the incident, according to the station's report.
White's plea — guilty but mentally ill — carries specific legal weight under Pennsylvania law. Under 18 Pa.C.S. § 314 and 42 Pa.C.S. § 9727, a defendant who enters such a plea faces the same statutory prison term as any other convicted offender, but is also legally required to undergo psychiatric evaluation and receive designated mental health treatment while in state custody, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
How the Plea Differs From an Insanity Defense
Pennsylvania criminal law draws a sharp distinction between a guilty but mentally ill finding and a legal insanity defense. Under the M'Naghten rule codified at 18 Pa.C.S. § 315, legal insanity results in full acquittal because the defendant is found unable to comprehend right from wrong, whereas a guilty but mentally ill finding upholds full criminal culpability while mandating clinical treatment, according to the MVSK Law Firm. Proving legal insanity requires showing a total lack of mental capacity at the exact moment of the offense — a far higher bar than what White's plea required.
Third-degree murder under 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(c) is defined as an unlawful killing committed with malice but without specific intent to kill, and it carries a statutory maximum of 40 years in state prison under 18 Pa.C.S. § 1102(d). White's 16-to-40-year sentence sits near that upper limit. Pennsylvania is one of only three states with a dedicated third-degree murder statute, according to FindLaw.
A Broader Pattern of Child Fatalities
White's case adds to a grim statewide tally. Pennsylvania recorded 60 substantiated child abuse fatalities and 82 near-fatalities in 2024, according to data compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and cited by Family Services of NW PA. Separately, federal data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that Pennsylvania authorities investigated 39,414 children involved in maltreatment allegations in 2022 — the year White's daughter died — resulting in 80 confirmed child fatalities statewide that year.
White's plea closes a case that stretched more than four years from the night paramedics were called to the West 46th Street home to her sentencing this month. Under her sentence, she will remain in state prison for at least 16 years, with mandated psychiatric evaluation and treatment continuing throughout her incarceration under state law.
